Elemental Magic

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

The Yule Ball feels like a dream when Hermione wakes the next morning. Her heart is still
aflutter as she opens her eyes and lies in bed, thinking back, basking in it all. After the dance
with Malfoy, Viktor managed to extricate himself from Karkaroff’s clutches and they spent
the rest of the night in the centre of the dance floor buried in the crowd so that no one else
would disturb them.

Viktor was delightful, as good in retrospect as he was at the moment.

Hermione can’t remember the last time she’s had so much fun. The whole evening she just let
go, enjoying herself without fretting about the future.

Viktor told her about the different places he’d visited, and the ones he thought she’d like.
Wizarding communities hidden away in little alleyways and courtyards, glimpses into parts
of the world that she’s never been able to explore because she has no magical guardians to
travel with. He didn’t seem at all offended that she didn’t want to talk about Quidditch or his
career. She’d just wanted to know about what the world was like beyond Hogwarts.

When he left, he asked if he could write to her, if she would write him back if he did, and she
blushed all the way to the tips of her ears when she said yes.

She feels giddy just thinking about it.

When she enters the Great Hall, people still stop and stare, and Cormac gives her a smile
she’s only seen him use on other girls. Ron offers only the most disgruntled noise of greeting
when she sits down, apparently still convinced that she’s disseminated classified academic
information that has destroyed the glory of Hogwarts both now and forevermore.

Hermione ignores him. There’s a story in the Daily Prophet about the ball, but nothing
terrible or particularly focused on Hermione, which is a relief. Instead, the focus is on the
Ministry attendees. Most of the news lately has been about a tax hike proposed by the
Minister Cornelius Fudge. The Wizengamot is split over it, and the arguments about its
merits have spilled from the chamber into public discourse as both sides endeavour to garner
public support.

She spends her winter holidays in the library reading about theories of magic while keeping
one eye on the Marauder’s Map. When she spots Malfoy’s name wandering up from the
dungeons a few days later, she shoves the book back on the shelf and cuts him off in a
corridor.

He gives her a long, resentful look and comes to a resigned stop, waiting for her to speak.
They stand staring at each other for a moment and her heart-beat’s cadence is already lit with
anticipation.

“I want you to show me the Dark Arts. I want to know what I’m working towards,” she says,
tone crisp and matter-of-fact.

“What ‘kind’ of Dark Arts?” he asks in a droll, petulant voice. “That’s like saying, ‘show me
language.’”

Her shoulders tense. “Whatever you started with at Durmstrang, show me that.”

Annoyance flashes across his face, followed by a subtle look of amusement and his glances at
her again, gaze lingering in a way that she isn’t sure is intentional or not. “You won’t be able
to do it.”

She sets her jaw, refusing to rise to his bait even though there’s a part of her that’s afraid he
may be right. She’s been practising at finding her magical source, but she never seems to get
all the way there.

“Then I’ll try and fail,” she says with flat determination.

He sighs, apparently disappointed that she won’t accept her inferiority at his word.

“Come down to the lake tonight. After dinner, I suppose. Past the Durmstrang ship, there’s an
embankment beyond the willows that can’t be seen from the castle.”

She scrunches her nose. “Can’t we use the Come and Go Room?”

“No,” is all he says, and starts to walk away before he pauses. “And bring back my book or I
won’t show you a thing.”

Hermione spends her afternoon trying to reach her magic source. She even goes to the
hospital wing and lies to Madam Pomfrey, saying she feels sick in order to get a vial of
Pepper up and a Strengthening Potion, hoping that she just needs a little push to get there.
She can practically feel the potions’ magic dissolving after she downs them both and tries to
use the excess energy to drive inward to that place where her magic feels strongest, almost
alive.

It’s like forcing her way through a magnetic force field. The closer she gets, the stronger the
resistance, so intense she has to fall back because it feels like if she gets any closer, she will
be flung out of her own body.

It’s frustrating. She doesn’t understand why she can’t just reach it. It’s right there, buried
inside her like a hidden wellspring. Why is the final step so hard?

How can purebloods do this from childhood and she can’t?

She wishes there were other people she could ask besides Malfoy. Someone who would want
to answer her questions. Maybe Viktor, although she’s not sure how she’d slip a question like
that into a letter, how to explain why she even knows to ask it. She feels as if she’s trapped in
a continuous, solitary cycle of trying and failing and trying and failing and having no choice
but to get up and invent a new way to try again.

She goes down to dinner, joining Ginny and Dean, the latter of whom looks briefly
apprehensive when she sits down, as if he expects to get dragged into some kind of trouble.
After swearing them to silence, she tells them about the clue for the Second Task, hoping
they’ll have ideas she hasn’t considered yet. They’re about halfway through dinner when
Harry and Ron slide down the bench and join them, Ron and Ginny giving each other dour
looks as if offended to be sharing social circles.

The conversation turns to speculation over how Malfoy and Bisset will approach the Second
Task. Malfoy, Harry and Ron say, will just cheat and probably get away with it, although just
how he’ll do it is a matter of some debate. Undoubtedly, whatever he chooses will be
positively evil and quite nefarious. Bisset, they have already decided, isn’t much of a
champion, considering that he couldn’t even handle a sleeping dragon. Bisset will drown.

Dean disagrees, saying that maybe Bisset’s parents really are necromancers and that Bisset
will summon an army of inferi and use them to dredge the lake for him and find his treasure
without even dipping a toe in.

This leads to a lively debate about whether the tournament rules would allow for the use of
an army of inferi, and then whether it’s even legal, which is when Hermione informs them
that the inferus curse is not technically a crime, but given that it is illegal to rob graves or to
kill someone in order to make an inferi, the curse is, by association, considered illegal.

This results in a discussion about the differences between inferi and zombies and why anyone
would make a zombie when they could just make inferi. Harry and Ron are of the opinion
that inferi would be the superior choice, in a hypothetical post-apocalyptic event in which
they were obliged to become dark wizards for survival, because inferi did what they were
told, while Ginny and Dean vote for zombies because they could turn would-be enemies into
more zombies, growing the undead forces without effort. Ron tries to argue that the zombies
would just wander around eating anyone, but Ginny retorts that she would keep them all in a
moat for fortress security.

It’s cold that night by the lake, but Malfoy looks aggravatingly immune to it when Hermione
finds him waiting on the shore. His uniform is probably thicker than hers.

“At Durmstrang, after two years studying potions, we learn how to use the elements as a
source,” he says once she gives him the ethics book back.

She gives him a hard look, folding her arms. “I thought you said no one knows where magic
comes from.”

His jaw twitches. “They don’t.”

“Then what makes something a source?” She watches with vindictive pleasure as irritation
ripples across his face.
He presses his lips together. “Magic, which comes from somewhere, we don’t know where,
likes to accumulate. That tendency makes things magical. Water is not inherently magical,
but if there’s magic in water, then it becomes magical. When a wizard draws on external
magic to practise the Dark Arts, they call it a source.”

She furrows her eyebrows. “Then is the magic from all the sources the same?”

“No,” he says impatiently, like it’s a stupid question. “Magic is malleable. The reason there’s
so much that can be done with it is because it's readily changeable. If it's not actively being
altered, then it will passively transform itself by taking on the qualities of its surroundings.
Magic in water turns watery and fluid, magic in earth is stubborn and enduring. That’s why
potion ingredients have different properties. They’re not interchangeable because the magic
combined carries the qualities of their various sources.”

She considers this carefully. “So you can pull magic from anywhere it’s accumulated? Even
the elements?”

“Some people can.”

Hermione glances around. She knows there are magical items and places, special trees that
are the best for making wands, bodies of water like the Black Lake, with large numbers of
magical creatures, but she’s never considered that they’d become that way.

She tilts her head. “What makes magic accumulate?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

She feels a flicker of irritation. “Is it possible to just use magic before it takes on traits, before
it’s in the water or the earth or wherever it is?”

“No.” Said with the assurance of someone who probably doesn’t know. And if he doesn’t,
then she probably never will either.

Disappointing.

She peers out at the water. “How does the exchange work with elements? What does a body
of water want?”

Malfoy just smirks and crouches down, trailing his fingertips across the surface. “It’s a
partnership, similar to the relationship with a wand. My magic and the Elemental Magic
meld.”

“Show me,” she says. An order.

There’s the briefest flash of irritation in his eyes, but he hides it with another smirk and
straightens, his confidence obvious. With a flick of his hand, he draws his wand, which
surprises Hermione because she’d assumed the process would be wandless. She forgets to
wonder about it as he extends it towards the Black Lake.
Without uttering a word, he tilts his wand up, and a wall of water rises from the lake, surging
forward as if beckoned. Malfoy waves his wand to the side, and the water morphs into a
column, snaking around him. He doesn’t speak, he barely moves, his hand shifts slightly, and
the water begins to freeze, crackling as it forms huge spiking shards until he stands framed by
something that looks like a prehistoric ice monster. But even though it’s ice, it doesn’t stop
moving.

Hermione’s heart is pounding in wonder. It’s over twenty feet long, living ice. This is what
magic is supposed to be for. Miracles, not tricks like turning teacups into turnips.

Malfoy flicks his wand in her direction and immediately a huge spike of ice breaks off and
flies towards her, moving so fast she can hear the edges cut through the air. There’s no time to
move or react.

A split second before she’s impaled on the ice, it turns into liquid and crashes into her,
drenching her from head to toe in water.

She gasps with shock at the cold and water fills her mouth and nose. She splutters, gasping
and coughing as she stumbles back.

“You — are the MOST — unbelievable – bastard!” she says, spitting as she wipes lake water
from her face. It’s dripping from her hair and her entire uniform is soaked. The water is
painfully frigid. She can smell and taste the dirt and algae on her tongue and she gags several
times before she pulls her wand out and dries her clothes and hair.

“You are such a bastard,” she says again because if she doesn’t keep saying it, she’s going to
do something else, like throw a rock at his head.

“You wanted to see how it worked. I showed you,” Malfoy says, looking unrepentant as he
stashes his wand. The ice sculpture collapses, turning liquid and flowing back to the lake.

She glares at him. She wants to get him back, but she needs him to teach her. She’ll never
have another chance to learn the Dark Arts.

She cannot waste this. Therefore, she can’t waste him. She’ll make him pay soon enough.

She swallows her rage. “Show me the next element,” she demands, and enjoys the way his
jaw tenses when he can’t refuse.

She stands braced, expecting him to attack her again. Malfoy kneels and puts his hand down
on the ground, intently focused on the earth under his fingers as he lowers the tip of his wand.

His eyebrows furrow, and the earth opens, creating a hole about the size and depth of a
bathtub.

Hermione blinks.

It’s more than a bit anticlimactic.

Malfoy draws his hand away from the ground and, with a wave of his wand, the hole closes
again.

“Is that all?” Hermione says after waiting for several seconds for something more. There are
at least thirty spells she can think of that are better for making holes.

He scowls, apparently not immune to derision. “Earth magic isn’t particularly useful unless
you’re growing something or warding a location. Or making rune stones. At Durmstrang, the
only time we use it is to make shelters.”

She walks over, prodding the freshly disturbed dirt with her toe. “Why not just use a spell?
Wouldn’t it be more efficient than needing to wield a secondary source?”

He sighs, standing. “Elemental magic is more versatile than memorising a hundred specific
spells,” he says, like it’s obvious and if she were smarter, she’d have figured that out. “If you
have an affinity, an element will do almost anything you can think to ask.”

And now she understands.

Because she has memorised hundreds of spells, maybe even thousands, drilled any bit of
magical knowledge she can get her hands on straight into her head. But it doesn’t make her
feel stronger, doesn’t make her feel safer to have mastered and memorised every spell; in
fact, it does the opposite.

It has become a debilitating amount of information. She’s constantly trying to race through
her memory, rapidly analysing which spell might be the right one, because she knows that
each charm and incantation has conditions or idiosyncrasies that must be considered. It’s not
quick or efficient to constantly think through so much information.

That’s why Harry, and sometimes Ron, are better at duels and practice sessions in DADA
than she is. Harry knows a fraction of the spells Hermione does but he uses them confidently,
never hesitating, never pausing to second-guess his choice, while Hermione baulks, trying to
cross-analyse which hex or defence spell is the best based on all the variables she can
observe.

It’s like she’s carrying around information on clay tablets to the point of nearly breaking
under the cumulative weight, and then finding out that purebloods get to use books.

If she could just want something, and the magic would do it for her without requiring
conditions, she would be unstoppable.

She wants the ability so much she feels nearly starved by her desire for it, it’s an ache of want
inside that she can feel in her bones.

Malfoy seems to see the hunger in her eyes and his expression turns into that cold derision
that she has seen too much of.

Another power-hungry Muggle. Your kind is always desperate for what they’re unworthy of.
She can see it in his face. The way he looks down on her for her desperation, for daring to
want. It makes her so angry. How dare he look down on her for working towards what he’s
been given without ever needing to earn it?

“Show me the next,” is all she says, her voice sharp as a whip, to remind him that she does
have power.

Malfoy sighs and holds out his hand. He points his wand upwards, and then pulls a gust of
wind from the sky that swirls around him and sharply whips her hair into her face, still damp
enough to sting her skin.

Then he conjures fire, a small flame that floats above his fingertips.

Hermione watches with fascination because it’s the first time he’s had to conjure anything. It
feels like an inconsistency in the pattern. How does magic accumulate in something that
wasn’t there until a moment ago?

He points his wand at the fire and it flares, taking the form of a cat that leaps from his hand
onto the ground, growing into the size of a large house-cat. The deep reddish flames of the
cat move like fur and its thick fire-auburn tail twists around angrily, ears pinned back. It
hisses, spitting blue flames as it stalks distrustfully around, as if looking for a reason to lash
out.

Malfoy looks inexplicably amused by the creation, as if there’s a joke to it. But Hermione
finds it mesmerising.

She’s always liked fire. If she were going to guess which element she’d be best at, she’d put
her money on fire. Those spells were always the easiest for her.

The cat is alluring in the way it morphs, flames rippling. The magnetic draw of fire with its
fascinating marriage of beauty and danger. Hermione can feel the heat radiating from its body
on her face. She wants to reach out and run her fingertips through the flickering fur. Even if it
burns, she wants to touch it. To feel a living flame in her hands. But she knows better and
simply watches intently, taking in its every move.

Malfoy flicks his wand and the flaming cat leaps into air the and vanishes into ether.

She feels a pang to see it go.

She looks up at Malfoy. “I want to try.”

He gives her a dubious look and then gestures towards the lake. “Water first then.”

Hermione looks back at where the cat’s paw prints have turned to sooty smudges on the
rocks, her pulse quick with longing. “I think I’d be better at fire.”

“No,” he says flatly. “Water magic is cooperative and forgiving towards beginners. Fire
requires absolutely perfect control. Fire as elemental magic doesn’t act in the same way that
the other elements do. You sustain it with your magic, which means if you lose control, the
first thing it does is consume you.”
Hermione sighs, swallowing her disappointment. “Fine. Water then.”

She goes to the bank and pulls her wand out, pointing it out at the surface of the water in
imitation of Malfoy’s earlier pose and then glances over her shoulder towards him.

He’s watching her, a sharp intensity in his eyes, jaw tensed. He glances away as soon as she
catches him.

“Now what?” she says, raising her eyebrows.

“Give your magic to the lake,” is all the answer she gets.

“How ?”

He looks baffled by the question.

“You feel the lake.” He lifts his left hand. “And you feel your magic.” He lifts his right hand.
“And you make the two connect.” He laces his fingers together.

Again, this provides her with zero practical information.

“How?” she says again. Slower.

Malfoy’s expression grows aggravated that she’s not just divining understanding from his
hand gestures. He throws his hands into the air. “I don’t know how to explain this to you any
more than that. You feel it.”

Feel it.

Why is it that particular instruction that always seems to haunt her most? Fly a broom by
‘feeling it.’ Wield elemental magic by ‘feeling it.’

Why can’t Magic be more logical? It should be logical. There should be rules.

She puffs out a breath of frustration, lowering her wand and staring pointedly at him. “You
are Vowed to teach me, and I don’t think you’re putting in a very solid effort right now. Do
you?”

Malfoy just crosses his arms. “You need to feel the lake,” he says in slow mockery of her
earlier enunciation. “You’re standing beside one of the largest and most powerful bodies of
elemental magic in the entire country. If you have any magical ability at all, you should be
able to sense that. Close your eyes if you have to. And if you still can’t,” he sneers at her,
“perhaps consider that this isn’t an issue with my teaching.”

She turns back to the lake, trying to focus on the task at hand. She knows what it feels like to
reach inward and sense her magic, so based on that, she just needs to reverse the technique.
Extend her senses into the surrounding world and feel the magic beyond her.

It’s a lake after all. Surely, if it’s really as magical as Malfoy says, she’ll be able to sense it.
Standing there, she feels considerably more aware of Malfoy’s eyes boring a hole in the back
of her head. It makes her heartbeat quicken, knowing he’s watching and wanting to prove
him wrong so resoundingly that he has to admit it.

She shoves the thought away. Malfoy isn’t important. He doesn’t matter. She’s doing this for
herself. She tries to block out thoughts of him, of his blistering stare on her back. Ignore it all.

The night air is chilly and calm. She can already feel the damp cold of the lake in front of
her.

Magic. She’s looking for magic. Magic in the water.

She closes her eyes.

It’s like feeling her way forwards while blind. She breathes slowly, trying to sense something
that she’s never noticed before. Her mind flits back to Malfoy.

Why is she thinking of Malfoy? She refocuses on the lake.

Reaching, reaching, until she senses —

She’s not sure.

It’s like noticing something in her peripheral vision and then realising it’s always been there,
a thing intended to slip beneath her notice, her mind telling her not to see it. Like a repelling
charm. Is it a repelling charm? She isn’t sure, but now that the thought has occurred to her,
she narrows her focus on resisting the urge.

There is Something there.

She forces her attention through the increasingly frenzied number of distractions. How do
you store acromantula silk? Malfoy is right behind her. What if he shoves her into the lake?
Or hexes her? Why is he staring like that? Did she give Ginny the hairpin back? Malfoy’s
watching, wanting to see her fail. She meant to get a new book from the library. She should
get ahead on the upcoming assignments. Will Viktor write? Maybe he was just being polite.
She should go to the owlery and check.

Her thoughts are clamouring inside her head, but she keeps ignoring them until the resistance
stops, the distractions going silent.

It’s like running into something unearthly and formless in the dark.

She is not supposed to be noticing This.

It is Other. Vastly, incomprehensibly Other.

Dangerous. Calm. Deathly calm.

A drowned calm.
It is so large and so intensely present now that she has forcibly noticed it, that she wishes she
could move away. A cold sweat breaks across her shoulders. It is not sentient, but it is alive,
as if this much magic is inevitably a sort of Being. Hidden, only revealing itself to those who
know to look.

“I can feel it,” she says, forcing her voice to stay steady.

“Alright,” Malfoy’s voice from behind her is just slightly tense. “Now reach out towards it
with your magic.”

Hermione furrows her eyebrows at that, not sure what he means.

