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Chapter Text

CChapter One

"All worlds begin in Darkness and all so end. The heart is no different. Darkness sprouts within it- it grows, consumes it. Such is it's nature. In the end, every heart returns to the darkness whence it came." - Ansem, Kingdom Hearts

Mrs. Granger possesses six perfect pieces of pottery, and one cracked vase.

Exceedingly proud of her collection, she uses golden threads of memory to weave tales about how she came to obtain each piece over the years. To explain how the Japanese bowl with the rose glaze was a gift. How the Yoruban urn with the seashells deposited into its red-pigmented grooves is something that’s been in their Nigerian family for decades. The cup from China with the silver filigree is not her favorite piece, but is by far the most expensive.

Hermione Granger, her daughter, likes the way her brown eyes light up when her mother speaks about the broken vase, too—about how much she loves the way the gold the artist spilled into the broken cracks holds the piece together with more strength than any of the others.

Spoke.

When she spoke to Hermione.

Because at the end of the school year, her mother will no longer be her mother. Her father will no longer be her father. The no-longer-parents, Mr. and Mrs. Granger will be on their way to Australia for their new life and their new house and their new friends. And her mother’s pottery collection will be there with the Yoruban urn and the Japanese bowl and the Chinese cup with the silver filigree. Somewhere on the shelf beside them will be the ugly cracked vase that Hermione has always hated. Her parents will be there, and Hermione will be here, in Britain, alone.

And it’s going to be all her fault.

While her mother does own a pottery collection and she does believe the broken one with the golden lines has character, Mrs. Granger will not ever remember that she also possesses a daughter. A perfect daughter with no golden cracks, who does everything she’s told to do without question because if she doesn’t, the world might explode into thousands of tiny pieces. A perfect daughter who knows how to tell lies and call them omissions to spare herself the guilt that comes with deception. A perfect daughter that plans her sacrifices early, all with the knowledge that she’ll do anything for her best friend Harry Potter—even if that means sending her parents away to somewhere safe.

The war is coming, and Hermione knows what she must do, but it doesn’t make it any less painful.

“I thought you had Frog Choir practice?”

Hermione glances behind her at Ginny, her kinky coils of brown hair spiraling down to just past her shoulders. “I did, but I skipped it this time so I could watch the game.”

“Really? What for?” Ginny marches on beside her in full Chaser gear, her broom in one hand and her long crimson hair fluttering behind her in tune to the brisk step of her feet. “You never skip practice.”

Hermione shrugs, not wanting to tell her that she didn’t want to miss the game when little miss Lavender was going to be there, cheering Ronald on. She knows it’s silly, that Ron’s a kept man, but she can’t help the icy jealousy that twists through her gut every time she sees them snogging in yet another random corner of the castle. And maybe it’s stupid to miss choir practice just to watch a boy who’s taken play a game of Quidditch, but she’s powerless. Powerless to teenage whims and girlish fancies and she thinks that maybe if he looks at the stands and sees her there, he’ll start to actually see her.

She can be such a fool sometimes.

“I just wanted to support Harry,” Hermione says, her nose turned up and eyes blinking straight ahead. The sun’s out, clouds brewing on the horizon, and her russet-brown skin glints warmly in the sunlight.

“Only Harry?”

“Who else would I be going for?” Hermione snaps, her voice dropping into a harsh whisper. “Hm, Ginny?”

Ginny’s green eyes twinkle with mischief. “You tell me.”

“For your information, I—”

“Gin, can you walk with me for a moment?”

Dean Thomas comes sidling up in his Chaser gear, the sunlight glittering upon his amber-brown skin and the wind sliding through his fluffy, also-kinky curls. Hermione pretends not to see the rosy blush that stains Ginny’s pale, freckled cheeks as the younger witch gazes up at him. Hermione seems to be the only observant one at the school, because nobody else has picked up on the egregious hints the two of them have been laying down for weeks.

“Hello, Dean,” Ginny says. “Sure, I can walk with you. Sorry, Hermione, I know I asked to walk down together…”

“It’s all right, Ginny,” Hermione says, nudging her side with her elbow. “I’ll be all right.”

“If you’re sure…”

“Go on and get.”

Hermione continues on alone, walking the grassy trail down the hill to the Quidditch Pitch. There are groups of students ahead of her and behind her, framing her like walls to keep her from escaping. Each step she takes brings her closer to the stands, and further away from sanity. Soon enough, the stands are filled to the brim, Hermione surrounded, and the loud, raucous conversation is causing her ears to ring. The game begins and Hermione makes it about five minutes before she pulls a book out of her satchel, unable to bear the boredom a second longer.

This is silly, to be going to watch a game in the hopes one of the players will decide to fancy her, but she can’t bring herself to care. There are worse things than being caught pining after a man that has a girlfriend.

In fact, Hermione can imagine nothing more horrifying than sitting naked in the Quidditch stands.

There are all manner of horrid things that could happen to her—of that, she is sure—but nothing seems quite as simultaneously soul-shattering and mortifying as splintering her bare rear end in-between two of her classmates. With Padma Patil to her left and Seamus Finnegan to her right, friends become spectators quite fast when you’re in your skivvies. 

The vanishing hex has to have come from the Slytherin stands, Hermione suspects. Gryffindor is playing against them today and with Harry and Malfoy being at each other’s throats all week, shenanigans were always bound to ensue. And how better to distract Gryffindor’s star Seeker than to vanish his best friend’s robes and uniform, humiliate her in front of the entire school, and cause a distraction necessary enough to award Malfoy the chance to get the Snitch?

It isn’t as though Draco Malfoy would care if Hermione Granger were put on display.

“He’s probably going to quit, you know,” she’d said to Harry after Halloween brunch. It was the day of the first game of the season, and they were headed for the Quidditch Pitch at the time. They had been walking in the opposite direction of Ronald, who had to run back up to the common room to get his knee pads. “Malfoy’s been a right mess since Sixth Year started.”

“Yeah, because he’s up to something,” Harry had replied, narrowing his eyes as though Malfoy were standing right in front of them. “Something dark, I bet.”

“You don’t know that,” she’d said, because it was true. They don’t know that. They don’t know anything. Sometimes, it feels like they’re chickens running around in circles with their heads hanging on by thin, slimy threads. Hermione knows they have a purpose, but she can no longer see what it is. She’d gone on to say, “Maybe it’s just a bleak year. Sixth Year is stressful for every student who has goals that go beyond neat and tidy living.”

“It doesn’t matter what I know. It only matters what I feel,” Harry had said, voice sounding distant as he rubbed his scar with the pads of his fingertips.

Hermione had decided to humor him, then. “And what do you feel, O Great Oracle?”

Missing her joke, Harry had replied in a voice as faint as a spring breeze over the waters of the Black Lake.

“I feel like everything we’ve known up until this year is going to change. Everything we know about Hogwarts, about the wizarding world, and about Malfoy. And Hermione?”

“Yes?” she’d responded, the cryptic nature of his words wrestling her voice down into a whisper. They were standing in the massive entryway of the school, the height of the arch yards above their heads. Around them, students had been chattering in excitement as they made their way out for the game, heedless of the gravity of Hermione and Harry’s conversation. 

Harry had looked directly into her brown eyes, his lips twisting down into a frown that tugged the corners of his mouth towards his chin.

“Nothing about Draco Malfoy is predictable. He’s a bully and a coward, but his father is breaking bread with Lord Voldemort. Anyone who associates with the Dark Lord and comes to school with the energy to harass me before a Quidditch game is someone who’s up to something dark. Don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s harmless.”

That conversation had taken place a week ago, and it is now November. It’s as cold as a witch’s tit. Which, consequently, is a saying that Hermione now knows the true meaning of in an intimate, bone-shivering, and teeth-chattering way. 

Her robes, uniform, bag, wand, and the book she’d been engrossed in are gone, some sort of charm keeping her from summoning them back to her. Her knickers and brassiere—gone. Her scarf and hat—gone. The only thing the perpetrators have seen fit to let her keep is her boots. 

How generous of them, she thinks, her mortification overpowering her urge to sneer.

Because she is mortified. Beyond mortified. She’s so embarrassed and ashamed that the blood rushing to the apples of her cheeks keeps her teeth from clacking together. She holds one arm over her chest and the other in her lap, shielding her pelvis from view, and she lowers her gaze to the floor. 

Gryffindor pride isn’t going to make her clothes reappear. 

Suddenly, like a bubble of air popping, the stunned silence in the stands makes way for consternation. Hermione feels like she’s being buffeted from all sides as a flurry of activity erupts around her. The boys are standing, brandishing their wands and hollering threats. The girls are either whispering amongst themselves or giving her distressed looks. But amidst it all, no one seems willing to give up their own robes and cloaks in the autumn cold, and so she freezes.

Why has no one conjured or Transfigured her a blanket yet? Professor McGonagall is at the frontmost bench with Headmaster Dumbledore at her side, and neither has noticed the real reason why half of the Quidditch players are floating in midair with their jaws hanging open. They’re deep in conversation about something, not realizing there’s a ruckus ensuing. Most of the students have figured it out, however, and are now ogling Hermione’s “witch’s tits.”

It’s one thing to see a naked witch, but it’s a whole different pitch to see Hermione Granger naked. 

“Hey. Granger.”

Hermione lifts her gaze from the wooden slats beneath her feet and sucks in a shivering breath. 

Draco Malfoy is floating there, with his platinum hair swept through and ruffled by the wind. Behind him, she can see Harry hurtling across the field on his broom, but she can’t see his facial expression. The whispers of the crowd die into barely-audible breaths as Malfoy tugs one of his leather gloves off. With a muttered charm, it attaches itself to the handle of his broom. 

Hermione’s heart skips several fluttering beats.

Malfoy reaches behind his head with the ungloved hand, grips the back of his emerald green jersey and, without averting his rain-grey eyes from her own, he pulls it off over his head. It musses his hair even more as it comes off. Underneath it, he wears a simple black tee shirt that’s almost jarring in how Muggle it looks. 

“No witch should be seen in her skivvies,” he says as he tosses the jersey into the stands. It lands on her lap in a gust of pinewood-scented cologne. Then, he puts his glove back on, his lips curving up into a lazy smirk. “Doesn’t matter how viscous her blood is.”

Part of her wants to toss the jersey right back into his face for that. He can’t do anything kind without supplanting it with an insult, can he? But it’s also so in-character for him that she can’t be truly angry. She can only find the energy to feel indignant, and to pull the damn thing onto her nude body as quickly as possible. 

It’s too big for her, him being well over six feet tall and her being just shy of five feet and eight inches, but it’s warm. The tiny holes in the material don’t seem to have any effect on its warming capabilities, heat both from his body and magic seeping into her frigid skin. She might as well have been wearing a knitted jumper, it’s that comfortable. 

Rising up slightly, she makes sure the hem of the jersey curves round her bottom to protect her from further wood splinters. As she sits back down and locks eyes with him again, she can feel that her own heat has spread across the expanse of her face. With everyone staring now for completely different reasons—including Professor McGonagall, Headmaster Dumbledore, and even Professor Snape from the Slytherin stands—Hermione isn’t sure if she should feel embarrassed or flattered.

Pulling the ends of the sleeves over her numb fingers, Hermione clears her throat and gives him a curt thanks. It sounds like a dry rasp, but when Harry pulls his broom up to a halt right beside Malfoy, the look on his face shows her that he had heard her just as well. 

“Hermione,” Harry says, breathless. “Are you all right? What happened?”

“I took care of her, Potter,” Malfoy says, the lazy smirk disappearing as he sneers. “And I’ll catch the Snitch, too. Is there anything you can do right?”

Harry shoots him a dark look. “I can do the same spell on you that Professor Moody cast on you in Fourth Year. Keep testing me, ferret.”

Malfoy stares at him, all traces of mockery and mirth dissipating from his countenance. They fade until his eyes go completely dead, devoid of any emotion at all, and it disturbs Hermione in a way she can’t describe. She’s never seen Malfoy look at anyone like that. Even when he’s being nasty, there’s a spark. Right now? There’s nothing.

It scares Harry, too, by the way his head pulls back on his shoulders.

Something flashes gold under the sunlight, directly between them, and drops. The boys take off at a steep, rapid dive, and the game is back on as though nothing happened.

“I took care of her.”

Interesting, the way those particular words make her feel. Interesting indeed.

As the minutes tick by, the students around her become less interested in the jersey fiasco and grow more interested in the game. Professor McGonagall stands up and makes as if to go to Hermione, but she waves the professor off with a pained grimace. The last thing Hermione wants is to explain to a professor that she’d been sitting on the bench completely naked right behind her and the Headmaster for an entire five minutes.

Sans her trusty book, Hermione is forced to watch the game, too, but it feels like she’s existing in a state of limbo. The fact that she’s just experienced being hexed to nudity right in front of everyone, and the students had all just watched it happen has given her a lot to think about. A lot to worry about, too.

How many of these people are truly her friends? And how many are only friends with her because she’s friends with Harry and Ron? It feels like First Year all over again. She doesn’t want to cry, but as the seconds tick by, the realization that she’s been violated in front of hundreds of people causes her emotions to build. 

Sometimes, it feels like everyone only wants her when they need her, but when she needs them, they just watch.

When she can’t take it anymore, Hermione jumps to her feet and heads for the stairs. She’s decided to walk to the building that houses the locker rooms, have a good cry to get it out of her system, and then wait for Harry in the hallway. The game is almost over, judging by how tight Harry and Malfoy’s broom turns are getting, so she needs to just go and get the damn tear shedding over with. 

Traipsing down the steps in nothing but Draco Malfoy’s Slytherin jersey and her brown combat boots, Hermione feels the tears already beginning to well up in her eyes. Beneath all the magic and books and the battles she’s fought thus far, she’s still just a girl. She lost her virginity to a nervous, fumbling Viktor Krum this past summer, and it was everything beautiful she could have hoped for.

Hermione doesn’t want everyone to see her body without her permission like that. It’s hers. Her body is hers, and for someone to take her consent away from her with the simple wave of a wand, heedless of what her own desires or wishes may be? It sickens her stomach. Curdles it with horror and revulsion.

Crossing the grass to the small building that the Quidditch players use to get showered and changed, Hermione feels the thin walls she had erected to keep herself from breaking down beginning to tremble. She bursts in through the door, her cheeks wet and stained, and falls back against the wall inside.

The silent tears turn to sobs that she attempts to stifle with the sleeve of Malfoy’s jersey. They wrack her body as her mind replays the experience over and over again. Everyone knows what her body looks like. It isn’t a secret anymore. Not that women need to keep their bodies secret, but…

It was supposed to be her secret to tell.

She glances down at the jersey, which hangs on her body like a dress, and she wonders what on Earth had possessed Malfoy to want to help her. He despises her and anyone who has Muggle blood like her. He’s spent five-and-a-half years ensuring that the entire school knows that he hates her.

So why did he help her?

After two more failed tearful, blubbering attempts to accio at least her wand back, Hermione hears voices coming closer to the locker room hallway. They’re jumbled and discordant, signifying that there are a lot of them. The game must have ended.

The doors burst open, pulling a shriek of surprise from her throat at the loud noise. She leaps backward just as the Slytherin team comes stomping into the hallway. Judging by the sour expressions on their faces, they’ve lost. Hermione’s too busy trying to frantically wipe her tears away to be bothered by the smell of sweat and grass and the outside draped upon their bodies.

Hermione wonders which one of them hexed her, but she supposes it doesn’t really matter who. They’ll be found out eventually. All that really matters is the fact that everyone has seen her naked, and that the Professors can’t obliviate everyone at Hogwarts

“I don’t know what’s up with him this year,” someone says as they brush past Hermione without seeing her huddled against the wall. “It’s like he’s completely lost the plot.”

“Let it be,” Blaise Zabini says, glancing down at Hermione with the faintest hint of a smirk. His skin is a rich shade of dark umber that contrasts with his lighter hazel eyes, and his coily black hair is stitch-braided back from his face in vertical rows. “He’s distracted this year.”

Hermione presses her lips together in a firm line. She knows exactly how Harry would respond to that. “I’ll bet he is,” amongst other things. 

“Your Gryffindors are celebrating on the Pitch,” Zabini says, turning to face her as his teammates walk past them with a few snide looks. He crosses his arms over his chest and his gaze flickers over her face, lingering upon her cheeks, and for the briefest moment, his facial expression looks sympathetic.

Hermione passes the pads of her fingers beneath her eyes, catching the last betraying tears and wiping them away.

“I’ll wait for them here,” she says in a clipped tone, letting her wary gaze rove over him. After all, he could have been the one who put her in this position in the first place. She doesn’t know him. She doesn’t know any of them.

Zabini smirks and says, “You look good in green. He won’t be the one to tell you, so I figured I should.”

Hermione’s brow furrows and she frowns. It was a compliment, but coming from him, it seemed less than complimentary. Lifting her chin, she crosses her arms over her own chest and draws herself to her full height. She only comes to his shoulders, but it’s the principle of the matter.

“And how am I supposed to know it wasn’t you that did it, hm? How am I supposed to know you weren’t the one who cast the hex?”

“You aren’t, but I’m not.” Zabini’s smirk spreads into a grin, flashing his teeth. “I’m not the type of wizard to need a hex to get a witch’s knickers off.”

“Of course.” Hermione purses her lips and gives him a frosty once-over. “And you’re probably not the type to need consent, either.”

The smile fades from his face as quickly as morning fog. The warmth in his eyes hardens to stone and he scoffs.

“Proper rude, aren’t you? I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be friendly.”

Hermione glances down at her nails, which she let Ginny paint bordeaux the other evening. “Wrong House.”

He mutters something under his breath, turns, and stalks away. Hermione shoots a sour look towards his back and then, she turns to look at the door. She hopes Harry gets here soon so she can ask him to help her find her belongings. She isn’t sure what Ron is going to say and since she has a crush on him, she doesn’t really want to know. It was sure to be garish, brass, and offensive, especially since he hates Malfoy so much.

The door swings open and there he is.

Draco Malfoy.

He looms there, surprisingly imposing with how close his head is to the top of the frame. He is taller than is necessary—perhaps even taller than Ron—and it’s ridiculous. Someone should really do something about it. 

His hair, long on top and cut short on the sides, is tousled from flying. For some reason, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that he has the sort of body that is lean and toned and narrow while having defined muscles in all of the right places. His forearms are corded and his biceps have just the right amount of curve to them. And he’s just so exorbitantly tall that it makes perfect sense to her why his jersey is so big on her.

But Harry’s right: there is something different about Malfoy this year. A new air about him that simultaneously makes him seem calculating and weak. Like a wild animal that hasn’t eaten in days. He moves with the same grace he always has, but now, his steps toward her seem more than purposeful. They seem like he has carefully decided each one.

Like he’s prowling.

And his eyes. So grey like the sky when it rains, but cold as winter’s kiss. She doesn’t see any life there, in spite of how intently he’s looking down at her. It’s almost like…like a wall. A wall of ice that blocks him from the real world, from anyone being able to glean his true thoughts and feelings. There’s a wall, yet he looks so haunted that it makes Hermione’s chest ache. 

How can one person look so damn empty?

Hermione’s curiosity piques. She’s done quite a bit of reading in her days, and she thinks she knows what this is. What it is that he’s doing.

Is Malfoy an Occlumens?

“Checking me out?”

Hermione lifts her chin as fast and as prideful as a mare. “What’s there to see? Arrogance and your obvious lack of appropriate social skills?”

He stares at her, something dark and irritated flashing in those empty eyes. Something that makes invisible fingers tickle their way up her spine and dissolve into an involuntary shiver. Then, it’s gone, and the lazy smirk is back.

“I would think the fact that I saved your arse would show you that my interpersonal skills aren’t as subpar as you’d like to believe.” He saunters a couple more steps forward, coming close enough to her that she’s forced to crane her neck—and seriously, someone should really do something about his height. “If I was as arrogant as you say, do you really think I’d deign to let a Muggle-born witch wear my jersey? Don’t you think I would have just hovered there on my broom and watched everyone ogle your—” His gaze darts down to her chest and back up. “—impropriety?”

“How gallant of you,” Hermione retorts, “when it was probably one of your friends that took my things in the first place.”

“It wasn’t,” Malfoy counters, tone icy. “Crabbe’s an oaf and a brute, and Goyle’s as dim as an Erumpet, but neither of them would do anything as awful as that.”

“Too dim, yet somehow they’ve possessed the intelligence to be able to harass me, Harry, Ron, and all of our peers for the past five years?”

“You don’t have to be intelligent to know how to fuck with someone, Granger. In any case, only the cunning have the creativity necessary to do something like humiliate a witch via indecency.”

“Then who would be cunning enough?” She clenches her clammy, sweating hands into fists at her sides to control the anxiety that courses through her veins. “Who would do something so horrid?”

“The fact that you think it was me is laughable, but understandable,” he says, looking at her as though he’s judging her reaction in real-time. “But why would I use a hex? You’re not a locked cabinet that needs a curse breaker.” Hermione tracks the movement of him reaching up to comb his long, slender fingers backward through his messy platinum-blond hair. His brows rise up. “If I wanted you naked, I’d just talk to you.”

She can’t stop the blood from rushing to her face. Since when did he pay enough attention to her to come to that conclusion? 

The fact that she’s actually trying to decipher whether or not Draco Malfoy is attracted to her is laughable. Years of pure torment from him, and now this.

What changed this summer?

Hermione studies his face, eyes roving across the planes as she tries to glean his intentions. He’s a Pureblood wizard, and he’s a man. He’s a man who just happens to be a wizard. He didn’t have to give her his jersey, but he did. He likely had no desire to give it to her, but he did.

He’d never cared about her before, but in that moment, he did.

She can’t pretend that Harry has been entirely mental. Malfoy has been acting differently this year. He doesn’t quite command the corridors like he used to. Instead, he drifts down them like a ghost, never wears his robes, and dresses in all-black like he’s attending perpetual funerals.

Malfoy is still a prat, but it’s steeped in stoicism and an overall lack of interest in anything other than whatever it is he’s thinking about at any given point in time. She’s seen him spend entire class periods and mealtimes brooding with his chin in his hand and his gaze unfocused. Even with Quidditch, it’s like even though he was playing, he wasn’t really there.

Still, a dead dove is a dead dove. She had been checking him out. The reason why is a mystery to her. All she knows is that she’s never seen him in a tee shirt before, and she has never given any thought to the fact that his arms look like…well, like that.  

Not that she cares about Draco Malfoy’s arms. Even if they do look like that. Even though he looks like he could pick her up with just one of them. Even if wearing the jersey makes her feel warm and safe after having to be on display in front of everyone. Even if she feels grateful to him for, as he said, taking care of it. Of her.

He studies her face, pale eyes flicking back and forth between hers before he blinks rapidly, several times, as though he’s just come from reading her mind.

“Here.”

Malfoy takes his wand out of his front pocket, reaches into the back pocket of his trousers, and pulls some things out. One enlargement spell later, he’s holding her beloved book, her satchel, her clothing, and her wand. 

“Is this the part where I’m supposed to feel suspicious?” Hermione asks as she takes the items from him with ginger hands. 

“I wasn’t raised like a bloody pirate. Everyone was just standing there, looking at you.” He jams his fingers through his hair again, appearing frustrated in the way she’s seen him look when working on complicated potions. “So, I did something about it.”

“Why?” she asks, unable to stop herself from whispering again.

“Because you looked afraid.”

“So?”

“It made me uncomfortable.” Said discomfort is visible in the set of his jaw and the way he’s clenching and unclenching his right fist at his side. 

Hermione can smell the faint Quidditch sweat beneath his pinewood cologne. “Why would me being afraid make you uncomfortable?” 

He looks at her and for one second—one brief second—Hermione has the distinct impression that he’s about to spill his secrets. His appearance is that of a desperate, exhausted man, the emotions she can tell he keeps hidden behind that wall of ice in his mind swirling together to form into the silhouette of a fear that she doesn’t understand. Something that speaks to the core of who he is.

It’s like he wants to tell her whatever it is that Harry believes he’s hiding.

“If Hermione Granger is afraid of something,” he finally says, “then we all should be.”

Like a lashing whip, she rises to his unspoken challenge. 

“So, you helped me because of the fact that I was frightened, and that if I’m scared of something, that must mean it’s bad. By your logic, if I hadn’t appeared affected, you would have floated there and just watched, too. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were compensating for something.”

“What would I be compensating for?” He sounds incredulous. “It’s not as if I—”

She finishes his sentence for him, asking a question she has no business asking.

“Care? It’s not as if you care about me, right?”

His jaw tightens. “Why would I care about you, Granger? Do I need to have a reason to do the right thing?”

“When it’s you? Yes. You do.” With a huff, she sets her clothes and bag on the floor, balancing her wand atop them. Then, she stands, and reaches for the hem of the jersey. “I don’t need your help, Malfoy, and I don’t want it. So, you might as well take this back.”

His hand moves forward like the strike of a lightning bolt, so fast that it’s almost a blur, and his fingers wrap around her wrist in a grip that makes her entire arm tingle. He stops her from pulling the garment off, and the dead look has returned to his eyes. Around them, the small, empty hallway feels like it’s shrinking down further.

Draco Malfoy is touching her. He’s touching her bare skin. The bare skin of someone with Muggle blood. 

This goes against everything he and his family believe. 

“I don’t know you,” he says, his voice barely louder than the sound of his breath, “but I know fear. I know what it's like to feel helpless and scared. To not know what’s going on, or what’s going to happen to you. It doesn’t fucking matter who you are—I wasn’t going to watch as everyone else did nothing. What’s more, I think you should take a second and think about who you think doesn’t need a reason to do the right thing. Because while all of your so-called friends just stared at you, your enemy gave you the shirt off of his back.”

“You say that like you’re waiting for me to make a choice,” she hisses, twisting her arm within his grasp in futility. His grip is a vice. “Like you haven’t spent the last five years reducing me to trash.”

“You can make your own choices. It’s got naught to do with me.”

“Then why won’t you let me take the jersey off? It’s nothing everyone hasn’t seen before, right?”

“Because you’re just trying to prove a point.”

“What point could I possibly be trying to prove?”

His lips press together, like he’s hesitating and then he snaps, “That you don’t feel fear. That you weren’t scared out there, and that you’re not scared of anything. And that’s not fucking true. I know what fear is. Don’t act like you don’t. Don’t act like you—”

“What, I’m human to you now? You saw me nude, and now I have a heart and a mind and value?”

“We all have hearts. That doesn’t automatically mean we’re human.”

“I didn’t say we. I said—”

“I know what the fuck you said.”

“Then—”

“You’re asking me the wrong questions,” he says, leaning down closer to her. “It doesn’t matter if you’re human or not. Do you not understand that? What you are doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you needed or wanted my help. I gave it anyway."

She scowls in a way that is very uncharacteristic of her, not understanding what he’s going on about. “And I suppose now you want to try to be friends.”

His gaze flickers momentarily down to her throat, lingering there, and then he stands up straight.

“We live on opposite sides of the universe, Granger. It’s safer to keep it that way.”

“Safer for who?”

“I’d say ‘for you,’ but I have a feeling it wouldn’t sink in.”

Hermione feels her heart racing in her chest. She has no idea where all of this was coming from, but it’s like the words are being yanked out of the depths of his psyche. Like she’s been pressing all of the correct buttons. Like something happened over the summer that changed him, maturing him into whoever this strange person is.

“Just keep the jersey,” he says, and with a quick flick of his wand, he casts an impervious upon it. “I doubt that will do much, but perhaps it will keep it from being hexed off of you when you wear it. If you wear it.”

The mental image of Hermione Granger wearing not only a Slytherin Quidditch jersey but one with the name Malfoy blasted across the back makes her want to scream-laugh.

“Is this your idea of an apology?” she asks, hissing the words like a feral cat. “You think if you give me a peace offering, I’ll just forgive you and put it in the past so we can go to war, and you can have a clean slate?”

“I’m not apologizing to you, Granger. I have no desire to apologize to you, and you have no desire to hear me say the words. We’re on opposite sides of a war where I’m bound to do things that will require a lot more apologies, anyway. If or when I do decide to beg for your forgiveness? You’ll know.”

With one last lingering look into her eyes, one that makes him feel more familiar to her than she wants him to be, Malfoy lets her go. As he starts to walk away, to join his teammates, his words settle in, rendering her even more curious.

Maybe Harry is right about him.

Malfoy’s arm is bare, no Mark in sight, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t glamour it. Everyone learns glamour charms before Fifth Year—it would be no difficult feat to hide such a thing.

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m afraid of him?” Hermione asks. 

He stops with his back to her.

“We all are, Granger.”

Hermione bites her lower lip, looking past him at the locker room, where she can hear the raucous sounds of the Slytherins coming from inside. Something in the slope of his shoulders speaks of defeat. A defeat and a fear that goes much deeper than a lost Quidditch game. Perhaps giving Hermione his jersey was one small thing he could do to convince himself that he wasn’t a bad person, because it would be the only thing to keep him alive in the darkness that was to come.

“What are you hiding, Malfoy?”

“Unfortunately for you,” he says, turning his head enough for her to hear his murmured words more clearly, “you’d have to give up something very precious to find out.”

The Gryffindor team comes stumbling in and another flurry of activity sweeps her up in its waves. Harry rushes over to her, checking on her and ranting about Malfoy’s gall. For some reason, she has no intention of telling him about her conversation with Malfoy.

She’s going to keep that memory and the jersey, and she wasn’t going to speak of either again.

Hermione and Harry head back to the castle, going straight for Headmaster Dumbledore’s office, and the moment her feet touch the stone ground of the courtyard, a thought bursts to the forefront of her head.

Muggle-born.

He called her Muggle-born.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

“Explain.”

A heavy, exasperated sigh erupts from the depths of Hermione’s chest. She tips her head, the back of her skull touching the top of the common room sofa.
“Harry, for the last time. I have no idea why he did it. He just did.”

Harry’s emerald eyes narrow behind the circular rims of his glasses. “I find that extremely unbelievable, Hermione. He’s already been acting erratic this year, and now—”

“Oh, honestly, Harry.” She closes her book and smacks him on the thigh with it. A month has passed since the jersey incident and the winter holiday begins next week. He hasn’t let it go. “He hasn’t been acting erratic. Perhaps a bit strange. Different. But his head seems to be on correctly.”

“Or maybe that’s what he wants us all to think. Maybe what he’s been doing when he disappears on the map is something nefarious. Something for Voldemort.”

Hermione shoots sharp glances around the mostly-empty common room. It’s after supper and the fire is getting low. This would typically be the time Hermione went to sleep, but her book has been too engrossing to put down. Harry being down here is no surprise—he never sleeps anymore, does he?

“You should get some sleep, Harry,” she says, getting to her feet and hugging her book to her chest. It’s a tome, is what it really is. “It’s not good to obsess over this. He’s probably just…wandering around at night. We certainly have done so in the past.”

“You say that now, but you won’t be saying that when we find out the truth.” Harry sits back on the couch, the Marauder’s Map open on his lap. He’s already watching Malfoy’s name as it traverses the corridors. “And every time we’ve been in the corridors at night has been for a good cause.”

Hermione sighs and shakes her head. “Good night, Harry.”

“Good night, Hermione.”

Things have only been getting worse with Harry. His suspicions about Malfoy have climbed throughout the year and now, they’re at an all-time high. Nobody is off-limits. Everyone is a suspect. Harry is practically addicted to watching the Marauder’s Map at night. He’s getting no sleep and every morning, he comes to the Great Hall with shadows under his eyes and a haunted look on his face.

He wants Malfoy to be a Death Eater.

Malfoy being a complete weirdo and giving her his jersey out of nowhere did nothing to help. Hermione had tucked it away upstairs in her trunk, unsure what to do with it and not wanting to approach him to give it back. She’s so far fielded questions and rumors, unsure how to prove to suspicious classmates that she isn’t secretly shacking up with a possible Death Eater. The only person who hasn’t grilled her is Ronald, and that’s because he’s so tangled up with Lavender’s tongue.

She sleeps in Malfoy’s jersey. It’s quite comfortable, to be honest, and it’s not like anyone sees it—not when her bed curtains are closed.

The next day, Blaise Zabini approaches her in the library during a rather crowded study period and asks her to Slughorn’s Christmas Party.

Hermione has no idea why she agrees to it. He’s caught her off guard and there are several pairs of eyes on them. The pressure and anxiety have mounted and the sparkle in Zabini’s brown eyes is disarming. So she says yes, because she doesn’t see why not. Zabini has never been a nuisance to her. He’s never bullied her, either.

Behind him, across the library, sits Malfoy. He’s maintaining the appearance of a student hard at work, scrawling something on parchment with a textbook nearby. It’s the continuous glances he sends in Blaise’s direction that have Hermione perplexed.

Did he already know Zabini was coming to talk to her?

Or can he hear their conversation?

That isn’t possible. He’s too far away, and she and Blaise have been speaking one decibel above a whisper. There’s no way he can hear what they’d been discussing. 

But there’s one thing that unsettles her.

Right after Blaise walks away, Hermione looks directly at Malfoy, catching him in the act of another surreptitious glance. Her brown eyes hold his gaze, his grey eyes darkening when he realizes she’s noticed his nosiness. It isn’t his actions that hold her regard, however. It’s the way his eyes burn, flames reaching across the library and devouring her from within.

What she sees there is something that sends unexplainable nervousness creeping along the pathways of her veins. It makes her want to shrink away, which is very un-Gryffindor of her. It’s intense, like the first pass of a white-hot comet as it streaks across the night sky. Is it anger? Annoyance? Hatred?

And then it clicks.

It’s the same look she saw on Lavender Brown’s face when she was pining after Ron—when she wanted him and still didn’t have him—and Hermione had given him a hug. Back then, Hermione thought it was silly because she simply didn’t like Lavender. But now, she can see it in Malfoy’s eyes as sure as she can see her hand in front of her face. It’s anger and it’s greed and it’s hunger, all at the same time. It’s the look in a panther’s eyes before it pounces on their prey. It’s predatory.

It frightens her.

Quickly, she gathers up her things, throws them into her satchel, and rushes out of the library as though Malfoy’s chasing her to her death.

Hermione sits down at her vanity, her gaze blurring as she carefully and meticulously uses her wand to part her hair for box braids.

It’s the night of the Christmas party and she’s already exhausted. She’s been dealing with the countless questions and accusations that students had been hurling her way for the past two weeks. They all want to know the truth—is she sleeping with Malfoy? Is she sleeping with Blaise? Is she making the rounds amongst the Slytherins? Are any of them Death Eaters? Is she thinking of becoming one? Is she already a Death Eater? Does she remember how viscerally they hate her blood? Does she know the terrible things Death Eaters want to do to people like her if the Dark Lord takes over? 

Is she stupid?

Hermione can’t take it anymore, but she doesn’t have a choice. All she can do is be honest, maintain her point-of-view, and do her best not to rise to any taunts. She’s already been a bit of an outcast for the past six years, so it’s no difficult feat to slip further into that stereotype just to get some relief. Harry, in spite of his reservations and suspicions about Malfoy, is still spending time with her. He’s asked her multiple times a day if she’s hiding something, but that’s nothing compared to being asked, “Do you let them all have you, one after the other in the Slytherin common room?” by a snickering Fifth Year one day after Potions.

Surprisingly, Ginny and Luna Lovegood are the heroines of Hermione’s story.

Luna makes a show of sitting beside her at the Gryffindor table during meals, which has enabled Hermione to spend some time getting to know her. Harry sometimes sits there, too, but he’s got enough friends outside of her and Ron that he can sit wherever he’d like—especially when Ron and Lavender are too busy with one another’s mouths. Whether he’s there or not, Luna is always there. She may believe in some quirky myths and legends, but they really aren’t that bizarre when Hermione listens to her explaining them. There’s no reason why Nargles and Wrackspurts can’t exist, now is there?

Ginny has remained faithful to Hermione as well. They’re in separate Years, so they can’t walk to classes together, but every moment that’s possible, Ginny is with Hermione. She never asks her about the Slytherins. She never grills her about Malfoy or the jersey. She has no negative opinion of Blaise Zabini, and has actually expressed her excitement about Hermione taking him with her to the Christmas party. She gets along with Luna very well, and Hermione is starting to suspect Ginny believes in Nargles now, too.

After a few hours, Hermione finishes her braiding charms and sets her wand down. They’re small-sized plaits, colored chestnut-brown, and the tips hang to her lower back because of the extra length the charm added. She reaches for her canister of mousse, emulsifying it between her hands. She stares at her reflection in the mirror as she smoothes the product over the lengths of the braids, using her fingertips to work it into the tight square-shaped parts that are organized so neatly on her scalp.

This will be the first time Hermione has ever truly styled her hair at Hogwarts. She usually wears her hair in box braids in the summers, but she’s been thinking about styling it for days now. The shrinkage on her natural hair makes it seem like her kinky curls only seek to reach for the skies when in reality, her hair is nearly past her shoulders. Part of her wonders if she wants to braid it because she wants to give everyone something to talk about that isn’t her sordid supposed sex life. Another part of her thinks that maybe she just wants to do something that makes her feel pretty.

Or maybe it’s the look she saw in Malfoy’s eyes in the library.

If he’s going to be looking at her, maybe she wants to make sure who he sees looks extra pretty.

Hermione banishes the thought as soon as it comes. That’s absurd. Malfoy is absurd. Sod him.

The braids are tight, as they usually are when she or her mother first does them, so she knows she’ll have a headache by the end of the evening. She kneels down in front of her trunk and grabs out one of the pain potions she’s technically not supposed to have, and takes a few sips. It will hopefully be enough to get her through the night.

As she puts the empty glass potion vial back, her gaze lights upon the forest-green fabric that lies inside. It’s folded neatly, looking innocent and docile. 

Malfoy’s jersey.

Hermione touches it, a curious little butterfly zipping through her stomach at the memory of his bewildering show of chivalry. She never would have thought he’d do something like that for her, of all people. But there’s something different about him this year. Something that has changed. That look in his eyes in the library told her so.

She reaches into her trunk, pushing past the jersey and pulling out a dress to wear. Slughorn had specifically stated for everyone to dress formally, so she wanted to wear something both festive and fancy. She’d written home, asking her mother—who’s a bit of a fashionista that follows the latest London fashions—to help. Her mother sent her a floor-length mermaid cut dress in royal purple with chiffon sleeves and a square neck, along with a pair of diabolically-high heels that Hermione still can’t believe she picked out.

Hermione uses a charm to lessen the height by two inches. She’s not trying to break her ankles tonight. Fortunately, her mother will never find out.

Once she’s dressed, she walks over to one of the full body mirrors in their room. As she inspects herself, turning left and right, the door to the room swings open. 

Ginny walks in with a big smile on her face, her ginger-red hair hanging in loose waves past her shoulders and her body draped with a shimmery bordeaux dress. It has a tight bodice with short sleeves and a sweetheart neckline, and the skirt flares out nearly to her knees. She wears a pair of sheer black tights and glittering red pumps that remind Hermione of a slightly more mature Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. 

“Ginny, you look lovely!” Hermione says, her teeth flashing white as she grins. 

“Thank you, thank you,” Ginny says with a twirl. “And look at you, Hermione. Godric’s beard! Your hair is amazing. And where did you get that dress? I love it.”

“My mother, actually. She sent it with these obnoxious shoes.”

“You mean those gorgeous shoes. I’m so jealous. My mother would tan my hide if I wore a pair of heels that high.”

“Well, they were higher than this before I charmed them.” Hermione shakes her head, chuckling. “My mother likes to say that every bit of pavement is your runway. In any case, I’ve been feeling a bit adventurous lately. I know I’m supposed to be the ‘know-it-all bookworm who gets top marks every year,’ but…I sometimes want to show parts of myself that I usually only display in the Muggle world.”

“Can’t see why you can’t have both knowledge and beauty.” Ginny nudges her in the side. “I’m sure Blaise Zabini will agree when he sees you.”

“I don’t fancy Blaise, Gin, so don’t get your hopes up. I still don’t know why I said yes.”

“At least he’s fit.”

“Ginny, you’re ridiculous.”

“I try. You know, you should try this rouge I have in my vanity. It was a bit too vivid for me, but I think it would look really nice on you.”

Hermione does as she suggests, pleased with the healthy red flush the rouge brings to the apples of her brown cheeks. She takes her braids and pulls them back at the sides, securing them with two gold pins. She really does feel pretty.

It’s almost a shame Malfoy won’t be at the party.

“Where are the other girls?” Ginny asks, looking around at the empty beds. 

“I saw the twins in the library earlier,” Hermione replies. Then, with a sigh, “Lavender was in an alcove with Ron, snogging his lights out.”

Ginny gags. “My eyes are still burning from the time I accidentally caught them in a corridor with his hand down her knickers.”

Hermione laughs, trying to ignore the slight pang of envy she feels hearing the words. She’s nearly over her fancy of Ron, but there are sometimes moments where she gets jealous of Lavender and wonders what could have happened if Ron never started seeing her.

Provided Ron had ever returned the feelings.

“You look great, Hermione, really,” Ginny says, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. “Ready to go?”

“Let’s.”

Zabini is a nice enough date.

Good conversation. A shower of compliments on her braids and dress. A small flower charmed to weave its way through one of her gold pins.

But the fiasco with Malfoy and Snape in the middle of the soiree causes issue. The students that are part of the Slug Club and their dates all turn their attention to her, as though it's her fault Malfoy crashed the party. The whispers and sour looks become too unbearable. Given the fact that Harry tore off after Snape, Hermione is on her own in that regard. Her braids are painfully-tight and even with the potion she’d sipped at earlier, her head is beginning to ache. So, about five minutes after Harry leaves, she decides to go, too.

Zabini offers to walk her back, but she declines. Hermione bids Zabini a good evening, tells Ginny, Dean, Neville, and Luna that she’s headed out, and leaves the party. She’s simply too exhausted emotionally for more socialization. Her bed calls to her.

The corridor, dimly lit by flickering torches on the walls, is cold as snow. As comfortable as the castle is, in the winter, it’s always slightly damp. Especially down here in the dungeons. Hermione doesn’t like it. It scrapes over her skin and makes her shiver. Teeth chattering, she wraps her arms around herself and speeds up her pace. Her high heels click-clack on the stone with every step. She regrets wearing them—her toes are exposed and frozen.

Did Malfoy notice her braids during the brief amount of time he was at the party? Hermione can’t be one hundred percent certain, but when his irritated gaze drifted about the assembled party guests, it felt like it had settled on her. She’d felt her face heating up, so she’d turned away, and then he’d been hauled out before she could take a second gander.

She knows she’s being silly. It’s a bloody jersey. He’s a Pureblood gentleman—of course he’d give a witch something to cover herself up in that situation. He’d specifically told her he was uncomfortable with her fear, and that was why he gave her the jersey. In the library, when he’d stared at her, it could have been anything she saw there. Hell, she could have imagined it. 

“Hermione.”

Hermione jolts in surprise at the sudden voice. It echoes in the corridor behind her. She comes to a halt in front of an alcove with a window to her right. Glancing over her shoulder, she sees Cormac McLaggen sauntering up to her the cocky, confident  way he always does. His cheeks are flushed and his dirty-blond hair ruffled, tie loosened and suit jacket removed. He has a champagne glass that he really should not have in one hand and his other hand in the pocket of his trousers. His smile is more of a smirk, but it makes Hermione want to grimace all the same.

“Cormac,” she says by way of greeting, her lips curving up into a polite smile. “Did you have a nice time at the party?”

Cormac tilts his head thoughtfully to the left and the right, shrugging his shoulders. “It went as well as can be expected.”

“Oh?”

“I was going to ask you to the party, you know,” he replies, voice slurring slightly. “It wasn’t very fun watching the witch I fancy on another wizard’s arm all night.”

“Oh,” Hermione says, schooling her expression to keep a grimace from appearing. Cormac is a conceited Quidditch player with half a brain. She would not have wanted to attend the party with him and she definitely does not fancy him. “That’s very…kind of you. Thank you. But, erm—I’m fairly tired, so if you don’t mind—”

“Where’s your date?” Cormac’s tone is derisive, though his face has not lost its smirk. “Did he shag you in the alcove and leave you behind? Not very gentlemanly of the Pureblood, now is it?”

Indignant, Hermione resists the urge to hex him. He probably has no clue what he’s saying and it really isn’t any worse than the things people have been saying about her lately.

“You seem quite drunk, Cormac,” she says, her tone clipped. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to leave.”

“Now, hold on just a moment.” He moves around in front of her, removing his hand from his pocket and holding it up in a defensive gesture. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I only want to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk. I want to go to bed.” 

Hermione’s fingers tingle as she debates reaching for her wand. It’s in a special holster on her sternum—one she’d bought at Diagon when she went with her parents to get supplies. All she has to do while wearing it is keep her spine straight, and if using it is necessary, she can simply reach into the bodice of her dress to draw it. It was at Madame Malkin's, advertised for witches going to Ministry balls and Pureblood estate galas so they could wear certain styles of dresses or dress robes without sacrificing the ability to keep their wands on them.

Her father had thought it useless, given she’s supposed to be at school and not balls and galas, but man, she sure is happy she has it now.

“You don’t need to be rude, Hermione. I know you think you’re the queen of the castle, but you should remember to humble yourself.”

A lash of anger whips through her and she draws her shoulders back, fixing him with a glare.

“Humble myself? Humble myself for what reason?! To whom?!”

“To me, obviously.”

“And what reason on God’s green Earth would I have to do that?”

“Because unlike you, my blood is pure. That means that in wizarding society, you are beneath me, and you have no right to be rude to me. You should feel fortunate that I was even interested enough to consider asking you to the party.” His nasty words fall from his drunken tongue with malice and precision. He could give Malfoy a run for his galleons with that mouth. “It’s not as if very many people want you after you went through all the Slytherin Sixth Years. So, why beat around the bush? Now that you’re done with them, you might as well move on to Gryffindor. Start closer to home.”

Hermione’s jaw drops. Never before has she heard someone who wasn’t Malfoy and one of his cronies be this blatantly cruel to her. Especially not someone she thought was a sort-of friend. Her throat aches and something in her stomach swoops low and sad.

“I do not have to listen to this, to you insulting me, Cormac,” she says, her voice shaking as she fights to hold back her emotions. “I understand that you’re inebriated at the moment, but—”

She stops mid-sentence when he drops his champagne glass and it shatters to pieces on the floor, spilling liquid over stone. Cormac lurches forward, stumbling into her and grabbing onto her upper arms. Her heart begins to beat faster as her brain works to piece together what’s actually happening right now. Because this doesn’t seem like a simple rude interaction with a drunken peer.

There’s something in his glassy blue eyes that she doesn’t like.

“I just wanted to talk to you.”

“I have to go.” Hermione makes something up. “Harry’s waiting for me, just around the corner.”

“He’s long gone. I passed him on my way here, and he said he was going to bed.”

Dismay curdles her blood. Cormac is so much bigger than her. So much taller. Nearly as tall as Malfoy and Ron. His hands are meaty and thick, nearly dwarfing her biceps as his fingers curl tight. If he squeezes hard enough, he could snap her bones. And he’s ogling her with a look that she can only compare to that of a wolf staring down a mouse.

Alarm bells ring out inside her head.

She needs to get out of here. She also needs her wand, but the way he’s holding onto her doesn’t allow her to get it. The only way she’s going to be able to is if she talks him down from the ledge. That way, he might let go of her.

“I really liked what I saw at the Quidditch game last month,” Cormac says, his voice dropping to a low tone that Hermione has only ever heard out of Viktor. It's the tone of someone who's about to snog her. “When your robes were vanished. Who knew you were hiding so much from the rest of us?”

“Cormac! That’s disgusting!” She tries to wrestle herself away, but he only holds on tighter. It hurts. “Let go of me right this instant.”

“Come on, Hermione,” he cajoles. “If you can give it up to Slytherin, why can’t you share some with me? I’m the best Beater on the team, and—”

Adrenaline pumps through her and she’s able to catch him by surprise, wrenching one arm out of his grasp. The second she does, she hauls back and slaps him across the face. She slaps him so hard that her hand stings and the white skin of his cheek flares bright red.

“If you think I care about Quidditch, you have lost your damn mind, little boy,” she snarls, slightly breathless. “Let. Me. Go.”

To her surprise, he does.

He releases her other arm, enabling her to move away from him. Cormac stands there with a disappointed expression on his face, body swaying slightly from drunkenness.

“Good night, Cormac,” she says firmly, turning and walking away as quickly as she can. 

Hermione’s heels are loud against the stone as she click-clacks her way down the corridor. She tries to be careful, with the height of the platforms being substantial enough to possibly break her ankles even with the reduced heel, but it’s difficult with how fast she’s going. There’s no other option.

She isn’t a child. She’s a witch of age—a woman—and she knows exactly what Cormac—

The warning bells ring.

Hermione shoves her hand down the front of her bodice and grasps the handle of her wand. She slides it out, spinning to face him with a disarming spell already leaving her lips.

Cormac, with unholy reflexes for someone who’s drunk as much as he has, deflects her hex and sends a second hex hurtling her way.

“Protego!” she says, forced to protect herself from the hex. “Expelliarmus!”

“Finite incantatem!” Cormac counters, twisting out of the way so her spell flies right by him as his spell destroys her shield. The dazed look in his eyes is completely gone, replaced by pure anger. “Petrificus totalus!”

Panic explodes in Hermione’s chest. She casts another protego as fast as she can, knowing that under no circumstances can she allow him to petrify her. Who knows what he wants to do. What would happen to her if she were incapacitated? She needs to stupefy him and then she needs to run back to Slughorn’s classroom and get help.

Unfortunately, Cormac catches her by horrified surprise with a spell that students should not be using against one another.

“Diffindo!” 

Hermione gasps in pain when his spell slices the uppermost part of her shoulder. It cuts through the chiffon fabric of her sleeve and slices her skin open. Dark red blood immediately wells up and starts to slip down. The cut is not shallow. It hurts enough to make her stagger.

“Expelliarmus!”

Hermione’s vinewood goes soaring out of her hand and into his. She watches in dread as he stows it, the handle sticking out of his pocket. He grins, bearing down on her with a covetous promise in his eyes.

Run. She has to run. Now.

She makes it five feet before she feels Cormac’s fingers clenching a handful of her braids. He yanks her backward so hard that her neck cracks and pain rockets across her head. She lets out a shriek that’s cut off by his hand covering her mouth from behind.

It’s at this moment that she realizes that this is serious. This isn’t merely an annoying encounter, or something that can be resolved with a visit to Headmaster Dumbledore and some detention. This is a moment that will change her life in ways she never thought she’d have to endure. This is a moment that will destroy her. The last time she’d been this afraid, the Death Eater, Dolohov was chasing her down in the Department of Mysteries.

She’s a fierce witch who knows more spells than anyone in her year.

But she’s also just a girl.

Just a girl, and she doesn’t have the power to fight off a Quidditch player on her own, without her wand.

Cormac wastes no time on words or sentiments. He backs her up until she hits the wall, and then his lips crash down against hers. She instinctively opens her mouth to scream and he takes the opportunity to shove his disgusting, slimy tongue down her throat. He tastes like alcohol and an awful mixture of food from the party. Hermione lets out a muffled cry and pushes her hands against his chest as hard as she can. 

It’s like trying to move a wall.

This is happening. This is actually happening right now. In all her years at Hogwarts, Hermione never thought that this was something that would happen to her. Not in the place she considers home. 

Hermione attempts again and again to shove him, to close her mouth or bite down on his tongue, but it’s to no avail. Cormac makes an irritated noise, as though she’s simply a nuisance, and wraps his hand around her throat. He squeezes tighter, tighter still, until she opens her mouth in a futile movement.

Biting down is impossible when she’s too busy gasping for air. 

She tries to kick her legs, to position one to where she can raise it sharply and knee him in the groin. When she does manage it, it isn’t powerful enough to stop his horrific snogging, and her feeling of triumph swiftly dissipates. 

Her stomach heaves as she thinks of what's about to happen. What he's going to do if she doesn't find some way to—

Cormac punches her.

Cormac stops kissing her and punches her full-on in the eye.

The back of her skull cracks against the stone wall. Pain sparkles like brilliant, dying stars on the right side of Hermione’s head. Her vision blurs in that eye, dancing with flickering shadows from the late-evening lanterns. Dazed, she moves slowly, as though through molasses, as Cormac drags her into the darkness of the alcove. Her high heels scrape against the ground.

“I’m tired of you acting like you’re better than me, Hermione,” he mutters, his voice even more slurred than before. He grabs her by the waist and lifts her up, setting her on the windowsill. The glass is cold against her back. “I’ve fancied you since we were in Third Year, and you’ve never given me the time of day.”

As he rants and rages on, Hermione sits on the sill in a dizzy stupor, her head whirling in violent circles. She hears the fabric of her dress tearing, feels his thick fingers grabbing the edges of the bodice and pulling it apart like paper. Jolts when he grabs the hem of the skirt and uses his wand to cut it all the way up to her hip. Shivers under the cold air of the castle as it touches her thighs and now-exposed knickers. Her head lolls back against the window panes, throbbing in muted agony. Light blooms in bursts in front of her eyes. She’s going to have a concussion, she thinks.

He doesn’t seem at all interested in her underbust wand holster. He bypasses it entirely.

What is happening?

Cormac grabs her knees and wrenches them apart.

“Cormac,” Hermione says, her voice sounding as though her syllables are melting together. “What’s—what are you doing? I don’t…understand…”

“I’ve been waiting for this for so long, Hermione. You have no idea.” His lips and tongue are on her neck, poisoning it with his filth. His hands are palming her chest. She hadn’t worn a bra and her dress is torn from chest to abdomen. “I only wish you would have given me a chance before now, so it didn’t have to be like this.”

What is going on?

“Cormac,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to push him away again. Her head hurts so badly. “Cormac, stop. Stop it, please.”

He ignores her. He’s groaning already. She wants to be sick. She wants it to stop. She wants to cry.

“Stop,” she pleads, her voice a cracked whisper as her fear overtakes her. “Cormac, please don’t. Please.”

“Will you just…shut up?” he mutters. “You’re gonna ruin it.”

He forces his mouth against hers again. This time, her lips are closed. She fights to keep them that way, a high-pitched scream trapped in her throat as she wriggles and squirms and tries to find a way to slide off of the sill. Hermione slaps at him, trying to keep his hands away, to hurt him, but he had hit her head so violently that she’s certain she has a concussion. Maybe worse.

“Damn it, Hermione! Why are you being so bloody difficult?!”

“Because I don’t want this!” She sounds hysterical. She is hysterical. Her hands are shaking and she’s sobbing out her words. “Please, Cormac, don’t—”

“Shut the fuck up already!”

He grabs her shoulders, pulls her forward, and pushes her violently back against the window. There’s a dull thunk as her head hits the thick glass and the pain is blinding. Nearly numbing.

Cormac moves his mouth over her collarbones and down. She lets out a hitched, panicked whimper, kicking her legs and pushing the heels of her hands against his forehead. In her state, she couldn’t possibly have stopped the first or second punch. Or the third.

Cormac stands up straight and punches her three times, one right after the other. The first one hits her in the eye—the same one he’d already struck. The pain only compounds. The second catches her in the nose. It crunches but, luckily, doesn’t break. And the third one strikes her cheek, her teeth snapping together against the edge of her tongue and filling her mouth with the metallic, coppery taste of blood. Before she can make any further noises of distress, he grabs a handful of her box braids, wrapping them around his hand repeatedly. 

He pushes and slams her head to the side, where it smacks loudly against the stone wall of the window’s inlet.

Hermione goes limp, powerless to stop him when he grabs her knickers and tears them clean off her body. All she can do is whimper as his hands touch and squeeze and bruise her all over. Her throat aches from the effort it’s taking to keep from dissolving into tears. He’s already taking everything from her.

He would not get anymore of her tears.

“C-Cormac,” she tries again, her voice weak. “Oh, God. Just—no—no, p-please stop.”

“Hopefully no one comes through here,” Cormac says in a seductive tone, as if she’s his willing partner and not the person he’s trying to violate. “Now, I know you’re feisty. That’s one thing I like about you. However, I really can’t have you hitting me again.”

He grabs his wand out of his pocket and casts a charm that adheres her palms to the windowsill beside her thighs. Her fear multiplies, her heart nearly tearing its way out of her chest. She’s trapped. Completely at his mercy. Concussed. Basically nude and in ridiculous shoes, her beautiful dress torn.

Someone has to be down here. 

Somebody has to help her.

This is an alcove. In the dungeons. The dungeons. Slughorn’s classroom. His Christmas party. Which is in the dungeons. The dungeons, where Slytherin House is. Slytherin House, in the dungeons. Professor Snape is Head of House. His classroom is in the dungeons, too. 

He was there at the party, wasn’t he? He was there at Slughorn’s Christmas party in the dungeons, where Slytherin House…

Slytherin.

Slytherin?

Malfoy.

Malfoy. Malfoy’s down here. He’s got to be. Has he already gone back to his common room? Is he in the corridors somewhere? All he'd done was give her a jersey out of gentlemanly obligation.

Would he save her from something like this?

Hermione opens her mouth, inhales, and screams. She screams Malfoy’s name as though he’s right around the corner, because she desperately hopes he is. Whether he’ll help her or not is another story. Still, she tries to scream his name again, fighting with Cormac, who’s trying to put his hand over her mouth as she twists her head to the left and right. Even if Malfoy doesn’t hear, maybe someone else will have left the party early—maybe they’ll hear.

She has to keep trying.

“Help me! Please, Malfoy, please! Malfoy! Malfoy!”

“Shut up!” Cormac snarls, his glassy, bloodshot eyes blazing with both fear and fury. He doesn’t want to get caught. He tries to grab her chin and she kicks her legs, nearly managing to get the sole of her heel flat against his thigh. “You stupid—bitch! You fucking—shut the fuck up!”

Cormac's heavy, rocklike fist strikes her dead in the center of her face, right on her already tender, aching nose. Again. Blood starts to trickle from her nostrils, over her lips. 

The back of her head rebounds off of a hard surface, having hit the thick glass of the castle window once more. She lets out a cry, which is cut off by another exclamation of pain as he grabs her braids again. These are fresh braids. They’re tight and sore and now, her scalp is on fire. It’s one of the most painful things she’s ever experienced. 

“I don’t understand why you have to be such a conceited, difficult cunt,” Cormac growls. “I didn’t want to have to do it this way, but I don’t want to wait anymore.”

Cormac shoves his fingers into a place only Viktor has been, the summer before this year. The agony is blinding. Much worse than anything else so far. Much worse than anything she ever wants to feel.

Hermione squeezes her eyes shut. She won’t cry. She will not cry. She refuses.

But her soul has already shattered.

Where is Malfoy?

Did he hear her?

Please, Priestess Medusa, let him have heard her.

She turns her face away as his fingernails scrape her inside. She wants it to be done. To get it over with so she can go back to the Gryffindor common room and pretend it never happened. To get through the rest of the school year so that one day, she can wake up and be so far away from this moment that she’s a different person.

Because why her? Why this? Why?

What did she do to deserve this?

“Please, Cormac,” she whines as her mind tries desperately to start the process of dissociation. “Please, please don’t. Please. I just want to go. Please. I want to go to bed. I want to leave. Please. I want my mum. Please, please, pl—”

“If you don’t shut up, I won’t just obliviate you, and all your mum will get is what’s left of you,” Cormac warns, his voice a hiss. He’s a demon. A revolting demon. How is he a Gryffindor? “Do you know who my uncle is? Do you know how easy it would be to make it all disappear? Shut. Up.”

Hermione cannot think clearly. All she knows is everything is ruined and this is happening because of her. Because the universe is unhappy with her plans for her parents, isn’t it? And how hypocritical, how evil, for her to want her mother in this moment when she’s going to be taking everything away from both her and her father in less than six months.

Cormac withdraws his hand and makes a noise of revulsion. Hermione views him through half-shut, blurry eyes as he holds up his hand in the torchlight. It’s wet with something dark.

“You’re bleeding,” he says, his nose wrinkled. “That’s disgusting. This better be worth it. You—fuck!”

Cormac is dragged backward by the hair so fast that Hermione thinks she might have imagined it. There’s a rush of air, wind moving her braids and caressing her bruised, throbbing skin, and Cormac is gone. He’s up against the wall, pinned by a pale hand wrapped around his throat with his hands clawing at the fingers and his legs kicking. Malfoy’s very tall, which puts Cormac very high up.

“Oh, my God,” Hermione breathes out, the relief threatening to overwhelm her and force her to finally start crying. She’s not entirely sane at the moment—she’s borderline delirious—so all she can do is plead. “Please, Malfoy. Help me. Please help me. Pl—”

“I’m here.” It comes as a murmur, which Hermione has never heard from Malfoy before. He’s glaring up at Cormac, but Hermione can tell he’s speaking to her. “I’m here. I’m going to help you.”

“Please.”

“I know, Granger.”

Malfoy’s gaze pierces through the darkness, through the shadows the fire of the torch casts. In them is the same look she’d seen on his face at the library. That strange mixture of greed and fury. Like a feral wildcat, angry that someone had come too close to its meal, or its mate. That bizarre, unexplainable possessiveness dances over his expression as his gaze flickers down her body, over bare skin and blood and what she knows will be bruised tomorrow, his eyes blazing through his disheveled pale hair.

It settles on her lower body, where there is clearly a concentration of blood on her inner thighs.

His facial expression smooths out, going completely and utterly flat. Empty. Slowly, he turns and stares up at the choking, gagging Cormac. He watches him suffer for a solid five seconds before he finally speaks in a clear, calm voice.

“You’re fucking dead.”

Hermione sits there on the sill, watching. She watches with wide eyes as Malfoy somehow has the strength to whirl around and throw Cormac against the opposite wall. Another blink and he’s there, his fist slamming into Cormac’s face again and again and again and again and a—

Cormac collapses on the ground, and Malfoy descends upon him. He straddles his hips, one hand pressing Cormac flat by the chest and the other jabbing the tip of his wand into the underside of his chin.

“St-Stop!” Cormac gurgles, his hands clasped in a pleading gesture as Malfoy hovers over him. “Don’t k-kill me!”

“Hmm,” Malfoy hums. “Like you, I seem to have forgotten what the words ‘stop’ and ‘don’t’ mean. Silencio. Crucio.”

Hermione’s eyes nearly fall out of her head. Her jaw drops. Cormac writhes and jerks beneath Malfoy, lost in the throes of the Cruciatus, his screams of agony silent as the grave, wrenched from a wide-open mouth. Malfoy doesn’t seem bothered at all. In fact, his lips are curled up into a genuine, almost wild grin. He’s enjoying this. Immensely. 

She can only see his profile, but the way the torchlight flickers makes it look as though Malfoy’s canine is sharper than it should be. He looks like a monster.

Malfoy tilts his head to the side and lifts the curse. He sits up on Cormac’s hips, twirling his wand jauntily in the fingers of his left hand.

“I’m going to unsilence you, McLaggen,” he says, “and when I do, I want you to tell me exactly what you planned to do. Yeah?”

Cormac, panting for breath and twitching faintly, nods. His eyes are wide, tears streaming from his face. He doesn’t look like he’s drunk anymore.

Malfoy performs the counterspell for silencio and immediately, the small alcove fills with the obnoxious sounds Cormac’s making. Sniffles and sniveling and sobs. Ragged breathing. Whines. He sounds and looks scared.

Hermione feels no pity for him. No sympathy. No empathy.

“Well, McLaggen?” Malfoy asks. “What did you plan to do?”

“N-Nothing!” Cormac lies. “I s-swear! I wasn’t g-going to—to h-hurt her. I—”

“Silencio.” Cormac’s noises fall silent and his eyes bulge out as he realizes his mistake. Malfoy’s wand slides down the side of his throat, stopping at his pulse. “Crucio.”

Once again, Cormac falls apart. He struggles and kicks and thrashes, face contorted with pain as his soundless screams echo to the nothingness. Malfoy remains seated upon his hips, knees and toes to the ground, his wand unmoving. He holds the curse for a few more moments before he nixes it.

“I know you know what everyone thinks I am,” Malfoy purrs, and it sounds terrifying. “Don’t you?”

Cormac, gasping for air, sends a frightened glance down to Malfoy’s arm, which is covered by a sleeve. He nods, not speaking.

“And you know what people like that—what Death Eaters—are capable of, don’t you?” Malfoy’s talking to him like he’s patronizing him. “Don’t you?”

“Y-Yes, M-Malfoy. Yes.” Cormac continues to nod, his muscles continuing to twitch as the curse lingers.

“Good. So, why don’t we try this one more time…” His wand presses to the trembling Cormac’s temple. “What did you plan to do?”

Cormac opens his mouth to reply, closing it and opening it again like a fish. His anxious eyes dart over to Hermione, who wishes she could spit on him. He looks up at Malfoy again.

“I—”

“Too slow. Silencio.” Cormac immediately bursts into tears that can’t be heard. Unmoved, Malfoy drawls, “Crucio.”

Hermione can’t tear her eyes off of this. If anyone saw this, if anyone knew that she was watching Draco Malfoy use the Cruciatus curse on Cormac McLaggen...they’d be revolted. This is the most horrifying thing she thinks she’s ever seen. She’s terrified of this new Malfoy, whoever this really is. He’s unhinged.

And he’s doing all this for her?

What.

Malfoy lifts the curse, but he doesn’t nix the silencing charm. He stares down at Cormac, that dead look returning to his face as he watches the Gryffindor convulsing and twitching beneath him. Cormac’s mouth is moving, lips forming around his pleas, but there’s no sound coming from between them.

“I’ve always found it rather humorous that everyone expects the worst out of Slytherin,” Malfoy muses, almost like he’s talking to himself. “You expect murderers and Death Eaters and monsters. Yet here you are, a Gryffindor, and you’ve just attacked your own princess.”

Cormac squeezes his eyes shut, the pleas finally stopping. For the first time, he actually looks contrite. He opens his eyes and looks at Hermione, soundlessly saying, “I’m sorry," over and over.

“Hear that, Granger?” Malfoy asks, the amused tone almost softening. Lowering to a murmur. He doesn’t look away from Cormac. “He seems quite remorseful. Will you forgive him?”

Hermione stares at Cormac, feeling two sides of herself going to war. The dark and the light. Wrong and right. Cruelty and compassion.

Pain.

She’s in pain because of him. Mentally, physically, emotionally. Cormac has made an attempt to destroy her and managed to do so. Now she’s sitting here, stuck to a window by a charm he cast, blood on her skin and in her mouth, dress torn, and he’s apologizing. The right thing to do—the just thing—would be for her to accept his apology so she can work on forgiveness later. She can’t exactly let Malfoy use Unforgivables on him.

And yet.

He tried to rape her. He did rape her, in a way. He has traumatized her and now she knows she’ll never be the same. She’s the strongest person she knows, but she doesn’t think her strength was built with this in mind. 

Cormac deserves worse than the Cruciatus. Morals say otherwise.

“What a shame for you, McLaggen,” Malfoy says, pushing the words out through clenched teeth. He sounds livid. “Perhaps next time, you’ll listen when a witch cries out for her mum, you sick, pathetic piece of shit.”

Her mum. How had he heard that? With how long it took him to arrive, she estimates that he couldn’t possibly have been around the corner. Somehow, he’d heard her calling his name and asking for her mum.

How?

Malfoy grabs onto the sides of Cormac’s head and slams it down against the cold, stone ground. Over and over. Hermione hears his skull crack and the sound shatters her reverie.

“W-Wait. Wait, Malfoy.” She knows she’s in shock, but she also knows she can’t just watch Malfoy murder a student—even if she wants him to be punished for what he’s done. Even though he’s ruined her. “Malfoy, stop. Please.”

He does.

Malfoy sits up on Cormac’s hips again, his chest heaving for air and blood staining his knuckles. His head drops back and hair falls into his face, his eyes fluttering shut as his jaw opens and he pants. Beneath him, Cormac is unconscious and limp. There’s blood everywhere, on the floor and walls, on Malfoy’s face and his hands. His shirt is black, so she can’t see if it’s stained, but she supposes it’s safe to assume it is.

Hermione watches in disturbed confusion as Malfoy licks the blood off of his knuckles and the side of his hand, his eyes snapping up to look at her through his criminally-long lashes. It might be a trick of those torchlight shadows, but she thinks she sees something beneath his eyes. It almost looks like a spiderweb, but dark and straining beneath his skin.

And then it’s gone. His hand is cleaned of blood.

He licked it all off.

A sudden brush of cold castle air pebbles her skin, reminding her with shame that her chest is bare. Reminding her that a sticking charm is pinning her.

“I’m s-stuck,” she whispers, turning her face downward. “Could you…?”

She can feel his presence nearing her and the longer he goes without saying anything, the more her imagination acts up. 

This is Malfoy. He’s hated her for years. She’s nothing to him. A speck of dust. Worthless. And here she is, served on a platter for him to debase and humiliate and dominate. He’s just used an Unforgivable on a student in the school. He could show her exactly what happens to Mudbloods during a war.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he says as though reading her mind, his voice low and harsh. “Fuck’s sake.”

His hand moves up and she flinches, her mind flashing horrible, terrifying images in front of her. Cormac would be child’s play compared to someone like Malfoy. Malfoy would make it hurt. He’d—

“Please,” she whimpers, closing her eyes again, just in case he does it. So she won’t have to remember his face, too. “D-Don’t. I’ll give it back.”

“I said, I’m not gonna hurt you,” he snaps. “And what the Hell are you talking about, ‘give it back?'”

“Your jersey?”

“I don’t give a fuck about my fucking jersey.”

He raises his wand. The pace of her breathing quickens. Maybe he’ll be merciful. Maybe he’ll stupefy her so she doesn’t have to feel it. Maybe—

“Scourgify." The blood disappears from her face and body, including her thighs. “Finite incantatem.”

The sticking charm dissolves and Hermione’s trembling body pitches forward, off the sill. Malfoy moves forward, as fast as a blur, and catches her with his icy hands on her bare waist. Hermione’s certain she must be concussed. There’s no way he could move that quickly.

“How…did y-you move so f-fast?” she asks, unable to ignore the fact that her bare breasts are pressed against his sternum. The fabric of his shirt is soft, and in contrast to his hands, his body is warm.

“I didn’t.”

Hermione cannot explain the nervousness she feels hearing that. Because she knows what she saw. It’s either a hallucination, or he’s gaslighting her. She isn’t sure which is worse.

His eyes are empty. Void of all emotion. Just…nothing. A wall of ice, built high and thick, surrounding the elusive city of his emotions. Which is more frightening, now knowing he’d just tortured Cormac all while being so emotionless.

She places tentative hands on his forearms for balance. It’s strange, touching the body of Draco Malfoy. There's no way to avoid registering that he’s an actual person. Something solid that lives and breathes and thinks and—apparently—saves his mortal enemy. Twice.

“Could you…?” She flicks her gaze toward Cormac. “My wand. He took it.”

Malfoy lets go of her and returns to Cormac’s prone form. He takes her wand out of his pocket, twirling it once around his fingers, presenting the handle of the vinewood for her to take. His head is turned away, preserving her modesty.

“Reparo,” Hermione whispers, casting the charm on her dress. The fabric of the bodice slides back over her chest, the skirt knitting itself together until it's intact.

Her long braids hang down her back, heavy on a scalp that had already been tender from their freshness and were now so because Cormac had pulled on them. It makes her wounded head throb. She reaches up, brushing her fingers over the swell of her skull, and flinches away from her own touch. Her fingers come away bloody.

Hermione stares at it, crimson against brown, body slightly swaying from the weakness in her legs and ankles.

“What did he do to you?”

Malfoy’s voice is quiet, but there's an undercurrent there she can't quite name. She doesn’t know him the way she knows Harry, or Ron. She knows when they're happy, sad, or angry. They're her best friends, and they’re not complicated.

But Malfoy? Malfoy is complicated.

Hermione tilts her head back to look up into his eyes.

“What?” she says.

He repeats himself.

“What did he do to you?”

Fresh memories assail her. Hermione feels the shock morphing, lifting, the pace of her breathing quickening. Chains wrap themselves around her lungs, pulling tight and squeezing to keep oxygen from filling them. The budding bruises on her body are starting to throb. Painfully.

She's hyperventilating 

“Hey. Hey! Granger.” 

There's a hand curled beneath her chin, pulling it back up. Hermione's vision is blurring again, tears finally gathering in her eyes. She’s going to break down, and she’s going to do it in front of Draco Malfoy if she can’t get her emotions under control.

“Breathe,” he says. Orders it of her with a furrowed brow and a frown. “I need you to breathe, okay?”

She gives a valiant effort, inhaling as deeply as she can and exhaling, repeating the movement. Her chest rises and falls.

“Now, keep breathing, and tell me what he did to you.”

“I'm sore,” she replies.

His fingers twitch against her jawline. “Sore where?” 

“Everywhere. My head. My face. My back.” Her voice cracks. “B-Between my legs.”

Malfoy draws his hand back as though she's just burned him. Something splinters the walls in his empty eyes. His gaze travels down the front of her body and back up again.

“Did he…did he succeed?”

“No.”

The word is spat bitterly, but nowhere near as bitter as the thoughts in her mind. There’s no way Malfoy isn't happy about this, about seeing her weak and vulnerable. Victimized. He must be revolted, too, to have to look at her dirty blood. Rescuing her is probably going to be his greatest shame. He's likely wishing he let Cormac—

“Stop,” Malfoy says, his voice curt. Angry. Indignant. “I don’t wish for anything. I'm not revolted. The only thing that's shameful is the fact that you stopped me from killing him.”

Hermione disregards the bizarre way her stomach flips and huffs a laugh. “Oh, and there you go, using Legilimency against me without my consent.”

“Not quite.”

Hermione’s brows come together and she realizes there are cold tears on her cheeks. She can’t remember crying; she only recalls trying extremely hard not to cry. Quickly, she wipes them with her fingers, seeing black flakes of mascara dotting her fingertips. She must look a right mess.

How much did Malfoy see? Did he look at her body? Did his gaze linger? Oh, God. Was he going to use that against her?

“So, what do you want me to do?”

She gives him a perplexed look. “What do you mean?”

“What do you want me to do to him?”

“I…nothing. I’m not going to let you hurt him again.”

“Are you serious?” Malfoy sneers, giving her a glimpse of the Malfoy she actually knows. “You say that like you think me hurting him is worse than him forcing himself on you.”

Hermione opens her mouth to reply, but can’t seem to decide. Because deep down, she knows that if he did hurt Cormac, she wouldn’t necessarily mind it. She wouldn’t mind watching Cormac suffer for just a little longer. After all, she’s going to have to live with this for the rest of her life.

“Having a moral quandary, are we, Gryffindor?” He narrows his eyes. “Decide, or I will kill him.”