She opens her eyes and finds that her ability to feel a vast elemental body is not something
she can turn off. It’s like trying to ignore the existence of the sky. The calm is not passive,
and it is not actively dangerous, it’s simply… waiting.

She tries to reassure herself. Durmstrang’s ship is anchored in the lake, and there are stories
of the Durmstrang students swimming in the water even though it’s December. The magic
has always been here. The only difference is that she knows it now.

“With a spell?” she asks, glancing back at Malfoy.

She’s never intentionally released her magic without having a specific reason for it. Magic
needs a clear sense of purpose to be properly cast. It doesn’t ‘emerge’ without doing
something. And controlled intent is crucial.

“No. If the magic’s used, it doesn’t work for an exchange. You’re channelling magic together,
not just your own and if there’s spell work altering it, then it’s not your magic anymore.” The
way Malfoy says it makes it sound like he regards this to be the most obvious thing on earth.

Hermione blinks. He really doesn’t seem to understand the amount of information he’s
offhandedly dropping on her. It’s like being thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool and
trying to learn to swim while having encyclopaedias thrown at her head. Except the
swimming pool is made of so much magical power it feels as if it could break reality.

She didn’t know there was even such a thing as ‘used magic’, but she’s afraid of losing her
focus if she stops to think about it too much.

Extend her magic without a spell. Channel the magic in the lake with her magic. How’s she
supposed to do any of that?

She looks back at the water. With her wand in hand, it’s easy to reach inward towards the
source inside her. If she could just reach it, then everything Malfoy is saying would probably
make sense.

Maybe here by lake, it will be intuitive.

She tries. Nothing.

“This isn’t working,” she finally says, after she spends several minutes pointing futilely at the
lake, hoping her magic will just know what to do. She knows she must look idiotic, standing
there and jabbing her wand in the air.

“I told you, it’s pureblood magic,” Malfoy says, sounding smug.

She shakes her head. “No,” she says, refusing to give up. “It’s there, I can feel it. I just don’t
understand how I’m supposed to make my magic connect with it.”

At some point during her efforts, Malfoy seated himself on the trunk of a fallen tree, lounging
against a branch and watching with ill-concealed amusement. “If you could really feel it, then
you’d be able to do it. As I said —”

“Shut it,” she snaps, her cheeks flushed and burning with embarrassment that he gets to sit
and watch her fail like it’s an after dinner show. “I’m going to get it.”

Malfoy gives a long sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Believe me, Granger. As funny
as this, admittedly, is, I’m not trying to sabotage you. It’s not supposed to be hard. That’s why
they teach it to third years.”

The fact he doesn’t even have to say it cruelly is the most cutting part of all.

She shakes her head. Her magic is burning in her veins, as red hot as the embarrassment
staining her cheeks. Her emotions are raw, both by her own failure and Malfoy’s casual
expectation that she’ll accept it.

“This is completely different from the way I’ve been taught to use magic,” she says,
breathing through her teeth. “Everything about this is new! The fact it’s hard for me means
nothing except that I’ve only had a few weeks to figure out something that you’ve been
learning since you were born. Obviously, it’s going to be harder for me.”

Her eyes are burning, and she’s afraid she’s going to start crying with anger.

He heaves a dramatic sigh and waves her off with the tips of his fingers. “Carry on then.”

“I’m going to figure it out,” she says, staring out at the quiet water that is teeming with
power, just waiting for her to grasp hold of it.

She follows all the steps once more, imitating every move that Malfoy made: feeling the
magic in the lake, she lifts her arm, pointing her wand at the water. Then she retraces the
steps of sensing her source. The magic in her veins is humming until she can almost feel it
crackle under the surface of her skin.

It’s supposed to be easy.

Just feel it.

Nothing.
Again. Breathe steadily. Focus. She grits her teeth and squeezes her wand tighter. Just feel it.
Come on. Just once.

Just once.

This isn’t fair. It’s not fair.

Why won’t it work?

She’s burning with frustration, sweat slick across her skin as she tries to make her magic to
do what she wants. Trying to force it out, to make it go where it’s supposed to. Fury builds in
her chest until she thinks she’s going to explode.

There’s a snap inside her like an electric shock. It zips through her body, ricocheting through
her nerves, and darkness bursts through her mind like an inverted flash bomb.

Her vision clears in time to catch sight of something shooting out over the lake and striking
the surface.

The water explodes, mist billowing upwards, growing into a fog bank that rushes outward in
all directions.

The fog sweeps towards them and she barely has time to even raise a hand to ward it off
before she’s surrounded.

She looks around in wild disbelief, heart racing, and her nerves twinging from the jolt of
power that rushed through her. “What was that?” Her chest is heaving. “Did I— ? Was that it
—?”

“No,” Malfoy says. He’s moved from where he was sitting, standing beside her now, wand in
hand. He glances around, pale eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t Elemental Magic.”

The fog is settling around them, so dense it’s impossible to see beyond one another. The
castle, the forest, even the lanterns on the Durmstrang ship are blotted out.

After another moment, Malfoy speaks again. “If it was Elemental Magic, you’d be able to
control this.” He waves a hand through the air. He stares at her, something unreadable in the
way his jaw’s set. “It was probably accidental magic.”

She gives a stiff nod; her face growing hot with embarrassment. This is more humiliating
than her failure. Accidental magic is something that happens to children.

It’s been years since she lost control to the point of having an outburst, long before she’d
even started at Hogwarts.

Learning to keep her power under control was the first thing Hermione ever learned to do,
back before she’d even known what she was, what magic was. When it was just ‘accidents’
that kept happening back in the Muggle world.
She’d learned to control the power, pull it back, keep it in, no matter how much her feelings
threatened to run away with her, she’d kept it far away from the surface, where it couldn’t
accidentally slip out and do something she hadn’t meant to do.

Seventeen years old.

A legal adult, a triwizard champion, and she conjured a fog bank because she was
embarrassed. She couldn’t be more humiliated if she’d wet herself.

Her face is burning to the point of radiating heat. She wants to disappear into a hole. Maybe
Malfoy can elementally dig another and bury her. The fact he’s not even bothering to mock
her is like the final nail in the coffin.

“I usually have it under control,” she says in a small voice.

Malfoy says nothing, instead trailing his fingers through the surrounding air with an odd
expression on his face.

“We should go back,” he finally says. “In case anyone comes to investigate.”

When Hermione wakes the next morning, the fog is still thick outside the windows of
Gryffindor Tower, settled like a white cloak around the school. She can barely stand to look
out at it. It’s humiliating to see. She’d hoped it would dissipate overnight, and she’d be able
to pretend it hadn’t happened.

She feels as if she barely slept, plagued most of the night by nightmares of drowning in the
lake or getting lost in the Forbidden Forest. In her dreams, when she tried to escape, she
never knew if she was getting out or going deeper.

She goes down for breakfast and finds Ginny is sitting with Harry and Ron, and they’re all
speaking together quietly. A sure sign of calamity.

“What is it?”

They look up.

Ron speaks first. “I warned you that something was going to happen.”

Ginny elbows him and gives a quick shake of her head as she meets Hermione’s eyes. “It’s
really not that bad. It’s better than the first one.”

“What is?” Hermione says with dread.

Ginny glances between Harry and Ron and then turns over a copy of Witch Weekly so
Hermione can see the cover image and headline. It’s a picture of Hermione entering the Great
Hall on Viktor’s arm.

The Ugly Duckling Becomes A Black Swan

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

Draco and Hermione by _sonoo_sonoo_

Draco and Hermione dancing by 2ndhandcoffin
The Champions’ Dance by theartofmiha
Stolen Looks by zuridraws
 Scarlet Woman
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

The Ugly Duckling Becomes A Black Swan

The gangly Muggle-born Miss Granger has shown that her plain looks conceal an
ambitious heart. The Hogwarts Triwizard Champion shocked the world with a most
unexpected Yule Ball transformation, rejecting both tradition and dress code etiquette,
and arrived in all black; her gown an unearthly piece of bespoke formalwear.

Miss Granger has turned a page on her helpless, innocent schoolgirl act and chosen to
reveal depths as murky and dubious as the darkness of her attire. Not satisfied with
merely shocking the world by wearing a small fortune in Acromantula silk and fairy
stones, she arrived on the arm of Quidditch star and Bulgarian Bon Bon himself, the
internationally celebrated and famously private, Viktor Krum.

Mr Krum appeared entirely bewitched by this deviously transformed Miss Granger,

snubbing a number of dignitaries in favour of her company on the dance floor. When she
was not wrapped in the smitten embrace of her Quidditch star, she was busy accepting
the advances of not one but both her fellow champions, who abandoned their own dates
to have a chance to waltz with her. A number of guests in attendance were heard
commenting on how disturbing they found it.

It would seem that there is much more to this Muggle-born witch than the fumbling
innocent she first appeared as.

Indeed, further inquiries paint quite a different portrait of the brainy Muggle-born.
Students at Hogwarts say that as far back as her First Year, Granger has had a habit of
eschewing female friendships, preferring to spend her time with “the boys.” Notably
those ‘boys’ who come from old Wizarding families.

“She’s not pretty, so you just have to wonder why anyone would want to be around her,”
says Miss Parkinson, a vivacious young witch who attended the ball with Draco Malfoy,
Durmstrang’s champion. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was using Love Potions.”

This journalist certainly hopes that these patterns of behaviour do not hint at any kinds
of indecent activities, but with such inattentive leadership at Hogwarts, such things do
feel frighteningly possible, especially in a student who lacks any proper Wizarding
upbringing.

Hermione stares at the final lines of the article for several seconds while Ginny, Harry, and
Ron all hold their breath, waiting for her reaction.
She feels…

She’s not sure how she feels. Indignant, but also strangely pleased by the revelation that the
Yule Ball was such an about-face that Rita has been forced to entirely redraft Hermione’s
character assassination. She knows rationally that she shouldn’t be smug about it, but after
feeling disregarded for so long, it’s rather flattering to be re-characterised as a threat.

“Well,” she finally says, looking up, determined not to be bothered. “Quite the character
evolution, I must say. Two weeks ago I was a homely outcast and now I’m seducing all the
boys in the school and internationally.”

This is clearly not the reaction that Harry and Ron expected, and they stare at her with visible
concern.

“I warned you that Krum was trouble,” Ron says, glowering, “It was all too weird that
everyone was all over you at the ball. Krum and Malfoy and Bisset. All in one night. Now
Rita Skeeter’s making you out like you’re some kind of — some kind of — scarlet woman.”

Ginny smacks him across the shoulder. “Don’t call her that!”

Hermione’s still so stunned by everything that at Ron’s words she bursts into laughter and it
takes several tries before she can manage to incredulously reply. “Scarlet woman?”

Ron flushes up to the tips of his ears, rubbing his shoulder and glaring at Ginny. “That’s what
Mum calls them.”

Hermione drops the magazine back down on the table with a shrug, refusing to let herself
worry about it when she has much bigger things to stress over.

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t win with Rita. I’m either an outcast who shouldn’t be in
this school for my own well-being, or a” — she glances mockingly at Ron — “‘scarlet
woman’ who shouldn’t be in this school for everyone else’s chastity. It’s obvious that no
matter what I do, she’ll find a way to say it’s wrong. I’m not going to waste my time trying to
meet her standards when she gets to change them every time she writes a new article.”

Ginny nods in agreement. “Really, it’s even stupider than the last one,” she says, tossing her
head. “No one with a brain is going to believe a word of it. And I bet McGonagall won’t put
up with this. Show her this article. I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets Rita banned from
Hogwarts.”

“Yeah,” says Harry, nodding. “Besides, who even reads these magazines, anyway?”

Ron and Ginny share a glance at that.

“Don’t pay any attention to it,” Harry continues, patting Hermione’s shoulder with an
encouraging smile. “Really, this just shows how scared they are of you winning.”

Hermione ignores it, but there are titters in the hallways when she passes, and a few girls
with boyfriends shoot dirty looks towards her, as if they’ve got anything worth trying to steal.
It makes Hermione roll her eyes.

Ginny’s right about McGonagall, who’s incensed by the descriptions and implications of the
Witch Weekly article, especially after the Daily Prophet profile. She goes to Dumbledore and
demands that Rita lose access to Hogwarts for the rest of the tournament, and although Ludo
Bagman complains vociferously about the loss of coverage for the international tournament,
Barty Crouch Sr supports the move, and to Hermione’s satisfaction, Rita Skeeter’s credentials
are revoked.

The fog bank outside lingers for three days before it finally disappears, but that doesn’t stop
Hermione from going down to the lake several times, trying to channel the magic. She’s
careful to keep her magic under control, but careful or not, it makes no difference. She cannot
do it. There isn’t even a hint of connection between herself and the lake.

Malfoy’s comment that it’s supposed to be easy haunts her with every step.

However, in less time than she expects, she adapts to feeling the magic in the lake. At first
it’s so eerie that it’s nauseating to walk out of the castle, but slowly she realises that she’s
always subconsciously known it was there, she just hadn’t known to feel it.

It’s not the only magic she’s noticing. Now that she’s focused on potential sources, places
where magic pools, it’s like the world is coming alive around her. There is magic everywhere,
and now that she knows how to hone in, push past the psychic nudge that tries to deter her,
she can feel power running like a current around her.

As if she’s unlocked a new sense.

Even the castle is brimming with magic, so much that it’s almost an entity. The portraits, the
moving stairs, the armour, the statues. The building is brimming with power to a degree that
baffles her until she considers it further. Magic accumulates. The castle is built on the edge of
a deeply magical lake, along what is likely an equally powerful forest. It has been there for a
thousand years, drawing some of that naturally accumulating power into itself. It’s no wonder
it’s practically alive.

She rests her hands against the walls, and she can feel it, as if magic were its pulse.

Everything she’s learned in all the years at school was barely touching the surface of what
magic is, its capacity and uses. As if the professors would sooner pretend it wasn't so. She
doesn't understand why. Why hide all this possibility?

It all leads back to Dumbledore, she’s certain. The conviction that he is responsible for all of
it sits in her chest like an ember, a source of fury that glows brighter and hotter with each
progressing conclusion.

Purebloods like the Malfoys are bad enough, but at least Hermione knows they don’t care
about Muggle-borns. She’s under no illusions about how they see her. She knows they’ll
never help her. Dumbledore is worse because he presents himself as an ally, a friend. He
pretends to want to help while secretly holding them back, restricting them from the
resources they need.
As she has reevaluates him, it’s dawns on her that his generosity habitually finds its way only
to the people who will feel they owe him because of it. People like the Weasleys or Lupin.
Favour that creates debt.

It does not come to someone like Hermione, who was idealistic enough that she’d expected
him to do it, because he could, and it was right. And fair.

Perhaps if he'd manipulated her more intentionally, he could have. Hermione was as starry-
eyed as anyone when she arrived at Hogwarts. Hogwarts, a magical school where she was a
witch, a place that allowed Muggle-borns like her to learn magic. She’d believed Dumbledore
was the greatest wizard of all time. He had a chocolate frog card, an Order of Merlin, First
Class; he’d defeated Grindelwald and discovered the twelve uses of dragon’s blood.

And he was morally superior to the politicians! He didn't seek power, in fact he’d refused to
become Minister of Magic despite all the support for it, instead choosing to become
Headmaster at Hogwarts.

… and the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

And the Supreme Mugwump of the International Wizards Confederation.

In fact, as she sits thinking about it, she is struck by the realisation that Dumbledore’s
reputation for not pursuing power has conveniently given him more years of influence than
he’d have achieved, even with multiple terms as Minister of Magic. And no one ever
questions it because he is renown for not ‘seeking power.’

He even says as much himself. Frequently.

He's been an acclaimed figure since the end of the Global Wizarding War, definitely
influential for long enough to, as Malfoy said, spend decades slowly redefining the Dark Arts
until they’re regarded as something immoral.

But why?

What is the risk in knowing them? Why doesn’t Dumbledore want Hogwarts students to be
educated and able to achieve their full potential?

She sits at the edge of the lake early one morning, throwing stones at it while she ponders the
questions, mulling them over and over, and trying to understand.

“Tu me fais chier!” A piping, furious voice breaks her concentration.

She turns, expecting a Beauxbatons student, but finds no one behind her.

“Putain!” The small voice comes from the ground.

She looks down to the unexpected sight of a large ferret. It is perched on a rock, its bandit-
mask face twisted and furious. It only has one good eye, while the other is scarred shut by a
wide gouge that runs almost the full length of its body.
The ferret cocks its head to one side, lip curling back in a snarl that looks very sneer-like and,
for some inexplicable reason, Hermione’s first thought is that the ferret is Malfoy.

Although why Malfoy would be turned into a ferret is a mystery beyond her.

Still she leans forward. “I’m sorry, did you —”

“T’es une raclure de bidet,” the ferret snaps, cutting her off. It tilts its head the other way and
scrambles closer in order to spit. “Putain!”

Before she can react, there’s a shout and a blur of pale skin, brown hair, and powder blue as
Bisset appears, snatching the ferret off the rock so that its long, sinuous body swings wildly
in his grasp, tiny paws pedalling helplessly through the air.

“Tu me fais chier. Ta gueule! Va te faire enculer!” The ferret shouts as Bisset pulls his robe
open, revealing a bare chest and torso, as well as drenched swim trunks as he proceeds to
unceremoniously stuff the animal into an inner pocket in his robes and then button a flap over
it, despite the continuing shouts of the ferret within.

Bisset draws a deep breath and turns to face Hermione, blushing up to the tips of his ears.
“Sorry! I’m sorry,” he says, half-panting. “‘E ‘as no manners.”

“Putain!” came a muffled shout from inside Bisset’s robes. “Nique ta mère!”

Bisset flushes redder and gives the outside of his robes a gentle smack.

“Blaireau!” The voice inside subsides.

“Is that — a Jarvey?” Hermione asks, staring at him in astonishment.

Now that she’s had a moment to process things, she’s remembered that ferrets, quite
definitively, do not talk, and even if Malfoy were transfigured into a ferret, which would be
terribly funny, he still wouldn’t be able to talk.

There is one magical mustelid known for its power of speech. And those are the infamously
foulmouthed and entirely untamable Jarveys. She’s never seen one because they’re
considered vicious nuisances, but she's read about them. They look just like large ferrets.

Bisset’s hair is dripping and his blue robes show patches of water seeping through them.
There’s a twig and a bit of duckweed in his hair and his bare feet and ankles are streaked with
mud as if he just came straight out of the lake.

He’s probably practising for the next task. The thought makes Hermione chillingly self-
conscious that she’s behind in her own preparations.

Bisset gives a nervous laugh and slicks his dripping brown hair out of his face by combing
his fingers through it. “Yes. He insisted that he cannot stay at Beauxbatons without me. But
now,” he gestures despairingly with one hand, “‘e is bored in the carriage. Complains all day.
I thought ‘e would like the lake, but ‘e ran away.”
“Where did you get a Jarvey?” Hermione is fascinated.

Bisset pulls his robe open so that the Jarvey can poke its indignant head out from under the
pocket flap. The little animal sneers at Hermione again and then with clever paws, unfastens
the button restraining it and scrambles up out and upwards, draping it’s long body around
Bisset’s shoulders like a scarf, licking the dripping lake water from his hair, and then chewing
affectionately on his earlobe.

“‘E was hurt.” Bisset trails a finger near the side of the Jarvey’s head where it’s scarred. The
little creature stops pulling on his ear in order to nip and lick at the fingertip instead. “I found
‘im, and took ‘im ‘ome. Fixed ‘im. And now —"

He makes a long face and throws a despairing hand heavenward, as if he's a victim being
punished for his generosity.

Hermione steps closer, trying to get a better look, but Bisset backs away, holding a hand out
to ward her off.

“Careful, ‘e bites many people.”

Hermione stops short. “What’s his name?”

“Tête de noeud. Connard!” the Jarvey says promptly, and Bisset flushes and grabs its whole
head, shaking his own head and clearly trying to smother the words.

“Cadeau! ‘is name is Cadeau.” Bisset tries to snatch his pet up and stuff him back inside the
pocket but Cadeau slithers out of his grasp as if boneless and chatters damningly on.

“Salaud. Fils de pute! Sac à merde —”

Knowing Bisset is already testing methods of searching the lake lights a fire of determined
anxiety in Hermione’s chest. She hasn’t made any progress beyond solving the Egg. Malfoy
will presumably use Elemental Magic. Bisset is at least exploring the underwater to
familiarise himself, and Hermione is still trying to come up with an alternative to Gillyweed.

She’d been hoping that the Dark Arts were going to hold the key, but she’s nowhere near
mastering anything. She isn’t even managing anything.

She turns to the library again, putting aside her efforts to channel the lake. It won’t matter
how much of the Dark Arts she masters if she loses the tournament. She has to balance her
priorities.

She’s deep in a research spiral when Malfoy’s voice makes her nearly start out of her chair.

“Granger.” He’s materialised out of thin air and stands beside her, his expression a mixture
of irritation and scrutiny, as if he suspects she’s up to something nefarious.

She jumps, feeling inexplicably guilty.

It’s not as if she’s been avoiding him. She hasn’t. She’s just been busy. She had every
intention of tracking him down again for more information, putting it on each day’s mental
to-do list and then never getting around to it. Prepare for the Second Task, then learn more
about the Dark Arts from Malfoy. That’s been the order. It’s a smart way to prioritise things.

It has nothing to do with hoping to master Elemental Magic on her own so that the next time
they meet, she can prove him wrong and throw an icicle at his head.

“What?” she says in an irritated voice, shutting the book and concealing her notes about
animal transfiguration under it.

He holds both his hands towards her, each in a fist, the signet ring gleaming cold on his left
hand. “Choose one.”

She looks at his extended hands for a moment before looking back up, wary. “Why?”

His grey eyes glint and she isn’t sure if his expression is cruel or if the silver scar on his face
just makes him look that way. “I’m giving you a choice about what you’re going to learn
next.”

He inclines his head towards his hands again.

She gives him a sceptical look but sighs and points to his right fist.

He exhales and flips his hand, unfurling his fingers and revealing a glass phial filled with a
potion, which he sets on the table beside her.

She picks it up, tilting it sideways in order to see the sheen and viscosity, deep red with a
metallic shimmer and thick as honey. Blood Replenishing Potion.

It sends a shiver of uncertainty through her.

“What’s this for?” she says, glancing up at him.

His fingers drum at the edge of the table. “You’re going to learn Blood Magic.”

Blood Magic. Her heart skips. This is something she knows of. Not in detail, of course, but
enough to know it’s dangerous and powerful. Definitely dark in a way that potions and
Elemental Magic aren’t. The truly unsavoury side of the Dark Arts.

A wicked part of her thrills at that.

Then she shakes her head, setting the potion down. Not because she doesn’t want to learn, but
because she doesn’t like that Malfoy is abruptly taking the lead about teaching her. The
sudden change makes her suspicious.

“No. I don’t want to yet. I need to figure out Elemental Magic first,” she says, keeping her
tone indifferent.

There's silence.
“Pardon?” Malfoy’s voice is dangerous.

Hermione stares straight ahead so that she won’t flush or feel ashamed; after she made an
Unbreakable Vow with him, so confident that a little more knowledge was all she needed to
prove herself better than him.

“I don’t want to start another form of the Dark Arts until I’ve got Elemental Magic down.
Blood Magic is going to have to wait,” she says with resolve.

Before he can reply, there are voices only few aisles away, close enough to make them both
jump. But rather than draw back to avoid being seen there, Malfoy moves towards her, eyes
flashing.

Her wand is lying on the table, and her hand instinctively goes for it, but this time, he’s
quicker.

His palm closes over her hand as her fingers catch the handle, pinning both to the table and
he leans in.

“I’m not getting stuck with you because you can’t handle the fact you’re not a pureblood,” he
whispers, his breath hot against her neck and it sends her heartbeat rocketing.

She stares at him in fury, trying to wrench her herself free, but his hand and weight are a vise
against the bones in her wrist.

“I just need more practice,” she says fiercely, swinging her other hand towards his face, but
he catches it by the wrist with his other hand, shoving her back and leaning in closer.

She’s twisted in her chair, one hand pinned, the other captured in mid-air, her feet trapped
under the table so she can’t kick him as he pins her in her seat.

She twists her arms, trying to get free, but he only has to add a little more of his weight to
keep her in place. Now he’s looming over her, their faces centimetres apart.

She stops struggling and just glares at him, her mind racing.

She could scream. It would send him running the moment she did, and he knows it.

But she won’t, and he knows that too.

She doesn’t need anyone saving her, especially not from him.

He studies her face and smiles, dark and lazy. “I could get used to you like this.”

Her cheeks burn, and she slams her head forward, intending to break his nose, but he lets go
the instant she moves. She nearly falls out of the chair, catching herself on the edge of the
table as he straightens, brushing non-existent wrinkles from his uniform.

“I’ll see you tonight in the Come and Go room.” His eyes are still dark and amused and he
gives a thin smile. “Don’t forget the potion. You’ll be the one bleeding.”
 He turns and walks away without another word.

When he’s gone, Hermione clenches her fists and squeezes her eyes shut, her entire body
going taut as she screams internally. After several seconds, she releases a slow breath and
relaxes, willing the fury down to a simmer as she opens her eyes and picks up the vial of
potion. Despite her humiliated outrage, there’s still an insatiable eagerness inside her that
sparks to life at the tantalising allure of learning something new.

Every piece of knowledge she gets makes her a little stronger, gives her more options. It
teaches her how the magical world works.

Blood Magic.

Her magic is thrumming in her veins just thinking about it.

And somehow, she knows that this will not be hard for her.

Chapter End Notes

Many thanks to triciabean and sweetangel1 for helping me with all the French Jarvey
insults.

Illustrations:

Draco's Durmstrang Uniform by travellersmoon

Hermione at the Yule Ball by artemisia_flora
Hermione learning Elemental Magic by mary_fray_child
 Blood Magic
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Malfoy is already in the Come and Go Room when Hermione arrives. The room that he’s
manifested is larger than most classrooms and completely empty. No furniture, no fireplace.
A stone hall with dim sconces that emit a cold flameless light.

He’s holding a bag that has the bottom corner cut and a steady stream of salt flows from it,
leaving a thin trail that he uses to draw a large circle in the centre of the room.

Hermione goes over and looks at it for a moment before glancing up at him. “Are we
summoning something?”

She can tell he rolls his eyes even though he doesn’t look up.

“Circles are used to contain magic.” He closes the circle and then drops the bag against the
wall, before straightening and walking around the full circumference, verifying that it’s
continuous. “After your last – outburst, I thought, best not to have you blasting a hole in the
castle.”

Hermione’s cheeks warm and she glances around the room again, realising that the spartan
asceticism of the room is intended to reduce the number of things that might turn lethal under
the manipulation of uncontrolled magic. It’s slightly flattering but mostly frightening and a
bit humiliating that he’s this concerned about it.

“So you’re sealing me inside the circle?” she asks with a wary frown.

He smirks slightly. “I am.”

Then the humour vanishes from his face and he returns his attention to the circle,
apparently very worried that she’s going to blow him up.

She follows him stiffly.

“Do you think I can do this?” She hates to even ask, but she wants to have an idea of how
improbable her success is, if there’s a chance this is going to end up being like Elemental
Magic where it’s supposed to be easy, but it isn’t for her.

He glances at her. “You have magic. You can do this.”

That concession is minute but still comforting, although it also means that she will be all
the more mortified if she somehow can’t do it.

It doesn’t help that she’s still on edge because of the way he ambushed her in the library. She
doesn’t want him thinking he can get away with doing things like that to her.
She clears her throat. “Before there’s any blood flowing, explain how Blood Magic works.”

He’s still staring at the circle and doesn’t even have the courtesy of looking phased by her
ordering him around this time. It irritates her, setting her a little more on edge.

“It’s an exchange which you pay with your body.” His expression is impassive. “There’s
magic in the blood. Utilising it while spell-casting can magnify the power of the incantation.”

Hermione looks at her hands. She hadn’t yet considered that she herself has the qualities of a
magical ingredient, a bit more valuable but fundamentally not so unlike a pickled toad.

“Just blood?” She keeps her voice light. “Or can you use other parts?”

Malfoy looks up at that and his expression hardens. “Technically any part of the body,
although living tissue is necessary. Fingernails or hair are useless. Blood is what’s —
traditionally used. But in theory, bones, organs, entire limbs, all carry power. However —” he
looks away again, his fingers are wrapped around his wand and the knuckles stand out, his
voice drops, becoming quieter, “the magnitude of the toll is equivalent to the magnitude of
the power.”

Hermione looks over at him, eyes narrowing at the odd shift in his tone. His mood has
changed and she’s confused about why. If he’s that worried that she’s going to kill him by
accident, he could have just offered to teach her something else.

That can’t be it. So what then?

Then she remembers: Malfoy crumpled on the ground, trapped against the wall of the
enclosure as the dragon closed in, all the blood streaming from his face.

His arm slashing up in a single swift arc.

One spell with so much power it annihilated any vulnerability in its path.

Her body goes cold as she realises it.

“You used Blood Magic during the First Task. On the Horntail. Didn’t you?” Her voice is
low, and more accusing than she means it to be.

Malfoy doesn’t move for a moment, then he turns his head slowly to stare at her, the scar
etched down his face catches in the dim illumination of the sconces, a detached expression on
his face.

“Well…” he says in a cool, remote voice, “I did have blood in excess at the time.”

He says it indifferently. Like it would have been a waste not to have done it, instead of the
horrible tragedy that it was.

She stares at him in surprise, as if she’s just been punched. She’d assumed that he’d
rationalised blinding the Horntail, but actually hearing the cold way he talks it is chilling. As
if it didn’t matter at all.
Her stomach twists and she can hear the screaming Horntail all over again, the sickening
dissonance of her body trying to panic while the Calming Draught kept her sedated, trapped
in an artificial sense of peace as the scene played out in front of her.

She’s such an idiot.

All this time, she’d given Malfoy the benefit of thinking he hadn’t wanted to. That he
wouldn’t have otherwise. But no. He’s horrible, as awful as Harry and Ron always said.
There’s no regret in his expression. His eyes are detached, as if they’re discussing something
inconsequential like the weather.

She opens her mouth to speak, but no sound comes out.

She tries again and what comes out is a sharp, disbelieving laugh.

“I guess that made it alright then. It would have been such a shame to shed all that pure
blood for nothing,” she says, her voice vicious.

He doesn’t even blink, instead turning back to the circle. It makes her angrier and she goes
after him, fury welling up inside her like an inferno.

All the things she despises him for, for being him, for going to Durmstrang as if Muggle-
borns aren’t people but a filthy plague to escape, for making her Vow to leave the Magical
world if she loses the tournament, for not even trying to teach her well until she’d forced him,
but she despises him the most for this: for thinking himself entitled to inflict pain on anyone
he regards as less consequential than himself.

She wants to punch him right in the middle of his pointy, emotionless face.

“The dragon was a mother!” she says, her words vibrating with outrage. “A mother trying to
protect her eggs. Dragged across the continent for international amusement, and —” Her
voice gets angrier and more mocking with every word as he keeps ignoring her and checking
his stupid salt lines. “Since you had blood, you had no choice but to gouge out her eyes. You
couldn’t cast a reversible spell like Conjunctivitis. I guess they don’t even bother to teach
things like that at a school like Durmstrang .”

He’s standing there and doesn’t even turn around, but his shoulders have gone rigid, and it
makes her savagely pleased that she’s at least getting under his skin.

“No. She made you bleed.” She gives a sharp, false laugh, tossing a hand. “You were entitled
to do something awful to her, curse her as terribly as you could. Since you’re such a special
pureblood.” She says ‘special’ with all the scathing venom she can pour into her words, and
he flinches but still doesn’t turn.

“You get to do anything you want. Even irreversibly curse protected species with nothing but
a little slap of the wrist. A two point deduction. It must be fun, getting to buy your way out
over every consequence in life. Did you know they killed her afterwards because of what you
did? I know her keeper — he said it was her very first clutch of eggs –”
She’s so angry she wants to cry. She’d been so busy trying to reason around Harry and Ron’s
condemnation of Malfoy, she hadn’t really let herself think about how tragic it was, but now
that she isn’t trying to defend him to herself, now as she says it to him, it all hits her. How
awful he really is.

She scoffs. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t care anyway —”

“I couldn’t see!” Malfoy rounds on her, his voice cracking like the snap of a whip. That cold
indifference is suddenly gone. His eyes are burning as he glares at her. “I couldn’t — fucking
– aim!”

His chest is heaving, and his cool composure lies in ruins around him. But while the shout
was furious, his face is stricken rather than enraged. His grey eyes are wide and open with
emotion, and. And his chin trembles.

“I —” his jaw works as if he’s about to say something but the words seem to die in his throat.
“I’d thought — if I flew —”

The words come out thick and he swallows.

“I — I ran out of ideas,” he says, and his voice shakes almost imperceptibly.

His head ducks and he looks away, his eyes dropping. His throat keeps dipping, as if he’s
swallowing again and again, trying to hold something back.

She stands there, speechless, her mounting fury suddenly guttered out as she stares at him
wide eyed.

He’s crying.

He’s trying to hide it, blinking hard as if to will them back, but a tear streaks down the inner
corner of his face and he inhales in a sharp shudder that makes his shoulders tremble.

Hermione is frozen with surprise.

She’s never made anyone cry before.

She wets her lips, uncertain about what to do. She was so angry she thought she could
explode, and now, being so suddenly devoid of it leaves her empty and confused, a guilty pit
opening and swallowing her outrage.

She doesn’t mean to, but her eyes trace over the scar running across his eye again. Long and
cruel, and too obvious to glamour away without significantly altering his appearance. A life
event stamped into his features.

He probably hates his reflection.

“I’m sorry,” she says when the silence just stretches unbearably on and he doesn’t say
anything else, because she feels like she has to say something.
At her words, he seems to suddenly remember himself and all the emotion in his face
vanishes, like a wall dropping down between them.

“Shut up.” His voice is vicious but there’s a telltale tremor to it. “Shut – up. I — hate you.”

He turns and storms out of the room without a backwards glance.

She feels too guilty to even look for him at breakfast the next day.

Hermione waits outside the Come and Go Room that evening, not expecting Malfoy to come
back, but not wanting to miss it in case he does.

It’s late, nearly curfew when she hears footsteps coming down the hallway, and when he
comes around the corner, his expression turns flinty, clearly having hoped not to find her
there. But he walks to the doorway without a word.

Hermione impresses herself with her restraint. She has a thousand things she wants to say to
him as he paces back and forth, summoning back the room. She wants to say that she is
again, sorry and shouldn’t have said all that she did; that it wasn’t his fault; that he shouldn’t
be ashamed of surviving or what he did to survive, that the tournament coordinators are the
ones who are truly responsible; that the Ministry approved the task and is also culpable.

Nothing he hasn’t heard, she’s certain.

She keeps it all buttoned behind her lips as he goes in and checks the salt circle still saying
nothing to her.

For her own part, Hermione is unsettled by feeling anything towards Malfoy but resentment.
Resentment is steady and burning. A safe thing to feel towards him. Her current state of guilt
leaves a cold empty pit in her stomach, it makes her want to do something, even get closer to
him or say something nice to him, if it will make the feeling go away.

It’s yet another shift between them and Hermione very much dislikes the revelation that
things are capable of shifting. It feels as if Malfoy has abruptly removed himself from all the
neat and dismissive categories that she’d boxed him into.

He’d been neatly labelled in Hermione’s mind as an smug and bigoted bastard with an
exploitable but condescending fascination with her, which she was entitled to exploit because
people like him had done nothing but spend their lives exploiting others and deserved to have
the tables turned.

Malfoy was also shoved into Hermione’s general ‘boy’ category, and boys don’t cry, at least
none of the ones she’s known. Negative emotions in boys just get bundled up into volcanic
forms of anger that grow until their faces turn red or white, and then they explode and yell
too close to your face until you cry and they think that means they’ve won because crying is
weakness, a sign that you’re irrational.
Being in Gryffindor, male anger is something Hermione’s well acquainted with both
personally and as an observer, the house seems to accumulate a disproportionate quantity of
the quick-tempered.

Hermione doesn’t have anywhere in her mental catalogue to put a boy she doesn’t like who
cried in front of her even though he doesn’t like her either. It shatters her perception of his
cold standoffish-ness.

The conundrum kept her up half the night fretting.

In many ways it’s a relief that Malfoy refuses to even look directly at her, and it becomes
clear that neither of them wants to acknowledge the previous night, so they very awkwardly
and intentionally pretend like it didn’t happen.

The lesson is as clinical as Malfoy can make it, he looks in her general direction but past her
when he talks, his voice so tense it’s practically daring her to bring up what happened. But
she very sensibly does not, staying quiet and just letting him lecture about Blood Magic.

Any blood lost can potentially be used, but it’s the easiest if the blood gets on the wand
because it draws the magic most readily and channels it the most effectively. The casting is
the same as Basic Magic. He holds his palm up and shows where on her wand hand to cut her
hand open, demonstrates the technique of holding the wand downwards once the incision is
made so that the blood will flow to the tip.

Then he hands her a knife.

She presses the blade against her palm but winces when she feels its razor-edge bite the
skin. She can practically feel his cold satisfaction as he watches her.

She draws the knife away, gripping the handle and looking up. “How much blood is
necessary. Can’t I just cut my finger?”

Malfoy’s lip curls into a derisive sneer and it’s hard to believe he’s the same person whose
voice had been choked with emotion the night before. As if there’s a switch somewhere
inside him, where he just turns himself cold and performative.

“If you’re in a situation where you need Blood Magic, you won’t have the time to experiment
with how much you need. You don’t want to find yourself short. A palmful is usually enough
without any risk of over-drawing.”

“Fine,” Hermione grimaces and again presses the knife against her hand and then winces
again and pulls it back. “What about a syphoning spell?”