Hermione is completely and utterly confused. 

Why is Malfoy so dead-set on killing someone for hurting her when he doesn’t even like her? If Harry’s right and he is a Death Eater, then there’s a war coming where he might be doing the same thing for his master, hurting people all across the land. 

“Fuck’s sake, Granger. You really are determined, aren’t you?” Malfoy scowls and scrubs his face with his hands. “I don’t care how deeply my hatred for you runs, I’m not like them. And I’m not going to let anyone touch you like—well, like that. The only one who gets to harass you at all, in any capacity, is me.”

Hermione wants to roll her eyes at the predictability of school bullies. Especially selfish, poncy prats raised by governesses and galleons. He doesn’t want anyone else touching the person he bullies. He’s the only one who gets to bully her. 

“Yes.”

Hermione holds a hand to her temple, scrunching her nose as a wave of pain assails her. She’s definitely got a concussion. There’s no way Malfoy can read her mind without using Legilimency and unless he’s lying, she must be saying things out loud and not realizing it.

“I would hardly consider what Cormac did bullying, however, Granger.”

“Then what would you consider it?”

“A death wish,” he growls through clenched teeth. “You had better decide what you’re gonna do, or else McLaggen’s throat is going to end up outside of his body and in my fucking hand.”

Hermione stares at him, watches multiple versions of him dancing in her dizzy vision, and thinks she might actually be hallucinating. 

If he is real, she needs to do as he says. There’s something in the coldness of his eyes that tells a more primal part of herself that he’s not theorizing or warning. He’s making promises.

But what can she do besides tell a professor, or the Headmaster? Will that really help Cormac learn his lesson? And if it does, it’s not as though he’ll change as a person. Who knows how many other girls he’s violated? Hermione might be the first one that’s been rescued, but not his first victim.

She thinks she knows a way to make sure she’ll be the last.

Hermione turns to her attacker. She aims her wand, trying not to think about what it’s going to feel like to do this again in the future. She shakes her head out, squeezing her eyes shut and opening them again, as though it can clear her vision. Her arm wavers and starts to lower out of pure exhaustion, her brain swimming around and around in her skull.

Malfoy’s hand presses against her elbow, pushing her arm back up. He crosses his arms over his chest, standing beside her like the sentinel she never asked for, towering with that obnoxious height of his.

Hermione takes a deep breath and tries not to think about that cracked vase with the golden lines.

“Obliviate.”

If she’s done her charmwork accurately, Cormac will not remember the last two hours. He will think he got too sozzled and stumbled back to his dorm, falling and hitting his head along the way. He'll have the strong desire to go see Madam Pomfrey about it tomorrow morning. He won’t remember what Hermione was wearing, let alone accosting her in the corridor. While she’s rummaging around in his head, she is morbidly-dismayed to see that the object of his obsession is her and only her. Cormac has never hurt anyone else, nor has he wanted to.

Why is she always the only one who gets hurt?

She makes him forget his feelings for her entirely. To him, she’s just an acquaintance at school. That’s all.

It’s unfair, that he gets to escape the permanent consequences of his actions. Or tormenting her. Maybe Malfoy could Obliviate her, too, so she doesn’t have to remember this night.

“No,” Malfoy says. “You may be all right breaking the law, what with you being Potty’s brainpower, but I am not. Unfortunately, I am subject to the rules he seems so easily able to break. With my father in prison, the Ministry is waiting for any reason to act against my family.”

“Oh. Well, all right.”

A wave of pure despair crashes over Hermione, making her throat feel tight and her eyes sting. Her wand arm falls to her side and she lets out a weak cry as her knees give out once again.

Malfoy turns and catches her, one arm wrapping around her waist, the other hooking beneath her legs and holding the outside of her thigh. He stands up straight, hefting her with almost inhuman ease. Her head tips back, her long braids swinging in the air below her. It’s instinctual for her to wrap her arms around his neck, keeping her hand squeezed tight around her wand. Though it’s Malfoy and there’s no part of this Earth where she feels safe with him, he’s just rescued her and she’s relying on him right now. She’s relying on whatever comfort she’s in proximity to. Unfortunately, it’s him.

And she’s just been sexually assaulted.

Hermione’s body trembles in his arms as he makes the trip from the dungeons, to the staircase room, through the castle. They don’t pass anyone along the way, much to her eternal relief, save for the portraits. Most of them are sleeping and the few that are awake, don’t do much else but watch with curiosity as they go by. Hermione’s glad for it. Now that some time has passed, she doesn’t want anyone to know what happened, if she can help it. She doesn’t want Harry or Ron or Ginny or Luna or the professors or Dumbledore or anyone to know.

It can stay her and Malfoy’s secret.

When they reach the corridor that leads to the Fat Lady’s portrait, Malfoy’s pace begins to slow to that of a snail. Hermione lifts her head from his shoulder and prepares to ask him what he’s doing, to tell him she doesn’t think she can walk the rest of the way if he’s planning on stopping here, only to freeze.

He turns his face toward her, his nose brushing—nuzzling?—her neck. His arm shifts at her back, hand moving up to cup the back of her head, pulling her closer. She feels like she weighs no more than a feather. He’s carrying her as though she's a princess made of parchment, and that means he’s stronger than her. Much stronger, like Cormac. What if all of this was to lull her into a false sense of security?

“I thought you—you said you w-wouldn’t hurt me,” she whispers, trying to keep the threads of fear out of her voice. “Please—”

“Hush.”

Her mouth snaps shut.

His nose brushes her pulse one last time and then he speaks, quiet as a gentle spring breeze.

“You still have blood on your neck.”

Malfoy resumes walking and Hermione lets out her breath in relief. She has no idea why he felt the need to smell her, but she supposes he’s an odd person. There are a lot of things she’s learned about him in the past month. 

He sets her on her feet before the portrait, and she uses his forearm to steady herself. Her gaze flickers curiously over his sleeve, wondering if Harry might actually be right about him.

“Miss Granger,” the Fat Lady says, her eyes open in surprise. “You and Mr. Potter both left the party early. I’d have thought the two of you would be down there, dancing the night away.”

“No, I—” Hermione can’t look her in the eyes. She feels like Cormac’s filth is dripping off of her, wafting off of her with an aura of dirtiness. “I was a bit tired.”

“And Mr. Malfoy escorted you back, I see.” The Fat Lady’s voice cools immediately and her oil-painted eyes narrow. “I’m afraid I can’t allow him inside.”

“If you think I would set foot in that sorry excuse for a common room, you’re an idiot,” Malfoy snarls, every single tone she heard in his voice tonight disappearing completely. “I’d just as soon burn it to the ground.”

“Well, I never!” the portrait exclaims, revulsion clear.

“Can you get to your room?” Malfoy asks, ignoring the Fat Lady’s words. If it weren’t for the odd brightness in his eyes, Hermione would have thought he didn’t care about anything at all. 

“Yes,” Hermione mumbles. She bends to the side slightly, pulling off first her left high heel, then her right. She grasps the ankle straps of both in one hand, doing her best to embrace the pain in her lower body. She’ll be needing something to help with that, but she doesn’t know how to do that without telling Madam Pomfrey what happened. “I’ll be fine. Erm…thank you. You didn’t have to help me—again. Though giving me a jersey isn’t quite the same as…what Cormac did.”

“Not at all.”

Hermione pauses. “Right. Yes. Right, well…thank you. Again.”

“And you said you were sore. I highly doubt you want to go to Pomfrey for assistance, so be looking for an owl tomorrow.”

“An…owl?”

“I’ll send for something and have it owled to you.”

“Oh! Oh, all right.” Hermione’s head whirls for more reasons than one. Her face grows hot with mortification and shame. Because though Cormac didn’t fully succeed, the blood on her thighs says differently.

Then, she looks up at Malfoy.

“Why are you helping me?”

“I’d suggest you get inside, Mudblood.” Hermione glares at him, but she’s perplexed to see no hint of malice on his face. “McLaggen isn’t the only monster that haunts these halls.”

Hermione watches him go, wishing that she could close her eyes and forget the entire night. That she could open them and find out this was all a nightmare. That she’d actually made it back to the common room, that Cormac never found her, that Malfoy never saw her in that position.

But she supposes it’s preemptive karma, for what she plans to do to—to take from—her parents before the war begins.

“That Malfoy boy,” the Fat Lady huffs. “How crass he is! I’ve only heard horrid things about him. For a moment, I thought he might have changed, having escorted you.”

“He has changed,” Hermione says, a tiny flame of suspicion springing to life within the back of her mind. “I think that's the problem.”

With that, she pleads with the portrait not to tell anyone what she saw. Luckily, the Fat Lady agrees, finding the whole situation a “Shakespearean romantic tragedy,” and allows Hermione into the common room. There’s nobody inside, not even Harry, so she’s easily able to limp barefoot up the stairs and into her dorm. Lavender, Parvati, Padma, and Ginny all have their curtains closed, so she tiptoes across the carpet.

Quietly, she pulls out her trunk, lifts it open, and withdraws the jersey from within. It smells of him and unfortunately, her brain has decided to register that as safety. She changes into it, moving slow so as to not exacerbate her wounds, and crawls into bed.

Hermione waits until she’s silenced the curtains around her bed to cry. The sobs rip painfully through her body, loud and devastated. Hermione curls in on herself, clutching at her chest. It hurts, like her heart has been crushed and her bones have caved in. Cormac had taken many things from her. He’d taken her security. Her confidence. Her strength. Her autonomy. He’d taken her wand, and therefore her magic. He’d reduced her to nothing, to lower than soil, and he’d beaten her like she didn’t matter.

She deserved this. This was her punishment for what she’s going to do to her parents. It doesn’t matter that it’s the only way to keep them safe—she’s still going to be taking their lives, and she still needs to be punished for that. The universe had decided that punishment would be tonight.

So she accepts the pain and soaks in it, letting it absorb into her and start its journey to becoming self-hatred.

The next day, Hermione uses a charm to quickly remove all of her braids and get her kinky coils back. She breathes a sigh of relief when they're gone. She doesn't know if she'll be able to wear braids again for a long time.

She drinks another pain potion to get through the morning. She’s only got a few left, but she figures if Malfoy follows through, she won’t need more after today. It helps to hide her limp and dull her sadness, enabling her to mask her pain better and appear normal. She smiles and greets her friends, chats with them, pays attention in class, and generally acts as though nothing happened. She even manages to walk past Cormac several times in the corridors without feeling affected by him, and she's perfectly able to attend Frog Choir practice in the morning before breakfast and hit all of her notes perfectly. And it’s all thanks to the pain potion.

At lunch, the Malfoy family owl comes winging up to her in the Great Hall. Harry and Ron, who are sitting down the table with Seamus and some others, both stare at her like they want to set her on fire. Luna seems unperturbed and Ginny looks curious, but neither one questions her. Nearby tables are whispering, gossiping about what they’ve already been gossiping about since the jersey incident. The rest of Gryffindor House looks at her like she’s betrayed them—including Cormac, who seems to be none the wiser to the events of the previous night. Even the professors and Headmaster are watching.

The majestic, fluffy silver owl drops off a parcel wrapped in brown paper, waiting patiently while Hermione picks up a grape and feeds it to him before giving him a gentle pet down the back of the head. He hoots in what she thinks might be gratitude, and then takes off, soaring over to the Slytherin table. Hermione tracks the flight, her gaze flickering past students, past the shoulders of Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson, to where Malfoy sits across from them, facing toward the room as he eats a rather elaborate roast beef sandwich. Their eyes meet and her breath catches in her chest.

Because Malfoy is staring at her like he wants to eat her.

Chapter Text

Chapter Three

Geraldine’s Dittany Dream.

Seated on the edge of her bed, Hermione stares down at the plastic container in her hands. Her thoughts are dancing, sambas and ballets and swings swirling together to the tune of a perplexing song. One half of her mind is completely and utterly traumatized. She can still feel the harsh press of Cormac’s fingers upon her skin, scratching and scraping inside of her. The deep ache in her skull is persistent, scolding her for choosing not to go to Madam Pomfrey. The wounds he cut into her with greed and malice hurt.

Malfoy had made good on his word. He’d sent her a medicinal salve.

Hermione thinks back to the previous day, to when she’d accepted the parcel from his owl. His owl had been quick, but it was so clearly Malfoy’s that she hadn’t been able to deflect the fresh wave of suspicious questions her Gryffindor peers volleyed her way. She’d had to come up with a lie about Malfoy owing her for breaking her inkpot in the library—that McGonagall ordered him to replace it. But with the jersey situation, Hermione knew she was toeing a dangerous line.

Most everyone believed her.

Most of them.

“What are you doing, Hermione? We’re going to be late for choir.”

Hermione glances up. Parvati’s standing near the door, organizing her books, parchment, and quills in her satchel. Her ink-black hair hangs in a thick plait down her back, the tip brushing the swell of her backside, and her robes are worn neatly over her uniform. Her dark brown skin glints russet in the morning sunlight shining through the windows.

“Right,” Hermione says, shaking her head as though she can rid it of her nightmarish memories. It makes her vision swim. “I’ll get dressed. Just give me five minutes.”

Parvati’s brown eyes wash over Hermione’s body, lingering on Malfoy’s jersey. His jersey, which she’s worn again for pyjamas. It’s a glorified oversized jumper that she could wear as a dress if she wanted to, but it’s comfortable. Comforting for the darkest reasons.

“Do you plan on keeping his jumper, then?” Parvati asks. “I noticed you’ve been wearing it to bed.”

“Oh…” Hermione stares down at the Dittany again, tucking some of her box braids behind her ear. She resists the urge to wince, her scalp still tender from how hard Carmac had yanked on them. “I tried to give it back. He said to keep it.”

“Merlin,” Parvati says, sounding shocked. “He just gave it to you?”

Hermione nods. At her feet, Crookshanks weaves through her ankles before trotting over to the door and waiting for it to be opened.

Parvati frowns. “But…why?”

Hermione closes her eyes, glass walls closing in around her.

How can she possibly explain what happened? That Draco Malfoy, of all people, rescued her from living death? That she called for him, and he came? That Malfoy tortured Cormac McLaggen until he wet himself, and she has no idea why he went to such lengths for her?

How can she tell anyone what happened when she’s the one who erased the entire encounter from Cormac’s mind?

“I don’t know,” Hermione says, partially the truth. “He’s strange this year.”

“I’ll say. Everyone’s noticed it—he’s pale as a ghost and barely speaks to anyone. Even Colin said he’s stopped harassing him in the corridors. Apparently, he hasn’t said a word to him.”

“Yes, he’s…definitely different.” Hermione sighs. “Let me go and get dressed. Meet in the common room?”

“Yeah, of course.” Parvati pauses. “I won’t tell anyone, you know.”

“Tell anyone?”

“About you keeping the jersey. I don’t know if anyone else in our room knows, but I won’t say anything to anyone else. I can’t imagine going through what you went through, being hexed in the stands like that. I don’t blame you for wanting to keep the thing that made you feel safe in that moment. So, I won’t tell anyone you’re keeping it.”

Hermione opens her mouth to tell her she has nothing to hide, that there’s nothing to not say, but that’s a blatant, imbecilic lie. There’s plenty to hide. Plenty.

“Thank you, Parvati,” she says, flashing her a half-hearted smile. “I’ll go get ready now.”

Parvati nods and leaves, Crookshanks darting out before her.

Hermione showers with the speed of a god, keeping her braids piled on top of her head to make sure they stay dry. She opens the Geraldine’s and spreads the salve along her scalp, in-between the neatly-organized boxes that make up the foundation of her braids. The soreness dissipates immediately, providing her a modicum of relief. She then applies the salve to the various bruises and scrapes on her arms, torso, and legs, until all that remains to be dealt with is what lies between her thighs.

Hesitating, she looks down at the clear salve, glistening on the tips of her brown-skinned fingers. She chews on her lower lip. This should be simple, shouldn’t it? A quick swipe and probe, and then the pain will stop.

Except it isn’t simple. Not when Cormac lingers in every part of her mind, observing her. Watching her with a smug smile. After all, he’d managed to catch the prestigious Hermione Granger unawares and touch parts of her that nobody else had.

Her eyes fill with tears, stinging with shame. She can’t do it. The Geraldine’s was perfect for everything else, but these particular wounds will have to remain, to heal the Muggle way.

Frog Choir is something that Hermione didn’t intend to do this year, as the last time she was a member, it was Third Year. But with her course load and the tension of knowing Voldemort is back, she needed something for herself. Something she enjoyed not for academic reasons, but for the sake of it. Something she’s good at. And now that she’s older and her voice has had the chance to develop and mature, she’s happy she chose to return to it.

She’d be remiss if she didn’t admit that she enjoys the reactions she gets when she sings. The general consensus seems to be that nobody thought Hermione could be hiding such a talent, and that it’s bewildering why she hadn’t stayed in the Frog Choir. But Hermione knows it wouldn’t have been possible. Fourth and Fifth Years were overwhelming, busy, and anxiety-inducing. There was no room for her to do things she enjoyed for the sake of it.

The few Slytherin girls who are in the choir, however, never seem able to wipe the disgruntled expressions off of their faces when she performs. Namely Pansy Parkinson, who was picked to perform the Christmas solo for the last two years in a row, who now has to watch Hermione take her spot. And as kind-hearted as Hermione is, she’s not above pettiness when it comes to the monstrous bully that is Pansy.

Pansy has a nice voice. It’s clear. Crystalline. Soprano. She sings almost entirely with her head.

But Hermione’s voice is better. As a lyric coloratura soprano, Hermione’s voice has a wider range. It has more power, can hit the highest and the lowest notes without cracking. She hits runs that could rival a gospel choir in America, and she sings with her body. Her gut, her diaphragm, her chest, her throat, and her head. 

Hermione knows it infuriates Pansy. That she bursts at the seams with jealousy knowing that a Muggle-born witch is not only more intelligent than her, but is more talented than she is in a category she herself is part of.

After the horrible things Pansy has said about Hermione, Hermione enjoys being conceited from time-to-time when it comes to her.

“Fantastic, Miss Granger. Absolutely stunning. I dare say I chose the perfect person to perform the solo at Christmas dinner,” Flitwick says, a distinct flash of pride passing over his face after the last note of Hermione’s voice fades out. “Now, I’d like to spend the last ten minutes of practice going over the schedule for the performance. We’ve got only one week to go!”

Hermione returns to her spot with the rest of the twenty choir members.

“Brilliant, Hermione,” Parvati whispers from beside her, threading her arm through hers. “Are you nervous?”

“Yes,” Hermione admits, also in a whisper. “I’ve never sang solo in front of anyone before.”

“I’m curious what everyone will think,” Parvati says, her eyes glittering with excitement. “Maybe it’ll be enough to break the spell Lavender has over Ron, hm?”

Hermione feels heat rush to her cheeks. Parvati isn’t the only one to know her unrequited feelings for Ron—Luna and Ginny know, too. Harry as well, given he let her cry all over his shoulder after the first Quidditch game of the season.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I don’t have feelings for Ron anymore. He and Lavender are happy together.”

On her other side, Luna lets out a dreamy sigh. “Your voice is quite lovely, Hermione. You should be proud.”

“Thank you, Luna.” Hermione reaches for Luna’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “So is yours.”

Luna, who is a solid alto, answers her with a small smile. 

As Frog Choir practice ends, students begin to file into the Great Hall for breakfast. Food starts to appear on the tables. Flitwick dismisses the choir, so everyone is able to leave the area that surrounds the podium and split off to their respective House tables.

Parvati meets up with her sister, and Luna and Hermione continue on toward the end of the table closest to the entrance. They have to push their way through the crowd, unable to chat above the din of conversation. They’ll be able to once they sit down to eat. Ginny, already seated, waves them over.

As Hermione follows Luna, she can’t help but glance down the table. Harry is seated with their other Housemates, laughing at something Seamus is saying. Nobody seems to pay attention to the lovesick puppies that are Ron and Lavender, who are feeding each other with obnoxious expressions. It’s strange, feeling so far away from Harry and Ron, her best friends.

When she was hexed in the Quidditch stands, it combined with the Lavender situation and she's certain it changed things between them.

“Whoa!”

Hermione lets out a yelp as she runs into someone’s chest. That voice. She knows that voice. She blinks and looks up.

Fear explodes in her chest like a livewire.

Cormac.

“Morning, Hermione,” he says, and in his eyes there’s nothing to indicate that her Obliviation failed or was shoddy. “Better keep an eye out for where you’re walking, eh?”

She scrambles backward, eyes wide and frozen upon him. Words are trapped in her chest, constrained by memory and terror. She’s painfully aware of the stinging pain inside her, the pounding ache at the back of her skull, the ghost of bruises on her arms. It’s almost as though she’s right back in the dungeon corridor, trapped on that window, screaming and pleading.

Cormac’s friendly smile falters and his brows draw together in puzzlement. “All right there, Hermione? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m fine,” she breathes out, hiding her trembling hands by gripping the strap of her satchel. 

“That’s good. Anyway, I’ll see you in class.”

He pats her shoulder as he walks past her, seemingly unaware of the way her body goes completely rigid.

Hermione closes her eyes and counts down from five in her head. She wishes she were able to do Occlumency. At least then she’d be able to block out the memories of the previous night. She doesn’t want to forget, lest the ghost of his touch be imprinted on her soul and she be unable to know why. She just wishes she could tuck them away for a little while.

When she opens her eyes, her chest stills. Malfoy’s walking in through the doorway, tall and lithe, looking pale and drawn in his all-black suit as usual. He’s so pale that his veins stand out blue against his skin and reddish-purple darkness shades the skin beneath his eyes. That grey-eyed gaze is intense, piercing across the distance to her. She stares at him, unsure how she should act around him now. He arches one eyebrow, as if challenging her to do something. To walk up to him or wave or—or something.

He tortured someone. He used an Unforgivable. The Cruciatus. And she watched before she Obliviated that individual. She’s a criminal—an accomplice to Malfoy’s crimes with crimes of her own. They would both be arrested if anyone found out. Her friends and professors would be absolutely horrified.

Why isn’t she horrified?

Hermione’s eyes flicker down to the ground before returning to his in time to see him heading to the Slytherin table.

Spell broken.

Gingerly, Hermione slides onto the bench next to Luna, gritting her teeth against the discomfort in her core. She knows she should have used the Dittany there, but the thought of it has her wanting to scream. She doesn’t want anything invading her body, even herself.

“Good morning, Ginny.”

“Morning,” Ginny says around a mouthful of breakfast. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, just a bit tired.”

“She’s nervous, too,” Luna says as she peels a small orange. “The choir performance is only a week away, you know.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Ginny exclaims. “I’m so excited about that. I still can’t believe you got the solo.”

“Pansy was positively tickled over it,” Hermione says, trying to act normal in spite of the fact that she feels anything but. “Every time I sing at practice, you’d think her head was about to implode. I could swear steam was escaping her ears.”

“Then it’s worth it, if even just to make her jealous.”

As the day goes on, Hermione grows more and more uncomfortable. Fortunately she has no classes with Cormac, but it feels like when she sits, her wounds close. When she stands up and walks, they break open all over again. She barely survives Defense Against the Dark Arts, when Snape has them all moving around the room practicing. The constant movement makes her wounds hurt worse. At lunch, she can’t sit on the bench without shifting again and again, trying and failing to get relief.

Potions is surprisingly the most bearable. She doesn’t have to sit and stand over and over. She stays standing and doesn’t have to move from her spot until the class is over. It enables her head to clear, freeing her up to get increasingly frazzled as Harry’s potion once again comes out perfect. If her hair weren’t in braids, she knew it would be reaching for the sky by now.

How the Hell is he doing so well? He’s not stupid, not at all, but he’s never excelled at potionmaking. How is he suddenly not only excelling, but achieving near-perfection every single time? Hermione asks him several times how he knows all the tricks he does, but all he does is say that he made a wild guess.

It’s infuriating.

She glances at Malfoy a couple of times. When she does, she doesn’t see the borderline-demonic grin and bloodthirsty twinkle in his eyes that she’d seen when he was torturing Cormac. She merely sees a boy that’s very focused on his work, careful and precise. Strands of his platinum-blond hair fall forward to shroud his eyes as he watches himself slicing and crushing ingredients, and Hermione forces herself to look away every time he lifts his head to look at his cauldron. 

Harry finishes his potion first, followed by Hermione. Soon enough, so does the rest of the class and they’re dismissed. After exchanging a few pleasant words with Ron and Harry—the latter of which makes sure to tell her to keep an eye on Malfoy whenever possible to try and catch a glimpse of his left arm, Hermione heads for the library. It’s her free period, so she’ll use it to study. Maybe it’ll help keep her mind off of all the things that are plaguing her.

The suspicion from her peers because of the jersey situation.

Harry’s obsessive need to find out if Malfoy is a Death Eater.

Cormac.

Her parents.

Now that she thinks about it, she really isn’t processing any of this well, is she? In the past three days, she’s been violated twice. First, by a targeted hex during the Quidditch game. Second, by Cormac McLaggen. There are more people who have seen her nude body than she ever wanted, and she’s sitting uncomfortably in a chair, trying not to think about how badly her wounds hurt. How badly she wants to submerge herself in the Black Lake so the icy water can freeze the top seven layers of her skin off. Maybe then she’d escape the feeling of Cormac’s meaty, violent fingers.

She’s supposed to be a Gryffindor, isn’t she? Why isn’t she courageous enough to heal herself?

Memories of her mother’s pottery collection float past, reminding her that she’s supposed to be the perfect daughter. Now she’s her mother’s cracked vase, and her shame is stretching the lines wider. Soon, she’ll be completely broken. Not even gold will be enough to fix her.

Hermione stares down at the Arithmancy book on the alcove table, late afternoon sunlight filtering multicolor through the stained glass window panes. The words and numbers are blurring together, and she isn’t entirely certain it’s because she’s distracted. Her head hurts badly, aching and throbbing at the back from the inside out. It’s a wonder she’s made it through the day, what with all this pain she’s in.

A thought pops into her mind that disturbs her so greatly that she slams the book shut.

I’m worthless now.

Hermione stares at the book cover, her vision blurring for another reason. Her throat aches with the sudden wave of devastation that encompasses her and she slaps a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob that tries to escape.

No. She can’t. She won’t cry. She wept all night and it only exacerbated her headache. Made her feel pathetic. How dare she weep for something that the fates bestowed upon her? 

Because Cormac was preemptive karma. She’s going to Obliviate her parents and upend their lives. So the universe sent Cormac to punish her in advance, knowing there’s nothing that will change her mind. Voldemort is back, and it’s only a matter of time before her name ends up on his list given how close she is to Harry. Then he’ll come after her, and everyone she cares about. Her family. Her parents.

She has to do it. She has no other choice.

But karma came for her anyway.

“Granger.”

Hermione startles at the sound of the voice behind her. She knows she should draw her wand or do something to protect herself after what she’s been through, but for some reason, she doesn’t.

Because it’s Malfoy.

“Malfoy,” she says, her voice cracking in the middle. “Can I help you?”

“I don’t know. Can you?”

Brow furrowing, she turns her head just as he approaches. He comes to stand beside her chair and the table’s edge, his gaze seeming to glow opalescent in the shadows, peering through the shroud of his fringe as it shifts forward. Not for the first time, she takes notice of the strong, sharp line of his jaw and the angles in his face that form an almost catlike appearance. He looks dangerous, off-limits, and like a walking poster child for staying the Hell away.

And yet.

He’s the one who rescued her from Cormac. Malfoy used the Cruciatus on him specifically because he’d tried to violate her. Because he had violated her. When she screamed for him to help her, he was there. When someone hexed her clothes off, he was there. After years of Malfoy being the one to torment her, it’s odd knowing that of all the people in this school, he’s the one she feels safest with.

For now.

“What do you want help with?” she asks, pushing her braids back over her shoulder. “Is it for class?”

His lips flicker into an amused smirk. “No. Although if you want to do my homework for me, swot, that can be arranged.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Shame. I could really use some assistance in Potions.”

“Oh, come off it,” she scowls. “You and I both know you’re excellent at Potions.”

“I’m excellent at a lot of things. Shall I list them?”

“No. Just tell me what you want.”

“Take this.”

She watches as he reaches into the pocket of his slack trousers and withdraws a small glass vial. He holds it out to her. The potion inside is a dark, rich crimson-red.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Something for your head.”

“What will it do?”

“It will heal you.”

Hermione narrows her eyes. “Did you brew this?”

“No.”

“What?!” Alarm heats her blood and she glares at him. “Did you steal this from Professor Slughorn? Or Madam Pomfrey?”

“No, and no. Now take it.”

“Not until you tell me who you stole it from.”

“I didn’t steal it.”

Hermione snatches the vial and holds it tight in her closed fist. “I’ll take it when you’re not around me.”

“You received my gift, did you not?”

“Yes.” She wants him to go. To leave her alone. This is all too overwhelming. “You saw your owl drop it in front of me yesterday.”

“Did you use it?”

“Obviously.”

“Care to explain why you’re squirming around in your seat like a trapped squirrel?”

“None of your business,” she snaps. “I don’t know why you care, anyway. I don’t even know why you helped me. Why you’re trying to help me now. Why you keep helping me.”

“If you think it’s because I care about you, temper your expectations and eradicate those thoughts.”

“Then bugger off, Malfoy, you great, big prat!” she hisses, her eyes blazing. “Get away from me!”

“What’s the issue?” he asks. “Why didn’t you use it?”

“I did use it,” she says curtly, lowering her gaze to the potion vial in her hand. She toys with it absentmindedly. “Just not everywhere.”

“Why?”

“Why do you care?”

“Why, Granger?”

“Stop. Asking.”

“Granger—”

“Because I don’t really feel like having something invading my body again, all right?!” Hermione cries, and then she glances out at the library to make sure nobody heard her. She lowers her voice. “I tried, all right? But I couldn’t do it. I’ll do it when I’m ready.”

He stares at her. His expression is unreadable. Closed off. His eyes blank in a way that reminds her of an ice-covered wall, the ice so thick that it's almost white. He crosses his arms over his chest. 

“Drink the potion now,” he says. “While I’m here with you.”

“I don’t—”

“Drink…” he says, his voice like ash in the wind. “...the potion.”

Hermione looks down at the vial. It’s a potion she doesn’t recognize—she’s never seen one this deep a shade of red before. And yes, Malfoy has saved her arse twice now, but does that make up for five, nearly six years of bullying and cruelty? It certainly doesn’t breed trust. She might feel safe with him right now, but could that trust spell her downfall?

Malfoy scowls.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Just look at me, will you?”

Hermione does.

“Keep your eyes on me. Don’t look away.”

Hermione’s frowning again, but she does as she’s told, if only out of curiosity. His gaze draws her in, holds her there and pins her in place. 

“Take the potion.”

Automatically, she raises the vial, glancing down at it.

“Look at me, Granger. I said don’t look away.”

Hermione once again does as she’s told, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. She hates eye contact. Despises it. It stresses her out and confuses her and makes her feel like someone’s peeling the flesh from her very bones. But there’s something about the wall of ice in his gaze that makes her feel less…uncomfortable.

“Why should I drink it?” she whispers back, and her voice is tremulous. She doesn’t know why she should take it when Cormac was a punishment. Wouldn’t healing herself go against the fates’ desire?

Malfoy crouches down beside her, one hand on the tabletop and one on the back of her chair. He’s so tall that this puts him at eye level with her seated form. She feels the heat of his knuckles seeping in through the fabric of her robes and button-up shirt.

“I told you. It will heal you.”

“But—”

“You’re in pain, aren’t you?”

His voice is deceptively soft, as soft as the snow that blankets the ground outside of Hogwarts. For a moment, she can pretend he cares. 

“Yes,” she says, her voice hitching and eyes stinging once again. “He hurt me.”

“I know. I know he did. Drink the potion, Granger. It’ll make you feel better.”

Without removing her eyes from his, she pops the tiny cork out of the vial and raises it to her lips. His eyes fall to her mouth, watching as she tips the potion inside. The liquid is thick, borderline viscous. Cold and sticky.  She gags on the metallic flavor, nearly vomiting into her own hand as her stomach rebels and lurches in her abdomen.

“Swallow it all,” he says in that same gentle tone. When she does it, gulping it all down, he says, “There you go. Feel better?”

Hermione nods, feeling the wounds healing already. She opens her mouth, trying to decide whether or not to thank him. If it were anyone else, she would have already done so. But it’s not. It’s Malfoy. He may have had a valid reason for giving her the jersey, and saving her from Cormac might just have been a general sense of morality. But everything else…?

What if he had an ulterior motive?

“You know, Granger,” he says as he stands up, his tone conversational, almost lyrical. “You seem conflicted over my actions with McLaggen, yet you watched me as I tortured him within an inch of his life. Is it because you regret letting me do it? Or is it because you don’t regret it at all? Or maybe..." He steeples his fingers and looks upward as though he's thinking deeply. "Maybe you wish it could have gone on longer. For being a Gryffindor, you have quite the twisted general sense of morality.”

Hermione looks up at him in surprise.

“How did you…?”

Malfoy cuts her off.

“Careful, Granger. You’re giving me quite the arsenal. A bad man might use it all against you. Especially if he has an ulterior motive.”

Hermione opens her mouth to speak, to retort and give him a piece of her mind, but she doesn’t get the chance. It seems like he’s gone in the blink of an eye, much too fast to be normal, but she knows better. The potion’s still working through her system, mending her wounds. Her head must not be healed all the way.

Merlin, what an awful potion. It didn’t have the overtly-disgusting flavor of something like Polyjuice, and though it tasted coppery, it wasn’t anywhere near sweet. It tasted like…like a papercut, or the sort of scratch Crookshanks gives her when he’s being boorish.

That couldn’t be it.

Could it?

Hermione wrinkles her nose, staring down at the empty vial. Slowly, she holds it under her nose and inhales.

It smells like blood.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four

The following morning, Hermione realizes that she won't be able to find her father’s Christmas gift in the wizarding world.

She writes her mother a letter telling her this, and telling her what she had intended to purchase for her father. She knows her mother will be able to find it in the Muggle world. Once the letter is sealed with wax in its envelope, she tucks it into her satchel to take it to the Owlery after breakfast. Then she hurries down to the common room to meet with Parvati so they can walk to Frog Choir together.

Hermione has been thinking about the strange potion Malfoy gave her since the moment she realized it smelled like blood. What sort of ingredients could be combined to make a healing potion that smelled and tasted overwhelmingly like blood? She spent her entire evening in the library, poring over Potions textbooks from Years One through Seven, and none of the potions within them had the appearance, taste, and scent of blood. This means that wherever Malfoy got the potion from, if he truly didn't steal it, it’s not a potion that's part of Hogwarts’ curriculum.

Curiouser and curiouser.

As she’s walking to the Owlery, someone falls in-step with her, their arm brushing against hers. She cries out in terror, every nerve ending catching fire, and whirls to face them. Her wand is held up in a trembling hand, the tip pressed to the newcomers' jaw.

“Ronald,” she breathes, relief flooding her and washing away her adrenaline. She drops her wand arm. “It’s you.”

“Blimey, Hermione. You’d think I was You-Know-Who, or something.” His endearingly crooked teeth flash as he gifts her with his goofy grin. His ginger-red hair flops forward on his forehead as he looks down at her. “I saw you walking and wanted to join you."

Hermione returns his grin. “I’m just a bit jumpy these days, you know.”

“I believe it.” His smile falters into a sympathetic look. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, actually. It’s just been…difficult…to get some time by my bloody self. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” Hermione lies. “Why?”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Hermione, someone hexed you starkers in front of the entire school. And then Malfoy was the one to bail you out. He’s awful.”

Hermione opens her mouth to say he’s not that bad, but stops herself. Ron won’t like that much. She stays silent, letting him continue speaking.

“I should have been the one to give you my jersey. But you know Lavender. Merlin’s beard. She’d have had a fit. In any case, I just wanted you to know that me and the guys are looking into it.”

“Looking into it?”

“Seamus, Dean, Harry, and I. We’re asking questions and trying to figure out how he managed to do it.”

“...huh?”

“Malfoy. It’s obvious he’s the culprit, though we don’t have the faintest clue why. We already know he's probably a Death Eater."

“I really don’t think he’s a Death Eater, Ron, and I don't think he's the one who hexed me,” she says. “He healed…”

She trails off.

“Healed what?” Ron’s eyes harden and not for the first time, Hermione feels the old butterflies acting up. He’s usually so cheerful and lackadaisical, but when he looks like this—serious and determined—she remembers why she fancied him.

Fancies.

Fancies him.

“Nothing, it—he, erm…” She scrambles for another lie. “A younger student’s toad got out and got hurt by Crookshanks. He happened to be…erm, walking by. He healed the toad. So, I don’t think a Death Eater would do that.”

Ron scratches the back of his head, looking perplexed. “That’s weird. You’d think he’d sooner set the thing on fire.”

“Right, exactly. I was surprised. So, I’m sure he’s just…having a difficult year. His father is in Azkaban, so maybe he’s just…changed.”

Ron barks out a laugh. “Changed? Malfoy? Yeah, right.”

Hermione supplies him with a weak laugh, trying not to think about the way Malfoy’s face looked when he was torturing McLaggen for her. The coldness in his voice when he said McLaggen had a death wish, and the gentleness in it when he guided her through taking the potion yesterday. The way he’d told her he didn’t like the way she looked when she was afraid.

The softness of the fabric of his jersey against her skin at night.

Most disturbingly, the butterflies in her stomach continue to flit. 

“Anyway, thank you for looking out for me,” Hermione says to Ron. “You guys don’t have to keep searching. I’m sure it was some younger student.”

“No can do, Hermione.” He slings an arm around her shoulders and hugs her to his side, resuming their walk to the Owlery in the empty corridor. Her cheeks flare with heat. “I’ve made it my personal mission to find out who did it and give them a piece of my mind. All of us have. If it’s not Malfoy, then it’s definitely got to be a Slytherin. We’ve started there.”

“Any leads?”

“No. But Harry thinks he can use the map to figure out who’s been sneaking. Well, besides Malfoy.”

A thought.

“Did Harry mention anything about the night of the Christmas party?”

“No. Why?” Ron’s brow furrows. “Did you see something?”

“No, I—I mean, I don’t know if he told you, but Malfoy did crash the party. Snape hauled him off. Then Harry left afterward. I was thinking maybe he might have checked the map when he got back to the common room. Maybe he saw some other people out of bed.”

“Besides Malfoy and Snape?” Hermione nods. “No, I don’t think so. He never said anything. I’ll ask him.”

Hermione doesn’t reply, because she already knows the answer. It’s no. He hadn’t checked the map that night. If he had, he would have seen Cormac, Hermione, and Malfoy in the same exact spot. And if he’d seen that, he would have confronted her.

“Where’s Lavender?” Hermione asks.

Ron glances sideways at Hermione, the corners of his mouth pulling into a grimace. “I have no idea. I’m sure I’ll see her in the Great Hall. I needed a breather. She’s…well, you know…Lavender.”

Hermione manages a small, empathetic smile. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure she means well. Given that she loves—” When Ron cringes, she amends. “—fancies you. But I can understand why you feel the way you do.”

“She’s driving me batty, Hermione, I swear. I can’t so much as use the loo without her hovering right outside the door. Bloody Hell, it’s like she wants to wear my skin.”

Hermione bursts out a laugh, the petty side of her finding the tiniest bit of satisfaction hearing how annoyed he’s becoming. Not that he owes Hermione a date or a snog or a relationship, or anything, but she does like to think there had been a high probability of she and Ron becoming something if Lavender hadn’t sunk her claws in.

Of course, now Hermione doesn’t think it would matter if he left Lavender or not. She’s not the same girl she was a few days ago. She’s not that perfect daughter, perfect student, perfect girl. She’s broken and cracked and her insides are exposed.

“What are you doing for Winter hols?” Ron asks.

Hermione hesitates, her fingers gripping the strap of her bag a little tighter as Ron drops his arm from her shoulders. “I’m planning on going home to see my parents, of course.”

“Ace. That’ll be nice. I bet they’ll be glad to see you.”

“Yeah,” Hermione says softly, her gaze dropping to the ground as they continue walking. “I hope so.”

Her pained thoughts drift to her parents, who are unaware of the dangers looming over their world. Unaware of Voldemort’s return and existence. They don’t know that war is coming, brewing on the horizon. The decision to erase their memories after the school year weighs heavily on her heart, heavier even than before. Given a choice, they’d never agree to it. Though she knows it’s necessary to keep them safe, it doesn’t change the fact that what she’s doing to them is cruel.

Ron’s voice breaks into her thoughts.

“You okay, Hermione? You seem a bit...distant.”

Hermione blinks, her mind snapping back to the present. “Oh, I’m fine. Just thinking.”

He looks at her with concern, but he doesn’t press further. They reach the base of the Owlery, slowing to a stop. They face one another and an awkward energy vibrates between them. Hermione twirls one of her box braids around her finger, chewing on her lower lip. Ron’s gaze follows the movement and for a moment, Hermione wants to know what he thinks. Does he like her hair? He’s never complimented her before, not really. She wishes he would.

“Well,” he says with another grimace, “I guess I should get going before Lavender finds me and thinks you’re trying to steal me. She nearly hexed some Fifth Year the other day because she thought she was looking at me too long. But if you ever want to talk, you know where to find me.”

Hermione ignores the childish dismay she feels at the fact that he doesn’t compliment her hair. “Thanks, Ronald. That means a lot. And thank you for walking me here.”

He gives her a small, reassuring smile before heading off in the direction of the staircase room. Hermione watches him go, feeling a mixture of relief and sadness. As she climbs the stairs to the Owlery, she tries to push her worries aside. She has to stay strong for herself and for her parents, no matter how heavy the burden of her secret.

Hermione ascends the stairs, pausing halfway to catch her breath. Her thighs are burning. When she reaches the Owlery at the top, she crosses the bridge, the tops of the parapets reaching just above her head. Not having an owl of her own, Hermione approaches Hedwig.

“Hello, Hedwig,” she says brightly. “I hope it’s not too much to ask for you to deliver this letter to my mother for me? And here’s…” She rummages through her satchel and produces a plastic baggie filled with grapes. “A treat for you.”

Hedwig hoots, ruffling his stark white feathers, and pecks the grape out of Hermione’s fingers. He munches away while he wraps his talons around the edge of the envelope. Moments later, he’s gone, soaring into the morning sunlight in the direction of the snow-capped mountains. 

Sometimes, Hermione wishes she could fly. And not on a broom. She’s terrified of heights, but the thought of being an animal that can launch itself into the air and take to the skies, to freedom itself makes her ache. If only she could take to the skies with her parents and escape.

But Harry needs her and if she leaves, Voldemort will follow.

“Granger.”

Hermione stiffens and doesn’t turn around. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were following me, Malfoy."

Malfoy hums, the sound rumbling through his chest. “Maybe I am. Or maybe I happened to see you and the Weaselbee in the corridor.”

Hermione scoffs and whirls around, her hands on her hips over her robes. “Don’t call him that. That’s rude.”

“I’ll do whatever I want, Granger,” he says, his lips curling into his trademark smirk. “I’ll say whatever I want, too.”

“It was only a matter of time. This little reprieve of false kindness you’ve given me was bound to falter.” Hermione crosses her arms over her chest and gives him a distasteful wrinkle of her nose. “Come on, then. Let’s hear it. Insult me like you’ve been waiting to do all week.”

Malfoy’s leaning against the open doorway, not wearing his robes or a coat. Just his typical three-piece black suit. His hands are in the pockets of his trousers, and his hair is surprisingly unruly. Hermione can see the beginnings of dark blond stubble appearing on his jawline. He looks down, shaking his head as he breathes a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” she snaps.

“The fact that you think I’ve been waiting to insult you all week.”

“Malfoy, come off it. You’ve been insulting me since we were eleven.”

His eyes snap back to hers.

“Perhaps now it serves me better to be a little bit nicer to you.”

Hermione frowns, peering up at him in suspicion. Keeping her arms crossed, she walks toward him, cautiously. Like waiting for a snake to strike. He watches her, pushing away from the wooden doorframe. Behind Hermione, she can hear the gentle hoots from restless owls.

“What is it that you want?” she asks. “You say it serves you. Serves you for what purpose?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“This isn’t funny, arsehole. Nothing about the past week has been humorous for me. This has been the worst week of my life. And you being a part of it has made it infinitely worse.”

“Funny? You think I’m laughing?”

“You’re smirking at me like you think you’ve won some game. But there’s no game. I’m not playing with you, Malfoy. I am not your entertainment this year.”

“I’m not looking for entertainment,” he says, combing his fingers backward through his silk-soft hair.

“Are you trying to threaten me into not reporting you for using an Unforgivable?”

“I’m not trying to threaten you.”

“Then what do you want?”

He says nothing. He merely stares at her, studying her face as though he’s making sure of something.

“Just leave me alone.”

“I will.”

“Good. Stop following me, too.”

“I’m not following you.”

“You’re a liar, Malfoy.” Her fury infuses her tone. “You are following me. You followed me to the library yesterday, and you followed me here today.”

He barks out a laugh, mirroring her by crossing his arms over his chest, too. “Oh, I might tell you a joke, but what I’ll never do is tell you a lie. I’m not following you.”

“There you go, fixing your lips to tell me something I already know,” she snaps, tossing her braids angrily behind her. Her patience is wearing thin. “You either want something from me, or you’re mocking me in some way. Which is it?”

“You’ll see.”

Hermione doesn’t know why, but it’s that last sentence that sets her off.

“You know what, Malfoy? I don’t care. I don’t care one fig if you want anything from me. I don’t owe you anything. After the horrid way you’ve bullied me, the fact that you think you can do a few nice things for me and then I’ll do something for you is absolutely mad. I don’t care what ulterior motive you have—whether it’s because you’re having a go at me, or you’re looking for revenge because of your father—but you won’t get a thing out of me.”

The mild amusement in his eyes fades into nothingness. To a barren, icy wasteland of cold disdain. He takes a step toward her, their bodies within inches of one another as he looms over her. Up this close, she can see that his eyes are made up of several different shades of grey—storm to ash to snow.

“My father has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh? Are you sure? Because from my perspective, that’s exactly what the problem is. You blame me, don’t you?” 

In her mind, flashes of the night in the Department of Mysteries appear. Running from Lucius Malfoy. The prophecies shattering on the dark marble floor. Antonin Dolohov’s stray curse, slicing up the center of her diaphragm, leaving her with a violet scar that will never go away.

Malfoy’s gaze flickers down her body, lingering in the vicinity of her chest. Hermione resists the urge to take a step back. This isn’t the first time he’s done something odd—something that almost seems like he’s reading her mind.

“What’s surprising, Granger, is that I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you for anything. But what I can’t figure out is what the fuck makes you think you can talk to me like that?”

Hermione can’t help it.

She moves back.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” He smirks again. “I guess I did tell you a lie.”

Fear blasts its way through her, hot and alive. Hermione draws her wand from within her robes, jabbing the tip of it underneath his chin. He doesn’t even flinch, and her voice quivers as she speaks.

“Leave me alone, Malfoy. Stop following me, stop helping me, and stop…stop…”

“Stop what?” he asks, false innocence dripping from his voice like poisoned honey. 

“Stop frightening me.”

He tilts his head to the side, raincloud eyes glittering with malice.

“Careful, Granger. You tempt me.”

Hermione shoves her way past him and takes off between the parapets, practically flying down the stairs of the tower. She runs all the way to Frog Choir, which she is exceedingly late for.

She doesn’t look back.

Hermione tries not to think about Malfoy all day, but it’s nearly impossible. He’s in several of her classes and somehow, always in her line of sight in the Great Hall. He watches her all through breakfast, lunch, and supper and it’s all she can do to act normal. Things are already tense with her House because of the jersey he gave her. Last thing she needs is for them to notice him staring at her like a complete creeper. 

The fates must really despise her.

She's on her way to the library after supper, the glittering Yule decorations that line the walls glinting in her peripheral vision, when Malfoy simply steps out from around the corner about ten meters away. He plants himself in her path, tall and imposing like always, with a facial expression that reminds her of a cat. A cat that's hovering between the decision to pounce or the decision to go to sleep.

Hermione's heart rate spikes with both terror and anger, and her fingers tingle with the desire to reach for her wand. She gives him a sour look. They made it clear to one another this morning that nothing fond exists between them.

What the Hell does he want?

"Haven't you got somewhere else to be, Malfoy?"

"You smell guilty," he says, his voice rough like what she imagines it might be like to travel the asteroid-riddled rings that embrace Saturn. Malfoy watches her with eyes as cold as stars, unfeeling and empty.

"I smell guilty?" She gives him a perturbed look. "What on Earth are you talking about?"

“You smell guilty.” His upper lip pulls into a sneer. “In fact, you reek of it."

Hermione looks behind her, over her shoulder as though they have an audience. What the bloody Hell is he on about? She turns back to face him, nearly leaping out of her skin when their eyes meet not inches away.

He's standing right in front of her.

She cranes her neck to maintain eye contact. His platinum hair, uncharacteristically ruffled, shrouds his eyes. Grey eyes which—now that she's up this close to him—seem more sunken and hollow than usual. His skin stretches over sharp cheekbones, his face appearing angular in a way that's neither aristocratic nor wanted.

"You don’t look well," Hermione tells him with a frown. "You should go to Madam Pomfrey."

"I don't need to see Madam Pomfrey!" His words come at her, lashing like they're trying to pin her in place. Her lungs arrest themselves. When Malfoy repeats himself, it's slower. "I do not need to see Madam Pomfrey."

Hermione scrutinizes him, searching past the gauntness of his appearance.

"Are you ill?" she asks. "What do you need? Do you need some sort of healing potion?”

"No, I—" His eyes flit away from hers for a moment, averted towards the holly on the wall across the corridor, then back again. "I don't need any potions."

Irritation flares within her, like heat from the sun, and Hermione's indignance draws her shoulders back. They set themselves in a frame of her annoyance.

“Didn’t I tell you to leave me alone? I meant it. Leave me alone, Malfoy.”

She spits the words out like they're made of acid and prepares to move past him. She's got to return a book to Madam Pince and she doesn't have time for his childish antics. She plans to take her braids down tonight and she’ll be up until the wee hours of the morning if she doesn’t get started as soon as possible. He may have helped her this week in many ways, but at his heart, Malfoy is still Malfoy. He's annoying and he's brutish and he's crass and he's—

He's right in front of her again.

"Ugh!" Her irritation forces the sound out of her as she glares at him. What is wrong with this guy? "You're so bloody weird! Why do you keep doing this?!"

"Because I want to."

Hermione's head pulls back on her shoulders. There's something off about the way he's looking at her—like his calm, emotionless disposition is a façade. There's something hiding beneath it, swirling like shadows made of Dark Magic.

"How did you move so quickly just then?" she demands, forcing her voice not to quiver.

He ignores her.

"You smell guilty," Malfoy says in a low voice that's too soft to be anything other than dangerous, "and that's why I know you have something planned."

Hermione freezes.

He couldn’t know about her parents…

Could he?

Malfoy's lips quirk upward, like he's halfway between a smirk and a grin. Like's he's just spun a web and wrapped it around her entire body. Like she's caught in the woods with a cliff at her back and a wolf at her front.

"Well," he says in that same quiet voice. "No need for me to explain how I know—judging by the look on your face, I'm right. It’s the reason why you let me use an Unforgivable. The reason why you Obliviated McLaggen. You’ve got something planned that isn’t exactly morally correct."

Hermione's mind is racing, hurtling through space and time to the past. She's trying to figure out how to lie her way out. There’s no way he knows about her parents, but she can’t leave anything to chance. Malfoy is the son of a Death Eater, and Voldemort is back. Is Malfoy himself a Death Eater? She doesn’t think so. But him knowing anything about her family is too dangerous.

She's already given herself up by her reaction, her lapsed silence, the way she keeps swallowing against her nervousness.

"What does it matter to you?" she counters, her brows coming together as she glowers up at him. "You aren’t exactly the paragon of morality, Malfoy. You’re a bully. You’ve always been a bully. And you cast those Unforgivables like you’d done it before.”

Malfoy doesn't seem fazed by Hermione's anger or defiance. His gaze remains fixated upon her, simultaneously blazing and frigid.

"I am the one that carries your secrets, Granger. I’m the one who saw you erase McLaggen’s memory. I’m the one who cast those Unforgivables, yes, but you? You had every chance to stop me and guess what? You didn’t. You wanted me to do it. You wanted him to suffer.”

“No, I—”

“Yes, you did. Don’t you fucking pretend. You look guilty. You smell guilty. You are guilty. And all I have to do is report you, and you’re done. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless you do something for me.”

“Good God.” In the wake of the dawning realization, Hermione scowls. “You’re blackmailing me.”

“Ten points to Gryffindor.”

“I could report you for casting the Unforgivables,” she says, unable to keep the edge of desperation out of her voice. If she gets in trouble for Obliviating someone illegally, there’s a high probability that she won’t be able to do what she needs to do to protect her parents. She has no other plan for them. “They’d never believe anything you said if I did that. The Headmaster might not even believe you anyway.”

“And you’d like to take that risk? No? Thought not. If you value that precious blood running through your veins, you'll agree to do what I ask you to do."

He's speaking like she's already said yes. As though he's already got a claim to what he's going to ask for, and he believes he owns some part of her—some part he's sure she won't want to give.

Hermione clenches her teeth, looking down at the stone ground. What choice does she have?

“I need to…I need to know what it is you want me to do before I agree to anything. I’ll judge the risk for myself. If it’s illegal, then I’ll need to think about it.”

"My presence here is illegal," he slings back without hesitation. "I'm unregistered."

Unregistered? What would he need to be registered for?

Hermione stares at him while he remains quiet, letting her put the pieces together. 

Malfoy had heard her desperate pleas from the dungeons, appearing impossibly fast, far sooner than the distance should have allowed. His unnaturally quick movements, once attributed to the confusion of her head injury from Cormac, now appear to be true. That same night, the strange way that he answered things she was thinking in her head as though she’d spoken them aloud. The potion he gave her in the library had tasted, smelled, and looked like blood.

Harry was partially right.

Malfoy has changed this year.

"Malfoy…what are you?”

“What am I? What am I? Oh, you precious, little thing.”

His eyes are still aflame—way too bright for a face as pale and haunted as his own. Slowly, ever-so-slowly, his lips pull up into a broad, wicked grin. And when he does, Hermione’s breath catches, trapped in the confines of her terror-filled chest.

He has fangs.

“You have no idea.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Five

"Does anyone else know?"

"My parents,” Malfoy replies. “Snape. And others, but nobody here at Hogwarts."

“The potion you gave me the other day. Was it—”

“My blood. It healed you.”

Her stomach lurches, roiling in churning waves. “You fed me your blood?!”

The blank expression on his face shifts as he lets his mouth curve into another smirk. “Don’t worry—it’ll fit right in. Dirty blood is dirty blood, and my blood isn’t pure anymore.”

Hermione ignores his jab. This is too serious of a situation. She glances around, seeing that they’re still alone in the corridor, but there are portraits on the walls just past their location. Behind Malfoy, Hermione can see the entrance to wherever it was he was hiding out before he revealed himself to her. She makes a beeline for it, forcing him to have to follow her.

It’s an alcove. There are torches and a velvet flag hanging on the wall. There is no window and no portraits.

They’re alone.

Her hand tenses, ready to pull out her wand if the answer he gives to the next question is anything other than the one she wants to hear.

"How have you been keeping yourself fed? So help me, Malfoy, if I find out you've fed on anyone in this school, I'll be the first to turn you in. I don’t play."

"You want the truth?" He's looking at her like she might disappear if he diverts his attention elsewhere.

"Yes."

"I haven’t. When I was…turned…I did feed to complete the transition. But I haven’t since then.”

Hermione can't help it. She draws back, stumbling a few steps behind her. Her heart feels like it's going to beat out of her chest as adrenaline and common sense start to take over. She feels sick to her stomach, feels it growing in her gut. He’s a newborn vampire.

From what she’s read, that means he’s volatile. Unpredictable. Dangerous. And he’s telling her he’s only fed once. Without blood, a vampire won’t die quickly. It will grow more and more ravenous, the magic feeding on itself and the vampire’s body until it withers.

Now that she’s seeing him for what he really is, the combination of fire and ice in his eyes isn't as poetic as she thought.

If there's one thing Hermione knows how to be other than good, it's careful.

She reaches one hand into her robes and slowly, carefully draws her wand. He doesn’t make a move to stop her. Holding the wand at her side, she speaks.

"That's dangerous, Malfoy. Why didn't you get registered when you were first turned?"

Even as the words leave her lips, she knows how stupid they sound.

"And be unable to finish school? Be forced to leave Hogwarts?" Malfoy snarls, his face coming to life and contorting with unbridled fury. "Are you fucking mental? Under no circumstances can anyone find out.”

“Who turned you?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

Hermione knows that she's in a situation right now. What Malfoy has told her could get him arrested on the spot. If he'd just been turned, he'd have had ninety days to get registered with the Ministry, and he wouldn’t be able to return to Hogwarts. He's taken a huge risk. She can’t tell anyone.

Back to the matter at hand.

He’s blackmailing her.

"So that’s it, then," she says. "You’re going to try to kill me."

“I’m not going to kill you, Granger.”

“But you are blackmailing me.”

"Think of it like…" He looks up briefly. When his eyes meet hers again, they seem to glitter. "A proposition."

“And what is the proposition?”

“I want you to be my blood source.”

This…this is an issue.

It’s an issue that could end in mass bloodshed. He's a vampire who hasn't fed. He's more than hungry. He'll devour people without remorse or morality if he goes feral, which is exactly where he's headed if he doesn't find a blood source.

What she doesn’t understand is why he came back to school this year, and why he hasn’t fed.

Perhaps those answers will come with time.

"I'm not exactly interested in dying," Hermione says into the tense silence. "I'm sure you can understand."

"I told you—I don't plan to kill you." His tongue darts out to wet his lips, his teeth pressing into his lower lip. A suspended moment passes during which she can see the razor-sharp tips of his fangs nearly piercing into the skin. "I only want to taste you."

His words send a shiver down the length of her spine, running from the base of her neck to the dip of her lower back.

"How—" Her voice catches in her throat, forcing a pause. "How often?"

"Whenever I'm hungry."

She wants to say something sarcastic, to remind him she knows he's hungry now, but she has to maintain decorum. If she shows him more hints of weakness than she already has, she won't be able to negotiate. And all she has right now is her wand and the ability to negotiate this into her favor in some way.

And she knows the wand is useless.

"You can't possibly trust me."

"I don't trust you. Don't need to." Malfoy reaches up to push long fingers through his hair, sweeping the strands back. "You're the witch that cares about magical creatures, aren't you?"

"Well…yes, but—"

"But what? I don't count because I'm me?"

Hermione frowns. She cares about all magical creatures, including the apex predators. Even if one of them happens to be Malfoy. She won't let him reduce who she is into someone who picks and chooses whose life has value. Not when he seems to think his opinions on blood purism are forgotten just because his isn’t pure anymore.

"I care about the state you're in," she says, clutching her wand in both hands. Her satchel strap hangs off of her shoulder like it's about to fall off. "And I care about everyone else at this school. I won't have you losing control, going feral, and killing anyone because you're starving."

"I am starving. I'm very, very hungry."

"Fine. This isn't a proposition, and it's not blackmail," she says. "It's a deal. If you don't tell anyone about what I did to Cormac’s memory, then I won't tell anyone what you are. And when you're hungry, I will provide you with my blood. An even exchange."

Malfoy leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he shoulders the dark stone. His head tilts away from it, his fringe falling to the right. He doesn't bother to push it back from eyes that are once again hot upon her. The empty void there fills with that faint amusement from earlier.

"Look at you, little negotiator."

"Yes, well." Hermione gives him a sour look. "You'll also have to give me time to think about it, and I'll extend you the same respect. This is a deal and all deals should be contemplated."

"I've already done my thinking," he says, "and I've decided what I want."

The way he's looking at her now…

He's got her. She's the Snitch, she's hovering right in front of him.

She doesn't know how to get out of this.

I hate him.

"I should have hexed you by now.”

"But you haven't. I don't think you need to do any contemplating at all. Do you, Granger?"

"Oh, Malfoy, you are foul. You—"

Malfoy flashes forward across the alcove, so fast that she might have missed the movement if she blinked. She staggers back but his hand is on the base of her throat, clutching the junction of her shoulder and neck. The points of sharp claws are starting to dig into her skin, through her robes.

"And you smell sweet," he hisses, his eyes now glowing a vibrant violet as they flicker up and down her face. "I bet you taste that way, too."

She sucks in a terrified breath, holding it there in a bid to keep herself from panicking.

Hermione's a Gryffindor and Gryffindors don't panic.

"Fine," she spits out, leveling a glare so vitriolic in his direction that she hopes it makes him wither faster. "When you're hungry, you can have my blood. But only what you need, and you aren't allowed to take it directly from the vein. Do you understand me, Malfoy? Your lips will not touch my skin. It’s imperative."

"Why?"

She gives him an annoyed once-over. "Don’t you pay attention in class? We studied vampires right after we studied werewolves in Defense Against the Dark Arts in Third Year. Vampires are predators. In the wild, there are some predators that have venom to keep their prey paralyzed and weak. Like an Acromantula, for example. And vampire saliva has biological properties that affect the predator’s prey."

Malfoy's brows come together. "It'll paralyze you?"

"No."

"Then what will it do?"

"You didn't pay attention in—"

"Witch." His tone is a warning. It's taking everything she has within her to keep her knees from buckling under the pain of his claws. “What will it do?”

"It will arouse me."

His hold on her loosens. Before his parted lips can form around any further words, she pushes past him and heads in the direction of the Gryffindor common room.

She’ll take the book back tomorrow.

It’s the next morning, and Luna is looking at her.

Hermione can feel her eyes boring into her from the side and not for the first time, she feels like Luna can read her mind. Which wouldn't be surprising. Luna's got that sort of air about her. She has always given Hermione the impression that nothing escapes her, and that she knows as much as the Marauder's Map at any given point in time.

"You seem to have something causing you stress," Luna says, her tone lilting even whilst whispering.

"This classwork McGonagall’s got us working on is very taxing,” Hermione replies, tapping the feather of her quill. She spent the evening taking her braids down, so her brown hair springs out in its natural kinks and coils to her shoulders. “It’s definitely stressful.”

"Yes, short essays are very taxing. Three hundred words is quite difficult." Luna giggles. “You must be tired.”

Hermione clenches her teeth, her head rolling towards her tablemate with a sigh. "It is when your mind's as full as mine is."

"Oh, I'm sure. Have your feelings for Ron gotten worse?"

Hermione's lips twist to the side as she thinks on her answer. Her feelings for Ron have keeled over and died. And not the normal kind-of death. No. The kind with the maiming and ripping and the tearing and the bleeding and the pain and the—

"He makes a much better friend than otherwise," she says after a moment. "But that's not what's bothering me. I have a lot of other things to worry about."

"That's unfortunate," Luna says, twirling her quill on her parchment and drawing some sort of intricate design with it. Her chin rests in her hand, her waist-length blonde waves falling forward to curtain her face. "I'm sure he and Lavender are very happy."

Hermione nods, lost in thought.

She isn't sure which is more shocking to her: the fact that Malfoy is a vampire, or the fact that the Malfoy family has been keeping it hidden. She’s certain they don’t want it discovered that their bloodline was effectively eradicated. Especially with Voldemort being back.

And she knows that Malfoy is a Malfoy. He was raised by Lucius, someone who is excellent at hiding in plain sight. Malfoy hasn't committed some moral failing by telling her what he is, by spilling the ink of his secrets all over her pages. Not at all.

In true Slytherin fashion, he's made an intentional move in his best interests.

Because he's telling the truth. He's withering and he wants to survive. He doesn't want to fall into a state of feral from which there's no coming back from. He doesn’t want to die. 

Hermione lifts her gaze from her parchment, gazing past the hunched-over heads of her classmates to McGonagall's desk. The professor is seated, her quill flying back and forth across some sort of parchment as she writes. Her glasses are perched on the bridge of her nose and for all intents and purposes, she looks completely unaware of the fact that she's got an unregistered vampire in attendance at her school.

If Hermione tells McGonagall, she knows what will happen. Aside from him turning her in for Obliviating Cormac, Malfoy will be arrested. Unregistered magical creatures are not allowed to attend Hogwarts. Vampires are required to register with the Ministry.

Eventually, like with all things that she's gotten herself into, someone in authority will need to be told. But for now, Hermione will do what she does best and go to the library, where she'll brush up on everything there is to know about vampires. Then, she'll seek Malfoy out and talk to him so they can plan out how this is all going to work.

"Hermione," comes Luna's dreamy voice from the right. It pulls Hermione out of her deep reverie. "After winter hols, I need your help with something and we may need an empty classroom. It's only my second time and the first time wasn't what I thought it would be."

Second time? First time?

What did that mean?

"All right," Hermione says, curiosity melting away her desire to keep working on Transfiguration classwork. She keeps her voice low so they won't get in trouble for talking. "What did you need help with, and why do you need a classroom? Because if it's a room you need, there's always the Room of Requirement.”

“Oh, yes.” Luna looks thoughtful for a moment. "That does sound like a better idea."

"Then it's a plan." Hermione pauses then repeats her unanswered question. "What did you need help with?"

"I'll tell you closer to the day. It's nothing to stress over. We've got plenty of time."

Hermione nods, and Luna returns to her classwork. It doesn't seem like what she's going to tell Hermione "closer to the day" is anything to fret over, so she resolves to put it from her mind for now.

After all, she's got bigger issues to deal with.

Malfoy hasn't fed in, what? Three, four months? Possibly more. That means that he's strong. He's quite literally starving to death and hasn't hurt anyone. It shows her that there must be something within him that helps him resist his urges.

Hermione wouldn't be herself if she weren't educationally intrigued by that.

"Luna, one more question."

"Yes?" Luna looks at her expectantly.

"Have you ever met a vampire before?"

"Are you asking because of that research project in Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

"The project?" It takes a second for the gears to click into place and then Hermione's nodding, the lies materializing in her mind at lightning speed. "Yes, that's my topic. Vampires. I was thinking of taking a modern angle, perhaps writing about the sociology of vampires as a species. And I've never met one. I suppose I'll ask around."

"Have you thought about collaborating with Draco Malfoy?"

Hermione's tightly-clenched heart relaxes and drops to the pit of her stomach. She stares at Luna for a moment, wondering. Studying her.

Does she know?

"No. Why would I do that?"

"Because he’s chosen the same topic.”

Damn it.

"Perhaps." Hermione grimaces. "But you know Malfoy—he and I don't exactly get along. He’s been more nasty than usual, even though he gave me his jersey."

"Maybe it's the moon," Luna says around a yawn. "Strange things tend to happen. Just look at the way the Bralletworths spin in the windows in the mornings—you'll see."

"Yeah," Hermione says, even though she knows the moon is not anything of consequence to Draco Malfoy. "Maybe."

Hermione goes to the library during her lunch period.

It's the only thing that soothes her when her mind is working in circles like this, riding a carousel of questions. The only time the carousel stops is when she opens a book and finds the answers.

She heads straight to the magical creatures section, hunting down books with spines that intrigue her. She finds a few books on the history of vampires, then settles upon one that talks about the signs and symptoms of vampirism. Hermione isn't sure she's going to like it because the author is a known blood purist who views things like vampirism and lycanthropy as diseases rather than curses, but she’s going to try it anyway.

The one thing she needs to know is when Malfoy will go feral. She needs to know when it will happen because if it's already started, she needs to ensure it's reversible. If he’s at risk, she'll give him her blood to protect the students of Hogwarts. She's got no problem doing that.

"Hey, you."

Hermione looks up from the back of the book and glances to the right.

It's Blaise Zabini. His kinky-curly hair is freshly shorn and his umber skin glints dark underneath the winter sunlight that pours in through the library windows. He grins and it causes Hermione to smile, too.

"Hey, Blaise. How are you?"

"Just fine, just fine." He leans against the shelf, his elbow propping him up. "What are you doing?"

She decides to keep up the lie she'd told to Luna. "I'm researching for the Defense Against the Dark Arts project. Why aren't you at lunch?"

“Research, same as you.”

“What topic did you choose?”

"I'm not sure, actually," Blaise says, his free hand reaching for a random book on the shelf closest to him. "I can’t decide between something fey, or just plain old werewolves."

Hermione tilts her head to the side. "Well, werewolves have the largest amount of literary works compiled. They're the most well-studied creatures in the magical world. If you want the project to go easiest, then I'd say go with werewolves."

Blaise nods, flipping through the pages before he grins at her. "I could ask Draco. He's met werewolves, believe it or not."

Hermione lets out a small laugh, not sure how to respond. She doesn't know if Blaise knows about Malfoy but she knows she's not going to be the one to tell him. She knows better than to spill other people's secrets before she's gotten a chance to get control of the knowledge she has.

Her parents’ future and her own is at stake.

"Okay," Blaise says, "I think I will do werewolves. Something about them intrigues me, you know? The fact that someone could be completely themselves one moment and then in the next, fall into darkness and become a monster. That's interesting, don't you think?"

"Yes, but it's also quite terrifying. Imagine losing yourself like that every month. It must be a nightmare."

"Must be." Blaise sighs and picks up another book. "But hey, thanks for the idea. I was having a hard time picking my topic."

"Of course. I'm always here to help."

Blaise turns to walk away, leaving Hermione to refocus on the vampire books. But then he stops and turns back to her.

"Do you ever wonder what it might be like to meet Fenrir Greyback?"

Hermione's stomach twists. She doesn't like to think about him. He’s the werewolf that turned Professor Lupin.

"I don’t," she says, hugging the book she's found to her chest as she faces Blaise fully. "Why? Do you?"

Blaise takes a moment to reply, his eyes searching down into hers like he's intrigued by her. She's used to it, though. Blaise is just like that—thoughtful and inquisitive. It's one of the reasons why they hit it off in class.

"Sometimes," he says. "People—or creatures—like that go into history. I think it would always be interesting to meet a historical figure before they're written into the books. I heard he was sighted some time this summer.”

"He was?” Hermione’s eyebrows shoot up. “Where?”

"I’m not sure. But I’ve read a lot about him. If he’s around, that can’t be good."

"Yeah.” Hermione stops herself from sighing. She can’t think about Fenrir Greyback right now, or about werewolves at all. She’s on a mission. “Well, I'd better go find a table and start studying."

"You're not going to eat?"

"I'll be all right," she says as she walks by him. "I'll eat a big supper. See you later, Blaise."

"Bye, Hermione."

Hermione finds a spot to read the book she's chosen, unsure if it's going to have the information she's looking for. Unsure if she's wasting her time, and if maybe she ought to just march down to Dumbledore’s office and tell him that Draco Malfoy is a bloody vampire who hasn't fed in months and who's essentially forcing her to become his blood source so he doesn't report her for erasing a student’s memory.

She slams the book shut within seconds of opening it.

Tosser.

Bloody tosser.

And she, the fool for letting fear trod through the forest of her bravery. She'd never met a vampire before today but she doesn’t want to be scared of them. Scared of a ferrety git like Malfoy. He's the type to burn the legs off of insects in front of his friends just to prove he doesn't feel remorse. The type of boy who makes fun of people for having bushy hair or having dead parents.

He's a bully. At their hearts, bullies are just cowards.

Draco Malfoy is a coward.

Hermione gathers the vampire book close to her chest, pulls her bag onto her shoulder, and dashes out of the library. Madam Pince calls to her, confused, but Hermione just yells the title of the book over her shoulder. The last thing she needs is a stolen book on her transcripts.

No, she's got to get to the Great Hall and pull Malfoy out to have a discussion. Now.

Because she knows exactly what to do.

In Fourth Year, Hermione cheated.

She spent much too long with Viktor at the Yule Ball, completely disregarding all of her homework assignments so she could be flung and twirled around on the dance floor. Viktor had whisked her away to some place outside she can barely remember, where she lost her virginity in the grass with a warming charm that kept her toes from going numb. 

It was all right, but it wasn’t anything like the romance novels said it would be. 

In any case, she neglected her homework for the rest of winter hols so she and Viktor could spend every waking moment snogging. She soon learned that while he was a reserved gentleman, he was still a boy and he was plenty happy to drown the silence between them in the depths of her body.

By the end of the holiday, she hadn’t completed any of her homework—that included her study guide for Charms. Flitwick had told them that the day they returned from break, he’d be holding an important quiz on a historical topic he’d asked them to study over the course of the fortnight. Since she hadn’t studied, she was forced to do the unthinkable. Something she’d never do again, even if she was forced at wandpoint. Something she’d never tell anyone, on pain of death.

She went to a Sixth Year Prefect who was a little too interested in Harry, and she promised she’d get him an autograph if he wrote down all of the important things she needed to know for the quiz. She hadn’t known if Flitwick’s quiz was new or recurring, but she’d taken a spell in the dark in the hopes that it was. 

It was.

The Prefect was almost as studious as her and he had a photographic memory. He remembered the quiz, said it was something Flitwick did every year, and knew all of the answers by heart. Fortune had, for once, shone on Hermione. She accepted his request for Harry’s signature on his favorite photo of him from a Quidditch game—which Hermione was certain he’d taken himself—and she’d hurried off before anyone saw them talking outside the Great Hall.

And then she faked the autograph.

She faked the autograph, brought it to the forever-unnamed Sixth Year, exchanged it for the answers, and cheated on the quiz. 

It was so embarrassing. So nerve-wracking. Her palms had been so sweaty that she had to use a Muggle pencil since she couldn’t hold her quill right. Her hair frizzed up to the point where she had to cornrow it that night before bed just so she could keep the curl pattern defined for the week. Flitwick had paced up and down the aisles and good Merlin, if he’d seen her glancing down at where she’d written the answers on her forearm, she might have pitched herself through a Quidditch hoop.

But he never saw her. She never told.

And she never got caught.

Hermione had filed that lapse in academic, moral judgment away, blocking it out like the moon across the sun. Eclipsing the bad choices with good ones, until the only opinion she had of herself was that she is and always will be a good girl.

At least, until this year. Now that she’s going to destroy her family and the entire school has seen her nude and Cormac has ruined her and Malfoy has pulled her into several lies…cheating on a quiz would be preferable to the pain she’s currently suffering. The knives of karma have been buried deep in her heart, the fates twisting them cruelly just to watch her bleed.

If there’s one good deed she can do, however, it’s to help a magical being survive so he can get a fair shot at life. A fair shot in a prejudicial world where his existence must be registered with the Ministry, and any future he may have wanted for himself could now be shattered.

When she marches up to the Slytherin table and stands across from Malfoy, a spectacle for almost one hundred pairs of eyes to ogle over, she’s not worried about being bad or good. She’s not worried about the cheating or the autograph or her transcripts. She’s not thinking about the jersey or her friends’ opinions or Cormac or anything.