He throws a cold stare in her general direction as if she’s being over-dramatic for not
wanting to slit her own hand open with a knife. “How about a numbing charm?”

She assumes the suggestion comes because he wants the evening to be over and not
because he has in any way forgiven her for getting under his skin. She blushes and performs a
quick numbing spell on her palm before finally forcing herself to cut it. She makes it as
shallow as possible.

The scarlet blood wells up and she gingerly wraps her hand around the handle of her wand,
the wood providing a dull pressure against the cut.

Her blood follows the vine pattern, a lattice-shape like the scars running down her arm, as it
slides down the length of her wand to the tip.

It is the most unnatural and uncanny feeling.

She can sense her magic in the blood. Not just the blood inside her body but her magic in the
blood flowing along her wand.

As she grips her wand, it buzzes with life. The thrum of magic in her veins has grown
stronger, almost constant during the last month as she’s tried to find her source. As she stands
gripping her blood-drenched wand, she feels like a tripwire. Spring-loaded and overwound.

She looks up and finds that Malfoy has activated the circle around her with a series of chalk
runes, the salt beginning to glow.

Her right hand feels like it might catch fire if she doesn’t do something soon. “What do I
do?”

“Magic,” is the terse, wonderfully helpful reply she receives.

She tilts her wand and magic explodes from the tip with a crack like a gunshot, and slams
like a cannonball into the invisible barrier that the salt creates. The circle ripples, air
crackling as the entire surface shudders.

Malfoy flinches. She smiles, as if she is not equally astonished.

He rolls his eyes. “Try to control it, if you possibly can,” he says with a dismissive curl of
his lip. “Stop if you start growing light-headed. If you pass out, I won’t be able to enter the
circle until you stop bleeding.”

He backs away several more feet, but she notices he’s watching her very carefully, as if
waiting for something.

She moves to the centre of the circle, breathing slowly, trying to stay in control of the
building power.

She starts tentatively, simple spells from First Year. It’s not as if she’s using new magic, or
even a different form. It’s her magical abilities on steroids. Every spell is ten times easier or
stronger. Defence spells, conjuring, charms and incantations. Knowing the salt will keep her
magic from going beyond the circle, she fills the air with incantations. Blue fire that dances
around her, its warm flames kissing her skin, flocks of canaries, and flowers blooming out of
thin air.
She effortlessly fills the circle with the most stunning display of magic she’s ever achieved in
her life.

Yet despite the heady splendour, and her amazement at how much power she has, she finds
herself incapable of enjoying it. There’s a wrongness to it. Like a snake swallowing its own
tail, she can feel self-destruction in every charm. By the time the bleeding on her palm
staunches, there’s a deep-seated sense of nausea welling up inside her, as if she’s been eating
herself alive.

Her wand goes quiet as the magic in her spent blood fades, the length of wood coated with
drying blood. The floor is trailed with lines and splatters of red. The constant hum of magic
in her veins that has grown familier is suddenly quiet, and the absence feels like a sort of
death within, as if finding herself without a heartbeat.

Her hand drops to her side, and the birds and flames still swirling around her die away,
vanishing into nothing. She needs a moment before she can even manage to step across the
fading glow of the salt. The ward flickers briefly as her bloodied hand passes through, but it
doesn’t stop her.

She wants to be elated over how powerful she was, but instead she feels empty. Like a vessel
with every drop inside poured out.

She remembers Malfoy standing next to his parents after the First Task, completely
unresponsive at his score or his parents' and she understands why.

Blood Magic is desperation. Survival with a price. A toll equivalent to the magnitude.

She mechanically reaches into her pocket and pulls out the vial of Blood-Replenishing
Potion, drinking it and hoping it will stop the empty sense of unease in her veins.

Malfoy hands her a jar of Murtlap Essence and she sits on the floor to clean her hand and
close the wound, relieved he thought to bring it because her hands are trembling and there is
such a void inside her that she isn’t sure she could manage even a basic healing charm.

When the cut has vanished, she looks up at him. “So… that’s what it’s like,” she says, trying
to keep her voice light but it sounds forced even to her.

He gives a short nod. He’s less smug than she’d expect, considering she feels like death
warmed over, but he does seem like he’s finally relaxed. He’s probably enjoying how weak
she is now.

She closes her eyes, inhaling unsteadily. The Blood Replenishing Potion should be working,
her skin has that tight bloated feeling the potion causes as the blood cells multiply, but the
empty sick feeling doesn’t go away.

“Did I really use that much blood?” she finally asks, finding it hard to even stand, she sinks
against the wall and slides back to floor, wishing now that there was furniture.
 Malfoy makes no move to help her, just watching her with a sort of calculating appraisal.
“The potion restores the blood loss, it takes a few days before your magic recovers,” he says
as if this isn’t highly pertinent information.

Hermione stares at him in disbelief. “And you tell me that now?”

He just raises an eyebrow. “If I wanted to sabotage you I would have saved this for the day
before the Second Task. Or even the Third.”

She winces, only marginally relieved that Malfoy isn’t entirely without morals. He has a few,
very small ones.

Or maybe he just wants her to think that so he can exploit it once she’s foolish enough to trust
him.

Is he better than she gives him credit for, and far worse?

She isn’t even sure what answer she wants.

“You can go,” she says after a pause, closing her eyes and leaning back against the wall,
wishing earnestly to pass out.

“I’m not staying because I want to,” he says with a snort. He glances at his watch. “A drop in
base magic levels can send some into shock. If you’re found drained of magic, the Ministry
would probably investigate thinking someone stole it. It would be a national incident.”

Hermione scrunches her nose, she’s never heard of anyone stealing magic aside from the
fairy tales. “People can actually steal magic?”

He raises an eyebrow, looking surprised that she doesn’t know this. “Yes.”

She bristles defensively. “I thought that was just a story to make children scared of Muggles.”

“No.” He leans back against the wall, still watching her from the corner of his eye. “It used to
happen, back before the Statute of Secrecy was enacted. The study of the Dark Arts was
flourishing, a golden age according to most, The Great Advancement. But then —” his voice
grows bitter, “– Muggle-borns began selling magic to Muggles. Potions, ingredients, charms
and runestones, things that didn’t need their user to be magical.”

He meets her eyes coldly, as if this is something she did personally. “When the Muggles
realised that magic could be taken from the magical, they began catching wizarding folk who
made the mistake of trusting them. They’d torture and bleed them until there was no more
magic left to take, and then their churches would butcher them on charges of witchcraft.”

Hermione sits in stunned silence. That is light years away from the version of events that
Professor Binns presented about the Witch Hunts. The cause was always vague. Wizards and
Muggles had lived integrated in societies for hundreds of years and the sudden persecution
had always been attributed to the increased superstition of the time.
She also knows from her studies of the Statute of Secrecy that reports of Witch Hunts were
dismissed for a long time. There are even stories of witches and wizards who thought it funny
to get caught because they could use spells and enchantments to escape. The indifference had
lasted until young pureblood children were caught, young enough that they lacked the ability
to escape.

That had roused the Wizarding world into action, but by then the Witch Hunts had become so
widespread, sponsored and promoted by both the Catholic and Protestant churches, that it
was almost impossible to remain undetected in the Muggle World.

Wizarding families warded their lands with secrecy and protective magic and went into
hiding. By the seventeenth century, anyone who associated with Muggles was considered a
traitor and outcast by the Wizarding World. The Statute of Secrecy was enacted and the
Council of Wizards dissolved in order to pave the way for the new government, the
Wizengamot and the Ministry of Magic.

She’s quiet for a minute thinking through this new piece of information.

“They never mentioned the Dark Arts being what started it,” she finally says.

Malfoy gives a snort, tilting his head back to rest against the wall, watching her with hooded
eyes. “Yes, well, Merlin forbid your professors to put the blame for the Witch Hunts on the
ones responsible for causing them.”

She can hear the barbed, implied you in his words.

Hermione gives him a sharp look. “Yes, well,” she mimics his cadence, “I’m sure you’ve
realised that purebloods contributed too.”

He blinks, so surprised by the accusation that the resentment leaves his face. “What?”

She raises her eyebrows, jutting her chin. “Think about it. Who else did Muggle-borns have
to sell to?” She looks down at her wand, rubbing off the blood coating it with the pad of her
thumb. “Most likely Muggle-borns started selling magic to Muggles because they didn’t have
other options, because you lot can barely stand to let us breathe without complaining about
it.”

“No —” Malfoy starts, his voice hard and annoyed, clearly not having expected the
conversation to take this turn.

Hermione doesn’t let him cut her off. She much prefers to be angry than sit with nothing to
think about but how awful she feels.

“Purebloods have never accepted Muggle-borns, not for a thousand years, and you’ve never
ever cared what happens to us. So, why wouldn’t they think maybe Muggles might value
what they had to offer and try to make a life that way?”

“That doesn’t excuse —” He’s getting angry now, his voice sharp and defensive.
“I’m not saying it does,” she snaps back at him. “I’m just asking, what options did they have?
Were there any? Because it seems like you all love blaming people for being desperate when
you’re the ones who made them desperate in the first place.”

She leans back, feeling furious enough that it causes just a flicker of her magic to seep back.
“You said yourself, the wizarding folk that were caught and harvested were the ones who
made the mistake of trusting Muggles.” She meets his eyes. “Do you think you’re describing
a pureblood?”

It is clear that he somehow did; that this is a story about greedy Muggle-borns causing a
problem with the evil and grotesque Muggles, and the poor, innocent purebloods who had to
suffer for it by warding their enormous country estates and becoming more exclusionary. A
narrative he’s been fed since he was so young, he’s never thought about it with an ounce of
critical thought.

She knows from reading through the dusty census records for the British Wizarding
community that it was only after nearly a century of Witch Hunts that a pureblood child’s
death suddenly jolted the Wizarding World from its apathy and the genocide suddenly
mattered .

That detail is right there in his story. And he’d notice it if he’d just shift his attention enough
to stop focusing on perceived slights against his lineage and care about anyone else.

It enrages her that he’s never had to notice, that his eyes have the luxury of skimming over
gaps in a narrative since the consequence of indifference do not touch him.

It is so bitterly unfair that people can just choose not to see things when it doesn’t affect them
personally.

“Have you really never realised this?” she asks, despite knowing the answer because she
wants him to know she thinks he’s an idiot.

She gives an incredulous laugh. “All this time, you thought it was purebloods dying during
the Witch Hunts? The people who live on old, hidden properties, and barely have anything to
do with Muggles as it is? Who know about magic and see it as soon as they’re born, and learn
about how it works before they ever use it? No. It wasn’t. It was Muggle-borns. Those are the
people who trusted Muggles. And after that —” she swallows and looks away, “after that it
was Muggle-born children, because they were easy to find, and sometimes their parents
didn’t even try to protect them. And no one cared then, same as now.”

She pulls her knees up against her chest, hugging them tightly and staring across the room at
the salt circle. “Did you know that Muggles are still scared of magic? They don’t have any
idea that it exists, and there’s nowhere to look or find answers if they see it. It’s not like
Muggle-born children can explain why their books float or birds burst from their hands —”
her words catch in her throat and she has to inhale raggedly before she can speak again “– or
why things catch fire when they’re upset. It just —“ her voice shakes, “it just starts
happening one day. It doesn’t stop or go away, no matter how hard they try. No one comes to
explain. Or says it’s alright. Or says that there’s nothing wrong with being that way.”
 The tip of her tongue darts across her lips to wet them. “They have to figure out how to
control it all alone. And if they don’t, they don’t get to see their friends often, or go to school,
because their parents are always worried about the accidents, so they’re just kept home—“

She blinks as realises the words pouring from her, her anger having veered over to a subject
where she’d never intended to go, especially not with Malfoy. She cuts herself off so sharply
it’s like her pounding heart slams up into her throat. She swallows and draws her shoulders
in, her body tense with emotion, glaring at him with all the venom she feels. His eyebrows
are furrowed, as if everything she’s saying is such a revelation he isn’t sure whether to
believe it or not.

“No purebloods have ever cared about any of that,” she says, looking away, her throat tight
with resentment, “so don’t even try to pretend that Witch Hunts were a tragedy that makes
your life hard.”

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

Durmstrang Draco by bluenisu.

 Slug Club
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

As soon as she feels well enough to stand, Hermione and Malfoy stiffly part ways, both of
them wordless as they go in opposite directions.

There’s a flood of relief that surges through her when he’s finally gone. As she watches him
disappear around the corner she feels towards him as she suspects he does towards her:
trapped.

She’d knowingly used herself as bait when she got him to agree to their wager, and she’s felt
the hold of her Unbreakable Vow, but tonight is the first time that she feels viscerally aware
of the fact that their Vows have caged them together.

No matter how much either of them wants to avoid the other, neither of them have a means of
escape. They are chained together until the tournament ends, and now she’s beginning to feel
how restricting that is.

She bitterly regrets making any allusions to her childhood in front of him.

As a rule, she doesn’t talk about it. She had learned quickly that in the magical world,
Muggles are regarded as both boring and primitive, quaint at best.

She keeps the information she shares minimal: Her parents are dentists. They were happy for
Hermione when they learned she was a witch.

No one has ever cared to question further aside from the occasional baffled inquiry about
what a dentist is and why anyone would want one.

It feels like a betrayal of her parents to say more knowing the condescending way they’ll be
perceived. Her parents are intelligent and they love her, and it wasn’t their fault that they
didn’t know how to raise a magical daughter. They tried. They did the best they could.
Hermione knows how hard they tried, how hard they still try to be supportive about the life
she’s left them for, even though they barely understand it and even if they did, they can’t ever
be part of it.

Knowing that makes Hermione feel even more guilty for how frantic and suffocated she feels
whenever she returns home. It makes her ashamed of how desperate she is to leave them
again, irrationally terrified that the magical world will disappear without her.

Sometimes it feels like it would be easier if they didn’t love her.

Hermione makes her way up to the dorm and immediately goes to stare at her reflection in
the bathroom mirror, looking for visible signs of what she’d done. She expects to look more
malicious, or hardened by her act of darkness, of self-cannibalisation, but the same face she’s
always known greets her.

Large brown eyes, sharp chin, set mouth.

She doesn’t even look pallid or a touch vampiric; the Blood Replenishing Potion having quite
successfully countered any pallor.

It’s almost disappointing.

On the inside, she feels like she’s changing, that her magic is growing, sharpening, becoming
something new; but when her same face greets her, it makes her wonder if she’s imagining it.

She feels sluggish the next day, her magic barely more than a weak stirring in her blood, as if
it’s been watered down. Even simple spells seem to require more energy than she has to
spare.

After dinner, she devotes herself to the exhausting task of honing in on her source, hoping it
will make her magic levels go back up. Even though the path inward is faint, she knows the
way.

It works.

The surge as it comes rushing back leaves her head spinning. She’s both euphoric and
exhausted.

She wakes early the next morning, her magic stronger than before, and her entire body feels
restless, skin sensitive, making her uncomfortably tense.

She lies there, telling herself to get up and go study but not wanting to leave the heavy
warmth. The drapes around her bed are drawn shut and no one else is awake yet. After a
moment’s hesitation, she slides her hand along her stomach, fingers slipping tentatively in
between her legs.

It makes her cheeks flush just doing that. She rarely feels any urge for it, even though her
mother has said it’s perfectly natural, healthy even, to explore and know her body.

It always makes her feel silly, but this morning she’s restless enough to want to.

She imagines a hand larger than her own, calloused and long fingered, making its way slowly
down her body. Hot, unsteady breath near her ear.

Her heartbeat steadily increases, breath growing short.

She tries to match a face to it but all the people she tries to conjure leave her cold when they
appear in her mind’s eye, and so her fantasy stays vague, only a few particular details.

Her imagination spins through thoughts of kissing, touching another body, and being touched.
The fire she imagines must happen when two people are hungry for each other. There are
thrilling, guilty thoughts being pinned down in her bed and ravished, and fiercer ones of
being the one doing the pinning, her knees straddling a hard body, lips and hands exploring.

Her toes twist under the sheets and her fingers move quicker as she lets her lips part, jaw
loosening as the heat and tension inside her pools and grows taut. Closer. Closer.

Closer.

She bites back a whimper as the pressure mounts.

There…

She lies in bed afterwards, panting softly in the afterglow, and feeling marginally unwound
for the first time in months.

In Potions, Slughorn announces gravely that his potion inventory has been robbed. The
classroom glances around at each other for signs of guilt while Slughorn lectures them all
about the risks of improper potion use.

In consequence of the theft, the sixth and seventh year classes will do all the work of
restocking what’s missing. There is a chorus of complaints at that.

Hermione averts her eyes and files into the cabinet to retrieve the ingredients necessary to
make Blood Replenishing Potion.

Feeling short tempered at having to pay for Malfoy’s theft, she slaps away the hands of the
reedy-looking Slytherin boy she’s partnered with. As a Triwizard champion, she’s one of the
most likely people to take the potion and she’s not at all interested in being accidentally
poisoned by an incomplete stir rotation or an improperly sliced beetle eye.

She’s just finishing when Professor Slughorn stops beside the table.

Most of the cauldrons are smoking and the few that aren’t don’t have the correct sheen for
Blood Replenishing Potion.

“Miss Granger, ten points to Gryffindor for excellent preparation,” he says, beaming down
into the cauldron, clearly elated that someone succeeded in doing his work for him.

“Thank you, Professor,” Hermione says with a smug smile, glancing towards Pansy, who’s
shrieking and jabbing her stir rod at a coagulating blob that’s trying to climb out of its
cauldron.

Slughorn clears his throat in a way that makes his voice shift an octave up and he leans in
towards Hermione so that she can smell the sickly sweet scent of bath oil on him. “One of my
best students, I always said.”

He straightens his robes with a pompous wave of his hands. “I’m hosting a Valentine’s Party
for the Slug Club, just a little soiree.” He chortles. “With all the to-do with the Yule Ball, I
didn’t throw my traditional Christmas Party, so I thought, a Valentine’s party, just a little
thing with the Slug Club and a few friends.”

Hermione’s heart-beat quickens in anticipation of finally earning an invitation to Slug Club.

“Nothing too big. Just a little party. I always said you were one of the brightest students in
your year. So, if you’d care to come...”

Hermione nods, smiling. “Yes.” She tries not to sound too eager, but her heart’s soaring.
Things are finally starting to go her way. “Thank you, Professor.”

Slughorn beams back at her, straightening so that his chest puffs out. “And bring a date, of
course. If Mr Krum doesn’t mind joining a party held by old Sluggy.” Slughorn’s voice trails
off suggestively with an uncomfortably hopeful giggle.

Hermione goes cold at the realisation that the invitation is still not ‘for’ her at all, but
hoping to access her infamously private ‘boyfriend’.

“Oh,” she says when the silence stretches a bit too long. “Well… unfortunately, I don’t
think Viktor will be in Britain then.”

She meets Slughorn’s eyes, daring him to retract the invitation at this news

“Oh,” he says, clearly disappointed. “Well… busy men, those Quidditch stars.”

There’s another pause and Hermione doesn’t break it this time, just looking at Slughorn and
letting him fumble.

He forces a laugh. “I’m sure you’ll miss him more than I do. Of course, you’re still invited.
Hogwarts’ champion, after all. Maybe Mr Krum can make it to the next one.”

After learning Blood Magic, things between herself and Malfoy are strangely strained.
Hermione feels tense around him and he seems to be constantly watching her with a wary,
baffled expression, as if she’s some sort of jack-in-the-box arithmancy equation that’s
refusing to resolve itself properly and may explode at any moment.

She should be smug by the sign that she’s succeeded in subverting his expectations about her,
but she doesn’t know how she’s done it, so instead it’s just unsettling.

On the upside, he seems to have fully come around to the fact that he’s Vowed himself to
teach her and the only way to get out of it is by getting it over with. He tells her about Dark
Arts theory, branches of the Dark Arts that they can’t practise at Hogwarts, things like the
theory behind Dark Arts spellwork, how those spells are made and why they work. Things
that she knows, but not in this context. She learns curses like the Unforgivables are the Dark
Arts even though they only require intent, because their price in the exchange is toll, willing
death or that much pain or power over someone is such a vicious intention that shaping the
magic in that way alters the caster permanently.
Other forms of Dark Arts spellwork involved utilising ingredients, dipping a wand tip into
the blood of a powerful Magical Creature, which can drastically magnify power in ways
similar to Blood Magic.

It surprises Hermione sometimes, just how much Malfoy knows. He’s smart. She knew
people said that, but it’s still somewhat startling to find that she actually agrees.

However, he’s smart in a way that’s oddly void of personal curiosity. His intelligence is lazy.
The mind of someone who’s never had to work very hard to get answers. He is by habit
disinclined to question what’s been taught or ponder the implications of the things he knows.
Educated because he’s been required to be.

Like his posture and comportment, his knowledge has been drilled into him whether or not he
wanted it. As if he’s been kept inside a mould his entire life. She watches him sometimes
with almost scathing disbelief. He’s practically an automaton in public. Disinterested and
about as animated as tepid water.

She can’t help but wonder why. Where’s the benefit in being so dull and standoffish?

He drops the act when they’re alone together, as if he can’t be bothered, and while it’s
intended as an insult, it gradually feels oddly intimate to know the imperfect version of him.

She gets to see his sullenness and uncertainty and sly curiosity about the things she’s almost
certain he knows he isn’t supposed to wonder about. He may act the perfect student and heir
in public, but he’s clearly dissatisfied with something.

He’s also much easier to annoy when he doesn’t have his guard up, and Hermione takes full
advantage of this, relishing the way he grows visibly aggravated with her when she refuses to
accept anything he tells her without a dozen sceptical questions.

“Why?” she asks when he tries to claim that runestones are pureblood only magic.

“Because,” he says, irritation already creeping into his voice, “purebloods are the only ones
with refined enough power.”

She just crosses her arms. “How can you tell how refined anyone’s magic is?”

He exhales in visible exasperation. “Because of their lineage. I’ve already explained this.”

Her eyebrows go up and so does her tone. “So, is there any measurable difference?”

His jaw sets. “The measurable difference is that Muggle-borns and half-bloods can’t do it.”
His voice practically drips with contempt.

Hermione just gives him a blank stare. “How hard has anyone ever tried to teach them?”

He blinks and goes quiet for a moment, his eyes dropping. “I’m sure there were attempts
made at some point, before Muggle-borns proved themselves untrustworthy.”
Hermione bristles inside. “So there’s no proof it was ever earnestly attempted and no
measurable distinction in the actual magic. It’s just assumed.”

A mutter this time. “That I know of.”

It’s the response he retreats to whenever he doesn’t have an answer. He’s only Vowed to teach
what he knows.

Sometimes the evasion works, but today Hermione isn’t willing to let him off so easily.
“You’ve said that magic is magic. That magic accumulates, and that magic takes on the traits
of that source, be it an element or a creature or a plant. I am human and you are a human, and
I can do all the same basic magic that you can. I have a wand just like you do. Where exactly
is the measurable distinction if magic is magic?” Her voice is caustic and unrelenting.

“I don’t know. I don’t waste my time thinking about Muggle-borns,” he says with a sneer.
“It’s not considered a question at this point, it’s been an accepted fact for hundreds of years
now. I’m sure it was proven at some point, but no one bothers studying it now because we all
have better things to do.”

He looks smug. As if he expects that to shut her up, but Hermione has a trump card and she’s
not afraid to use it.

“Then why did the Goblet of Fire choose me? If I’m measurably lesser? There were dozens
of purebloods it could have chosen.”

He flushes then, red staining his pale cheeks. “I don’t know.”

At least he has the intellectual honesty to admit it.

“And who does? Where would anyone find proof of this hundred-year-old fact that is so very
convenient for purebloods to cite?”

He just stands there glaring at her then, looking as if he’s two seconds away from reaching
over and strangling her just to end his misery.

Because there’s nothing he can do to stop her from questioning everything he tells her. He
has to teach her. Rather than feel terrified by the animosity that radiates from him, it thrills
her. Better an open rival than the constant sense of paranoia that she’s being picked apart
behind her back.

“Why don’t you just explain how runestones work?” she finally says.

He is sullen and furious as he does, but she doesn’t care. It’s a relief to finally get to ask her
questions, all of them, without a chorus of groans from classmates or patronising evasive
answers from professors. Despite his resentful mood, when Malfoy gives her answers, she
feels a flood of delight at knowing.

Sometimes she gets so caught up in the feeling she has to consciously check herself, stifle the
excitement and remember, ‘he’s not telling you because he wants to. You made a bet. He
wants to send you back to the Muggle world to suffocate.
She repeats it again and again, until it has burrowed like a thorn in her consciousness.

Don’t be grateful. You’re a bet to win. He’s your rival.

But no matter how many arguments she corners him in, she still can’t figure out how to use
Elemental Magic. And that is a sticking point. No matter how logical her rebuttals, she hasn’t
yet tangibly proven him wrong, and he is smugly aware of that fact.

It’s as if there’s an impenetrable wall between herself and the power she’s intended to wield.

She’s like a racehorse penned in behind a starting gate, waiting and rearing to break out and
run, but finding the gate remains fast. The more time she spends focusing on her magic,
trying to connect to her source, trying to channel the lake or any element, the more restless
she becomes.

She can barely sit still in class sometimes, as if she has too much magic trapped inside her,
and it’s teeming and waiting to find a way out. No amount of basic magic use is enough to
take the edge off and it makes her feel sharply impulsive, filled with reckless urges.

In that regard, it’s both dangerous and freeing to be around Malfoy. He’s not the only one
who feels liberated to drop all pretence when they’re alone together. Hermione lets herself be
as sharp and angry and difficult as she wants to be. All the bitterness and resentment that
she’s tried to stifle over the years comes out in full force.

Once Hermione lets herself be angry, she finds that she is far angrier than she’d even realised.
As if there’s a well of resentment that she’d kept hidden even from herself, but now it’s
overflowing.

Malfoy has the distinct displeasure of being her semi-captive audience, bound to secrecy and
obliged to teach her, no matter how aggravating he finds her. It leaves her free to be
uninhibited around him.

But sometimes Hermione’s afraid that she is getting too used to being herself. That someday,
she’ll walk out of the Come and Go Room and forget to hide it.

She takes Harry as her date to Slughorn’s Valentine’s party, convinced that he’s the safest
option despite his protestations that he hates Slughorn and really doesn’t want to go to a Slug
Club party, and couldn’t she just take someone else. The implication being that Ron should
go.

Hermione refuses to entertain the idea. Getting into Slug Club is a career move, and she
doesn’t want any interpersonal issues creating obstacles for her. Ron is clearly still waiting
for her to get the tournament over with so she can fall into his arms. Harry is a safe choice.
Everyone knows they’re friends, and he’s conveniently in-between crushes at the moment
and therefore has no Valentine’s plans at Madam Puddifoots.

She’d always imagined that Slughorn’s parties would have a sort of academic allure to them,
filled with the who’s who of Hogwarts, but the party is over-decorated and underwhelming.
Slughorn’s office is festooned with red and pink silks and hearts, a troupe of singing cupids
provides the music. Without Viktor, they deem Hermione of little consequence. She and
Harry barely mingle with any of the guests before taking up a strategic position beside the
table ladened with food.

“I don’t see why we have to stay,” Harry says after half an hour, stuffing his wand into a back
pocket after threatening a giggling cupid that keeps trying to shoot him with a maraschino
cherry tipped arrow.

Hermione wrinkles her nose. “Not all of us come from old affluent Wizarding families.”

Harry just rolls his eyes as if she’s making things up.

She sighs, putting a hand on her hip. “People who want to have jobs someday have to endure
things like this.”

“I’m probably going to have a job,” Harry says, lifting his chin indignantly. “I just haven’t
decided what yet.”

She gives him a piercing look. “Yes. You can do that. Most of us can’t.”

Harry looks uncomfortable, the way he always does when reminded that for most people,
employment is not an optional recreation.

“Just hold out a bit longer so Slughorn can’t wiggle out of inviting me to the next one.”

She turns away towards a fruit tray, not waiting to see if he relents because she knows he
will. He’ll stay, he’ll just complain the entire time too. There’s a little bug crawling along the
edge of the platter, and she flicks it away with her index finger before helping herself to
several large strawberries and holding them under the chocolate fountain. If there are any
upsides to the party, it is the array of things available to cover in rich, creamy dark
chocolate.

“Why does it have to be so boring?” Harry shoves his glasses up in order to rub his eyes.

“The other ones are probably more fun,” Hermione says, mostly because she hopes so. She
glances around at the odd assortment of guests, mostly purebloods, and wonders if Slughorn
invited Malfoy, and if he had, if Malfoy had declined because he had other Valentine plans or
because he didn’t consider Slughorn worth knowing.

Not that she cares.

It’s a relief that he isn’t there. Whenever they’re in the same places in public, she’s paranoid
that one of them will forget to pretend they don’t know each other.

“You can’t really think that being in Slug Club’s going to help you get a job,” Harry says.

“No.” Hermione catches an escaping drop of chocolate with the tip of her tongue. “But if
people see me being treated as up and coming, then maybe they’ll start treating me like I am,
and that’ll have a snowball effect.” She shoots a resentful glare towards Slughorn’s back.
“Even if I was only invited because of Viktor.”

“Have you heard from Krum much lately?” Cormac Mclaggen materialises just then,
dropping onto the sofa next to Harry.

“We’ve owled a few times,” she says, folding her arms. They’ve actually owled more than a
few times, and Hermione can’t help but think that maybe Viktor would like to date her once
she finishes at Hogwarts. In his latest letter, he invited her to visit him in Bulgaria during the
summer, telling her about places he thinks she would like, and saying several things that had
her blushing into the parchment. But she has no intention of going around and pretending
he’s her boyfriend the way that people like Pansy Parkinson do. “He’s home in Bulgaria right
now.”

“Yeah?” Cormac’s head bobs. “I meant to talk to him at the ball, you know. Thought he’d
have some pointers for going pro. Spring tryouts start in a few months and I’m thinking about
it. You’ve probably heard my family’s big in the Ministry, so Krum probably already knows
about me. My uncle, Tiberius. He’s in Magical Sports, old friends with most of the team
owners.”

Hermione doubts there’s a single person in Hogwarts who hasn’t had this information
involuntarily inflicted on them, given that Cormac seems to regard name-dropping as a
crucial means of validating his existence.

The subject turns to talk of Quidditch, and by Cormac’s third blow by blow description of a
flying manoeuvre, Hermione announces brightly that she and Harry really have to go. They
finally leave just as Cho Chang and Bisset ‘stop in’ having come back from Madam
Puddifoot’s.

The Witch Weekly that comes out the following weekend includes a story titled, “Viktor
Krum’s Secret Heartbreak.” It is an exposé revealing that on Valentine’s Day, Hermione was
seen cheating on Viktor with ‘the wealthy half-blood heir, Harry Potter, grandson of the
famed potioneering tycoon, Fleamont Potter’.

According to Rita, Hermione has set her sights on Harry because he’s the only child of an
affluent family. Poor, bereft Viktor was owled for comment but didn’t respond, presumably
because he’s so consumed by grief, having given his heart to a girl ‘unlike any he has ever
met before.’

“I had no idea I was considered the grandson of a tycoon,” Harry says, glasses perched on the
tip of his nose as he reads.

“I reckon it’s because you don’t go around sneering at everyone like other twats we know,”
says Ron.

“Listen to this,” Harry says, clearing his throat. “‘Potter men seem to have a generational
preference for Muggle-borns, Harry’s father, James, venture capitalist and early investor in
the Weasley Wizarding Wheezes joke shop, married a Muggle-born himself within a year of
leaving Hogwarts. It’s likely Miss Granger hopes for a similar rags to riches story of her
own.’” He shakes his head.

“I just want to know who told Rita that I went to the Slug Club party with you, Harry,”
Hermione says, taking the article back from him and chewing on a thumbnail, trying to hide
how unsettled she feels that Skeeter somehow included a line straight out of one of one of
Viktor’s letters, which Hermione had read when she was alone in the owlery.

She glances around the Great Hall at the nearby students. “It’s not like we were in
Hogsmeade together, where there were lots of people who would have seen us. Who would
have told?” She looks at Cormac, who’s seated at the far end of the table. “Do you think
someone’s owling her?”

“I want you to help me try to use Elemental Magic again,” she says to Malfoy when she
encounters him in the library.

He seems to spend a lot of time in the library when he’s not on Durmstrang’s ship for classes
and whatever else the students do onboard, or hanging out with Pansy and her friends. It’s
odd. She would have thought Malfoy would have a lot of old friends at the school, especially
given the way everyone reacted when he arrived. But he’s so distant and cold, he doesn’t
seem to make many, and the initial fascination in the school has mostly worn off.

When Hermione watches him on the Marauder's Map, a pastime she tries not to overindulge
in, he’s often either with a large group or entirely alone. Today he is alone, reading. Her eyes
skim the title, a book on sixteenth century Wizarding History.

He sighs and puts it down. “I’ve taught you what I know.”

She leans against a shelf, fingers drumming against the spine of an old book she’s already
read.

The Second Task is a week away and she still hasn’t found a better option than gillyweed.
Ron and Harry both say there’s no reason she can’t just use it, but she can’t shake the fear
that she’ll get a points deduction on technicality if she brings something unauthorised into the
lake. There’s nothing in the rules allowing the use of potions or magical ingredients during
the tasks. She’s sure there’s another way if she can just think of it.

On top of that, she’s now paranoid that Rita has spies in the school, watching her and
intercepting her post. This morning she got several letters, all anonymous, telling her what an
awful person she is for cheating on Viktor, that she shouldn’t even be allowed at Hogwarts.
That they hope she dies.

She’s feels so on edge she thinks she could crawl out of her skin.

“I know,” she says, shrugging him off, trying to hide how jittery she feels, “but I still want
you to come and help me figure out what I’m doing wrong.”

His lip curls in annoyance.

 “That’s not part of our agreement.” His voice stays low so no one overhears them.

“Yes it is,” she says, dropping her own voice and leaning in, enjoying the way he jerks back
and glares at her.

She finds that the more time she spends around him, the less intimidated she is. He may
know things she doesn’t, but the more she learns from him, and observes about him, the more
he just feels like a boy who’s very good at pretending he’s intimidating.

She’s seen too much behind that mask of his to fear the character he plays.

“You Vowed to teach me what you know of the Dark Arts,” she says using her most
condescending tone because she knows he finds it irritating, and she enjoys provoking him.
“I haven’t been able to work out the exact process of channelling the magic. I know all the
steps leading up to it. I’ve practised again and again, but I can’t work out how to make a
connection. I’m missing something and –”

“Probably —” His lazy aristocratic drawl, dripping with its own condescension, sets her teeth
on edge.

“You know how it works for you,” she says sharply, cutting him off. “So, I’m here to ask you
to teach me that. In excruciating detail.” She gives a catlike smile. “So much so that it pains
you, if necessary.”

She meets his eyes, daring him to manoeuvre his way out of it with the semantics of their
Vow. He meets her stare, eyes glittering and the air between them practically crackles.

Her heartbeat quickens in anticipation.

His grey eyes narrow, flicking down her face and something in the colour shifts, darkening.
His gaze instantly drops. He swallows and sinks back into the alcove, apparently willing to
slouch if it means getting marginally further away from her.

“Fine,” he says through gritted teeth.

There are at least four unspoken insults in the undertone of that one word, but she’s
disappointed that he didn’t try harder to get out of it. She would have liked to see how much
she could annoy him today. Irritating him is a pleasant distraction. It makes her giddy when
she gets under his skin.

“Good. I’ll see you at the lake after dinner tomorrow. I have rounds tonight.” She straightens
and walks away, her step light and taunting.

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:
Hermione after using Blood Magic by artemisia_flora
The Yule Ball dress by laura_m
 Channel
Chapter Notes

Author's note: I've updated the tags for the story to include a couple trigger warnings.
They won't be relevant until later, but I wanted to point out the update in case any
readers are sensitive to those warnings.

February has been so unseasonably warm that Hermione doesn’t bother with a cloak when
she leaves the castle for Double Herbology. Harry and Ron walk with her, complaining about
the latest assignment in History of Magic; Binns has assigned an essay about the Goblin
Rebellions. Hermione’s debating with herself whether her essay should focus more on the
Wizarding side of the rebellions or the Goblin’s side, and whether she’ll be able to fit
everything in when the assignment isn’t to exceed fifteen feet. Harry doesn’t see why the
Goblins had to rebel quite so much, while Ron just wishes their names weren’t so difficult to
keep track of.

They’re halfway to the greenhouses when there’s movement in the corner of her eye.
Something goes shooting by, whizzing near Hermione’s ear, just missing her. It strikes the
ground with a sharp crack, but she barely has time to see where it lands before there’s another
flying at them.

“What the bloody hell?” Ron says, ducking and using a shield spell before it catches him on
the side of the head. It hits the ground and they all stare at it.

It’s a brown ball about the size of a walnut. When it lands, it cracks open and a horrible smell
emerges, putrid and burning in her nostrils. Hermione nearly gags and clamps a hand over her
mouth and nose.

Dungbombs.

There’s no time to react before several more come flying towards them.

Ron sends several hexes towards the large hedge bush the dungbombs are coming from.
“Face us, you cowards, or eat slugs!”

After six years at Hogwarts, this is far from the Trio’s first ambush. Slytherin and Gryffindor
have what is referred to as a thousand year feud, and even though the faculty tries to channel
the antagonistic energy into a passion for House Points and the Quidditch Cup, every year
things inevitably get tense enough that it sparks open war in the form of elaborate pranks, and
jinx and hex duels in the corridors.

Harry and Ron both give excited war cries and leap forwards, alternating between sending off
jinxes and shielding themselves from what is now becoming a hail of dungbombs, while
Hermione stands back dithering about whether to join in or use her prefect status to
immediately bring an end to it.