She feels empowered.

“Come on.” She snaps her fingers and jerks her head toward the doors. “I need to discuss something with you.”

Malfoy sets his fork down and slows his chewing. His gaze shifts past Pansy Parkinson, who Hermione is standing directly behind, and cuts into her like lightning through ice. She can tell he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s excited.

He thinks she’s already made her decision.

“I’m eating,” he drawls.

She wants to snark at him, to remind him that he’ll never feel full or sated no matter how much human food he consumes. That if he wants to feel full, then he needs to listen to her.

Instead, she just repeats herself.

“I need to discuss something with you.”

Malfoy scowls, his upper lip curling as he slams his hand down on the table. It’s an outburst of anger that causes the shoulders of the younger students in the vicinity to jolt. The Sixth Year Slytherins don’t react, indicating that they’re very well-versed in his tantrums. 

Hermione turns and heads back toward the exit without waiting for him, knowing that it doesn’t matter how fast she goes as long as they’re going to the same destination. She feels a sense of calm settling over her bones that only comes from confidence. And she’s got loads of confidence now that she’s figured out who really wears the crown.

As she walks, she throws a quick glance at the Gryffindor table. Relief spills into her veins. Most of her friends aren't present, having already finished eating. Yes, the rumors will spread by supper, but now she’ll be able to lie her way out of it.

Again.

Hermione and Malfoy head down the corridor, out into the winter cold that blankets the snow-covered courtyard. Hermione feels an initial discomfort that is increasingly becoming more familiar the more time she spends in his presence. 

She stops near one of the Grecian pillars closest to the castle. Malfoy joins her moments later, the look on his face as impassive as the intense curiosity that burns in his eyes.

Hermione folds her arms over her chest, her satchel swinging down by her thigh from the movement, and speaks.

“I’m the one in control.”

“What?” he says. Growls it like he’s angry at the slightest insinuation. There’s lines between his brows where they’ve come together in a furrow. 

“You heard me. I’m the one in control, therefore I’m the one who makes the decisions.”

“I agreed to your terms in the corridor,” he bites out. “You can’t just add more terms, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I went to the library,” she continues, as though he hadn't said anything at all, “and I decided it there once I realized the gravity of the situation.”

“So, you’re adding terms.”

“No. This is a request. A request with only one response—your agreement.”

Malfoy gives her a haughty scoff. “So, you’re blackmailing me as well, then? Gonna report me to the Ministry if I don’t agree?”

Once again, she ignores him.

“I think you need to do some research on your own, also. The more versed you are in the subject, the better. This is your life and if you’re asking me for help, that implies you want to live it. And you can’t live it in the dark. You could make another mistake.”

“Another? I haven’t made any mistakes.”

“Yes, you have. The fact that you’ve let this go on as long as you have is a mistake. A grave one not just for you, but for the students at this school.”

“I was trying not to hurt anyone. According to my father, there are ways to—”

“Your father,” she slices in with a hissing tone, “has been in Azkaban since June. There is no excuse. Yes, I know that you couldn’t have gone to the Ministry without losing your—well, everything. However you could have found alternate blood sources before now. You could have fed on animals. You could have—”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried that, that I’ve tried animals? It doesn’t work. It. Doesn’t. Work. It makes your veins feel heavy, like they’re full of potion cast-off. It tastes like acid. And I’m still ravenous afterward.” He gives her a disdainful once-over. “And to think, you’re supposed to be the intelligent one. Perhaps I should take a bite out of that orange monstrosity you call a Kneazle.”

Hermione’s irritation turns to rage like a crack of thunder in a stormy sky. She glares at him, her arms unfolding so she can clench her hands into fists.

“You could have spoken to me sooner, Malfoy! We have several classes together, and yet you’ve never approached me. Never said a word. Chance after chance, and you always chose to starve, until you found a way to blackmail me. I’m willing to bet you didn’t save me from Cormac for any other reason than—”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” he snarls. “That night, I came because you called. I didn’t realize I had an opportunity until you…”

A group of Fifth Years trounces out of the castle, on their way to Hogsmeade. Their excitable chatter falls into hushed murmurs as several sets of eyes settle upon Malfoy and Hermione. They pass by, and Malfoy resumes speaking.

“Until you Obliviated McLaggen. And even then, it wasn’t until we got to your corridor and I focused on the smell of your blood. That’s when the idea came to me.”

“And here you are, on your knees before me, begging for a drop,” Hermione spits. She doesn’t believe him. She doesn’t believe that he saved her because he wanted to. “You’re making mistakes left and right, so you’re not going to be the one in control of this agreement. Not when you’re in no position to have control over me.”

Malfoy sneers down at her.

“When I went to the library,” Hermione goes on, “I found a book and I realized something.”

“And what, pray, did you realize?”

“That you’re hungry.”

The look he gives her is bewildered. In the wake of his bewilderment, her lips tug up into the smirk she’s been trying to resist the desire to give him. She has the upper hand.

“You’re hungry, you’re in pain, and you’re frightened. You’re scared you’ll starve, and you’re scared of the Ministry. You’re scared of what will happen if it becomes common knowledge that your bloodline is no longer pure, especially now that Voldemort—” She’s surprised that he doesn’t flinch; he merely levels a calculating look in her direction. “—is back and war is on the horizon. But most of all, you’re scared of me.”

He looks angry now. “I’m not scared of you. You’re nothing.”

“Oh, but you are.” Her tone is sing-song as she takes a step forward, crowding into his personal space. “You’re scared of how much power I hold in my hands. I have the power to decide whether you get expelled or not. I decide whether you feed or starve. I decide whether you live or die. And if I wanted to…I could turn you in. Blackmail me all you want, Malfoy, but the punishment you receive would be worlds apart from mine.”

There is silence that stretches thin and tense between them as he glares down at her. The fury that burns in his eyes is white-hot, like a newborn star. 

“You won’t tell.”

“How do you know?”

To her astoundment, Malfoy slams her against the wall faster than she can blink. 

He does it with one hand, without so much as an exhaled breath. His touch is light but he’s so strong that his two fingers pressing against her chest make her gasp for breath. They’re literally pinning her left lung, pushing into her flesh so that when she tries to breathe, only the right lung can expand. It’s not enough air.

“Just because you think I’m scared doesn’t mean you’ve got a hold over me. It doesn’t matter how long it took me—what matters is that I finally approached you about it. If I hadn’t, I would have started picking you all off one-by-one until I wasn’t hungry anymore. And I would have saved you for last. I’m quite partial to sweets, you know.”

Hermione gasps for air, her vision spotting celestially-black at the edges. His words are alarming because she doesn’t doubt them. The person he was before this year is not the person he is today. And today, he’s not even a person. 

He’s a monster. 

“Malfoy—” Gasp. “—I can’t—” Gasp. “—breathe.”

Malfoy watches her struggle for a moment, the look on his face one of faint amusement. Like he’s watching a bird fly in a funny way. He’s more powerful than her and could simply kill her right now. He could drain the blood in her body and feel no remorse. He doesn’t have to make any agreements with her. He doesn’t even need to blackmail her. He’s doing it because he wants to.

“Who’s the one that’s in control, Granger? Huh? Who?”

Hermione holds fast, even as she struggles to get the words out.

“You're the—one that—needs me.”

He ducks his head down until their eyes are on the same level. His words come slow and sure, like he’s plucking petals off of a rose stem.

“Does it look like I’m on my fucking knees for you?”

She squeezes her eyes shut against the burning in her chest. “You—came—to me.”

“I could kill you with a little extra pressure. You realize that, don’t you?”

“Then—” Gasp. “—do it. I’m not—conceding—to you.”

Her knees buckle. His fingers are the only thing holding her up. And he knows it, too, because in the next second he relinquishes his hold. A fluid movement brings his hand to her elbow right before she collapses, keeping her upright. Malfoy’s not looking at her, though—he’s gazing off to the right, into the shadows.

Hermione coughs as hard as she can, gulping in cold air that feels like heaven. “I want you to understand that you can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do. The fact that you thought I’d actually enter into a situation like this without thinking on all aspects—the fact that you thought that fear alone would—” She stops herself before she gets heated. “I mentioned the library book because I think that in addition to the terms, we should both learn what we can about your condition.”

“Why does it matter to you?”

“Because I can’t be your blood source forever. Feeding off of me is a temporary bandage for the problem, the problem being that you’re a vampire. Eventually, we’ll have to go our separate ways. There needs to be some sort of plan for you when that day comes.”

Malfoy removes his hand from her elbow, his gaze flickering down the length of her body as she staggers a bit. He says nothing as she massages the aching spot on her chest. 

It’s going to bruise.

“The point is, Malfoy, you won’t kill me. You need me. That’s why I’m in control. I’m your best shot at a future that doesn’t involve registration with the Ministry. And you know what will happen if you have to register. You’ll no longer be able to have a Vault at Gringotts, which means your parents will legally be unable to leave their fortune to you unless they completely leave the country and take their Galleons with them. It’s barbaric, but that’s the way things are.” She sighs. “At least, until I’m done here at Hogwarts. I can’t advocate until then.”

His jaw clenches. “Fine. I’ll do my reading. But you need to do your part, too.”

“And no one finds out about what I did. Right?”

“Right.” He tilts his head to the side, cocking it like a curious owl. His gaze is just as sharp. “Do we do it now?”

“No. There’s things to arrange beforehand. I need to do a bit of reading on my own, and there’s only a few days until the Frog Choir performance, which I need to focus on. I also need to go to the apothecary in Hogsmeade to get brewing ingredients. I can’t exactly ask Madam Pomfrey for Blood Replenishment potions.”

“Then when?”

“I’ll come find you when it’s all sorted but most likely, after winter hols.”

For a moment, Malfoy looks pained. He grimaces, his fingers tangling in his messy hair. In that brief space of time, Hermione sees him. Really sees him. The shadows beneath his eyes, dark and purple. The blond stubble on his jawline and above his lip. The fact that how tall and starved he is makes him look eerily gaunt, like he’s swimming in his black clothes. He looks ill in every sense of the word.

He looks hungry.

“Can you—” His voice has gone hoarse. “Can you be convinced otherwise?”

“No.”

His eyes flash. “Then why did you make such a big deal of bringing me out here? This conversation could have waited. Why would you get my ho—” 

Malfoy stops, dragging his hands down his face, scrubbing at it in exasperation. 

Hermione watches him. Studies him like one of her homework assignments. Analyzes what she can see and hypothesizes what she can’t. Figures him out. Realizes that she’s never had as much power over anything in her life as she does right now.

She can get him on his knees, if she wants.

And as they stand there, she can feel it through the tiny holes in her uniform shirt that his claws against her skin have created. 

Her blood.

Malfoy’s gaze falls to her chest, as does hers. Hermione can see a small spot of it staining the thin fabric and suddenly, the pain of her forming bruise pales in comparison to her amusement.

“Granger,” he whispers. “I don’t know if I can wait.”

It’s almost pathetic how intently he’s staring at the tiniest drop. Pathetic, how someone who spent so long trying to convince everyone how weak Muggle-borns were compared to Purebloods, can stand there and be knocked asunder by something so insignificant as a few drops of her muddy blood.

She looks up at him and wonders if she’ll ever pity him.

“Find something to dry your tears, Malfoy. You’ve starved this long.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Six

Hermione wakes in a cold sweat two nights in a row, pebbles rising along her skin as memories of Cormac dance like sugar-plums in her head.

She’s been pretending. For the past two days, putting on a performance of normalcy as she goes to classes. As she tries her damndest to act like a normal, regular student, and not an assault victim with a vampire floating in her orbit. She’s successfully managed to ignore Cormac's existence, to avoid his presence, but she lives in fear of that changing. He's in classes with her, but he sits across the classroom, tables away. He doesn’t look at her, and he doesn’t speak to her.

But she can hear him when he speaks to his Housemates. His voice crawls over her skin and claws deep into her, slithering around her organs and choking her lungs. She can barely focus on what her professors are saying, let alone find a way to cope when memories of his hands bruising her flesh attack her.

There's a small, terrified part of her that wonders if the Obliviation spell was completely successful. It was only her first time casting it. What if she didn't say it right? What if she didn't twist her wand the correct direction? What if one day, he's going to wake up and remember everything? If that happens, will he go to McGonagall and report her? Report Malfoy?

Or will Cormac attack her again and finish what he started?

Guilt floods her as she realizes that if she failed at Obliviating Cormac, there's no way she'll be able to successfully Obliviate her parents. She'll have no way to protect them from the Dark Lord.

Hermione drags herself out of bed and quickly dresses in her uniform. She's long-since taken down her braids, so when she pulls her bonnet off, her Afro is a crown haloing her head. Using her wand and a comb, she mists water onto her hair and detangles it before stitch-braiding it back into a puff on either side. She gazes at herself in the mirror, forcing a false smile and making facial expressions that will make her both look and feel some semblance of normal. So she can not look like she watched her childhood bully torture her would-be rapist before erasing said rapist's sick feelings for her.

She hopes and prays to Merlin that the memory charm worked.

The Gryffindor common room is as warm and inviting as always, the fire crackling merrily as morning shadows dance across the walls. It's not quite time for breakfast, so students are congregating, chatting amiably while they pass the time. Spotting Ron and Harry in the corner playing wizard's chess, she heads over and sits beside the game table. 

“Morning, Hermione,” Harry says with a gentle smile. “All right?”

“I'm doing just fine. Morning, Ronald.”

“Good morning, ‘Mione. Where’s Lavender?”

The smile Ron levies her way makes her heart leap slightly, a faint reminder of what she used to dream of. She ignores the unpleasant feeling that hearing Lavender’s name gives her, pushing aside the jealousy that lingers. Even if Hermione still wanted Ron, it wouldn’t matter now that she’s completely and utterly tainted.

“I think she was in the loo when I left, getting ready. I’m sure she’ll be down soon.”

“Ace. Come to watch me wipe the chess board with Harry’s arse?”

Hermione laughs as Harry scoffs his indignance aloud. She watches in amusement as the two wizard's play their game, relishing in the chance to be with her friends and not have to think about Cormac.

“Say, Hermione,” Ron says, his blue eyes settling upon her. “Lavender told me you're in Frog Choir this year. Is that true?”

Hermione’s brow furrows. “Yes. I have been all year.”

“What?” Ron's jaw drops. “I didn't know that. Harry, did you know that?

“Of course I did.”

“Blimey. I'm—”

“Unobservant?” Hermione supplies, ignoring the small flame of disappointment that ignites in her heart. She's been best friends with Ron for six years now. She knows how unobservant he can be. But she'd managed to convince herself that he notices things about her the way he does about Lavender. This is just more solid proof that things between them weren't meant to be.

“Well…it’s really surprising, innit?”

“How so?” 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you hum a tune, Hermione,” he says with a laugh. “Knight to E5.”

“You—!” Harry growls, placing one hand on his thigh as he inspects the board, studying a pathway for him to take to get himself out of check.

“I’ve been singing since I was a child, Ron,” Hermione says, reaching into her satchel to withdraw some of her Potions notes, as well as her textbook. They’re to be working on Wiggenweld today, and she wants to ensure her notes match the book. “Just because you haven’t heard it, doesn’t make it untrue.”

“No, I know,” he says. “I was just surprised, is all. Doesn’t the Frog Choir put on a concert every Christmas, or something?”

“Yes,” Hermione says, gaze skating over her parchment. “It’s tomorrow evening, at Christmas supper, right before we leave for Winter holiday. I’ve got a solo I’ll be singing, actually.”

“Oh.”

There’s something in his tone.

“What?” Hermione asks, lips pulled down. “Why do you say it like that?”

“I mean…well…” His skin flushes red, high on his cheeks, and he rubs the back of his neck. “You’re having me on, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me? No! Why on Earth would I lie about that?”

Ron holds up defensive hands. “I’m only saying, it’s a bit weird. Singing in front of everyone? You might sound like a dying toad, for all we know.”

Ouch.

Hermione’s heart spins and drifts down in her chest, embarrassment and hurt flooding her body. No wonder Ron never looked in her direction. No wonder he wanted Lavender. He doesn’t think Hermione’s very good at anything recreational, does he?

There are a lot of things that everyone has gotten wrong about her.

“Ron, come off it,” Harry says, frowning at him. “She’ll do just fine. I’m sure of it. Hermione never does anything by halves.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just more used to seeing her nose in a book, I guess. Like right now.” He nods his chin in the direction of her parchment, grinning widely. “You’re still going to let me copy your notes before Potions, right?”

Hermione’s shame causes her face to feel like it’s floating. Like it’s disconnected from her body. She doesn’t know what to do with it, how to arrange her expression so she looks normal and unaffected, so she keeps her eyes on her notes and book.

He can think whatever he wants. He’ll be singing a different tune tomorrow evening, anyway. Pun intended.

“I guess you’ll just have to see,” she says quietly, ignoring his request for her notes. “If I sound like a dying toad, I’m sure everyone will let me know.”

“Mione, I wasn’t—”

Harry perks up, a sudden thought opening his eyes wide. “Katie Bell.”

Like lightning, a flash of memory crosses Hermione’s mind. She can still remember the horror she’d felt when she saw Katie hovering in the air, suspended in agony and screaming to the white winter sky. It was terrifying.

“What about her?” Hermione asks.

“Have you heard anything about her condition?”

“As far as I know, she’s still at St. Mungo’s. Have you asked Professor Dumbledore?”

“No, I haven’t. I’ve just been keeping my thoughts to myself.” Harry looks down at the chessboard, watching Ron’s bishop attacking his piece. “I don’t want to point fingers without knowing for sure.”

“Point fingers?”

"At Malfoy, obviously. He’s the one that did it.”

Hermione rolls her eyes. “Not this again. I have told you again and again, Malfoy’s not up to anything nefarious. Certainly not the attempted murder of a fellow student.”

If that were the case, she thinks, Katie wouldn’t have been attacked by a necklace. She’d be drained of blood.

“I mean, with everything that happened at Slughorn’s, with the mead, with him sneaking around at night…” Harry sighs. “It’s not far-fetched to speculate, when I can see him disappearing on the Map each night.”

“Stop it,” Hermione says. She doesn’t know why he’s sneaking around, but she doesn’t care. All she cares about is figuring out what she’s going to do about his hunger predicament. There’s still research to do on that front. “Malfoy wouldn’t do that. It had to be a mistake, from someone outside the castle. It just isn’t possible.”

“Mione, you’re not exactly the best person to speak on Malfoy right now. You could be cursed.”

Hermione’s jaw falls open, dropping further when she catches sight of Ron’s grave nod.

“Is that what you think?” she says, setting her parchment down on the nearby table. “That he cursed me?”

The boys exchange glances, and that nearly sends Hermione into orbit.

“I can assure you, he has not cursed me. If he did, you’d know for certain, as I would be unable to focus on anything else. As for the jersey, which I know is the thing that’s making the two of you come up with these nonsensical ideas about me, it’s just an article of clothing. I was starkers in the Quidditch stands. Everyone was watching me, laughing at me. Instead of being bitter about it, perhaps the two of you should have been the first to offer me your jerseys.”

“Hermione,” Harry says, sounding exasperated. His green eyes are bright behind the lenses of his circular glasses, full of anxiety. “Don’t be angry. You can’t expect me to just trust him because of one good deed.”

“I’m not expecting anything out of either of you, other than to drop this business with Malfoy being some closet murderer. And maybe a little respect.”

“We respect you, 'Mione,” Ron protests. Both of them have abandoned their game to focus their full attention on her. “But we don’t trust him.”

“Then trust me!”

“We do!” Harry says, his voice rising enough to draw the curious eyes of Dean, Seamus, and some other Gryffindors nearby. “But no matter how much we trust you, we can’t trust him.”

“I’m not asking you to trust him. I’m asking you to let go of your vendetta against him when it comes to this subject.”

“Which subject? Him being sneaky and most likely a Death Eater? Or him giving you his—”

“All of it. I want you to drop all of it. He’s not a Death Eater. He didn’t hurt Katie. He didn’t poison the mead. He’s just a boy whose father is in Azkaban, and it’s causing some changes in his behavior. That’s all.”

“I think you’re cursed,” Ron says, shaking his head. “Imperius, no doubt.”

“We should honestly start following you around,” Harry adds in a grave tone that contrasts Ron’s rather amused one, “given he’s probably the one that hexed you in the stands.”

Hermione can feel her anger intensifying, her hands beginning to tremble with the building emotion. She doesn’t know how to explain to them that the only reason why she trusts Malfoy herself is because he literally tortured Cormac because he violated her. She may not know if blackmail was his only reason for helping her, but she can confidently say that he didn’t seem to care about the consequences or the possibility of Auror involvement if caught. He seems to worry about the Ministry finding out about his magical creature designation, that’s for sure.

She hates having to lie, but she can’t exactly tell them about Cormac, and she really can’t tell them Malfoy’s a vampire.

“I’m not a child, Harry, Ron. I’m nearly of-age. I have the highest marks of everyone in our Year. I am perfectly capable of keeping myself from being Imperiused, and I don’t need the two of you to look out for me. I can protect myself.”

“Bloody Hell, Hermione.” Ron lets out a laugh, looking at Harry before he looks over at her. His voice is louder now, loud enough for everyone in the common room to be paying attention to them. Whispers can be heard. “If we don’t look out for you, who will? It’s not like Malfoy’s the type to do it.”

Across the room, the door at the top of the boys’ stairwell opens and Cormac descends. He’s grinning, talking amiably over his shoulder with a Seventh Year, and he looks for all the world like he didn’t just destroy her days ago.

Because he doesn’t remember what he did.

Hermione made sure of it.

She’s so angry she can hardly breathe, and the weight of everyone’s gossipy gazes upon her is making her lightheaded with humiliation. She feels like they can see it in her—can smell it on her. The dirt and the rot and the filth.

She snaps.

“Actually, he is and he has,” she practically hisses, grabbing her satchel and stuffing her things back inside as fast as she can. “And to be quite frank with you, I trust him to protect me better than either of you. At least he doesn’t use me for my class notes. So next time someone hexes me, perhaps one of you should muster up the wherewithal to help me before Malfoy does. If you can move fast enough.”

Without waiting for a response, she storms out through the common room portrait, an aching loneliness following her like a despairing shadow.

The Great Hall is full to the brim, bedecked in Christmas decor and lights, and tables overflowing with food. Conversation rumbles and pitches, laughter sparkling like stars amongst the students. It’s the last supper before holiday, and though spirits have been low this year because of You-Know-Who’s return, everyone seems ready to focus on having a lovely Christmas. At the front of the Hall, between the professors’ table and the House tables, the Frog Choir is assembled. They’re draped in matching red velvet cloaks, their hoods up as a charm sprinkles false, disappearing snow over their heads. They have sung all of their songs but one.

Hermione’s solo.

She steps out in front of the choir, a sonorous enabling her voice to carry as loudly as though she were on speaker. Her soul has left her body and the faces of her peers are blurring together. The anxiety of knowing they’re all watching, waiting, judging makes it all the more terrifying when the music begins. Ron had spread the word quite effectively yesterday and all day, Hermione’s been having to defend herself while staying humble about it all. Nobody but the members of the choir and some of her girl friends believes Hermione will do a good job. Nobody believes she has any talent other than studying.

So she’s going to show them.

Conversation falls silent. A hush steals over the room. The candles dim and wink out, and the Christmas lights twinkle and glitter like galaxies above. Faces continue to blur until they melt together entirely.

And she begins to sing.

Hermione’s light-lyric soprano fills the vast room from wall-to-wall. She sings with an effortless grace, the words pouring out of her as if pulled from somewhere deep within, each note floating upward to the enchanted ceiling where it mingles with the starry lights. She hits every note. Every high. Every low. Every run. Timbre, tone, octave—everything comes together as perfect as it possibly could. Behind her, the choir sings to support her, slightly quieter than her, and she loses herself to the way music makes her feel.

Safe.

Though her eyes sweep over the entire room like she’s been taught to do, only one face seems to jump out clearly to her.

Malfoy’s.

He’s turned to straddle the bench of the Slytherin table, his robes worn open over his normal white button-up and loosened green tie. His blond hair is styled slightly, swept back in a stylish way without being slicked back like when he was younger. In this lighting, with his pale skin dancing with shadows and stars, he looks otherworldly. Pretty and handsome at the same time, like he’s fae or something inhuman.

Because he is.

And he’s so tall that he doesn’t have to crane his neck to see her. All he has to do is watch her, and watch her he does. In fact, he seems unable to look away. His usual cold expression has softened to something unreadable, something unknown flickering in his grey eyes as he views her. Hermione finds herself watching him back, as her voice swells and falls, unraveling the tight nerves in her chest. 

As she reaches the bridge of the song, a perfunctory sweep of her gaze through the room snags on the last person she wants to be able to make out through the blur.

Cormac.

Anxiety returns and fear spikes to the heavens. Her breath hitches, voice nearly faltering as she comes upon the most difficult part of the song. She can’t tear her eyes off of him. He’s watching her intently, looking awed and bright-eyed, and she feels like he’s slamming her head against the wall again. He raises his hand to comb his fingers through his hair and she flinches in a barely-noticeable way.

Look at me.

She can almost hear his derisive laughter as he attacked her, as he stole her autonomy and told her it didn’t matter what she wanted. As he punched her and bit her and gripped her cruelly.

Look at me.

Is the memory charm failing? Is Cormac watching her with smugness, knowing that he succeeded in breaking her, and now has every intention of reporting her? Is he plotting a second attempt to hurt her?

What if he kills her?

Oh, God. What if Cormac kills her? What if he comes after her when no one is around and she can’t get to her wand and he rips her clothes off and she screams for Malfoy but he doesn’t hear her and doesn’t come and—

Look at me, Granger. And don’t think about anything.

As though she heard his voice directly in her head, Hermione’s gaze snaps back to Malfoy. His sight is fixed on her, hard with an unfamiliar intensity, yet walled off with ice and stone. His posture, always precise and slightly aloof, has shifted. His shoulders are tense, his body leaning forward to draw closer to her song, as though she’s singing to him. In this moment, he looks both powerful and fragile, held up by the haunting beauty of her voice.

She wonders.

How much of the look in his eyes is just hunger?

Her eyes snap to Malfoy and for the rest of the song, she pretends nobody else is in the room. When the song ends and she rejoins the choir for the final two songs, she keeps her eyes on him. Afterward, when her friends in Gryffindor are swarming her, congratulating her and Parvati and everyone else in the choir, she keeps her eyes on him.

She doesn’t think about Cormac or what happened that awful, nightmarish night. She doesn’t think about the fact that a lot of the students in this room saw her nude before Malfoy gave her his jersey. She doesn’t think about the fact that Harry and Ron treat her like a child,  Because if she does, she fears she might fall apart, and the only person in this entire school that knows why is Malfoy.

He makes her feel the same way that singing does.

She wakes before the moon has gone to sleep, but long after the sun closes its eyes.

Her dreams were not dreams. Not nightmares. They were punishments. Reminders of her karma, the karma that never got the chance to be fully meted out. Karma that she’s sure will rain upon her before her life is over. 

She gets out of bed, casts a silencing spell on her feet, and opens her trunk. Harry gave her his cloak to hold onto weeks ago, just in case, and now she plans to use it. After pulling on a pair of trackies and some trainers, she clutches the Invisibility Cloak tightly around her and leaves the room with her satin bonnet still on. 

Quickly and quietly, Hermione makes her way out of Gryffindor tower, through the staircase room, down to the main floor, and eventually outside. The night air is crisp and cold, the sharp bite of winter nipping at her nose and the tops of her ears. The moon hangs high in the dark sky, surrounded by shining stars, and its reflection on the glassy black surface of the lake is tranquil. 

Hermione stands at the edge of the lake, a repellant charm keeping her trainers from being soaked by the snow that lines the Hogwarts ground. After a while of a completely empty head with no thoughts, she removes the cloak. She casts a repellent charm on it and shakes it out like a blanket, laying it in the snow so she can sit on it. A warming charm keeps her from shivering without taking the head-clearing chill from the air.

“Breaking the rules, Gryffindor?”

Halfway to being seated, the sudden voice raises Hermione’s hackles. She bristles and whirls around, her wand held tight in her shaking hand. A confusing sense of relief washes over her.

Malfoy.

The relief spikes into nervousness.

Not only is she still wearing her bonnet, she’s wearing his jersey.

Malfoy's grey eyes drop to where she grasps her wand, and he quirks an eyebrow. "Going to hex me, then?"

She narrows her eyes. "Maybe. Do I have reason to?"

He tips his head thoughtfully to the left then right, and saunters closer with his arms crossed over his chest. "Maybe."

Hermione scowls and tucks her wand back into her holster. With a huff, she drops onto the cloak, feeling the warmth of her charm mingling with the softness of the snow. Her muscles stiffen when he sinks down beside her, sitting with one knee pulled to his chest and the other leg outstretched. Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees that he's wearing nothing but trousers and a black tee shirt. A tee shirt.

"You're mental," she says, her brown eyes wide. "You aren't wearing a coat!"

"I'm dead, Granger. Why would I wear a coat?"

"For appearances?"

"And who am I appearing to? Filch? Mrs. Norris?"

Hermione hugs her knees to her own chest. "I don't know. I don't care, either. I'd rather not be sat here with you."

"Don't speak so soon."

"Why?"

"I've brought you a present."

Surprised, Hermione watches as he reaches into the pocket of his trousers and withdraws a small black container with a screw-top lid. He holds it out to her with a jaunty, almost lazy hand, his gaze focused on the stillness of the lake. She plucks it out of his hold, the tips of her fingers grazing his ice-cold skin. She shivers, and unscrews the container. It's some sort of cream, and it smells of berry.

"What is it?" she asks, suspicion filling her with caution.

"For your bruise."

"My what? My...oh." Her eyes widen as the memory of their argument in the courtyard the other day pushes forth. As if on cue, the fingerprint-shaped bruises on the center of her chestbone throb, reminding her of their existence. Mortification floods her body, coupled with anger.

"How kind of you to provide me with medicine for the bruise you gave me."

His lips quirk up. "It's the least I can do, given you're going to be giving me quite a large gift for Christmas."

"Am I, now?"

"Yes. I recall a certain someone telling me she'd be surprising me with something very sweet when we return from holiday. Do you recall that moment, Granger? I do believe you were there."

Indignant, Hermione elbows him sharply in the side. She ignores the way her stomach flips at the realization that she's just treated him like she would Harry or Ron, and she glares up at him.

"I told you I would most likely have an answer for you after the holiday. Not that I was going to."

"Why postpone the inevitable?" He sighs and leans back on his hands, his legs remaining in their position. His hair is messy, as though he's just gone out of bed. The breeze coming off the lake shifts through the soft strands, causing them to fall in his eyes. "You're going to give me what I want either way."

"Who says that? I could change my mind if I wanted."

"You could. But you won't."

"Maybe I will just to spite you," she mutters.

"But you won't."

"Shut up," she snaps. "Of course I won't. I won't just let you starve. But I'm not goign to balk on my requirements, so I need time to research and come up with the..."

She trails off. He's staring down at her with a deadpan look.

"As you wish," he says. "Though I'm surprised you don't already know everything there is to know about every magical creature in existence."

"That would be impossible, Malfoy, and you know it. I like to read, but I don't live in books."

"No?"

She elbows him again. "No, you git. And I know plenty about vampires, but not anything in-depth. I need time to go deeper, to learn how it all works."

"Learn how what works?"

"Your biological properties."

He bursts out an incredulous laugh. "My biological properties?"

"Well, yes," she says, her mouth curving down into a defensive frown. "You're an animal. And you are—"

"An animal."

Hermione shakes her head. "Just, never mind. I will do what I need to do over the holiday, and you'll have your answer from me when we get back. Okay?"

He shrugs, his gaze flickering over her body. "Aren't you going to use the salve?"

"Not right now. I'm not going to..." She trails off again when she sees his cheeky smirk, and then she sighs. "I didn't realize you were goign to be out here. If I had, I assure you, I would not be wearing this."

He looks seconds away from another laugh. "No, of course not. You wouldn't want me to know that you wear it to bed, would you?"

Heat suffuses her cheeks and she stares at the lake until the moon's reflection blurs. She supposes she shouldn't be surprised that he's teasing her. After all, he's Malfoy. Self-consciously, she reaches up and snatches her bonnet off. The two stitch braids she'd done on herself the day before are still intact. They tumble down, the tails of the plaits reaching the cloak beneath her.

"What are you doing out here, anyway?" he asks.

"You first."

"No, you."

Patience thin, Hermione says, "I had a nightmare, so I came out here for some peace and quiet, actually, and you've shattered the illusion.”

"A nightmare," he says as though confirming it, sitting up straight and slinging his elbows over his knees. "I suppose I don't need to ask about what."

"I'd rather you didn't, given you don't care. You'd just be wasting your breath."

As she speaks the words, dark flashes of her night with Cormac assault her mind, just like they'd been doing since the moment she saw him the following morning. Her hatred of him doesn't outweigh her fear, nor does it outweigh the guilt she feels. She deserves to feel afraid, doesn't she? Her parents would be afraid if they knew what she was planning to do to them.

"Do Muggles celebrate Christmas?"

Hermione blinks once, twice. "What?"

"Do they?"

She stares at him in incredulity, unable to believe what she's just heard. "Yes, Malfoy, it's a Muggle holiday. Do you celebrate Christmas?"

"Wizards—"

"No, I mean you. Your cold, stonelike snake of a family. Do the Malfoys celebrate Christmas?"

The expression in his eyes stops dancing with mirth. It goes dead, and he stares at her like she means nothing to him. 

Which she knows she doesn't.

"Don't speak of my family as if you know anything about us," he says, his tone as cold as the snow that surrounds them. "Whatever it is you think you know is most likely incorrect."

"Fine," Hermione says with a stubborn sniff. "What do you do for Christmas then?"

It takes him a moment to reply.

"We have breakfast, exchange gifts, and ride our Abraxans together. In the evening, we gather at either the Nott, Goyle, Crabbe, or Zabini estate for dinner."

"All of you?"

"Yes. This year, we were meant to go to the Crabbe estate but instead, our family is hosting."

"Oh." Hermione looks at him in curiosity. "Is it because your...father?"

His expression remains closed off. Stone. "Yes. My mother isn't taking it very well."

Hermione looks away. She doesn't know much about Narcissa Malfoy. The only times she's seen her have been from afar, and one time before the school year started. That particular event isn't one she thinks about often, and to be honest, it didn't affect her as much as it probably should have. Malfoy's called her a Mudblood so many times that having his mother hurl the word at him wasn't much different.

But from the outside looking in, measuring all of the things his parents have done for him in regards to school, Hermione is certain that his parents love him. They obviously love each other, if she isn't taking Lucius Malfoy's time in Azkaban well.

Hermione wonders if Malfoy blames her.

"Will you exchange gifts?" she asks.

"Yes."

"Oh. Okay."

"You?"

Hermione twirls the end of one of her plaits around her finger. "Christmas at my home is...busy. Crowded and loud. The whole family usually travels to my auntie's house for gifts and food. We go to the Christmas Eve church service and then we all go together to look at Christmas lights. Sometimes we go caroling.”

Malfoy looks perplexed. "Auntie?"

"Yes. Erm, well...she's not my real aunt. It's just...something we say. She's my mothers best friend, and her family has always welcomed us. My family is actually extremely small. All extended relatives have passed away so it’s just my parents and I.”

She tries not to think about the fact that she’s morbidly relieved she’ll only have to Obliviate one set of people at the end of the school year. If she had to hide anyone else, she’d drown in the guilt. But she’d do it if she had to, if only to protect them.

“What’s caroling?”

Hermione’s lips quirk upward. “Singing Christmas songs door-to-door.”

Malfoy arches one eyebrow. “I’m sure you had no qualms about that.”

“Well, when I was little, it was fun. But now that I’m older, not so much. There’s too much going on in my head.”

He nods slowly, almost absent-minded in the motion, and it takes Hermione a few seconds to realize he’s staring down at her. Hermione stares back at him, marveling momentarily at the fact that she’s having a normal conversation with Draco Malfoy, of all individuals. 

Suddenly, an amused expression flits over his face. He breathes a chuckle, shaking his head and looking out across the water.

“What?” she asks.

“If only you knew how much was going on in my head at any given moment,” he murmurs without looking at her, “you wouldn’t be sitting here with me right now.”

Hermione stiffens, a spike of fear rearing in her chest. Her hand snaps to her wand handle at her hip and she narrows her eyes in his direction. Visions of Cormac assail her once again, and she begins to beat herself up mentally. What on Earth is she thinking, sitting out in the dark alien at night with a starving vampire? Honestly.

“Go ahead, Malfoy,” she whispers. “Try it.”

“Try what?” He flicks an eyebrow upward. 

Hermione frowns, confused. “You just threatened me.”

Malfoy snorts. “You Gryffindors need to work on your definition of threat.”

“Umm, no. You just—”

“No need to yell.”

“I’m going to hex you.”

“Try it.” His tone is a mockery of her voice. “Go ahead.”

Hermione’s jaw hangs open, her mind racing as she tries to make sense of the situation. His words sound like fighting words, but he sounds like he finds it all highly entertaining. However, his facial expression errs on the blank side, giving her no insight as to his true thoughts.

“Are you… teasing me?”

“Absolutely.”

Hermione gasps indignantly and smacks him on the upper arm, just the way she’s done to Harry and Ron countless times. And then she does it again. And two more times for good measure.

He laughs, then, and it surprises her. It’s a real laugh. Under the moonlight, with his eyes sparkling like that, he looks nothing like the bully she’s grown up despising. But neither do he look like the terrifying vampire that tortured Cormac with glee. He looks like the young man he is, carrying the weight of a world on his shoulders and having no one to share it with. For him, to laugh is to pretend without ever dropping the weight.

Heat rushes to her face as she realizes what she’s doing, and she snatches her hand back.

“Don’t…do that,” she says haltingly, swallowing hard. “I thought…you can’t…not after Cormac, all right?”

“Ah, yes. McLaggen.” Malfoy’s lips quirk up into his trademark, familiar smirk. “Would you like me to show him some affection again? Perhaps give him a holiday gift from you that he won’t ever forget?”

“Tempting,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Might as well give him another crucio or two. After all, everyone already knows you’ll go to lengths to help me, so…oh…”

Wrong thing to say.

The amusement in his countenance fades to darkness and shadows. His expression goes lifeless, without even a hint of emotion, and suddenly, the wall of ice has made its presence known in his eyes. As she trails off, her heart begins to beat faster. Harder. She’s afraid now.

“ What does everyone know, Granger?” he asks softly, a dangerous edge to the tensions stretched between them. “Hm? What do they know?”

“Not—not that. I didn’t tell them about—”

“Tell them about what?” Though they’re seated, he’s looming over her. “What’s there to tell?”

“I didn’t tell them you used the Cruciatus on him!” she cries, her voice echoing in her shrill terror. “They were accusing you of being the one who hexed me in the Quidditch stands, and insinuating I needed someone to look out for me! And then when Ron said that it wasn’t like you would be the one to do it, I told them that yes, you would and yes, you already had!”

A crack runs through the ice, and his eyes flash with danger, danger, danger. Suddenly, she’s here with a monster. Not a boy. Not a young man. Not a wizard with sparkling grey eyes. A vampire with fangs and claws and strength that far surpasses her own. 

That clawed hand grabs both of her plaits and wraps them around it, yanking her head so far back that all she can do is look up at the millions of bright white and blue stars above them. The stars that watch silently and without judgment. Stars that will burn whether he kills her or not. She grabs for her wand, but inhuman speed lends him the ability to snatch it out of her grasp before she can get a firm grip. She opens her mouth to try and accio it, even though she hasn’t yet mastered wandless magic, but the tightening of his hold on her braids causes the words to die in her mouth.

Even if she summoned it, she’d be dead before it reached her hand.

Malfoy leans closer, holding her head in place, and lowering his nose to the column of her throat where he inhales audibly. Though his skin isn’t actually touching hers, she feels as though it is. Her blood feels too hot inside her, like it knows it’s in danger of being consumed. This goes completely against their agreement, yes, but in the end, she knows she doesn’t have a say.

“I didn’t think it needed to be said,” he growls, “but if you decide to use that pretty little voice for anything other than singing those pretty little songs, I won’t be so patient anymore.”

She keeps her voice steady and strong.

“It was just a stupid row with Ron. He keeps accusing you of things, and it frustrates me because I know they’re not true.”

His hand tightens again, but his head draws back. “I’m not  interested in Potty and the Weaselbee’s suspicions, or your little lover’s quarrels . I’m interested in staying out of Azkaban, and in keeping the life I currently have.”

“I know that.”

“Then keep my name out of your mouth,” he snarls. He pulls on her hair again, and this time, she cries out in pain.

“I said you’d protect me because I truly think you would,” she says, looking up into his cold eyes. Her hands tremble in her lap. “Even though I know it’s just my blood that you’d be protecting.”

His gaze flickers up and down her face, and he breathes a mirthless laugh. “If you think that low of me, you might as well entertain their fancies and tell them I’m a Death Eater, songbird.”

“I don’t—don’t think low of you. Although I should, given you’ve bullied me for five years and have now blackmailed me.”

“Then what’s the issue?” His gaze has dropped to her neck and in the moonlight ,she can see the black veins of hunger spidering faintly over his cheeks. This situation is very dangerous.

“It’s the…memory charm.” She winces when her head throbs in pain once more. “I’m not exactly an expert. I’m worried it will fail over time.”

“But you did so well.”

Before she can allow herself to be bewildered by the way he just purred that phrase out, and horrified by the bizarrely-smug feeling that blooms in her chest at the academic praise, she goes completely and utterly still.

He’s nuzzling her throat.

“If it fails,” she continues, her voice tremulous, “I’m worried that he’ll not only report us both, but that…that…”

“What?” He says the word in an almost soothing manner, his nose continuing to brush against her pulse. Hermione’s isn’t sure he’s even aware of what he’s doing. Not that she could do anything about it anyway, what with how firmly he’s holding her hair. 

“That he’ll come after me again.”

He tsks.

“I doubt you tortured him out of desire to protect me,” she goes on. “If I don’t let you have my blood and he comes after me, if he catches me off guard again…”

“Is that what you think?”

“I’m your only chance at blood if you want to keep from killing anyone, and keep the Ministry from finding out your secret.” Hermione’s sighs. “You know that.”

“Hmm. Then I’ll let you think it.”

She pauses, realizing his fingers are scritching absentmindedly at her scalp beneath her hair and it feels nice. “But—but what if the charm fails and he remembers everything? He might not go to the Headmaster and report us. He might be so angry that he comes after you , Malfoy.” Her breath hitches and her hands curl into fists. “But I know how men work. It’ll be m-me he comes for f-first.”

“Then he’ll be the first person I kill. And it won’t take me so long to get to you a second time.”

Her eyelids flutter, trying not to relish in the dark glee she feels at hearing the words. He’s only saying this, being this way, because he’s hungry and he’s an animal. Malfoy wouldn’t be caught dead touching her like this, speaking to her like this. And he certainly wouldn’t ruin his life and kill someone when tensions in the wizarding world are so high because of the Dark Lord’s return.

But there are parts of Hermione that are Slytherin in nature. Those are the parts that enabled her to Obliviate Cormac in the first place. And those are the parts that she wishes Harry and Ron would answer to a little more often.

That terrifies her.

Malfoy speaks again, drawing her attention due to the way his lips brush her skin. She goes rigid.

“What was it you said about what will happen if I feed from you?”

Embarrassment and terror mingle. “Do we really need to talk about that right now? I need to do more research.”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know much about vampires, and still have research to do, but from what I’ve read, it’s similar to spider venom in that it paralyzes the victim. The manner in which it paralyzes is conducive to the environment of the creature and given a vampire would need the victim to be compliant, it stands to reason arousal would be the way to do that. Again—I need to do more research—but I know for certain that arousal is the effect and that’s why I need to think of a way to get you my blood without that happening.”

“So, what? I could bite you and drain you of every last drop of you blood, while you’re begging me to fuck you?”

Horror explodes within Hermione, warring with nervousness. Is he going to bite her? Is he going to lose control? Does he even know what he’s saying?

“I mean—I-I don’t k-know. I th-think so.”

He exhales heavily, inhaling her scent again. “It’s not as if I don’t have experience in that department.”

“Are we actually having this conversation right now?! No, Malfoy! I don’t want… that …with you! With anyone!”

Finally, she tries to pull out of his hold, but he holds tighter, and his other hand travels up the front of her throat, fingers curving under her jaw to keep her head pressed back. She squirms, panicking within, but it’s no use. His breathing is ragged and when she manages to catch a glimpse of his face, she can see the raw desperation there. The starvation he’s enduring.

“I don’t even have to touch you,” he whispers. “Just one bite, and you can take care of yourself. All you have to do is climb into my lap and—”

“Stop!” she screeches, placing her hands against his chest and pushing as hard as she can, even though it’s like trying to move one of the castle walls. “Stop! Don’t say that, Malfoy. The agreement we have is fine the way it is. I will find a way.”

“Just one bite.”

“Malfoy!”

“But you’ll feel so good if—”

SMACK.

He snatches himself back, staring down at her in shock, his hair an unruly mess about his head. Hermione’s palm stings from the force of her slap, and her chest heaves with anger and fear. 

“How dare you?” she gasps. “I told you I needed time to make my decision.”

“Granger—”

“Shut your bloody mouth, Malfoy! We have an agreement. You will not take from me, do you hear me? You will not.”

He hangs his head, but she doesn’t know if it’s out of shame or dismay or the desire to hide something dark like rage.

“I will never take anything you don't want me to have.”

“Well, I certainly don’t want to give you that , and the fact that you think—after Cormac—that you…” She gathers her emotions and bottles them up, fighting the urge to shed tears in front of him as her panic rises. “Now, get up so I can get my cloak and go back to my dorm. Get up right now! Now, Malfoy!”

He does.

Hermione doesn’t wait to hear his response. She doesn’t look at his expression, and she doesn’t care to. She merely reaches over him to retrieve her wand, gathers her discarded satin bonnet and the Cloak and, without bothering to put it on, makes a full tilt break for the castle, leaving Malfoy behind at the edge of the Black Lake.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight

Dear Granger,

I apologize.

Best,

-M

Dear Malfoy,

I must say I'm surprised. I didn't think you had it in you. 

Sincerely,

Hermione 

Dear Granger,

You wound my delicate sensibilities. A wizard of my standing and pedigree knows when to admit fault, and when to say he’s sorry.

-M

Malfoy,

Your “pedigree” is why we’re in this mess in the first place. If you weren’t so obsessed with blood purity, then you wouldn’t be so keen on hiding your blood status from the Ministry, and you wouldn’t be so keen on my blood. And another thing: try some animal blood. Beef is fine, I assume.

Hermione

Granger,

I’d kindly ask you to be a little less forward with the content of your missives.

I have tried that. Didn’t work.

-M

It is at this point, on the evening before Christmas Eve, that Hermione realizes there really is no way out of this. She’s going to give him her blood one way or the other. If she doesn’t, he’s going to starve or hurt someone. There are no other options for him to choose from. Someone could die at Hogwarts this year and it’s up to her to make sure that doesn’t happen.

As always.

“Hermione!” Her mother calls up the stairs for her. “Come down here so I can braid your hair!”

“Let me finish writing this letter, mum!” Hermione calls back. “I’ll be right down.”

“With the quickness, yeah? Your father’s put dinner on, and I just finished cleaning the pottery.”

“All right.”

Hermione’s voice cracks. This won’t happen again, will it? There’ll be no more supper or braiding or calling up the stairwell or cleaning the vase with the golden lines. This is the last time she’s seeing her parents before the end of the year, which is when she’ll have to do…it. And then there’s going to be nothing for her anymore besides Harry and Ron. 

And Malfoy, she supposes, if they don’t come up with a way to keep him and everyone else alive that doesn’t include her blood.

Malfoy,

Why does it matter what I write in our private correspondence?

And okay, when I get back, I’ll have a solution of some sort.

Hermione

Granger,

Everything I do outside of Hogwarts is watched. It hasn’t gotten to the point where my letters are being read, but my father could get curious. For future reference, keep it vague.

-M

Hermione arches one eyebrow, silently mulling over his letter as her mother’s gelled fingers twist her kinky hair into braid after braid after braid. She’s seated on the couch, with Hermione on the floor between her legs, and the roast in the oven fills the living room with a pleasant aroma. Her father relaxes in the armchair nearby, half of his attention on the telly, the other half on the newspaper in his hands. 

“Letter from Harry or Ron?” her mother asks.

“No,” Hermione says, her voice quiet. “Not from them.”

“From a secret admirer?” her mum teases.

“No,” Hermione replies with a short laugh. “Absolutely not. But he’s…becoming a friend. I think. We’re working on…a project together.”

“A project.”

“Ye—”

“Head.” A curt reminder that her mother always has to give her when she inevitably drops her head backward while braiding. Hermione puts her head back upright again.

“Sorry.”

“A project?”

“Yes, a project for school.” Hermione thinks up a lie quickly. “For History of Magic. We’re researching…vampires.”

“Vampires? And here I thought they were just a fairytale.”

Hermione and her father both laugh as he says, “Don’t we all wish.”

Malfoy,

Why is your father watching you? Impossible standards, or something else?

Hermione

Granger,

It’s not my father.

-M

Hermione pens her reply by the light of a lumos in her window seat later that night, the chill of the winter air bathing the glass beside her. There’s no moon, but the stars twinkle faintly in the black sky. Waiting patiently on her desk as he pecks at the many treats she’s left for him, is the Malfoy family’s brown Great-horned Owl.

Her heart is racing. Who is watching his post? His father isn’t the one. His mother, perhaps. 

Unless…

Unless it’s Voldemort.

What if Harry’s right after all? What if Malfoy is a Death Eater? 

No, no. He’s not. That’s not right.

But that doesn’t mean his father isn’t in cahoots with Voldemort. It doesn’t mean Malfoy isn’t in direct contact with him. That he doesn’t speak with him and plot with him. Would Malfoy even be involved in any plotting? And if so, what would that plotting entail? War? Death? 

Hurting Harry?

Malfoy,

I guess that means your family isn’t quite in the Christmas spirit this year?

Hermione 

Granger,

Go to bed.

-M

I am in bed

-H

Then sleep

-M

I will!

-H

And she does. Not because she wants to do what he tells her to do, but because sleep is a necessary component of life. She was going to fall asleep anyway.

Obviously.

Granger,

It’s Christmas Eve. What will you be doing?

-M

M,

My family and I will be doing family-related activities. None of your business.

You have a very fast owl. I’ve given him so many treats, you’d think he’d slow down by several business days.

-H

Granger,

Stop giving the old fool treats! He’s on a special diet because he’s too bloody rotund. You’re going to make him break his wings, foolish girl.

-M

M,

Well, how was I supposed to know your owl’s on a diet? But fine, no more treats. If he nips my hand, then you’re paying for my bandages. And if I get some sort of owl-begotten disease, you’ll be footing my Mungo’s bill.

What’s your owl’s name? I’ve been calling him something you really won’t be fond of. And he seems to like it.

-H

Granger,

His name is Widget. He’s been in our family since my parents were in school. Which is why no treats—he’s nearly fifty!

-M

The next reply doesn’t come until midday and when it does, his owl is laden with a small paper-wrapped parcel. On the outside, in Malfoy’s perfect Pureblood elegant scrawl, he’s written “Open first,” which Hermione promptly ignores. She’s not opening some unknown thing from her mortal enemy without having an idea of what it could be. She breaks the silver wax seal on the envelope and reads his letter.

Granger,

Predictably, you’re reading this letter before you open the gift that I clearly marked ‘open first,’ so to punish you, there’s nothing in this letter to be said.

Open your gift.

-M

Malfoy,

Poop on you.

I’m opening it.

-H

Hermione sends her letter back with Widget sans treats, and then opens the small parcel, revealing a gold galleon in the bottom of a small box. She picks the galleon up, turns it over, and rolls her eyes.

And here you though you were the top of our class. Looks like I can do a Protean charm, too.

She holds the coin and thinks up her response. You’re insufferable, Malfoy.

I’m hungry. And people are insufferable when they’re hungry.

Hermione sighs. She supposes she better get on that.

She’s brought home with her several books on vampires, some on dark spells, and one book from the 1700s that’s meant to teach Mediwitches battleground healing charms. It’s more of a series of decrepit scrolls unrolled and sewn together, but she can read it so it’s going to have to do.

While she reads, she and Malfoy message each other on the Protean-charmed coin. Hermione learns quite a bit about him without learning anything at all, and he learns too much about her without having to ask.

The best charm Hermione comes across is in the dark spells book. The title is in a language that she hasn’t yet learned, but a simple translation spell to the pages helps her find the information she seeks. Within its depths, she discovers a spell for siphoning out venom. It can be used to siphon anything harmful out of the body in the first five minutes after being bitten or cursed and with a couple simple modifications to the Latin—a language Hermione does have experience with—she’s able to modify it to siphon out her own blood. She’ll have to be careful not to take too much, but overarll, she thinks she’s found the answer.

Malfoy will be fed, all without his lips ever touching her skin.

Good news, she sends through the coin. I’ve found a way.

A way to what? Stop being such an exhausting swot?

To feed you, you bloody idjit. If you’d spend less time thinking up silly insults for me, you’d have more time to hear my solution.

The response is lightning fast.

Oh, good girl. I knew you could do it. What’s the solution?

Every hair on Hermione’s body rises to the skies and a chill ripples over her body. Two harmless, innocuous words, yet they make her want to preen like a bird and strut about like…well, like Malfoy used to do. She’s always known she liked praise but not to this extent, an extent she doesn’t fully comprehend. 

Maybe it’s best she doesn’t touch it again.

Happy Christmas, Malfoy, she says via coin. You’ll find out when we get back.

His reply takes hours to return and when it does, the coin gets so hot that it nearly burns her palm and yanks her awake so she can drop it in time. It’s Christmas Eve—Christmas now—and she was in such a deep sleep that she’s dizzy. Outside, the snow and wind is ferocious, so much so that the coin rolling on the hardwood floor is barely audible. She stumbles on her way to pick it up and, after wiping her eyes, reads it. 

Happy Christmas, Granger. You’d better be asleep. Take care of my treat.

Curiously, and to her inexplicable dismay, he doesn’t speak to her again for the rest of winter hols. 

It’s not a big deal, of course. It’s not like she was waiting by the coin for days, checking it and checking it only to feel her heart sink into the pits of Hell when there wasn’t a message from him. She definitely hasn’t spent any time wondering if she said or did something wrong, because he’s not her friend. He’s Draco Malfoy. She’s Hermione Granger.

They don’t message each other via coins.

Still. She wonders if he’s ignoring her on purpose. If the only thing he really cares about is being fed and now that he knows he’s going to have blood, he’s dropped all pretenses and has decided to go back to ignoring her presence until the time comes for him to eat. That shouldn’t bother her as much as it does.

Hermione tries to forget about him, to throw herself back in the comforting familiarity of her parents’ home. The festive season brings with it the warmth of family traditions: they play board games, share laughter over movies, and enjoy outings to the cinema. The joy of exchanging gifts on Christmas and the simple pleasure of being together provide a stark contrast to the turmoil bubbling within her.

Despite the cozy atmosphere, Hermione’s heart remains heavy with guilt and sadness. The thought of erasing her parents' memories after the school year looms over her, a cruel necessity she has reluctantly accepted. Each smile exchanged with her parents feels bittersweet, a poignant reminder of the impending loss she would soon have to inflict.

Though Hermione attempts to enjoy the time, her mind is persistently troubled by thoughts of Draco Malfoy. The revelation that he’s a vampire who has resorted to blackmailing her for her blood fills her with a mix of anger and helplessness. She resents the power he holds over her, the way he exploited her situation for his own gain.

Yet, her feelings are further complicated by a grudging sense of gratitude. Malfoy had saved her from Cormac McLaggen's assault, an act of intervention that had spared her from a worse fate. But this act of unexpected heroism has done little to diminish her frustrations. All it’s done is add layers to her emotional conflict.

Compounding her internal struggle is Hermione's deep-seated compassion for magical creatures. She cannot ignore the fact that Malfoy, despite his demands and the distress he causes her, is in distress himself. The thought of letting him perish, despite his blackmail, gnaws at her conscience.

It isn’t until right before she returns to Hogwarts that she realizes she’s actually been sending letters and messages back and forth with Draco Malfoy, and it hasn’t been unpleasant.

Oh, bother.

The snow crunches softly under Hermione’s boots as she approaches the platform with her parents. The cold air nips at her cheeks, though the tightness in her face comes more from holding back tears than the winter chill. Her satchel bounces against her side, but her fingers twist the ends of her freshly done box braids in continuous, repetitive motions. Her mother had spent hours on them, her gentle hands weaving each strand while they sat in the warmth of the living room. Now, the neat rows of braids feel heavier than usual, as though they carry the weight of this goodbye.

“Are you sure you’ve got everything, darling?” her mother asks, fussing with Hermione’s scarf as they walk.

“Yes, Mum,” Hermione says, her voice trembling despite her effort to sound calm. “I double-checked this morning.”

Her father chuckles, his breath puffing in the cold. “Of course she has. This is Hermione we’re talking about. She’s probably triple-checked, if she’s anything to say about it.”

Hermione manages a weak smile, but it falters as she looks up at them—her mum’s kind brown eyes crinkling at the corners and her dad’s warm, reassuring grin. The image burns itself into her memory, a keepsake she knows she’ll carry long after the real thing is gone.

The station comes into view, and her chest tightens. Her time is running out. She blinks rapidly, willing herself not to cry yet. Not here. Not now. When they reach the platform, they’re early. No one else is here but the train, empty and waiting. Hermione’s father pulls her into a bear hug, his arms strong and safe. 

“We’re so proud of you, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “You’re doing amazing things. Just remember not to aim too high. You’ll never come home if you do!”

Her mother joins the embrace, smoothing the edge of Hermione’s braids like she had the night before. “Take care of yourself, love. Don’t work too hard.”

“I won’t,” Hermione lies, her voice cracking. She clings to them both, her throat aching with the words she can’t say. I’m sorry. I love you. Please forgive me.

When she finally lets go, her tears spill over. Her parents exchange a glance, concern flickering in their eyes.

“Hermione, what’s wrong?” her mother asks softly, brushing a tear from her cheek. “You’ve been so quiet, ever since Christmas.”

“I’m fine. It’s just—it’s hard saying goodbye, that’s all.”

Her father squeezes her shoulder. “It’s only a few months, love. We’ll see you again soon.”

She nods, biting her lip so hard it hurts. No, you won’t. Not like this. She takes a shaky step back, her heart breaking with every inch of distance. She forces a smile, the kind that doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’ll write to you.”

“Of course, dear.” Her mother smiles back. “We’ll be waiting for your letters.”

As the train doors close behind her, Hermione finds a seat by the window and watches them wave. She presses her hand against the glass, her tears flowing freely now. Her parents walk away, their figures growing smaller and smaller until they disappear entirely.

“I’ll protect you,” Hermione whispers to the empty air. “No matter what it costs me.”

She doesn’t even get the chance to cry. Harry and Ron soon find her compartment and join her. By then, she’s already wiped her face.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight

“Do you think Malfoy’s acting a bit…strange?”

Hermione resists the urge to throw her gaze Heavenward. If she had a galleon for every time that she’d heard those words this year, she’d be filthy stinking rich. It’s by the grace of God that it’s not Harry saying it this time.

It’s Ginny.

Taking a bite of her supper, Hermione looks across the Great Hall at the Slytherin table. It’s a lot less full than she’d have thought, and there aren’t many happy faces. In fact, some of them look downright terrified. And right in the center of it all, on the side facing the rest of the room, is Malfoy. He’s flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, who are eating like horses, and he has no plate in front of him.

He’s pale and tall and he looks like he’s dying.

Because he is.

“He doesn’t look any different than normal,” Hermione says to Ginny. Malfoy’s looking right at her, but there’s something far-off in his eyes that shows her he might not even know who it is he’s staring at. She wonders if he remembers he hasn’t messaged her on the coin since Christmas. “Sallow and severe, as usual.”

It's been a couple of days since they all returned from winter hols and everyone is still riding the enthusiastic energy they brought with them from home. As such, the noise is loud. Too much. It makes Hermione’s head and teeth hurt. The chatter and the forks scraping and the chomping and the outright ruckus. After she hid in the loo on the train to cry for twenty minutes straight, the migraine aching through her disagrees with the cacophony.

Beside Hermione, Luna sits as quiet as can be, smiling her dreamy smile and eating the roots from some daisies her father gave her. For luck and energy, apparently, because it’s right after the full moon and apparently, everyone gets tired after the full moon. A little ways away sit the boys, who like to sit with each other and regale tales of their many various escapades. Harry seems to be the one with the most interesting story to tell, what with Rufus Scrimgeur visiting him while he was at the Weasley’s to ask him to support the Ministry politically. Hermione has her own distasteful opinions about that, but it’s clear that Harry gave him an emphatic no.

Political officials should not be asking students to endorse them. It’s completely innappropriate, even if it is Harry Potter. 

“I’m being serious,” Ginny says. “Malfoy’s acting really strangely.”

“She’s right, you know,” Luna says in that dreamy tone of hers. The one that makes it seem like she’s floating on clouds. “Malfoy was very upset today in our Arithmancy class. Left in a fit.”

“A fit?” Hermione’s eyebrows shoot up as she looks at her friends. “What sort of fit?”

“Stood up, kicked the leg of the table, and then stormed out, according to everyone who was there,” Ginny says with a snort. “Surely you heard something about it today? It’s all anyone’s been talking about since lunch! Someone said he used the Cruciatus on Professor Vector!”

Hermione barks out an incredulous laugh. “No, he didn’t. There’s no way.”

“He did no such thing,” Luna confirms, “however he did have a few stern words to share when Professor Vector told him to come back. She gave him detention, but somehow, I don’t think he’ll be going.”

Hermione glances across the room at him in astonishment, and her stomach does a backflip. He’s staring at her in an almost raw, enraged way. His grey eyes are bloodshot, the dark circles underneath them hollow and haunted. Others have begun to notice and are whispering, gesturing their heads towards him and then towards Hermione. 

If she didn’t know any better, she’d say he looked like he was about to pounce.

She isn’t ready. She hasn’t mastered the siphoning spell yet and until she does, she can’t help him. She just needs a few more days. But he looks two seconds away from falling to pieces. She can’t let that happen for reasons as petty as a coin not receiving messages. He was probably with his family, focusing on them and not their coin conversation. 

“I need to go,” she says.

“Go? But dinner’s only just started!” Ginny cries. 

“I know, but I need to—I have to—” Hermione gathers her things as quickly as she can, her gaze darting from Malfoy to the door in what she hopes is a pointed way. He’s on his feet in seconds. “I’ll see you guys later.”

She heads for the door. On her side of the room, her strides are no match for his and by the time she jogs to the destination, he’s already there. He doesn’t stop to look at her, choosing instead to simply keep walking. Hermione catches up to him, pulling slightly ahead. They need to find an empty room to talk.

“Took you long enough,” he growls, not slowing his stride or bothering to ask her where they’re going. 

“Poor thing,” she hisses back, keeping her gaze straight ahead. “Tummy growling while he waits for mommy to feed him."

A hand grasps her by the shoulder from behind and yanks her around, slamming her into the wall. She can’t help but notice it doesn’t hurt this time—he’s learned his strength when it comes to her. Tempered it.

Interesting.

“Take care not to aggravate me, little girl. Lest you test the last ounce of my patience and make it snap.”

Hermione grits her teeth. She agrees with him on that; she took it way too far. “Yes, sir.”

He draws his hand back as though she’s caught fire, his gaze snapping up and down her body as though offended by her presence. Hermione can’t help but smirk, turning on her heel in a slash of braids, and marching down the corridor. Malfoy follows close behind, saying nothing until they find an empty classroom with a door that’s unlocked. Hermione has no idea which class it’s for.

A wave of her wand lights any lantern or candle in the vicinity. There are only four and the room is big, so they give hardly any light. Most of the glow that filters through the fabric of the curtains comes from the waning moon. She’s in the dark with a starving vampire.

Lovely.

“What’s going on with you?” she asks, putting her hands on her hips and keeping her distance from him. “Luna and Ginny said everyone’s talking.”

“I don’t care. Let them say what they want.” His teeth are audibly clenched. At his sides, Hermione can see his hands balling into fists, opening, and then closing again in his agitation. 

“You threw a temper tantrum.”

“I did no such thing. I was frustrated and focusing on numbers made me want to be sick. I lost my temper.”

“You kicked a table.”

“Yeah, and?” he snaps. “Better the table than what I want to do to you right now!”

The silence rings in Hermione’s ears, leaving nothing for her to grasp onto to keep thoughts of Cormac at bay. Is this it, then? She’s alone in a dark room with a monster that can move in the blink of an eye. If she tries to run, he’ll catch her and then…it’s over.

“D-Don’t,” she says, trying and failing to keep her voice strong as she draws her wand. “Don’t make me u-use this.”

“I didn’t…” Malfoy turns his head, gazing toward the window. “I didn’t mean that. Not like…not like that.”

“You meant it,” Hermione whispers and then, before he can protest, clarifies. “Maybe not what I thought you were insinuating, but you meant to say it.”

His face looks even more haunted, shrouded in moonshadows the way it is. “I can’t help what I am. What I want. What I need.”

“I know that. And that’s why I brought you here, so we could talk about it. The solution I came up with, it’s a spell. But it’s a complicated spell and I have yet to master it. I’ll also need to brew a potion that’s not illegal, but it’s definitely not something I can go to Madam Pomfrey for without raising suspicion. I just wanted to see if you were all right, and tell you that I think I’ll be ready by Friday.”

“You brought me into an empty classroom to tell me you need more time?!” Malfoy looks about ready to implode. “You’ve got to be fucking with me.”

“I know, but you can wait a little bit—”

“I’ve been waiting.”

“I know, but—”

“I’ve been fucking waiting!” He shouts so loud that Hermione has to whirl around and cast a silencio on the door just in case. “I have been waiting, and I don’t want to wait anymore.”

"Well, you’re gonna have to!” she cries angrily. “It’s my body! I’ll give you parts of it whenever I damn well please!”

“Granger,” he groans and then, to Hermione’s utter horror, he falls to his knees on the floor between the tables.

And crawls.  

“Granger, please.” His forehead touches the tops of her mary janes. “Please. I can’t wait anymore. Please.”

Hermione’s mouth hangs open. Draco Malfoy is kneeling on the floor, prostrated before her like he’s praying. He’s outright begging, something his father would likely have a conniption over. Something that would have Harry and Ron throwing up in their mouths and the rest of Hogwarts screaming. He’s on his knees for her, like he said he would never be, and she has all of the power. And now—now—

She sinks down in front of him, reaching to place her hand on his back, right over his shoulderblade.

“Malfoy,” she whispers. “Malfoy, don’t do this. It’s not…you. It’s me. Literally. I’ve still got to learn the spell.”

He groans again, shuddering with his forehead now touching her knees. Her legs are clad in tights but somehow, she can still feel the softness of his pale white-blond hair through them. “Please. It hurts.”

“I know.” Malfoy or not, her heart is breaking. Her stupid bleeding heart. Her hand pulls back until her fingers curve over his shoulder. “I know it hurts. But I quite literally do not know how to do the spell yet. It’s very advanced dark magic. I need time.”

“I can’t take this.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. You can—”

“No, you don’t understand.” His head shoots up, his ravenous gaze meeting her astonished one. His grey eyes have turned a dark shade of violet and the spiderwebbing veins of hunger have etched their way down beneath his lower eyelids. His hair is an unruly mess, pushed up slightly where he’d been practically bowing to her. “I can’t take this. I cannot. The only thing that got me through these past ten days was the fact that you said you had the solution. I can’t take it for another second longer. I won’t.”

“Malfoy—”

“I said…” His hand shoots out, slips around behind her neck, and slides up into her braids. Her scalp, still tender, shrieks in pain as he drags her head backward with a snap. “I won’t.”

“Malfoy, wait! Wait, wait, wai—ah~!”

His lips meet her neck, soft skin against soft, and he sinks his fangs deep into her flesh.

There is nothing on Earth—no book, or lecture, or lesson, or exam—that could possibly have prepared her for the way it feels to have a vampire's fangs inside her. The pleasure is so acute, so completely arresting, that she immediately goes completely limp. It creeps through every crevice and nook inside her body, pushing out all other thoughts. Suppressing any part of her that could dare to consider running away from the predator that's currently feeding upon her. Sending flames licking from her head to her toes, burning heavily in her abdomen, heat falling lower and lower and stopping in a place she doesn’t want to explore. 

At least, not yet.

She wants to push him away, but she doesn't. Her hands come up, ready to shove, but they disobey. They grasp his robes at the sides and pull him closer. Until the heat of his body envelops her own. Until he wraps an arm around her waist and sits back so she can be pulled astride his lap. The flames inside her rise to a fever pitch, to where they become unbearable because she doesn't know what to do.

“Malfoy,” she sobs, unsure what she's asking him for. “Malfoy, please.”

His response comes as a deep groan released into her neck, against her pulse, singing through her blood. His fangs should hurt yet they don't. They feel heavenly. Like pure euphoria injected into the deepest part of her desires. Even when he gets too voracious and they scrape tender, raw flesh, it's like she's being caressed with the gentlest touch.

It isn't until she squirms on his lap in discomfort that she finds a solution to her unknown predicament. For if she tilts her hips forward and moves her lower body forward, too, it feels nice. Very nice. Almost too nice. It feels like the gentle touches are between her thighs, through her clothes, against bare skin. And if she moves her hips while he makes that soft groaning noise…

“Tastes so good,” he gasps against her throat. Sucks. Licks. “So, so fucking good.”

Lightning.

Hermione’s touched herself before. She knows what this is. These feelings aren't so unknown after all.

Heat rises to her cheeks. In her addled, hazy thoughts, she has the wherewithal to hope Malfoy doesn't realize what's happening. What she's doing. Because her hips are rolling with every brush of his tongue and if she keeps doing it just…like…that…

Oh.

It takes her by surprise, the sudden orgasm. From a scientific standpoint, she knows it's completely natural. She's a young woman, a human, and is under the influence of vampire saliva. Said saliva has scientific properties that are conducive to this exact environment. 

But for it to happen so quickly, with all clothing intact, and her mind so desperately wanting to not be here…?

She's humiliated.

She shudders and jolts on his lap, a strangled cry escaping her mouth and reaching for the dark ceiling. She squeezes her eyes shut against mortified tears and does everything in her power to keep herself from doing much more than shiver. And shiver she does, clear down into the soles of her feet and her fingertips, the pleasure burning like opium in her core. She cant stop her hips from jolting twice more, and she accidentally whimpers.

Malfoy jerks backward, staring up at her through his hair. There is crimson-red blood painting the lower half of his face, and his fangs are two ferocious small points flanking his incisors. He looks for all the world like a teenage boy whose girlfriend just came on his damn lap. By accident.

Godric's beard.

She needs to get out of here. 

“Did you…just…?”

Humiliation floods her veins and fills her with great shame. In a dazed, fugue state, she scrambles backward, off his lap, and grabs for the wand she can't remember discarding. Her legs feel like jelly as she uses the edge of a table to stand. He follows, and by the time he's towering over her, she's already cast a scourgify on them both.

Malfoy takes a step toward her.

Hermione screams and stumbles away, nearly toppling over and back to the floor. She holds her wand to her chest and keeps the other held out to ward him off. He doesn't move again, staying frozen on the spot and watching her with an unreadable expression. He's not laughing at her, but he certainly isn't saying anything to let her know what he thinks about what just happened.

“I-it's perfectly f-fine and n-natural,” she stammers, averting her gaze. “With you—because you're a—it's fine. It's fine and natural. Like I said.”

“All right,” he replies, arching one eyebrow smoothly upward. 

“I have to go. I have to meet—Ginny. Erm, and Harry. And everyone else.”

“...all right.” 

“Right, then. I'll meet up with you on Friday.”

“Mm-hm.”

Hermione, still not meeting his eyes, heads for the door. She nearly faints when she feels the discomforting wetness in her knickers, and curses herself under her breath. 

Why hadn't she been more prepared for this?

“Wait.”

She does, going rigid and halting in the middle of her step. “Yes, Malfoy?”

“I am so fucking sorry.”

He sounds exhausted. Sad. Ashamed.

Her heart cracks all over again.

“It's not your fault,” she replies without turning around. “You can't help what you are, and you're hungry.”

“But you just c—”

Panic.

“Friday,” she says, rushing the words out. “I will see you Friday.”

She leaves before he has the chance to reply and the moment she clears the vicinity, she tells herself to forget any of this ever happened, and move on.

Hermione’s got other things to worry about.

Hermione spends her free time during the week studying, practicing the siphoning spell until she can expertly siphon water out of a plant and navigate it into a small vial. Once she’s done that, she reads through the recipe for the potion she plans to make, checkign to see if there’s anything she’s forgotten or doesn’t understand. She doesn’t learn anything she doesn’t already know which is a good thing. It means she’s prepared. She knows what to expect.

She’s just worried about what happens if things go wrong again.

From what she knows, vampires need blood to survive. They’ve got cold, dead blood in their veins and human blood seems to keep their hearts pumping. If they don’t get it, they wither until they’re shriveled and dry. They need it to keep from going feral.

At their foundation, they are still a species and every species has a defense mechanism. Something to keep themselves from dying. Hermione and Malfoy both know what will happen if he doesn’t get blood, and that’s precisely what she needs to avoid. After all, they just got a taste of what happened when his hunger overwhelmed him on Monday night, didn’t they?

On Wednesday, Hermione pulls Luna aside after breakfast. Ginny’s trustworthy, but not quite when it comes to Malfoy. Luna’s the only person who she knows won’t grill her or ask questions about what she’s doing. She’ll simply accept it and go with the flow. Ginny would never do such a thing.

“Do you think you could come with me to Hogsmeade around lunchtime?” she asks. 

Luna’s eyes light up. She’s looking tired—exhausted, really—and Hermione’s words seem to pull her head out of a dark cloud. “You want to go to Hogsmeade with me?”

Hermione nods. “I need to go to the apothecary and get some ingredients for something.”

“What are you brewing?”

“Nothing too serious,” Hermione says, the lie as easy as any lie she’s ever had to tell to cover up the things she does on Hogwarts grounds. “Just something cosmetic.”

“All right,” Luna says with a smile. “We can stop for lunch, too?”

“Sure.”