Harry casts a decidedly banned tentacle-tooth hex and she winces.

The dungbombs are mostly missing, but they still splash everywhere when they burst; the
smell getting worse and worse. Harry shoots a jinx into the bush and it ricochets off
something and nearly hits Hermione in the face.

She jumps back with a startled yelp and draws her wand, now angry. She has no intention of
getting hospitalised just before the Second Task because of a stupid ambush.

She slashes her wand outward, sending a spell straight between Harry and Ron.
“Confringo!”

The bush explodes, evergreen leaves flying in every direction, leaving a splintered crater in
the ground. Behind it are four shocked looking girls in Durmstrang uniforms, each clutching
a bag of dungbombs, one with her wand defensively out.

Ron and Harry stop short, clearly having expected it to be Slytherins and not having the
slightest idea what to do with Durmstrang girls. There’s been a fairly rigid sense of decorum
between the three schools. No one wants to be responsible for causing an international
incident.

Even Hermione doesn’t know what to do. She stands staring at them with her mouth agape.

“What the bloody hell was that for?” Ron bellows, recovering first.

Instead of answering, the girls turn tail and flee up the hill and out of hexing range. They stop
at the top of the hill and fling another handful of dungbombs down towards the trio, which
Harry blocks with a neat protego.

“You — cheat!” shouts one girl, pointing an accusing finger straight at Hermione.

Hermione recognises her now as the girl who’d been with Petr at the ball, the younger sister
of Viktor’s friend.

“What?” She looks at her in outrage. “I’m not cheating!”

How dare anyone accuse her of cheating in the tournament? She’s the only person who hasn’t
cheated yet.

“Slut!” several of the girls shout at the same time.

Hermione blinks in confusion, not following their line of reasoning.

“Justice for Viktor! You stink!” The first girl shouts. They throw the rest of their dungbombs
down the slope and then disappear over the hill.

Hermione gapes at them, too indignant to even shout anything in reply.

Dismissed from Herbology due to smelling horrendous, the three of them troop back through
the castle, wearing Bubble-Head charms that Hermione cast in order to escape the foul odour
clinging to their robes. Harry and Ron mostly find the situation ridiculous, going on and on
about how girls are just batty and how glad they are that Hermione’s sensible and not like
that.

Hermione’s quiet.

She’s gotten jinxed plenty of times before, but being attacked, even with something as
harmless as dungbombs, feels different. She’d mostly disregarded Rita’s articles because she
didn't know what to do about them, trusting Ginny's reassurance that only idiots would
believe the things printed about her. Ginny may be right, but Hermione’s now trying to
calculate exactly how many idiots there are.

It’s unnerving to realise there are people she doesn’t know who think they know her. Who
have formed opinions about the kind of person she is because they read something in a
newspaper. Forget Hermione’s anxieties about representing other Muggle-borns, worrying
about herself is stressful enough. She is being outright vilified, and while it may eventually
affect other Muggle-borns, it's already hurting her.

She’s a year away from finishing at Hogwarts, and if Rita Skeeter gets her way, when
Hermione begins applying for jobs, any jobs, future employers won’t see her name and
recognise her as an accomplished student and Hogwarts’ Triwizard Champion, they’re going
to remember the lurid things printed in the Witch Weekly and the Daily Prophet.

Rita Skeeter has been out to destroy her future since the first moment they were left together
in McGonagall’s office. As if Hermione must be punished for even meriting the
acknowledgement.

Hermione leaves the Bubble-Head Charm on when she climbs into the shower and rinses off,
trying to get any traces of the slime off first. She mulls over the problem, wondering what to
do, and then worrying about whether she even has time to worry.

It’s not like character assassination even matters if she loses the tournament. She’ll be
trapped in the Muggle world. But if she gets too focused on winning, she won’t have
anything left by the time she reaches the end, and she might as well have never entered or
made any wager with Malfoy at all.

What can she do about Rita?

She shakes herself, straightening. She doesn’t have time to get caught up in things like this,
the Second Task is days away.

She raises her hand to cancel the Bubble-head Charm wrapped around her face, then stops as
she notices that the water running down her cheeks doesn’t pass under the seal of the bubble.
It’s watertight. Strange, she doesn't think the books ever mentioned that.

She looks down, watching the water drumming on the surface of the bubble, and draws a
deep, experimental breath. She may have found the perfect alternative to an aqualung.
“What does it feel like when you channel the magic in the water?” Hermione asks Malfoy as
they stand shoulder to shoulder at the shore of the lake.

After getting the smell of the dungbombs washed off, she used the hour she would have spent
in Herbology doing performance tests on Bubble-head charms. She would have tried out the
charm in the lake itself, but there have been Ministry crews there all day to prepare for the
next task.

Hermione made do in the overlarge prefect bath, filling it with cold water and testing the
strength and oxygen levels of the Bubble-head Charms. She practised resurfacing in order to
replenish her air and tested rigorously to see whether the bubbles could break or leak under
pressure. Assured that she has a solution that seems easily able to last for the one hour time
limit, she can finally relax a little.

She came down to the now abandoned lakeside, determined to master Elemental Magic or die
trying.

Malfoy sighs as he holds his hand out towards the water. His voice is impatient, clearly
annoyed over having to be there and explain himself again. “My magic is an extension of
who I am. When I reach out with it, it’s like reaching out my hand and touching the lake.”

Hermione chews on her lip, staring at the water.

She’s never thought of her magic as being herself. A part of who she is. Something she can
use, but not… her.

“I just —” she stops short, reaching her own hand towards the lake. “I’ve never been taught
how to reach out with my magic. We don’t do that at Hogwarts. Before — when I was
younger,” she stammers slightly and suddenly feels Malfoy’s eyes on her, as if there’s a
weight to his stare, “it was always about trying to hold it in, keep it under control by keeping
it back —”

She inhales, feeling inexplicably stressed by the mere thought. “I don’t know how to just —
reach out.”

There’s a pause, and she curls her fingers into a fist, her arm dropping.

“It’s a feeling,” Malfoy says at last, breathtakingly helpful as always.

Hermione releases a frustrated sigh. “You’re not trying.”

He scoffs, his hand flexing with agitation at his side. “You’re a Muggle-born,” he says, voice
tense. “You’re fundamentally different from me. Magic is affected by where it comes from.
Purebloods cultivate our relationship with magic. We have for generations. Being magical is
who we are. Maintaining it determines everything in our lives."

Hermione opens her mouth to argue with him but he cuts her off.
"That's not an opinion, it's a fact about how we're raised. Wherever you’re getting magic, it’s
not refined the way ours is. You lack the breeding and that's why it doesn't work for you.”

Hermione is tempted to laugh aloud at him for admitting outright that he’s been selectively
produced like a variety of garden rose. Instead, she looks him squarely in the eye and gives a
bland smile.

“You know, generally when something’s bred for a trait, it’s mostly so it can be better
exploited.”

He looks at her with so much outrage he appears to have momentarily lost his capacity for
speech.

She rolls her eyes and ignores his glare, so tired of this conversation. “But fine, maybe your
family’s thousand years of inbreeding have done nothing but make you exceptional with
elemental magic, better than I will ever be, and I can only gaze in awe at your magnificent,
selectively cultivated skills. That still doesn’t explain why I can’t access it at all. It’s out of
line with the theory that you taught me. If magic is magic, and we are past debating whether I
have magic, then I should be able to at least do something. Feel the connection a little.” She
draws a deep breath. “So for one minute, stop going on about the superiority of your lineage,
your refined magical soul flames, and all that other rot and give me a real explanation for
why this isn’t working.”

He starts to open his mouth, and Hermione looks at him expectant and challenging.

He folds his arms across his chest and shakes his head. “Speculation doesn’t fall within the
obligations of my vow.”

Hermione wants to hit him. Of course, he won’t help her unless coerced. Per her terms, he's
required to teach her what he knows and no more, no less. Without added incentives, he'll be
meticulous about ensuring he does nothing more.

She draws a deep breath. “If you work with me tonight, I won’t ask for your help with Water
Magic again.”

The concession is almost physically painful, but she’s been trying for almost two months.
Maybe she needs to just accept that she can’t do it and move on. There's so much she needs
to learn and so little time.

His expression grows smug.

Snake.

“Well, in that case,” he drawls, “I suppose I can find it within myself to speculate for an
evening.”

But rather than begin, he looks out at the lake, hesitating several times before speaking, his
words careful when he finally does.
“For purebloods, we never have to hold our magic back. It’s how we interact with our homes,
what makes our toys move and our play brooms fly, what allows us to safely interact with
family artefacts and heirlooms, it’s why the elves obey us, and doors open when we touch
them.”

Hermione struggles to imagine what that would have been like. She knows that those kinds of
things are common in magical households, after all magical folks are magical. Their homes
and children are no exception. Harry’s mentioned before that he had a toy-broom since he
turned one. The summer chores that the Weasleys’ complain about are things like de-
gnoming the garden and dealing with invasive pixies. Dishes, dusting, even Molly Weasley’s
Christmas jumpers are all done with spells.

Malfoy draws a deep breath, as if he hates whatever he’s about to say next. “If – “ he
emphasises the word heavily as if it’s highly conditional, “If you spent most of your
childhood suppressing your magic, then you probably still do. It — it could even be common
to do so. That might – it could possibly be another explanation for why Muggle-borns can’t
use Elemental Magic and other forms of the Dark Arts.”

He says it bitterly, as if verbalising the mere idea is costing him dearly. Perhaps it is. If it's
true, that would mean there isn’t such a fundamental difference between them, just different
upbringings. Not something inherent.

Hermione releases a small breath, half annoyed and half relieved. “That’s the theory I’ve had
lately, too.”

He rolls his eyes. “Well, now that we’ve agreed on something without having to argue for an
entire hour, perhaps Hell can freeze over.”

He turns to leave.

“Wait,” she says sharply. “Just because I agree with you about why I’m struggling doesn’t
mean I’m giving up. You still have to help me try again now that we know where the
problem’s coming from.”

His shoulders slump, but he doesn’t argue.

“Channel it,” she says, gesturing towards the water, “I want to see if I can feel the flow when
you do it, maybe I’ll be able to make it work if I know what feeling I’m trying to create.”

He doesn’t even bother to look towards the lake, glowering at her instead as he brings a wave
of water towards himself, sending it up into a spiralling column that explodes into a misty
spray that settles with a whisper around them.

Standing near him as he does it, she can sense a glimmer of cold, that same feeling she
noticed when the Durmstrang delegation first arrived, and again when she and Malfoy
encountered each other in the Restricted Section.

She fights the urge to step closer and reach towards him in order to sense it more clearly.
It’s as if his magic is as close to water as a person’s can be, and when the lake responds, the
feeling is a current. Malfoy and his magic and the lake flow together. That’s why he feels the
way he does. There’s no distinction between him and his magic.

It’s not something he keeps within, held back, buried. It’s what he is.

If she wants to channel Elemental Magic, she needs to do the same. She’s smothered her own
potential because it’s what she’d learned to do as a child, to keep it under control and prevent
‘the accidents.’

If magic is who she is, what she is, then she doesn’t need to keep holding it back. She
shouldn’t still feel like she’s doing something wrong when she doesn’t have it entirely
controlled.

She has to remember when magic was a feeling, and it was alright to feel it.

She isn’t sure there ever was a moment like that.

She furrows her eyebrows and points her wand at the lake, staring out across the water, trying
to envision her magic as an extension of herself the same way that Malfoy’s was.

She starts at a touch on her arm. Malfoy’s behind her and he’s reached out, his index finger
catching under her elbow to lift it so that her arm is extended, instead of crooked rigidly by
her side.

His hand slips away, but he remains standing behind her.

“Feel your magic,” he says, his voice close to her ear, and his breath is just warm enough that
it sends a shiver down her spine.

She swallows, nervous at being suddenly enabled rather than doubted.

She wants to succeed, to show him she can do all the magic that he can, that he’s been wrong,
that everyone is wrong, but she’s also terrified.

She isn’t sure why.

Her outstretched hand trembles and she swallows thickly as she tries to release her
meticulous control over her magic. Restrained so carefully beneath the surface, only to be
released on command. Her heart pounds erratically in her chest, and she doesn’t know if it’s
in anticipation or fear.

A sickly sense of guilt crawls through her at the mere thought of losing control. What if she
does something wrong?

She pulls back the bit of magic she’d let creep forwards. It’s too dangerous.

You could hurt someone.

“Don’t hold back,” Malfoy says, as if he’d somehow sensed that she’s wavering. His voice is
low, almost a whisper, urging her on. Like the devil in her ear. “Don’t hide it.”

It’s so strange to hear those words from him. The shift from last time when he was so pleased
and satisfied by her failure, and now, he wants to know if it’s possible. Because she's made
him wonder if it might be.

She has to do this. If she fails tonight, he’ll take it as proof that she really is less.

Her eyes squeeze shut.

You deserve to be magical, she tells herself. As magical as you are.

She opens her eyes and lets her magic take the space it wants.

She can feel it wash through her veins, a rush that goes on and on. Rather than stopping and
building up inside her like a dam, pulsing to the tempo of her rising heartbeat, when it
reaches her wand, she doesn’t let herself tense. She imagines the fluid way the magic flowed
through Malfoy and tries clumsily to copy it, to keep it going.

She draws a sharp, startled breath in through her teeth when it does.

Just for an instant.

It is terrifying, the feeling of her magic moving beyond the confines and concealment of her
body. Like a breath released, it can’t be snatched back. She tenses, gripping her wand tighter,
halting the flow and the magic crackles almost painfully through her fingers, the handle of
her wand almost burning her.

“Don’t stop,” Malfoy’s voice is almost sharp.

Don’t stop.

Because she’s doing it.

She can do it.

She forces herself to breathe and relaxes until her magic swirls through the air, burning and
clear, so much she thinks she could fill the valley with everything trapped inside her. She
distantly hears Malfoy gasp behind her. She wills the flood onwards towards the water.

The lake hums in response, a shiver ripples through her magic all the way back into her body.
Ice in her veins.

She tilts her wand back, and the water along the bank shifts up. The flow of power whirling
through her magic as she draws the water in until it’s lapping at her feet. She does it again,
directing it in a zigzag towards herself.

She gives a faltering laugh of relief and sends it spiralling through the air the way Malfoy
did. She wants to turn and see his reaction, but she can’t tear her eyes away from the water as
she sends it skyward, watches it dancing. Her magic is flooding out of her like an opened
dam.

It’s euphoric, like spinning in tempo with the music while in Viktor’s arms. A rush of relief
that she isn’t different; isn’t less. She can do this. She belongs. This is the world she belongs
to.

She feels like she could burst from all the power flooding through her, but before her
emotions can rise any higher, the lake pulls back.

Hermione’s unprepared.

The jerk from the water is so sudden she goes stumbling forward up to her ankles with a
startled yelp, as if it has caught hold of her, rather than the other way around.

“Granger —” she hears Malfoy behind her, but whatever else he says is lost as all the water
in her control comes crashing down. The lake surges wildly, dragging her deeper, swift and
harsh as a riptide, the water at her knees, now her waist.

There’s nothing to hold herself back with.

Her foot catches on a stick or root buried in the muck and Hermione goes down, lake water
filling her mouth and nose as her fingers scrabble to find something to grip as the torrential
current pulls her deeper.

She kicks and beats at the water, but it rushes around her, the magic surging like a tsunami,
dragging her down. She’s barely able to get her face above water to draw in a desperate
breath before being pulled under entirely.

She can see nothing but bubbles and darkness as she fights. Her magic and the lake and her
body are tangled in a vortex of power and she can’t break free. As if the lake is roused, come
to life and seizing her.

She sees the surface overhead vanishing as she’s pulled deeper. She loses all sense of
direction, just the cold water pressing in, alive with power. She tries to kick but finds herself
too disoriented to even find her limbs.

Why is this happening?

She let out her magic and opened the connection. Did she do something wrong? Her mind
fights for an answer even as the roar of water in her ears grows distant, her panic growing
soft, even the desperation in her lungs for air fading.

There’s just water and magic.

So much magic.

Her magic. She realises dimly.

She let out too much.

The lake around her is alive with power, pulsing through the water and into her in an endless
flood. She focuses inward, ignoring the confusing dissonance everywhere.

She focuses on ending the flow. Pulling her surging magic back, drawing it deep inside, as far
as she’s ever learned to take it.

The rush pounding through her and flooding into the surrounding water slows to a trickle and
finally stops.

The lake goes still.

She opens her eyes and kicks, finding herself again in the calm as she kicks her legs and
swims up towards the surface. Her lungs are almost bursting by the time she breaks through
the water and greedily drags in a breath. She swims towards the shore. When she feels the
mud of the lake bottom under her feet, she nearly collapses with relief.

Something seizes her by the back of her robes and she’s dragged up. Malfoy is up to his waist
in the water, swearing in at least three languages as he half-carries her the rest of the way to
the shore.

“What the fuck were you doing?” he says, his voice loud with outrage, as if she’d
intentionally done whatever happened.

There is water pouring off her. She feels as if she’s half-lake herself. She stumbles over to the
fallen tree and sits on it heavily.

“I wasn’t trying to,” she says through chattering teeth. Now that she isn’t drowning, she
realises that she is quite cold. “The water pulled me in.”

Malfoy is standing over her, glaring, and almost as drenched as she is.

“You have to control how much magic you channel, you idiot,” he says harshly, looking like
he wants to shake her. His anger seems unreasonable given that all she’d done was exactly
what he’d told her to do.

It’s probably for the best because being angry in return gets her heart racing enough to get her
sluggishly cold blood moving.

“Well, you never mentioned it,” she snaps, glaring right back at him. “You’re the one who
said water magic was cooperative and forgiving and to stop holding my magic back. You
never said anything about getting pulled in.”

“I assumed you were smart enough to understand that everything we’re doing is dangerous,”
his voice is icy. “The Dark Arts are dangerous, that’s why we don’t teach them to idiots who
lack basic control over their magic.”

Hermione is so furious that she probably could have burst into flames if she weren’t dripping
wet. “Well if I’m an idiot, it’s mostly for believing you could ever explain anything properly.”
She bares her teeth at him. “If I’d drowned, it would have been just as much your fault.”
Malfoy seems to pale at that, a remarkable accomplishment for someone with nearly
porcelain skin. “I taught you the way I learned it.”

“Well then, your teachers were shit too,” she says through gritted teeth. She wants to say
something else but her throat is stiff with cold and all she can think about is that she is wet
and cold and it’s a twenty-minute walk back to the castle, and twenty minutes sounds like an
eternity.

She looks down at her lap. Somehow she’d never lost hold of her wand while she was
underwater, gripping it so tightly the vine pattern is now etched into her palm. It’s a
tremendous relief because she has no idea what she’d do if she’d had to replace it.

She tries to cast a drying charm, but her hands are shaking and her teeth chattering together
so that she can’t manage the spell. She tucks her chin down and hunches up her shoulders,
arms drawn against her sides in an attempt to conserve the little body heat she still has. She
focuses on breathing steadily enough that she’ll stop shaking for a minute and manage a
warming charm or to conjure some bluebell flames or anything that will get her warm.