Hermione hopes that she can find the ingredients she needs for this potion. With it, she thinks she has a good plan in mind for making things work for at least the rest of the school year. She can help Malfoy think up a solid plan for his future that doesn’t result in his arrest—maybe she can even focus on fabricating a scenario in which they “reset the clock” for him. Perhaps they falsify the true circumstances of his turning so he can have more time to get registered. He’ll need to have a plan of some sort because Hermione has no plans to deviate from her current plans after the year ends. She’s going to deal with her parents and then she’s going to the Burrow to wait while Harry figures out what he wantsto do about Voldemort. And then, she’s going to do whatever it takes to help defeat him. 

Malfoy can’t exactly come with her to the Burrow, now can he?

The chance that none of this works is also there, looming on the outskirts of the battlefields of her mind. The chance that it might fall apart, that he might already be feral and that she just doesn’t have any idea what a feral vampire looks like, is something that concerns her. A lot of things concern her.

As long as she doesn’t panic, everything will be fine.

She’s panicking.

The potions shop is relatively empty, being on the side of Hogsmeade that it is, and she’s been able to gather every ingredient but the most important one. She’s searched every jar, every trough, every shelf. It’s not there and she knows it’s not going to be in Slughorn’s stores, either. It’s rare. She knew it was rare but this shop is owned by a wizard who spends his summers traveling to other countries to gather ingredients. She was sure it would be here.

But it’s not.

In fact, most of Seraph Splitterton’s shoppe is empty, and not just in shoppers. Where usually the jars are full to the brim, they’re half-full and the ingredients look dried out. The troughs are so sparse that Hermione doesn’t need her wand to siphon out the things she needs—she simply plucks them out. The shelves have only a third of the things they usually do.

“Have you found what you’re looking for, then?”

Hermione jolts, turning to see Seraph standing right beside her. She laughs the sort of nervous laugh a woman gives when a man is in her space, and she steps to the side. 

It’s strange, given that Seraph has always been the standoffish sort. He was never this friendly and frankly, Hermione’s always been the only student he likes having peruse his wares. Seraph must have had some sort of religious epiphany after Voldemort’s return because he’s looking and acting nothing like the way she remembers him to be.

“I’ve found some of it,” Hermione says, and then she looks over at Luna. The Ravenclaw is staring somewhat wistfully at a jar full of Golden Buffaloons, watching them float in lazy circles inside. “Luna, I think I’m ready. Are you ready?”

“Hm? Oh, yes.” Luna turns to face her, hands clasped behind her back. “Did you find what you needed?”

“Not exactly.”

“Is there something specific you wanted?” Seraph asks. His watery green eyes are searching her own, his grey hair wild and scraggly about his head. His back is straighter than she remembers it being. 

“Yes, but it’s not something you can easily get or order.”

“What is it you’re looking for?”

She grimaces, unsure if she should say. The ingredient she needs is used specifically for Blood Replenishment potions. What if Seraph owls Madam Pomfrey or the Headmistress? Blood Replenishment potions are Ministry-sanctioned, no different than Polyjuice or Draught of Living Death. She will get in trouble for brewing it outside of a classroom setting.

“It’s nothing,” she says. “And it’s not important. I’m ready to purchase these things, though.”

Seraph looks like he doesn’t believe her, and it makes her heart rate quicken.

If anyone finds out what she’s brewing, it’s over.

After a moment, Seraph turns and heads to the cash wrap. Hermione lets out her breath a small bit at a time, following with Luna at her side. She forces a smile on, something impassive and disarming. No one can find out.

Not even Luna.

“You seem distracted,” Luna says later, when they’re sitting in the Three Broomsticks. The place is lively, full of many of their peers. Luna’s eating a sandwich while Hermione’s eating pasta. “Was the missing ingredient important?”

“No.” Hermione sets her fork down and sighs. “Well, yes. But it’s not something I can really talk about. I just needed it for something.”

“Something cosmetic, you said.”

“Yes. For my—my skin.”

“Your skin looks lovely,” Luna says around a mouthful. “It’s very clear.”

“And I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Naturally. How goes the project?”

Hermione is quick this time. “My research on vampires is going very well. I’m finding that I know a lot already. I just need to do some deeper research than what’s on the surface. It’s easy to find books on them as a species and their history.”

Luna purses her lips, her elbows on the table and sandwich poised near her mouth. “Are you wanting to go deeper?”

“Yes,” Hermione says, and that’s the truth. “I want to know about the way they live their lives. The Ministry allows them to register, so that must mean there are vampires walking amongst us. I want to know what sort of future they can have, if it’s worth having. The way werewolves have been studied is so extensive, yet there’s no studies on vampires. I find that curious.”

“You seem very interested in the subject. I guess that means it was the perfect subject for you to choose.”

“I guess so.” 

“You always have been interested in the less fortunate,” Luna says, her eyes finding Hermione’s. They’re filled with a fond warmth. “I think it’s wonderful.”

Hermione grins. “Someone’s gotta advocate for them. I mean, do you remember when we studied that Wizengamot case in History of Magic last year? Richmond v. Brittania?”

“Oh, the one with the pixie dust—”

“Yes, the pixie dust debacle.” Hermione sets her fork down. “The fact that a pixie has dust isn’t something that it can help. For that poor Miss Brittania to have been arrested for trailing it behind her wherever she went—especially when she wasn’t allowed to use her wings and had to walk everywhere? I just—it’s wrong, is what it is. It’s unfair.”

“Pixie dust is harmless, in small amounts, you know,” Luna replies. “All it does is foster an uplifted spirit. It causes joy. It’s only dangerous when taken as a narcotic.”

“I know, and that’s why it makes me so angry.” 

Hermione can’t pick her fork back up. She’s not hungry anymore. There’s something expanding in her chest. Something like anger but less hot. More like a barrier surrounding flames. 

Anxiety.

“There’s a lot of things wrong with the way the Ministry does things,” she says. “Not just in Miss Brittania’s case. For all magical creatures. Werewolves, trolls, goblins, elves…vampires. And now that Vol—You-Know-Who is back, the Ministry is only going to get bolder.”

Luna nods. “Maybe you can write about it in your project?”

“Yes, I think I will.” For a moment, Hermione forgets she’s not actually doing vampires for her project because she wanted to, but because she was backed into a corner. She leans into the lie, feeling very much herself as the protective rage she has for all magical creatures wraps around her to add foundational support to her opinion. “I think the Ministry forgets that magical creatures are just like you and me. They’re capable of human thoughts. Some of them are so human that they might as well be people we know.”

Like Malfoy.

“I think it’s an excellent topic,” Luna says, her mouth once again full of food. Her eyes twinkle. “One you seem very passionate about. I suppose I should start thinking of my topic, too.”

They chat amiably while they finish their food, in a world of their own making even as the Three Broomsticks continues to erupt with life around them. Hermione thinks it’s nice, having a small break from the tornado of drama that Malfoy’s brought down on her head. With Luna, she can be herself.

For a little while.

There’s a crowd on Mulrey Lane.

It’s a street that shoots off to the East, leading deeper into the rundown side of Hogsmeade. It’s small, with ramshackle buildings and houses lining it, and its dark. It intermingles with the edge of the woods, causing it to be cast in perpetual shadows. The cobblestones laid into it are cracked and old, the contrast of them adjacent to the shopping districts freshly-paved walk a testament to how much more the parish council valued tourism this year with Voldemort’s return.

The crowd that’s gathered in the mouth of the street blocks any possible view. Most of the assembled viewers are townspeople and students on their way back from lunch. Hermione and Luna, who are passing on the pavement across the road with their arms wrapped around themselves in their winter coats, cast inquisitive glances toward the crowd.

For a second, Hermione thinks she sees the royal purple robes of an Auror, but the people shift and press together, and then she can’t see anything at all.

“I wonder’s what’s going on over there,” she says to Luna. “Do you think someone vandalized a building?”

“I couldn’t say.” Luna shrugs her shoulders. “Perhaps a Toddyswol lumbered in from the woods? They can be quite destructive, especially in the winter.”

“Perhaps.” 

Hermione cranes her neck as they pass by, glancing back over her shoulder in the hopes that she can try to see something. Then, they’re too far away to see anything and they’re turning left onto High Street. Now, she can see Honeydukes rearing up ahead. There’s still a lot of people on the pavement, but they’re all Hogwarts students.

“All this tourism, and still no one wants to come to High Street because the Three Broomsticks isn’t on it,” Hermione says, shaking her head as she pulls all of her braids over the front of one shoulder. The air is cold against the skin that peeks out around the neat boxes her mother sectioned on her scalp. “Such a shame.”

“I love it here,” Luna says. “I think it’s quaint.”

“So do I. I just worry what the parish will do if the tourists aren’t interested. Can you imagine if they tore it all down? Oh, it’d be awful.”

“I’d certainly miss my sweets at Honeydukes,” Luna says, her melodic tone wistful. “But they’d never do that. I think the townspeople would lose their minds.”

“I’d lose my mind, Luna. I need my sugar quills, dammit.”

They continue to talk about it as they make their way back up the hill. Their feet crunch in the snow the entire way, but the exertion it takes to plod along doesn’t stop them from laughing at the thought of Slughorn’s face if they ever rid the town of the Hog’s Head. The poor professor was at the pub every weekend with a near-constant stream of drinks and cheeks as ruddy as cherries.

As they enter the courtyard, they nearly run into two people exiting. Colin Creevey and Hannah Abbott. They are both talking and laughing, too, and when they stop in front of Luna and Hermione, all four of them allow their laughter to fade. An awkward lapse passes between them and then Hannah is all smiles beneath her wavy blonde hair.

“I’m guess you two saw it, right?” she asks, putting her mittened hands on her hips. “It had to be gruesome.”

Hermione and Luna exchange glances, both appearing perplexed.

“What do you mean?” Luna asks. “We didn’t see anything gruesome.”

“I mean, there was a crowd.” Hermione’s brow furrows. “What were we supposed to see?”

Colin grins like they’ve stumbled upon some sort of golden prize. There’s something about it that reminds Hermione of the way Harry and Ron smile at one another after a Quidditch game, or a really good joke. It’s like he’s a boy and he’s excited by something stupid. Judging by the way he’s clutching his camera, she’s probably right.

“Why, the dead body, of course!”

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine

“A dead body?!” Hermione is alarmed as she looks down into Colin's eyes. “We didn’t see that!”

“Yeah,” Hannah says. “They found a dead body down there next to the grocer's. I’m surprised you couldn’t smell anything. People have been complaining about a stench for a week now.”

Hermione feels speechless. Luna’s eyes are wide, indicating that she’s just as stunned. Dangerous things have happened on Hogwarts’ grounds, but in Hogsmeade? Hermione’s never heard of anything like this happening down there before.

“Was it an elderly person?” Luna asks, holding one hand to her mouth. “Perhaps they just…died?”

“I heard it was murder,” Colin says, still grinning. “Barmy, right? A murder in Hogsmeade.”

“Colin!” Hermione scolds.

“I’m sure it’s happened before. I just don’t think it’s been reported on. With You-Know-Who being back, it's news now.”

Of course it’s news. Hermione’s so intrigued by it that she almost wants to walk back down the hill. If it truly is a murder that’s taken place, she wants to know the circumstances. This sort of thing is exactly what Harry, Ron, and she involved themselves in. If the people of Hogsmeade are in danger, then she wants to learn as much as she can to help them.

Especially with a near-feral vampire lurking about the castle.

“I’m sure more information will come out soon,” Luna says. “Then we’ll know who it was that passed away. Coming, Hermione?”

Hermione tears her gaze off of the snow beneath her feet, nodding. “See you later, Colin, Hannah.”

“See you later!”

“Bye, Hermione. Come on, Hannah. I really want to get my camera down there before they clean it up.”

Hermione and Luna make their way into the castle, their earlier mirth tamped down. Luna seems lost in thought, as she always is, and Hermione finds that her own mind is too loud for her to speak. 

What if Malfoy’s lying to her? What if he’s already feral? Or worse—what if he’s not lying, and he just doesn’t know he’s lost his humanity? What if he’s the one who murdered the victim in Hogsmeade, and what if he doesn’t know it?

She’s worried that she’s about to help a murderer.

When they part ways, Luna stepping onto a staircase that’s floating to the Third floor and Hermione going up to the Fourth, Hermione hopes for Malfoy’s sake that she’s overreacting.

Hermione is frustrated.

There’s nothing on vampires that isn’t conjecture or propaganda. The book she technically stole from the library before Christmas is essentially theory and Muggle-based myth. She counts the phrase ‘vampires cannot enter churches’ thirty times in the entire book, as though the author is worried the reader’s forgotten. It’s ridiculous.

She makes her way through several more books, many of them that insist garlic is the best way to protect yourself against a vampire, before she gives up. 

Maybe there’s some things she’s just going to have to find out through trial and error.

So, while she’s in Potions the day after the body is found in Hogsmeade, she ignores Harry’s success with the Prince's stupid textbook, and focuses on her ingredient preparation while analyzing Malfoy to ensure that she has complete control over the situation. Hermione works best with what she knows, so as she’s crushing things with the flat of her knife, she starts there.

Beside her, Ron has not been interested in talking about anything other than gossip. He’s just as intrigued by the dead body that was found as she is, and he’s full of theories as to what could have happened.

“Apparently, it’d been there for at least a week. Can you believe that?” Ron is saying. “An entire week. And no one noticed a damn thing.”

The thing she's noticed for damn certain is that Malfoy’s hungry. He drinks blood—no way around it. Strike it off the list of optional things, right from jump. 

Second thing she knows is that he’s fast. Very fast. So fast, in fact, that he’d probably make Harry hate Quidditch if Malfoy were able to translate that speed onto a broom. Malfoy’s so fast that from where he is right now, in the front corner of the room standing beside his Potions partner, Pansy Parkinson, Hermione thinks he could catch a drop of her potion if she spilled her cauldron.

That takes ever running from him out of the equation, she thinks, irritated. Gods, he’s ghastly. I can’t escape him. Literally, I cannot escape him in all walks of life and the day we go our separate ways, I will absolutely fall to my knees and rejoice. Oh, lucky me, I get to help keep my school bully alive. That’s exactly what I wanted to do in my Sixth Year. Prat.

“I know some people were complaining there was a weird smell past High Street,” Ron goes on. “Like, I heard them talking about it at breakfast and mealtimes, you know, but I don’t think anyone connected the dots on what it could be.”

“Right,” Hermione replies. “Sometimes people only see what they wanna see.”

Like Lavender, who can't see how utterly over it Ron is with her.

“How barmy would that be if there was an actual murder in Hogsmeade? I’m sure people were expecting things like this after You-Know-Who came back, of course, but still. Bloody Hell.”

“Perhaps it was an accidental death. Pansy Parkinson was in the loo this morning, talking to Millicent and saying that the person who died was an elderly man.”

“Or Malfoy did it,” Harry says with a wry smirk. “I blame him for everything, you know.”

“Yes, we know,” Hermione snaps. 

“Mm, I dunno.” Ron shakes his head as he sets into chopping some sprigs of something. He's not doing it right, but for once, Hermione doesn't correct him. Let him make his own mistakes. “I think Hogsmeade is too quiet, and it’s been too quiet for too long. They don’t even have a resident Auror. It was only a matter of time before someone went mental, or Death Eaters showed up.”

“I suppose.” She drops the crushed bezoars into her cauldron. It flashes blue, sends up a shower of red glitter, and begins to bubble. She has no idea what they’re making, she’s that distracted.

Hermione glances past Ron, to the front of the room. Malfoy’s chopping something, the knife moving across the cutting board with the fluidity and grace he’s always possessed. His head is bowed, his hair flopping forward to shroud his eyes as he focuses fully and completely on his task. Next to him, Pansy is equally-silent but she keeps looking down at Malfoy’s hands with a wide-eyed expression.

Yes, he’s very, very fast.

But, ew. 

Why is Pansy looking at him like that? It’s not like he’s attractive, or anything. Not with that personality. Yes, obviously his looks are transcendent—that cannot be contested—but his personality is so absolute and utter shit that he’s hideous. He’s bloody odd.

However.

She supposes she never has gotten a good look at his hands. If they’re going to be wrapped around her throat and shoving her against walls every five seconds, she might as well inspect them. 

Malfoy has the sort of hands that some might find attractive. The sort one might see on an artist or musician. Pale, with redness marring the knuckles, and long fingers that taper at the nails. Every movement, fluid. Every touch, purposeful. Like anytime he’s forced to use them, he makes sure it isn’t a waste of time.

He’s got good hands.

Meanwhile, Hermione’s hands are large. Clunky. Her nailbeds peel and her cuticles are always dry. She bites her nails to the quick every chance she gets and if her nails are gone, she chews the dry skin off of the pads of her fingers. Ink stains the sides of her palm and pinky on her left hand because she thinks faster than she writes. In the Winter, the lines in her palm crack so horribly that it hurts.

Her hands are bad.

“Well, I guess they found the body stuffed into the skip,” Ron says. “Maimed, dismembered, the whole situation. Blood stains everywhere. And no one thought to check behind it because they assumed the rubbish just smelled awful. It’s fucked, yeah?”

“Yes. Very. And bizarre that they have a skip—why not just vanish or burn their rubbish?”

“Maybe time constraints? I’m not sure.” Ron shakes his head. “Anyway, the bloke was completely torn apart. Limb-from-limb. Disaster everywhere. I know Harry probably thinks it was a Death Eater, but—”

“It's not like the assumption is left-pitch, Ron,” Harru protests. “They are out there. And some are probably here at this school.” 

 “Well, I think if it were a beast or monster, that’s what they’d do. So, maybe it’s a werewolf. Right?”

“Possibly.” Hermione pauses, tilting her head to the side. “Actually, I think that’s a fair assumption. It’s the reason why werewolves have a lower classification than most magical beasts. Because they slip into an alternate state of mind and when they’re in werewolf form, they act…well, like wolves. And wolves aren’t exactly prim and proper when they eat.”

“Not at all.” Ron exhales through pursed lips, shaking his head. “Still, it’s pretty barmy to think about. Whether it's werewolves or just plain ole’ murder, that means we’re in the middle of another year at Hogwarts that’s anything but ordinary.”

“Yep.”

“As if we weren't already,” Harry says, and they both laugh.

Malfoy stops cutting for a moment, passing the back of the hand that holds the knife across the underside of his nose, like it itches. As he does, he rolls his neck to crack it. Casts a lazy glance across the chalkboard and Slughorn, who is sleeping at his desk.

Hermione’s breath catches.

He’s turned his head.

Now, he’s looking right at her. Which feels weird, given they've barely exchanged glances since what happened in the empty classroom. Hermione has been trying to pretend it never happened but it did, and her only reprieve is to not look at him.

She averts her gaze, back to her potion.

Third thing she knows—and quite possibly the most important—is that Malfoy’s strong. During their conversation in the courtyard, he’d slammed her against the wall with two fingers. Two fingers . On the surface, he hadn’t seemed surprised but in his eyes, she’d seen the sort of glee that she’d seen on Ron’s face the first time he blocked a Bludger. Like deep down, he’d had an idea of his strength but seeing it manifested in reality was exciting for him.

That brings her to the fourth thing she knows.

He’s dangerous.

“If it was a werewolf,” Harry says as he waits for his potion to boil, “then who do you think it could be? Someone in town? An entire pack? Or a lone wolf?”

Hermione blinks, tearing her gaze away from Malfoy. “With that amount of violence? A pack, if it was werewolves. But I doubt it.”

“Why?”

She starts to speak, to say that Malfoy would be able to smell them, but then she stops herself.

That’s not something she knows. It’s not something she knows and it’s not something that she can blurt out in Potions. It’s his secret and if he wanted everyone to know, he wouldn’t have accosted her in a corridor.

If she tells anyone, Malfoy will end her existence. She’s sure of it.

“Because werewolves are loud and boisterous. Sloppy. Messy.” Hermione waves a dismissive hand. “If a pack of werewolves was wandering around Hogsmeade or Hogwarts, then they would have killed someone before this person. And if there’s just bodies stuffed all over Hogsmeade, then the wolves would have been sensed and tracked by now.”

Oh—oops.

“By who?”

Ron adds, “Who can sense and track a werewolf?”

Hermione clears her throat past the brief panic at her slip-up. 

“Aurors can. And attentive shopkeepers. I know the owner of Honeydukes would be able to tell a werewolf track in the snow within seconds—she’s very attentive.”

“Ah. Well, who knows?” he teased. “It could be you .”

“Ron, come on. What do I look like to you?”

He cocks his head. “Not a werewolf. A vampire, maybe.”

Hermione snorts at the irony. “If I were a vampire, I certainly wouldn’t be that lazy with my clean-up.”

Laughing at her own joke, she glances up and over at Malfoy again. The moment her gaze rests, she feels a seizing in her chest. A fear that she can’t place. Like being caught staying up too late reading in the summer after her father told her to go to bed.

He’s looking at her.

At her, over his shoulder, with a murderous glint in his eyes. Annoyed. Angry.

Indignant. 

“I’m sure if it were a vampire,” she says to Ron while holding Malfoy’s gaze as she stirs her potion with her wand, “then he’d get caught sooner or later. They’re fast and they’re strong, but when they’re hungry, they’re not as smart as they think.”

Because unfortunately for them, they’re not in control and they never will be. 

Blood is.

Malfoy snaps his knife in half.

Clean in half. The blade from the handle. Parvati’s jaw drops. Malfoy blinks rapidly, looking down at what he’s done in silent shock. He drops the broken pieces onto the table.

Fifth thing I know , Hermione thinks with a churning to her stomach. Malfoy can hear everything .

Thoughts and all.

Friday arrives.

Hermione tries to focus on other things all day, to take her mind off of what’s supposed to happen that night. They've agreed to meet at supper time to have the lowest chance of being caught and/or interrupted. The minutes run by, turning to hours as fast as quicksand. It seems like every time she sends an anxious look over to a clock, more time has ripped through her continuum. 

She's so anxious that she sends Madam Pomfrey notice that she's not feeling well and will need to stay in her dorm for the day. Off the hook from classes, she tries painting her nails to make her hands look less shitty, but it looks awful and takes her an entire hour. She takes her braids out due to sheer anxiety, vanishing the synthetic hair and then spending two hours caring for her Afro so she can win an award for being the ultimate procrastinator. She does a face mask and reads and stares out the window and paces around her room. She practices wingardium leviosa because honestly, she’d rather do First Year charms than feed her pet Slytherin.

And then she laughs at that joke for a solid thirty minutes of on-and-off giggling fits. 

There are several times during this wait that she contemplates changing her mind and going to Dumbledore. Thinks about how easy it would be to simply brush the dirt off of her trousers, wipe her hands free of him, and pass him over to the Ministry.

But she can’t.

And damn her compassion for magical creatures, because Draco Malfoy doesn’t deserve it. Everything he’s done to her, the way he’s treated other people…?

She can’t think about it, and she doesn’t bother to try. Instead, she thinks of the murder. Wonders if he had something do with it.

It doesn’t make any sense. Why would he kill someone after asking for Hermione’s help? What was the point of asking for help if he was going to get blood anyway?

No, Malfoy couldn’t have killed the victim. He’d come to her the previous month, claiming he hadn’t fed in months. That showed that he was willing to risk himself to keep from hurting anyone. And Ron had said that the body was there for dayss, to the point of stench. If Malfoy is the one who killed the victim, then he wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave the mess and the body there to rot. 

Unless this is all part of it.

Unless he tore the body apart to make it look like something or someone else had committed the murder, and then came to Hermione to cover his tracks and say that it couldn’t be him because he already possessed a source.

Far be it from Draco Malfoy to be selfish.

Her rage at the theory is enough to finally make her close her book and get out of her pyjamas.

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten

Hermione was right.

He’s in the corridor.

Malfoy’s leaning against the wall opposite the portrait, arms crossed and one foot kicked back against the wall. He’s wearing his slack trousers and white button-up, which does nothing to combat the paleness of his skin and whiteness of his hair.

Tonight, Hermione is wearing a pair of black leggings and an oversized jumper with a cable knit. Her kinky brown curls are weighed down by a leave-in conditioner that she didn’t need to put on, but that really put the cherry on the procrastination sundae. Her nail polish is just absolutely beyond the pale hideous, and she’s carrying a small pouch in one of her ugly, bad, horrific hands.

Honestly, she should really just cut them off.

“Hey,” she says as she approaches him. “Did anyone see you come up?”

“Thank you,” comes his reply. “And no. Everyone's at dinner.”

“What are you thanking me for?”

“Deigning to take some time out of your busy schedule to feed me.” There's fire in the reflective surfaces of his silver irises. When he speaks, it’s a growl. “I’m fucking starving.”

Hermione resists the urge to tell him how happy his torment makes her after he so rudely ghosted her, and then turns to walk down the corridor. He follows.

“What’s in the bag?” Malfoy asks from beside her. “My dinner, I hope.”

“No,” she says in a monotone, then waves a dismissive hand. “It’s something to put your dinner in.”

He hums in approval and the sound makes Hermione’s skin crawl. She doesn’t know why. She casts him a disgruntled look before quickly looking up towards the landing again.

“My original plan was to separate it into seven vials so you have a weekly supply to get you through, but I wasn’t able to procure the things I needed to do that safely. So instead, we’re going to come up with a new plan.“

“Mm-hm.”

The way he’s looking at her. The way his voice sounds. The tension between them.

He’s annoying.

“ Why do you have to be so bizarre?” she snaps. “Why can’t you just be normal?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Stop humming. Making noises. Purring. Doing weird animalistic things.”

“I am an animal.”

Hermione rolls her eyes. “If you want to get technical, what you are is classified by the Ministry as a Being. That means that you have—and I quote—‘sufficient intelligence to understand the laws of the magical community and to bear part of the responsibility in shaping those laws.’ So, you’re not an animal.”

“Just like a swot to stick her nose into things that have nothing to do with her.” He’s looking down at her in a way that makes her feel uncomfortable. Like he’s debating throwing her over a staircase railing and into the darkness. “Is that what you were doing all day? Reading about me? How sweet.”

“Well, I always have known more than you,” she says, ignoring his taunting as she heads for the Room of Requirement as fast as possible. The sooner this is over with, the better. “Unsurprising that I know more about your species than you do.”

As she nears the wall, the door materializes. It’s ordinary and small. Wooden, with a brass knob. 

She reaches for it.

A pale, slender hand closes over hers and tightens. Heat presses firm against her back. A nose pressing into her neck. The memory of the way she felt in the classroom on Monday ripples across her skin. A twisty feeling in her body raises pebbles along every square inch of her body and her heart rate jumps.

He inhales.

“Do not touch me,” Hermione hisses, her anger mingling with her unease. She can feel them both warring in her gut, mingling together in a way that makes her knees feel like knocking. “Show me some respect and back off.”

“Make no mistake, Granger,” he breathes into her ear, his other hand pressing flat to the door, caging her in. “I am an animal. I’m an animal, and I can do whatever I want. The only thing that holds me back from tearing out your throat and draining every last drop of blood from your fucking body…? Is respect.”

His words are like chips of dry ice, each one spreading the cold further inside of her. Each breath she takes feels like it hurts, like it’s being forced out of frozen lungs.

All at once, she’s overwhelmed by the knowledge that he’s not the same person as before. He’s barely even human. He’s not a simple wizard anymore, and he can snap her neck in seconds. He could snap it right now if he wanted to.

She’s never felt this afraid of being respected.

“Let go of my hand,” she says after taking a deep breath to try and steady herself. “If you want me to feed you, then you’ll let go of my hand so I can open the door.”

Malfoy doesn’t move. His head dips closer, turning until she can feel his face against her damp curls. He inhales again, deep and in a way that makes his chest expand against her shoulders. His hand starts to move down. She sees his fingers curving, nails beginning to stretch and curve into points—claws that gouge into the wood of the door.

Just like him to think she’s still less than him even when his blood isn’t pure anymore, either.

His blood is dead.

“Boy, if you don’t back up ,” she warns, her body trembling with magic. It’s sparking at her fingertips. “I swear to Merlin, I’ll hex you back to the First Floor.”

“Of course.”

He lets out a chuckle. It’s rough and scratchy and it rumbles against her, rolls down her spine in a way that she doesn’t understand.

And he steps back.

“So much for respect,” Hermione mutters, and then she rips the door open. 

Once they’re inside with the door shut, Hermione looks at the room. It’s a simple one, with a hearth and a couch, a window that overlooks the Forbidden Forest, tapestries and unmoving portraits on the walls, and a wooden table with a chair at either end. The floor is carpeted and there’s a bookshelf in the corner.

“Apparently, the castle thinks we’ll be spending a lot of time in here,” Malfoy says, sauntering past the couch. “An entire bookshelf just for you. You must be aching at the sight of it.”

He turns back around and walks the length of it again, his gaze fixated upon Hermione. He runs one claw along the top of the brown couch cushions. Each step he takes, Hermione is afraid he’s going to pierce the fabric and tear open the pillows. 

“Oh, stop,” she says, heading for the table. “You’re annoying.”

“And hungry. Hurry up.”

Hermione scrutinizes him, setting the pouch she’s brought with her on the table. Studies him like he’s made of parchment and ink, and wonders at how collected he is. She doesn’t know much about vampires, even if he thinks she does, but she knows that going months without feeding would be torture. It's no wonder he lost control on Monday and bit her.

Unless he’s the one who murdered the person in Hogsmeade. Then he might not have been that hungry at all. 

“You, Malfoy, have remarkable self-control.”

“She says with an air of know-it-all hovering about her head,” he mocks. “I suppose I should get used to your strange ways of paying compliments.”

A scowl pulls her lip up. “It wasn’t—”

”A compliment, I know.”

Hermione grinds her teeth together. It’s such a harmless conversation but it annoys her. He annoys her. There’s something hovering about his head that makes her want to scream. He’s the one who needs her but he’s so bloody cocky that it makes her want to watch him starve out of pure irritation.

She takes a seat at the table. Malfoy starts to move away from the couch, but she stops him with an indignant noise. She lays the vials out on the table, along with a Pepper-Up potion she brewed ages ago for studying purposes.

“Yeah, no. You can stay your arse right there. I’m not about to have you lunging across the table at me.”

His eyes flash but his face remains otherwise unchanged. “What’s in the bottle?”

“A Pepper-Up potion,” she explains as she rolls her sleeves up. She sets her wand on the table before she does so. “It’s the next best thing to Blood Replenishment. I’ll still feel tired overall, but I won’t feel weak. It’ll help so I don’t pass out.”

He’s silent, his gaze fixated as she picks up her wand. She looks down at her hand with its horrible nail polish and dry, cracked palms, and she grimaces.

Where to make the cut?

“Your wrist.”

Hermione blinks and looks up at him. He’s facing her, his hip just above the back of the couch because he’s so tall. The claws of his right hand are clenched in a pillow, and his facial expression is strange. It’s not contorted or twisted, or anything, but it’s…

Raw.

“But is that the best option? And don’t ask for me to cut my neck. It’s not happening, and you can cry about it.”

His eyes flash. “I want it from your wrist.”

Hermione resists the urge to jolt at the whip of his tone, and then sighs. All right. Fine. The wrist it will be. She holds the tip of her wand to her right wrist, holding her arm upright.

“ Diffindo ,” she says, bracing herself as her magic cuts a small line across her vein. 

The skin comes apart, opening like peeling the back off of a sticker, and then the blood is welling up. Hermione uncorks one vial with her teeth.

There’s a tearing noise.

Hermione’s gaze lifts.

Malfoy has torn a chunk out of the couch.

He shakes his hand free of feathers, uncaring of that fact as he stares so hard at her wrist and the vial that she feels like her skin might burst into flames. 

Malfoy’s face is still open. Unguarded. There are veins spiderwebbing beneath his eyes, thin tendrils reaching down towards his fangs. His eyes aren’t fully silver any longer. There’s something dark bleeding from the pupil. Violet.

And he’s shaking. She can see it in his hands, the way they’re trembling as he drags them both through his hair. A stray feather floats down to the floor, soft and white. He runs his tongue along his fangs as his chest heaves for breath, shoulders rising up and down. One hand goes to his hip. The other rubs anxiously at his jawline, the front of his throat, and the side of his neck.

For the first time, she can see his hunger.

“We should come up with a schedule. I don’t exactly know how much blood you need, but I figured these vials would be enough to tide you over each day. Better than no blood at all.” 

She pauses for a moment as a feeling of dizziness comes over her. Her eyelids fall shut as she waits for the spinning to pass. When the third vial is corked, she drinks the Pepper-Up potion. Its magic spins through her body, invigorating her.

Only two more vials to go. 

“But I don’t think it’s safe to fill more than four or five at a time, especially with the fact that I can’t make Blood Replenishment Potion yet.”

“What’s your—” His voice is haggard, like it’s the middle of the night and he’s trying to force himself to stay awake. “What’s your plan for that?”

“I’m gonna check back at the shop in Hogsmeade to see if he’s got anything new in,” she says. “He was running so low that he can’t possibly keep the doors open if he doesn’t restock. I’m sure it’ll be in the next couple of weeks.”

Malfoy’s eyes are fully purple now, the silver having faded completely. Hermione wonders if the color indicates how hungry he is, and what it feels like. Is it like having extra energy? Is it something he can feel in his head, or in his veins? Is he holding himself back easily, or is he seconds away from attacking?

She can’t deny that she’s more thrilled by the academic curiosity those things inspire than she should be.

When the last vial is corked, she picks up her wand. She casts the stasis spell she learned this week to make sure the blood will be okay. Then, one episkey later, the small cut in her wrist is healed. It may need another charm but for now, she can tell her spellwork was acceptable. 

“Okay, you can come over here now,” she says.

Malfoy places the tips of his fingers against the tabletop, his brow set deep with a furrow as he speaks slowly.

“I need blood every day, Granger. You understand that, right?”

“I do.” She cocks her head to the side for a moment. “Well, I assumed that would be the case. Is one vial per day going to be enough?”

“It’ll have to be.”

Her brows pull together for a moment and then she says, “Go ahead and take them.”

Malfoy snatches them up so fast that she’s taken aback by it. Four of them are shrunken magically and placed into the pocket of his denims, and then the fifth vial is uncorked, tipped up to his lips within seconds. Hermione watches as he downs the contents in one gulp.

The groan that echoes in his chest as he drops his head back makes her skin itch.

“Salazar, fuck ,” he says, his tongue smoothing across his upper lip to catch any remnants. His eyelids flutter and then he’s looking down at her. “You taste good.”

His eyes are still violet.

“Okay, how do you feel?” Hermione asks, folding her arms on the tabletop as she completely ignores what he’s just said. “Did it sate you?”

Malfoy doesn’t reply. His eyes narrow a fraction. He looks her up and down. Studying her. Analyzing her.

Sizing her up?

Okay, time to go, Hermione thinks. There are alarm bells going off in her mind, reminding her that the way he’s looking at her isn’t okay. There’s something deep within her being that tells her she needs to leave. 

Now.

Because he’s a vampire. He’s a predator. He’s been starving for months and she’s just given him a taste of cocaine. Lifesaving cocaine. 

It’s only natural to want more.

“So, I—I prefer we use the Room of Requirement every week when we—when we do this,” she says, shoving the empty Pepper-Up potion bottle into her bag. “We can meet here every Saturday during supper, just to be safe. I’ll give you five vials a week until I can brew the potion, and then I can double it. Possibly even triple it.”

The legs of the chair scrape on the carpet at how quickly she stands up. On instinct, she reaches back to steady it so it doesn’t topple over.

And regrets it.

He’s beside her.

Oh, bollocks, Hermione thinks in a panic. Why did I do this? Why did I agree to this?

“Because you’ve got a heart that bleeds for the disenfranchised, Granger,” he says. Purrs it out like a feral wolf. His eyes are dark with need. The only thing she can compare it to is desire, a desire that burns deeper and more violently than that of the flesh. “Why don’t we just meet every day? One vial a day, so you can rest that pretty little head.”

Her mind is a battlefield. The realization that he can hear her thoughts goes to war with the fact that he’s preying upon her right now. His tone is cajoling yet sinister, indicating that it doesn’t matter her answer—he intends to give her no choice.

“We c-can’t meet e-every day,” she stammers out as she starts moving backward. She clutches her wand in one hand and her bag in the other. She wants to calculate escapes, measure out how fast she can cast a hex, but how?

He’s inside her head. He knows her every move.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.” Moving to the side, around the table, Hermione tries to keep her mind blank. As blank as nothing. “I don’t like you.”

“But Granger.” The smirk that curls up on his lips is wicked as he walks toward her slowly. It’s cruel. “What if I like you ?”

There’s a spike of terror in her body at the implication of his words, and then she wrangles it in. She fixes him with the fiercest glare she can muster.

“Cope.”

There is a calm that crosses his face, akin to that of a hurricane’s eye. His gaze is scorching to her skin. It burns like summer sunlight. “The fact you think you have a choice is cute. I’ll decide how this is going to go. I’ve already decided, in fact, that we’re going to meet once a day. Because if we don’t, then—”

“Then what? What are you going to do? Kill me? Stop trying to scare me!” she shouts at him. “What gives you the right to come to me, ask for my help, and then terrorize me afterward?! Don’t you realize that as easily as I can give it to you, it’s just as well that I can take it away?!”

“You’re dead if you try,” he whispers. “It’s mine. ”

“What is? Are you—are you joking? My blood isn’t yours! It’s mine!”

“You’re mine.”

Oh, no. He did not just.

This cretin.

“Fine, Malfoy. You wanna act like a child, then fine. I can match your energy.”

Before he can realize what she’s doing, she’s accio ed all four of the vials back out of his pocket. His eyes widen in shock, shock that turns to horror when she throws them all onto the table. Recklessly smashes them all in one fell swoop. The vermillion blood pools atop the polished mahogany, red and cherry-brown intermingled with clear shards of glass.

“Lick it off the table if you want it, little boy! No, go on. Lick it off the table if you think you’ve got a claim to me.”

“You bitch,” he hisses, his fangs glinting in the firelight. “I’ll slit your throat. I will slice it open with my claws, you fucking Mudblood cunt .”

She’s never heard that one before.

It reminds her how much she despises him.

“Well, Malfoy, you didn’t choose me for my kindness and compassion. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll splinter. That’ll teach you to mind your tongue.”

Malfoy loses it. He absolutely loses it.

Hermione screams when he lunges, flashing forward with a speed she can’t possibly fathom. It seems like she’s only taken one breath and then her back is crashing into the stone wall, her bag dropping to the floor. It hurts. It hurts badly . Pushes all of the breath out of her in an agonized whine.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he roars, inches away from her. His fangs are bared and the veins that have crept down his cheeks are protruding from his rage. His claws have pierced the skin at the back of her neck, he’s squeezing that hard. “Have you learned nothing this past week? What will it take for you to grasp that no matter how much control you think you have, I can simply take it from you?!”

Hermione can’t breathe.

The firelight makes Malfoy’s eyes glint like moonlight off of the faces of an amethyst, and Hermione cannot breathe.

“When I asked for your blood, I failed to elaborate that when you said yes, it made you as good as mine.”

Hermione’s toes brush the floor, frantic as she struggles for air that won’t come. She gazes up at him, suspended between disbelief and dread. Everything hurts—her neck, her back, her lungs, her head. 

It was stupid. She can admit that. It was stupid to go through all this trouble to get the blood out of her body, just to spill it all over the table.

Damn her need for control.

“I should kill you for that. I should take everything you’ve got left in you.” He’s angry. So, so angry. “That was mine .”

Then why don’t you? she thinks, because he’s strangling her too hard for her to speak. All you do is talk. If you were going to kill me, you would have done it by now.

He stares at her as though he’s never met anyone with a bigger death wish.

“Are you mental? I have my hand around your throat right now.”

I’m aware.

Something must crack him open because he lets go of her. 

He doesn’t move back, so when her feet hit the ground and she starts to fold forward in a coughing fit, she falls against his chest. Hermione’s coughing too hard to notice when his hand, stained with her blood, comes up to sink into the curls at the back of her head. Too dizzy to notice when he starts to tilt it to the side.

Malfoy begins to gather her curls up into one hand. One-by-one, each curl goes up into the tight circle of his fingers. With each swiping movement, he takes another ragged, pained breath. 

In the back of her confused mind, Hermione knows what he’s going to do. Resigns herself to it. Knows she can’t move fast enough to stop him. She’s too weak.

Too weak to push him away when his head starts to lower.

“I’m so hungry, I can barely think. Can barely breathe .”

He moves past her pulse. Onward. Around. Malfoy breathes out a laugh and she feels his hot breath against the back of her neck.

“And the funny thing is…the only person whose blood I want is yours.”

Her head is jerked to the side and forward, her face pressed firmly into the fabric of his shirt, near his shoulder. Morbidly, she realizes that he smells like sandalwood. She likes the scent of sandalwood.

“Every time I’m around you…” A groan as deep as the sea. “In class. In the Great Hall. Right now. Everyone else is invisible to me. But you, Granger? You’re lit up like a rose on fire.”

Hermione knows she needs to stop him. Her body is telling her to get away. But she can’t. 

She’s nothing. She’s inconsequential and he’s too strong and she’s stupid for destroying the vials. And really, she just wants to cry because she’s in way over her head. Without Harry and Ron, she’s just a nosy girl with an attitude.

What if Malfoy did kill someone in Hogsmeade, and what if she’s his next victim?

I shouldn’t have done it.

His mouth is at the back of her neck, lips smearing her blood along the top vertebrae of her spine. The resulting feeling that shoots through her entire body makes her gasp into the fabric of his shirt. It’s the most sensitive spot on her entire body.

Every inch of her skin prickles with panic, panic that blooms in her chest. Because if his saliva gets into her body, she’ll be lost to him. She won’t be able to fight back.

Just like earlier that week: she’ll be prey.

“Fuck, I want to devour you.”

I never should have broken those vials.

Malfoy breathes an incredulous laugh. Grips her curls tighter. Presses her harder against him as his body molds to hers. Pushes the collar of her jumper from the back, the tips of his claws scraping down her spine. 

Hermione’s hands clench into fists at her sides. Her legs are weak, her scalp burning from where her curls are being pulled at the roots. She knows she might actually cry now and when she thinks her next words, she hopes he can tell they’re directed at him.

I’m sorry.

“I forgive you. Now be a good girl for me, Granger, and stay very, very still.” 

And he drags his tongue along the wounds his claws created.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven

Hermione likes to sing.

It’s not a passion, but it's something she’s good, at so she enjoys doing it when she can. Outside of the Frog Choir, she sings in the shower, mostly. But when she goes home and her parents take her to church, she likes to sing the worship songs. When she was younger and she wanted to fit in, she’d join the worship team during the summers. 

It feels…

Hermione remembers liking to sing the song Lead Me to the Cross . She remembers finding it funny the way everyone’s jaws dropped when she hit notes and runs that echoed through the entire building. Singing was like anything else to her—just another thing she was exceptionally good at.

Why does it feel so...

She doesn’t want to sing anymore. She remembers the way it makes her mother cry. She will never forget the pride that caused her father’s chest to swell that first time she sang in front of the entire congregation. And now, knowing she will never see either of them again makes her feel like someone else entirely. 

Like someone who doesn't like music at all.

But standing here—collapsing against the body of a demon as he sucks the blood out of haphazardly-placed claw wounds on the back of her neck—she can feel the music coursing through her body, notes dancing through her blood on their way to the pit of her stomach where they coalesce in a song that feels every bit like worship. This room is the chapel and Malfoy’s the priest, his tongue a Bible open to pages like fangs that whisper sins into her body. 

It’s like she’s singing in the choir but with none of the other members. No pulpit. No pews. No audience.

Except him.

He’s making me feel so…

And she would do it, too.

She’d get on her knees and worship him like a God if he asked her to.

Good.

Something erupts inside Hermione’s body and her mind rips itself from the clouds of her memory, like she’s been doused with holy water. She gasps, her fingers clutching at the front of Malfoy’s shirt, twisting the fabric, bunching it together, pulling and tugging and drawing him closer. He alternates between swiping his tongue along the open wounds, and latching his lips around them to suck out as much blood as he can. Her knees go weak. It wrenches her entire psyche into a knot so sweetly-intense that every vein vibrates. She can hardly breathe, between the way his chest blocks her from inhaling and the desire steals her ability to exhale. She feels like she’s suffocating. Drowning. 

I’ll do whatever you want.

She’s coherent. Lucid. She knows what’s happening and she knows what she’s feeling. She knows that it’s his tongue that’s causing her to feel this way. That first and foremost, he’s a vampire and he’s a predator. That this is exactly what is supposed to happen. That she’s lucid enough to know that she can accio her wand but has absolutely no desire to be anywhere but on top of this man.

Nothing could have prepared her for the way it feels to want to give him every single part of her body when she hates him. For how hard it is to keep herself from moaning when he tugs on her curls and presses her harder into the wall, swaying into her with a groan of his own. To keep herself from trying to wrap her legs around his waist as her hips rock in indiscriminate patterns. 

Please.

No knowledge of vampires has taught her how to react to knowing that right now, she’d even sing for him.

It’s right there, right on the tip of her tongue. As far to the tip of her tongue as she’s pushing onto the very tips of her toes to get as close as possible to that sinful, wicked mouth. She wants to beg him. To beg him to break the rules and bite. To just bite her because she knows that even though this feels good, his fangs will feel so much better.

Whatever you want.

She’ll do whatever he wants.

Hermione realizes that she’s saying the words aloud. Muffled by his shirt, he’d still been able to hear them. Panic spreads in her pounding chest as she tries to make sense of everything she’s feeling. The way the growing weakness in her body causes her legs to completely give out, forcing him to wrap an arm around her waist to hold her up. The way she can feel heat growing and intensifying, washing over her in a wave of lust. It pulls a sob out of her chest as she struggles for air. It’s like she has a fever. Like she’s been thrust into an inferno to burn.

She goes limp, no longer able to hold herself upright in any capacity. Some of her curls escape Malfoy’s hold as he reacts to her sudden relaxation. His fingers sift to cradle the side of her head as it lolls, but even the fresh air as her face turns isn’t enough to give her any energy.

He doesn’t stop. 

The wounds aren’t closing over, the blood continuing to escape from them every time he sucks inward. The wounds aren’t closing and she has a fever and its too hot and he won’t stop. 

Hermione thinks she might die here.

Her hold on his shirt loosens, one arm falling over the crease of the arm that’s wrapped around her. Her other arm simply falls to her side, heavy as lead. Inside her mind, regrets swarm like flies around her impending death. 

Things she never got to do, things she should never have done. Words that should not have been uttered and words that she wishes she still had a chance to share. Regrets about her parents and what she planned to do to keep them safe. Regrets about thinking she was strong enough to handle a starving vampire on her own. And one thing that disturbs her above all else. One thing that disturbs tears into her eyes.

She regrets getting her Hogwarts letter.

“Malfoy,” she whispers. Her voice is barely there, naught but a whisper through dark trees. “Malfoy, stop.”

His response is to growl. To snarl like a rabid wolf and suck hard enough to hurt. She doesn’t have the energy to do much more than gasp. It hurts, of course, but not in the way it should. It hurts the way she imagines it must hurt to be lost in the depths of a desert without water, only to sleep through the rain at night. Like having to wake to the knowledge that something she wants is something she won’t live to have. 

Hermione’s going to die and all she can think about is how badly she wants him to touch her.

It’s fucked up.

“Malfoy, please ,” she chokes out. “Y-you have to…to…”

She loses her breath, trying with every bit of energy she has left in her body to lift her hands up. They make it as far as the sides of his neck, sliding up into his hair. She wants to tug on it, to try to get him to pay attention, but her skin is sensitive in a way that she’s baffled by. It feels much better to slide her fingers up and down, back and around all over his head, through his hair like she’s outside feeling the grass.

Malfoy lifts his mouth from her skin, his head rolling back into the press of her fingers. His mouth, chin, and jaw are smeared crimson with her blood. He pants for breath, running his tongue along his upper lip as his eyes roll.

“Fuck, you’ve got—" He gasps, his hands moving to cup her face, claws scraping lightly along her scalp like she’s made of the most divine satin. “You’ve got the hands of a fucking angel.”

Hermione’s got two halves of a mind and they’re both at war. She wants to flee, to be freed, to escape. But her body is undulating, rolling against his, heavy breaths escaping her lips as she feels herself giving into the feelings burning up within her. 

“Please,” is all she can seem to say—to whine like she’s pathetic. “Please, Malfoy.”

“What do you want?” His hands stroke up and down, the pads of his thumbs tilting her chin up so he can brush his lips over her pulse. 

“Let me go.”

There’s a rumble in his chest as he inhales the scent of blood that has yet to be spilt. Fresh blood. Warm blood right from the source. 

“ Oh, fuck, anything else,” he groans. “What do you want? Tell me what you want right now, except that.”

“I want you…” Hermione’s words are halting as her lungs spasm for air, even as her fingers continue to sift through the silk of his platinum hair. She’s exhausted. She’s aroused. She’s overwhelmed. “To let me…go.”

“Tell me what you want me to do to you,” he says as though she hasn’t said anything at all, mouthing at her skin. “You want me to bite you? You want me to fuck you? I bet your blood tastes the sweetest when you come.”

Hermione’s never heard him—or anyone for that matter—speak to her like that. It’s different than how Cormac spoke to her. Less about disregarding her pain; more about convincing her everything will be okay.

And that’s how she knows he has no plans of letting her survive.

She’s going to die tonight.

“No, I want—” she starts, her body trembling. His fangs scrape and her head falls all the way back. It sends a desperate jolt through her, a spike in the feverish heat. “ Yes . Please, please—”

“You’re gonna taste so good. So fucking good.” He sounds delirious as he releases panting whines and mumbles against the skin of her throat. “Relax for me. I’m gonna take care of you. So good.”

She can feel them. His fangs. They’re starting to pierce and it’s going to feel so, so good. It’s going to be everything. Her hands clutch the back of his head. His hands go to her hips, pulling her closer.

“Wait, Malfoy. Wait, I don’t—"

He slams her against the wall by the hips. All she has strength for is a squeak. A tear slides down her cheek as his nose brushes the hollow of her throat. 

“Malfoy, I—” She gasps in pain when his hold on her hips begins to bruise her. The confusing contrast of the icy terror in her veins and the way her thighs keep attempting to press together in spite of her weakness overwhelms her. Another tear escapes her lashes. “Please…please don't.”

Godric above.

This can't be happening again.

“But you’ll tell.” Now, his delirium sounds like sheer, unadulterated panic. “You’ll tell and then everyone will know what I am.”

“I won’t. I swear it. I won’t—”

“No one can know.”

His hands leave her hips and go to her neck.

They start to squeeze, tighter and tighter, constricting her airway. Hermione’s already so weak from the blood loss. She knows she can’t fight this. 

She has to try something.

To fight back, to accio her—

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” he breathes into her ear. “But I can’t let you go.”

“Please don’t make me beg,” Hermione says, her fingers curling around the tops of his. 

He’s going to crush her. He’s going to crush her and look her in the eyes while he does it. His eyes, which are almost black from how the firelight casts shadows across the violet.

“Then don’t.”

“How will you get food? If you k-kill me,” her voice breaks, “then how will you get food? Right? I won’t tell and you’ll be able to e-eat and everything will be—will be fine. It’ll be—”

Hermione stops, whimpering when he places his claw against her pulse and presses inward. Harder. Harder. Until the skin breaks and she’s squirming in his hold. She feels her blood run down toward her collar. 

He catches the droplet with his tongue, follows the path back to the wound, and sighs with a relief that she can’t possibly fathom.

She bites her lips to hold in the moan, her brows pulling together as another wave of arousal hits her like a wall of fire. Her mind is focused on her wand. She needs to get her wand. No more talking. She needs to get her wand. All she needs is a moment— one moment where she can focus her terror, clear her mind, and cast accio.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she whispers, hovering on the verge of hysteria as windows of opportunity begin to shutter closed one-by-one. “I promise I won’t tell.”

Malfoy yanks her forward, until she’s pressed against the hardness of his chest again. He pulls his mouth away from her skin with a deep inhalation of breath. When he speaks into her ear, it’s on the exhale. 

“I know you won’t.”

Hermione has only time to let out one single sob before he slams her backward against the stone with the full force of his strength. Every ounce of vampire magic that runs through his muscles is used. There’s a loud, sickening crack that battles with the volume of the crackling fire, and then her head is bouncing. Bouncing off of rock as he whips them around and her back hits the ground. He straddles her and, before she can blink, he’s got her hands wrapped in his own.

Looking up at him above her, she feels too small. Too insignificant. The image of him with blood on his face, his hair messy in eyes that remind her of darkness, and fangs as sharp as daggers is something that she knows she will never forget if she were going to survive this night. She gulps, trying futilely to twist beneath him, trying not to think about Cormac.

She bursts into tears.

There’s a split second where Malfoy’s facial expression is every bit as raw as she feels, and then it’s gone.

Malfoy glares into the distance as though pained as he squeezes her hands. The pain is unbearable. Her legs kick, feet scraping against the ground as the pressure increases and doesn’t cease. But he squeezes until the bones break. Until they snap and shatter like she’s no bigger than a bird and he’s just taken her wings.

He’s broken her fingers. He’s broken them so she can’t hold her wand and she’s too distressed to use wandless magic and he’s too fast and too strong and she’s panicking. She’s screaming and crying and panicking. Malfoy drops her hands, where they land heavily against the stone as excruciating agony rockets through her.

Her vision is blurry. 

Malfoy pushes his sleeves up and wraps his hands around her throat again. He looks like he’s in pain. Some great and terrible pain that no one can understand. 

“I don’t want to do this,” he says in a voice that matches his expression. “But I can’t risk anyone finding out.”

“Malfoy, wait. Wait— please— ” 

Hermione cuts herself off with a bloodcurdling scream as he slams her again. And again. And again. Her thoughts are blur.

She’s just a girl.

He’s going to crack my skull. He’s going to kill me. Please. I don’t wanna die. I want my mum. I’m so sorry. I want my mum.

There’s a flicker of something in his eyes, something Hermione can barely see through the blood that fogs her vision. But then there’s nothing. No flicker. No pain. No weakness. No fever. Just his lips against the open wound on her neck, a firelit ceiling that slowly fades to nothing, and a black skull with a snake twisting an escape along the length of his left forearm.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight

Hermione hates hospital content.

Whether it’s a show, a book, a movie, or a comic book—no matter what it is, she hates when the character wakes up in the hospital. It’s perhaps one of the most cliché, contrived, teeth-pulling things she’s ever had to watch or endure in any capacity. The character always wakes up to four walls, maybe a window, a faint beeping, needles in their arms. Their vision is blurred until suddenly it’s not, and then they roll their head to the side and—wouldn’t you know it, a friend or family member is waiting to tell them, “ Character, I’m so glad you’re awake.”

So when Hermione’s eyelids flutter open to see Ginny, sitting in a chair with her knees pulled up to her chest and a magazine balanced on her kneecaps, she’s disturbed. They’ve skipped way too many steps.

“No, no, no,” she groans aloud. “This just isn’t right.”

Ginny glances up from the Prophet , her blue eyes wide in query. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m not supposed to see you until after I roll my head to the side.” Hermione feels exhausted from the few sentences she’s spoken. She stops for a moment, taking several deep breaths. Her head is absolutely pounding . It feels like her entire body is made of lead. “It’s all backwards.”

“What is?”

Hermione smacks her lips, her mouth and throat dryer than a desert. She needs water but she’s too confused to ask for it. All she knows is that this is all wrong. She’s woken up lying curled on her side, and that’s why she’s skipped all the steps. She musters up what little strength she has so she can flop onto her back, sweat beading at her temples and soaking her back. 

If only she had the energy to kick these bloody wool blankets off.

“Why am I not dead?”

Ginny shrugs. “You simply aren’t. How are you feeling?”

“Like bollocks.” Hermione lifts one hand, disappointed to see that there aren’t any needles in her arm. “If this were a book, it would be wildly inaccurate.”

Ginny returns to her paper and if it weren’t for the fact that she’s Ginny, Hermione would probably think she didn’t care if she lived or died. The page turning is loud in the large room.

“I should be dead,” Hermione says, her voice a dry croak that scratches her throat. “Why on Earth am I alive?”

“Were you trying to die?” Ginny turns another page, her gaze scanning back and forth as she reads. Her voice sounds as hazy as a dream, and not just because Hermione’s head is reeling in circles. “If you’d like, we could try again.”

That’s just absurd. That’s so absurd.

Hermione starts to laugh, to the point where it’s just a fit of giggles. Ginny joins her, and soon they both have tears streaming from their eyes as they laugh and laugh and laugh. They laugh until Hermione has to stop because her head is throbbing too badly.

Because Hermione’s life is absurd. She was stupid. She can admit that. She went into a private room with a vampire who’d been starving for months and opened a feast for him, expecting him to be able to handle it. She put herself into that situation, with someone who had a biological desire to drink every last drop of blood in her body. A vampire who may have had some modicum of control over his wants, but had no control over his needs. 

And she’d almost died for it.

“I’m glad you’re all right,” Ginny says, and Hermione doesn’t totally hate it. At least it’s Ginny and not a mildly-unimportant side character. “You came pretty close.”

“How did I get here?” Hermione asks, gathering strength to weakly wipe a tear off of her cheek. “I was in the Room of Requirement.”

“You were found outside the Infirmary last night, actually.” Ginny sets the Prophet onto the bedside table. “Madam Pomfrey said someone knocked and when she opened the door, you were lying there. Then someone sent for someone in Gryffindor House and I was in the corridor at the time. When I got here, Dumbledore and Professor Flitwick were leaving to deal with something else. They wanted me to be here when you woke.”

Hermione frowns, wondering what they know. Malfoy didn’t bite her—he pierced the back of her neck with his claws and then fed from the wounds. So it was only going to confuse them, to see her crumpled in a heap with hardly any blood left, and no idea how where the wounds were. Even now, she can feel that her Afro is back, the effects of the leave-in conditioner long gone, and it covers her neck. She wonders how they would even know she’d lost blood in the first place.

And now that she’s okay, she’s going to have to decide what to do about Malfoy. 

She opens her mouth to speak but is interrupted by Madam Pomfrey pulling the curtain aside. The short, stout witch is carrying a flask and is wearing a broad smile. The pockets of her apron are full, but Hermione hasn’t the slightest clue what could be in them. They’re always full.

“Every year, I can count on seeing one of you at least once, can’t I?” Pomfrey says.

Hermione returns her smile, though hers is less broad. She’s too tired to gather up more energy for a bigger one. “It seems so. At least it’s me this time, not Harry or Ron.”

Madam Pomfrey lets out a hearty laugh as she approaches the bed. “Yes, the last time I had you in here was Second Year. Nice to see you moving this time. This should fix you right up. Drink up, go on.”

Hermione allows her to tip the contents of the flask up to her lips. It tastes good—like cotton candy. Hermione knows that means it’s a nutrient potion. Likely potassium, calcium, iron, things like that. Things that will help with dehydration and general fatigue.

This means that Madam Pomfrey doesn’t know her blood was drained, and she doesn’t know about her head wounds.

That explains the migraine, the weakness, the heaviness in her muscles, and the fact that her veins feel like someone’s rubbing pieces of sandpaper together. Malfoy had to have drained her of her blood sometime after he smashed her head against the ground. He must have then scourgified her and dropped her off at the Infirmary.

A blinding rage suddenly spreads its fiery fingers outward from her heart.

Bastard. To so violently attempt to murder her and then suddenly gain enough heart to drop her off in hospital? When she begged him over and over again to stop, to just let her go? To bring her to the brink of fear, of death, just to decide she would be allowed to live? Bastard .

She could have helped him. Really helped him.

And he ruined it. 

“You’ve got to spend less time studying, Miss Granger,” Madam Pomfrey says in a matter-of-fact tone as she puts the top back on the flask. She gives Hermione a stern look. “You were so dehydrated that it took three nutrient potions and four castings of rennervate to wake you. I’ve seen it before, mind you. Just not usually this early in the school year. Usually happens around O.W.L.S.”

Hermione resists the urge to snort. It’s probably because she was so drained of blood that she shouldn’t even be alive. 

“Do you possibly have a potion for a migraine? I seem to be having one,” she says instead, mindful of the black spots that dance before her vision. She fears she might pass out again. 

“Of course, dear. I’ll go and come right back.”

Madam Pomfrey leaves, pulling the curtain shut behind her. The moment it’s closed, Ginny is quick.

“You just lied to her.”

“I did.” Hermione grimaces.

“You did it to yourself, didn’t you?”

Hermione starts to say no, but for some reason, the words come out as a, “Yes.”

Ginny gasps. “Hermione.”

“This is going to make much sense to you, and we can talk about this later, but…” Hermione’s gaze finds hers. “How good are you at procuring potions?”

After a stream of classmates visiting from other Houses, an exhausted Hermione lies still in her bed, watching the door as the soft, measured footsteps of Professor Dumbledore approach. He wears heavy dark blue robes that drape down his body like liquid satin and a long blue hat with silver embroidery, his long beard seeming somewhat scraggly amongst such finery. His expression is serene, but there’s something unsettling in the way he’s holding himself—something strained, as though a great weight presses fear or concern against him. Frankly, he looks tired and, judging by the charcoal-black state of his mangled hand, he's been cursed by something. Hermione remembers Harry mentioning it but she hadn't registered how bad it was until now. 

Hermione shifts, trying to sit up in spite of her weakness and the throbbing pain that assails her head. She forces herself to appear steady, though her hands are trembling slightly beneath the blanket. The events of the past few days play through her mind in fragmented images—Malfoy’s dark eyes, surrounded by darker veins. His fangs, sharp and glinting in the firelight. His hands squeezing her hands until her fingers broke. His hair, soft as silk and so beautiful, yet playing host to such a dangerous, malevolent being. The pure betrayal that still courses through her sandpaper veins, knowing that the one person she thought she felt safe with was the least safe person in the entire school.

The Dark Mark, standing harshly onyx against the pale backdrop of his arm.

"Good evening, Miss Granger," Dumbledore's voice is soft, almost soothing, as he reaches her bedside. He glances around at the exorbitant amount of flowers that litter the tables nearby. "I’d ask how you’re feeling but it seems fitting to assume you’ve heard that question quite a few times, hm?"

Hermione swallows, forcing a tight-lipped smile. "I’m fine, Professor. Really. Just a little tired, I suppose."

Dumbledore tilts his head slightly, studying her with that keen gaze of his—the one that always seems to see through Harry’s secrets. “I’m glad to hear that, though I must admit, I was expecting you to be up and walking about, chattering off the ears of our dear Harry and Ronald. You always have so much to say.”

Hermione knows he isn’t fooled. He's always been able to see through her, through the iron wall she's had built around herself since First Year. She shifts uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze, forcing herself to maintain eye contact in spite of the way it physically hurts to do so.

“No matter.” His expression softens marginally. “Far be it from me to step out of my place, but I fear I would never forgive myself had I not inquired as to the reason why you're in here.”

"I'm all right, I promise," Hermione replies quickly, her voice firmer than she means it to be as she tells her lie all over again. "I had a bit of an accident. I've been stressed from my classes and my workload. And with You-Know-Who returning, I just…lost control."

Dumbledore doesn’t respond immediately. His eyes linger on her with an unreadable expression on his face. The tension mounts, a great pressure to admit the truth pushing down on her that she has to muster all of her strength to resist. 

“I confess, Miss Granger, that I have been distracted as of late. There are...many things pulling at my attention, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. But some things, some truths, have a way of making themselves known, even when we least expect it. And if there is anything you would like to tell me—anything at all—you can trust me.”

Hermione’s throat laces itself up and nearly chokes her. Dumbledore isn't an imbecile, and neither is she. They both know she's not telling him the truth. But what can she do? She has no other choice that doesn't end in terrible things happening. At least if she keeps this secret, she'll have control over the outcome. And no matter the situation, Malfoy is an animal. He needs to be kept in check. She's the best person to do that, even if he’s the one that put her in this hospital wing bed.

It's complicated.

“I'm fine, Headmaster. With some rest and time, I'll be able to get right back on the broom.” She manages a quick smile. “It was just an accident.”

Dumbledore nods once, though it's clear he doesn't believe a lick of her words. “You must know, Hermione, that you are never a burden. Never. I understand more than you may realize. But you don’t have to carry this alone. If you are ever, ever in need of support, any professor in this school would be happy to help you. Your friends would be happy to help you. There's no need to travel paths alone that could be traveled with others.”

"I'm perfectly well, Headmaster," she repeats. "I really am. I overworked myself. That's all."

"Very well, Hermione. I will respect your wishes. But do not forget what I've told you. Ask for help. Reach out. Give your friends a chance to save you should you need saving. Loneliness is friend to all, and enemy to happiness. Don't let it find a place in your life.”

“Hi, Harry.”

Harry breezes in, throwing his hands up into the air. “I know I was just here, but I can't bloody well take it anymore, can I?”

Hermione sets down the Arithmancy book Luna brought by for her. “Take what?”

“Ron! I mean…bloody Hell! He and Lavender have been breaking up for an entire week! How long does it take to break up with somebody? Seven business years? I mean, it's barmy!”

Hermione falls into a fit of giggles but stops abruptly when her skull throbs in protest. “I'm surprised they did break up sooner. In fact, I already thought they had!”

“Me, too!” Harry plops down on the edge of her bed and hangs his head between his hands. “It’s driving me spare, Hermione. They bicker like two fuddies on a bench at the park. I can't take her screeching. I can't take his whining. I'm going mental!”

Hermione can't stop herself from laughing again but this time when she stops, its because Harry’s giving her a onceover. She knows she's still got bruises ringing her eyes, given head wounds are the most difficult wounds to heal with magic, and it makes her feel scrutinized to have him watching her with sympathy and pity. 

“Who did this to you, Hermione?” Harry asks softly, the corners of his lips turned downward. “Be honest with me. There's no way you did this to yourself.”

“Nobody did anything,” she lies. “I told you. I overworked myself, studied too much, and didn't get enough sleep for days. I had a momentary lapse of judgment. There are plenty of Miggle research studies that detail the dangers of lack of sleep in regard to the human brain.”

“Hermione, come on. Attempting to kill yourself is not a ‘momentary lapse of judgment.’”

“Then why?”

The mirth is gone, eradicated by what she knew would come. The moment when he would become desperate for answers. She knows it will be hard to keep all these secrets, but it has to be done. Nobody can find out Malfoy is a vampire, a Death Eater, or that he tried to kill her. She will deal with this on her own.

"Hermione..." Harry’s voice cracks, and she can hear the strain in it. "What happened? Why would you do this? It cant be just because you were tired.”

"I... I wasn’t thinking, Harry," she lies, lies, lies. "It was an accident. I made a mistake. A stupid, careless mistake. I should have prioritized my rest instead of obsessing over my homework and marks. I don’t even know why I did it. I just..." She looks down at her hands, the guilt suffocating her. “I just did it.”

"You don’t have to lie to me, Hermione," Harry says, his voice quiet and hurt. "You wouldn't do something like this to yourself. You’re not…I thought you weren't sad."

Epiphany eclipses her.

“I am sad, Harry.” Her lower lip trembles. “I'm so sad that it hurts sometimes.”

Cormac.

Malfoy.

Her parents.

Voldemort.

Her life is a cocktail of horror, and she feels like she'll never escape. So she is sad. She's devastated and broken and miserable and lonely and sad. 

The way Harry looks at her breaks her, his eyes searching her face as though trying to see through her words. It hurts more than she can bear, having to lie to him like this. And, worse still, he wants to believe her, even though he feels as suspicious as he does. He trusts her, and the weight of that trust is unbearable.

"But why would you hide it?" Harry whispers. "You don’t have to keep this from me. You know you can tell me anything, right? I want to help you."

Hermione feels a tightness in her chest, a physical ache, as she struggles to keep her composure. "I’m not hiding anything, Harry. Really. I just want to forget about it. It was a moment where it all just got to be too much, and I lost myself. That’s all."

"I don’t get it. You’ve always been so strong. You’ve always known what to do. And now..." He trails off, shaking his head, his expression distant and confused. 

For a moment, Hermione just looks at him, wishing with all her might that she could tell him the truth. That she could tell him about Malfoy, about what he is, about Cormac and what he did to her, about everything. But she can't. Not yet.

Harry’s face grows more sorrowful as he balls his hands on his thighs. Hermione can feel the weight of his sadness like a physical presence. "I don’t know why you’re doing this, Hermione. But if you want me to leave you alone, I’ll—"

"No!" The word is out of her mouth before she can stop it. She reaches out for him, her hand trembling. "No, Harry, that’s not it. I just... I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m fine. Really. Please, just trust me." 

"I trust you, Hermione," he says quietly. "But I still don’t understand. You’re my best friend. You can tell me the truth, can't you?"

The weight of his words crushes her. She is lying to him, and he believes it. He believes the lie, because he wants to. And that makes it worse. So much worse. 

"Please," Hermione whispers, her voice barely audible. "Please, just let it go. I need to move on from this. It's humiliating."

Harry stares at her for a moment longer, his eyes filled with sorrow and confusion, before he sighs softly.

"Okay," he says, his voice resigned. "I’ll let it go. But if you change your mind, if you want to talk about it...I'll be here. You don’t have to go through any of this alone, yeah?"

She nods quickly, blinking back tears she doesn’t want to shed. "I know. Thank you, Harry."

He gives her one last, lingering look before turning to leave. His footsteps seem slow, each one dragging as though he’s walking away carrying something heavy. Something painful. 

And she's alone again.

“They found another body.”

Hermione’s brow furrows as she accepts the Blood Replenishment potion from Luna, drinking the entire thing in one go. It tastes bitter, like a mixture of Muggle cough syrup and ginger root but she knows she has to drink it all. She’ll need more but this should put her in a better position to being able to at least get out of the Infirmary bed. Right now, it’s all she can do to get her arm into the air to be able to drink it in the first place.

Luna takes the empty bottle and hands her another one. Skele-Gro, for her head wound. To Hermione’s relief, she hasn’t asked Ginny—who went straight to Luna for assistance—why Hermione requested a Blood Replenishment potion and Skele-Gro, and she doesn’t seem all that interested in doing so. That’s one thing Hermione loves about her—her aloofness is a quality.

“Where at?” Hermione asks. This potion tastes like charcoal and is so nauseating she almost can’t keep it down. A shudder runs through her.

Luna sits down on the edge of the bed, holding her hand out to wait for the second empty bottle. “In Hogsmeade. Beside the new grocer’s.”

Hermione frowns. “That’s the same place as last time. What happened? What did you hear?”

“It was at dinner, I believe.” Luna looks up at the ceiling thoughtfully, as though she’s imagining exactly what happened and reciting it word-for-word, but doesn’t know if she imagined it or not. “Fran Mayweather and Penny Helmsworth were sitting thirteen spots in front the right—consequently putting them right in front of me. They were both eating roast and vegetables, and I was eating ham. As I was eating my fourth bite, Fran said, ‘ Did you hear they found a girl beside the grocer’s? ’ And Penny gasped and she said, ‘ No. Good Merlin. Another one? ’ And Fran nodded and then, as I took my fifth bite, she said, ‘ Yes, they found her in pieces in the skip.’ And that’s everything they said about it. After that, they started talking about Potions class.”

Hermione blinks, rattled by the detail in Luna’s memory recalling. “I have no doubt that’s highly accurate.”

“Well, it’s only what I remember.”

“All right.” Hermione takes a deep, relieving breath as she feels the potion’s effects kicking in, replenishing her blood by the passing second. She settles back against the pillows, preparing for the drowsiness that Blood Replenishment potion causes. “That’s two bodies in the same place now, two months in a row.”

“Wel…this body was decomposed, apparently. Hidden deeper in the skip. So it’s safe to assume she’d been killed in December.”

“Oh.”

Luna slips the empty bottle into her bag, remaining seated on the edge of the bed. “I think it’s all rather frightening, don’t you?”

“I think it’s very frightening. With the first one, I thought it was random. But now, with a second body, I think it may be more than coincidence.”

“The timing?” Luna bites her lower lip. “Or the bodies?”

“Now? Well, now I’m starting…to think it’s both,” Hermione pants. The conversation is taking the last of what little energy she’d gained in waking. The potion is starting to do its job and her eyelids feel heavy, heavier than her limbs. “I’d be more inclined…inclined to believe they were connected…if I knew how exactly the second body…was found.”

Luna gets to her feet, turning to place her palm across Hermione’s forehead. The blonde’s skin is hot, much hotter than Hermione’s entire body is, and it almost sears her. Perhaps it’s a side-effect of the potion, to lower her body temperature exponentially.

“Shall I have a look around for you?” Luna asks, her eyes searching Hermione’s with curiosity. “I can go down there tomorrow and talk to the townspeople if you’d like.”

Hermione shakes her head, takes a moment to heave a couple breaths, then speaks. “No, I don’t think…it’s that important. Though, the fact that it was…was a girl who was killed…disturbs me. I want to know…if she was a student here.”

Luna frowns, an expression that looks out of place on her normally peaceful face. “Tomorrow I’ll ask Fran and Penny if they know. But I’m sure if it is, it’ll be all over the school as gossip by breakfast. For now, you should rest.”

“Can you go to my common room,” Hermione mumbles, still panting, “and ask Ginny to get my bonnet? My hair…my hair will rebel for these…linen pillowcases.”

“Of course, Hermione. Rest now.”

Hermione’s eyelids flutter. She’s seconds away from sleep. All she can do is hum in response because her thoughts are a blank slate. The warmth of Luna’s fingers as they graze down the side of her face, cupping her cheek for the briefest of moments, is soothing. It calms Hermione in a way that lets her know it’s all right to go to sleep, even if bodies are being found and Death Eater vampire Malfoy still haunts the halls.

The last thing she wonders before sleep takes her is if she should tell Luna about him.

When Hermione wakes, she’s lying on her back this time and judging by the tightness around her still-aching head, Luna returned with her satin hair bonnet and put it on her head.

It’s dark in the Infirmary. The only light comes from the lanterns on the wall, which have been dimmed to naught but candle flames. She can see only three feet in front of her. The rest fades into inky darkness that feels oppressive and contained.

She blinks away the bleariness in her vision, her throat as dry as sandpaper again. She needs more than potions now. Right now, she needs water. 

Hermione’s vision clears. She sees the blackness of the dark ceiling. Her head lolls to the right and sees the paleness of her bed curtain. A faint pain reverberates through her head at the sudden movement so she slowly moves her head to the left.

Her heart skitters to a stop in her chest.

Malfoy sits beside her bed, leaned forward and illuminated in golden lantern light. She can see he’s got the sleeves of his loose-fitting jumper pulled up to his elbows, which are braced against his thighs. His fingers are intertwined and hide his mouth, his chin resting on his thumbs as he glares into the air before him. The tattoos on his hands and forearms look almost ominous in the lack of light. His hair is an unruly mess, platinum strands falling forward to shroud his face, and his eyes… 

His eyes are rimmed in red.

She stares at him until suddenly, his gaze snaps to hers like a magnet. He doesn’t move and neither does she, but she feels like she’s just run ten miles in five seconds flat. Once upon a time, she might have cracked a snarky joke.

Hermione knows better now.

“Water,” she croaks. “Please.”

He is frowning as he sits up straight and withdraws his wand. Hermione watches with wary yet greedy eyes as he conjures a glass cup out of thin air, casts aguamenti , and then holds it out to her. His movements are fluid and careful and lack the nonchalance that they once held when interacting with her. It’s clear he knows she’s terrified of him.

It’s odd how surreal it feels to accept something as simple as water from Draco Malfoy. A year ago, she might’ve thought it was poisoned.

She doesn’t know why she doesn’t think that now.

Hermione struggles up onto her elbows. It feels like her body weighs ten tons. He makes as if to assist her, but she nearly collapses due to her body reactively shrinking away from him. Malfoy averts his eyes and pulls every part of him back in his chair except the single hand that offers her water. 

Panting for breath and hand trembling, Hermione remains on one elbow while she drinks from the glass with the other. He’s not looking at her, his gaze remaining fixated on the coverlet where her legs quiver, too.

The water is sweet, soothing the burning, grating feeling in her throat, but it does nothing to help her strength. The moment the glass is empty, she loses the last of her energy and her fingers go lax. The glass slips out of her hand and heads straight for the floor.

Malfoy’s hand whips out with his enhanced speed, the whip-crack movement causing Hermione to flinch as her heart arrests itself in her chest. His eyes find her again and in the second that they do, she can see a concern on his face that she’s never seen before. A momentary pinching of his face as his eyebrows meet and his mouth tilts down further, and the apples of his angular cheeks rise. His eyes are still red, almost puffy. Like he’s been weeping.

It’s almost as if he cares.

“Are you here to finish the job?” she asks around panting breaths, relaxing back into the pillows. She hasn’t the energy to even care that he’s seeing her in her bonnet. Her Afro is likely making it look like a mushroom and while typically, she’d laugh at herself, right now she’s too exhausted to do much more than breathe, open her eyes, and hate him.

He shakes his head, his shoulders slumping forward. Once again, he rests his elbows on his thighs but this time, he hangs his head between his hands. His fingers tangle in his hair as though it would take too much strength to lift his face again.

“I thought you...” Hermione breathes in and out. She’s so fatigued. “Didn’t want me… Me to tell.”

His voice is muffled by his positioning as he replies.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, Granger.”

“Huh.” She breaks out into a couple of mirthless, breathless laughs. “I’m trying to remember… If you said that before… You tried to kill me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well… Maybe you should have.”

He remains in the same position, hunched and desolate. Like a small child who’s stolen from the corner market, or a cheating boyfriend. She can’t decide which. She knows she hates him more than a cheating boyfriend, though. 

Because the fact remains that even though they were never friends and they never trusted one another, there was still a small measure of mutual respect inherent in their agreement. He wanted to live and she thought he deserved to live. That was why she agreed to help him.

And then he ruined it.

He sits here now, looking chastised and forlorn, eyes puffy and head hanging in shame, but it doesn’t matter. It can’t matter because his selfishness caused him to lose what little respect he had—the same respect he swore was keeping him from “doing whatever he wanted.” The one thing that was keeping him from hurting her.

Hermione can tell he’s sorry, and he should be.

“Look at me,” she says. Her voice is barely there from the amount of exertion it takes. “Look at me right now, Malfoy.”

Slowly, with great effort, he looks up at her through his lashes and hair. His facial expression is that of someone who knows that he’s done a great wrong, and who knows exactly why he’s being marched to the gallows. There is intensity lingering amongst the lantern light that she can see reflected there.

“You said you respected me.”

“I did,” he says quietly, his voice as pained as though she cares if he suffers. “I do .”

“Then why would you… Why would you destroy… The one chance you had… At survival?”

“I lost control,” he bites out through clenched teeth. 

“Are you defending yourself right now?” Hermione’s words are vicious, the adrenaline of her anger pushing past her fatigue. “Because if you think you have anything to defend, then this conversation is over.”

Malfoy snarls and jams his hands backward through his hair, hanging his head again. His fangs flash in the dim light and where before they fascinated her, that fascination is now dulled by fear. She doesn’t want to see them. She doesn’t even want to look at him but she has to. He needs to know what he’s wrought.

“You need to be better,” Hermione says, resting her head back against the pillows as the adrenaline wave ebbs and she can’t keep herself upright anymore. 

“I will,” he replies, sounding strained.

“You need to be stronger.”

His head rises, his hands curving palm-side up in desperation. It’s clear he just wants her to understand. “I know that. Don’t you think I know that? I didn’t ask for this, Granger.”

Hermione glares at him. 

“I know,” he says, scrubbing his face with his hands. “I know, I know, I know . I’m not trying to defend myself. But I lost control .”

“Then figure it out. You need to fight for yourself. Because if you don’t, you’re going to mess everything up.”

His eyes find hers, chin tilted down as though he can’t bear to look at her head-on. There’s a silent question in his eyes, so she explains herself. 

“ You are in control of you. Not your bloodlust. Not your hunger. Not even your magic. You .” Hermione stops, takes a couple breaths, and then goes on, “And it’s you who has to make the decision between right and wrong. You can become that person you were in the Room of Requirement—you can become a demon.” He looks at her, his brow furrowed in an expression of guilt that runs so deep that Hermione can feel it. “Or you can start taking this seriously. This is your life. You are a vampire now. You’ve got to embrace it.”

Once again, he hangs his head. Hermione studies him, studies the way he seems to deflate. He looks much the same way he did in Sixth Year, like he’s carrying the weight of a star on his back and its searing his flesh but he doesn’t know how to stop it. All he can do is carry it and burn. Her gaze dips lower and she can see his Dark Mark there, lying amongst is other tattoos like a dead flower amongst live ones, and she hopes it burns, too.

Hermione closes her eyes because she just needs to rest them for a second. She's so tired.

“I apologize,” he says, that same guilty expression still painted on his angular, chiseled face. He looks like he’s made of pale stone. “I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

“This isn’t something you can say sorry for.” Hermione’s eyes, still closed, now feel vulnerable. They’re stinging, watering with tears that she knows will fall the moment she opens them. “I’m going to have nightmares about what you did.”

“I’m—”

“I begged you. I pleaded. But you didn’t care.”

He’s silent.

She can feel it, the words that hang unspoken in the air like a heavy cloud of shame. Malfoy wants to know if their agreement is still intact, if she’s still going to be his source. He wants to know if she’s going to turn him in. He wants to know the answers to questions she doesn’t think he deserves to ask. 

Hermione knows that there’s no one else he can ask. That’s why he came to her. He has no other options—his option is her. They played it fast and loose, didn’t prepare themselves properly, avoided each other, and then just threw themselves into the lion’s pit with each other. So while she despises him for what he did to her, she knows on some level, it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t ask to be sired. He didn’t ask to become a monster. 

She can’t let him hurt anyone else. That’s why she agreed to this in the first place. But she can’t lose herself in the process, and she can’t make a decision right now.

Neither of them knew what they were doing, and they now have to face the consequences of their ignorance.

“I told myself to never forget who you are,” she whispers. “But I don’t think I knew who you were in the first place.”

He’s quiet for a long second before she hears him murmur, “No one does.”

“But I know some things. I know what you are.”

He closes his eyes. “Go ahead. Just say it.”

“A Death Eater.”

Malfoy turns his head away, as though he's been slapped. When he answers her, his voice is hoarse. It cracks.

“Yeah.”

Hermione contemplates that for a moment, and then he opens his eyes. He stares at her with an intensity that almost makes her want to turn away. It’s pain, it’s guilt, it’s anger, and it’s self-hatred, all rolled up into one singular look. 

And then it's gone.

The emptiness is back, that icy stone wall that keeps the real him hidden. Now, the most she can see is the faintness of his guilt traced in the lines on his furrowed brow. 

“You are a monster, Malfoy, and I don’t feel safe with you.”

“No.” He turns his face away. “You shouldn’t.”

“I don’t want to give you my blood,” she goes on, and her voice is trembling as hard as the rest of her body is now. She has to clench her hands in the coverlet to keep it from traveling up her body and setting her teeth to chatter. “I don’t want to. You don’t deserve it.”

“I know what I deserve,” he murmurs, his gaze focusing somewhere in the distance, as if he can see past the bed curtain. “It’s not any part of you.”

Hermione doesn’t know why, but she’s about to cry. Her face contorts and her lips quiver. She squeezes her eyes shut, stifling a whimper, and when she opens them again, her vision is blurred by tears. 

“I want you to leave.”

He’s look at her, not moving. She doesn’t know what his facial expression is like—she doesn’t want to tear her gaze off of the darkness above her. She’s crying in earnest now, soft sobs leaving her mouth as her fatigue, fear, and the trauma of her ordeal catch up to her. She’s tired, and she just wants to sleep.

And he scares her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I don’t want you to feel scared.”

She’d forgotten that he can hear her thoughts. 

“Did you hear me when I said you were going to kill me?” she whimpers. “Did you hear me when I said I didn’t want to die?”

“ Fuck , Granger. Please.”

He says it like her words are causing him the utmost, most exquisite of pains. Like they cause him mindless, endless agony. 

Good.

Malfoy’s standing now, one of his hands flat on the mattress beside her hip. She doesn’t know what he’s going to do, what he’s thinking, or what he looks like. She just stares up at the ceiling, trying and failing to keep her weeping quiet as terror turns her blood to ice because she just can’t be near him anymore tonight. She just wants him to go away.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I promise you, I will never—”

“Did you hear me when I said I wanted my mum?”

“...yes.” He sounds ashamed.

“That's exactly what I said to Cormac. I told him I wanted my mum, and he didn't care. He wanted to take from me, just like you. You just wanted to take. You all just want to take.”

“Granger…”

“Well, now you've taken more than he ever did,” she sobs. “Now I'm more scared of you than I am of him. And I'm stupid for thinking someone who could use the Cruciatus on a student on the floor in front of me was anything but dangerous. I was silly. A teenage girl with the frivolous idea that you would protect me.”

“I would. I will .”

“How? You're a vampire and a Death Eater, and you serve a madman who'd sooner congratulate you for putting me in this bed than reprimand you for attempting to murder me. So how, Malfoy? How will you protect me? You can't even protect me from yourself.”

He falls into the silence of the dead and steps back immediately. Like she’s ripped his throat out and sliced his tongue out of his head. Which she wants to do. She wants to kill him. She wants to cause him just as much pain as he caused her. 

“I want you to leave,” she repeats. “I won't tell anyone what you are. For now. But please, Malfoy, please leave.”

Hermione manages the strength enough to curl up on her side, facing away from him. Her tears slip sideways over the bridge of her nose, onto the bedsheets.

He takes the hint.

He's quiet as he pulls the bed curtain open, and his shoulders are drawn in tandem with the rigid line of his back. He’s going to leave and she wants him to leave, but not before she tells him how she truly feels.

“Malfoy,” she sobs. She’s struggling to speak past the emotion so she can tell him what she really thinks. What she feels and wants. “I mean this in the sincerest, most honest way possible…” 

He stops, turning to glance at her from the corner of his eye. There’s something akin to hatred glinting there in the clouds that fill his eyes, but she knows it has nothing to do with her. It’s a cloud that hovers over him and only him.

“I hope you starve.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirteen

It takes her a week to recover, putting her return to classes at the end of January.

She’s all right with it because she likes having the break from coursework. Luna tells her she’s got a stack waiting for her when she gets out of the Infirmary and though she’s not looking forward to it, it’s better than being physically in class when all she can think about is Malfoy.

Strangely enough, she's come to terms with the fact that Malfoy is a Death Eater. That at some point he got down on his knees before a false god and offered up his soul. She doesn't know the circumstances, and she doesn’t know how willing he actually was, but none of that changes the facts. The facts are that he has the skull and snake tattooed on his arm, he said he was a Death Eater, and he is a Death Eater. 

And no, it's not something she approves of by any stretch, but it doesn't escape her that Malfoy had yet another opportunity and reason to kill her to hide his secrets, and he had not taken that chance. The information that Hermione has about him far outweighs the original blackmail. Hermione has no doubt that in the wake of the truth, the Ministry would pardon her for Obliviating a student. Malfoy’s crimes were deeper. Torture, attempted murder, being unregistered, and taking the Dark Mark were guaranteed tickets into a cell in Azkaban prison.

Perhaps thats why she doesn't want to turn him in. Azkaban is a horrible place reserved for the most evil and most foul. Hermione doesn't think Malfoy is evil, and that’s just another fact. He's unhinged and out of control because he's starving. He can't help what he is. She knows that he would never have done the things he did to her if he wasn't a vampire.

It doesn't change the fact that he tried to kill her. That he ignored the same things Cormac ignored. That he disregarded her tears and pleading because he was more concerned about her telling on him. That he blatantly and essentially told her no when she asked him to let her go, over and over and over.

Which is why all of this is so complicated. Having compassion for someone she hates feels like chewing on rocks sometimes. 

Secrets. So many secrets. She feels older now.

And all along, Harry was right.

Not that she wants to think about Malfoy. The issue is that when you hate someone, they have a tendency to be the only person on your mind. Worse, they don’t even pay rent. 

Lord knows Malfoy could afford it.

Hermione looks over her shoulder from where she sits on the edge of the Infirmary bed that’s been her home for the past week. Madam Pomfrey is standing at the edge of the curtain, a leather pouch in one hand and her other hand on her hip. Her expression is kind but there’s an impatience dancing in her eyes that tells Hermione that even if she’s been the picture-perfect patient, Madam Pomfrey wants to see her Infirmary empty again.

“Are you about ready, Miss Granger?”

“Yes,” Hermione replies, returning to finish tying the lace on her second boot. 

She hops down to the floor and walks toward the nurse. She’s only a little dizzy, which is much better than yesterday when she’d nearly careened to the floor attempting to get up to use the loo. Hermione’s glad that Luna was able to get her the potions she really needed. If it weren’t for her, she would likely never have gotten better. Blood Replenishment potion was necessary for her to be able to get to a point where she could sit up and get out of bed. 

“Now, how are you feeling? Will you be able to make it back to your common room without assistance?”

“I think I’ll be all right,” Hermione replies, “but I am a little lightheaded.”

“If you take your potions on time every morning,” Madam Pomfrey says while handing her the pouch, “then you’ll be right as rain before Valentine's.”

Hermione nods. “And I’ll be sure to eat and drink plenty of water.”

“Good. No more skipping meals and forgetting to take care of yourself, all right? And if you're feeling those dark emotions again, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.”

“Yes. Thank you, Madam Pomfrey.”

“Go on and get back to your room. You should be okay to return to classes tomorrow morning. And don't forget to eat! Its late but ill send a Hoise Elf to bring your supper!”

When Hermione exits the Infirmary around eight PM, he’s there.

Malfoy’s standing across the empty corridor, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and his foot kicked back. His gaze is fixated on the stones beneath his feet, lost and faraway. When the door swings shut behind her, that piercing grey gaze snaps up to meet hers.

And she laughs.

“That’s funny,” she says. “That is funny .”

She turns and starts to walk down the hall, away from him.

“I wanted to—”

Hermione cuts him off with another laugh, one without mirth or forgiveness. “If you think I care what you want…”

“I’m aware of your opinion of me,” he says, his tone calm. “But I’m here anyway.”

Hermione stops and cranes her neck, hoping her glare withers him. “What part of ‘I hope you starve’ did you not comprehend? If you need a study partner to decipher the words, I’ll send someone your way.”

“I’m offering my help until you’re better.” His eyes are as clear as his gaze is steady. He still looks pale and drawn, hungry now that he hasn't fed in eight days. She hopes he gets used to that. “I’ll escort you to every class, every meal. Carry your things. Make sure you don’t pass out. Regardless of what your…friends say.”

Her face contorts in bemusion. “Ew. Why?”

“Because I almost killed you,” he says under his breath, his brow furrowing. “I can’t feel guilty?”

“You can. But that doesn’t mean I have to give a damn.”

“And you not caring doesn’t make me care any less.”

“You sure didn’t seem to care when I was begging for my life,” she shoots back, her eyebrows rising as she fights back another laugh. “I don’t want your help. I want nothing to do with you, Malfoy.”

“I’m aware .”

She scoffs. “But you’re going to do it anyway.”

“Yes.”

“Even though I don’t want you to.”

“Yes.”

“Really.” Hermione intensifies her glare. “Even though I despise you?”

“Yeah,” he says, his own eyebrows rising and his tone turning at the edges with bridled sarcasm. “Even though you despise me.”

As she gazes up at him, she thinks about the fact that this isn’t just Malfoy anymore. This is a vampire. A monster. A creature who’s had his hands on her body, his lips upon her skin. Someone she had an accidental…situation with. He’s felt her reaching for him, pleading with him, and his response? 

It was to try and destroy her.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she says aloud, unsure of herself. “There’s nothing you can do to hurt me anymore.”

“We both know that’s not true. Just let me—”

“What? Help me? Make it up to me?” She shakes her head. “You asked me for my help and look at what you did to me in return. Why would I want you anywhere near me?” 

“Because—”

“Let me guess… You’ve changed. In the past two weeks, you’ve met the Lord and realized your wicked ways and now— now you see your sins.” She puts on an exaggerated pout, poking him in the chest with her pointer finger. Taking a step closer to him, she lets her gaze traverse the planes of his face like a lover. Intimacy woven with lies. He smells of sandalwood. “You want me to know you’re a completely different person now, don’t you? That you won’t hurt me. That you’ll never touch a drop of my poor, unfortunate blood again. Is that right?”

“Yeah.” His jaw is tight, clenched with what she hopes is anger. “That’s right.”

“Oh, really?” Heart pounding, she rises onto the tips of her toes, nearing his lips until at the last moment, she turns her head to the side. She can feel the heat of his breath against her pulse as she plays with fire and dances at the Devil’s feet. She has no idea what's come over her. “You don’t want it just as badly as you did that day?”

“No.” His gravelly voice rumbles across her skin like rocks tumbling down the side of a mountain.

“Are you certain? Not even a little taste?” Her throat is bared to him. “I thought you said I was sweet.”

“You—you are. I mean, it is.”

“So stop lying to me. Stop pretending.”

“I’m not hungry anymore,” he growls, but his voice is pained. He’s clenching his fists at his sides. 

“You’re not hungry anymore.” She turns her face and meets his eyes, smirking. “But what if I told you to take a bite?”

“I’d tell you to fuck off.”

“Take a bite~”

“Fuck off.”

She tilts her chin up. Their bodies are so close together that if she took a deep breath, she’d be in his arms. “Looks like I’m the one that’s in control now.”

Like the crack of a spell from the tip of a desperate wand, he lunges. In less than a second, he’s slammed her up against the wall beside the Infirmary door and the back of her skull is rebounding off of the stone. It makes a sound that echoes. The corridor feels like it’s grown exponentially in size just to accommodate it. 

Hermione’s body screams in protest and pain, but she’s laughing. She’s laughing and she feels like she can’t stop. The absurdity of it, the crazed look of rage in his eyes, the way his claws are already digging into the backs of her upper arms.

“You know what your problem is?” she says between laughs and a giddy bite of her lower lip. Her head falls back so she can maintain eye contact. “You think you can fight biology. Don’t you get it? You can’t resist the call to taste my blood because you’ve tasted it once before. You’re a vampire, Malfoy. No matter what promises you try to make, I’ll never be safe with you.”

“I’m only a monster on the outside.”

“Keep trying to convince yourself that. Self-reflection is good for your mental health. Just remember this: weak knees bend first.”

“ Fuck you, Granger.” He shakes her so hard her neck pops. “I warned you. In the corridor the day I asked you for your help, I warned you that I could kill you.”

Hermione’s hatred for him explodes outward. She feels as though her eyes are on fire.

“No, fuck you , Malfoy. Fuck you. I begged for my mother . You felt nothing.”

“That’s not true.” His hold on her tightens. The stone wall digs into her shoulder blades. “I wanted to stop.”

“But you didn’t try.”

“No, I didn’t. But I wanted to. That shows you—”

“Shows me what? Hm? What? Shows me what, Malfoy?” She lifts her eyebrows and wets her lips with her tongue, tilting her head to the side in spite of the way her neck now aches. “No, don’t bother. I know the answer, professor. It shows me that you want to hurt me.”

He hisses at her, his fangs flashing in the lantern light. “I do want to hurt you.”

“Of course you do, Death Eater,” she shoots back. “Let's see if you fail that one, too.”

His eyes flash. “The fact you think I want to succeed.”

“The fact you think I believe anything a Death Eater says. You're just like them, aren't you? Happy to harm, happy to serve.”

“I will explain everything,” he says slowly. “But not right now. Right now, it's not important. What's important is that I make amends for my behavior.”

“What's important is that you grovel!” she snarls. “After what you did, you might as well go give Cormac his memories back and let him finish the job for you, you git!”

Hermione places her hands on his chest and shoves him back. Caught off guard, he stumbles away from her, his hair falling forward, unruly in his eyes. He looks down at her with scrutiny and suspicion. Her bravado, false as it is, makes itself strong in her voice.

“You can help me to and from my classes, Malfoy, but only because you’re not giving me a choice. Not because I’m willingly accepting your help. Not because I want your help. Not because I forgive you—which I don’t. But make no mistake…you’ll receive not a single drop of my blood. No matter how much you beg, how much you plead, or how much you cry. You’ll starve until I decide you won’t.”

When she walks back to the Gryffindor common room alone, she loses count of how many times she glances behind her.

Valentine's draws near with an almost accusatory speed, the snowflakes blaming her for the cold that settles into her bones and makes her sore joints and chattering teeth ache.

It’s like it’s trying to remind her that not only did she come close enough to Death to kiss it on the throat, but she wasn’t vigilant enough to recognize the danger that something like Draco Malfoy posed. Something like a starved vampire whose desire to ask her for help was built on a foundation of selfishness. He knew there was a chance he’d kill her. He knew, and he hadn’t cared.

He hadn’t cared then but now, he cared enough to follow through on his word.

Malfoy is there. After every class, outside of every door, at the foot of every staircase. He’s there to hold her bag, to guide her with the ghost of his fingers against her lower back like a proper Pureblood gentleman. He walks her to the Gryffindor table at meals and leaves her there, always ensuring that he’s done eating before she is so he can meet her at the entrance to the Great Hall. He hovers behind her like her own personal haunt.

No matter the stares or the whispers, he is there, always walking mere centimeters behind her. Attentive. Stoic.

Infuriating.

Ron expresses his annoyance quite loudly, but his perpetual breakup with Lavender takes his full attention. Harry absolutely hates it, but Hermione has managed to come up with a “he got detention” lie that makes everyone think he did something to be punished and forced to help her. And with Harry and Ron both having Quidditch, there simply isn't time or room in their brains to worry about Malfoy anymore. That includes their suspicions about him being a Death Eater. They're not gone; just on hold.

When Malfoy comes around, everyone falls quiet, to the point where some of her peers outright ignore her if he's there. The professors are eerily unconcerned and unsurprised, which makes Hermione nervous given her cryptic conversation with Dumbledore a week ago. Even Snape seems uninterested, which perplexes Hermione since he's the Slytherin Head of House. Surely he'd be made aware of any detention his student received.

Dumbledore must know or suspect something, she just doesn't know what.

She and Malfoy never speak to one another and Hermione likes it to be that way. She hasn’t heard the sound of his voice since the day she left the Infirmary. The thought that it might be hoarse from disuse fills her with selfish glee. He doesn’t deserve to breathe her air, let alone speak in her presence. 

But she’d be remiss if she didn’t admit to feeling somewhat better every time she sees his cold grey eyes meeting hers across a corridor. Something about knowing that he’s at her mercy soothes her irritation from time to time. It’s easier to focus on her anger when he’s around, reminding her what a complete waste of space he is.

Better than when she’s alone and all she can focus on is the memory of that night. The pain. The fear.

She never wants to feel that way again.

Not to mention, Cormac is nothing to her now. She never has to worry about being caught alone with him, and he never sees fit to look in her direction, which shows her that her Obliviation is holding up wonderfully.

On the third day, after he drops her off at her table in History of Magic without so much as a word, she finds herself looking up into the narrowed eyes of Blaise Zabini. Harry and Ron are late, as usual.

Blaise steals a stool.

“Now, we can make this easy or we can make it difficult,” he says, one hand positioned against the edge of the wooden table. His brown eyes pierce into hers from beneath the thick mass of kinky black curls above them. “Explain.”

Hermione’s hair is now, once again, plaited into fifty or so box braids that cascade out of the top of her head. She sweeps them back so she can lean over to rummage through her bag for a fresh quill. “I’ll take the challenge and keep my mouth sewn shut. I find myself drawn to risk, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“No, no, no,” Blaise says with a slight, incredulous laugh. “That’s what you’re not gonna do. You’re going to tell me what’s going on.”

“What’s going on with what?” Hermione situates her parchment and quill so it’s ready for her to take notes. Harry and Ron still haven't arrived.

“With you and my best mate.” Another spluttered laugh. “You think everyone’s just ignoring the fact that he’s trotting after you to every class and meal like a lapdog?”

Hermione’s heart pounds faster. She chooses her words carefully, knowing that Malfoy can hear. Not too carefully, however, because she’s only afraid of what he can do. 

She’s not afraid of how he may feel.

“Not so. Everyone around me knows it's because he got in trouble and had to agree to help me after my…accident. It’s nothing. You should be more concerned about the fact that you never take notes. You’re going to struggle at the end of this year when we take exams. I doubt you want poor marks hanging over your head.”

Blaise scoffs. “And pray, tell me who’s got their eye on my marks? My parents are much too busy dealing with the handling of stepfather Number Eight’s estate.”

Hermione’s brow furrows in alarm.

“Don’t you dare ask me a thing about it.” Blaise waves a dismissive hand that doesn't match the almost haunted, beleaguered look on his face. “I gave up wondering after my mother married Number Five one week after Number Four passed.”

She doesn’t know how to react. Before this year, she might have marched straight to the owlery to send a letter to the Ministry and ask if they’d looked into Mrs. Zabini’s marriages. But now?

She doesn’t care. 

She doesn’t care and it’s the fact that she feels nothing other than mild, gossipy shock at his words that disturbs her. Right now, she cares more about the fact that she knows Malfoy’s secret. Is her selfishness steeped in trauma or just dipped in it?

Maybe she should report Malfoy.

As she lets her gaze flit across the room, past Blaise’s shoulder to where she sees Malfoy with his head hung between his hands on the tabletop as though he’s exhausted or got an ache in his head, she knows the truth.

She'll never report him.

“How about you worry about that Defense Against the Dark Arts project, Blaise, and I’ll worry about what's my business.” Turning her face up towards his, she wrinkles her nose. “Werewolves, right?”

“You want me to believe whatever you’ve got going on with Malfoy is for your project?”

“Yes,” she says, the lie cranking out with the gears that turn in her head. She's getting way too comfortable telling lies this year. “We’ve partnered up. Speaking of partners, I’m fairly certain Harry and Ron have skived off class today. You might as well sit here. It's lecture day anyway.”

“Sounds good to me.” 

At the front of the class, Malfoy lifts his head. He doesn’t look back at her so she doesn’t know if he’s paid attention to what they'd been conversing about, but it’s safe to say he’s going to find out anyway. Otherwise, Blaise is going to ask him about it and he’s not going to have any idea what he’s talking about. Not that it really matters if Malfoy looks dumb or if she gets caught in a lie.

Vampires are a good project topic.

No.

What a stupid, bad, imbecilic idea. She doesn’t want to be around Malfoy. She doesn’t want to have to talk to him. The project is supposed to be a culmination of research and opinion compiled over the course of the entire year. She wants to be rid of him. Why would she want to be forced to work with him for an entire year ?

Maybe she can find a way to make it look like she changed her mind later? Maybe she can cover the lie with another and say Professor Snape rejected the idea of a partner project?

“I thought the Patil twins were the only two partnering up for that project,” Blaise says as if on cue, his words shattering her way out like glass. “But I mean, they make sense. You—” He gestures to Malfoy with a raised eyebrow and two fingers. “—and him don’t.”

“Makes about as much sense as a student here being a werewolf would,” Hermione says with a shrug, ignoring the irony. “But does it really matter in the end? It is what it is, for now.”

“For now?”

“Yes, we still have to clear it with the professor,” she lies as Slughorn enters the room and starts talking.

Blaise speaks in a whisper. “It’s February and you still haven’t cleared your project with the professor?”

“My original idea wouldn’t have worked,” she whispers back. “And Malfoy was in the same boat. We decided to put the past behind us so we could get through the year.”

As Slughorn starts explaining to them the importance of understanding the history behind medicinal potions, Blaise continues to peer down at her as though she’s a simmering brew that needs to be stirred at the proper moment.

“You’re difficult,” he says as though it’s a revelation to him.

“Have I heard that one before?” Hermione cocks her head to the right, pretending to wrack her brain. “Nope, I’m sure I haven’t heard that one yet.”

“I’m guessing you’ve been described as being cold, perhaps? Maybe standoffish.”

“Full of myself? Bitchy? A swot?”

“Those, too.”

Hermione and Blaise glare at one another for a moment longer before their faces both split with grins and they cover their mouths to stifle their laughter. Ahead of them, she can see Malfoy still hasn’t looked back here. 

He can hear, but is he listening?

“Look, if you want me to back off about it, I will,” Blaise says below his breath, “but I’m just letting you know that everyone is talking about it. The longer you go without addressing it publicly in some way, the more the rumors are going to spread. And right now, rumor has it that you and Draco Malfoy are a thing.”

Hermione stares at the back of Malfoy’s head, remembering what it felt like to have him slam her head into the wall as hard as he did. The pain, white-hot as it stabbed through her entire body again and again. The way she’d begged and the way he hadn’t cared. She grits her teeth.

“We’re definitely a thing. There just doesn’t happen to be a word in the English dictionary to put a name to it.”

Malfoy leaves her at the Gryffindor table at supper, the two of them exchanging no words or glances. 

Hermione watches him stalk over to the Slytherin table with a sour expression on her face. It doesn’t matter what the school is gossiping about. What they think. He’s only doing this for his own peace of mind. He’s not a good person.

He’s not even a person .

Luna sinks onto the bench beside her with a sigh, forgoing her own House's table for the evening.

“How are you feeling?” Luna asks, tucking a chunk of her wavy blond hair behind her ear. It reveals one of her green acorn earrings. “You look very tired, Hermione.”

“I am ,” Hermione replies as she loads up her plate. “I’ve been taking my potions but sometimes I feel like I’m never going to feel better.”

Luna, who still hasn’t asked why Hermione asked her to find a way to get her those Blood Replenishment potions, simply says, “You just need more time, and then everything will be okay.”

“And what about you?”

“What do you mean?” Luna replies, dreamily smiling around a spoonful of stew.

“You told me a couple of weeks ago that you needed my help. Is it closer to the day yet?”

Luna blinks as though caught off guard and then, as quick as a shooting star, her smile is back. “I can explain more later but what I can say now is that we’ll be brewing a potion.”

Hermione tucks into her food, having not realized how hungry she’d gotten since lunch. “Do we need to go to Hogsmeade for the ingredients?”

“For some.”

Hermione freezes and leans closer to her. “This isn’t illegal, is it?”

“Hm,” Luna hums in a sing-song tone. “That depends on your political stance, I believe.”

This response takes Hermione aback. She stares at Luna, curiosity piqued more so than before. What sort of potion could she want to brew that toed the line of legality? There weren’t many potions that mixed politics with the law, the categories being limited to magical creatures, medicine, and commercial products. Was Luna trying to create something to sell? Or was it something else?

“Why can’t you tell me what it is?”

Luna’s smile doesn’t falter. “I’d rather speak freely. Wouldn’t you?”

“Well, I…yes. I would.”

“Then it’s best we wait.”

When Malfoy walks her back to her common room after dinner, neither of them expect to run into Cormac. He's late, apparently, so when Hermione rounds the corner and crashes into him, she's wholly unprepared. Cormac grabs her elbows to stop her from falling. It makes her skin want to peel away from his touch.

“Excuse me, Hermione. Should have been looking where I was going.”

Hermione stands rigid, staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes. She wants to die. She wants to be dead. To be anywhere other than standing in Cormac's presence with his hands on her. Those same hands that beat her and pinned her and shoved their way inside—

“Hands,” Malfoy growls, looming behind Hermione like a sentinel. “Now, McLaggen.”

Cormac frowns in confusion, but he does as Malfoy tells him, and lets Hermione go. 

“I'll see you around, Hermione,” Cormac says, giving Malfoy one last glowering look before he stalks off toward the Great Hall.

Once they are alone, Malfoy comes to stand in front of her. He looks like he wants to speak, but nothing comes out. His brows knit together on his forehead, unspoken thoughts flickering in his eyes.

But Hermione can't see. She can't see or think or be. Because she's right back there, back in that dungeon corridor, screaming and fighting futilely for her freedom. Failing again and again.  

“I can't breathe,” she chokes out.

“What?”

Hermione collapses on the floor, onto her knees. The panic overwhelms her and her hands fly to cover her face. 

“I c-cant—breathe, M-Malfoy. I—oh, God. Oh, God. I can't. I need—”

He drops down before her, his eyes suddenly wild with something borderline feral. Something she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know if she wants to.

“What? What do you need, hm? What do you need from me?”

Hermione promptly bursts into hysterical, gut-wrenching tears. Tears she hasn't wept since the night Cormac attacked her. They're almost painful, dragging all of the trauma and fear inside of her up her throat and out of her mouth. 

Suddenly, he's got her on her feet and in a side corridor by a window with a speed she can't fathom. Malfoy's hands are on her face, cradling it with his thumbs bisecting her tear tracks. His gaze is steady. Stern.

“Breathe, Granger. You need to breathe.”

Hermione can't. She tries, over and over, just like she tried to save herself that night. But she failed. She couldn't do it. She couldn't save herself. She—

“I did it,” Malfoy says softly. “I came for you. I saved you. And now I need you to breathe for me.”

She inhales, her breath stuttering on the way in. Her vision stays blurred with tears.

“There you go. That's it. Now, breathe out.”

She exhales.

“Good girl.”

Heat suffuses her cheeks at the praise. She doesn't know what to do with it or how to make sense of how any of this feels. She doesn't know if she's making the right decisions, or if she's ever going to be okay again. 

What she knows is that even though she hates Malfoy, she thinks he might be the only person in the entire world that can help her breathe again.

And she despises that.

“Now,” she whispers, her brown eyes searching his grey. “I want to know now.”

“Know what?” She doesn't know if he does it intentionally or in an absentminded manner, but he moves his thumbs to wipe her tears, hands still braced against her heated face.

“The Mark. You said you would explain. Well, explain now.”

He freezes, eyes widening slightly, before he drops his hands from her face. It leaves her flushed skin feeling cold and clammy. Bereft. How dare her body betray her like this? How dare it crave the touch of a monster?

Malfoy begins to pace. He speaks quietly, though the corridors are still empty.

“I was turned into a vampire during the summer before this Year. It was a punishment for my father's failure at the Department of Mysteries, and he—the Dark Lord—decided that he was going to give me a chance to redeem our family by giving me a task to complete this year. He told me that I had two goals: find the Death Eaters a way into Hogwarts…and kill Dumbledore. He had yet to decide if he was going to give me the Mark.

“I've been half-arseing the Dumbledore part all year, but the other part…well, there's a way for them to enter, but it requires some work. I'm sure you know all about the vanishing cabinets used during the first war? Well, there's one in Borgin & Burkes. And there's one here, in the castle, in the Room of Hidden Things. I believe you know the Room of Requirement, yeah? Right, well, the cabinet's twin is there, and it's broken. So, I have been working on fixing it, but the charmwork is extremely complicated and meticulous.

“I told the Dark Lord all of this when I went home for winter hols. And he was pleased. He rewarded me by giving me the Mark. It was painful and with how hungry I was, the spell weakened me substantially. I was bedridden until after the New Year. And now, I'm expected to have the cabinet fixed before the end of the school year, at which time I will be expected to have killed our Headmaster. If I don't, he's made it clear to me and my father both that my mother is the first to go. If I don't complete the task, the Dark Lord will kill my mother—the same mother that stood by and watched me be turned, and then watched me take the Mark. You see why I've been half-arseing it all?”

By the time he's done talking, Hermione is calm. Deathly calm. Her mind is clearer than ever because now, she sees the path. The path to a solution. The path that could lead to a pardon of some sort for him going so long without registering. Maybe even a pardon for taking the Mark. She will never report him because he will report himself.

To the Order of the Phoenix.

“I'm going to help you,” she says. “I'm going to help you fix the cabinet. Then we’re going to Borgin & Burkes…and we're going to destroy both of them. Deal?”

His response is delayed, resigned, and certain.

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Fourteen

Hermione dreams her heart is on fire.

It’s not a nightmare, even though it really should be. She’s stuck in a cell with no window and no candle for light. There’s no way to tell if it’s night or day, and she’s burning. Her entire chest is on fire, the black flames of Hell licking along her arms and up to her shoulders in a blazing embrace, but she feels nothing. There’s no pain. Nothing but darkness that the flames don’t seem able to permeate.

And all the while, she hears Cormac laughing and Malfoy apologizing.

When she wakes up on Saturday, she can still feel the shadows.

Harry makes a show of walking Hermione to the Great Hall, parading her past a moderately-annoyed Malfoy outside the Gryffindor portrait. He wants to know how she’s holding up. She replies with a long-winded, one thousand word speech that sums up to be I’m doing fine , and at the breakfast table, she drowns her exhaustion in blueberry porridge. Somehow, it seems like the best way to help her mind come to terms with the fact that she’s getting a little too good at lying.

“I do so wish there was such thing as Valentine's hols.” Luna sits down across from Hermione, fully bundled up in her winter garb. The furry hat that hides her hair is cute but it’s the strangest shade of purple that Hermione isn’t sure what sort of creature it resembles. She just hopes it’s not real fur.

“Why’s that?” Hermione asks, warm herself in her own winter clothing. They’re to go to Hogsmeade directly after this.

“I like the castle when it’s empty. It feels haunting, but in a good way. Don’t you think the ghosts prefer it, too?”

“I didn’t think they minded.” Hermione glances down the mostly-empty table, seeing Nearly Headless Nick hovering by one of the windows. He’s gazing through the latticework with a faint smile on his face, mindless of the way the castle’s holiday decorations rain sparkling red and pink hearts down upon him. “But I think you’re right.”

Just then, a group of Gryffindor Fourth Years sits beside them, their chatter drowning out any chance at conversation, so Luna and Hermione eat in silence. 

The reality of the Malfoy debacle is that she can’t just let him starve. He’s not a statue and he can’t hold himself back forever. The longer she starves him, the harder it will be for him to resist hurting someone again. No one deserves to die by Draco Malfoy’s fangs.

She might have to go back on her word and repeat the original plan: vials of her blood. After all, she’s the one who punished him by breaking them. She’s the one with the Snitch in her hand, and Malfoy’s allowing her the time to figure out what to do with it.

Turning her head far enough that she can see the end of the Slytherin table, she sees that Malfoy is watching her, leaning forward with his arms folded on the table in front of him. There’s nothing to his expression. It’s hollow, like he’s simply waiting for a class to begin. His mouth remains tilted halfway between a line and a frown, hiding the sharp fangs that she knows lie behind his lips. His eyes look like rain clouds.

She wishes that he wasn’t a monster.

Luna leans close and whispers, “After we go to Hogsmeade, I’d like to take a detour through the Forbidden Forest.”

That draws Hermione’s attention so quickly that her neck cracks on the turn.

“The forest? What for?”

“There’s an ingredient that I need for my potion that won’t be sold in the shoppe,” Luna says. 

What ingredient could she possibly need that can’t be bought? 

“Can I ask what it is?” Hermione whispers, careful of the students to their left.

“I’ll tell you when we’re on the hill.”

Bewildered, Hermione scarfs down the rest of her food so that the two of them can hurry towards the Great Hall exit. She’s so lost in thought that she doesn’t realize Malfoy has flashed ahead of them in the empty corridor until she’s slammed face-first into his chest. Practical as ever, she looks to Luna first to see if she noticed how fast Malfoy was.

Luna appears unfazed, smiling up at him like she has awareness of no more than the weather.

“Good morning, Draco Malfoy,” she says. “What brings you into the corridor with us?”

“Where…” He clears his throat, his nose twitching as he glowers first at her, then at Hermione. To Hermione’s joy, his voice is hoarse. Like he hasn’t spoken to anyone since their argument outside the Infirmary. “Where are you off to?”

“To town,” Hermione says, her tone as cold as it’s sure to be outside. She takes a step back. It feels like frozen air drifts off of him in waves. “I have Luna, so I won’t need an escort.”

“I’d like to go to town, too,” he says, focusing on Luna. “Mind if I tag along?”

“I mind. Immensely.”

“I was asking Lovegood.”

“It’s quite all right with me on any other day,” Luna says, her tone apologetic. “But I’m afraid that today, we’ve got private matters to attend to.”

Hermione’s curiosity rises.

Malfoy’s nose pinches again, like something smells bad or like he doesn’t appreciate her answer. “Well, I can walk to town with you, can’t I? I’ll keep a wide berth, mind my own. You won’t even notice me.”

“Why are you being so desperate?” Hermione says, unable to cross her arms over her chest but for the puffiness of her coat. She puts her hands on her hips instead. “Can’t you let me go to Hogsmeade with my friend for one morning?!”

“I’m not desperate,” he snarls and for a second as quick as lightning, his eyes flash violet. Hermione isn’t sure if Luna caught it. She hopes she didn’t. “I’m—”

They go quiet as a group of Fifth Years from Ravenclaw brushes past them to head toward the castle exit. Everyone exchanges awkward glances, and then they are gone.

“I’m not desperate,” Malfoy continues, his hands flexing in fists at his sides. “I’d just prefer I was around.”

“Around? Around for what ?” Hermione hisses. “I’m not your pet!”

Luna places her hands behind her back and tilts her head to the side. 

“I don’t mind if you come anymore.”

Hermione and Draco both pause mid-sentence, their heads inches away from one another as they halt their argument and seethe.

“What?” Hermione says. “But you just said—”

“I changed my mind.” Luna beams a bright smile. “I think it’ll be okay. Mm—no, I’m sure of it. He’s welcome to come.”

As she heads off down the corridor, Hermione’s jaw hangs in shock. Malfoy’s angry expression melts into a lazy, triumphant smirk. He adjusts the lapels of his black pea coat and re-loops his Slytherin scarf.

“It must be frustrating for you, realizing that not everyone handles themself like a child,” he says, his tone soft and chiding.

“I doubt Luna likes you.” She turns her chin upward and stomps after her friend. “She’s my friend and I’m fairly certain if she knew the reason why you were hovering around me, she wouldn’t have invited you along.”

“Contrary to popular belief, not everyone hates me.”

“Oh, I’m sure that helps you sleep at night.”

“Better than you, I’m sure.”

“Must be hard,” she taunts, “trying to sleep on an empty stomach.”

He’s behind her and as the final word of her cruel sentence leaves her lips, his lips brush against the braids that cover her ear.

“Who says it’s empty?”

As they approach Luna, Hermione’s so rattled by his words and what they insinuate that she walks behind them in a daze. She knows he’s fucking with her but it terrifies her all the same. The chance that he’s only leaving her alone because he’s fed off of someone else, possibly to their detriment? It bothers her.

“So what are you on the hunt for today?” Malfoy asks as if his enhanced hearing didn’t pick up every word Luna and Hermione exchanged this morning. “Sweets at Honeydukes?”

“No,” Luna replies, beaming up at him. “Something completely different.”

Outside, the February air is crisp and biting. It nips at their noses like pixies with sharp teeth, turning their skin pink and red. Hermione pants for breath, her feet sinking into the snow, and she wonders if Malfoy’s interest in her well-being doesn’t extend to not leaving her behind.

“It’s not often that anyone goes to Hogsmeade for more than food or drink,” Malfoy says.

“Well today, I’m going to buy some ingredients for a potion. I thought I had enough but as it turns out, I unfortunately did not.”

“My forte, would you believe.”

Godric, he’s so annoying. Having a conversation . In a posh tone. With her friend! What a load of bollocks. How is it that he can speak respectfully to anyone else besides Hermione? Why can’t he be respectful when he talks to her, too?

And why did Luna go from not wanting to tell him anything to suddenly telling him everything in less than ten minutes?

“I had heard that you were rather good at potions,” Luna says, voice breathy from the cold.

 “You heard correct,” Malfoy says, and Hermione catches a glimpse of his side profile as he glances down at Luna. Aside from the way he scrunches his nose up for a second, perhaps from the desire to sniffle, his facial expression is normal. It’s devoid of the conflict that she often sees when he looks at Hermione instead. Here, he does look like a person.

She doesn’t know why that bothers her. 

“You’re very much like the opinion I have of you in my mind, Draco Malfoy,” Luna replies. “I wouldn’t expect you to be anything less than honest.”

“Why hide the few things I’m proud of?” he says. The crunch of shoes in the snow provides a backdrop to this scene, this moment in her life that Hermione feels she won’t be able to stop thinking about for as long as it takes her to come to terms with the fact that Malfoy is, in fact, not one-dimensional. “I haven’t got much going for me and my father always says that as long as a wizard has one thing to be proud of, then he’ll never be worthless.”

“That’s very good advice, I’d say.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“Well, Lucius Malfoy never was unintelligent,” Luna says thoughtfully. “I always found him to be intriguing in the way he makes decisions. Do you remember when you would bring me those little pouches when Seamus took my shoes? The ones with the sweets?”

Hermione looks up from the ground, ears attuned. He gave her sweets? Malfoy seems so human to her at this second that she forgets he’s a vampire.

“Yes,” he answers, his voice as quiet as the snowflakes that drift lazily to the ground around them.

“I remember how your father reacted when he found out on the train platform at the end of the year. I thought that he would be so angry and…well, he was, but…there was something I saw in his eyes right before he told you to do better at hiding your affectation toward me.”

His affectation?

“What did he say?” Hermione blurts out.

Malfoy and Luna both cast glances over their shoulders, Malfoy’s as chilled as the air and Luna’s as bright as the sun.

“He told me to do better at not getting caught,” he answers.

“It was fairly good advice,” Luna adds, “and more compassionate than I thought him capable of.”

“More compassionate indeed.” Hermione’s voice is suspicious and soft as she narrows her eyes at the back of Malfoy’s head. “And quite human.”

“I found it interesting, the way he seemed to come to the decision. He didn’t make it flippantly. It took him a few moments to calculate what I’m sure were the pros and cons. It gave me the impression that every decision he makes, he does not make lightly.” Luna reaches over to pat Malfoy lightly on the left shoulder. “I think you’re quite similar to your father, Draco.”

Malfoy ducks his head down and Hermione wonders if his cheeks have gone warm.

“What is it that you plan to buy for your potion?” he asks after clearing his throat. “I’m sure Professor Slughorn’s got the things you need in his stores…?”

“Unfortunately not. I’ve been working on it for the past three weeks but I’m short on a few key ingredients for the final week. I didn’t have as much as I thought I did.”

Hermione’s listening, taking notes and doing calculations in her head. There’s only a few potions that she knows of that take four weeks, that also happen to be illegal—which could explain why Luna doesn’t want to say what the potion is. A medicinal brew for sexually transmitted diseases that is so controversial it doesn’t have a name, Wolfsbane, and a potion similar to liquid luck called Influenta that has the ability to influence opinion.

“What are they?” Malfoy asks. “Perhaps I can help with inspecting the ingredients before you purchase. Some things may need to be as fresh as possible.”

“The first two are black quicksilver and Essence of Daisyroot. The third, I’d rather not say, if you don’t mind. It can’t be bought.”

“My apologies. Where do you plan to procure it?”

“The Forbidden Forest.”

Hermione bites back the urge to snap at him for being happy to apologize to Luna for things, but for crying like a baby when he finally mustered up the courage to apologize to her.

“I hope this doesn’t come across as rude…” Malfoy says slowly. “But I’d like to make a suggestion.”

“Sure,” Luna replies, holding a hand up to catch snowflakes in her palm.

“This is just a stab in the dark, but…if it’s monkshood you’re after, I know the best way to cut it from the root so you don’t damage its potency.” His gaze finds Luna’s. “Because monkshood has to be prepared a certain way for it to work in the potions that it’s a part of. It can cause severe internal burns otherwise.”

“I know,” she says, smiling.

“So…if it is monkshood, I can help.”

“I don’t doubt your abilities, Draco Malfoy. Thank you.”

Luna says nothing, neither denying nor confirming.

What could it be? Luna doesn’t seem to have a significant other, let alone seem to be sexually active. Unless she is and Hermione just isn’t aware of her personal goings-on. She’s definitely not a werewolf because she’d actually be registered and Hermione would know. And Influenta doesn’t need black quicksilver—the medicinal potion and Wolfsbane do .

The only thing that makes sense is that Luna has an illness. That means that all that’s left to find out is what illness it is, if it’s grave, and who transmitted it to her so that person can be warned. Why else would Luna want to hide it? Why else keep silent what the third ingredient is? And Hermione doesn’t know all of the ingredients to the medicinal potion, so the third one is a toss-up for her, too.

If Luna is making a potion that takes four weeks, black quicksilver, and monkshood…

She strikes it from her mind. Her best friend is definitely not a werewolf.

That would be ridiculous.

Seraph Splitteron seems to be in a bad mood.

Hermione is certain she’s the only one who notices. Malfoy and Luna meander through the shop, chatting about ingredients as though they’re old friends, heedless to the world around them.

Which she supposes they very may well be old friends, given the fact that Luna is a Pureblood and therefore, had nothing for Malfoy to bully her for when they were kids. And with the new knowledge that Malfoy had been bringing Luna gifts of whatever sort while other people bullied her, Hermione can’t exactly feel suspicious.

There’s something unguarded about the way he looks at Luna. A relaxed slope to his shoulders. A more fluid movement in his limbs. And the way he keeps wrinkling his nose. It’s almost adorable.

Why is it that he tries to kill her and he still gets to smile?

Seraph watches them from behind the counter with the same expression on his face that Hermione wears, the sourness in it seeming to affect the atmosphere in the shoppe. It’s like they’ve walked in on his privacy, like they intentionally destroyed his day by opening the door and entering. And as Malfoy lifts a jar of some sort of bug wings and animatedly tells Luna a humorous memory from his Second Year Potions class, Seraph heaves a great sigh that borders on a scowl.

“Is there anything you need me to measure out for you?”

Malfoy and Hermione look to Luna. She shakes her head no.

“Ah,” Seraph replies, his mouth turned down so far that his frown might etch itself permanently to his jaw. “I want you to be aware of the time—Hogwarts breakfast period ends in fifteen minutes, if I remember correctly.”

Hermione pulls a bewildered face, hiding it by pretending to inspect some dried bug skins.

Why would Seraph care if students were back on campus at the correct time on a Saturday? He owned the potions shoppe. He wasn’t a professor. In all the years Hermione had been buying ingredients from him, he’d never seemed to have anything to say about the time.

“It's Saturday, Mr. Splitterton,” Hermione says. “We don't have any classes to get to, or anything.”

He grimaces and says nothing more.

“He’s acting so strangely today,” she murmurs to Luna, who nods.

“It seems as though he’s tired. Perhaps a long night?”

“Perhaps.”

“Or perhaps…” To the left of them, Malfoy picks a scorched oyster pearl out of a bin and tosses it into the air. He catches it, throws it over his arm, and turns to catch it behind his back like the Snitch. “Perhaps it’s who is in here with you. I am me, after all.”

Hermione feels taken aback by the boyish, almost rogue smirk he’s fixed on. He looks so normal, so human, so him that she forgets to hate him for a second. The nostalgia of it overwhelms her, bringing a sting to her eyes that disturbs her. 

Everything’s so different now. Some things changed for the good, like her new friendships with Luna and Blaise, and the fact that she doesn’t stress about marks and studies as much as she used to. Some things for the bad, like how anxious Harry is and toxic Ron is with Lavender, her experiences with Cormac and Malfoy, and the isolation Hermione feels being so disconnected from everyone this year as she mentally prepares to Obliviate her parents. Ever since the Dark Lord’s return, a collective grief has settled over the wizarding world that she feels pressing down around her like heavy rain clouds. It's a constant buzzing in the back of her mind that keeps her short-tempered and impatient. And here, Draco Malfoy, no longer the cheeky Quidditch player with the penchant for cruelty.

Here, Draco Malfoy. The vampire.

“Shall I come over and assist?”

Seraph’s voice breaks into her thoughts. Luna is pointing to a top shelf and Malfoy is reaching up to grab the black quicksilver jar for her. Seraph doesn’t look happy about it.

Last time Hermione was in the shoppe, he was in better spirits. Seeing as that was already out of character for him, having him be back to his old grumpy self gives her pause. Now, he stands here appearing as though he thinks they’re vermin infesting his home. The way he looks at Malfoy is acidic enough to melt diamond.

Malfoy grabs the jar and hands it to Luna so she can scoop out what she needs, never once taking his eyes off of the elderly wizard.

“Having a bad day, then, Mr. Splitterton?”

“Full moon’s in a week and things aren’t going well for a potion I’m working on,” Seraph says, his gnarled fingers splayed out on the countertop as he leans over it. “As I’m sure your education has provided, you’re well-aware that potions which require the full moon for brewing are finicky and complicated.” 

“You’re very correct, sir,” Luna says, heading towards him. She sets her items on the counter: a pouch of black quicksilver powder and a pre-packaged vial of Daisyroot Essence. “I find that if I’m struggling with a complicated potion, it helps to keep in good spirits so I don’t make mistakes.”

“It seems mistakes are inevitable,” he says. “You were here not a fortnight ago. Were these ingredients for the same potion?”

“I’m not the best at brewing,” is all Luna says, her tone almost wistful as she inspects the bowl of assorted crystals for sale sitting on the counter. 

He doesn’t reply, silent as he counts the Galleons she hands to him. Malfoy stands behind Luna, his arms crossed over his chest as he stares at the top of Seraph’s bowed grey head. Hermione peers up at him, something sickening squeezing her stomach into a knot. 

There’s no doubt about it. This is what he looks like when he cares about someone.

Luna and Malfoy are friends.

Seraph hands her the package. “I couldn’t help but notice your ingredients…cutting it a bit close, aren’t you?”

Hermione glances over to Luna then back at Seraph. There’s a strange tension in the air that doesn’t match Luna’s trademark dreamy smile. It shows Hermione that not only do neither of them like each other, but that she’s out of the loop. Something is going on.

What could it be?

“The particular potion that I’m brewing is already underway,” Luna says. “I think it should go smoothly.”

“Provided you have everything you need.”

“Indeed.” 

Before he can say anything more, Luna turns on her heel and walks out of the shoppe. Malfoy follows without looking behind him. Hermione is left with Seraph at the counter.

“Interesting company you’re keeping this year, Miss Granger.”

There’s things left unsaid in the air between them. Things she doesn’t need much time to decipher. After all, Malfoy is infamous. Why would the Hermione Granger be casually shopping in Hogsmeade with the child of a “former” Death Eater? One who happens to currently be in Azkaban for breaking into the Department of Mysteries. 

She chooses not to tell Seraph that if it were up to her, Malfoy would be far, far away from her, and tells the old wizard to have a nice day.

Hermione slows to a stop as they pass the turn to Mulrey Lane.

There’s very little chance the Aurors who inspected the scene where the bodies were found had left anything behind but she can’t stop herself from feeling a curiosity beginning to smolder within. 

What if they hadn’t found everything?

While she wants to know what Luna needs to scavenge in the Forbidden Forest, she knows she plans to tell her anyway. If there’s a murderer in Hogsmeade—and if that murderer is Malfoy —then she wants to know more.

Would a small search hurt?

“Do you need me to go with you into the forest?” she calls ahead.

Luna and Malfoy stop, turning back to look at her. Malfoy’s expression is blank but Luna’s is as warm as ever.

“I’d like to go check out the grocer's, so you guys can go on ahead without me, if that’s all right.”

Malfoy’s brow furrows. “I’ll go with you. Do you think you can find the clearing I told you about yourself, Luna?”

Before Hermione can tell him to fuck off, fall off of a cliff, and die repeatedly, Luna tells him that she can. She gives him and Hermione each a small wave and then keeps going down the road. Malfoy comes to stand before her, an amused glint in his eye.

“You don’t look too happy.”

“Am I ever?” She pouts, irritation clouding her mood further. “Why do you feel the need to hover around me?”

“Because I want to. Any other questions?”

“I—well, yes. Why are you coming with me and not going with her? Unless you were pretending to be her friend.”

“For one, I’m certainly not your friend, so that shoots that accusation out of the bloody sky. And for two, Luna doesn’t need my help. I told her how to cut it at the root. She’ll be fine.”

“So it is monkshood she’s after?”

Malfoy glances down the empty road, his eyes narrowing as he peers at the grocer's. It’s not a very tall building but it’s definitely large enough to host quite a bit of people inside. The sign and windows are dimly-lit because it's early, but Hermione has seen it at its busiest. Right now, all of Mulrey Lane is empty, like the calm before a midday storm.

“I’m guessing you’re interested in the murders,” he says.

Hermione peers up at him. “As interested as someone not involved can be. You?”

“Are you asking me if I’m involved, or if I’m interested?”

“Both.”

When he looks down at her again, there’s a new gleam in his eyes. One that she recognizes. One that has her simultaneously wanting to draw her wand and walk in the other direction.

“The only thing I’m interested in is you, Granger.”

She grits her teeth, fingernails of her right hand digging into the meat of her palm. “How positively romantic. And here I thought you were only interested in one thing.”

“What would that be?”

“My blood.”

Holding his gaze in silent challenge, she waits for him to admit the truth. To reveal the real reason why he’s following her to her classes. To prove her theory that it’s never been about his guilt, and that he’s just waiting for the day she tells him they can try the vials again.

But he has no response at all.

He starts walking toward the grocer's. Hermone jogs to catch up with his long strides.

“Two bodies in two months,” he says when she falls in-step beside him. “What do you think that means?”

“Why do you care? You just said the only thing you were interested in was me.”

“You heard how the bodies were found, didn’t you?”

She nods, cracking her knuckles as an anxiety rages inside of her—an anxiety she only gets around him. “I don’t know what it means. I just want to look and see if anything sticks out to me.”

“Yes, you always were the nosy sort, you, Potty, and the Weasel. Getting involved in things that have naught to do with you.”

“Arsehole. Harry, Ron, and I aren’t nosy. We just care about the safety of other students. We care about what is right and wrong. And for your information, they are the ones getting into situations. I am the one who often has to be convinced to get them out of it.” She casts him a scathing onceover glance. “Don’t forget you got yourself involved in something Fifth Year. You’re not innocent when it comes to meddling.”

For a moment, she thinks he might lash out at her. Before what he did to her in the Room of Requirement, saying something like that would have had him snarling with the desire to put a hand around her throat. She’s anticipating it, waiting for his arm to shoot out, his hand to curl, his claws to pierce her skin.

To be at his mercy once again.

“Where were the bodies found again?” he asks, as though she hasn’t said anything about the Inquisitor's Squad at all.

“In the skip, beside the building.”

They head around to the left, down the small alley between the store and the building beside it. The building to the left of them is shorter than the store and with the sun being where it’s at, the grocer's casts perpetual shadows across the alleyway. It’s not cramped but Malfoy is very tall. He seems to fill up the space, keeping her from being able to see ahead of her. When he slows to a stop, she nearly crashes into him.

“Boy, if you don’t—” Annoyed, she pushes at his arm until he moves aside. “Get out of my way.”

She ignores the look on his face as she inspects the area around her. 

There’s a wall topped with bushes that stretches high above her, a wall that the buildings on the lane seem to be built up against. This means that the skip, which holds the rubbish for both the store and the restaurant beside it, is right in the center of the part that shows in the alley. The lid is shut and when Hermione walks near it, she can smell the thick, heavy aroma of a scent-depleting charm. There’s obviously magic being used to keep the stench of death away. 

If the body of the elderly man had gone unnoticed for three weeks beyond that of a few students complaining of an odd smell past High Street, did that mean that the charm was cast by the murderer?

“There’s obviously only one way in and out of this alley,” she says, craning her neck to look high up at the bushes. They’re even higher than Malfoy could reach. “The murderer must have chased the victims down here and…well…”

“Ripped them apart?”

Hermione nods, painfully aware of the fact that he’s blocking her exit.

Malfoy looks around at the cracked cobblestones beneath their feet. He moves to stand in front of her, a couple of meters away. He splays his hands out before him and points them downward. 

“It happened here,” he says, still glancing around.

“How do you know?”

“I can smell the old blood. They scourgified most of it, but…” He stops glancing about, pointing to a long crack that runs adjacent to his feet. “There. Blood dripped down into that crack, below. Either the victims were killed here, or killed elsewhere and brought here. Whatever happened, there’s still blood dried beneath the road.”

Hermione looks down at where he’s pointing. She hadn’t thought about that. The murderer could have killed them in his or her home, waited, and then brought the bodies here to hide them.

“But,” Malfoy says, “for there to be the amount of blood that it would take for it to seep into this crack? They would have to be freshly-dead. And this blood smells old, but not too old. The newest wasn’t murdered here, I don’t think. Maybe close by. Then dismembered here.”

Where anyone could see? With how crowded the grocer's was, they could have held onto the dead bodies for days just to wait for the chance to bring them to this place.

“Disillusionment charms are effective.”

Hermione pulls a face. “Stop listening to my thoughts. I don’t like it.”

He ignores her and wrinkles his nose, much like he’d been doing all day around Luna. “It smells horrid. Rancid.”

“I think it’s coming from here, lingering from the first body because it was here for so long.” Hermione swivels to face the large skip, which is as tall as her head. As she reaches for the metal lip of the lid, Malfoy comes to stand beside her. She tries to push upward, but it doesn’t budge. “It might be charmed shut to deter another murder.”

Malfoy makes an attempt to open the lid but fails. “I don’t understand why they’d do that. Where are they supposed to toss their rubbish?”

“They can vanish it.”

“Copious amounts? No, you know how Ministry law works.”

After the first wizarding war and after it was discovered that Death Eaters were hiding correspondence in daily, untraceable vanished rubbish, the Ministry had passed laws for magical businesses. They required them to use Muggle skips for their rubbish. Sanctioned Squibs were hired specifically to perform the vanishing each week with special charmed wands that sent the rubbish to a Ministry sorting center without needing the user to be able to cast magic. It isn’t the most glamorous of occupations, but it enables the Ministry to monitor the things a business is doing while also providing jobs for Squibs in the magical world. 

If this skip is charmed shut but hasn’t been removed, that means that the Aurors assume he or she will be back. They could even be watching the alley right now.

She looks over her shoulder and up the windowless walls beside them, feeling a phantom crawl along her spine. The alleyway is empty, as is the cobblestone road beyond. 

But there’s windows in the buildings across the street. Dark, black windows that could just as easily be hiding someone as nightfall could. It could be an Auror…

“Or it could be the murderer.”

Hermione jolts at the sound of Malfoy’s voice beside her ear. He’s leaning down close to her, both of them with a hand on the skip’s lid, and he’s smirking again.

“Hm,” she replies in a nasty tone. “It’s a shame I can’t hear your thoughts so I could join in on whatever clever conversations you think you have with yourself.”

“Not a shame. A blessing.”

Hermione swallows against the strange feeling in her gut and drops her hand from the lid. 

“If the Aurors were sitting on this place, they’d have already sent someone down to check on us,” Malfoy says. He moves past the skip and to the small yard of space between it and the store. She can still see his shoulders and head, he's that tall. “They’ve likely got the lid charmed shut to force the murderer to find another spot if he kills again. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got every rubbish bin in Hogsmeade sealed off.”

“But one thing doesn’t make sense to me,” Hermione says, crossing her arms over her chest. “How did the first body go unnoticed for three weeks? The store wouldn’t avoid tossing their rubbish just to stand up against Ministry law. They had to have been coming out here every night to the skip. They didn’t see the body parts? And what about when the Squibs were coming weekly to vanish the trash? The body parts didn’t…” She trails off.

“You can’t vanish human tissue,” Malfoy says, reminding her of one of the first elemental laws they learned in Charms. “They could vanish the rubbish ten times over, and all that would be left behind is the body.”

Hermione’s frown deepens. 

“It must have been invisible,” she says. “It must have been glamoured for sight and smell, and then the smell overpowered the charm. That must have brought someone out here, who got an Auror, and since Aurors are trained for this sort of thing, they vanished the glamour and saw the body. And maybe the month after that, someone got curious and checked the skip again.”

Malfoy is inspecting the wall above eye level. “Behold, body number two.”

“Exactly.” Hermione whirls around to face the skip. “So if all it takes if a simple glamour scrubbing charm to reveal a body, then perhaps—”

“A simple glamour scrubbing spell could reveal the trail of blood leading away from the alley.”

“ Yes !” Hermione cries, jumping up and down on her feet in her forgetfulness of who it is she's conversing with. “And if the Aurors think the murders took place here in the alleyway, that means that we might be the only people who not only know about the blood that seeped into the crack, but also that the murders might have taken place elsewhere. We could—”

“I never was able to find out.”

They both turn. Luna is back, and she’s coming to join them.

“Did you find what you needed in the forest?” Hermione asks.

“Why, yes, I did. Enough for a couple of months’ supply,” Luna replies. “What are you two doing?”

“A good old-fashioned Gryffindor meddling, it seems,” Malfoy answers, crouching down beside the skip and disappearing from view.

Hermione scowls, rolls her eyes, and faces her friend. “What weren’t you able to find out?”

“Remember how you asked me to find out about the girl who died? The second body?” Luna tucks her hair behind one ear, shifting her bag on her shoulder. “I never was able to find out if she was a student. No one at school seems to have any details. My theory is that she was young enough to look our age, but is no longer in Hogwarts. Early or late twenties, perhaps? You could also always ask the Pepperwethers. They like to hide in brick walls. Maybe they saw something one of those nights?”

“Pepperwethers don’t speak to humans, Luna,” Malfoy says as he stands up again, surprising Hermione with his immediate belief in Luna’s creatures. So far, Harry is the only one that believes any of them exist. He signals to the girls, beckoning with two fingers. “Come look at this. Come here.”

Hermione reaches him first, standing behind him. In his crouched position, his head is at her chest. He gestures to the red brick, pointing to several places.

“Do you see that?”

Hermione shakes her head, leaning forward as far as she can without her chest brushing against the back of his left shoulder. When he turns his head to look at her, she can feel his breath, hot against her cheek and neck.

“Blood spatter.”

Her eyes widen and she looks again at the places where he’d pointed. If there’s blood spattered on the wall over here, that means that the victims could very well have been murdered here. At the very least, this was where the dismemberment had taken place. The spatter could have come from the tearing limbs, or from the way the parts were carelessly tossed into the skip.

She feels sick to her stomach. How could someone do something like this? If it was a werewolf, like Blaise had theorized, it made a little more sense but if it wasn’t? If it was a human being like her or Luna? The amount of cruelty and lack of humanity that it would take to willingly rip someone into several pieces, splattering their blood all over the walls in a small alleyway…an elderly man. A young girl.

Maybe she should get involved.

Throwing caution to the wind, she places one hand on Malfoy's shoulder to steady herself as she reaches out to touch one of the spots, as if touching it will give her a vision.

Malfoy’s right hand crosses his body and smacks against her forearm, drawing a gasp out of her mouth. He grips her wrist tightly, enough to remind her how careful she’s supposed to be around him.

“Blood spatter, you say?” Luna says from behind them, lingering near the skip. “How could it get all the way over there?”

“I think it’s from when the murderer discarded the parts,” Hermione says, glaring at Malfoy as she wrenches her arm out of his grasp.

As he allows it.

“It caused the spatter to reach here,” Malfoy says as he stands, looming over Hermione. “And if you were to touch it and the Aurors inspected it at any point afterward, you’d become a suspect.”

“Naturally,” Luna says.

Hermione hates him. She feels stupid, so naturally, it’s his fault.

“I’m heading back up to the castle,” she says, walking out of the small space. “And I think on the full moon, I’ll come back and—”

“You’ll do no such thing.” 

Malfoy comes to stand beside her. Luna doesn’t seem perturbed or rattled at all by what he’s just said. Hermione, on the other hand, wants to rip his throat out. 

“Is that so?”

His gaze is cold. “Two people are murdered on the full moon, two months in a row, and you want to come back to…what? Watch the third one die?”

“Maybe I could help stop it.”

“Or maybe you’re the one the murderer picks.”

“You think I can’t take care of myself? That I can’t fight off one person?”

Malfoy lifts his eyebrow. 

He doesn’t have to say anything. 

“Perhaps,” Luna speaks up, her smile faint as she looks from one to the other, “Gryffindor bravery isn’t a strength in this instance, Hermione. Perhaps it’s better to err on the side of caution and wait to see what happens?”

“And let another person die?”

Luna shrugs. While Hermione wants to think it’s exorbitantly cruel of her and Malfoy to care so little, she knows that she’s the one that’s overreacting. It’s not normal to get involved in every bad thing that happens at Hogwarts every year. She has not a single uneventful school year under her belt. Now, it’s her Sixth Year and she’s already got a vampire Death Eater in her pocket.

When it becomes clear that Hermione has nothing more to say, Luna and Malfoy take over the conversation. They walk out of the alley, so Hermione begrudgingly follows. She casts one last glance over her shoulder at the dark alley, the sealed skip, the brick wall. The small spot between the wall and the skip's side.

What a good hiding place that would be if she had Harry’s cloak.

When they get up to the castle courtyard, Luna tells Hermione to meet her outside the Room of Requirement that night after dinner. Once she agrees, Luna takes her leave and heads off into the castle. When she’s far enough away, Hermione whirls on Malfoy. 

“Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?” He combs long fingers through his hair, looking down at her as though she isn’t fuming.

“Like you can’t even figure out who you are and who you want to be. You’re a completely different person around me than you are around everyone else. Why?”

“Because they’re not you. And something makes me not want to be nice to you.”

The words slap her. Full-on smack her right across the brain. They wake her up and remind her that just because they had a relatively normal, human outing in Hogsmeade, doesn’t mean that he’s human. 

“You bitch. I’ll slit your throat. I will slice it open with my claws, you fucking Mudblood cunt.”

He takes a step forward, the light dusting of snow on stone crunching beneath his boot.

“Fuck, I want to devour you.”

Her heart races.

“Poor little Granger. Caught looking up during prayer.”

She remembers the pain. Her finger bones being shattered, crushed to nothing. Afterthoughts in his pursuit for her blood. His desire to feed. She remembers that pain and she feels small. Looks down at the ground and wrings her ugly hands in front of her abdomen as if she can erase the fact that they were once broken. 

“Now she wants to beg for forgiveness.”

She remembers the terror, crawling up and down through every vein, filling every blood vessel. Turning her into a shadow of the powerful, fearless witch she had built herself up to be. Small. Malleable. 

Worthless beneath his hands.

“You’ve got the hands of a fucking angel.”

And she remembers the way she felt when he dragged his tongue across her skin. She hadn’t known where the aphrodisiac of his saliva ended, and where her body’s own reaction began. It pains her to admit that she can still remember what it felt like to be between him and stone, writhing with the phantom pleasure his feeding provided.

It pains her to admit her body craves it, even now.

“But you’ll tell.”

Hermione feels soft fingers curl around the underside of her chin, the large hand that spans her jawbone as cold as ice. He pulls her chin up. Looking him in the eyes has her stomach turning and knees weak.

She hates him for it.

“You should see the way my fingers look wrapped around your neck.” His words come out in a near-sensual murmur. “It’s priceless.”

What?

Hermione’s heart skips a beat. Her brows come together. She doesn’t know whether to be alarmed or not.

“How could you ever be worthless?” he continues, shaking his head in incredulity. “You’re the reason I open my eyes in the morning. The reason I’m not desiccated and dry. The promise of your blood keeps me gentle.” 

His fingers curl until she feels his claws start to prod into her skin. She makes a tiny sound as he drags her by the face, pulling her against him in full view of anyone who might choose to come to the snow-blanketed courtyard. He holds her gaze with such intensity that it constricts her lungs, and he hisses his words through clenched teeth.

“But I do not want to be nice to you when my veins grate like sand and my heart stops its useless beats in my chest. Not when I want your flesh in my hands and your skin on my lips and my fangs in your throat. Don’t you get it? I want your blood on my tongue.”

As he slides his hand closer to her throat, forcing her head up higher, forcing her onto her tip-toes, she is reminded of the truth.

Malfoy is entirely able to do with her as he pleases. He’s simply choosing not to.

“No one should have that power,” she whispers as she wraps a hand around his wrist. She starts to push, wanting him to stop touching her before anyone sees. “But neither should I have the power to keep you alive. You shouldn’t need me.”

His head bends toward hers, mouth moving to her ear where his words ghost along the shell of her ear like smoke.

“And yet, I crave you.”

“Malfoy,” she says, her eyelids fluttering as she places her trembling hands flat on his chest. “I told you. Never again.”

He groans. His left hand smooths down her back; his right curls in tight enough to make her breath rattle on its way out. There are pebbles rising on her skin.

I’m not afraid of him. 

“I know,” he breathes out, his lips parting. “Just let me imagine. Let me remember it.”

“Imagine what ?”

I’m not afraid of him. 

“How you taste.”

I’m not afraid of you.

The way his voice cracks, teetering between a growl and a desperate moan. The fact that she almost wants to set aside her anger and just give in. The fact that she wants to be weak and let him feed. The fact that he can read her thoughts and knows every single thing that she's thinking and feeling right now.

She’s afraid again.

“I’m not your pet ,” she whispers, her hands shaking so hard that it’s rocking her body. “ I am in control of my body. I don’t belong to you.”

There is something that shifts in his eyes, darkening to an internal storm.

“You’re in control. You’re not my pet. You don’t belong to me. But you are mine.”

He lets her go.

Voices—chatter and laughter—near them. Coming down the corridor is a group of Second Years who are on their way to enjoy the winter sun after lunch. They can be heard talking about a planned snowball fight. 

Hermione rubs her neck, watching him warily as she pretends her entire body isn’t trembling. She feels weak.

Son, Pureblood, wizard, Slytherin, Death Eater, vampire.

Who is Draco Malfoy?

She has a decision to make.

Hermione feels something like pity for him. He’s had a taste and now, her blood is the only thing he wants. It must have taken all of his strength to stop feeding from her before it was too late. No wonder the Ministry has so many restrictions for the species. 

Vampires are biologically designed to kill.