The clammy iciness abruptly vanishes, and the weight of the water in her hair disappears as
she’s suddenly dry again. She looks up, startled just in time to see Malfoy point his wand up
the lake shore towards Durmstrang’s ship and mutter something under his breath, his arm
outstretched.

A moment later, something deep red comes flying through the air and into his hand.

His red cape. He drops it over her shoulders without so much as a glance.

She sags under it.

It’s much heavier than she would have thought, and warm, as if it had been hanging near a
fireplace. Fur lined, something thick and soft. The heat from it immediately sinks into her
skin, all the way into her bones, and she can’t hold back from giving an audible sigh of
pleasure.

Being suddenly warm again is such a relief. She’s overcome with the urge to curl up and fall
asleep right there. She feels wrung out inside. Not sick the way she was after using Blood
Magic, but washed out, as if the lake had been flowing straight through her and she’s become
diluted somehow. She’s dazed with exhaustion.

But she’s still angry at Malfoy for neglecting to warn her and then having the audacity to
blame her for not knowing that the lake might try to drown her. He failed to even mention
that as a possibility, and she refuses to let him ease his conscience by performing a few
drying spells and throwing a cape at her.

She straightens so that the heavy fabric slides off her shoulders, and hides a wince as the
night air bites against her skin again.

“I don’t need things like this from you,” she says with a sniff, folding her arms tightly around
her body.
Malfoy doesn’t respond. He’s looking away from her, casting a drying spell on his own
clothes, running a hand through his hair to comb it back. His affinity with the water seems to
spare him from suffering the effects of its cold. Or maybe he has ice in his veins.

She shrinks into herself, fighting back a shiver, intending to stand and leave once she catches
her breath.

The crack of gravel makes her eyes fly open. Malfoy is in front of her, staring at her with an
expression of exasperation. A flicker of fiery obstinance burns through her, and she
straightens right as he leans forwards and picks up his cape from where it’d fallen. Rather
than take it back and make a comment about suiting herself the way she expects him to, he
pulls it up around her shoulders again, enveloping her firmly, and then fastens it under her
chin. His fingertips barely brushing against the column of her throat.

“Leave it on,” he says crisply, not letting go, as if he expects her to wrench it off.

She should. He has no right to tell her what to do. In fact, she should slap his hand away
without waiting for him to let go, but she’s so startled she forgets to.

They’ve been close to each other before, but this feels different. It’s the first time their
closeness hasn’t felt like an intimidation tactic.

His jaw is set and there’s something unreadable but penetrating about his stare. He’s looking
at her face so carefully she wonders if there’s something on it. It’s that expression that usually
vanishes the moment she catches him watching her. Uncertain but calculating.

When they first met, the way he stared at her was with a look of novel fascination, as if she
were a bit in a sideshow, an oddity that he just wanted a good look at. It had been a casual
form of curiosity.

Somehow, the way he looks at her now seems more intrigued rather than less.

It’s strange to be found so interesting. Hermione’s so often felt as if people find her tedious,
that things she finds fascinating are of no interest to anyone else. Harry and Ron have a
special groan they give in unison whenever she cites Hogwarts: A History, as if she’s ruining
their fun with her facts and information, with her concerns about house-elves and lately the
Goblin Rebellions.

She sometimes feels like she’s regarded as a sort of encyclopaedia: something to be kept, but
not treasured. Reliable. Useful. But not interesting.

Or special.

But Malfoy stares at her as if she is the singular diversion in a lifetime of tedium, despite how
obviously she frustrates and annoys him. It’s a very strange sort of duality.

It’s ironic because she’s tried to be likeable with others and felt barely endured. But she’s
never put any effort into being remotely pleasant or even interesting around Malfoy. Instead
she’s indulged in her most obsessive curiosity, critical tendencies, and ‘worst traits,’ letting
all her sharpest edges and anger show, burning as furiously as she’s ever wanted. She feels
like a raw nerve around him.

She knows, rationally, that his fascination is only because of the wager, because she’s an
opponent, someone to study and beat, but sometimes that calculating, hooded stare that he’s
quick to blink away makes her heart beat a little quicker than it should. Not out of fear, but
some kind of strange anticipation.

She feels that way now. Even though she’s still shivering, her skin barely beginning to warm,
her heartbeat is growing rapidly, she feels too hot inside her chest, as if the lake washed away
everything inside her except a glowing ember.

She studies him with her own unguarded fascination. He’s so oddly pale and angular, his
features too narrow, as if he were carved from marble but the sculptor cut a stroke too far. His
features are so razor-edged they seem delicate, though still sharp enough to cut.

She has the inexplicable self-destructive urge to reach out and touch him; a consuming
curiosity about what it would be like if she did. Would it make her fingers bleed if she traces
across his cheekbones? Is there warmth beneath that pale skin? What would his magic feel
like to touch?

She’s suddenly so, so curious.

She drifts forwards, drawn in like a moth to a candle flame. Knowing better and doing it
anyway. It’s strangely dreamlike. She knows there are reasons she shouldn’t, but she doesn’t
care. She needs to know.

Just a touch won’t hurt.

Her fingers brush against the thick brown fabric of his uniform. This close and his magic is
less cold and more calm. Everything is surreal. Her eyelids feel heavy, but her heartbeat is a
firestorm.

She feels his breath on her mouth and it’s warm, a ghost of a caress on her cold skin. The
sensation abruptly grounds her, makes her realise that Draco Malfoy, her rival, is leaning over
her, and she is leaning towards him, their faces barely apart now.

She gives a soft gasp of surprise.

Malfoy starts. His eyes widen, and he flinches as if she’d slapped him.

He snatches his hands away and almost scrambles back.

Hermione shakes her head, feeling dazed. Her heart is pounding as if she’d just been
violently jerked back after nearly plummeting over the edge of an unseen cliff.

Her face is burning, and she’s no longer cold at all. She feels like she’s on fire. The cape is
smothering her.
Malfoy coughs, clearing his throat and glancing up the shoreline. His right thumb rubs across
the surface of the signet ring on his left hand, an almost absent gesture before his focus
returns to Hermione.

Her hands are at her throat as she tries to find a hook or button, trying to figure out how to get
the cape off.

“Leave it.”

She starts at the sharpness in his voice.

He stares at her, eyes venomous. His chest is rising and falling quickly, his cheeks are
flushed, and he looks enraged. “When I beat you in the Second Task, you’re not going to
have any excuses about being sick.”
 The Second Task
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Hermione avoids Malfoy after that. Not that it takes much effort, neither of them appears to
have any interest in coming within a hundred feet of each other.

It’s a reasonable thing to do given that the Second Task is days away and her paper on the
Goblin Rebellion is requiring more research than she’d anticipated in her attempts to find any
actual Goblin sources to cite.

Unfortunately, it turns out that avoiding Malfoy doesn’t stop Hermione from thinking about
Malfoy. Her mind constantly returns to the lake as she wonders about what could have
happened.

Nothing.

Nothing was going to happen, she tells herself viciously over and over. Why does she think
anything almost happened?

They stared at each other. That’s all. It was hardly anything groundbreaking. They stare at
each other all the time. Well, glare might be a better word for it.

Yet the mere memory of those few odd moments sends an electric jolt straight through her.

She tries to brush it off as irrational teen hormones, but her thoughts keep going back,
replaying it, reviewing all the details, playing out longer scenes. Alternative scenarios.
Ridiculous iterations where she kissed him.

Clearly, the stress of the tournament is causing her to lose her mind entirely.

It’s nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

She doesn’t know why she thinks about it. They were having a fight, so why on earth would
they have kissed? They wouldn’t. The very idea is irrational.

If she wants to think about kissing, the person she should think about is Viktor.

After all, Viktor is nice. He’s not her rival. He doesn’t believe she’s inferior to him in some
fundamental way. He has been nothing but respectful and kind. Anyone with sense would
want to kiss Viktor.

Yet envisioning Viktor doesn’t evoke the same feelings within her. Instead of anticipation, the
thought of kissing him fills her with the same dread she feels when heading into an exam;
that she’s going to fail, come up short; disappoint everyone and ruin everything.
She feels that way whenever she tries to imagine a relationship with Viktor. That eventually,
at some point, she’ll screw it all up and he’ll be disappointed in her when he realises what
she’s really like without a Yule Ball dress and a night like a fairytale. Viktor doesn’t have any
idea about what the ordinary, everyday Hermione is like, the girl who’s angry almost all the
time, nearly overflowing with resentment, and starved for acknowledgement. She’s afraid
that he’ll only need one glimpse of what’s underneath; of what’s in the dark, and run.

Even during innocent tentative daydreams about visiting him in Bulgaria during the summer,
her heart whispers, I bet he wouldn’t like you, if he really knew you.

Maybe that’s why there’s such a dangerously addictive draw with Malfoy. She has no such
dread when it comes to him. He already doesn’t like her, so there’s little fear of falling further
in his estimation. On the contrary, she likes getting on his nerves. There’s a madly self-
destructive part of her that’s beginning to think kissing him would be as satisfying as
slapping him, because he would consider it infinitely worse.

The mere notion feels so utterly, exhilaratingly wrong that she can’t tear herself from the
idea. Everything about it is exquisitely forbidden.

It tantalises her, teasing her mind, and inflaming her curiosity. Because she’s certain that she
wasn’t the only one who moved closer. He leaned towards her, and he didn’t stop until she
gasped.

What if he wanted her? A wicked thrill runs through her. Oh, he would hate that. What if she
had kissed him and he’d liked it, and hated that he did, but wasn’t able to stop himself?

Does he feel the way she does, horrified by the wrongness but addicted to it too?

She can’t help but think so. After all, he’s avoiding her just as much as she’s avoiding him,
and the way he stared at her was penetrating in a way she didn’t think a person’s gaze could
be. He’d made her feel singular and fascinating and remarkable despite the myriad of
character flaws that she has intentionally antagonised him with.

She’s both confused and ashamed of how intensely allured she is by that feeling. That
someone could want her even then.

She doesn’t understand it. Shouldn’t she want someone who inspires her to be her best? Who
makes her want to be good enough for them? Who sees her for her potential?

“Ginny.” Hermione knocks on the doorframe of the Gryffindor Fifth Year girl’s dorm, already
feeling ridiculous. “Can I talk to you?”

Ginny’s sprawled out on her bed, a Quidditch magazine open, her legs askew. She straightens
and waves Hermione in. “What is it?”

Hermione enters and perches on the edge of the next bed, knees pressed tightly together, not
actually sure what to say.
Now that she’s there, she feels idiotic. Ginny’s two years younger than her, she will not be
any help advising Hermione about — Hermione isn’t even sure what she wants advice about.

The only reason Hermione’s there is because Ginny’s been dating since her third year, despite
Ron’s excessive objections. Ginny surely understands all the conflicting emotions that the
male species can evoke, although Hermione doubts there’s anyone who can understand her
current crisis.

“Um.” Hermione looks down, not sure how to begin. “So… this is awkward. I don’t know,
maybe I shouldn’t even be asking you about this.”

A look of apprehension sweeps across Ginny’s face. She opens her mouth but Hermione
hurries on, waving one hand nervously.

“Sorry. It’s not a big deal. I just —”

She draws a deep breath, but then deflates. What is Ginny even going to say? It’s perfectly
normal to lie in bed and imagine kissing someone who is proactively trying to ruin your
entire life?

No amount of experience with boys is going to provide answers about that.

Ignoring Ginny’s expression of concern, she covers her face with her hands and tries to get
her thoughts straight.

Maybe a general conversation about boys might make her feel less adrift. Or else too
disgusted with herself to even think about Malfoy. Something innocuous like, ‘have you ever
felt silly for being attracted to someone?’

“I just — so, with your relationship with Dean —”

Ginny becomes visibly uncomfortable when Hermione says Dean’s name.

“When you and Dean started dating did —”

“I already know about him and Seamus,” Ginny says quickly, cutting her off.

Hermione’s mouth is halfway open, but she completely loses her train of thought and the
words just stop. She sits staring blankly at Ginny.

“Sorry —” she finally says. “What?”

Ginny sits up, pulling up one knee to hug tightly against her chest. The air is tense. “If you’re
here to tell me about catching him and Seamus together in the classroom a few months back,
or if you saw them together somewhere else, I already know. Dean isn’t cheating on me. I
knew he was gay when we started dating.”

Hermione is still not following. “What?”

Ginny blinks and looks at Hermione with an expression of defensive bewilderment. “Is that
— not what you’re here to talk about?”

“No…” Hermione says, scrambling to recover. “But we talk about that. I — actually didn’t
know.” She flails for an appropriate response. “Is that — something you’re alright with?”

Ginny stares at her in surprise. “You — didn’t know?” The way she says it is a sort of half
question and half statement.

Hermione shakes her head, and Ginny looks perplexed, her eyebrows furrowing together.
“You didn’t recognise them? They were both really freaked out afterwards, because you ran
off and you’re a prefect and everything. I told them I didn’t think you’d talk. But I figured
you’d bring it up at some point.”

Hermione wracks her memory, trying to think of what Ginny could even be referring to, and
dimly recalls bursting in on two boys the day she ran off and found the Come and Go Room.

“Oh. That!” She flushes. “I sort of remember it.” She scrunches her eyebrows, trying to recall
anything specific. Her mind had stopped on ‘boys’ and ’no clothes’ and immediately
proceeded to ‘run’ without bothering to take in any further information. “I didn’t stop to see
anything… I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Oh,” is all that Ginny says, her expression a mixture of confusion and relief and
defensiveness all at once.

Hermione’s mind finally seems to catch up and stop short-circuiting and the glaring question
dawns on her. “Ginny, why are you dating Dean, then?”

Ginny’s eyes drop and she goes quiet. She looks down, red hair falling around her face, her
chin resting on her knee, pushing at her cuticles with a thumbnail as she draws a breath.

“Because…” Ginny wets her lips with the tip of her tongue before looking up. “Because I’m
afraid Mum might realise I don’t like boys if I’m not dating.”

Hermione’s silent. She’s so caught off guard by the direction of the conversation, she’s half-
afraid she’s misunderstanding. She stares at Ginny in surprise. “You’re —?”

“Yes. I like girls.” Ginny watches her so carefully that Hermione blushes and drops her eyes
for a moment.

“Oh… congratulations.” Hermione has no idea whether that’s the right thing to say. She
suspects it isn’t, but it’s too late.

Ginny blinks in surprise and her mouth cracks into a nervous smile. “I guess.”

Hermione feels her cheeks and the tips of her ears burn. “I just mean, there’s nothing wrong
with that. That’s —” She went to a parade once with her parents. What did they say? It’s
important to be accepting. She’s never had anyone come out to her. “That’s great — that you
know who you are. Thank you – for telling me.”
Ginny gives a nod and draws a deep breath, even though she’s still jabbing nervously at her
cuticles. “I’m going to tell everyone eventually, you know. I’m just — I’m waiting for the
right moment. Bill knows, and Charlie. I want to tell Dad soon. I don’t think he’ll mind. But
— “her voice loses all assurance and grows careful, “Mum’s — traditional about things. With
me especially.”

There’s a pause, and she shrugs, looking down. “I think, if — if I can go pro with Quidditch.
If I’m really, really good, I think it’ll make everything a lot easier, because then it’ll be a
career why I don’t settle down, and Mum won’t mind so much then. You know?”

Her voice is hesitant, as if she’s looking at Hermione for approval, reassurance that the plan
can work. Hermione’s mouth goes dry.

Hermione’s always thought Ginny was entirely different from her, but suddenly Ginny’s
ambition for Quidditch feels keenly relatable, not at all unlike her desperate attempts to
become Head Girl.

Molly Weasley is a matriarch, and although Hermione doesn’t know her well, she’s been
friends with Ron long enough to witness the way her unrestrained emotions are often wielded
like weapons. Effusive references to her successful children and praise for all their
accomplishments, Howlers that explode, screaming with indignation in the Great Hall in
front of the entire school when she feels embarrassed. The open criticism and unconcealed
disappointment when her children stray from her ideas of success. She’s expressed nearly
endless disapproval for the twins for leaving Hogwarts early to open their joke shop, even
though it’s already successful and has always been their dream.

To hear Ron talk, Ginny’s been spared much of her mother’s harshest criticisms, but in their
place is the cumulative weight of all Mrs Weasley’s hopes and dreams for a daughter.

Hermione suspects that Mrs Weasley will not give them up easily.

“I didn’t realise there was so much pressure about getting married,” she says, because she
honestly has no idea if a Quidditch career will suffice.

Ginny unfolds from the tense way she’s holding herself, a foot slipping off the edge of the
bed to dangle as she leans back on her hands and sighs. “Yeah, I guess since you’re Muggle-
born, you don’t get all those talks over the summer, but with old families, it’s pretty normal to
get married after finishing at Hogwarts, and start having children within a couple years.
Magical blood is thin. Sometimes it takes a while for a pregnancy to take, so you’re supposed
to start trying right away.”

Visible discomfort sweeps across Ginny’s face. “People say it’s best to start as young as you
can, especially the mums, because it lowers the risk of squibs. Although,” she rolls her eyes,
“the healers said Ron and I would both be squibs because of Mum’s age, so maybe it’s all
rubbish. The old families all believe it, though.”

Hermione has never thought much about wizarding birth-rates, but now that she stops to
think about it, it’s obvious that a society so obsessed with their magical bloodlines would be
equally obsessed with maintaining them and terrified of having non-magical children.
Being attracted to someone of the same gender wouldn’t even be considered an option.

“So you’ve been— pretending to date?”

Ginny shrugs. “Just with Dean. I did date the other boys.” She raises her eyebrows
suggestively. “That’s how I figured out I only like girls.”

Hermione’s tempted to ask which girls, but before she can Ginny suddenly straightens.

“Anyway, you didn’t come here to talk about this,” Ginny says with a toss of her head. “What
were you wanting to ask?”

Hermione blinks as she recalls why she’s actually there and feels foolish for treating her
confused thoughts about Malfoy as anything serious. She’d just had a scare from the lake.
She was probably in shock, semi-irrational, and imagined most of it.

“Oh. It’s nothing. It’s not really relevant. I… thought you and Dean were — nevermind.” She
shakes her head. “It’s not important.”

Ginny watches her stand, her expression searching. “Are you sure? You know you can talk to
me.”

Hermione forces a smile. “It’s nothing. I’ve just been —” she looks down, “confused about
things lately — ”

“Really? How?” Ginny’s eyes are bright, but then she looks down and shrugs. “I mean, I
guess you’re talking about Viktor. Has he written since the article came out?”

Hermione shakes her head, not wanting to talk about Viktor, and having no desire to discuss
anything else either. She feels very disoriented and foolish.

After all, Malfoy is undeniably from one of those traditional old families who are obsessed
with continuing their bloodline. If what Ginny says is true, he’ll be expected to marry some
pureblood girl almost as soon as he’s done with school. His parents nearly said as much in his
Daily Prophet interview.

He’s a Seventh Year. That’s only a few months away.