“Why not turn me in, Granger?” He spreads his arms wide. “All you have to do to be rid of me is tell.”

“Because,” she says, glancing at the kids that are now throwing balls of snow at one another a little ways away from them. “I still want to help you. I wish I didn’t. Believe me you, I wish I could watch you starve. I want you to starve.”

Snow continues to fall.

“So let me starve,” he says, and it sounds almost pleading. Like he wants her to free him. “Because I can’t leave your side until you do.”

“I don’t want you to leave my side, Malfoy. I want you to feed from me. And that’s the problem.”

He blinks, visibly taken aback at her words. He stares at her in silence until she can’t take it anymore. She needs to get away. To go to the library or something.

Before she turns around and tells him to take a bite.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifteen

Choices.

Hermione’s always been fairly good with those. If it’s between left or right, life or death, she has a knack for making the right ones in a pinch. Obliviating her parents to keep them safe during the war. Having eggs for breakfast when she has an exam in her first class to last-minute study for because it’s the best way to get quick protein. Helping encourage Harry to start Dumbledore's Army because Umbridge was torturing students and driving everyone barmy.

Now she has to decide what to do when the right thing to do goes against her morals.

If she feeds Malfoy, it rewards him for trying to kill her, but he lives. If she lets him starve, he feels what he deserves to feel, but he dies. And if he dies, that’s blood on her hands that she has no outside excuse for. There’s no war or dark wizards to blame it on.

Yet.

There will be consequences, she’s sure of it. Even if Malfoy turns himself in and everything he’s done is pardoned, there’s still the matter of Hermione’s bad choices. Lying, hiding his blood status, and covering up for him on what was literally attempted murder. Obliviating a student. She’ll have things to answer for, too. 

For now, she’ll stick with her original plan: help Malfoy fix the cabinet so they can destroy them both, go to Dumbledore, and have Malfoy turn himself in to the Order instead of the Ministry. With Lupin being a werewolf himself, Hermione has little doubt that the Order won't have sympathy for Malfoy’s plight. They’ll be able to help make things work. Will Malfoy have to join the Order? Probably.

She isn’t sure if he’s realized that yet, or if he simply doesn’t care whose side he’s on.

Maybe he’s just following the blood.

It’s Saturday night. 

The Fifth floor corridor is quiet as Hermione waits for Luna outside of the Room of Requirement. It feels strange being here, in the place where she would have died if it weren’t for Malfoy coming to his senses at the last minute. She thinks she should be shaking, crying, and throwing up her breakfast right now.

But she’s calm. 

Maybe it’s because the room isn’t what she fears.

“I’m so sorry that I’m late, Hermione.”

Luna walks up, her steps slow. She looks tired, with circles under her eyes that are much too dark to ignore. In her hands, she’s carrying a bag that Hermione assumes carries the ingredients for the potion they’re going to be working on.

“Are you feeling all right, Luna?” Hermione asks, walking forward to meet her with a concerned expression. “Let me take your bag for you.”

“Thank you,” Luna says with a sigh of relief. “And I’m all right. I can’t explain everything just yet, but can you help me?”

Hermione’s worry overrides her earlier anxieties regarding Malfoy, shoving any thoughts of him into a different part of her brain. Right now, all she cares about is her dear friend. 

“Of course, Luna. What do you need me to do?”

Luna combs her fingers through her hair, which seems limp. Gone is her normal dreamy, lofty disposition. Right now, she seems more fatigued than Hermione felt when she woke up in the Infirmary.

“I am so tired. I really would love to have a bit of a rest. Do you think you and Malfoy could finish my potion for me?”

Hermione grimaces. “I can do it myself. What potion is it?”

“You might want assistance. It’s…well, let’s go inside.”

Hermione follows Luna into the Room of Requirement. It looks nothing like the room she nearly perished in. This version has a table with all the things needed for brewing a potion like a stool to sit at and a cauldron. There’s a potion that smells like almonds smoking from within it, showing that Luna has been to this room often. There’s also torches lining where the walls meet the ceiling, a countertop and a sink, a couch, a window that overlooks the grounds, and shelves and cupboards full of organized ingredients, different-sized cauldrons, and utensils. 

Luna takes a seat at the stool with a loud sigh of relief. Hermione stands beside her while placing the bag on the table.

“What is the potion in the cauldron?” Hermione asks.

“Wolfsbane.”

So that’s what she’s brewing. Wolfsbane Potion. While she’s glad her friend isn’t ill, she’s concerned about the need for such a potion.

“Is there a werewolf at school this year?”

“Yes.”

Well, she can’t say she’s surprised. With the fact that there’s a vampire, it stands to reason that a werewolf is possible, too. 

But what about the murders? The bodies were torn to pieces. A werewolf could and would do that. Both murders had taken place on the full moon. With the next full moon so soon, the risk of a third murder is high.

“Is the werewolf a student or a professor?”

“A student,” Luna replies. 

“I’m guessing you can’t say who it is.”

Luna shakes her head. “They’re not registered and don’t want to be.”

Ministry-regulated Wolfsbane Potion hardly puts a dent in the pain of transformation. While it’s easier to procure than making it oneself, she understands why they wouldn’t want the restrictions that came with registration.

“Okay. Right, then let’s see where we’re at. We’re seven days from the full moon, if you count the day of. What is left for me to do?”

Luna begins to empty the bag, pulling out the ingredients she purchased at Seraph’s shoppe the previous day. She withdraws three or four bundles of monkshood as well. The violet petals stand out against the dark brown wood of the table. In the background of their silence, the potion bubbles.

“It takes me an entire month to brew this,” Luna says. “I’ve brewed it three times unsuccessfully. This will be my fourth and I just want to make sure it’s brewed one hundred percent correctly this time. Have you brewed Wolfsbane before?”

“No, but I’m good with potions.” Hermione pulls all of her braids back, using one braid to wrap around them as a ponytail holder. “I will brew it correctly. That is a promise.”

Luna reaches into the bag one final time and pulls out an old potions book that Hermione recognizes. 

It’s from the Restricted Section. 

“This is from before Headmaster Dumbledore’s time at this school as a student,” Hermione says appreciatively, taking the book from her and flipping through it. “I’ve checked this out from Madam Pince for leisure before. It really is fascinating, what they used to allow.”

“Quite,” Luna says around a yawn. “I’m so sorry again, Hermione. I’m just so sleepy.”

“Well, why don’t you nap on the couch over there? I’ll work on the potion.”

“All right. And for the potion, the last thing I did was leave it simmering for seven days on low fire. The next step should be in the second-to-last paragraph on the page.”

Hermione, who is already reading, only hums in response.

As Luna curls up on the couch and falls fast asleep, Hermione reads the entire two pages that make up the recipe for Wolfsbane Potion. She reads the ingredients to make sure everything that’s left to use is correct and in possession. She skims the paragraphs that lead up to the one she’s supposed to start on, and makes sure the potion in the cauldron is the right shade of blue. She reads the final two paragraphs, analyzes what it’s asking, and realizes very quickly that she’s out of her depth.

She’ll need Malfoy’s help after all.

She doesn’t know how she found him so quickly, but she did.

He was in the courtyard, sitting on one of the walls that surrounds it, looking out at the lake. He had his back to a pillar, a knee up, and an arm slung atop his kneecap. After a small exchange of biting, snippy words, he agreed to help.

Now, they’re in the Room of Requirement with a muffliato cast to keep them from disturbing the soundly-sleeping Luna. She assumes he’s aware of the potion, given that he’s the one who told Luna where to get the monkshood, but she doesn’t know if he knows who it’s for. Hermione herself doesn’t know and she doesn’t want to disrespect Luna by trying to get it out of Malfoy—who himself only made a lucky guess—so she resolves to keep her questions about it to herself. 

“I can’t believe you’re not wearing a coat,” she mutters as she carefully casts spells to crystallize each kernel of the black quicksilver.

Malfoy, who is working on doing the same thing from the left side of the pile, just rolls his eyes.

“I’m dead, Granger. I assure you, I don’t need a coat.”

“But you feel things. That means you get cold. And it’s freezing outside. You’re wearing trousers and a turtleneck.”

“Turtlenecks keep you warm.” Malfoy stops for a moment to push the sleeves of his black shirt up to his elbows. It reveals his corded forearms, veins shifting as he moves his hands. Hermione forces herself not to look at his Dark Mark, not wanting to draw attention to it.

“Yes, but not you , apparently,” she mutters. “All right, so what I need you to do is--”

“I know how to brew Wolfsbane.”

Hermione lowers her wand and stares at him. How does he know how to brew Wolfsbane, and she doesn’t? When did he have the reason to brew an illegal potion on his own time? Did he do it at school or at home? 

“I hardly think you’re the picture of legality, Granger.” He doesn’t look away from his spellwork, but he snaps the fingers of his free hand and points at her side of the pile. “Get back to crystallizing.”

“But when –”

“Snape is my godfather, all right? I have access to things at home that others don't.” Malfoy sounds distant and annoyed. “Get back to crystallizing.”

Her jaw falls. “Snape is your godfather?!” 

Malfoy’s head snaps in her direction, his gaze freezing not only her words in their tracks, but her breath in her lungs. “Do you want this potion to fail? The black quicksilver needs to be crystallized kernel by kernel, in a timely manner, or else it won’t work.”

Hermione bites her tongue, knowing he’s right. She resumes casting the charm, sneaking glances at him from the corner of her eye. There’s a troubled, almost angry expression on his face, a lock of hair that keeps falling into his eyes no matter how often he tries to push it back, and he keeps stopping to scratch at his arm.

“Anxious?” she says.

“Obviously,” he snaps without looking at her. “Crystallization is tedious work. If you undershoot or overshoot, it’s either too hard or too soft on the inside, and the monkshood won’t be able to penetrate the black quicksilver when you add it later. Then the entire thing falls apart.”

“Well, if you’d sit down, you wouldn’t be so exhausted.” With a wave of her wand, she summons a duplicate of the stool she currently sits upon. “Smart One.”

It takes him a second before he finally sits. She hears him let out an audible breath but when he doesn’t say anything, she knows she’s done something he’s grateful for. Hell will freeze over before Malfoy ever says a real thank you. She’s surprised she even got an apology.

Even curiouser: why is he so exhausted from standing ? Is he really that hungry?

“Do you ever stop asking questions, human?”

“Where? Inside my mind, where I have the utmost, absolute privacy?” She casts him another scathing, sidelong glance. “Why ever should I?”

“It’s a bit loud.”

Well, maybe if he’d answer some of her questions, she wouldn’t have to think about them and mull them over for hours on end.

Malfoy scowls. 

“Well, Nosy, which are you more interested in? How Snape is my godfather? Why I get to brew whatever potions I want? How hungry I am? Which one?”

Hermione opens her mouth to make a snarky remark but stops. Those are all exactly the questions she has. It feels like he’s just laid her favorite desserts out on the table. 

He looks at her and then bursts out an uncharacteristic laugh. Shaking his head, he says, “You look like Peeves when he’s waiting for someone to notice his prank.”

“Godric’s beard.” Her face falls. “You’re such a prat. This is why I despise you. Why would you rattle off the exact things I want to know, and then get rude when you see I actually really want to know the answers?”

“Because you get stars in your eyes over the simplest things. It’s remarkable.”

“ Remarkable ?”

His head rolls in her direction again. “ Mental .”

She pushes back the urge to hex him in favor of keeping the black quicksilver intact. 

“If the questions are so simple, why haven’t you answered them yet?”

“Because you haven’t asked them. You’ve just spent hours thinking about them over and over.”

“All right, fine. Malfoy, how is Snape your godfather?”

“It’s not your business.”

He is not. He is not doing this right now. 

“Why are you allowed to brew whatever you want at home?” she asks.

“Not your business, either.”

“How close are you to starving to death?” 

“Close.”

“Liar. You’re exaggerating.”

Malfoy barks another laugh. “So you insist I answer your burning questions and then when I do, you claim I’m not telling the truth.”

Hermione twists her lips to one side and remains quiet. 

They work in silence. Even seated, Hermione starts to feel the magical exhaustion from casting the crystallization charm so many times in a row. There’s sweat beading on her brow and her hand is shaking, cramping in the tendons. She shifts in her seat, which is uncomfortable beneath her rear. 

“Once this is done,” Malfoy says, “you’ll need to put it in a stasis jar.”

“Why?” she asks, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. “It’s just rocks.”

“Because black quicksilver isn’t a mineral. It’s a plant.”

Her jaw drops open in surprise and she takes a second look at the sand-like material. She doesn’t want to touch it lest she disrupt something without knowing, but from her vantage point, the ones she hasn’t charmed yet look like tiny shards of obsidian.

“They look like rocks to me.”

“You’ll never admit that I’m better at potions than you, will you?” he says, giving her a look of irritation. He taps two fingers against his temple. “Think, Granger. Use that pretty little head and think . If it was a rock, why would we need to crystallize it?”

Pretty?

“Oh.” Her cheeks burn. She tries not to take him seriously. “But how is it a plant?”

“Black quicksilver grows on the edges of one specific volcanic crater on the island of Maui. It’s what happens when a fire faerie dies and decomposes in the soil. What makes it black quicksilver is when the heat, magic, and organic matter feed the roots of the silversword plant. Then, when it grows, it produces black flowers with hard petals that curl inward. They crush them into these kernels, until it looks like sand, and then it has to be crystallized if you want to use it as an activator. It activates the properties of the monkshood when combined.”

“Ah, okay. That’s fascinating. But I thought quicksilver was mercury?”

“Not magical quicksilver. Elemental quicksilver is found in cinnabar ores. They’re two different things.”

“That’s confusing.”

“Potions goes beyond the textbook, Granger. You should know that.”

“I’ll admit…” she says slowly, pausing to bite her lip in hesitation. Opening up to Malfoy is not something she wants to do, but they’re essentially working on a project together. They can either sit in silence, bicker, or talk. It might be better to take the high road. “Potions was never my favorite subject. Professor Snape was…he didn’t exactly make it pleasant. Slughorn is better at that.”

“Snape doesn’t make things pleasant for anyone,” Malfoy mutters. He pushes his hair back and sits up straight, taking a rest. “When you have a passion for something—a true passion—nothing stops you from pursuing it.”

“And you have a passion for it, then? For potions?”

He stares across the way, at the cupboards and shelves stocked full of ingredients. How much of what he doesn’t want to tell her is for petty reasons, and how much is for the purposes of hiding pain? She tilts her head to the side, remembering the broken, panicked way he’d come to the decision to kill her, that day in the Room of Requirement.

He does feel pain, doesn’t he?

“I had a passion for it, yes. Not anymore.”

Oh. That’s right.

As a vampire, he isn’t allowed to own a business. He isn’t allowed to sell potions for consumption. With Ministry registration, he would be allowed to apprentice at a potions shop and sell potions created by a Potions Master, and he could be allowed to teach Potions as a class at Hogwarts if the position opened up…

But Malfoy couldn’t get registered without becoming ineligible for his inheritance. He would lose the estate when his parents passed. By law, magical creatures and beings are not allowed to hold titles or properties. If he had any dreams about a Potions career before he was turned, they went up in smoke the moment he died.

It’s sad.

And just like that, Hermione is reminded of the reason why she agreed to help Malfoy in the first place. No matter how poorly they get along, he deserves the same rights as anyone else.

There’s much for her to think about.

“So, tell me,” she says, purposefully clipping her tone to appear nonchalant. “How do I properly prepare the final steps of the Wolfsbane?”

Malfoy takes a deep breath, places his elbow on the table and rests his forehead in one hand like he’s tired, and then begins explaining to her what she’ll need to do. She continues to crystallize the kernels, taking over so he can have a break.

“The final steps of the potion take the full seven days leading up to the full moon. The black quicksilver has to be fed in fractions until the sixth day. So whatever you have to do to make it even, do the math and measure it out. Arithmancy isn’t my passion.” 

He waves a dismissive hand and pulls his sleeves back down, hiding his Mark. He then places his hands on the edge of the table, pushing himself to sit up and arch his long back until it cracks. Hermione watches as he rolls his neck, cracking it as well. His eyes are closed, the line of his strong, angular jaw melting into his lengthy, slender neck, which disappears into the turtleneck of his shirt.

Malfoy really is quite beautiful, in the pale, statuesque, overgrown, rebellious teenage boy sort-of way.

She jumps when his eyes snap open and he looks down at her. She’s forgotten herself again, and she hopes he doesn’t say anything about her thoughts.

“Count today as Day One. You’ll need six parts total. Measure out the proper amount and stir it into the cauldron one kernel at a time, at the heat it’s currently at, once a day, every day, until Day Six. Make sure the flame never goes higher than where it’s at right now. Another stasis spell should handle that.”

“O-okay,” she stammers, finishing up the last of the crystallization. “That’s going to take hours, isn’t it?”

“Get it done in under three.”

“Why three?”

“After three, the potion will start to react and will need at least twelve hours to settle again. If you try to stir a kernel in after it starts reacting, it will lose efficacy and everything else you do will be pointless.”

No wonder Luna needed assistance. The margin of error was inexorably high.

“All right. I can do that.”

“And remember to always stir clockwise. No counterclockwise stirs are allowed with Wolfsbane. The moon orbits the Earth counterclockwise. Werewolves are slave to the moon.”

“And Wolfsbane makes a mockery of the moon’s curse,” Hermione says.

Malfoy nods, his eyes flicking back and forth between hers as he studies her. “On Day Six, that’s when you’ll remove the monkshood from the stasis jar and burn it. After it’s burnt, you mix it into the cauldron, feed the flame to a boil until sunrise on the day of the full moon.”

“Day Seven.”

“Yes. And then you take the heat away. The potion should be silver in color. That’s how you know it’s ready.”

“What color will it be before that? Right now, it’s blue.”

“Lavender.”

“Okay,” she says as she levitates equal amounts of the black quicksilver into six vials. “And what about the daisyroot?”

“Essence of Daisyroot is added after the quicksilver each day to help keep the acidity of the potion low so it doesn’t destroy the black quicksilver. Eight drops each day.”

“Phases of the moon.”

“Mm-hm.” His voice hums in his chest, drawing Hermione’s gaze away from the vials she’s just cast stasis charms upon. “So that means this week, you’ll need at least seven hours each day to work on this. So split it up or come at night.”

“Godric,” Hermione says, dropping her head into her hand for a second. “None of these details are in the book. There’s no way Luna was able to leave class. That’s why the potion failed so many times.”

“It’s one of the most difficult potions to brew but the benefit is that once it’s successfully brewed, it’s nonperishable.”

She chews her lower lip, her mind working. “I’m going to have to help her brew some extra flasks. Whoever it’s for, they’re going to need it.”

“Not gonna turn them in, are you?” he replies, raising an eyebrow.

“I didn’t turn you in,” she retorts. “Why would I turn my best friend in for hiding a werewolf when I’m doing the same thing?”

Malfoy’s lips twitch like he doesn’t want to let a smile twist his features. He stands up and walks over to the shelves. He inspects the jars and glass containers until he finds something in particular. He brings it back to the table and sets it down in front of her. 

“Oil of Atlantis,” she says. “What will this do? It’s not on the list of ingredients at all.”

“I know,” he says, “but steep the monkshood in it anyway. It helps it burn without lowering its efficacy. Not many people know that it’s not an activator so they avoid it because they think it will ruin their potion.”

“So now what?” Hermione asks, holding one vial in her hand after using magic to send the other five vials into the cupboard.

“Do each kernel one-by-one, and—”

“Counterclockwise stir between each one. Got it.”

Hermione begins the process, glancing behind her one time to check on Luna. She’s still sound asleep, her head tucked into the back of the couch. 

With a soft smile, she turns back to the potion. Malfoy sits back down on the stool beside her and watches intently as she begins to feed the kernels in.

It takes her ninety minutes to have all of the quicksilver in, finding that it’s faster and less risky for her to use magic to float each kernel into the cauldron and give it a counterclockwise stir with a charmed spoon than it is for her to try to stop and use her wand to stir between each one. By the time she’s done, her back hurts from hunching over so focused, but she’s fortunate not to be too fatigued. 

Malfoy watches her work, his chin in his hand and his gaze intent on the cauldron. They don’t talk beyond his occasional remarks about her technique. He’s neither cruel nor praising. He simply tells her how to do things a better way when she’s done something incorrectly, and stays silent when she’s doing well.

It’s impossible not to notice that they’re getting along.

“Did I put them in too fast?” she asks, looking up at him in curiosity. “It didn’t take three hours.”

“Three hours is a guideline, not a requirement. It just means from the moment you stir in the first kernel, you—” He yawns mid sentence, rubbing his hand across his eye. “—you have to have the last one in by the end of the third hour.”

“Sleepy?” she says quietly, putting in the first drop of Daisyroot.

“Hungry.”

They clear their throats.

“I can’t lie, Granger,” he murmurs, then points at the monkshood. “Start cutting it. I’d help but you should do it. If it’s anything like verbena, it might burn my skin.”

“Verbena?”

“It’s similar to monkshood for werewolves—a poison. But verbena can’t be mixed into potions without melting, no matter what potion it is. If I touch it, it burns me. I’ll heal but it hurts like a bitch.”

“Good to know.”

A wariness enters his eyes that makes her want to smirk. Now that she knows about verbena, she has something she can use to protect herself from him. Just because they’re getting along now doesn’t mean they always will. 

Maybe she’ll have to find out where she can get some.

“Does human food help at all?” she asks as she separates the amount of monkshood she needs from the amount Luna has scavenged. She puts the rest into a jar and casts another stasis charm over it. “Perhaps you could go to Hogsmeade and order a rare steak at the Three Broomsticks? To tide you over.”

“Until what? Until Satan rises?”

Hermione starts to answer but stops. She doesn’t want to give him hope, doesn’t want to go back on her word. She told him he would never taste her blood again. If she goes back on it, it makes her weak. She loses the game.

“You’re already here,” she taunts with a sneer. “I’m only trying to offer solutions.”

“As if I haven’t already tried that,” he says curtly, standing up. “Now, make sure when you cut the monkshood that you cut it at a diagonal, and that you slice clean through the petals. Once you have them all chopped, crush them with a pestle to release the venom. Then use magic to get it all into another stasis jar. Then add the Oil of Atlantis.”

“Okay.”

“And make sure that you don’t crush it too finely. If it turns to pulp, it’s useless. Just one press of the pestle should be fine.”

“Okay.” She summons a knife from the utensils area and positions it above the monkshood where she wants to start cutting.

“Those pieces need to be smaller than that. Nope. No . Smaller than that. Include petals and stem.”

“ Okay .”

He pauses, one hand on the table and the other on his hip as he leans over her. “I don’t like the attitude.”

“Well, stop talking to me like that! I’m not your student.” She wants to glare up at him but he’s hovering and it’s intimidating. She moves the knife again, until the piece she’s going to cut is about a centimeter and a half wide. “Like this?”

“Yeah. Go ahead—I want to watch.”

His voice comes from very close. She can feel the heat of his body slightly to the left and behind her.

Hermione starts cutting, moving slowly just in case he snaps at her again. In front of her, the cauldron is bubbling from the Essence of Daisyroot. In twenty more minutes, she’ll have to add another drop.

Why does he want to see her cut the monkshood? She’d rather not have him focusing on her hands in silence while they both watch her cut flowers into tiny pieces. Her hands are so dry right now that she can feel the skin cracking. It peels back from her nail beds, tiny strips that she knows she’ll chew off later after she washes her hands free of the monkshood.

A quick slide of her gaze to the left, to the hand of his that rests on the table, and she is faced with the difference between them. He looks so clean . So unharmed. It feels unfair. What if he’s judging the way her hands look? He’s judging the way she wields a knife, too, isn’t he?

She honestly wants to mess up the monkshood on purpose, just to brass him off. But she can’t because if she does that, then she’s only hurting whoever it is that Luna’s protecting. She’s not going to put her best friend in the middle of her drama with Malfoy.

Does he really need to hover over her hands? Really, the embarrassment—

“For fuck’s sake, your hands are fine!” Malfoy suddenly yells, the sound coming from right above her head. “Shut the fuck up and pay attention to what you’re doing, or you’re gonna kill her!”

What?

Her?

He grabs her wrist, startling her and causing her arm to jerk forward in surprise. At the same time, she tries to tilt her head back to look up at him, but the back of her skull hits his chest. She doesn’t see that her arm has sent the knife diagonal, right across the back of the fingers of her right hand. The pain is acute as her skin splits, stinging the moment the air hits the open wound. Blood wells up like water from the ground.

He’s holding her wrist. They’re both looking at it. Both as still as a winter morning the moment before the sun rises. Both painfully aware.

All he has to do is taste her.

She feels his chest expand as he inhales. Deep. Breathing in her scent. His fingers tighten their hold around the thin skin of her wrist. His right hand reaches forward, sliding across the front of her neck. He’s going to hold her in place. To trap her so he can feed. And in her mind, she can’t think of any reason to stop him. The blood is—

“Right here,” he whispers, his voice cracking on a whine as his hand closes around her throat from behind. “It’s right here. And I want it so fucking badly.”

She’s fucked.

Then, a long series of groans and stretching noises from the couch.

There’s a rush of air, and Hermione’s left alone at the table, blood trickling over her hand. The door to the Room of Requirement is wide open.

Malfoy is gone.

“Hermione…” Luna looks around in confusion. “Was someone here?”

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixteen

On Sunday, Luna comes with Hermione to help with the potion, but it isn’t long before the tediousness of stirring has her nodding off at the table. She ends up on the couch, napping again. Hermione doesn’t mind, given that she’s fairly confident that she can manage without her or Malfoy’s help.

He may be better at potions than her but that didn’t mean she was bad at them in the first place.

The previous day gave her so much to think about that the time passes quicker than she originally expected it to. Before she knows it, it’s been an hour and she’s almost done stirring in the quicksilver for the day.

“How’s it going?”

Hermione nearly jumps out of her skin. Malfoy is standing behind her at the table. 

She gives him a sour look and casts a muffliato so as to not wake her friend. “How did you get in here? You weren’t invited.”

“Room of Requirement says otherwise. I walked up and the door was there.”

She watches in irritation as he sits down at the stool beside hers and folds his arms on the tabletop. He leans forward, his hair falling into his eyes as he inspects the cauldron. She can’t read his facial expression.

“How is the color?” Hermione asks.

“Looks how it should look,” he replies. “It needs to look like it’s always in the process of changing color, but never actually managing it. You want a pale blue, with some transparency.”

“Which is what I have.”

He gives her an almost exasperated look. “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

Hermione huffs and stirs in another kernel. 

“Except—” Malfoy says, raising his voice for a second. “—don’t stir that fast. Moderate speed is best.”

She sucks her teeth. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“It’s Sunday. What else am I supposed to do?”

“There’s a whole castle with a forest, a lake, and a town at the foot of the hill it sits upon. Perhaps there’s something, anything else you could be doing.” She stirs again, side-eyeing him to watch his reaction to her speed. He nods his head. 

“Yes, send me into the Forbidden Forest for a fun time on the weekend, Granger.”

“Well, you’re a vampire, so you should fit right in.”

“You— hey!” His shout is so loud that it makes Hermione scream. She gives him a revolted look, glaring at him as he pantomimes stirring the potion. “ This is the speed you should be going. If you stir too fast, you’re gonna fuck everything up.”

“ Thanks, Professor Arsehole ,” she snaps. “I wasn’t even stirring that quickly.”

“Yes, you were. You nearly splashed it onto the table and you cannot afford to lose even a single drop.”

“Whatever.”

Hermione refuses to speak and he gets the hint, because he doesn’t say anything more, either. They sit beside one another for the duration of the time it takes her to add that day’s portion of black quicksilver. Hermione can’t say she exactly enjoys having him there, but at least he’s shut his mouth for a little while. He’s not bad company unless he’s speaking, and he does have quite a nice aroma hanging around him.

It’ll do for now.

When she gets up to wash her hands before adding the Essence of Daisyroot, she notices something. A drawer. It’s beneath the countertop, and it wasn’t in the room yesterday. Frowning, she dries her hands on a towel so she can pull it open.

She immediately starts laughing.

Inside the drawer, there lies a small assortment of things. Some of them are knives, all different sizes and lengths. Some of them are small, circular blades for throwing. And some of them are long, sharp, and made of wood. 

Apparently, Hogwarts castle wants her to be prepared this time.

“What?” Malfoy asks from the table. “What’s so funny?”

Hermione picks up one of the wooden stakes. It’s smooth beneath her fingers and as light as driftwood. She turns around to face him, leaning nonchalantly against the sink. Smirking, she tilts her head to the side and waves the stake playfully before her.

Malfoy’s eyes flash, but not with anger. “Like I said. I was invited.”

“Or maybe you weren’t, and that’s why the castle wants me to protect myself.”

“Or maybe...” He pushes himself to his feet, his chin tilted down as he looks at her from beneath his lashes. “The castle is being practical.”

Hermione tosses the wooden stake up into the air and catches it. She supposes it makes sense that the castle would recognize that she might need help with the potion and that the best help would come from him. In that respect, the door being present for him is not confusing for her. The weapons drawer is a fail-safe.

“Practicality works in my favor, it seems.”

He breathes a laugh. 

Hermione narrows her eyes at his silence. “What’s so funny ?”

“You,” he says, standing up from the stool and stretching his arms out above his head. “Thinking practicality and a wooden stake could stop me from getting anything I want.”

“Fuck you,” she spits out, unable to stop herself as the rage takes over her. “You just say whatever the Hell comes to your Goddamn mind, don’t you?”

“Relax, Granger. I’m not going to attack you.”

“Interesting. Isn’t that what you said before you tried to kill me?”

His facial expression turns deadpan. “Put the stick away and get going on this potion. The Essence needs to—”

“All right, all right!” 

She’s growing tired of hearing him nag. So tired, in fact, that she forgets to ask him what he meant yesterday when he said “ her .”

On Monday, day three, Hermione skives off Frog Choir, breakfast, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Transfiguration. 

She brings a stereo with her to the Room of Requirement, a gift from her father when she was fourteen. “Something from home,” he had said. “To keep your sanity.”

Now, it feels like something that will keep her humanity in a world that feels so devoid of it.

She sets it up on the counter, charms it to work, and turns it up as loud as it can go. Then, she gets to work.

Working on this potion has been difficult, even for the short amount of time that she’s been doing so, but it makes her feel a confidence that she hasn’t felt since before the war. The sort of confidence that has buoyed her through every class, every homework assignment, and every exam for five-and-a-half years so far. It makes her feel more normal. Like nothing with Voldemort has ever happened, and she’s doing something to help someone who needs it.

Whoever the werewolf is that Luna’s hiding, they need this potion. There’s nothing in Hermione’s heart that tells her she’s making a bad decision helping them. She knows how the Ministry works, how it lies and restricts. How the laws for magical creatures are designed to keep werewolves in a place disguised as equality when in reality, it’s thinly-veiled contempt. The wizarding world doesn’t want werewolves to exist. They don't want magical creatures and beings to have a place in their society. 

It sickens her.

She knows that’s why she has to make a decision about Malfoy.

Twenty minutes into her work, the music volume lowers of its own accord, revealing her own voice singing in the silence. She stops singing abruptly, confused. 

“Where’s Luna?” comes Malfoy’s voice.

“I told her that I’ll take care of the rest of the potion without her.” Hermione doesn’t look up from stirring. Between stirs, she flicks her wand to turn the music back up. “She went back to her class.”

Malfoy sits at his stool. He’s wearing his robes over his uniform today, and his hair looks exceptionally pale against the monochromatic color scheme. The narrowness of his thin, lanky frame hides the inhuman strength she knows runs through the muscles in his body.

He waves his wand and the music volume lowers a second time.

“Remember not to stir too fast.”

She turns the music back up. “I know.”

He raises his hand, like he’s going to mess with her music wandlessly, and she glares at him.

“You are a vampire. You can hear me.”

“But you can’t hear me .”

Hermione turns the music up a couple more notches. “I can hear you just fine. See? And who says I want to hear you, anyway? You may think you were invited but I don’t recall inviting you anywhere.”

“What, you want an apology for that?” he mutters, pushing his stool back so he can rest his chin on his folded arms on the table.

“It’s a problem. You just be inviting yourself everywhere I’m at. It’s a real problem.”

It takes her a second to realize that the reason why his shoulders are shaking and his face is buried in his arms is not because he’s horrifically ashamed of the fact that he invites himself to places he’s not wanted.

It’s because he’s laughing.

Hermione stares at him in shock, hands poised in midair.  

I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh before.

“All we do is give each other shit. It is nonstop with you, Granger. You really should write a book, shouldn’t you, then? You’re like lightning on the uptake.”

Should she feel offended? Is it an insult? This is like floating on a stormy sea with only a small raft. She’s seconds away from drowning. Getting along with Malfoy to the point of laughter? 

He tried to kill her. He nearly drained her of blood. He broke her fingers and slammed her head against the stone again and again. She can’t be sure because she wasn’t conscious, but there had to have been blood pooling all over that floor. He tried to kill her, and now he’s laughing, and she doesn’t exactly hate the way it sounds.

Malfoy’s laughter tapers off.

“Don’t waste too much time between stirs,” he says softly. “Miss Potion Master.”

She blinks herself out of her reverie and resumes her work. The music plays uncontested while she tries to make sense of what just happened.

“The other day,” she says, “you left so quickly.”

He gets up and paces around the table. “What would you rather I have done? Stay for a drink?”

“Hah. Very funny.” She’s stirring the potion by hand now, using magic only for levitating each kernel out of the vial. “I’m just curious how your hunger works. Was it easy or difficult to run?”

“Run? You mean leave?”

“No. You ran.”

“I never run.”

Hermione opens her mouth to retort, to remind him of the past, but thinks better of it. Because she knows that what she sees as running, he sees as survival. 

“It’s one of the first things my father ever taught me,” he says. “Cowards survive.”

“Your father said that to you?”

“Through his actions, yeah.” Placing his hands on the wood across from her, he leans a bit closer, his gaze unwavering upon her. “His words were much harsher than that.”

“Let me guess…a little bit of vitriolic rhetoric here, some corporal punishment there, and a sprinkle of ‘remember not to play in the mud with the Mudbloods?’”

“Yeah, well, my father has his way about him,” is all he says, his eyes falling to the cauldron and the steadily-bubbling potion inside of it. “And what about you?”

“Me?” Hermione raises her eyebrows, not looking at him as she stirs another kernel in. She’s almost done with the vial. “What about me?”

“What precious wisdom did your father impart?”

A series of images flash past her mind’s eye—images that she tries to cut off because she doesn’t want Malfoy to see them. She doesn’t want anyone to have these parts of her. 

They’re memories. 

The way her father’s eyes crinkle at the edge when he smiles. The sound of his newspaper as he turns the page on a Sunday morning breakfast. The first time he grounded her from the telly for talking back. The way he can’t seem to yell, even when they’re arguing over the fact that she doesn’t like doing the dishes because it makes her hands hurt.

The way she knows her wand will be trembling when she points it at the back of his head.

Her heart clenches.

“My father has taught me a lot of things,” she says eventually, “but the wisdom I’ve learned is through making my own mistakes.”

Malfoy stares at her, drumming his long fingers to the tune of the music on the wood. It feels like the two of them are existing outside of the Earth right now, hovering in space in the center of another galaxy, taking a break from their hatred. 

“I heard you singing when I first turned down the music,” he says. 

“So? You saw me perform with the Frog Choir before Christmas.”

“Yes, but not with this sort of music. And you know, you don’t sound like you’ve got mud coating the insides of your throat, so you’ve got that going for you.”

It’s Hermione’s turn to laugh. Her humor overpowers both her astonishment at the fact that he’s made her genuinely laugh, and her embarrassment at having been heard singing outside of a performance setting.

And how can she forget the fact that when he was draining her of blood, she was thinking about how she used to sing in the church choir?

“Shut the Hell up, Malfoy. All you’ve got going for you is your height, your potions expertise, and your nice teeth.”

“Oh, yeah? I’ve got nice teeth?”

When she glances up at him again, he’s got a lazy half-smile on his face, one fang peeking out. With the dark circles under his grey eyes and the way his messy hair falls across his forehead, he looks so…

Oh, jeez.

Her cheeks feel warm.

“I suppose,” she begrudges. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“I won’t if you won’t.”

“Singing isn’t my passion.”

“What is?”

Hermione isn’t sure how to answer a question she never expected to hear from him. She feels suspicious and more than a little disturbed. Is he asking her because he wants her guard down so he can better convince her to let him feed again? Or does he find her pathetic? Compliments and honest questions aren’t gifts that Malfoy’s ever deigned to give her.

“Magical creatures and their rights,” she says, casting him a quick, wary glance before refocusing on the potion. “Any sort of injustice. I feel a personal moral responsibility to get involved.”

“Sounds like singing is a lot less rewarding, no matter how good you are at it.”

Her brows come together, meeting each other in her puzzlement. It’s another compliment. She doesn’t know how to feel about it. What she knows for certain is that they’re in a room together, virtually alone, with nothing to do but watch a potion bubble. He knows she’s not going to feed him. He knows what he did to her is unforgivable. He has nothing to gain.

Why compliment her?

“It’s rewarding, by its own right,” she says decisively after some thought, stirring the last kernel of black quicksilver into the Wolfsbane. “It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, or that I don’t feel the need to do it because I’m not getting anything out of it. I suppose it’s more that I haven’t met anyone who was dying to hear what I have to say.”

“And you think that you’ll be able to affect magical law with your mouth closed?”

“Huh?” Her face contorts as she prepares to start adding the Daisyroot. “Malfoy, I can’t sing political change in and out of existence.”

He huffs a sound. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m telling you that in order to make changes in the laws for magical creatures, you have to be able to speak. To advocate. If no one is interested in what you have to say, then how will you get anyone to listen?”

“Hm.” She doesn’t want to offer him her understanding or agreement. “Seems like you’re awfully interested in my business when you were uninterested in sharing your business the other day.”

“Magical creature law is my business.”

The music plays, the melody and instrumentals resonating in the silence between them. It wars with her thoughts, which are so loud she feels like they’re audible to anyone, not just a vampire. No matter how much she hates him, he doesn’t need her understanding or agreement to be right. There’s nothing she can do about it.

“And for the record, Granger,” he says, “I don’t mind the sound of your voice. If you happened to sing again, I’d listen.”

His words sink into her psyche in stages, betraying her hatred with the blood that rises to her cheeks. When she meets his gaze, it’s intense. More intense than she expects from him when he’s not discussing her blood or his hunger. It’s like he’s trying to tell her something, but doesn’t know how to properly convey it.

Then, his gaze falls to the cauldron. He curses, moves to the side, and turns into a blur.

Suddenly, he’s beside her, his body flush against her side. His hand is covering hers, halting it above the cauldron. He’s so close to her that she can smell the scent of him, of sandalwood cologne.

“What?! What did I do?!” she cries, shaken not only from his speed, but from the fact that she’s once again at his mercy.

“You almost put the entire vial in.”

“Oh.” She wants to take her hand back. “What would have happened if I did?”

“It would have exploded.”

“Oh,” she says again.

“Careful.” His voice near her ear sends a shiver down through her. “You’re sacrificing your vigilance.”

“Sacrificing it for what?”

In the background, a song plays faintly that makes a chill crawl up her spine. It’s by Mariah Carey, something low in timbre and heavy on the runs. R&B with piano.

Malfoy says nothing for so long that she tilts her head back to look up at him. He’s so tall it almost hurts her neck. His expression is troubled, grey eyes peering down at her through pale lashes, dark eyebrows knitted.

“You only want to do one drop at a time,” he says, his voice shaking a bit. “You have to be careful with Wolfsbane. It won’t be careful with you.”

Is he…frightened?

“I don’t know what you’re so concerned about,” she says, twisting her hand out from under his and preparing to put the drop in. “I’m not your meal ticket anymore. How careful I am shouldn’t mean a lick to you.”

His hand snaps out again, grabbing her hand with long fingers covering the vial. He doesn’t acknowledge the fact that she’s looking up at him again, choosing instead to watch himself force her hand to tip the vial slowly. Very slowly.

Does he really find her this incompetent, or is he that conceited about his potions abilities?

“Just a gentle tilt is all you need,” he murmurs, voice scratchy. She feels his chest rumble, just like yesterday. “See?”

One drop of Essence of Daisyroot falls to greet the lavender potion, making a small hissing noise. A single stream of white smoke twists up into the air. 

“Thank you,” she says, her teeth gritted as the fingers of her free hand press into the table. “The infantilization is just what I need to learn how to brew Wolfsbane properly.”

He lets go of her hand but instead of moving away from her, he stays behind her. His arms cage her in where she sits on the stool. She wants to be confused about why he’s doing this but she isn’t foolish. In this position, the top of her head is at his mouth. All she would need to do is cock her head to the side and move her braids.

And then he would have what he needed.

It feels almost cruel to make him move. He can’t help what he is. Can’t help his hunger, which she’s sure he’s suffering through. Standing there, he must be able to smell her blood, to smell it running through her veins and giving him life. She might as well let him breathe her in. As long as he doesn’t hurt her.

“I’m not trying to infantilize you.” She feels his breath ghosting over her scalp between the tracks of her braids, his lips brushing against her head, like he’s milliseconds away from kissing her crown. “This is what I’m good at.”

“I’m good at potions, too.” She feels like pouting.

“You’re good at a lot of things.” His head dips a bit lower, until she feels his cheek against the side of her head. “But not better than me.”

She closes her hand so tight around the Daisyroot vial that she fears it might shatter. 

“I wasn’t aware we were competing.”

“We aren’t.” 

His left hand fingers, claws hidden, drum against the table, hesitant before he brings that hand up towards her. She goes as still as the grave. One by one, he moves her braids on the left side from the front of her body, over her shoulder, and lets them fall down her back. 

What is he going to do?

“We’re just talking, Granger. Not everything is a competition or an attack.”

“Could have—” Hermione’s sentence falters as the tips of his fingers graze the skin at the junction of her shoulder. She’s wearing her robes and uniform, but she feels cold. She might as well be completely nude, the way she feels his touch through the fabric. “—could have fooled me.”

“I have no idea what I’m saying,” he says, breathily, his nose burrowing against her neck. He inhales. Stifles a gasp. 

She shivers. Her neck is so sensitive. Her stomach swoops down low, like a dragon diving into the sea. 

They’re playing with fire. 

“I have to go,” he says, his lips brushing against her skin. “I can’t—I have to go. Meet me back here tonight.”

Hermione feels his absence acutely, a frigid cold that washes over her entire body as he turns and walks out of the room. 

This is a problem. She knows that this is a problem. It’s going to continue to be a problem. His need for blood is biological. They both know he’ll wither without it.

And she knows they’re stupid to fight it.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seventeen

Well, shit.

The next day, Hermione wakes up to blood on her thighs.

She has one expensive bottle of perfume that her parents gifted her for Christmas two years earlier and she’s only used it twice. And she’s not the type to wear perfume on the daily because it’s just not practical. Hermione is the type of girl who wants perfume to be special and for the scent to stand out in a way that’s unforgettable. There’s a power in that. But she’s going to be bleeding out of her vagina for the next four days, so she might as well suck it up and wear it.

The scent of rose is better than copper when she’s in close proximity to a vampire every single day.

What else is she supposed to do? She doesn’t want to reward Malfoy for trying to kill her. She doesn’t want him to have her blood. But she cares about magical creatures and beings. Torturing him day in and day out goes against her nature, just like starving himself of blood goes against his. And she can’t exactly tell him to leave her alone. If that were something he wanted to do, he would likely not have apologized.

She’s thought about giving him a vial of her blood, but she doesn’t think it would be fair. Why should she have to set aside her own self-respect just because he might wither? It’s not as if he respected her in the past. He was cruel and malicious, and he terrorized the corridors to the point where she would take alternate routes to her classes just to avoid him. 

For years . 

Now, he needs her in order to survive. She holds his life in her hands. She can torment him with her fucking period.

The irony is as sweet as he says her blood tastes.

There are too many important things going on in her classes that day, so Hermione elects to work on the potion right after she finishes eating supper. Luna isn’t in the Room of Requirement when Hermione arrives. She supposes it’s just as well, given that she’s been so exhausted lately. In fact, if Luna does show up, Hermione thinks she might just tell her to turn right back around and go to the Infirmary. It seems like she’s insomniatic or unwell.

Besides, the Wolfsbane is going well. Hermione’s actually rather surprised she hasn’t made any mistakes.

Well…

By Malfoy’s standards, she’s terrible and should quit brewing potions until the end of time. But by Ministry standards, Hermione’s sure this is gonna be a damn good potion. Whichever fortunate werewolf gets to drink it is going to have the smoothest transition of their entire life.

As she spins around at the table, belting out the next line of the song she’s currently blasting on the Muggle stereo, she stops to clutch a hand over her chest.

Malfoy’s leaning against the closed door, arms crossed and stance nonchalant.

Hermione scrapes her gaze down the length of his body. He’s wearing a black Oxford with long sleeves and a black tie, and slim black trousers that seem tailored to fit him perfectly.

He looks good and she hates it.

“What a surprise it is to see you. Not, ” she says, turning away from him to hide the fact that his sudden appearance has startled her. She’s not so much surprised that he’s here as she is that she can imagine him going through his day with the thought that he’s going to the Room of Requirement to spend time brewing with her whenever she goes.  

Has he nothing better to do?

He comes to a stop beside her, leaning over the table with his elbows on the surface. He cracks his knuckles and grins. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, which are shrouded by his hair. It’s getting rather long, compared to the first day he approached her with his proposition.

Though what that “blackmail” really was was a trap.

Malfoy starts to laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. It wasn’t a trap .”

“Weren’t you the one who said it was a ‘proposition with only one outcome: my agreement?’”

“I’m also the one who told you I was smelling you from afar, so…”

Hermione bites the inside of her cheek to keep herself from laughing. “Well, you can make fun of yourself. That shows you’ve got a good sense of self-worth.”

“And you don’t?”

She blinks. His words knock on a door in her mind that she has no intention of opening. “We’re not talking about me.”

“Maybe we should.” 

He’s looking at her in a way that she can’t apply a negative connotation to. It’s as normal as though he’s asking a simple question. Like he’s talking to a friend.

He tried to kill her. They’re not friends. They can’t be. With who they are, their past, what he did… It’s not possible.

“We never will,” she says. 

“What? Be friends or talk about your sense of self-worth?”

“Both.”

Hermione turns her attention back to the Wolfsbane. 

Malfoy stands up straight and walks across the room, to the window. He sits in the wide sill and pulls his left knee to his chest. She looks away from him and down at the potion. She hears a clicking sound and frowns, lifting her head to look at him.

He’s lighting a cigarette. 

“You can’t smoke in here.”

“Why not?” he says around the cigarette in his mouth. “Luna’s not here and it helps with the cravings.”

“Because it’s against the rules! And what does Luna have to do with it?”

He pulls his other leg into the seat and sits with his back against the inside wall. He slings his right arm across his knee caps. Smoke expels from his mouth as he blows outward. “Brewing Wolfsbane is against the rules, too. It’s illegal. And Luna doesn’t like cigarette smoke.”

“Neither do I.”

“I don’t care what you like. You’re not my friend.”

Hermione’s jaw hangs open in disbelief. He’s hovering before a smirk. 

“Doesn’t feel good to hear it, does it?” he says.

She doesn’t know what to say to that. Because if what he’s really trying to say is that he’s hurt by the fact that she doesn’t consider him a friend, then he’s absolutely beyond the pale mental.

He tried to kill her.

“It’s bad for you,” she says, stirring in another drop of the black quicksilver.

“Granger, I’m dead.”

Hermione purses her lips, unable to find any other reason to give him to get him to stop. He’s a starving vampire so cigarette smoke is the least of his worries.

It’s the first of hers.

“Don’t you know how badly that can affect those around you?” she says matter-of-factly. “Secondhand smoke causes cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, and—”

“I don’t know what any of those are.”

“Of course you don’t. Far be it from me to tell you to pay attention in Muggle Studies.”

“Well, I mean, it’s a bit too late for that.”

“Oh, obviously, given that you arent takingnthat class this year.”

“Naturally.”

Hermione shoots him a scathing glance, watching as he holds the cigarette to his lips to take a drag, then blows the smoke towards the window. The Room of Requirement is prepared because he’s managed to slide the window up a few inches. Cold air wafts into the room, brushing against Hermione’s side. It contrasts with the heat from the cauldron in front of her. 

“I wouldn’t willingly give you an terminal illness,” Malfoy says, gaze focused on the grey winter sky beyond the latticework that covers the glass.

Hermione thinks of the murders in Hogsmeade, intentional in her gruesome, imaginative depiction of what she thinks it might have looked like when they were killed. How the blood must have been everywhere, coating the cobblestones and brick walls. How it must have been a vampire’s dream.

“You really think I’m capable of that?”

She raises her eyebrows without looking at him. “A couple of months ago, I would have said no.”

There’s the audible sound of him taking another drag. 

“I’m not capable of it. If I was, you would never have woken.”

“And if I had never woken, you would never have apologized. You wouldn’t have had a reason.”

“You think I did it for shits and giggles, then?”

“No, I think you wanted to make sure you hadn’t burnt your dinner.”

“Nice to know my apology wasn’t accepted.”

“I don’t owe anyone forgiveness other than myself.”

“And I don’t owe you—”

Malfoy cuts himself off abruptly. 

He owes her everything, and they both know it.

“I wouldn’t dare ask your forgiveness,” he says, voice muted. “But I will ask you to recognize that I stopped myself before it was too late. You can’t treat me like something I’m not. I'm not a murderer.”

He’s right but she doesn’t want him to know that. She doesn’t say that out loud, lest her tongue shrivel up and dry out. He’ll hear it in her mind.

“So you didn’t murder those people in Hogsmeade?” she says instead.

“No. I didn’t murder those people in Hogsmeade.”

Hermione frowns at the potion as she puts in the first drop of Daisyroot.

“Excuse me for thinking it unbelievable that in the time that you've been a vampire, you've never taken a single human life. Your parents took plenty in the firdt war, and you seem to have a pleasant time sucking the life out of me , so it stands to reason that you’re no better than them. Hell, no better than Voldemort.”

As soon as she says it, she knows she’s gone too far. 

The music plays without contest for a verse and chorus, adding an upbeat soundtrack to a rather macabre moment. Hermione doesn’t turn around. She can feel his gaze burning into her but she’s embarrassed. She knows it’s not right to compare him to Voldemort for something he can’t control, for a biological need to get sustenance from humanity. 

Voldemort was a demon.

Malfoy is in pain.

“I could kill you for saying those things, little witch. You know that?”

Fear turns her blood to ice but she feigns indifference. She should watch what she says and she knows it, but it’s difficult when she feels so bitter.

Being careful around him isn’t easy.

“Mind yourself,” she says softly, “or I’ll drive one of those pretty sticks from the drawer into the center of your cold, black heart.” 

He hums in response.

When the next song begins, Hermione decides she’d better do something to smooth things over. She’s not cruel. 

“I did accept your apology. I mean, I do.”  She gathers all of her braids and pulls them over the front of one shoulder. “I just have some opinions about you.”

“I’m sure.”

“It’s not like they’re unfounded.”

“No, you’re right.”

“It’s hard to be around you with everything that happened.”

“I get it.”

“I don’t know how you expect me to just forgive something like that.” 

“ I get it. ”

Hermione can’t stop. The words are cascading out of her, erupting from a place of mingled fear and anger. Fear of him. Anger at herself. At her weakness. 

“It keeps me up at night, you know, thinking about it. Remembering it gives me nightmares. And sometimes, I can’t tell if it’s you who’s trying to hurt me, or if it’s—if it’s Cormac.”

“ I said, I fucking get it.”

She finally goes quiet. Nothing she’s said is untrue. He is the one who created his own persona. His behavior is the reason why she’s terrified of him. 

“Not very Gryffindor of you, to be afraid,” he spits out, and then the window slams shut. The clacking is so loud that Hermione jumps and turns her head. He’s done smoking, he’s out of the windowsill, and he looks livid. 

He starts across the room towards her.

“It’s got nothing to do with that, and you know it!”  she cries, resisting the violent urge to hop off the stool and draw her wand. “If you didn’t want me to be afraid, then you would have tried harder to make me feel safe!”

Malfoy stops at the end of the table. His hands are in fists at his sides, his eyes wild with having been caught off guard.

Hermione glares at him.

“I’m sure that’s not ever something you’ve had to think about, keeping other people safe. Everything you’ve done has always been for yourself.”

“You don’t know a fucking thing about me, Granger, so I’d suggest you shut your mouth.” His tone is low, threatening.

“I know everything I need to know.”

“A man isn’t summed up by the depth of his mistakes!” He slams a hand down on the table, his claws gouging furrows in the dark wood. “You can’t take who I was and let it affect what you think of who I am now.”

“You broke my fingers, Malfoy!” she screeches, searching his eyes as if she’ll find some sense in them. “My opinion of you is based on the fact that I can’t sleep at night without having to remember what that feels like!”

“Fuck.” He runs a hand through his hair, turning away from her and slamming his fist on the wood a second time. If not for the perpetual stabilization charm on the cauldron, the potion would be destroyed. “ Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

A crack runs across the table, stretching from his fist like a bolt of lightning. 

Hermione lifts her chin. “Your apology didn’t take away the pain you caused. You can’t just sweep it away because you can’t handle the guilt anymore after one week. Why don’t you understand that?”

“Because it’s not just been one week, Granger!” he yells, both of his hands pressed to the table. He hangs his head, his hair shifting forward to shroud his face. “It hasn’t been only one week since I hurt you.”

She stares at him with wide eyes, confused.

“I've been hurting you for almost six years.”

The music playing in the silence is calm. Ethereal, almost. The piano, the singing, the melody… It twists together and wraps around her with a haunting embrace. Lends intensity to a moment that she hasn’t realized she’s been waiting forever for.

He hangs his head again.

“If you think I don’t deserve your blood because I tried to kill you, you’re wrong,” he says, his words seeming to be wrenching themselves out of his gut. “The second I decided to treat you like you weren’t equal to me because of your blood was the second I fucked up. Believe me—I feel guilty for what I did, for losing control and breaking your rules—but don’t tell me I think I deserve you. Because I don’t. I barely deserve to be in this room with you. I should never have asked you to help me, and I realize that now. So I’ll go.”

He straightens his back so suddenly that Hermione lets out a cry of surprise. His eyes are focused on the ground, like he’s afraid of what she’ll see if she looks into them. He starts walking toward the door. 

He’s going to leave.

“Malfoy, wait!” 

His footsteps stop.

“Just…just wait.” Hermione takes several deep breaths. “You don’t have to go. There’s no reason to torment yourself about who you were before this year. About who you were when you were a kid. It was your parents’ responsibility to teach you right from wrong and I’m sorry, but they failed in that regard. However.” She pauses, too nervous to turn away from the cauldron even though he’s right behind her. “The choices you’ve made since you were turned are your own. I can forgive the before. It’s the after that I’m not ready to forgive you for.”

Hand shaking, she tips a drop of Daisyroot into the potion.

“But you came to me because you had no other choice. Because you don’t want to hurt anyone. And we got carried away. We.” She swallows. “I was a part of it, too. I overreacted because I wanted to prove to you that I was in control. I never should have broken the vials.”

The heat of Malfoy’s body approaches Hermione’s back.

“Don’t blame yourself for my mistakes.” His teeth are clenched. “I should have controlled myself better.”

“Yes, you should have, but you are a vampire who hasn't properly fed in months. You were managing until I put you right into the fire. I can’t be angry that you got burned by the flames. And I can’t torture you with starvation forever just because I want to punish you for what you did.”

He drifts closer, until a breath inward causes his chest to brush against her shoulder blades. 

“You said never again.”

“But now you’ve had a taste,” she replies. “You can’t tell me your hunger isn’t unbearable now.”

“I don’t care,” he says. “I’ll starve until we figure out a better solution. You told me I would never taste your blood again. You said that for a reason.”

“Maybe we could try the vials again.”

“No. You said…”

He trails off.

She waits for him to continue, wondering what on Earth he thinks he’s going to do. He cannot starve for months. He’ll only risk lives if he does that. There is no other solution, he knows there isn’t. 

“Are you wearing perfume?”

Hermione’s thoughts screech to a resounding halt in her head.

“Yes.”

He inhaled deeply, audibly. “It’s enchanting.”

“ Enchanting? ” She lets out an incredulous laugh. “It’s just the scent of rose. I hardly think that would be considered—”

Malfoy buries his face in the crook of her neck. He cages her in against the table for a moment before he brings his left hand up to her chin and tilts her head to the side. Another inhalation of her scent.

She puts another drop of Daisyroot into the potion in a dazed manner, unable to ignore the way her skin pebbles at the tickle of his nose and lips. Part of her wants to shove him away from her but the other part is calm. After the discussion they’ve just had, she doubts he’d ruin everything by losing control and hurting her again.

“No,” he murmurs, his fingers massaging her jawline with gentle strokes. “It’s more than rose. It’s…something else entirely.”

Heat floods her body. She keeps her mind extremely blank, like a chalkboard wiped free.

She knows exactly what he’s smelling.

“It’s rose.”

“No, it’s…I can’t name it. I—I can’t think.”

Hermione goes still as he presses his lips against her skin, mouthing at it like a kiss. It’s not his fault. It's not hers. It’s biological for them both.

“Don’t bite me,” she squeaks out, because she doesn’t know what else to do.

He doesn’t reply, kissing her neck again. This time, when he moves his lips upward, she feels cool air against saliva he’s left behind. Her skin is so sensitive that every touch of lips to skin makes her stomach twist. She squirms on the stool between the prison of his arms, her fingers pressed flat to the table and her eyes squeezed shut in trepidation.

“Do not bite me.”

He growls and she feels his tongue against her pulse. It makes her entire stomach swoop and something flutter between her thighs. Her back goes weak and she starts to lean forward, away from him, but his fingers are pushing into the sides of her throat. 

“Malfoy, I said—”

“I’m not gonna bite you,” he breathes, his voice husky, right next to her ear. “You just smell so fucking good.”

He nuzzles the hinge of her jaw with his nose and then he begins kissing a line down the side of her neck that makes her eyes roll from the heat of it. Her hands snap to his wrists, one on the table, one by her collarbones, and she clutches them for purchase. She’s barely able to move, his touch at her front and his chest at her back, and when he sucks a bruise into her skin, she can’t stop herself from arching her head back onto his shoulder.

She’s terrified.

“Fuck.” Malfoy gasps his words out between kisses, desperate whines that oil the hinges on his self-control. “Why the fuck do you smell so good? I’m so hungry. Damn it, I’m so, so, so hungry.”

His wrists flex beneath her hands. As he tightens his hold around her throat to pin her to his chest, his other hand claws holes into the table so deep that she’s afraid he might break a chunk off. He’s holding himself back.

Hermione tries to take a breath but can’t get much more than a trickle of air.

When he starts to lick and kiss and suck the delicate, sensitive skin that wraps around her neck, she feels the fluttering between her legs intensify. It increases to such an extent that she can’t stop herself from whimpering in her chest. She presses and rubs her thighs together, the apex of which is wet because of more than just her blood. Her head feels light. Her lips part in her panting, her breath weak as it struggles out of her lungs.

Malfoy is murmuring things, half-intelligible, as he licks and kisses his way up to her jaw from where he stands behind her.

“So good…keep still…fuck...be a good girl for me…won’t hurt you…just let me…mm-hm…mm-hm…just tasting…”

Hermione’s losing it, and it’s not because he’s a vampire. There’s no aphrodisiac unless his saliva gets into her body. It’s just the two of them, victims of two different types of lust.

The feeling inside her body is rising to a crescendo that she doesn’t know how to stifle. She’s got her thighs pressed so tight together on the stool that when she rocks her hips, it stimulates her in a way that has her breasts heaving and sweat droplets forming on her spine. She wants to moan so badly but he’s choking her so she can’t. His voice is rough yet velvet-smooth, a contrast that shouldn’t and can’t exist but it does. It does and she feels like she’s going to—going to—

It feels good.

Maybe she should let him have one bite. 

Too good.

Just one. 

Her hips rock back and forth, back and forth. Her mind is as white as a sheet. Her body is winning.

Suddenly, his hands move. 

One wraps in her braids and yanks her head so far back that she’s looking straight up at the ceiling. The other hand slides across her abdomen, long fingers splayed so wide that his pinkie touches the underside of her rib cage and his thumb tickles the waistband of her uniform skirt. There’s a wildness to the expression on his face, almost like he’s not himself and doesn’t recognize that it’s her he’s touching. She meets his eyes, his pupils blown like a drop of spilled ink on parchment.

His irises are violet.

Malfoy lets out a dark, breathy laugh.

“It’s more than rose. Isn’t it, Granger?”

He knows.

Malfoy gives her a slow, wicked smile that shows her his fangs. 

“Are you gonna come on accident like last time?” he whispers, his gaze dipping to her mouth and back up. He tilts his head to the side and moves his lips over hers. They hover millimeters apart. She can feel the ends of his hair tickling her cheeks. “Let me fuck you with my fingers until you do. I wanna taste it.”

Taste it…?

Taste what?

Oh, Gods.

She can’t think straight and she doesn’t want to tell him yes. She just wants to bite her lip and imagine his fingers inside her so she doesn’t have to carry the shame of it being real. 

So she sinks her top teeth into her lower lip and stares into his hunger-violet eyes as it gets closer and closer and closer, and her hips rock and her thighs press so tight together that she’s almost going to—

There’s a sharp sting in her mouth.

Her lips, chapped from chewing at them in anxiety that morning, have cracked. She’s bitten them too hard. Blood wells up in the divot, overflowing until a drop rolls thick and warm down her chin and below.

Malfoy’s wide-eyed gaze follows it down to where it disappears into the neckline of her jumper.

Their eyes meet again and when they do, Hermione loses her resolve. 

The blood is right there.

“Do it,” she whimpers. “Taste me.”

He bares his fangs as he’s overcome with ravenous need and lowers his face to her chest. 

And then the door swings open.

“I’m so sorry, Hermione. I’ve been feeling quite ill and…oh, my.”

It’s Luna.

In a rush of air, Malfoy flashes out of the room and is gone within seconds. 

Hermione is quick to vanish the blood from her face and pick the vial of Daisyroot essence up. She ignores the way her blood is boiling with desire, and the way her body continues to ache.

As Luna approaches, she seems unperturbed by the fact that Malfoy has just revealed he possesses enhanced speed. Either she knows he’s a vampire, or she simply doesn’t mind.

“Did I interrupt something between you and Draco Malfoy?” she asks quietly, pushing her hair behind her ears and fixing Hermione with a look of concern so genuine that it makes her want to weep.

“No,” Hermione says in a trembling voice. “In fact, I’m grateful.”

“How come?”

Hermione lets a drop fall from the vial to the potion, which already has hints of lavender color swirling in the liquid.

“Because you just stopped me from making a huge mistake.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighteen

When Malfoy comes to the Room of Requirement on Wednesday evening, Luna has just left to get them some food from supper.

He keeps his distance, lingering near the door with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. The dark green Slytherin jumper he's wearing seems ill-fitting, the circles under his eyes dark and hollow. His hair is so messy that it’s clear he doesn’t care about how he looks as much as he used to when they were younger.

It’s best that he stays over there. Her cycle lasts for at least four more days.

“I see the room has decided to provide,” he says as he leans back against the wall.

“Yes, it was here when we arrived,” she says, glancing at the corner of the room. Standing there, nearly as tall and imposing, is the vanishing cabinet. With obsidian-black wood, silver knobs, and filigree laid into each door, it's clear that something like this must have been incredibly expensive during the first war.

“We shouldn't tell Luna.”

“No, of course not.”

“Doesn’t it bother you, knowing what I am, what I have been tasked to do?”

Hermione almost bites her lip as she begins to think about her answer, but remembers how easily her chapped wound can reopen, so she refrains. 

She wants to be a little nicer to him. Not because she’s ready to forgive him, but because cruelty doesn’t make her feel good about herself. She feels quite horrible, actually. It doesn’t matter if it’s been a week or a year since he tried to kill her: it’s still not entirely his fault. If he was in complete control of himself, he would never have attacked her. 

And he’s trying now. That matters to her.

“Not as much as I should be,” she says. “I understand that you're…Marked…but I also understand that you didn't want that to happen to you. You couldn't pay me to believe you want to be a Death Eater.” She shakes her head. “No, it doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the thought that we might not fix the cabinet before the school year ends, and then You-Know-Who could hurt your mother. And I know you insinuated that you don't care, because she watched you be turned and watched you be Marked, but I do think you would care. That's what bothers me.”

Hermione stirs the potion, casting a glance in his direction. He’s hanging his head, a ghost of the shameful way he’d done so the night he apologized to her. She hopes it’s because he’s taking her words into account.

“Do you enjoy Christmas?” she asks. “You never told me if you did. You just sparked at me and talked around it.”

“Hm? Me?” He slowly lifts his head, kicking a foot back against the wall. “I suppose as much as anyone else.”

“What was it like for you? Growing up, I mean. What does a Malfoy family Christmas look like?”

He eyes her, the suspicion plain in the tilt of his head. “Aren’t you a sweetheart today.”

“I’m cold and swotty. Don't embarrass me.” She moves on to the Daisyroot. 

“Well, swotty, it wasn’t much different from other wizarding families. Food, gifts, a warm fire. The only difference is my parents hosted parties. Too many to count, for different organizations, families, and friend groups.”

“Your mother is quite the socialite, I presume.”

“Yeah. But we're still a family. Before the Dark Lord came back, we had our traditions. Aside from the dinner I told you about.”

“Did you get a lot of gifts?”

“Maybe.” She’s looking at the potion but she can hear the smirk in his voice. “If I say yes, you’ll only call me spoilt.”

“You are spoilt.”

“Mind your tongue.”

Just then, the door opens and in walks Luna with a tray of fruits, nuts, and biscuits. It’s piled high with different things, a multitude of colors, and seems like it's more of a snack than dinner.

The blonde smiles up at Malfoy.

“Why, hello Draco Malfoy. I finally get to see you!”

He wrinkles his nose and gives her a lopsided grin. Hermione can’t tear her eyes off of him for the three fleeting seconds he wears it.

“All the better to avoid you next time.”

Luna giggles. “How kind of you to be such a good friend. Snack?”

Malfoy shakes his head, so Luna shrugs and drifts over to Hermione’s side. She sets the snack tray in-between them on the table. Together, they alternate between taking turns with the Daisyroot essence and consuming bites of the food.

“I heard you talking about Christmas,” Luna says. “Christmas is one of my favorite holidays.”

“Mine, too,” Hermione says with a grin, popping a grape into her mouth. “Malfoy won’t admit it’s his.”

“It’s not.” He gives a slight laugh, eyeing the food but making no move to reach for it. “My favorite holiday is my birthday.”

“I’m wholly unsurprised by that,” Hermione replies before popping a purple grape into her mouth. It crunches as she bites down, the sweet flavor exploding across her tastebuds. “You’d probably make every holiday about you if you could.”

“Not true. Just Christmas,” Malfoy says with a slight smirk. 

“Oh, and I suppose you plan to die for our sins, and that’s why you think you deserve an entire holiday?” Hermione shakes her head slowly. He’s unbelievable. “You want Easter, too?”

“How sacrilegious of you.”

Luna sighs dreamily. “I don’t think you’d want to be crucified, Draco Malfoy. I imagine the blood would stain your hair, as pale as it is.”

Hermione stares at her friend, fighting back an incredulous giggle. “Now that’s sacrilege.”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing Muggle religion doesn’t bleed into wizarding beliefs, yeah?” Malfoy says, his fingers hovering over various foods on the tray. His brow furrows, like he’s unsure of his hunger and what he might want to eat. He settles on a biscuit, which he nibbles at.

“It bleeds in a little,” Hermione replies, stirring the potion. “Enough to study it in Muggle Studies. How else do you two know about Jesus?”

“I actually find him quite fascinating,” Luna says. “I have for quite some time. I’m almost entirely certain he was a wizard, but there’s no written record of it being so. Either way, I relate to him in more than a few ways. Much the way I relate to Harry.”

“Me as well,” Draco adds as he sets the half-eaten biscuit down. 

Hermione’s eyebrows shoot up. “ You relate to Jesus Christ?”

He shrugs. “Yeah.”

 “ You, Draco Malfoy, relate to the most selfless person to allegedly walk the Earth?”

He nods, his gaze flickering back and forth between her eyes. She stares over at him, narrowing her eyes and inspecting him for whatever games he might be trying to play. Games, or delusion.

“I don’t see it.”

“I don’t need you to see it,” Malfoy retorts with a scoff. There’s a fire in his gaze. “My perception of myself has naught to do with your opinion.”

“I mean, sure, you’re not wrong about that.” She stares at the potion swirling in the cauldron. “But do you know who Jesus was?”

“I didn’t forget Muggle Studies.”

“No, you just barely paid attention.”

“Well, it was a required class. Nobody pays attention in the ones that are required.”

“I do.”

“Of course you do.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“You know way too much about my mannerisms in class, Granger. I’m starting to think you fancy me.”

Hermione scoffs and looks up. Malfoy has moved to stand beside her, one hand on the table and the other dragging backward through his hair. His gaze is intense, as it always is, but she finds that her own gaze is drawn elsewhere.

To his ears, which are pierced with two black studs.

“Your ears are pierced,” she says, eyes wide in incredulity.

“Your eyes work. That’s good.”

Her upper lip curls in disgust. “Thank you for the praise, Healer Malfoy. ”

“Thank you for stating the obvious.”

“It wasn’t obvious because your ears weren’t pierced before.”

“Before when?”

“I don’t know. Just before. When did you get them pierced?”

“I did it myself.”

“When?”

“Why do you care?”

“ Godric, Malfoy!” Hermione feels a sudden exasperation so severe come over her that she clenches her teeth to fight back against her rage. “Why are you so annoying ? I didn’t know that your ears were pierced. I’ve never noticed. I’m just surprised and curious about when you found the time to pierce them yourself!”

A slow smirk spreads across his face, infuriating her further.

“Yesterday.”

She wants to grab the cauldron and throw it in his face. If he weren’t a vampire, she wouldn’t have believed him, but she's certain their pain tolerance is high enough to handle ear piercings. . 

“Why would you pierce your ears at random?”

“Because I was hungry and it distracted me from it. What’s it to you?”

“Whatever, Malfoy. Excuse me for asking you a simple question.”

“Why are you asking me questions when you don’t answer mine?”

“I answer plenty of your questions.”

“Are you going to tell me what that perfume actually is, or not?”

Hermione feels the heat rising to her face. It feels like he’s looming over her. She keeps her mind as clear and blank as she possibly can, not wanting him to know what the perfume really is.

“Just because I ask questions doesn’t mean I’m required to answer them.”

“It should.”

“No, it shouldn’t. You have every right not to answer my questions when I ask them, just as I do.”

“That means I have every right to ask you questions.”

“You do.” She shrugs and fixes him with a challenging stare. “And I have the right not to answer.”

“What if it’s a really good question, though?”

“Oh, like, ‘why are you standing so close to me?”

“No.” Suddenly, his eyes flash violent and he snarls, baring his fangs in a rabid grin that almost makes Hermione let out a cry of fear. “A question like, ‘what fucking perfume is that?’”

“ Why do you want to know?!” she snarls back.

“Because it’s making me want to throw you on this table and tear your fucking throat out!”

“Then why don’t you?” Hermione slams her wand down on the table and fills in the small amount of space that remains between them. “Go ahead and see what happens.”

“You must be out of your fucking mind when you’re around me,” he whispers, his eyes blazing with something akin to amusion. “You must be. This is the second time you’ve played with fire.”

Hermione starts to retort with a few choice words for him, to explain to him that she hates him so much she cannot see reason around him, only to be interrupted by a very tired-sounding Luna who has eaten half of the food platter.

“Is the potion supposed to look like that?”

Hermione does cry out at this, whirling to face the cauldron and snatching her wand up. Beside her, Malfoy has turned, too, just as panicked as she is. But when they look into the cauldron, the potion is the right shade.

Relief lessens the weight on Hermione’s heart.

“Yes, it’s supposed to be lavender at this stage,” she says. “That means we added the black quicksilver and Daisyroot correctly. Now all that’s left is to do the monkshood tomorrow.”

Luna smiles. “We did it?”

“We did it!” 

Draco clears his throat. “Not quite. If something goes wrong with the monkshood, then the entire thing could be useless in two seconds flat.”

“Thanks for that, Pessimism King,” Hermione says with sarcasm as she casts a charm on the fire below the cauldron to maintain the heat of the flame. She sits on the stool.  “The confidence you have in me is appreciated.”

“I have no confidence in you for anything,” he replies, “but I can’t deny you’re doing a good job so far.”

“What was that?” She holds a hand up to her ear. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of you groveling for my attention and the name of my perfume. What did you—”

Draco’s hand slaps against her wrist as he grips it and drags her towards him with a near-violent jerk. She almost falls off of the stool, yelping as she tries to maintain her composure. Their eyes meet.

“I said you’re doing a good job. It’s the only praise you’ll get from me today, so don’t spend it all in one place.”

He lets go of her wrist and pushes away from the table, leaving her to rub her arm where he’d grabbed her. She looks him up and down warily, wondering why hearing him say those words makes her skin feel like it’s buzzing with electric currents.

“I’m not sure I’ll be going to see my father,” Luna announces.

At this, both Hermione and Malfoy turn their attention to her. Hermione is confused.

“What's wrong with your father?” she asks.

“He works for the DRCMC, handling registration paperwork,” Luna replies, “and a few months ago, he wasn't able to sign off on a werewolf’s application form because his wand registration hadn't been renewed. The werewolf got angry and attacked my father. He hit his head and now is having amnesia, and the werewolf was taken to Azkaban.”

“Oh, no, that's awful!” Hermione cries, a hand going to her mouth. “Luna, why did you say anything?”

Luna's dreamy smile returns. “Because I don't like to worry my friends. He will be okay, it's just taking some extra time. I was trying to decide if I wanted to go and visit him.”

“You won’t be seeing him?” Malfoy asks. 

“No, the Healers sent an owl this morning. They say he’s taken a turn for the worse, unfortunately. They're worried a visit from me will upset him before he's regained his memories. Amnesia isn’t a magical malady, you know.”

Malfoy moves around Hermione and places his hand over Luna's on the table, stopping her from reaching for more food. Luna’s eyes are lidded with sadness and exhaustion as she gazes up at him.

“I’ll check the library at home for something that can help. I’m sure there’s something in there—some sort of enchantment or spell—that can help speed up the memory recollection.”

Luna flips her hand and wraps her fingers around his from below. “Thank you, Draco, but I’m not sure if there’s anything that will work. I think if there were, they’d have made it well-known in the wizarding world by now, hm? It's just a waiting game, it seems.”

Hermione pushes back the mild irritation she feels at the reminder that Luna and Malfoy are close enough friends that he knows about Mr. Lovegood’s health. It’s clear Luna knows Malfoy is a vampire, even though he made it seem as though no one at school knew, and it’s clear that he cares about her. She’s never heard him speak in such a gentle tone. With Hermione, he’s all shattered glass and jagged edges.

Maybe it bothers her because he cares about Luna so much that he didn’t think to ask her to give up her blood. But Hermione? Hermione must matter so little to him that trying to kill her was as easy for him as breathing air.

As if it matters who he cares about.

In any case, anything that comes out of the Malfoy Manor is too dangerous to use on Luna’s father. 

“Not every text in the Manor is steeped in Dark Magic, Granger,” Malfoy snaps, dropping his head back in exasperation. He glares at her. “Stay out of this.”

She’s stunned. Speechless.

Who does he think he is?

How close are they?

And why does it bother her so much?

“I think my father will be all right,” Luna says. “The Healers will let me know when he’s lucid again, and then I can go visit. I’ll bring him some Pygmy Puff fluff and it’ll help.”

Hermione presses her lips together in a sympathetic line. There Luna goes again, with her old witch’s remedies. Pygmy Puff fluff won’t do a damn thing. But she wouldn’t dream of destroying her best friend’s hopes for even one second.

“Spring hols is still two months away,” Malfoy says. “Are you sure he won’t take a better turn by then? Maybe you could go then.”

“Amnesia doesn’t work like that,” Hermione interjects before Luna can reply, her hands clenched around the hem of her oversized jumper. “If he has an underlying condition, it could become degenerative. If he doesn't, there's still a chance it could get worse over time. He may have moments of lucidity, but—”

“So there’s a chance.” Malfoy’s voice is tight. “Shouldn't that be the focus?”

“Yes, but not anything that can be counted on.”

Malfoy stares at her, hard. 

“You’re the one that's a pessimist, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m realistic. And who are you to make that judgment, anyway? You’re a pessimist yourself.”

“Who told you that?”

“Nobody had to tell me. You reek of it and you always have. Ask anyone.”

“Oh yeah—ask anyone who doesn’t like me, and I’m sure they’ll say that.”

“ No— ask anyone.”

“If I was a pessimist, I wouldn’t have friends, Granger.”

Hermione makes a show of looking around the Room of Requirement. “ Do you have friends?”

Malfoy’s eyes flash, but Luna stands up in one sudden movement. There’s a rare expression of vexation on her face. 

“You are both my dear friends, but can you please stop bickering? I’m very, very tired and all I wanted to do today was eat snacks and spend time with the both of you. I wish you both could just set aside your differences for a little while. I’m okay with where my father’s at. I will see him as soon as the Healers tell me I can. But please don’t debate about my family in front of me as though I’m not here, because I am.”

A pit the depths of a ravine opens up inside of Hermione’s chest, dropping her heart into her stomach. She’s never before felt so guilty. She feels selfish and cruel, and like she doesn’t deserve Luna as a friend. The weight of it is so overwhelming that she almost wishes Malfoy would have succeeded at killing her.

Malfoy holds up his hands. “We see you, Luna. Forgive us—forgive me.”

“ I’m sorry, Luna,” Hermione whispers, hanging her head. Her throat aches and her eyes sting, and if she lifts her blurry gaze off of the table, she knows she’ll break down crying. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s all right,” Luna says, and there’s a smile in her voice. “Anyway, I’ve got to go work on my homework. I have an essay to do. We’ll finish up the Wolfsbane potion tomorrow?”

“I’ve got to go, actually,” Malfoy says. He reaches up to scratch the back of his head. “I’m headed off grounds for a few days. So it’ll be just the two of you.”

“Where are you going?” Hermione’s mind turns with concern. What if he’s so hungry when he’s there that he loses control and kills someone? What if he slaughters more than one person?

“I have an important meeting at Gringotts,” he replies, his voice strained. “I’ll be dealing with estate affairs for my father. He's still in Azkaban, and Pureblood custom dictates that only men in the family can handle legal matters of estate, unless there fir some reason is no man in the family that is alive.”

Barbaric, Hermione thinks. 

Luna picks up the half-empty platter. “Hermione, did you want any more of this?”

Hermione shakes her head. She feels too queasy to eat anything right now. She’s embarrassed about the way she’s acted. 

“Well, I’ll be going now. I’ll see you tomorrow, Hermione, and Draco, I’ll see you when you get back.”

Luna leaves then, and Malfoy and Hermione are alone. They’re not silent for a second before Malfoy turns to face her.

“I’m not feeding you,” Hermione says, her tone a warning. “Don’t even think about asking.”

“Christ, Granger,” he spits, crossing his arms over his chest. “I can control myself in the city. I can control myself around other people.”

“But you can’t control yourself around me.”

There’s a rush of air that blows her braids to the side and then Malfoy is right up against her side. His hand closes around the front of her throat, using it so he can haul her into the air. The stool clatters to the stone floor with a loud noise as her feet dangle above the ground. She clutches her hands to his wrist.

“Yes, I can. Because im choosing to do this right now.”

Her heart beats faster. 

“You said,” she chokes out. “You said you—you w-weren’t going to—to hurt me.”

“Fuck!” He drops her. “You’re an insufferable bitch, you know that? Pushing me and pushing me and pushing me.”

“Cry about it.” Hermione coughs and rubs her throat, massaging the slight pain away. “And you’re right. I do keep pushing you. But I can’t just get over what you did to me. I can’t trust you.”

“But you can be polite.”

“I don’t owe you politeness. I don’t owe you anything.”

“I know. I know, all right. Come here.” Malfoy pulls his wand out of his sleeve and reaches toward her with his other hand. Hermione shrinks away from him, but he moves toward her with a purpose. “Come the fuck here! Stop acting like a brat.”

Hermione grumbles to herself as he keeps hold of the back of her neck under her braids and presses the tip of his wand against her neck. He utters a charm and instantly, the warmth of his magic settles into her skin. The pain dissipates until it’s gone. 

“I’m not going to thank you, so don’t—“

“Granger. I didn’t ask.”

She looks away. She knows she’s being over the top. She doesn’t need to be this cruel to him. He’s right—she can be polite and maintain her dignity. She doesn’t have to forgive him if she doesn’t want to.

He puts his wand away.

“I can control myself just fine. I made it six months without feeding and managed.”

“That was before you had a taste.”

He shrugs. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m starved. Ravenous, really. But I’m not feeding until we figure out a solution, and I don’t plan on attacking anyone while I’m in Britain.”

“Well…good.”

“Glad we understand each other. Now, about the potion. Make sure that the monkshood is completely burned to ash before you start adding it to the potion. If it’s not, it can make the entire brew acidic enough to burn flesh.”

“ Oh. Okay, I’ll remember.”

“And if you need anything while I’m gone, just owl me. Or, wait—” He takes one of the silver rings off of his finger, sets it on the table, and then pulls his wand out. “Give me your necklace.”

She clutches the emerald teardrop pendant she wears around her neck—the only thing she has of her mother’s. “Why?”

“Just put it on the table. I’ll give it back.”

After some hesitation and the fear that he’ll rip it off of her if she doesn’t, she unclasps the dainty silver chain and removes it from her neck. She sets it gently on the table next to his ring, which is silver with a small round emerald surrounded by a looped snake. Malfoy aims his wand and casts a Protean charm.

“There,” he says. “If you need me, just hold onto and squeeze the pendant for five seconds. I’ll come back.”

Hermione snatches her necklace back up and clasps it around her neck. “Why the Hell would I ever need you ?”

“Just in case something happens, I don’t know.”

“I won’t need you.”

“There’s a fucking murderer in Hogsmeade, Granger.”

“ I won’t need you. ”

“Just promise me you’ll use it if you need it!”

“ Why?! ”

“Because I will feel better about leaving—” he gestures to his chest with both hands, then to her, “—if you have a way of contacting me when you’re in danger.”

“What good would it do? Will you have a Portkey back?”

He shakes his head.

“You can’t…” Realization dawns and she gasps. “Malfoy, you can’t Apparate back here. You’d Splinch yourself on the wards. And how do you already have it mastered? After the course, I could barely make it halfway across the Great Hall!”

“I had a lot of free time during winter hols.”

“I'll say,” Hermione says, pulling a sour, envious face. “Won't you be caught by the Trace?”

Malfoy tilts his head to the right. “A human might.”

She wants to argue but…he’s right. He’s a vampire. Any wound he gets will heal in moments. The Trace doesn't apply to dead people.

The thought of Draco Malfoy Apparating across several countries just in case she’s in danger? It causes a confusing twist in her abdomen.

“Have you done it before?” she asks, twisting a braid thoughtfully around her finger. “I suppose it’s possible…but how would you control which part of you gets Splinched? If you lose a limb or your head…”

“Granger…do you not know?”

“Know what?” 

“I can easily Apparate to the edge of Hogwarts campus and then run the rest of the way.” He gives her a quick once-over glance. “You know how fast I am.”

Yes. She does know. She knows quite well how fast and how powerful Malfoy is. There seems to be a lot about vampires that she needs to learn—and many things she already knows that are more dangerous than she once believed.

Perhaps vampires really would be a good topic for her Defense Against the Dark Arts project.

“ Fine ,” she says. “I promise to use the necklace if I need help. But don’t be surprised when I don’t end up needing it.”

Malfoy picks up his ring and slides it back onto his middle finger. He studies her for a drawn-out moment and then he speaks.

“I get that you despise me. I understand that you will never forgive me for what I did. But I think we should set our differences aside when it counts. Like today, around Luna. Our dynamic is so toxic that it’ll only poison her.”

“Our dynamic,” Hermione breathes, the words sounding as hollow as she feels inside.

“Yeah.” His fingers graze her chin lightly, drawing it upward so she’s forced to look up at him. “Our dynamic.”

They stare at each other until Hermione can’t take it anymore, and she turns her face out of his grasp. She’s very confused right now.

“All right, I’m gonna go then,” he says. “I’ll be back in a couple of days.”

“I won’t miss you,” she mumbles.

“I’d be concerned if you did.”

“What about the cabinets? You didn't tell me anything about it. All you said was that it was broken.”

“I've tried several times to fix it already, with a charm Snape gave me.”

“What charm is it?”

“I don't know. I just know the incantation is harmonia nectere passus.” She nods for him to continue. “The goal was to enable living beings to pass through. I started with inanimate objects—a book, a cup, and a candle. The book came back with torn pages, the cup came back tarnished, and the candle came back melted completely down. I kept casting the charm, and then I tried with another book. It came back intact.”

“So that means it was working,” Hermione says. “You were fixing it with every casting, bit-by-bit.” 

“Yes. So I started sending living things—apples and birds.”

Hermione jolts with anger. You killed birds?! How many did you kill?!”

“Does it matter? I drank their blood afterward. I was going to eat them anyway!”

Her anger reduces to a simmer. She supposes she can't exactly be cross with him for trying to survive in a way that didn't result in the death of someone human. At Christmas, when they were sending letters back and forth, she told him flat-out to try animal blood. 

It's the barbarian she detects.

“What if it was painful?” she demands, voice remaining harsh. “What if going from cabinet-to-broken cabinet is excruciatingly agonizing, and you were making the birds suffer along the way to your dinner plate?”

“I don't know, Granger! I wasn't exactly worried about it. I was just thinking about the task I was told to complete but the most dangerous, heartless, sadistic wizard in the United Kingdom!”

Hermione scowls. “How many did you kill? And when did you stop?”

“Four, and that's when I stopped. It was before winter hols. I haven't tried again.”

Hermione grits her teeth. She will help him with the cabinet, but she won't dare send another living creature through until she’s certain they've done all they can do charm-wise. Her compassion will eclipse and drown her if she does anything less. 

“We will work on it once the potion is done this week,” Hermione says. “I would also like to go to—”

“The library.”

Her eyes narrow. “Yes, to the library. I'll have you know the library is the key to having top marks. You should know, given you're second only to me. I know you're in there just as much as I am.”

“Doesn't mean I can't make fun of you for it.”

“Wipe that smirk off your face, Malfoy,” she snaps, aiming a pointer finger in his direction. “You aren't allowed to make fun of me for anything. Now, whole you're gone, I'll go to the library, and I will do as much research on vanishing cabinets as possible. I'll work on the charm as well. If we both master it and we both cast the spell, maybe we'll actually succeed at this.”

“Very well.”

 His voice sounds further away. He’s walked away, and is almost to the exit.

“Malfoy, wait.”

He stops at the door, his hand curved around the handle, and waits for her to talk.

“I’ll think about how to feed you when you get back.” At the shocked look on his face, she adds, “I’m not promising anything in that regard. But I do recognize that I can’t just let you starve. Even if I want to.”

Malfoy doesn’t walk back over, though it looks like he wants to. He’s hiding his excitement well enough for the untrained eye.

But Hermione can see how hungry he is from where she sits. 

“Okay.”

“Will the vials I originally planned on using work?” she asks, trying not to think about how absolutely ridiculous it was that she broke all the vials the way that she did. “Had we gone ahead with that—that plan, would it have been enough for you? Five vials of blood per week?”

“Yes.”

“Are you one hundred percent certain?”

He nods.

“All right. Then...I’ll think about it. When you get back, I might have my answer. I’m the one that has the Snitch in my hands, got it?”

“Sweetheart,” he says with a dark laugh, running his hand through his hair as he grabs the handle of the door again. “You’ve always held the Snitch. You just haven’t known how to play the game.”

He’s gone before she can reply.

It's Friday, and Malfoy is gone.

Hermione doesn't miss him at all , but she can't deny that on the second-to-last day of brewing, she wishes that he was here to check her work. She doesn't want to mess up in a way that will destroy the potion or hurt someone. 

After Transfiguration, there's a short period of recess before lunch. Hermione, who doesn't have any of her friends in Transfiguration with her, finds a bench in the classroom corridor. She pulls out a novel and begins to read in her lap.

“Hermione, we need to talk.”

Hermione looks up, startled, her brow furrowing in confusion. Standing before her are a very angry Harry Potter, Ron Weasley. And Ginny Weasley. Hermione has no idea why they're so upset. There’s no way they could have found out the truth about Malfoy's blood status and what he did to her, or about Cormac. 

All that's left is for them to berate her about Malfoy's “detention.”

“About what?” she asks, closing her book.

Ron crosses his arms, his face set in a scowl. “About Draco Malfoy.”

“Exactly.” Harry’s gaze hardens. “You’ve been spending an awful lot of time with him lately. It’s not like you. We don't believe he really received detention. Nobody in his classes remembers him skiving off enough to be punished with walking you to and from class.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says, her voice steady, though there’s an edge to it. “And I don't know why you’re so worried. I told you he doesn't even want to do it.”

“We mean," Ron interjects, "that it’s barmy! He’s Malfoy , Hermione! He’s always been a tosser. A bloody monster , and you’ve been hanging around with him like he’s your best mate. And it all started with that stupid jersey.”

Ginny steps forward, her hands on her hips, eyes flashing with a mix of concern and frustration. “It’s not just that. Harry—no, everyone thinks he's a Death Eater. It's really not that far-fetched. How can you not see it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ginny. He’s not a Death Eater.” Hermione stands abruptly, her book falling to the ground with a soft thud. With tremulous hands, she leans down to pick it back up. “You’re all just jumping to conclusions. I believe I told you I didn't want to talk about him with you anymore, didn't I?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Harry cries. “This has honestly gone too far. At this point, he’s probably got you under the Imperius curse, because you haven't been our Hermione for months. That’s why you’re acting like this. You’re not thinking straight.”

“I’m not under any curse! I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions. And after my accident, I really did need the help. I would have asked one of you but I didn't want to impose on any of you.”

“Then why do you keep defending him? Why are you so convinced he’s not a danger?” Harry’s voice cracks, his irritation pouring out. “We’re just trying to protect you. I've told you that he disappears on the map all the time at night. At least once or twice a week.”

“ Protect me?” Hermione spits, throwing her hands up in exasperation and ignoring his mention of the map. She can’t believe this is happening right now. That she's fighting with her best friends in front of all the student hanging about, who are blatantly watching it all unfold. “I don’t need protecting, Harry! I can take care of myself, and I don’t need you accusing me of being cursed with an Unforgivable just because you don’t trust him. Thats a very serious accusation.”

“You’re being foolish, Hermione,” Ron snaps. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

Ginny steps between them, holding her hands up. “Enough, both of you. We’re not getting anywhere with this.”

Hermione’s voice trembles, a mixture of hurt and fury. “I’m not foolish, Ron. And I’m not stupid. I'm tired of talking about this, and I don't want to do it again.”

Ginny’s angry expression has softened, smoothing out as her iciness melts. Hermione can tell with one look that she's at least gotten through to her. She may want more information later, but for now, Ginny seems resigned. 

“This isn't getting anywhere,” Ginny says with an awkward grimace, scratching the crown of her head. “I think we're overreacting. And maybe we should…I don't know, leave her alone about it? If he was a Death Eater, there's no way Hermione would hide that. And if she were under the Imperius, don't you think Dumbledore would know? He's good at that sort of thing.”

“What?” Ron barks, glaring at Ginny. “You’re defending her?”

Ginny stands tall, unwavering. “I trust Hermione. She knows Malfoy better than we do, and if she says he’s not under the Imperius curse, then I believe her.”

They snark back and forth for a solid minute, during which Harry and Hermione simply look at each other. Harry’s green eyes are so intense that she thinks he's trying to read her mind. He's suspicious. Beyond suspicious. And there's nothing she can do about it.

“This is the third time you two have berated me about Malfoy,” Hermione says coldly. “I'm tired of it.”

“Well, were tired of you being—”

“Just get out of here, Ron!” Ginny snaps. “Harry, too. At this point, you're being cruel. Three times getting the same answers from her is enough. Go. No! Go!”

Hermione watches them storm off, her chest rising and falling with the weight of the argument. She's glad Malfoy isn't here right now. Otherwise, this confrontation might have ended a lot bloodier.

“I don’t care what they think,” Hermione mutters, voice tight with emotion. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I know you do,” Ginny replies softly. “And I’ve got your back. I’m sorry I let them rope me into your third confrontation about it. Just promise me that you won't lie or hide it if he does end up being a Death Eater, especially if he hurts you.”

Hermione's answer is delayed.

“I promise.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Nineteen

“Well, looks like that’s it. I’ll take this potion to where it belongs, and I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”

Hermione’s fingers roll the emerald pendant between them, the silver chain cold against the skin on her neck as she watches Luna put the stopper in the flask of fresh Wolfsbane. They spent all of Saturday finishing it up and now, with dinner coming and the full moon just hours away, Luna’s got to go take it to whoever the werewolf is that she’s hiding.  

Even though she wants to ask again who it is, Hermione refrains from the urge. Luna knows Malfoy is a vampire but Hermione knows how important it is to keep another person’s secrets. Through everything Malfoy’s put her through, she still hasn’t told his secret to anyone, so she considers that an accomplishment.

“When should we start on the next brew?” she asks as she and Luna head out into the corridor. The door fades into the wall behind them, leaving smooth stone in its wake and hiding the evidence that they’ve been there. “It takes the full month, so sooner rather than later would be best, I think.” 

Luna, who is in the process of stuffing the flask into her bag, looks up at Hermione in excited surprise. 

“You want to help me again? I don't need help with it until the final week of the brew.”

“Of course,” Hermione replies, letting the pendant fall against her chest. “If you needed help once, it’s safe to assume you’ll need it again.”

“But what about Draco? He’ll want to help, you know.”

“He’ll want to oversee and control, is what he’ll want to do,” Hermione mutters, crossing her arms over her chest. “But it’s okay. He and I are going to be spending a lot of time together, unfortunately. It’s unavoidable.”

Luna tilts her head to the side, scrutinizing Hermione as though she’s got a map sprawled across her cheeks, lips, and eyes. The heat of her gaze is unbearable in its unreadability, and Hermione finds herself anxiously tugging on the end of one curl.

“What?”

“I don’t think you hate him, Hermione. I think you’re afraid.”

Hermione’s heart skips a beat. Leave it to Luna to figure her out with one look. Sometimes, it feels like she can see through skin and bone.

“Afraid of what? Of him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s a frightening guy.” 

Hermione wanders over to the wall and leans back against it with her hands behind her back. She chews her lower lip and thinks of all the reasons why Luna’s right.  When she thinks about what he looked like when he attacked her, the rage in his eyes as he slammed her up against the wall hard enough to crack bone, she can’t imagine how anything could stop him from getting what he wants.

She feels like his toy.

“I am afraid,” she says as Luna walks closer. “I’m afraid of the way he makes me feel--the way I make stupid choices where he’s concerned. I don’t like that I’m in charge of his life. At first, I did. I liked being the one to ‘save’ him, in a sense, because I care about what he is. But then he hurt me.”

Luna presses her lips into a sympathetic line, her brow furrowing. “And you can’t forgive him.”

“No, I can. I just don’t want to.”

And it’s that realization that brings a tear to her eye. Hermione wipes it away with the pad of her thumb, a hatred for herself and her own stubbornness opening a gate that sends poison burning through her body. 

She was stupid to break the vials. Stupid to antagonize him when he was starving. Stupid to think he had the strength of mind and will to resist the urge to feed on her blood when he’d already been resisting feeding on anyone for months. And yet all she cared about was maintaining control over the situation so that he couldn’t win.

Win what?

This isn’t a game. This is his life. It’s hers, too, and he could take it if she isn’t careful.

Luna twirls on her foot and duplicates Hermione’s pose, her hands against the wall behind her back. The two of them stare at the ground, Hermione with tears dripping silently down her cheeks and Luna wearing a distant expression like a cloak. It feels like an oppressive sadness has settled over them, weighing them down and rooting their feet to the stones. Hermione reaches up to close her hand around her pendant, holding it like it's a lifeline between her and Malfoy. 

“I’m afraid he’s going to die, Luna,” she whispers, another set of tears falling. Her jaw and throat ache. “I’m afraid he’ll die and it’s going to be my fault.”

“I think we’re all afraid of losing the people we care about, Hermione. I love my father dearly but I’m so afraid of losing him that I can’t bring myself to visit. When I told you guys he wasn’t doing well, I lied. He’s doing quite well.”

Shock drops Hermione’s jaw. 

“He is?” 

Luna nods once, the guilt in her blue eyes causing Hermione to avert her eyes from how intensely she feels it mirrored in her own heart. “He’s doing much better, actually, and has more memories. That’s why I can’t visit him.”

“You don’t want him to remember you.”

“I don’t want him to remember who I used to be. I’ve changed, Hermione. I’m not his little girl anymore. And when he wakes up and sees how different I am, who I’ve become…” Luna’s voice breaks. Hermione’s never seen or heard Luna show this level of emotion before, so the sound of her on the verge of weeping brings her to a near-panic. “I’m terrified he won’t love me anymore, and I’ll lose him.”

“Oh, Luna.” Hermione turns to face her best friend, reaching her hand out. When Luna takes it, their fingers intertwining together tight enough to become one, she gives her a small, encouraging smile. “How could anyone not love someone as genuine and enchanting as you? You’re kind and unique and gentle and beautiful, and your father will never stop loving you. I promise you that. Don’t be afraid.”

Luna turns to face her, too, taking her other hand and squeezing it. There are tears leaking from her eyes, too. “Then you do the same. Don’t be afraid of anything. If you’re ready to forgive him but can’t find the strength to do it, then maybe it’s because you need to work on forgiving yourself.”

“When did he tell you?” Hermione asks, letting go of Luna’s hands so she can wipe her tears away from her cheeks. In return, Luna wipes hers away, and they share a quiet laugh.

“He never did. I figured it out on the train this in September. I accidentally went the wrong direction and entered his train compartment. He looked up at me and I remember thinking he looked so sleepy. And then the Nargles told me he was dead.”

“You went the wrong way?” Hermione giggles. “On a one-direction train?”

“I used to get very confused in hallways.”

“You don’t still?”

“Not anymore.” Luna’s lips curl up into a smile. “Anyway, I told him he was looking rather unalive, and I ended up sitting in his compartment the whole way here.”

Hermione frowns. “So then… Who was stealing your shoes in Fifth Year? It really wasn't Malfoy?”

“It wasn’t him or any of his friends, actually,” Luna says. “It really was Seamus Finnegan.”

“Seamus stole your shoes?! I thought Malfoy was lying!”

“Yes.”

“That’s a disturbing fact to learn about him, but actually not very surprising. Did he fancy you?”

“Yes. He was my first kiss.”

“Oh, well that explains it.”

Hermione and Luna stare at each other for a suspended moment before bursting into a fit of raucous laughter. It’s so amusing to think of Seamus Finnegan thieving Luna’s shoes because he fancied her that they nearly collapse with their mirth. It feels nice to laugh this hard and this long after what has felt like a nightmarish few weeks. 

“I think you should find a way to make it work,” Luna says when they’re on the moving staircases. Hermione’s headed to the Library and Luna hasn’t said where she’s going. 

“Make what work?”

“Things with Draco. I think you should find a way to make it work so that you don’t feel like you’re giving up control, or telling him that what he did was okay. There must be a way for you to help without compromising your boundaries and morals.”

The final staircase docks and they walk in silence. Hermione lets their conversation mull in her mind while she analyzes the elements of what Luna’s posing.

“I think I’ll do what I had originally planned, and fill five vials a week for him. That way I can just pass them over and avoid him while I’m figuring out how I feel.”

“That won’t work,” Luna says.

“What? Why? He told me it would.”

“He’s lying, Hermione.”

“He wouldn’t…” Hermione trails off. He’s Draco Malfoy. Of course he lied. Lying is probably as effortless as breathing for him. “Okay, so what’s the reason it won’t work?”

“Vampires are biologically designed to drain their victims to the point of death,” Luna explains as they slowly meander down the corridor. “If five small vials of blood were enough for them to subsist on, they wouldn’t be required to register with the Ministry. They wouldn’t be dangerous.”

“And judging by the fact that him getting one taste was enough to make him dance with ferality…”

“Yes,” Luna says, nodding. “He’s lying to you because he knows he needs more, and he doesn’t want to push you. Hermione, I really do think he’s sorry. I think he attacked you on purpose because he was just that hungry.”

“I broke the vials.”

“So it was your fault that it began, but he should have tried harder to stop. And he didn’t.”

“We’re both to blame.”

“And you should forgive yourself and him.”

Their walk slows to a mutual stop at the crossroads between the library and wherever Luna’s headed. They look at each other, Hermione with her lower lip between her teeth and Luna with her brows pulled together in a troubled expression.

“You’re going to have to let him feed off of you eventually,” Luna says in a grave tone. “Not from vials or a bowl or anything else. You.”

Hermione knows she’s right. Luna is the voice of reason in the tumultuous storm that is her understanding about Draco Malfoy. Deep down, she knows that Malfoy has been holding back. He’s been punishing himself out of the guilt he feels for losing control, waiting patiently for her to decide whether or not to forgive him. All of this while knowing that the chance of her changing her mind was very small.

“It’s only been a few weeks,” she whispers.

“To a starving vampire, that’s a lifetime.”

“He made it months.”

“Sometimes, one more week or one more day or one more second is too much. And then what happens when he breaks?” 

Luna doesn’t have to say it for Hermione to hear it, hanging in the air between them like a harbinger.

How many people will die if Malfoy snaps? 

“Think of a way to make it work,” Luna says. “Think of a way to ensure that you remain lucid and that he doesn’t go too far. It’ll keep him alive and keep your morality and self-respect intact while you’re figuring out what to do long-term. I know he doesn’t want to register, so the first step to ensuring he can hide his status is making sure that he doesn’t get so hungry that he kills people. And I promise you, he won’t if you maintain a routine.” 

Hermione’s never heard Luna speak like this. Up until now, she’s grown so accustomed to the dreamy, aloof Luna that she hasn’t realized that Luna really has changed. But it’s not for the worse. No, it’s for the better. There’s a strength running through her veins that Hermione didn’t notice was there.

“All right,” she says. “But I don’t want him to touch me. I can’t stand him, even if I don’t want him to die.”

Luna laughs. “Anyway, Hermione, I’ve really got to go. I’m going to be busy tonight helping with…well, you know.”

Hermione grits her teeth, stopping herself again from asking who the werewolf is. Instead, she nods, says her goodbyes, and turns to go to the library before dinner. It’s probably better that she doesn’t know who the werewolf is when she’s got a vampire to deal with.

Provided the werewolf Luna’s hiding isn’t the Hogsmeade murderer.

She’s spent all this time trying to analyze Malfoy, to analyze his angle and his ulterior motives, when all along, it’s been simple. He doesn’t want to hurt her or kill her or make a game of anything. He doesn’t want it to be a big challenge or part of a war.

He’s just hungry.

I need to let my guard down, Hermione thinks, absentmindedly playing with her emerald pendant. I don’t have to like him and he doesn’t have to like me. He just needs help. It was up to me to say yes or no. I complicated it.

They both made choices. He had the choice to stop. She had the choice not to break the vials. If they both made mistakes, she can’t be angry with him anymore. It’s only been a week but it does feel like a lifetime. Are the mistakes he made really as unforgivable as she thinks?

She needs more time to make this choice. A lot more time.

In the library, after finding no books that can help her with the intricate charmwork the cabinet requires, Hermione picks up a romance book about a faerie and a toad.

It’s not her usual reading material, but she’s so exhausted emotionally that she just wants to read something ridiculous. The library when it’s not crowded is her favorite place to be and with it being Saturday, she has free time to pick up and read whatever she likes, no matter how embarrassing.

What she really should be doing is researching vampires for her project. She can’t write anything without literary sources, especially things that she would only know if she personally knew a vampire. That’ll only bring the cavalry.

Speaking of the cavalry, why hasn’t the Ministry sent anyone competent out to investigate the murders in Hogsmeade? They’re doing such a terrible job at it that it’s infuriating. If she were the one hunting the killer down, she’d find him and stop him. Whoever the murderer is, he’s killed twice now. Both on the full moon, both with the bodies dumped in the same place. That screams Being, Beast, or magical creature to her. That means the Ministry needs to send someone to step in and investigate. 

Perhaps nobody else realizes the connection to the moon?

She stares at the front cover of the romance novel until it blurs, her thoughts racing.

Is this really going to happen during her Sixth Year? Is she really going to have to solve a series of murders because the adults are incompetent, shallow thinkers? 

Ha.

As if Malfoy would allow it. The way he acted when she wanted to look at the skip made that clear. 

Unless…

What if there were a way for her to be down in Hogsmeade, scoping things out without him catching her or following her? If the murder is a magical creature or Beast with heightened senses, a simple Disillusionment spell is off the table. They’d be able to sniff her out.

The Invisibility Cloak.

Yes, the cloak would be perfect. There’s a full moon tonight, which technically would be perfect since Malfoy’s gone, but that’s too soon. Harry’s still angry with Hermione, too, so it's too soon to ask him for anything, either.

If her theory is correct, someone else will die tonight. She cannot under any circumstances be down there without protection—it’s not safe. Malfoy is right about some things, and that is that she will be caught or killed if she tries anything now.

But with the cloak, it won’t matter if Malfoy is here or not. No one will be able to find her.

But what if something goes wrong? What if she’s sensed anyway? She has to plan for contingencies. Her foot could slip out from beneath the cloak, she could run into someone, or not move out of the way fast enough. She could cough or sneeze or otherwise make a sound that alerts the murderer to her presence. And if they’re a vampire or werewolf, with their heightened senses, she won’t be able to outrun them.

She frowns and looks at the books on the shelf in front of her.

Heightened senses. Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. Strength. 

Speed.

What if there were a way to temporarily run as fast as a vampire? 

She remembers the Fourth Year. How Neville told Harry about Gillyweed. Gillyweed awarded Harry a change that enabled him to breathe underwater. If a plant could do that, what if there were one that could make her just as fast as Malfoy? 

What if there were a spell?

“Warts & Prejudice? I didn’t take you for a smut reader.”

Blaise stands before her in a burnt orange cable knit that makes his brown eyes pop. His hair is worn in twists and his arms are crossed over his chest. The smile that stretches across his face is bright, all white teeth and enthusiasm. 

“Oh, I’ll read anything with words on its pages,” she says, closing the book and hugging it to her chest. “How are you?”

“I'm surviving. And you?”

“The same.” They both chuckle, and Hermione says, “What are you up to right now? It's almost suppertime.”

“I was hunting for books for the DADA project. I've read almost all of what Hogwarts has, but I wish there were some new books to look at.”

“Well, when Malfoy gets back from his trip to London, I’ll tell him you’re looking. I heard him say the Malfoy Manor had a library, so maybe he can get you some books from home?”

“Yeah, I’ll ask him what he…” He gives her a curious look, gaze flicking up and down her face with furrowed brows and a faint smile. “How did you know Draco was in London?”

Her heart skips an entire beat and then begins to slam against the inside of her chest bone. She doesn’t know what Blaise knows. Luna knowing that Malfoy is a vampire is no big deal—it’s Luna. But Blaise? He’s first and foremost a Slytherin. Information like that about Malfoy is too useful for him to reveal it to just anyone, even if they’re a friend.

She’ll have to operate under the assumption that he doesn’t know.

“We’ve got a friend in common,” she says truthfully. “And what with his detention, he's following me around all the time. I overheard him saying it.”

Blaise studies her. “Luna Lovegood, right?”

She nods.

“Well, I’m definitely surprised. You two have a past, and that’s an understatement.”

She stops to think about her reply, not trusting herself not to reveal something incriminating if she does. What surprises her the most about this encounter is the loyalty she feels to Malfoy, even though she hates him. She’s a Gryffindor, through and through, and those traits extend to him, it would seem.

“We had a past,” she replies, “but I think we’ve all put that aside in favor of peace. I mean, look at you and I.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Look at us.”

They stare at each other and Hermione can feel words hanging unsaid between them. She doesn’t know what they could be or what they mean—what he’s thinking—but she’s certain that, knowing him, rumors could abound at Hogwarts come Monday.

“Well, I better get going,” Blaise says, pushing away from the bookshelf. “I’ve got a meeting with my dinner plate. You enjoy that smut book.” 

“I will,” she says, watching as he walks away. She raises her voice to call after him. “Thank you for the gift, Blaise!”

He waves his hand without turning around and disappears around the corner.

Hermione exhales her relief, falling back against the shelf. That was close. Blaise was indeed a Slytherin. That meant he was cunning. He probably already suspected the nature of her knowledge about Malfoy’s whereabouts. Thankfully, he hadn’t pressed her on it, but he was a notorious gossip.

Would it be so bad if everyone thought she and Malfoy were friends?

Oh, well. She can worry about it later.

She takes the romance novel up to Madam Pince so she can reserve it and take it to her dorm with her.

It’s early evening in the Gryffindor common room, the shadows of the firelight dancing and twisting fairytales across the heavily-decorated walls. The air is thick with the smell of parchment and ink, a quiet hum of activity filling the space as students prepare for their upcoming exams, play games, and chat. Harry sits on the couch by yhe hearth, his legs stretched out, an old Quidditch magazine in his hands. Ron is beside him, flipping through a Quidditch book he’s probably read a hundred times, but neither of them is actually paying much attention to what they’re reading. Hermione has taken the nearby armchair, and she's trying to read Warts & Prejudice.

The tension is like being crushed beneath the sea, amidst the walls of the Marianas Trench. The fight in the corridor still feels fresh, like a wound that’s only now starting to heal. But they're her absolute best friends. She can't be angry with them forever. Not when she knows they're just worried about her well-being. And they can't be angry with her, either. As far as they know, Malfoy isn't around because he wants to be. 

Finally, Ron clears his throat, breaking the silence. “Look, Hermione…about what happened, you know, the other day...I’m sorry. For yelling at you.”

“I'm sorry, too,” Harry says. “I should’ve handled things better. I was angry and frustrated, and I—”

“—and I was a complete tosser,” Ron interrupts, scrubbing his face with his hands. “We both were. But I still think you’re wrong about Malfoy. I do. I just...I shouldn’t have said it like that.”

Hermione nods slowly, setting her book on her lap. The weight of the argument still lingers in the back of her mind, but hearing their apology lifts a bit of the tension between them all. “I get it. You don’t have to agree with me, either of you. But I think we can agree to stop discussing Malfoy, can't we?”

Harry smiles, and the cold ice floe between them starts to crack, the first traces of normalcy returning to their friendship.

“I can let it go, for your sake,” he says, sounding resigned. “But not entirely.”

Harry and Ron both look at her, the heavy silence drawing out before Hermione speaks again, her voice calm.

“I know what you’re both thinking. And I know you’re struggling with it. But we’ve all got enough on our plates right now without turning every conversation into Malfoy this, Malfoy that. I'm tired of it.”

Harry opens his mouth to protest, but Hermione holds up a hand. “I’m not saying he’s not important. I’m just saying—there’s more to think about. Didn't you mention Dumbledore asked you to get something…? I would think Malfoy is way less important than that.”

There’s a quiet between them, as they all sit in the firelight, letting the words settle in. Eventually, Harry shifts, his fingers still tense around the magazine, and sighs deeply.

“I’ve been trying to get that memory from Slughorn,” he says. Ron and Hermione both look at him, intrigued. “You know the one Dumbledore wants—the one where Slughorn talks about Tom's request, whatever it was. But I’ve tried twice now, and he’s not budging. He’s not giving it up.”

Ron frowns. “Why not?”

“Slughorn’s got a big mouth when it comes to anything but that memory. If Dumbledore wants it, why’s he so stubborn about it? I don’t know. But I think he’s hiding something. I can tell he’s lying about it. But when I tried to talk to him, I just ended up making things worse.”

Hermione’s brow furrows, her lips pursing in thought. “Slughorn’s not exactly the type to be pushed, is he? He’s used to people coming to him. Maybe we need a different approach.”

Ron rubs his chin, deep in thought. “What if we, I don’t know, made him feel special? Like, flatter him or something. That’s worked before, hasn’t it? He likes people who puff him up.”

Hermione shakes her head. “It’s not about his ego, Ron. He’s not stupid. He’s scared. It’s a matter of convincing him that it’s in his best interest to give it up. But how?”

They all fall into a thoughtful silence again. The fire crackles in the hearth, the only sound in the room. Harry runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. 

“I can’t think of anything else,” Harry scowls. “I don’t want to have to force it out of him. But we need that memory, and I don’t know how else to get it.”

Hermione shifts in her seat, looking at Harry with a soft but serious expression. “Well, maybe you should take a bit of time. Don’t push too hard right now. You’ve been working on this for ages. It’s okay to take a break.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I just need to think about it for a bit. Let it simmer.

Ron leans back, his gaze distant, and the conversation takes a turn toward heavier matters.

“Whatever you do, don't take too long,” he says, voice muted and grave. “Now that You-Know-Who is back, it's only a matter of time before he makes his first move. Once he does that, that's it. It's begun.”

“What has?”

Hermione answers.

“The war.”

The silence that follows is thick, filled with the unsaid words between them, the knowledge that they’re standing on the brink of something horrific. When Hermione takes the time to think about it, to really let it sink in that she's going to be Obliviating her parents in less than four months, she realizes that this is so much more than a dark horizon with storm clouds brewing. This is war. 

War with Voldemort is coming, and there's nothing any of them can do except prepare.

 Around midnight, Hermione decides to get sozzled.

It’s Saturday, it’s a full moon, and she's so stressed out that she’s happy to break the rules tonight. She’s got a pint of Firewhiskey that she found stashed under Ginny’s bed, and she supposes now is as good a time as ever to drink it. She doesn’t really feel like reading about a toad dramatically squeezing and stretching its webbed fingers just because it accidentally landed on a girl's lap. 

She goes to Luna’s dorm room door to ask her if she wants to join. When she knocks, no one answers. 

Hermione sighs. She’s probably helping whoever the werewolf is. Gods, she hopes that whoever it is isn’t the murderer.

She goes back to her dorm room to get her coat and put it on over her blue pyjamas. She bends over, flipping her braids so she can gather them up and twist them into a bun on top of her head. After shoving her feet into fur boots and grabbing the Firewhiskey and her little stereo, she sneaks out of the dorm and into the dark corridor. 

By the light of her lumos, she creeps cautiously through the quiet halls of Hogwarts castle, on her way to the owlery. The bridge that leads from the castle to the roost is outside, and it’ll be the perfect place to drink in peace without the chance of someone stumbling upon her. Filch would never think a student would be sending post at almost midnight on a freezing cold night in February.

When she gets there, she tucks her wand into the deep pocket of her coat. The moon is full and round in the sky, casting an opalescent glow over not just the bridge, but the castle and the grounds. The Black Lake’s water is so dark that it looks flat, and the moonlight glances off of the surface like a mirror’s reflection. 

She faces one of the parapets, sets the bottle and stereo on the stone, and then rests her elbows beside it. Placing her chin in her hand, she gazes out at the scenery. This high up, about one hundred feet or so, everything looks so small. She can see the Quidditch Pitch far away and the trees of the Forbidden Forest, which look just like the splotches on a canvas oil painting.   

Hermione picks up the bottle. Twisting off the lid, she brings the mouth of the bottle to her lips and takes a drink. It tastes spicy, sending waves of heat rushing through her body. She feels like steam is coming out of her ears. When the liquid hits the pit of her stomach, a pleasant tingle travels outward from it.

Yes, getting sozzled was the right idea.

Forty-five minutes later, she’s on top of another parapet, singing at the top of her lungs to the music on her stereo under the safety of a muffliato. To be up this high, standing on the only thing that exists between her and certain death, is an exhilaration she hasn’t felt since the battle in the Department of Mysteries last year. It’s so close to magical that she wonders why she’s never done it before. 

Perhaps because she’d fall.

Yes, falling is an issue. It’s a bit of a big deal. If she were to fall, right down to those tiny twenty-foot trees below, she’d be speared and killed instantly. Immediately dead.

This makes her giggle, though it could just be the alcohol.

If Malfoy were here, she bets he would catch her. He’s got those claws. He’d probably use them to slide down the wall like some edgy hero in a fantasy novel, and take her gently down to the ground. Then, he’d likely yell at her for being reckless because they hate each other, and he’s always yelling. She’d yell back because she likes yelling at him.

Actually, she just likes bickering with him because it’s funny.

Hermione twirls on one foot, her mind swimming and dipping with dizziness. She’s not completely drunk, but she’s well on her way. She takes another swig of the Firewhiskey, pulling a sour face that results in another fit of giggles at the thought of what she looks like.

This is the best idea she’s ever had.

Thinking of Malfoy is killing her buzz. The constant battle between wanting to forgive him and letting him starve is exhausting. She feels like she’s been fighting for something for ages and now that she has a break, she just wants to tell him to die.

Honestly, she just might. 

“Everything Luna said today was right,” Hermione says aloud to herself in a slurred tone, stopping her song so she can muse. “But she didn’t take into account the fact that Malfoy is a complete and utter prat.”

Because he is.

She twirls a second time on her foot, ignoring how dizzy it makes her. Ignoring the swoop in her stomach as she feels the complete and utter emptiness of air behind her. Ignoring her hatred of Malfoy.

Her favorite song has just come on.

Hermione alternates between singing and knocking back the Firewhiskey. Sometimes, she forgets how much she likes to sing because of her parents. Every time she does it, it reminds her of memories with them, singing in the choir at church during the summers, singing in the car on family trips, concert performances in the living room when she was four. And she knows she’s good at it, with the belting and the runs and the soprano and the scratchy lower register and the high notes. She’s not shy about it, either. 

It just doesn’t fit into the wizarding world. 

When she was younger, she wished it did. Every time she was bullied or judged, she would think viciously to herself how much they’d all shut up if they heard her sing. If they knew how good she was at it, they wouldn’t be able to talk bad about her, or talk down on her anymore. She specifically remembers being twelve and daydreaming about putting on a concert in the Great Hall, in front of everyone, and seeing the look of awe on Malfoy’s face when she did.

Funny that she only had to wait until Sixth Year to see it.

The daydreams of her youth are humiliating and ridiculous, but they mean something to her. She used to spend her nights crying about it, wishing that everyone could see how amazing she was. How amazing her parents said she was. Sometimes, it felt like she had a cruel angel that had given her this beautiful voice, beautiful curly hair, beautiful brown skin, and then decided that no one would be able to see it. That she was to be forever undiscovered, servant to knowledge and learning because it was the only thing that couldn’t judge her when everyone else could.

But the angel had made her invisible.

And now, here she is, drunk on the top of a hundred-foot wall, thinking about it and laughing. How absurd.

As she twirls a fourth time, hitting a note that would echo clear into the owlery and wake the owls if not for her muffliato, she wraps her free hand around the emerald pendant she wears.

Wouldn’t it be wild if she activated the Protean charm he cast so he could appear and see her sing, just because he said he'd listen? That would show him.

What?

That would show him what, exactly? 

Why would she want to show him anything anyway? Why would he think she wanted him to see anything? She didn’t want to share anything with him. He was cold and cruel and he tried to kill her. He tried to kill her and he doesn’t deserve her forgiveness until she says what she needs to say.

If he were here, she’d have a few choice words for him.

Hermione grips the pendant as tight as she can, feeling her drunken rage going from a simmer to a boil, spilling over into her body. Who does he think he is, deciding whether she lives or dies? Who is he to bring her into his drama this year after treating her with nothing but cruelty for the past seven years? Who is he to make decisions for her when he ignored her please for him to let her go?

She twirls a fifth time on her foot, her head tilting back so she can sing the final chorus of her favorite song to the moonlit sky.

CRACK!

Malfoy appears in the center of the owlery bridge, looking disheveled and frantic in a pair of black trousers and a long-sleeved black button-up. His hair is a disaster, messy, pushing up in all sorts of different directions, and falling into his eyes. His eyes, which are vibrant purple beneath heavily furrowed brows, above spiderweb veins.

His eyes, which widen at the sight of her spinning and toppling forward over the parapet, sending the Firewhiskey bottle soaring into the darkness down to the trees.

This is the worst idea she’s ever had.

The bloodcurdling scream that rips out of her chest as her stomach leaps into her throat is cut off by the force of her slamming into the circle of Malfoy’s arm. She hangs there like a ragdoll cat, her abdomen smashed against his forearm, alcohol-induced nausea warring with her high-pitched, nervous laughter.

The trees are very, very tiny from up here.

“Why the fuck are you laughing?!” he roars, sounding just as angry as he did the day he tried to end her life. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Granger?!”

She turns her head to look over her shoulder, her gaze traveling upward. 

He’s dangling from the parapet by one hand, his claws gouging the stone. His eyes blaze with fury and he bares his fangs in a vicious snarl.

“Stop bloody laughing, or I’ll drop you.”

“How did you get past the anti-Apparition wards?” she asks as though she’s not hanging from his arm. “I thought you said you were going to run from the edge of the grounds?”

“Because I’m dead.”

Suddenly, Malfoy swings to the right and throws her high up into the air, so high above the bridge that she can see the roof of the owlery. She has only a split second to let out another cry before he’s in the air in front of her, having hauled himself onto the parapet and jumped up twenty feet to greet her. He grabs her around the waist and throws her over his shoulder. They fall back to the bridge in the space of three seconds, and the force of him landing on one knee causes a series of cracks to ripple out along the stone. 

He stands up and drops her to her feet. She sways, and that’s all she has the opportunity to do.

“And so are you,” he hisses, flashing forward to wrap his hand around her throat and slam her down on the ground. Her braids come untwisted from the bun, spilling out across the bridge floor and she lets out an involuntary oof from the force. “You fucking bitch.”

“Ow, Malfoy!” She whines like an angry animal, kicking her legs beneath where he’s hovering on all fours above her. “That hurt!”

“Good.” His nostrils flare and she sees his fangs again. He’s making no moves to hide them. “London. York. Edinburgh. That’s how far I had to Apparate to get to you. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”

“Did you get Splinched?”

“That’s not the fucking point, you little brat.” His fingers squeeze the sides of her neck, causing her breath to rattle. “The point is that you had me come here thinking the Hogsmeade murderer was fucking hunting you down, only to end up at the owlery where you’re fucking around on a wall!”

”Well, it wasn’t intentional.”

“Do you have any idea how much I want to kill you right now?”

“Do you have any idea how impressed I am?” she chokes out. “And a little flattered.”

“I swear to Salazar, if you don’t stop laughing…”

“What were you doing?” she asks.

He blinks, visibly taken aback at her whiplash conversation tactics. “I was with my mother and aunt.” 

“Oh, ew. Bellatrix?”

“Unfortunately.” 

He stares at her in weighted, questioning silence, clearly bewildered by her behavior.

She wants to laugh again.

He doesn’t realize she’s drunk.

“Aren’t you hungry?” She lets her head loll to the side. “I want you to take it.”

There’s a moment where the only thing Hermione hears is the sound of her own heartbeat. Malfoy is incredibly still, poised above her like a pouncing wildcat, and the look in his eyes is just as feral. But behind the ferality, she can see that he’s wary. That this is too good to be true.

And she supposes it is, because this is the only time shes going to let this happen for at least the next thirty-seven business days.”

“What are you waiting for?” she says with a small smirk. Her tongue curls seductively around the words, which she speaks while enunciating each syllable. “Bite me.”

Another second passes. Another heart-stopping, stomach-curdling, hand-trembling second.

And then he loses it.

Hermione gasps when Malfoy’s hands tear her coat open, revealing her pyjama shirt. He yanks one side of the neckline aside, exposing her neck and shoulder to the winter air. She gasps again at the shock of it.

“Is this for real?” he whines, his expression desperate. “Are you fucking with me?”

She shakes her head, still panting for breath from the speed with which he had partially undressed her.

One last whimper from him, and then the veins beneath his eyes creep down toward his jaw. The moon reflects in his violet irises before his face descends on her.

The moment his fangs sink into her neck, she’s lost.

It’s different this time. There’s no fear and no hysteria. Only cold air on her skin and alcohol in her veins. As he voraciously sucks the blood from her body, his claws scraping against the stone ground on either side of her head, the properties of his saliva settle in. The feeling travels from her throat, to her chest to the tips of her fingers and toes, and shoots right back up to her lower body. It throbs there, pulsing with desire that she lets herself embrace.

Hermione lets out a loud moan, her fingers running the length of his upper arms, where they twist in the fabric of his shirt. His knee is between her legs, slightly slanted toward her from the way he’s leaning over her. It’s the perfect angle for her to roll her hips and grind downward.

Hard.

She reaches down between them to grip the sides of his thigh, anchoring herself to his it as she grinds and grinds and grinds. The silk of her pyjama pants and the cotton of her knickers are both so thin that it feels like there’s nothing in the way. Her mind reels around in circles as she feels the fluttering in her core begin to increase.

Malfoy lifts his head from her neck and she feels her own blood dripping onto her skin, rolling in multiple directions, over her shoulder and onto her chest.

“You’re drunk,” he groans in defeat. “Fucking Hell.”

“Very.” 

“I have to stop.”

He pushes himself onto  all fours again and she feels a new panic setting in. Her grip on his thigh tightens, dragging herself further down beneath him so she can keep his leg trapped between hers. Their eyes meet and something indescribable passes between them. In the background, Hermione can hear the stereo still playing. Tool, she thinks. Forty Six & 2. An owl flies out of the owlery, headed out toward the forest. 

“I don’t want you to stop,” she breathes out.

“I have to.”

“No.” She locks her fingers behind his neck and pulls him down. His arms give out immediately and his face burrows into her neck, against the stinging wound. She moans again, loudly. “Keep going.”

“Fucking—” He runs his tongue through the blood trails and falls further into her, pressing his thigh so firmly to the apex of her thighs that all she has to do is move her hips in firm, infinitesimal rocking motions. “We have to stop, Granger. We do.”

“Please don’t,” she begs, still grinding her hips. She can feel it getting closer, taking her hurtling towards a star in the sky that was hung just for her. “Don’t stop. I’m begging you. Please let me—“

“Okay, okay. Shh,” he whispers, his tone soothing as he stops feeding from her. “I’m gonna let you.”

She almost wants to cry, and she doesn’t know if it’s relief, alcohol, or both. 

“You are?”

“Mm-hm.” He nods, his nose nuzzling the top of her shoulder before kissing it. “To thank you.”

Malfoy starts to kiss her neck, his tongue laving against it as he rolls his lower body towards her in a sensual way. Hermione, whose mind is completely void of everything that’s not him, resumes her earlier movements, grinding and rolling and canting her hips until she’s hovering on the edge of bliss.

She’s never felt like this before.

“Oh, my God,” she sighs in a high-pitched tone, her eyelids fluttering shut against the gentle light of the moon. “I’m so—I want to—please, please, please. I…”

A stuttering gasp rushes into her lungs, her heart racing. She turns her head inward, burying her face in his neck as everything inside of her rises to a crescendo—her thoughts and feelings, the aphrodisiac, and—

“Come on, sweet girl.” He moans it as though he’s the one who’s close. “You can do it. You can make yourself come. Come on, I know you can. That’s it.”

His words caress her eardrum between tongue laps at her blood. It intensifies everything she feels until her stomach is knotted so tightly that she might die. The grinding of her hips misses a beat in the lurid song it’s creating, and then she falls over the edge.

When she comes, he drinks from her open wound again, and the brush of his tongue makes her back arch. Her head scrapes as she sobs out her euphoria, her spasming thighs squeezing so hard that she fears she might bruise herself on his thigh. Malfoy mumbles something into her throat, his fingers drifting lightly down her side beneath her ripped-open coat, causing shivers to join her twitching muscles.

“H-huh? What did…” She catches her breath. “What did you say? Say it a-again.”

His nose brushes her pulse on the way up to whisper in her ear.

“I called you a sweet girl.” 

The words creep over her body, sending shivers up and down her spine. Their eyes meet once again, a connection between them that runs through her blood. This won’t be the last time he feeds off of her and yet it can’t happen like this again. Not when it was this easy for them both to lose control. 

Hermione rolls over and promptly empties the alcoholic contents of her stomach on the bridge to the owlery.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty

Hermione wakes on Sunday with a hangover the likes of which she’d never planned to experience.

After dry-heaving in the loo for a solid three minutes, she takes a scalding hot shower with her braids piled on top of her throbbing head. The water beating down upon her back does nothing for the migraine that pulses a steady drumbeat through her head and down the side of her neck. It compounds with the dull ache of Malfoy’s bite wound, leaving her with a poor attitude and the desire to slap him for no reason. She hasn’t any idea how she got into her dorm room and while she’s thankful for it, she still wants to be angry with him because to be grateful to him for anything feels like conceding defeat in a war she’s predestined to win.

The night before had been quite the situation. 

He’d held her braids back, gathering them up with as much speed as he could before anything got onto them. Once she was done vomiting all over the bridge, Malfoy had Scourgified it and all of the blood off of their bodies and clothes. She could still smell the iron and tang of it all, but she’d been determined not to be sick again, so she swallowed it down. He’d then hauled her swaying to her feet and thrust her stereo into her arms before picking her up and carrying her into the tower.

She’d passed out halfway down the winding staircase.

It’s a Sunday and she’s afraid to eat until her hangover subsides, so she spends the morning in her dorm room taking her braids out one-by-one with magic. Her relief intensifies with each pile of synthetic hair that lands on the coverlet of her bed and when the final one comes out, she heaves a great sigh. 

What the Hell was she thinking?

Why would she get so drunk that she danced and twirled on the parapets one hundred feet up? Why would she activate the Protean charm just to get Malfoy to Apparate from London? To do what? Watch her sing? And why, oh why, would she let him bite her?

So much for being the one in control.

Hermione groans to herself and collapses back onto the bed, heedless of her greasy hair and itchy scalp. She needs to shower again so she can do a new style, but all she wants to do is stare at the ceiling and lament.

This is so mortifying. How is she supposed to look him in the eye when he returns, knowing what they did? On the Owlery bridge? Oh, Godric. What a nightmare.

What she needs to do is lose herself in research. That’s the only thing that’s worked in the past when she wants to escape from her own head for a while. She’ll wash her natural hair, twist it up for the day to give it a rest, and go to the Library. 

Perhaps spending her time searching for a spell she can use to heighten her senses will be a better usage of her time, rather than spending the entire day bemoaning her embarrassing mistakes.

The spell is surprisingly easy to find, but it's going to be a more difficult path to mastering it than she hoped.

Not only does she have no one to teach her the wand movements, but she can’t ask anyone for help lest they find out why she wants to learn it. She doesn’t want anyone to know she plans on sneaking down to Hogsmeade as many times as it takes for her to figure out who the murderer is. If they do, she knows they’ll stop her. 

The spell is located in a book called Battle Charms & Defensive Spells, which she finds in the Spells & Charms section. It’s a large tome that’s perched high up on the very top shelf of the stack. She has to climb a ladder to get up there because she’s not sure if it’s even there. It was a book mentioned in the back of another book, and it’s not anything she’s ever seen before.

Not that she knows every book in the Library, or anything.

“The Perception Amplification charm,” she reads aloud underneath her breath, “is a charm used to take the five human senses and range of limb motion, and amplify them to a degree that enables the caster to see, hear, and experience the Earth from a supernatural perspective. This charm is often used by Aurors and Unspeakables, as it allows them to have equal footing and bearing in battle.

“As of 1738, after the War of the Lycanthrope, the Perception Amplification charm became Ministry-approved for all wizards above the age of seventeen to use for self-defense. It is not permitted for recreational usage.”

She lifts her head, staring at the spines of the books in thought, something she tends to do when she’s really thinking about something.

The War of the Lycanthrope was a war that lasted seven months. It occurred after a pack of British werewolves went to war with a Scottish pack. There were many witches, wizards, and other beings that were slaughtered as collateral damage, as well as many people cursed by the werewolves’ bites. She understood why they would approve the usage of the charm, given the need to be able to protect oneself with more than just a charm.

The charm is not a hidden secret, given that it’s Ministry-approved, but she can imagine why they don’t teach it at Hogwarts as part of the regular curriculum. It’s not an everyday spell.

It is, indeed, a battle charm.

Hermione takes the book over to an alcove, reading and walking at the same time, and perches on the edge of a chair. She devours the words, her gaze scanning back and forth across the pages. The book goes in-depth about the charm’s history, usage, effects, and weaknesses. 

The spoken spell for the Perception Amplification charm is amplifico. It lasts for a period of twenty to thirty minutes, give or take a second or two, and it amplifies the senses that are necessary for battle: touch, sight, hearing, scent, and speed. The weaknesses of the spell are its short effectiv complicated wandwork, and its insistence on a clear mind. Essentially, it’s a charm that’s good in a pinch, but not one to rely on.

But it’s better than nothing.

“Amplifico,” she murmurs to herself, practicing the word so she can see how fast she can say it. If she’s needing to run from a werewolf or vampire, she needs to be able to pronounce it correctly and say it fast. “Amplifico. Amplifico.”

At the bottom of the last page of the section, there’s an artist’s depiction of the movements that she’s supposed to use to cast the spell. It has a series of three loops that must all be equal in timing, and a final flick that is supposed to flash upward in a right diagonal. It’ll be tricky, but she can do it with some practice.

Looks like she’s headed outside. 

Hermione curses.

This is the twentieth time she’s tried and failed the spell. 

It’s the second loop that keeps tripping her up, ruining the timing of the third loop and rendering the upward wand flick at the end completely useless. Even though it’s cold enough to see her breath and numb her fingertips, sweat is starting to gather underneath her arms. It makes her feel hot and overwhelmed. 

She’s standing outside on the hill, somewhere halfway between the outer courtyard and Hagrid’s hut. The snow is deep, reaching up her calves and soaking the legs of her trousers. It makes her shiver and her teeth chatter, but she’s not going to give up. She needs to know this spell.

Taking a deep breath, she clears her mind by thinking of snow and only snow. White, white, white. She lifts her wand and points it at herself.

“Amplifico!” she says while whipping her wand in three quick, small loops. At the end of the third loop, she whisks it upward.

There’s a slight tingle in her nose, and nothing else.

“Damn it,” she says angrily. She lets her wand arm fall to her side and tips her head back to look at the sky. “I need to get this spell. I seriously need to get this damn spell. Okay. Here we go.”

She tries again.

Nothing. Not even a tingle.

Hermione clenches her hand into a fist and squeezes her eyes shut. She feels her stomach twisting with anxiety. Failure is not an option for her. It’s never an option. 

Maybe she can look at it from another direction. 

She begins to pace back and forth in the snow, her feet completely numb from the way the snow has seeped into her boots. She clutches her wand with both hands, holding it against her chest and glowering at the ground while she thinks. Her head has been clear. The loops are as solid and similar as she can get them. There’s been a range of speeds that she’s tried, from slow to fast. 

What is she missing?

Hermione bites her lower lip in thought, gazing back at the castle. 

Perhaps she could come up with a reason to ask Lupin to show her how to do the wandwork correctly. Perhaps she could tell him she’s doing the War of the Lycanthrope for her Defense Against the Dark Arts project.

Perhaps she could lie.

Hermione slips her wand up into her sleeve and marches back up the hill.

Due to Professor Snape being out of the castle for the week for reasons unknown or uncared for, Lupin is subbing in for him. Professor Lupin is seated alone at the Professor’s table in the Great Hall, having arrived for lunch early. He’s reading a book with one hand and eating an apple with the other. His well-worn clothes have been mended, likely by Tonks or her mother, Andromeda, and his sandy hair is neatly combed.

Lupin looks up in surprise as she ascends the steps to the table.

“Afternoon, Lupin,” she says as she approaches the table. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Just fine, Hermione. How are you?”

“Quite well, actually, though having a bit of trouble with a spell. Do you have time?”

Lupin sets his book down. “I think I do. I can always eat whenever I’d like. What did you need?”

“It’s for my project,” she lies. “I’m researching and writing about the War of the Lycanthrope, and I came across information about a specific charm that was used in battle and approved by the Ministry when the war ended. Do you know which spell I’m talking about?”

His eyebrows shoot up. “The Perception Amplification charm?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Are you adding a demonstration to part of your project? Is that why you want to learn it?”

“Yes.” A second lie that will have to become true because now she’ll actually have to do this topic for her project. “I’ll show the whole class, if only you’ll teach me how to do it.”

“Well, sure,” he says, taking another bite out of his apple as he stands up. “I quite like your hair, by the way.”

“Thank you.” Hermione reaches up to lightly touch one of her twists. “Shall we go outside?”

“No.” He puts his free hand on his hip. “Why don’t we head up to the classroom and practice there? It’s a complicated spell. It’ll take you more than a few tries to get it right.”

“Twenty-two, actually.” He gives her a sharp, amused look. “I’ve been trying in the snow outside for the past hour now.”

They chat amiably as they take the moving staircases up to the third floor. She tells him nothing, and he tells her everything. He and Tonks are trying for a baby and it’s not going well, but he’s trying to be optimistic. Andromeda, Tonks’ mother, has Tonks on ten different herbal teas in the hopes for fertility, and Ted, her father, has been excitedly building things for the nursery in a near-frenzy. Hermione has absolutely no desire for children herself, but she's happy for her dear friend and professor.

So much normalcy whereas in her world, it's anything but.

“So, what’s interesting about this spell,” Lupin says as they walk to the front section of the classroom, where most demonstrations take place during class time, “is that it’s highly controversial. Believe it or not, it’s a spell that has been the subject of much debate by Ministry officials, and has made it to the Wizengamot to question its legality thirteen times since the War of the Lycanthrope.”

“Is that why it’s not part of the Hogwarts curriculum?”

Lupin nods. “A spell that’s seen the Wizengamot that many times has no business being in the hands of students. At least, that’s what the faculty here believes. According to Minerva, it’s the one charm she and Headmaster Dumbledore disagreed on.”

“I’m guessing she preferred we not learn it,” Hermione replies.

“Quite the opposite. It was Minerva who insisted it was crucial. Dumbledore believed that it would only cause issue and enable younger students to wreak havoc.” Lupin chuckles as he withdraws his wand. “Minerva told me he said that Professor Snape would have had his hands full trying to chase unruly students down, and that he was just too old to be running about.”

Hermione can’t help but laugh, too. “Well, I can attest to that. He has his hands full with Harry and Ron!”

“I don’t doubt it. Those two could cause a coronary. I’m fairly certain he's already had two. That’s in jest, by the way. Now, take out your wand. Let’s practice the wand movements first.”

It takes her ten minutes with Lupin’s help. Turns out it had nothing to do with the loops.

It was the fact that she was standing in the snow.

“Some people don’t know this,” Lupin explains as the spell takes effect, “but most spells are elemental. Some draw on water, some draw on air, some on fire. But there are some spells that can only draw on the human body, and the Perception Amplification spell is one of them. If you’re in a light sprinkle of rain, the spell will work. A downpour? It won’t. If you’re submerged in water? Doesn’t work. Step in a puddle? Works.”

“That doesn’t exactly make sense.”

“It’s an extreme situation,” he says, running his hand through his hair before gesticulating while speaking. There’s an excitement in his eyes that shows his exuberance and enthusiasm for this charm. “See, all magic comes from our magical cores, but it needs something to reinforce it. To power it up. Normally, it draws from your body, which is why you get fatigued after long periods of casting. When the human body is in a sort-of–of extreme environment, magic draws from the elements around it. Air, fire, water, earth, etcetera. This particular spell simply can’t. It is entirely centered in your body and what it can do. The most perfect eyesight, the best possible hearing, the fastest speed…it’s attuned to you, and so the only element it can draw from is you. Try it one more time.”

Hermione points her wand at herself. “Amplifico.”

A few quick, precise wand movements, and she feels it. It washes over her body like a tidal wave, sending all of her senses into overdrive. She can see the dust particles drifting down to the floor, can hear the ants marching in a line near the window, can feel the molecules in the air tickling her skin as they flow through everything around her. There’s cold rosehip tea in a flask on his desk, seemingly forgotten, that she’d been unable to smell before, but whose scent now pervades her nostrils to the point of affect. 

Lupin grins. “Run to the door and back.”

Hermione does so, feeling her own body slicing through the air at a speed she compares to flight. This feels like being on the back of the Thestral in her Fifth Year, or when she and Harry flew Buckbeak to Flitwick’s office. The fabric of her clothes billows. Her twists whip out behind her. She can feel each of her eyelashes fluttering. 

She manages to turn on her heel with a slight skid at the door and dash back to Lupin, but she overshoots the return. With a shriek of laughter, she nearly slams into the chalkboard behind him. Placing one hand on the green, she holds a hand over her chest while she catches her breath. The giddiness in her stomach and chest almost makes her feel envious of Malfoy.

Almost.

Lupin’s grin has widened. “How do you feel?”

“I feel bloody fantastic!” she exclaims, then grimaces. “Erm, language. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about that, Hermione,” he says with a wave of his hand. “How does everything else feel?”

Hermione stands up straight, glancing around. She walks over to the window and rests her hands on the windowsill. 

Gazing out at the grounds, she can see the owlery and the stone bridge that stretches from it to the castle. It looks like it’s perched high atop the stone wall that disappears into the trees at the bottom, trees of which she can separate each leaf from the one next to it with one quick glance. 

She can see the snowflakes that knit together blankets of thick white, creeping down the rolling hills. Those hills mingle with the edge of the Forbidden Forest, the thick trees not thick enough to hide the small animals she can see skittering up the trunks in the darkness. The chimney of Hagrid’s hut billows smoke up into the sky and she can smell the fire through the window. The forest continues to stretch into the distance, and she can see the tops of thousands of trees as they fade into the distant Scottish landscape. She can hear the plants growing, aching to reach the sky.

This is what Malfoy sees? This is how he gets to experience the Earth?

“I can see for miles,” she says softly, her throat hurting and eyes stinging. “It’s… It’s…”

“Beautiful, no?” Lupin comes to stand beside her, slipping his hands into his pockets. He’s put his wand away. “The Perception Amplification spell is really something quite magnificent. Before I…changed…I tried it a time or two. Nothing could quite compare to that first burst of extrasensory perception.”

“It’s no wonder it’s not part of the curriculum,” Hermione replies with a small, mischievous smile. “The Quidditch games would have been full of cheating.”

“The season would surely be cancelled.” He throws his head back to laugh until his cheeks are red. Hermione can hear the blood rushing to his face, can hear the decibels of his laughter as it rises up. “And can you imagine the Weasley brothers? Fred and George would have wreaked chaos in my classroom.”

Hermione bursts into a fit of giggles as memories of the twins seep into her mind. “I don’t doubt that the Head Boy would have given out a lot of detentions. Gryffindor would never have won the House Cup.”

After they share a few more jokes and laugh until their stomachs hurt, Hermione realizes that the effects of the spell are fading. Her hearing is starting to subside back to normal levels. She no longer feels like electricity is running through her veins. The comedown isn’t rough, but she feels a tad muted, like there’s cotton surrounding her body.

“How long are the effects of the spell supposed to last?” she asks.

“When mastered, usually about twenty to thirty minutes. Novice, around five to ten. It’s really only a spell you want to use in a pinch because it’s quite taxing on the reserves. You might be feeling a little fatigued right now. Are you?” She nods, so he continues. “That’s normal. It won’t be a physical crash unless you cast it too many times, too close together. But I’m assuming it’s only for a demonstration for your project, so you should have no issue.”

“Right,” she says with a slight laugh as she starts to walk toward the door. “Well, thank you so much for the help, Lupin. I’ve got to get going. I have some more reading to do in the Library.”

“Wait.”

Hermione stops and glances over her shoulder. Lupin gazes at her in curiosity, his arms crossed over his chest as he makes no moves to follow her out of the room.

“You don’t have any reason why you might want to use the spell, do you? Besides for the project, of course.”

Hermione feels the back of her neck prickle. “No. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Just making sure you’re not going to use it to cheat at Quidditch.” He throws her a wink.

Hermione lets out an inaudible sigh of relief. “You have nothing to worry about on that front. I’m terrified of brooms.”

“That’s good to hear, but…” He takes a couple of steps forward, lowering his gaze to the ground as he thinks. When he looks at her again, the mirth in his eyes has been replaced by curiosity. “You can correct me if I’m wrong on this, but I’ve known you for a long time, Hermione, and I know your penchant for knowledge. I know the things you, Harry, and Ron like to get up to. And with the things I've heard that are happening in Hogsmeade, I’m worried you’re going to try to insert yourself into a potentially dangerous situation. Another one, that is.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Hermione says quickly. It’s a complete lie, but what other choice does she have? Now that she has the spell, all she needs to do is ask Harry for the cloak and wait until she's one hundred percent mastered the charm to get the maximum thirty minutes. She might need it. “Honestly, I just want to finish school and move onto my career. No more sneaking about and meddling for me.”

He takes a final step closer, looking her directly in the eyes.

“I want you to promise me you’re not going to go down there at any point this year. Whatever this is that’s killing these people is extremely dangerous. The nature of the kills is very, very brutal. Not something for a witch your age to deal with. Let the Aurors handle it.”

She sucks her breath through her teeth. “You’ve noticed it, too? The connection to the moon?”

“It would be impossible for me not to. With the third body being found, it’s a ‘third time’s the charm’ situation now. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

A couple seconds of silence pass by, during which Hermione realizes what he’s just said.

“They found a third body?”

Lupin grimaces. “Yes, unfortunately. This morning. A child. Boy, I think.”

“A little boy?” 

“I'm told it was the grandson of the owner of Honeydukes.”

Her hand flies to her mouth as something curdles in her stomach. Remembering what the dumpster smelled like, the small bit of blood spatter on the wall, how small his limbs must have looked dismembered in that dumpster. It’s horrible.

The determination to solve this murder has become paramount.

“Promise me, Hermione.”

She doesn’t know what to do. She wants to go down there immediately, but she can't. Not if she hasnt mastered this spell. 

But she will. She will master this charm and when she does, she'll be down there, ready and waiting for the murderer. If it is a werewolf or even a pack of them, she'll be able to handle it. She'll be able to stand up on her own two feet and fight to defend whoever it is that they try to hurt.

She just hopes it doesn't take too long. Every month that goes by…? It's going to be another body. 

“I promise.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-One

Two Months Later

April

“How’s it going?”

Hermione, who is seated on the couch in the Room of Requirement, using a book to learn the Theory of Occlumency, looks over at Luna at the table. She’s stirring the potion, and Malfoy did not show up today. Over the past two months, Luna gotten so much better at the brew that Hermione hardly needs to do anything more than correct her form anymore. Malfoy isn't even really needed.

“As well as it possibly can go,” she replies. “I’ve never been the best at Occlumency.”

“Is there a reason why you feel the sudden need to practice it?” Luna asks.

“Yes,” she says, and she declines to say more on that part. “I’ve always excelled at memory charms—things that enable me to modify other’s memories—but I can’t seem to get a hold of my own.”

“We don’t have to excel at everything, Hermione. Sometimes, we can be okay at one thing, and the best at the others. You’ll get it down.”

“They say that thoughts aren’t feelings,” Hermione says softly, gazing out the window at the grey sky, “but sometimes, they seem one and the same for me.”

“And you can’t seem to control your feelings?” Luna glances over at her, the stir of her wand stilling.

Hermione sees his face in her mind. The way he looked at her that night on the Owlery. The rasp of his voice when he praised her. The way he tried so hard to stop himself, to keep her safe. The way he Apparated to get to her because he thought she was in danger.

It's been three months since that night.  Three months since Hermione decided to focus on mastering the Perception Amplification charm. It's only been one month since the last killing, and the next full moon lands right before Easter, only a week-and-a-half away. 

And she's finally mastered the spell. 

At first, Hermione regretted taking a step back. She knew the chance that people would continue to die every month was high, but what good can she do if she was killed? If she dies, she can't save anyone. She'd made the difficult decision to wait and now…now, she's ready. 

All she needs to do is get the cloak.

Over the past two months, her situationship with Malfoy has gotten…better. Somewhat. She ultimately decided not to feed him, not wanting to go back on her words while also feeling afraid of what things she might do if she did. So he's exhausted and hungry, but he doesn't seem to be feeling or acting any different than normal. The only reason why she knows he's hungry is because of the amount of time that has passed since the Room of Requirement incident in January. That, and the haunted, dark circles that ring his eyes. But they work on Luna's Wolfsbane each month without fail, alternating that with working on the cabinet, and as time has gone on, they've managed to get to a place where they treat each other as classmates. Peers. Not mortal enemies that despise one another. Not predator and prey, but Gryffindor and Slytherin. Two students partnered up on projects.

Speaking of projects, Hermione has done absolutely nothing to work on her vampire project. She has a horrible feeling that shes going to fail Defense Against the Dark Arts but for some reason, she doesn't care. At the back of her mind, her parents linger, a dark reminder that she might not get to see a world where Defense Against the Dark Arts doesn't matter. Where it isn't necessary.

All that to be said, it's been an eventful yet peaceful couple of months. It's given her the opportunity to lose herself to classwork and magic and potions and knowledge. All things she understands and knows, that have helped her put things like her parents and Cormac into the backdrop of her psyche.

Cormac. 

He almost feels like an afterthought.

She's still afraid of him, but he no longer holds power over her waking moments. She sees him only in nightmares and during the day, she successfully ignores his very presence. It's frustrating, feeling like she's beholden to him, or like she's ruined forever because he touched her, but she's determined to at least try to pretend to be normal. To pretend it never happened, and like there aren't thorns wrapped completely around her heart. 

It's not fair. Why do other girls get to have their first experiences with people they want to? Why did it have to be her that was assaulted? It makes her feel sick and cruel to think it but sometimes, she's so envious that she can't see straight. Because why her? Why did it have to be her and not someone else?

These dark thoughts never leave the confines of her dreams, lest her thoughts be read and used against her.

“He terrifies me more than what he’s capable of,” she whispers.

Luna eyes her and then nods. “We all fear the things that intrigue us the most.”

“Do you fear the werewolf that you’re helping?”

“Not anymore.”

Hermione wants to ask her who it is but knows that it would be disrespectful. If the werewolf doesn’t want to be known, then they don’t have to be known. And the protection of innocent magical creatures—provided they are innocent—is more important to her than her curiosity.

As is Luna’s respect.

“I used to be ashamed of it,” Luna says into the silence. “Of knowing a werewolf. I feared what it could do, who it could hurt. I was afraid of things happening that were out of my control. No one wants to feel that loss.”

“No, you’re right.”

“I wish I could tell you, Hermione,” Luna goes on. “I truly do.”

“Is the person that it is afraid?”

“Very. They are very, very afraid of what you—what everyone will think of them. They don’t want to be looked at differently.”

Hermione looks at Luna, who’s got her gaze fixated on the potion as she stirs, and stirs, and stirs. She thinks of all of the people in the school that she’s ever seen with Luna, but the only person she can think of is Neville Longbottom. He spends most of his time with Professor Sprout and some Hufflepuffs, so Hermione hasn’t seen him much this year, but...

Could it be? Could he actually be a werewolf? And if he is, what does that say about the Hogsmeade murderer? There's no way Neville could hurt someone, let alone murder and dismember them.

Could he?

“Well, I can only speak for myself,” she says, “and I want you to tell them that I will never judge them or think low of them for being who they are. If they need a safe space, then they can always come to me. I want to protect them, not hurt them.”

Luna smiles. “They know.”

They chat some more and finally, when Luna’s done with her Wolfsbane potion task for the day, they decide to relax on the couch for a bit before supper.

“So you…on the Owlery bridge. With Draco?”

Hermione mirrors her pose, but buries her face in a couch pillow to muffle her screams. 

“Hermione.” Luna starts to giggle. “I can’t believe you.”

“I can. It was bound to happen sooner or later, especially knowing that the blood vials would never have worked. Vampire saliva has the properties of an aphrodisiac.”

“And you were quite sozzled.”

“Yes, I was. Very much so. And he tried to stop, but I wouldn’t let him.”

“Was there consent?” Luna’s voice goes momentarily tight. “He didn’t—did he?”

“Erm—I wouldn’t say there was consent…but then again, he wasn’t the one who did anything to me.”

They fall into fits of raucous giggles again.

“Well,” Luna says with a sigh. “How was it?”

“How was it? How was it? You ask me that?”

“Was it awful?”

“No.” Heat creeps along the planes of Hermione’s face. “It wasn’t awful. But we also didn’t really do anything. I just… sort of… did it to him?”

Luna sits up. “You touched him?!”

“No, no, no!” Hermione splutters a laugh. “No, that’s not—oh, goodness. How do I explain this? I just sort-of…used his thigh.”

Luna’s cerulean eyes are wide, the whites as visible as the moon. ‘Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my.”

“Exactly.” Hermione grimaces. “So, the consent is a grey area. I wanted him to—to bite me. But he didn’t want to. He never touched me in a sexual manner. I was the one who—well, who crossed the line.”

“Was he angry?”

She shakes her head, wrapping her hand around the emerald pendant around her neck. “Not about that. He was more angry that I made him come back for no reason.”

“I’m glad you explained the Protean Charm,” Luna says. “I would have been quite confused as to how he knew to come back.”

“I do feel bad about that, but I was drunk.”

They’re both silent, and then Luna speaks again.

“So, he fed from you.”

“Yes.”

“Was it…okay?”

Hermione sits back and watches the fire crackling in the fireplace, mulling over her thoughts to form a solid opinion. Up until now, she’s been so focused on her anger at him having hurt her that she hasn’t actually given the thought to the future like she promised herself she would.

“I don’t want him to die. I do want to give him my blood,” she says decisively, choosing each word carefully, “but what happened on the Owlery bridge was a little overwhelming. I’m not a prude, but it is Malfoy.”

“That’s understandable, especially given the fact that he put you in the Infirmary.”

“Yes, that’s a situation.”

“A situation indeed.”

“In any case, it was too intimate, and that’s the main issue I’m having. I’m not sure how I can continue to feed him and help him if I have to compromise my comfort.”

“Well,” Luna says, twirling a lock of her wavy hair around one finger, “maybe there’s a way that you could…do it yourself…without the usage of his thigh?”

It takes a second before they both burst out laughing. They laugh until their stomachs hurt and tears fill their eyes. When their laughter finally subsides, Hermione speaks.

“Well, I can’t use my hand. I’ll be lost in my own head, and it will only make it a worse experience. I need something that’s going to make the show happen, no matter what state of mind I’m in.”

“Like forcing yourself to?”

Hermione takes a deep breath and, while her embarrassment and shyness goes to war with heat all over her body, she says, “Yes.”

“How could you do that?”

Hermione thinks. She taps her chin and she thinks. She thinks, and she thinks, and she thinks, and then it hits her.

“I think I know exactly what will do the trick.”

“Really?” Luna props herself up on her elbows, her hair cascading across the pillow. “What?”

“Do you have any copies of Witch Weekly?”

The item she orders from the back section of Witch Weekly arrives within two days. Harry asks her curiously what it is and she lies and tells him it's jewelry. In reality, it's something completely different.

She isn’t sure why she feels so excited about this when not that long ago, she was still unsure if she would ever feed him her blood again. There’s still a small part of her that’s too stubborn to forgive him. 

But she can’t deny that what happened on the Owlery changed things for her.

He is a vampire. He's going to be hungry and stay hungry, and there’s only one way to make that go away. Extraordinary self-restraint or not, Malfoy is still a danger to the students of Hogwarts if he doesn’t receive blood. He can't run from himself forever.

In any case, having this new item plus the Perception Amplification charm are two suits of armor in her arsenal that will protect her. He’ll still be stronger than her but at least they’ll be on more even ground in case he loses control. 

This is unavoidable, so she might as well make the most of it.

In the Room of Requirement, she tucks the paper bag and its special, hidden item into the drawer full of vampire-killing weapons. Draco won’t want to look at that drawer so until the time comes that he wants to feed, it will be safe.

“Harmonia nectere passus.”

Hermione works on the cabinet, placing a ripe, fresh green apple inside of it. It comes back shriveled and brown. She casts a spell to revert it back to ripe and sets it inside again.

As she works, she daydreams unabashedly about not only the Owlery incident, but what their next feeding encounter might be like. About his hands and the way they felt against her when he lifted her on the battlements. About the way his lips felt against her neck, which has always been the most sensitive spot on her body. The effortless way he’d whispered encouragement and praise into her ear, as though nothing shamed him. How he looked at her like she’s on fire.

The way he looks at her.

“Harmonia nectere passus.”

The apple comes back brown all over, but not shriveled.

She’s never been looked at like that before—like she’s a lifeline in a storm. It has everything to do with her blood but here, alone in this room, she can imagine that maybe he sees her as a lifeline for other reasons.

Had he enjoyed the way she ground against his thigh, too?

She mulls that one over until she’s done working on what she needs to for the potion, and then she decides to go to the Library to read.

“Harmonia nectere passus.”

The apple comes back, save for a single two-inch bruise on the side. 

They're so close. 

There are eyes in the stars.

Hermione can see them up above her. They watch her through trillions of years of time with the dust particles of cosmic inevitably stretching between them. They trace back to the beginning of time, swirling together in a way that makes her feel like she’s up there with them, floating in the darkness with things unnamed and unseen, a tiny blip of nothing amongst the backdrop of eternity.

She wonders what else is up there, and if it's as empty as she feels sometimes.

She still can't believe she almost fixed the cabinet. She hasn't expected much, despite her determination, and she's been mentally preparing herself for the worst. Even Malfoy seemed to be getting more pessimistic about it. But now, he'd been working on the cabinet all day yesterday and today, and Hermione can feel success floating nearer and nearer. She  has gone over the plan in her mind repeatedly. 

When it arrives, they'll have to leave on a weekend. They'll enter the cabinet to get to Borgin & Burke's. Once there, they'll pick some way to destroy the cabinet. When that happens, they might be in an unknown level of danger in the instance that someone on the Dark Lord's side sees. The fastest way to get back would be for Malfoy to Apparate them back to Hogsmeade, though Hermione isn't looking forward to it. Apparition causes nausea and they'll have to go through several cities to get there. Even if they go shorter distances, the risk of her becoming sick is prevalent.

It'll be worth it.

Once they return, they'll head back to the castle and destroy the Hogwarts cabinet in the Room of Requirement, thereby making it completely impossible for anyone to link another cabinet to it. And finally, Malfoy has agreed to turn himself in to the Order in exchange for their support for a retroactive grace period for his registration, sanctuary in case of a war, and some sort of pardon for taking the Mark. He knows he won't be able to go home but he's assured both Hermione and Luna that he'll be fine. Hogwarts was the safest place for him to be.

After spending most of the evening reading an extremely intriguing novel about a troll who let a witch cross his bridge without the password because of her beauty, she finds herself accidentally in the library after hours. The lanterns dim, leaving Hermione suddenly straining to see the words etched onto the parchment pages. At first, she thinks she should leave but when she turns the page of her book and sees that the troll and the witch are about to snog, she simply can’t.  She has to keep reading.

And so it was that Hermione found herself wandering the corridors on her way to the Astronomy Tower by lumos light at ten ‘o’ clock in the night on Saturday. It was dark, so dark that her wand’s light could hardly penetrate the shadows. Even the faint, glowing lines of the Bloody Baron as he drifted by outside the foot of the tower stairs were not visible enough to seep through. The loneliness of late-night Hogwarts was almost comforting in the way it reminded her of Harry and Ron, and the things those two used to do at all hours of the night. 

She can see why. It’s comforting sometimes, the dark.

Turning, she decides it’s best that she leave the frigid open air of the Astronomy Tower now. It was a tempting idea when she realized that she could literally go anywhere that she wanted in the castle and possibly not get caught, but she’s a little too alone with her thoughts up here. Her thoughts, her memories, and the resounding soberness of feeling so alone And with her brain forcing her to relive the embarrassingly-wanton way she’d acted when she was sozzled at the Owlery, it’s time to go.

Hermione can only get lost in daydreams for so many hours at a time.

When she reaches the stairs, she pulls out her wand. The stairwell is so dark that she knows she’ll miss a stair and tumble to her death if she doesn’t. She casts her second lumos of the night.

The magic concentrates at the tip of her wand, flooding the top few stairs with beams of light, and her heart leaps into her throat. She gasps.

Malfoy.

Even on the second step down from the top, he towers over her, his platinum blond hair a tousled mess on top of his head. He wears a pair of black trousers and an oversized black jumper, clearly not having been in the mood to sleep. His small stud earrings twinkle as the light hits them, and something obscure reflects in the grey of his irises.

“Oh,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

He studies her for a moment, almost as though he isn’t sure he can trust her enough to tell her, and then he says, “I come here to think sometimes.”

“I see.” She chews at her lower lip, studying him in return. There’s an intense twist in her stomach when she remembers the way he called her sweet girl. On his lips, she’s sure they tasted like sin. “Well…don’t let me stand in your way. I’m off to bed.”

She moves down one step, but he stays put. She cranes her neck to look up at him, surprised at the almost defeated look she sees there.

“Stay.”

“What?”

“Stay,” he repeats.

Hermione doesn’t know why he wants her to stay. If she didn’t know any better, she could say that he seems depressed. And the concept of him wanting her to stay in the Astronomy Tower and sit with him because he might be depressed is odd. It’s out of place, when she thinks about their past and the difference between who he was and who he seems to have become.

She can almost pretend they don’t have a past at all.

“Okay,” she says quietly, and then she turns to go back up the step, onto the tower floor.

Stepping aside, she lets Malfoy go ahead of her, following him as he walks right up to the edge and sits down. His legs dangle over the edge. The height makes Hermione feel dizzy, so she stands a ways behind him.

He turns his head, not fully, but enough to see her with his peripheral vision. “What are you doing? Come here.”

An unexplainable shiver runs down her spine and she shakes her head. 

“It’s a little high up, don’t you think?”

“Only four hundred feet.” He faces forward again, hunching forward with his forearms on his thighs and hands curved around the edge of the tower. 

“Only?”

“Granger,” he says in muted exasperation, his head tipping back. “I think I’ve proven that I won’t let you fall.”

“That was only two hundred feet,” she says, taking a few steps closer. Her stomach swoops low as she catches sight of the sheer drop to the ground. 

Directly down below is the courtyard leading to the castle entrance. To the left, she sees the grass leading to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, as well as Hagrid’s cottage illuminated beneath the waxing moon and starlight. To the right, the distant Quidditch Pitch, with its hoops that reach for the sky and House flags that wave gently in the night breeze. It’s the same view they had from the battlements, but everything looks so much smaller.

“You don’t think I could do it?”

“Catch me if I fall four hundred feet?” She pulls a bewildered facial expression. “Have you lost your damn mind?”

He tilts his head back to look up at her, and to her surprise, he’s grinning, fangs and all.

“Wanna find out?”

She swallows. “Absolutely not.”

He rights his head again, moving it so he’s staring out at the landscape again. “Then sit.”

What if she slips and falls as she’s trying to sit? What if he pushes her as a joke to try and be the prat he is, and then she falls to her imminent doom? She imagines the pain as every single one of her bones breaks on the stone below will be so excruciating that the last thought she’ll have before she dies will be that it hurts. A lot.

“Today, Granger.”

Her shoulders jump as his voice jolts her. After another moment of hesitation, she moves towards the edge. Gulping down her terror, she starts to sink down. Her legs shake and she clutches her wand with her left hand as she places her right hand flat on the tower floor to steady herself. When she finally feels solid, cold stone beneath her, she exhales.

“See? You’re fine.”

Glancing at him where he sits a foot away from her, she wrinkles her nose.

“I’m not fine.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m not fine, Malfoy!” She looks up at the sky, refusing to look down again lest she pitch forward and die in midair. “I’m afraid.”

“You? Afraid?” He turns his face up to the sky, too. “There’s entirely too much of that lately.”

“Me? Or me being afraid?”

“A little bit of both.”

Forgetting it’s not Harry or Ron she’s sitting next to, her hand lashes out to smack him against the upper arm. But instead of him reacting with some sort of angry outburst, he laughs. He actually laughs.

It’s alien.

They sit and gaze at the stars in silence for a while, and it’s rather calming. The longer she sits there, the more stable she feels, and the less concerned she is with the height. Rationality kicks in. As a vampire, Malfoy’s reflexes are so fast, he’d probably catch her before she even slipped. That thought sobers her even more than the cold and the dark.

“Do you see eyes in the stars?” she asks into the quiet.

“...what?”

“I feel like there’s eyes in every star. Like they’re watching us.”

“You mean like they’re sentient?”

She nods. “It’s not a farfetched idea.”

“You…are just fucking mental.”

“Says the guy who went barmy over a bit of blood and tried to kill me because of it.”

“No, I tried to kill you because you pissed me off.”

“No, you tried to kill me because you’re an entitled arse who, at the time, believed he had a right to my blood.”

He slowly turns his head to look at her. “I tried to kill you because I’m a piece of fucking shit, and every day that I’m near you, I think about the fact that I could do it again if I wanted to. And I do want to. Every second of every day, I think about you. It makes me so fucking angry that I can’t even see straight. Did you know that when we were in the Room of Requirement, I contemplated stunning Luna so I could get to you? Did you know that? That I wanted it so badly that I could have done it? I almost did.”

The look in his eyes is dead. A void. The chill in her spine spreads to her arms, raising hair and pebbles on her skin beneath her thick jumper. By the light of the lumos she forgot to put out, she can see that his eyes are still grey.

They’re still grey.

“Really,” she says as though he’s just shared a moderately interesting piece of information. 

“Really.”

Hermione doesn’t say anything to that. There’s no point. He’s not trying to scare her, nor is he trying to hurt her. He’s not trying to gaslight her or make her think any of it is her fault. He’s not trying to make her feel bad for him.

He’s simply stating the truth. Malfoy could kill her. He wants to drink her blood, and he can’t help it.

That is why the Ministry wants vampires registered.

They both look out at the stars again.

“Why were you here tonight?” he asks, his tone suddenly dispassionate. “At the tower.”

“I was watching the stars.”

He hums in response.

“Sometimes,” she says quietly, “I like to imagine them falling. I think one day, the sky will run out of space for them all.”

It’s not the most intelligent thing she’s ever said, but does she really care about seeming intelligent to him?

“I was named after a constellation,” he says, the words seeming to fall from his lips like cascading raindrops. The sentence tapers off like he regretted not holding the words inside. Like they’d escaped.

Hermione catches the words and holds them. “Your constellation had a meteor shower in October.”

“The Draconids. It looks like they’re coming out of the dragon’s head.”

“I watched it from my window as best I could,” she says. “It was beautiful.”

He’s quiet for a while, the only sound Hermione can hear coming from the wind so high up. She thinks he can probably hear her heart beating, with how enhanced his senses are.

“Sometimes I feel like a dragon,” he finally says, and it feels like it’s another thing that he didn’t want to say. There’s a chest that hides his secret thoughts and it’s open. “Other times, I feel smaller.”

“I feel small sometimes, too.” She hesitates, choosing her words carefully. She isn’t his friend but she isn’t a cold person. He’s clearly been in a right state since coming back, so something must have bothered him during his trip. She isn’t sure what it could be. “But even the smallest dragon has flames that burn.”

They look at one another and he arches one eyebrow. The thoughts wash across his face as her words sink in, and then the confusion melts into a sense of understanding that she recognizes.

Acceptance. 

“Interesting way to look at things,” he says, rubbing the edge of his jaw with one palm. “So you like the stars, then?”

“I do.”

“Me, too.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighteen

The quiet returns. It feels like they’re both lingering on a bridge, the past at their back and an unknown land on the other side. It’s more than awkward, but it feels like it's necessary.

“What’s your favorite constellation?”

Hermione isn’t sure she heard him correctly. “Are you…asking me what I like?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t decide which I like better: Perseus or Hercules. They both have mythological origins that I enjoyed studying.” She taps her chin, looking at a particular star absentmindedly as she tries to articulate her opinion. “I like Perseus because he was selfless, and he did the things he did because he wanted to save people. And I like Hercules because he was selfish in the way that one sometimes needs to be to do the right thing.”

“You like the heroic types, don’t you?”

“So what if I do?” she says, her tone clipped and strained. All it takes from him to raise her temper is one sentence. He can be so exhausting. “I like people who do the right thing.”

“I think that you’re tired.”

She looks up at him, still clutching her wand, and he’s already looking at her. “Tired?”

“I think you’re tired.” His gaze flickers up and down her face, his brows furrowing as though what he’s saying is troubling to him. “Tired of being the one that has all the answers. The one in control. Because it means that the responsibility of the outcome falls to you, every time, without fail. And when it falls to you, that means failure is your fault. Even if you succeed, the failures on the way still keep you up at night. Don’t they?”

His words sink in, ringing so true that it makes her throat ache and eyes sting. It’s so bizarre hearing it from him yet so right that it cuts through to the core of her, rendering her speechless.

All she can do is nod.

“Nothing to say to that?”

“No, I…it's not that,” she says. It feels like he’s trying to pull words out of her that she doesn’t want to say. She has them, but she doesn’t want to give them to him lest he break them. “I’m just so used to being the one making all the analysis. I’m not used to—to—”

“To being seen?”

She stares up at him and for a moment, forgets that they’re hundreds of feet in the air with only the stars and the forest to bear witness.

“To being analyzed,” she says slowly, “though I’m curious to know what it is that you see in me that others don’t seem to.”

“All I have to do to see the real you is watch you, Granger. The way you try so desperately to hold control over everything, from your incessant need to meddle with the murders in Hogsmeade, to the fact that you can’t seem to let me have any modicum of control over my own health shows me…? It’s a mask that covers who you really are. You’ve got to be fucking exhausted.”

“What are you talking about?” she asks angrily. “Your health? What?”

“Do you or do you not decide when and if I eat?”

“Not—not necessarily. You can eat whoever and whenever you’d like. It’s just that if you choose me, then—”

“You get to decide when it happens and where, right?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Right?”

She pouts, because that’s all there is left to do. “Yes.”

“Then there you go.” He throws up a hand, like he’s reached enlightenment after years of study. “Hermione Granger finally admits she’s a control freak.”

Her jaw drops. “Malfoy.”

But he’s smiling. It’s only half of a smile, with just a peek of one fang, and he’s looking at the ground, but…

It’s a smile.

“I’m not a control freak,” she says around a smile of her own, looking down at the plaid fabric of her skirt. She plucks at her opaque black tights. “I just feel like I have good ideas and that they’re what works best.”

“And that no one else could possibly have any good ideas?”

“All right, fine. What good ideas could you possibly have?”

“I’ll just pick a few charmers from the list.” He lifts his hand, counting on his slender fingers. “I think if you let me feed normally and regularly, I’d be less likely to snap and try to kill you again. I also think that there are ways to combat the whole aphrodisiacal properties of my saliva thing. And if I had to guess, I’d say you probably have some sort of plan you’re Occluding from me to involve yourself in the Hogsmeade murders next full moon—my idea for that is that you just don’t, you just leave it alone, and you stay in the castle so that I don’t have to drink a murderer’s blood to save you.”

“We all have to do things we don’t like to do sometimes,” Hermione says in a light, sarcastic tone. “Maybe I want to be the one to find him so you’ll have to drink his blood and finally stop him from killing people. Have you ever thought about that?”

“Somehow, I don’t think it would taste as sweet as yours.”

A furious, hot heat spreads across her cheeks as they exchange glances. This is flirting, is what it is. And it’s bizarre. It’s completely weird, flirting with Draco Malfoy on top of the Astronomy Tower in the middle of the night, watching the stars with him and trying not to remember what happened between them on the Owlery bridge. 

“For the record,” she says slowly, carefully, “I do think that your first idea is a good one. I did make a mistake in trying to control the frequency and timing of the feeding. I just didn’t understand that—'' She sighs. “I didn’t want you to lose control and snap.”

“And look what happened.”

“Stuff it, bloodsucker.”

He barks a laugh that doesn’t stop, and he clutches his stomach in a futile attempt to hold in the hearty guffaws that escape him. Hermione finds it so surreal to see and hear him laughing because of something she’s just said that she stares at him.

It’s oddly beautiful.

“Anyway,” she says when she’s tired of staring at him and generally making herself look like a foolish schoolgirl, “I think that a regular schedule would be the best option moving forward, so that we don’t encounter anymore…mishaps.”

“Mishaps like me killing you.”

She looks pointedly up at the stars. “And like what happened at the Owlery.”

“...I wouldn’t call that a mishap, but yeah.”

Hermione shoots a quick look in his direction, heat rushing even hotter over her skin when she sees that he’s already looking at her again. She quickly returns her gaze to the sky.

“I am concerned about the future, however. We can set up a regular schedule—that’s not a problem. But where is the cutoff date?”

“The cutoff date?”

Their eyes meet. He’s got his head tilted to the side like a curious owl.

“It’s a tunnel with no ending in sight, Malfoy,” she says in a low tone, as though there might be eavesdroppers. “What are you supposed to do? Feed off of me forever?”

“There’s twenty rooms in the Manor. I’m sure we can find a place for you if need be.”

Her heart, which has been steadily beating out her nervousness, now flutters to a complete, dead stop in her chest. She feels faint. If not for her will to survive, she might have pitched forward over the edge of the sheer drop they now perch upon.

He wants her to live at the Manor? The Malfoy Manor? The place that would likely shake at its foundation if a Muggle-born moved in? The place he calls home?

He wants her to stick around?

“You think I can’t find my own accommodations?” she asks, unable to hide the tremors in her voice. “I’m perfectly capable of living wherever I please. In fact, I plan to own a cottage in Dover.”

Malfoy wrinkles his nose. “Eugh. Dover?”

“Yes, Dover.”

“It smells like fish.”

“And?”

“I don’t like seafood.”

“Well, it’s a cute town,” she says with a haughty sniff, “and I’m not inclined to give it up for a cold, barren room made of stone in a drafty old manor.”

“Granger, let me explain something to you.” He turns to look at her and she returns his gaze, their faces closer together than before in his enthusiasm. His eyes twinkle like the very stars that shine over them. “Do you understand how much money I have? You could keep your cottage in Dover, live at the Manor, and buy ten more cottages all over the United Kingdom if that’s what you wanted. And to top it off, there could be a library full of books in each one.”

“I never said I wanted a library.”

He gives her a pointed, amused look, as if to tell her to stop playing around. “You want a library.”

“And you’d just give me access to the Malfoy family fortune?”

“You’d be keeping me alive. That deserves some sort of reward, doesn’t it?”

Shaking her head in incredulity, she says, “What in Merlin’s beard are you going to do next?! Ask for my hand in marriage?!”

“I don’t fancy marrying my food.” He laughs again, jarring her. “Though I’m sure there are some wizards who marry their—their pastries, or something.”

She giggles at that, powerless to stop her mirth.

“There was.”

“Really?”

“Yes. There was. It was in 1947. A wizard named Jiminy McSwilligan got married but his bride left him for the baker of their cake. As part of his vengeance, he put a stasis charm on the cake and married it.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’ve never seen you look so shocked, but no, I’m not joking. It’s a true story. I read about it in a book my…Ithink it was my Fourth Year?”

Malfoy shakes his head. “Fuck. Just when I thought I knew the depths of Pureblood depravity.”

“You have depth?”

It’s his turn to reach out to smack her on the upper arm, forgetting the severity of his own strength as the back of his hand connects with her bicep. She nearly falls over the edge of the tower, her hand lashing out to twist in the fabric of his jumper. Like lightning, his hand curves around the right dip of her waist, yanking her back toward him to press her against his side. 

“You okay?” he asks, his voice rough yet shaky. 

Her body rigid and fingers clenched tight, she glares up at him. “I hate you so much right now.”

“Don’t you hate me always?”

“Yes. But it’s exceeding expectations at the moment.”

“You always did get top marks.”

She tsks and relaxes, finding that she feels much safer where she’s sitting now than she did a foot away. Allowing her hands to return to her lap, she exhales her terror so she can inhale a calmer disposition. His body is warm, as warm as a sauna, and it provides the necessary shield from the biting spring night wind. She hadn’t realized that she’d been shivering for the duration of their conversation and now, as the relief of the warmth settles into her flesh, she finds it would be remiss of her to not lean into it, to not press her temple against the side of his shoulder.

Malfoy doesn’t remove his hand, and he doesn’t react to where she now rests her head.

“If it makes you feel better,” he says, “I would like to find a solution, too. Something that keeps me from having to register and losing the rights to my family property. Something that allows me to have a future. Otherwise, I’ll have to leave the United Kingdom and go somewhere that will.”

Something inside of her curls up and dies at the thought, but she doesn’t have the energy to do anything other than Occlude the thought away before he can pick up on it.

“We’ll find a solution. It just might be less than ideal.”

“Ideal being…?”

“Me being your one and only source of sustenance for the rest of our lives.” She stares at a tree in the Forbidden Forest that, while taller than a lot of the surrounding trees, still looks miniscule from this height. “That’s too dangerous.”

“And I’m guessing you have plans for your future?”

“Yes, in fact, I do,” she says matter-of-factly. “I want to work for the Ministry helping Magical Creatures, Beasts, and Beings attain equality.”

When he laughs again, she feels it rumbling in his chest. “So living at the Manor is a possibility.”

“It’s absurd.”

“You want the East wing or the West?”

“It is absurd.”

“But you’re not saying no.”

“We’ve never even kissed, and you’re asking me to move into your house, Malfoy!” she cries, sputtering a laugh. “You’re absurd.”

His hand slides up her waist, tickling her ribcage before it slides back down again. “You seem to have a penchant for danger. Meddling in the serial murders committed by an unknown assailant. Getting sozzled and playing on the parapets. Now you’re hinting you want to snog a vampire? Naughty, naughty.”

“Shut up,” she mumbles, her cheeks hot again. “You don’t know anything about what I have a penchant for.”

I hate who he turns me into, she thinks in spite of herself, unable to Occlude it away fast enough. If Harry and Ron could see me now, they’d be revolted.

“Change is a choice Granger. If you don’t want to let poison into your heart, then perhaps you should close the doors.”

“They are closed,” she says, but it sounds uneasy. Like she doesn’t believe it. Like it’s so untrue that it’s unintelligent of her to say the words. “They are closed.”

“No,” he says, drawing the cadence of the word out as he uses his fingertips to pull her jaw upward so she’s forced to look up into his eyes, “they’re not.”

They stare at one another for the span of two heartbeats, and Hermione can’t seem to take her eyes off of his lips. Off of his nose, the angular shapes of his face, the way his hair falls into his eyes. The way he looks at her makes her feel like she’s never been looked at before. Like she’s the only thing he wants to see.

“You’re as pretty as a star, Granger,” he whispers, and his fingers tickle at her ribs once again. His gaze darts down to her mouth when she runs her tongue over her lower lip, then back up. “Why would I look at anything else?”

Oh.

He can hear her thoughts.

Right.

Embarrassed and overwhelmed, Hermione turns her face away. The spell breaks, and they look out at the stars again.

“So,” Hermione says quietly, “how are you feeling about everything now? Your father, I mean.”

He doesn’t answer for a period of time, the troubled look that she’d seen on his face before having returned the moment she yanked him back to reality. It’s like he’s dismayed that the distraction she’d been providing is now gone. Like he doesn’t want to think about it but he has to.

“Conflicted,” he finally says.

“In what way?”

“What he did was…wrong. He attacked students. He brought Death Eaters into the Ministry. And now he’s in Azkaban. He watched while a madman had me turned into a vampire, eradicating the future of the Malfoy line. But he's still my father.”

He trails off, his hand sliding away from her waist so he can slip his fingers up into her curls, fingertips massaging her scalp absentmindedly. The sudden feeling of pleasure that erupts all over her head reaches down to her toes. She curls them in her boots to manage the rush. 

Suddenly, it all makes sense. The conflict. The trouble. The solemnity. And it’s something that she understands from a personal perspective, from the deepest, guiltiest part of her heart. The only difference is that in this instance, she’s the only one who deserves to feel guilty. She’s the one who's going to hurt her parents. His parents hurt him.

It’s difficult, realizing that she might be a worse person than a Death Eater.

“Do you miss him?” she asks. “Your father.”

Another delayed response. “I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

Malfoy’s fingers twitch, playing with the knot at the top of one braid. “It’s hard to miss him when he's the reason why I’m dead.”

“Do you—”

“Let’s go back.” 

He stands up and sets her on her feet in one fluid movement, faster than she can blink, and then heads for the stairs. Hermione has no choice but to follow him.

She might as well get used to it. If she doesn’t figure out another solution—a way to stop the train, as it were—then she’s going to end up moving into the damn Malfoy Manor. And while yes, Dover does smell like fish, she imagines the Manor smells like death.

Malfoy stops at the bottom of the stairs and turns to look at her again, his gaze cutting through the shadows.

“Occlude better, if you don’t want me to hear you,” he says, his tone bitter. “I’ve heard every single thing you’ve thought tonight.”

Hermione’s cheeks burn with the heat of shame. This may be their first time really getting along, but she doesn't want to hurt his feelings. She doesn’t want to hurt him.

In the corridor, Hermione casts her lumos. Malfoy does not because technically, he doesn’t need it. They begin to walk. The silence between them is so tense that it makes Hermione’s skin crawl. She knows why he’s being like this, and it’s her fault.

“If you’re cross with me for talking about your parents, then just say so,” she spits out. “Instead of freezing me out like a child.”

“Mind your tongue, Granger,” he growls. “Your insolence angers me.”

“And let me guess?” she bites out. “When you get angry, you get hungry?”

“Do you want to fucking find out?” 

The pace of his walking has sped to the point where she’s getting out of breath trying to keep up with him. It’s clear that talking about his parents was too much for him. It’s a sore spot she never should have prodded.

“Why do you have to be like that?” she pants in an irate tone as they round the corner into another long, dark corridor. Her palm and fingers are sweaty on the length of her wand. “I’ve been through enough with you trying to bloody kill me. I should be able to ask you a simple question.”

“You know what?” He whirls on her, coming to a complete stop. “Shut the fuck up. For once in your life, just shut the fuck up. It’s not all about you all the time. This isn’t your story anymore.”

“Lower your voice,” she hisses, glancing around. “Do you want to bring Mrs. Norris down here, and Filch with her?”

He’s glaring at her, and the light of her wand casts macabre shadows onto his face.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“I will. I will tell you what to do,” she retorts, one hand going to her hip. “I’ll tell you what to do all I want. And to answer your completely asinine statement—life is not a story. It’s not a flat two-dimensional depiction of one person’s perspective of another’s existence. I read. I know what a story looks like. And if this were my story? You certainly wouldn’t be the hero.”

“And what would you do if I told you I’m the hero of my own story?”

“Depends. Are you Hercules or Perseus?” she asks, watching the way their feet enter and exit the ring of lumos light.

“Neither.”

“Then who are you?”

“Hera.”

Malfoy flashes forward, the suddenness of his vampiric speed as he shoves her toward the wall causing her to drop her wand to the ground. It makes a loud clattering noise and rolls away, taking the small ring of lumos light to the opposite side of the corridor. 

“And I’m hungry,” he hisses.

There’s a storm swirling in Hermione’s body, and it doesn’t care about any of the things she discussed with Luna. The prospect of feeling the things she felt on the bridge to the Owlery overcomes any logical thought processes she’d mulled over since the previous night. Of hearing his voice in her ear again. Of feeling his lips on her skin. His fangs sinking deep into her neck.

“Then eat.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Nineteen

Hermione sucks in her breath and holds it as she presses back against the wall, looking up at him in fear and confusion. She hasn’t even the time to decide whether or not to breathe before he’s in her atmosphere, a star falling from her sky. His fingertips slide down the wall until his palms are flat against the stone by her head. It’s too dark to tell the look he has in his eyes, but she surmises it can’t be sane.

“Is that what you want?” he whispers.

“It’s what you need.”

“And you want to give me what I need?”

His question is layered, fead on top of guilt on top of remorse.

She’s powerless to stand up to her primal self. She wants to feel whatever it is that Malfoy wants to make her feel. She wants to give him her blood.

It terrifies her.

Hermione tilts her face to the side. Even though she can’t see him, she knows he can see her, can see her showing him her vulnerability in a way that neither of them expected. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

Challenging herself, she supposes.

“Nothing will happen that you don't want to happen,” he says without moving to touch her. “All right?”

It takes her a second to register what hes saying and when she does, she almost starts to cry. She'd forgotten. 

Malfoy had not.

“Okay,” she says, her voice quivering. “Thank you.”

“Tell me to stop, and I will. I promise.”

Hermione closes her eyes and nods. She doesn't fully believe he can, but she does believe that he will try. It's that thought that keeps her honest and firmly on the dangerous path she's traversing. The winding, rose and thorn flanked path that leads to a vampire.

To him. 

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” he says, a pain entering his voice that she selfishly enjoys hearing. He's afraid she'll change her mind. His face is closer, his breath hot. It’s too intense, the way the small distance feels like it’s catching fire. “Don’t play at gifts you don’t think I deserve.”

“I do think you deserve it,” she whispers, licking her lips. The fresh wetness causes his breath to feel cool instead of warm for a few seconds. “I think you’ve tried…tried v-very hard. You’ve been...good.”

“I’ve been good?”

She nods.

“Do I deserve a reward?” He brushes his nose along her jawline, down the side of her throat. “Hm? Do I?” He presses a kiss to her pulse, like a preliminary tasting. Her skin feels so sensitive that it hurts her stomach. “Have I been good enough?”

She feels faint. Her reply comes out in a sigh. “Yes.”

“Fuck.”

The white-hot pain as he sinks his fangs into her neck is only fleeting, a brief glimpse of a star dying in space. Then, there is bliss. Absolute euphoria that burns as hot as that same star’s birth, parting her lips to gasp to the ceiling. She can feel her blood spilling out of the twin puncture wounds, filling him. Feeding him. 

Rewarding him.

He sucks. Savors. Swallows.

The stone cracks as his claws dig, dig, dig until they sink in. His other hand comes up to cup the side of her throat, fingertips spanning her jaw and the base of her skull, and it feels so good to have him touch her that she has to stifle a moan. 

He hears it.

The scrape of his fangs becomes voracious, his mouth almost sloppy as his tongue and lips map constellations on her skin. Perseus, with his selfless sword. Hercules, with his selfish blade. The fearsome lion’s dead, broken body, placed by Hera for all to see.

As he licks and sucks his way through Draconis and it’s snakelike body, she loses the last of the chains on her control. They snap apart.

“Oh, my God,” she groans. “Draco.”

Hermione throws her arms around Draco’s neck and grabs his head, holding his face as close to her as she can get it. She threads her fingers through his hair, a forbidden thrill pressing her thighs together. Her stomach won’t stop twisting into knots over and over, and the feeling sends low pulses to the place between her legs. Gods be damned, does his tongue feel good digging into the wounds. Her eyelids flutter and her eyes roll upward.

She’s going to scream.

Draco slams a hand over her mouth, his fingertips digging into her cheek with just the slightest press of his claw tips. He growls like an animal, forcing her face further to the side to give him more access to her neck. His left hand has a tight hold of her waist. There’s blood in her braids.

Her body writhes.

He lifts his head to take a couple of gasping breaths, and then his lips graze the shell of her ear. 

“Do you wanna know the one thing that I will never forget about the day you almost died?” he whispers, and she squirms beneath his hand, seeing only darkness above her head in the empty corridor. “The way your blood tasted the closer to death you crawled. It got so sweet that I felt like I would simply cease to exist if I stopped feeding off of you for even one second. And now, there are nights when I lay awake craving you so badly that the only thing that grants me reprieve is myself.”

Her mind is blank. There’s no thoughts for him to peek in on.

She just wants him to start feeding again.

“All I have to do is think of you and I’m starving. I’m starving and I’m hard.” He grinds his hips into hers, showing her how true his words are. His knee slides up between her legs. He’s so tall that it doesn’t take much for him to press it against the apex of her thighs. She whimpers with need, her thighs squeezing around it as she recalls what it felt like with him last time. What it feels like now. “You feel that, sweet girl? That’s because of you.”

Her heart pounds faster, slamming against her chest as his fingers dig harder into her cheek. He’s hissing into her ear now, his other hand sliding up her waist and around to her lower back. When he yanks her tight against him, pulling her lower half away from the wall to do so, she gasps into his palm.

“You fucking haunt me, Granger.”

Hermione can’t take it anymore. She slips her hand in-between his forearm and her body, catching him by surprise. His hand comes away from her face, freeing her mouth. Before he registers what she’s done, she cups his cheeks, pulls him to look at her.

There’s blood smeared across his mouth and chin.

She pushes herself onto the tips of her toes and slams her mouth against his, their lips crashing together like waves in a storm. He melts into it without hesitation, like he’s been waiting for this day to come forever, and he takes complete control of it. Of her mouth, her body, her mind. She’s on fire. They’re on fire.

They’re going to burn to ash.

The kissing is rapacious, ravenous in the way his tongue delves down into her mouth. Draco’s hands clutch at the sides of her head, fingers twisting in her hair to ensure that her face stays tilted up towards him. They gasp each time their mouths separate, and they crash back together again before they can feel the emptiness. Hermione’s blood tastes metallic and sweet on her tongue, though not in the way it likely is to him, and she devours it like it’s a gift. Her arms wrap around his neck again, fingers clutching at his back, his shoulders, his hair. 

For kissing a dead guy, she’s never felt so alive.

When his fangs find her throat again, opening another wound amidst the first, she groans low in her chest. She grasps the back of his neck, her hips rolling against the hardness of his knee, feeling her journey to bliss intensifying, the train going faster and faster down the tracks. The corridor is so incredibly dark, save for the small glow of her wand across the hall, and it feels like they’re lost in their own world

“Fucking Hell. I feel like I’m drunk.” He whines the words between each swallow of her precious blood, and it sounds like he’s on the edge of hysteria. “It tastes so fucking good. I can’t stand it. I can’t. I can’t.”

He drinks more of her, moaning appreciatively in a way that curls her stomach yet again. She’s never heard a more delicious sound. When he brings his hand to clutch her throat, choking her with his fingers at the sides of it to push the blood out faster, her sanity disintegrates.

“Please, Draco,” she whispers in a desperate, strangled tone, clutching at his corded, toned shoulders while grinding her hips down against his knee in firm, quick movements. “Please, please, God, please. Pl—”

She wheezes as he squeezes her throat so hard she can’t breathe. His lips brush against her open mouth.

“Stop fucking moving,” he hisses into it, “or I’m gonna  have you against this wall.” 

Hermione squeezes her eyes shut, only adding darkness to darkness. Her chest burns with the yearning for air. She’s not scared but she knows she should be.

He could kill her right now.

“You think you deserve that?”

She can’t speak.

“I think you do,” he groans, much to her surprise, and he presses a soft kiss to her open lips. The tip of his tongue runs the width of her lower lip. “I think my sweet girl deserves a reward for making me feel so good inside.”

More blood pumps out of her wounds, dripping down her neck and into her jumper. 

“Mm-hm. I think she does.” Draco hums in approval, running his tongue flat up the blood trails. The hand of his that isn’t around her throat snakes down the front of her body, beneath the waistband of her trousers, where it plucks at her knickers. “All she needs to do is consent.”

“P-Please,” she stammers, her entire face as hot as the very flames that are consuming them. “Yes. I want my—a reward.”

“You want me to touch you?”

“Yes,” she gasps out. “Please, please touch me.”

There’s no going back now.

There’s no going back, and she feels like she’s spinning on a wild carousel. It’s going to shoot up into the air in seconds if he doesn’t—

Draco’s fingers are in her knickers. 

Draco Malfoy’s fingers are in her knickers.

They’re sliding through the curls between her legs, feeling soft flesh, dipping just centimeters inside, and sliding back up again. 

It feels so good, it feels so good, it feels so good.

When he touches her at the perfect spot, she convulses at the sharp lance of pleasure that strikes through her. 

“Fuck,” he remarks, sounding awed and amused. “You’re so wet, Granger. What a messy girl. A fucking mess for me.”

He moves back a little so he can move his hand, his fingers sliding back and forth over her until she’s got tears in her eyes from how exquisite it feels. He’s so good at this. Too good.

The edge is moments away.

“You feel so fucking slick on my fingers. I wish you knew.”

“You—you h-have a filthy…filthy mouth,” she manages to stammer out, her knuckles aching from how tight she’s holding onto his shoulders. Her hips jerk repeatedly, her core grinding against his fingertips.

“Oh yeah?” He breathes a laugh against her lips. “ I can make it filthier.”

On the final word, he slips his fingers down and curls them. With a twist of his wrist to face his palm upward, he slips two fingers inside of her and sets a gentle yet unforgiving pace. The sound of her arousal is clear in the slap, slap, slap of his hand against her as he pleasures her with it.

Draco’s fangs create a third wound in her neck and between the two different euphorias, she’s lost her mind. His hand is quick to cover her mouth again, stifling her screaming moans. He feeds from her with hunger that can only be considered voracious, and her feet turn inward. Her knees knock together. Something sharp and concentrated grows in-between her quivering thighs. She hasn’t even the strength to roll her hips, he’s treating her that good.

She’s never felt like this before.

He rips his mouth away from her wounds, her blood dripping from his mouth as he pulls his head back far enough to look down at her neck once again.

“I want your blood.” His fingers slam in and out of her, rendering her boneless. “I want you bleeding all over my fingers so I can suck them clean.”

She whimpers because it’s all she can manage behind his heavy palm. His fingers are relentless, hitting a place inside her that she had no idea could even be found.

“I want it coating my tongue, smeared across my fucking face as I lick you until you fucking cry.” 

Sir.

Hermione lets loose a muffled wail, her eyes squeezing shut against tears of bliss.

“I want you to spill your blood all over me so I can fuck it back into you. Would you like that?”

She whimpers.

He removes his hand and places it around her throat again, fingers painting her own blood red across her brown skin.

“I asked you, would you like that?”

“Yes,” she sobs out, the back of her head smacking into the rock wall lightly, her fingernails gouging into the warm flesh of his shoulders. “Yes. Please. I’m sorry. Yes.”

“Sorry? What are you sorry for? You're perfect.”

It’s so much. It’s so good. The heel of his palm keeps hitting her where its concentrated and intense, sliding her wetness across it. Her legs shake. Her mind spins with galaxies. 

She’s going to come.

Hermione grabs his wrist like a lifeline as she starts thrusting her hips to meet the stab of his fingers. It increases her pleasure, deepening her desperation. Her groans are guttural, her pleas throaty whispers.

She feels like an animal, too.

“Just like that,” he groans, dropping sensual, heated kisses to her jaw, ear, and neck. “Fuck my fingers just like that. You deserve it for how good your blood tastes. You deserve it for making me so fucking happy.”

She’s so close. So, so close. 

Her eyelids crack open so she can look at his silhouette and pretend she can see his violet eyes. He kisses her again, swallowing her almost-anguished cries, his hand never losing the strength to keep its pace. He hits her pearl again and again and again.

“Meow.”

Hermione’s heartbeat halts.

There’s a voice in the previous corridor.

“It’s Filch,” Hermione whispers, terrified. “He’s co—oh, God.”

Draco brings his wet, sopping fingers to that sweet, concentrated place and begins to touch it softly, gently. It’s just what she needs.

She goes boneless.

“Meow,” says Mrs. Norris again.

Hermione’s head lolls to the side. The angle of the lumos of her fallen wand causes the eyes of the cat to look reflective. The tabby is sitting beside them, a few yards away, waiting patiently for Filch to make it around the corner with a twitching tail.

They’re in trouble.

“If you want your reward, you’d better do it now, sweet girl.” His tongue touches her ear and then he licks up the last of her blood. “Be a good girl and come before it’s too late.”

Footsteps are coming down the corridor. Draco’s bloody hand presses her face into his chest. She musters up all of her strength to remain immobile as Filch nears the corner.

“I’m on my way, Mrs. Norris, my darling,” he says in a nasally tone reserved specifically for his feline companion. “Don’t you fret.” 

He comes around the corner with his lantern raised high. Draco moves slightly, shielding Hermione from view with his body as his fingers rub against her with the right everything: the right pressure, the right cadence, the right speed. Her arousal leaks down her inner thigh. 

The moment Filch comes to a stop beside them, she falls over the edge.

She stays deathly still, her hands sliding down to Draco’s chest, where her fingers go numb from the orgasm tingling all through her body. Her body twitches from head to foot, her toes curling tight where they’re hidden by her mary janes. She tells herself not to thrust her hips, not to convulse, and when his fingers don’t stop their gentle assault, she tells herself to cry silently from the ecstasy. 

“‘Oo is that with yew, Malfoy?” Filch snarls. “What are yew doing out of bed?!”

Draco says nothing, discreetly pulling his hand out of Hermione’s knickers and slipping both hands into the pockets of his trousers. And before Filch starts reprimanding, she slips out from beneath Draco’s arm, scrambles to grab her wand, and goes dashing down the corridor towards Gryffindor Tower.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Four

The following morning, Hermione wakes sore between her legs and in several places on her throat. She spends some extra time after taking her bloodied braids out and having a shower applying some extra Dittany she that she long ago stole from the ingredients closet in Potions, and then spends even more time staring at the bruises that ring her neck. The back of her head hurts where it slammed against the wall, and her lips are tender from how hard he had kissed them.

She feels thoroughly run through, and it was only two of his fingers.

It takes her an embarrassingly shorter amount of time to realize that the first person she wants to see today is him. There’s some freedom in that, the surrender. Not playing games with him or herself anymore. Leaning into what they could be.

The living at the Manor thing will need to be a discussion, though.

Hermione takes care in her appearance that day, wearing some light make-up and a lip stain, and letting her kinky curls hang in spirals down her arms. She chooses a nice bordeaux color jumper to wear with a pleated plaid miniskirt and black tights. Slipping into some Mary Janes, she heads out of her dorm to breakfast. 

She’s never been this sort of girl, but she supposes for the right guy, she could be.

Which isn’t to say Draco is the right guy. He’s the worst guy, to be quite frank, and he’s not the sort-of person she would have imagined for herself. His personality is positively bone-shuddering. He likes to pretend he can get deep when in reality, he’s a fortress that reaches higher than the walls of Azkaban. Everything is a game to him, even when he’s angry. It’s just part of the match. A match that he believes he’s winning every time, even if he’s out of moves. 

He does have some redeeming qualities, though. He’s downright intelligent, and that’s not something she can set aside. He’s got a whip-smart sense of humor that enables him to banter without delays or hesitation. He seems to care about human life, given the fact that he’s been starving himself for months to avoid hurting other people. He’s obviously attractive, as irrelevant as that is, and he seems to have a good grasp on what’s “really going on,” which is good for politics.

Not that Hermione cares about politics, per se, but at least for magical creatures’ sake, she does.

But putting all these things out on the table, she has to admit: he’s a whole person with no missing parts. She can’t pretend that last night, she snogged only the good parts of him. Especially given the filth that had fallen from those lips. It was all of him that he’d given to her last night.

What parts of herself had she given him?

In the Great Hall, Draco is not present and the tables are sparsely filled. It looks even emptier than it did the previous day. There’s only four days until exams before spring holiday, so Hermione assumes most students are studying all over the castle, in nooks and crannies. All of them, completely unaware of what’s coming. What’s already arrived.

None of them know that in two months, she’ll be erasing her parents’ memories and embarking on a new journey of life at the Weasley’s because she’ll have no other choice, and nowhere else to go. And with the cabinet being so, so close to being fixed, each day that draws closer is another day that goes by completely normally for her peers.

She glances at Neville Longbottom, who’s sitting at Gryffindor by himself. He’s always by himself. He’s scarfing down his eggs with his gaze focused on a huge book that she guesses must be Herbology-centric. 

What if he’s the werewolf Luna’s hiding?

He’s certainly got the energy about him. He’s scruffy, with shaggy brown hair and stubble, and his clothing is rumpled as though he just threw them on because he doesn’t truly belong in them. Could that be because his true nature is that of a wolf? And since he’s always alone, then it wouldn’t seem out of place if Luna completely ignores his existence in the corridors—better to hide the secret.

Hmm…

When she's done eating, she heads to the Room of Requirement, greets Luna, and they get to work.

“If I have to hear about it one more time , I swear I’ll just…lose it.”

Luna sighs where she sits at the table in the room, stirring the Wolfsbane potion, speaking over the loud volume of the stereo that they’d turned up a couple of hours ago so they could dance around the room and on top of the couch. 

“Oh, Hermione. I think castle gossip is the least of your worries. Exams are this Friday!”

“I'm just saying.” Hermione pauses in cutting ingredients on a wooden board. She makes a sour face. “They keep bringing it up like they known I'm lying but they don't want to believe I could actually be friends with him. And Lord have mercy, but if they find out what we did at the Astronomy Tower lanight.nl.next thing you know, Harry’s marching across the castle, Ron’s casting Unforgivables, and Rita Skeeter’s sneaking into my room to eavesdrop on me again.”

“ Again ?”

“I ought to break up with him.”

“Is he your boyfriend now?” Luna asks, sounding amused.

“No. I’m gonna break up with him anyway.”

A split-second later, they’re both giggling like madwomen. 

They’ve spent the majority of their time in the room alternating between gossiping about Draco and ranting about him, and now they’ve gotten to the point where they’re repeating phrases and Hermione feels emotionally drained. 

There’s nothing that she can say that wouldn’t be avoidance.

He makes her livid and he hurts her and he literally tried to kill her, but she can’t deny it anymore. She does fancy him. At the very least, he interests her, intrigues her in the way she can’t tell how his mind works. He seems to feel guilty about what he does, but not what he is and while that seems like a healthy mindset to have, it feels so defeating. 

She’s already accepted his apology, but has she forgiven him? Is she still holding bitterness in her heart? And if so, how is she supposed to let go of that? Because somewhere along the line, she went from holding him accountable to burning him at the stake. It became less about the way he’d hurt her and more about the many ways she could inflict the same pain. And Hermione’s never liked being that sort of person.

“It’s okay not to hate someone,” she says aloud as she drops things into the cauldron. 

“You’re right,” Luna replies. “But it’s also okay to be cautious.”

“Exactly.”

“He’s not a bad person, Hermione. Really, truly. He…” Luna sighs. “I love him the same way that I love you and while I understand that what he did hurt you, hatred poisons you. I can’t speak as to the way he feels, but I see the way he fights himself to be around you. It’s in the way he looks at you. He doesn’t want to hurt you. He hates himself for it. And you want to know what I think?”

Hermione nods in awed silence.

“I think you should be more patient with him. I think you should give him a chance. And I think you should get on the path to forgiveness.”

Something crawls within Hermione. An aversion. A fear. 

“What if it makes me weak?” she whispers, lowering her gaze to the potion. It’s halfway between blue and lavender. “What if it means that I can’t fight my own battles?”

“Then let it. Be weak. Let others fight the battles that are too difficult to face.” Luna gets off of her stool, rounds the table, and comes to stand beside her. She looks into her eyes and there’s such clarity in her blue irises that it arrests Hermione’s breath. “You don’t have to be so strong all the time.”

Sometimes, it catches Hermione off guard how wise Luna can be, and at such random times. Though most of her statements are lofty and wrapped in dreamlike smoke, sometimes, she says things that lance right through to the core of her. Luna holds a depth of emotion and thought that Hermione could never hope to possess. It’s what makes her so special.

“I’m so lucky to have you as my friend, Luna,” she says with a prickling to her eyes as she reaches for her hand. “I want you to know that I truly love you.”

Luna’s eyes widen a fraction, and then she returns the smile. “Did you know that Nargles are so loyal that they’ll frequently drown themselves trying to save each other. It’s quite morbid but romantic, don’t you think?”

“Erm—what?”

“Nargles can’t swim but they’re unnaturally attracted to water. If one goes in, so does the other to save them. They both die.”

“Right, well…as long as you don’t go drowning yourself to save me from the bloody Prefect’s bath, I think we’ll both make it to Seventh Year.”

They both fall into yet another fit of giggles that has them doubling over the table. Hermione almost can’t maintain the smile, her face aches that badly from laughing so much that afternoon. Her heart swells fit to burst, like it does in these random moments where she allows herself to truly embrace her emotions, and she wants to cry from the sheer intensity of it. It’s almost cathartic to let it overwhelm her.

Perhaps she needs to do that for Draco.

“So, when are you breaking up with him?” Luna asks, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. 

“Before the end of the night. I wouldn’t want him to propose engagement before I can.”

The laughter keeps coming, and Hermione’s stomach hurts. Luna falls off of her stool, clutching the table for dear life as she laughs and laughs and laughs. Hermione’s bladder feels full from how hard she’s laughing, and from the outside, she’s sure the two of them look like a couple of nutters.

“Is this a non-Slytherin thing?”

Luna and Hermione both scream at the top of their lungs. Blood-curdling, horrified expulsions of terror from their throat. Hermione nearly topples the cauldron. Luna falls completely off of her stool and catches herself stumbling on her feet before she hits the ground. 

Draco’s standing behind them, having entered the room and walked across it so silently that it startled them. He’s got an expression of ‘ these witches are mental’ on his face. His brows are gathered behind the strands of hair that fall over them, and he looks annoyed.

“Hello?” he says when they stare at him for an extended period of time. “Answer me. Is high-pitched screeching a symptom?”

“A symptom ?” Hermione splutters. “A symptom of what ?!”

“Not being a Slytherin.”

The two girls exchange glances and start laughing all over again.

Hermione dashes for the door.

“Where are you going?” Draco calls, his hands thrown up into the air.

“To the loo!”

When Hermione returns, Luna has left and the stereo plays Tool uncontested once again. Draco is perched in the large, deep window sill with one knee drawn up and an elbow slung across his kneecap. He gazes out through the frost-stained panes, their spun glass sewn between the latticework. Hermione assumes he’s looking at the grounds under the late afternoon sky. 

She hesitates in the doorway. Now that she’s calmed down, it’s left room for all the events of the previous night to come rushing back into her mind like a river emerging from a broken dam. The darkness, the stars, the Tower.

The corridor.

Mrs. Norris.

Draco turns his head to look at her where she stands by the closed door. He doesn’t say anything—just stares at her like he’s waiting for something. Which he is, since she seems to be the only one who’s perturbed by the fact that they…did what they did.

She opens her mouth to speak.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” he says before she can, and he looks back out the window. A lock of his hair falls into his eyes and he scrapes it back, tipping his head until it hits the stone wall. He looks out the window from beneath his lashes. 

Hermione stares at him, at the slope of his neck, the jut of his chin, and the point of his nose. All the things that make up his appearance, so beautiful but deadly. As deadly as Wolfsbane before the brew, like late February ice blanketing the Black Lake. 

He could kill her if she takes the wrong step.

“Come here, Granger.” He doesn’t look at her, just reaches out his arm out, hand curling as he beckons her. 

She almost does. Almost takes a step in his direction. Can imagine herself climbing into the window seat and curling up like an absurd pet in his lap and resting the side of her face against his chest. She wants to look out at the grounds of their school with him and steep in the aftermath.

To exist in the tiny corner of the world that seems to be only theirs.

But to do that, she’d have to open herself up to that. To him. To the way he makes her feel. 

That’s too intimate.

So she walks to the side, toward the drawer where she stashes the item she’d bought from Witch Weekly . The very important item that can either change everything, or prove itself useless. She supposes she should feel more embarrassed to be pulling it out, but she’s not. It feels like education in a bag.

Hermione opens the drawer, eyes glancing off of the silver blades that rest inside and landing on the brown leather pouch. She picks it up and closes the drawer again—the drawer full of things that are borderline lethal to him—and pulls the drawstrings open. Reaching inside, she closes her fingers around the small glass vial inside. Pulling it out, she inspects it. The liquid inside is watery and pink in color. Unassuming.

With resolute steps, she approaches him where he sits. She stops close enough to him that she can feel the warmth coming from his body. She sees the long, slender fingers of his hands and she remembers what they felt like. Her stomach twists, curls tight like a snake, and she’s forced to Occlude as fast as she can so he doesn’t see what she’s thinking, even though she needs more practice.

His head lolls to the right, his eyebrows rising in query as she presents the vial for him to see.

“I ordered this from Witch Weekly .”

“What is it?” he asks, appearing bewildered. “Some sort of lust potion?”

“No, it’s not—not that.” Her cheeks burn. “Obviously.”

“Okay. So, it’s…what?”

“It’s a potion,” she says slowly, nervous sweat gathering in the creases on her palms. “Something that’s supposed to help.”

“Help with what?”

“Well, it was supposed to…I don’t necessarily need it anymore, but...” She trails off, frustrated with herself. In all other things, she’s a fearsome sailor before the mast. But in this? In Draco? She’s hanging onto the ropes of the boat for dear life.

He takes it from her, and the brush of his fingertips against her hand as he does so makes her skin crawl in a way that’s got her trembling. Draco inspects the vial, holding it up to the lights above as though he can deem it consumable or not. 

“Will it help you feel more comfortable with me?”

She blinks, taken aback. It’s not that she feels uncomfortable with him, it’s that she’s uncomfortable with herself and her own emotions. Uncomfortable with feeling the way he makes her body feel. 

Maybe she is scared, just not of him. 

“Do you want me to feel comfortable?”

“I’m a monster, not the Dark Lord,” he says with an irritated twist of his mouth. “Of course I do.”

She reaches to run the fingers of her free hand over the end of one of her braids, an anxious habit to calm her racing thoughts, to steady her beating heart. The potion vial in her right hand feels heavy.

“I don’t know if it will,” she says softly, shyness shivering through her. “I’m inclined to think so.”

“I know I said we didn’t have to talk about it, but…” He turns to face her. His hands slide up to her waist, where he plucks at a loose thread in the knit fabric of her red jumper. It’s one of the hideous ones that Molly once gifted her, but thankfully, Draco says nothing of the gaudy letter ‘H’ patched into the front. “Did I overwhelm you?”

“You were a little intense.”. 

“We don’t have to do anything again. We can try the vials of blood instead.”

“No,” she says quickly, fingers digging into his shoulder. Heart slamming, she moves forward, her kneecaps flush to the stones and her hips close to his. Slowly, she wraps her arms around his neck, averting her eyes when he tries to make eye contact with a tilt back of his head. “I like what we did.”

“So the potion was for before?”

“Yes. Because I wanted…I don’t know. I wanted a fail-safe. Something to let me know answers that I couldn’t seem to figure out myself.”

“Because you don’t like what you don’t know,” he says with an air of finality that feels like he knows her better than she does herself. “What you can’t figure out.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. What does it do? The potion.”

“It makes it so that I won’t be so in my head. It’s like a calming draught but specifically designed for those who have…well…”

“Cunts?”

“Language, Malfoy! And yes. Basically, it will help me stay out of my head so I don’t get too shy. So I can stay aroused and—“

“Dripping?” He says it with a near-cruel smile, roguish in the way it shows his fangs. 

She glared at him but there’s no fire to it.

“Lubricated, Draco. So that I can stay wet.”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with it last night, messy girl,” he cajoles, still grinning that grin. 

“I’m aware,” she says. “It was for before that happened. This potion won’t work unless I feel safe—hat’s why it’s sold Witch Weekly. We should always feel safe to have sex.”

“Are you trying to fuck me, Granger?”

Hermione resists the urge to slap him. “Stop it. I was nervous and worried that if I couldn’t get out of my head with my anger and my need to be in control all the bloody time, then you’d starve.”

His grin fades and something flickers across his face. 

“And you don’t want me to starve,” he says.

She shakes her head no.

Draco stares at her in curiosity, like he’s arranging the pieces of a puzzle before snapping them into place, and then gives her the softest, most gentle smile she’s ever seen on his face.

“So let’s try it, songbird,” he mutters, and then he bares his fangs so he can say, “I’m hungry.”

“Right now?”

“You got plans tonight?” His fingers twitch against her legs.

“No.”

“Then let me see if I can make you come.” 

Her heart skips a beat. 

Hermione unstoppers the tiny cork from the vial.

“I’m surprised you even want to,” he says pointedly, his gaze fixed on her as she tilts the contents down her throat. It tastes like strawberries and tingles like electricity in her muscles. “I thought you were going to break up with me before I proposed.”

Hermione flushes again. “You heard that?”

“You were thinking about it during your derangement.”

“My derangement?” She scoffs and puts her hands on her hips. “Laughter does not constitute poor mental health. It actually signifies that our mental health is in a much better place than yours must be. Do you never laugh?”

“I must have chuckled when I was a child.”

“Or when you were laughing at me,” she says, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest. “Because you certainly found amusement in my existence. You’re a laughing at kind-of person, unfortunately, and that doesn’t show fair mental health.”

They stare at each other and for a second, she thinks he might give her a repeat of the apology he gave her after he tried to murder her. She can see the guilt lingering in his eyes, but she doesn’t want it. She can’t absorb it right now. Not with this potion in her veins, not with the memories of last night’s intensity, and certainly not with the thoughts she’s having about his fingers right now.

She doesn’t Occlude those.

“I laughed once with you,” he says. “Like a few days ago.”

“I already forgot.”

“Convenient. I might laugh right now.”

“Why? At what?” She wrinkles her nose and lets her upper lip curl. 

“At the fact that you think I could ever have fair mental health.” The corner of his mouth tugs upward. Hermione steps back, but his hands lash out and wrap around the backs of her knees, dragging her forward between his open legs. He tilts his head to smirk up at her, but he’s looking at her lips. His fingers tickle against the backs of her thighs. “I’m fucking mental, Hermione.”

Something about the way he says her name sends a shiver rippling throughout her entire body. She places her hands on his shoulders to hide the trembling. It feels odd, touching Draco Malfoy like this, but it also feels comfortable. Like it’s not as awkward as she’d have thought it would be a few months ago. 

“Stop trying to terrify me. Pretend it's Christmas.”

“No.” His hands travel down. “It’s not Christmas until December the twenty-fifth.”

“It’s always Christmas. You’re supposed to be kind on Christmas.”

He says nothing as he looks down at her skirt, watches his forearms returning upward as his fingers inch up to the hem from the back. When he looks up at her through his lashes, the grey in his eyes has turned so vivid a violet that it startles her. The dark veins begin to spiderweb downward from his eyes, reaching down his cheeks like they’re trying to fuel his fangs. His fangs, which she can see peeking out when he speaks.

“I don’t think you want me to be kind to you.”

Another chill, right down the center of her spine, causing heat to pool between her legs. Her fingers play absentmindedly with the hair at the nape of his neck. She looks past him, past his head, past the frosted window panes. Looks into the floor of a memory that’s scattered with razor blades.

“I'll slit your throat. I will slice it open with my claws, you fucking Mudblood cunt."

“Maybe we can compromise.”

“How so?” His hands slide slow, slow, slow down her back.

“Tomorrow, you can be nice to me,” she whispers. “And today, I can be nice to you.”

Hermione slides her right hand to his jaw, tilts her face up as far as she can, until his hair falls back from his forehead, and she presses her lips down to his. He lets her control the kiss and to her surprise, she doesn’t feel like she’s drowning in him. The night in the corridor, it had felt like he was intentionally trying to drag her under the waves and hold her there until she surrendered to him. 

Now, he surrenders to her.

His fingers twist in the sides of her jumper, tugging her flush against his abdomen.

Kissing without feeding him is like an aphrodisiac without the loss of control. Each time that their lips separate and surge back together takes a golden coil from her head and yanks it down to her core, wrapping it around and around until it cools. Every lash of his tongue against hers twists the coil tighter, where it throbs and pulses with life that she wasn’t aware existed within her until the day he asked her for help. She can feel the effects of the potion, taking her fear away— including Cormac—and replacing it with the clarity of mind to tell if she truly feels safe with him.

And she does.

The moment his hands slide up the back of her skirt to caress her rear, the coil winds so tight that she can’t breathe. 

Hermione breaks the kiss with a gasp, turning her head to the side as those long, slender, spidery fingers slip between the tops of her thighs. They pluck at her knickers where they stretch.

“You want me to touch you?” he murmurs between kisses. 

She nods, anticipation driving her tongue to delve deeper within his mouth, to try and turn the tables so she can be the one to surrender now. He tastes like spearmint, like he must have been chewing a mint earlier.

The way he moves his tongue in her mouth? She can imagine it between her legs.

Her nylons are tugged down to her thighs, restraining her in a way as she stands there, slightly bent toward him, her arse on display for anyone who might walk in.

Hermione hopes the Room of Requirement understands that would be the last thing she wants right now.

He uses his left hand to pull her open where she stands, to pull her knickers aside. He uses his right hand to stroke the softness of her, to gather the wetness, to play with it a little. He turns his head, tilting diagonally and bringing his lips to hover millimeters below her own. 

“You have to say it. Safety, like the potion requires, and all that.”

She fights the urge to roll her eyes and says, “Yes. I want you to—”

He slams his middle and ring finger inside of her from the back, the fingers of his other hand curling gently to hold her open wide. The cool air of the room, the harsh fuck he grates out into her mouth, the slide of his fingers along her walls…it works together to raise pebbles on her skin.

And it feels good . Extremely good. Like walking up to Heaven’s gates and holding the bars so he can fuck her while the angels watch.

Immediately yes.

“You know you taste better when I'm inside you like this, right?” he says, breathing a laugh as his fingers slide in and out. “Your blood? It’s like fucking sugar.”

“I do?” she moans into his mouth, so lost in him and the way it feels—the awe at being able to focus without her thoughts spinning and whirling. She might actually finish in the next thirty seconds, she’s got that clear of a head. 

“Mm-hm.”

“I like that,” she pants out.

“What? Tasting good?”

“No, the tone you use.” She breaks off to whimper when he finds a spot inside of her that makes her want to purr. When she finishes what she's saying, it’s in a whiny, embarrassing, girlish voice. “It sounds like you’re taking care of me.”

“I am taking care of you.”

He leans forward so he can twist his arm a bit, enough to really touch deep inside of her. It, coupled with the fact that she’s standing pigeon-toed, causes her to pitch forward with her forearms propped on his shoulders. His breath scorches hot against her neck. She can feel herself running towards the edge of a vast coulee - a pit that’s going to swallow her hole whether she likes it or not.

“You’re about to come,” he says without awe of mirth. Just says it in that same cajoling, purring voice.

She’s rising to the tips of her toes, biting her lip so hard as she throws her head back that she thinks she might die if she can’t scream.

“Speak,” he says in a voice that rasps like sandpaper. Dry. Thirsty.

Thank Merlin he can read her thoughts.

“ Harder.”

The word tears out of her throat on a whine.

He obliges.

And he fucks her with his fingers. Fucks her like she’s made for it. 

“I can feel your walls squeezing me,” he hisses through his teeth. “Be a good girl and make a mess for me, okay?”

There’s no confusion in her mind. No concern. No fear. No delirium. No overthinking. 

She’s fucking his hand.

Arching her back, she slams her hips backward, feeling everything so acutely that it sends her careening through the stars they’d gazed at from the Astronomy Tower.

With one last brush of his lips over the sensitive skin covering her pulse, the desire for him to bite her and him not obliging to that makes her entire body weep for the loss of his fangs.

She comes.

Falls right over the edge, down into the depths of that pit. That dark, euphoric pit that spreads a thick, luxurious orgasm made of velvet over her skin. He milks it for as long as he can, and so does she, his fingers moving in as she tries to escape the oversensitivity, out as she chases them back to get them inside again. 

Liquid runs down the insides of her thighs, soaking her nylons.

She’s almost horrified.

Had she…?

“Oh, my Gods,” she whispers, mortified. It’s like the potion’s effects have disappeared. Like it was only meant to last one orgasm before stealing off into the night. “I’m so sorry. I’m— oh, my Gods.”

She’s never been that focused before.

But he’s uninterested in her embarrassment. 

In fact, he seems to be uninterested in anything other than extending his claws, rendering her nylons to tatters as he rips them off of her body, and dragging her into his lap on the windowsill. They seem to move as one, him turning to put his back to the part of the wall that dips outward to host the window. She can feel the cold air on her left side, contrasted by the unbearable heat of his body, and then they’re kissing. 

Snogging , without distance between their bodies. Hermione’s fingers slide into his hair, over his scalp, to grip his jaw, then back into his hair again. Her blood still sings with her earlier pleasure, so rolling her hips like the waves of a sea against the hardness of his erection has her reaching a delirium no potion could defeat. Her absolutely soaked knickers provide friction that takes her moans and turns them to desperate groans. He groans, too, turning his head to the side so he can devour her mouth like she really is made of sugar.

“Gonna fuck you,” he pants out, his hands gripping her hips and pulling her against him as he grinds upward. “If we don’t stop, I will fuck you.”

She pulls back from the kiss enough to whisper, “No, you’re not. I’ll castrate you if you try. My wand’s on the table.”

He laughs but she swallows it, holding his head between her hands. His hands have found their way beneath her jumper, and they smooth over her bare back, fingertips searching beneath the strap of her brassiere. It feels nice, soothing. Confident.

When he manages to get the chance, he murmurs against her lips.

“Then what do you want?”

“To be nice to you,” she says in a small, innocent voice, arching her lower back and tilting herself against him so that each hard jerk of her hips has him twitching. The stone of the windowsill is hard beneath her kneecaps but she doesn’t mind. The bruises will feel like medals. “I don’t need my hands to do that.”

The potion is definitely still working.

“Filthy girl,” he breathes, moving his mouth down to her pulse with small, hot kisses that make her hips move faster. Harder. More direct. “You want to give me what I want? What I need ?”

Hermione nods and tilts her head away towards the cold window, her fingers trembling as she feels the pleasure building again within her. She’s so wet that just grinding on him has her working her way to Heaven and back to those gates with the watching angels.

What he makes her feel is sacrilege.

“Hm?” Draco grabs her jaw and forces her to look at him. “Are you ready to give me my treat?”

She nods again, finding that the act of looking him in the violent, starved eyes is so much more intense than it should be. 

“Good girl. Good, sweet, sweet girl. I deserve it.” His voice loses strength as his lips brush over her neck. Like he’s losing faculties. Falling prey to hunger. “I’ve been a very… Very… Patient boy.”

His fangs find her pulse and sink into her flesh.

Hermione feels the effects instantly. Her head head falls back, braids swinging, and she cries out. Her hips move faster, fingers numb from gripping his shoulder.  With a jerk of her hips, she begins to roll them in his lap. 

Draco’s hands roam over her body above her clothes: from dragging up her sides to tracing the jut of her shoulder blades, to squeezing and massaging her rear to cupping her jaw and drawing her closer. From appropriate places to inappropriate. 

His tongue is everywhere. Her blood is trickling down into her jumper. His mouth traverses her neck. This is his third bite.

“How will you hide this?” he mumbles. “I’m all over you, precious.”

“I’ll wear a scarf,” she moans.

He laughs out loud with bloody teeth and twinkling eyes. Dragging her against him, he runs his tongue over his fangs and lifts his eyebrows. 

“You’ll look so pretty in green.”

She’s too close to bliss. She can’t speak. Everything feels too golden, like each bite he takes a sip of blood from is another doorway for the sunlight to emerge from within her body. The sunlight he’s pouring into it.

So she thinks the words.

I’ll die before I wear a Slytherin scarf. Believe that.

He starts to laugh. He laughs and he laughs and he laughs. Truly.

Finally, he sinks his fangs deep into her throat. She moans when she feels her blood spilling into his mouth, supplying him with life and reminding him of her purpose. Her value in his life.

Malfoy drinks her blood until he’s full, and he sighs. He sighs, but it’s not just the sound of a sated vampire or a satisfied man. It’s the sound of her accomplishment. Of her figuring out how to stay in control. Of winning.

It’s what it sounds like when Draco Malfoy belongs to her.