Did she really think they were going to have a torrid school romance during the tournament?

She shakes her head. “It’s not important. I should go.”

Ginny’s eyes fill with disappointment. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Madam Pince is finding me a book on wizarding mountaineering, and I was going to look
through it for new warming charms to use in the lake.”

Ginny makes a face.

Hermione reaches the doorway and then hesitates. “Thanks for trusting me, Ginny. I won’t
tell Harry or Ron.”

Ginny gives a small smile then. “I know.”

After Hermione leaves, she feels even more ridiculous for even thinking about Malfoy in the
first place.

They are rivals.

In four months, one of them will be the winner and the other the loser. If Hermione loses, she
is going to hate him for the rest of her life, every day, every moment of every day, she will
feel her magic trapped inside her and hate him for it.

And if Malfoy loses, he will hate her just as much. She’s certain of that. Maybe even more
than she would. After all, he already said he hated her that night in the Come and Go Room.

She tries to banish the subject from her mind. Her priority is surviving the Second Task.
She’d thought it might be less dangerous than the First, but nature has set out to change that.

The temperature in the valley has plummeted suddenly, within days what began as a thin
sheet of ice running along the shore of the lake covered most of the surface, all the way to
Hogsmeade.

The lake is off limits for construction while Ministry crews transferred the stands from the
First Task over the hill. They’re supposed to be put into the water and anchored to the bottom
of the lake, but since the lake has become a solid sheet of ice, the crews are required to break
through it to get to the water. The Ministry divers spend hours beneath the surface in the lake,
presumably mapping the underwater terrain and anchoring the stands beneath the water.

Ludo Bagman spends most of his days overseeing, alternating between rubbing and wringing
his hands, saying adamantly that things will warm up any day, but the ice just gets thicker and
thicker.

Two days before the Second Task, he calls a meeting among the judges and proposes
postponing until the lake thaws. Karkaroff refuses to hear a word about it, sneeringly saying
that if the other schools’ champions lack the abilities to survive the task, they can forfeit.

It’s decided that the task will go forward as scheduled, but as a special allowance, a potion
will be provided in order to keep the champions warm.

“Have you seen Harry anywhere?” Ron says when Hermione sits down heavily beside him
for breakfast the morning of the Second Task.

She blinks, groggy from sleeplessness. She tried to go to bed early but was so anxious she
couldn’t keep her eyes closed, and spent half the night reviewing weatherproofing and
warming spells.
Unfortunately, most warming spells are intended for camping, not arctic scuba diving.

She looks up from the eggs she’s nervously stabbing with her fork. “No.”

Ron’s forehead furrows, and he scratches his jaw. “Maybe he went flying.”

Harry fails to appear, and Ron mumbles something about checking the Quidditch pitch and
leaves to find him. Hermione stays in the Great Hall to fret and review her notes until
McGonagall arrives, leading the way down towards the lake. The feeling between them is
eerily similar to their journey to the arena before the First Task.

Instead of using the boats, everyone walks across the ice to reach the stands which sit near
the centre. The ice has been freshly cut away from the front of the stands, exposing a large
expanse of dark water beneath nearly a foot of solid ice.

The champions tent is erected on the platform beside the judges’ stand.

Hermione goes into the tent without a word. Malfoy and Bisset are already there, wearing
swim trunks and undershirts in their school colours, and engaged in a staring contest.

They’ve barely interacted during the last several months, both treating the other as beneath
them.

Hermione finds it funny, given that neither of them mind interacting with her, perhaps
because she’s outside of whatever ancient family feud they have.

Hermione glances at them both and can’t help noticing that they’re more similarly built than
she’d thought. Both boys are quite lean. She’d always assumed that Malfoy was more
muscular. There’s a largeness to his presence that overshadows Bisset’s delicate breeziness,
but that appears to have be an illusion created by the thicker and heavier uniform. Stripped
down to swimwear, Malfoy’s almost lanky, as fine-boned in body as he is in feature.

Not that Hermione looks closely.

It’s the first time they’ve been anywhere near each other since the lake, and she carefully
avoids the stare he levels on her, even though she can practically feel his eyes on her back
when she hurries over to a Hogwarts coloured curtained cubicle within the tent. Inside there’s
a swimsuit in red and gold, a thick Hogwarts cloak, snow boots, and a vial of a golden syrupy
potion that warms her hands when she touches it.

The tent is warded to keep out the cold, but the chill still bites through the canvas and the
rugs as she strips and changes into the swimsuit. She’d thought the PE uniform they were
given for the First Task was bad enough, but a swimsuit for a frozen lake and one vial of
potion seems positively negligent.

She shoves her feet into the boots, wraps the cloak tightly around her shoulders, and grabs the
potion.

Malfoy and Bisset both turn with curious expressions when she comes back out, and don
simultaneous looks of disappointment upon finding that she’s entirely hidden inside her
cloak. Hermione shoots a pinched glare at both of them.

Boys are all the same.

Before she can tell them they’re both toads, the tent flap snaps and Ludo Bagman appears at
the entrance. “Champions! Please, exit! The Second Task commences in two minutes!”

Hermione unstoppers her potion and gulps it quickly before following Malfoy and Bisset
outside.

The audience in the stands are bundled in cloaks and scarves. They let up a cheer as the
champions emerge. Malfoy is still watching her from the corner of his eye, and in order to
ignore him, Hermione scans the faces, catching sight of Ginny and Dean in the Gryffindor
section, with Seamus sitting next to Dean.

Ron’s there too, a few seats away, looking worried and glancing around the stands. Harry’s
still missing. Hermione looks around, trying to see if she can spot him approaching from the
castle.

As she turns, she notices Ludo Bagman is next to Malfoy, holding him by the arm and
whispering something to him. Malfoy’s expression darkens, and he starts to pull his arm
away, sneering as he does so, but Bagman pulls him closer and says something else that
succeeds in making Malfoy go still.

He looks sharply up at the stands, like he’s trying to find someone in the crowd. Then he
looks back down at Bagman and his eyes flash with rage as he wrenches his arm free.

Hermione looks up into the stands again as she unties her cloak and kicks her boots off,
trying to spot what had managed to upset Malfoy. She catches sight of his parents, who sit
watching their son with pale narrowed eyes and pinched expressions. Beside them is a
woman with wild black hair and heavy-lidded eyes, who looks more amused than worried.
But they’re not in the section that Malfoy had been looking at when he was scanning the
faces in the crowd.

Then it occurs to Hermione that the cheers emanating from the crowd do not include the
shrill shrieks of adoration that are Pansy Parkinson’s trademark.

Pansy is missing too.

Her mind’s whirling and she can tell she’s on the verge of putting it all together when Ludo
Bagman’s sonorous-charmed voice fills the air.

“Well, all our champions are ready for the Second Task, which will start on my whistle.
Something was taken from each of them last night. They have precisely an hour to recover it
before it is lost forever. On the count of three, then. One… two… three!”

The whistle cuts like a scream, the noise still in the air as Malfoy dives into the lake. His
body cuts through the water with barely a splash and he vanishes into the murky depths.
Bisset turns and gives Hermione a little smile. “Good luck,” he says before running his
wandtip along each side of his neck and Hermione watches with admiring envy as a set of
gills appear just below his jaw before he slides feet first into the water, giving a low sound of
displeasure at the cold, but he doesn’t hesitate and disappears beneath the surface.

Hermione moves to follow him, but something stops her. She turns to look back at the
audience, which stirs, seeming to interpret her hesitation as fear.

“Come on, Hermione!” she hears Ginny shout.

“Hermione!” Ron’s voice joins in.

But not Harry, because he’s missing.

One of her best friends, who let her drag him to Slughorn’s dreadful Valentine’s party. Harry
would never miss this.

It dawns on her.

Her eyes race across the crowd: Harry, Pansy… Cho Chang is missing from the Ravenclaw
section too.

Hermione shakes her head, not willing to believe it. They wouldn’t. Surely they wouldn’t.

But it has to be…

People are the stolen items. Harry is what she’ll lose forever if she doesn’t find him within
the hour.

She sends one furious glare at Dumbledore and the rest of the judges as she brings her wand
up to cast a Bubble-head Charm, and dives off the pier.

The ice cold water cuts through her, sharp as a knife, and she gives a strangled gasp of shock
as the lake closes around her. Even with the warming potion, the lake is so brutally cold,
she’s momentarily stunned by it.

She forces herself to move. There’s nothing to do but swim fast, find Harry, and resurface
before the potion wears off.

The Bubble-Head Charm holds well and Hermione has clean air as she kicks her feet rapidly,
taking herself deeper and deeper below the surface, eyes scanning everywhere for any hint
about what direction she should go in. Where is Harry? What have they done with him?

The world she finds beneath the lake is dreamlike, an alien terrain, beautiful but eerie and
hostile down to its very temperature. There are wide expanses of underwater plants that ripple
like summer meadows in the current, but then the landscape is sheared off, dropping into
ravines that vanish into inky dark depths, craggy cliffs that are littered with caves.

Deathly cold and still. There are only a few fish in sight, swimming sluggishly through the
icy water.
Hermione grips her wand tightly as she swims onward, her connection to her wand is
comforting, but around her the water shifts, just slightly.

Hermione ignores it and doesn’t stop swimming. Keep it in. Hold your magic back and
nothing will happen, she tells herself.

Find Harry.

She keeps her eyes sharp for any signs of life or danger. Grindylow are said to be prevalent in
the Black Lake, vicious little tentacled creatures with sharp teeth and claws. They attack in
swarms and once there’s blood, they can get into a frenzy. They’re mostly found in kelp
forests, which Hermione is careful to avoid.

The lake is enormous. Much bigger than she’d realised because she’d only calculated the
surface area, not the jutting topography beneath the water. There’s no way she’ll be able to
search even a few of the ravines in an hour's time. It would take months to manage a full
survey.

There must be some trick she can use.

Movement catches her eyes, and she turns sharply, wand already raised. It’s Bisset. He’s well
ahead of her, but swimming slowly, not seeming to know what he’s looking for.

But Hermione does. She knows exactly what she’s trying to recover.

If it were an object, she’d try summoning it, but unfortunately, accio doesn’t work on
humans.

A spell to find a person. She stops swimming and treads water as she considers. There are
spells for that. Not intended for underwater use, but worth trying.

“Homenum Revelio,” she incants. The water swirls like a breeze around her, as if it hopes
that she’ll open a channel, but she determinedly keeps her magic restrained, only releasing
the sliver of intention needed for the spell.

When she moves her wand, she feels nothing in most directions, as if the lake is endless and
empty. Perhaps it won’t work. Then she feels a ripple as the tip passes over Bisset, who’s
become a dim blue speck in the distance.

She keeps turning through the water.

As she points towards the far end of the lake, away from Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, there’s a
sort of pressure against the reach of the spell, like a tiny lump hidden beneath a thick duvet.
Then another. And another.

Three. Three humans. All close together.

That has to be the hostages.

She swims forwards, moving as quickly as she can, making sure not to veer left or right. The
longer she swims, the more unsettled she is that she’s encountered nothing dangerous.

Surely the challenge is more than just an underwater treasure hunt. Admittedly, kidnapping
people and putting them in a lake is fairly horrifying on its own.

No sooner does the thought occur to her than she sees a twisting glimmer of silver ahead. She
squints through the water, trying to make it out.

It’s as slender as a ribbon, twisting, almost dancing, through the water, but growing larger.

And larger.

Hermione kicks back, trying to stop her forward momentum and holds her wand out
defensively as she recognises what’s closing in. She’s in open water, there’s nowhere to hide.

The creature bearing down on her is a water serpent.

A huge, dragonish snake that shouldn’t even be in the Black Lake. Water serpents are found
in the ocean.

Hermione has no idea how to fight one off. She’d never considered that she might encounter
one.

It moves impossibly fast as it twists through the water. In seconds it’s grown from a distant,
shimmering strip of silver in the distance to a nearly fifteen foot long monster. Silver scales
flash along the length of its body, and then its mouth opens, revealing rows of fangs as it
closes in.

She raises her wand, a curse on her lips. Then it suddenly draws up, water around it rippling
and bubbling into a blur, and just as quickly, the serpent is gone.

Malfoy is treading water in front of her.

She stares at him in open-mouthed astonishment. He is either an impossibly rare animagus or

he’s mastered an impossible form of animal transfiguration. Either way, he shouldn’t be able
to be one.

No one is supposed to be able to turn into a magical creature.

It’s not even remotely fair.

His grey eyes are alight with amusement at her expression of shock.

He smirks and twists, turning away, body lengthening as he transfigures back into the water
serpent mid-motion. He circles merrily around her once, looking her up and down, and then
swims away again, leaving nothing but a trail of bubbles.

She stares after him. No wonder he wasn’t worried about the Second Task.
She watches in disbelief as he vanishes into the murky green water. He’s swimming so
quickly, he can easily search the entire lake in the time allotted, even if he’s going in the
wrong direction right now. Hermione may not be nearly so fast, but she does know exactly
where to go.

She recalculates her position to check her orientation and resumes swimming, wishing she’d
snuck along a watch so that she’d have some sort of idea of how much time she had left.

She keeps moving in the direction her wand had indicated, swimming cautiously through a
forest of drifting kelp that’s too large to go around. She keeps her wand up, expecting to be
attacked at any moment, but she doesn’t even catch sight of a grindylow. It’s bizarre.

Eventually she comes to a stone archway that leads into what looks like a toppled
civilization. There are crumbled remains of spiralling towers with caves carved into them.
Hermione catches sight of selkies peering through the doors and windows at her as she swims
past. Beyond the caves are little stone huts. She hadn’t even considered there being a village
in the lake. As she swims along, she catches sight of a veritable mountain of cages, all
jumbled haphazardly just beyond the village.

She pauses and squints through the water at them. They look man-made. She swims over to
see more clearly.

The cages are full of grindylows. There are hundreds of them, some snarling and biting at the
bars and each other as they try to escape, others looking clawed to death, tentacles nearly
chewed off.

Why are they here?

She’s tempted to swim over to investigate, but she forces herself to turn away. Harry has to be
her only goal. She keeps swimming past the buildings, and there in the distance are Harry,
Pansy, and Cho.

They’re floating underwater, ropes running from their feet down to large stones in what
seems to be a town square.

As she approaches, Malfoy, in his serpent form, surges into view.

He immediately stops in front of Pansy and transforms without bothering to look at the other
hostages. He kneels down, and with a quick slash of his wand, cuts through the rope. He
takes hold of her arms, and is on the verge of kicking straight up, but then he stops short.

Hermione follows his gaze. The lake above them is frozen.

After a moment’s hesitation, Malfoy transforms back into the water serpent, his fangs
carefully grab hold of Pansy’s uniform and then his long snakelike body twists and he sets
off, towing her with him, swimming back in the direction he came from, towards the stands
and open water.

Hermione’s chest clenches with sudden dread.

 She hasn’t been calculating a return trip in her time limit.

She reaches Harry quickly, trying not to panic. She can feel the warming potion fading so that
her fingers and toes begin to feel the surrounding cold.

She touches Harry’s face tentatively. He’s under some kind of stasis, not conscious, breathing
slowly, a trickle of bubbles rising from his face. She kneels down, with the potion wearing
off, her fingers are getting stiff. She fumbles as she unties his feet.

She pulls Harry into her arms, not sure what to do next. How is she going to swim all the way
back? She’s certain she’s already used more than half the time allotment.

It doesn’t matter, there isn’t any other choice. She grips his arm tightly and turns to swim
away, but as she does, she catches sight of Cho, now floating alone in the murky green water.

Bisset is nowhere in sight.

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

Water Elemental Magic by artemisia_flora

She Belongs by artemisia_flora
"What The Fuck Were You Doing?" by animusdiscidium
Their Faces Barely Apart by art.is_gera
Her Magic Swirls Through The Air by artemisia_flora
She Feels Like A Raw Nerve by artemisia_flora
"I did have blood in excess" by lisou_ar.t
Hermione's Yule Ball Dress by drami1
 Secondary
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Hermione stares through the water at Cho, frozen with indecision.

Cho looks so still that if not for the thin stream of bubbles escaping her mouth, Hermione
would think she was dead. Her feet are tied to the heavy boulder that sits in the centre of the
underwater mervillage. Suspended as she is, Cho looks like an abandoned victim of a ritual
tidal drowning.

It’s sickening to think of leaving her there under the lake, waiting without knowing. The time
is almost up. What if Bisset never comes? Will she be left there?

Hermione doesn’t know how the tournament planners intend for the task to run. Does Cho
wake when the hour passes? Wake and finds herself drowning, gets her feet free only to
realise she’s trapped under the ice?

Malfoy’s serpentine body has vanished into the gloom along with Pansy. Hermione needs to
hurry. If he beats her, it will give him the advantage going into the Final Task.

And he already has all the advantages.

Cho isn’t Hermione’s responsibility.

The air in her Bubble-head charm is getting low. She isn’t even sure if she has enough for the
swim back. The bubble had enough air to last for an hour with steady breathing, but
Hermione’s been breathing harder from the effort of swimming, her heart rate is elevated
from worry and from the physical effort of staying warm against the oppressive cold.

When she was preparing, she hadn’t factored in how much faster she’d go through her air at
that rate, or that with the lake frozen, she wouldn’t be able to surface to resupply.

She’s still under the hour limit, she thinks, but the air is beginning to feel thin. When she
stops breathing quickly, her lungs feel empty.

She can’t save anyone else, she’ll only be endangering herself and Harry.

She steels herself, pulling Harry close and begins to swim away, forcing herself not to look at
Cho. Just towing Harry is difficult. She can’t swim with two hostages.

Cho will be fine, and if she’s not, it’s not Hermione’s fault.

She’s only made it a few feet before she stops, already choking with guilt.

She screams through her teeth in frustration and wants to slap herself.
She lets go of Harry and swims back, trying to unfasten the rope tied to Cho’s feet as quickly
as she can, too nervous about the heavy, ominous weight of the lake’s magic around her to
use a spell.

It’s not a tight knot, but her fingers are stiff from the cold and the rope is waterlogged.

A heavy scaled hand closes around her arm. She whirls with a startled scream and finds a
merman has emerged. He’s glaring at her, rows of needle-like teeth line his mouth and his
enormous eyes are dark as he shakes his head and points with a spear towards Harry.

Hermione wrenches her arm free, shaking her head, and trying to untie Cho faster.

“Leave her…” the words are rasped and burbling. More merfolk have appeared, emerging
from their stone caves. They’re crowding around, also trying to pull Hermione away from
Cho.

“Let me go! Let me go!” She kicks, fury rising inside her, the water around her boils with her
rage as she whirls on the merfolk, her wand slashing in warning.

The merfolk instantly release her, fleeing like a scattered school of fish. They dart away,
greyish tails vanishing behind rocks and into their homes.

Hermione’s surprised by how easily frightened they are. She has no time to wonder as she
hurriedly turns back to untying Cho.

The warming potion is fading from her blood and she can feel her mind growing sluggish
from the unrelenting cold. Her bones ache from the iciness penetrating them, but she
determinedly keeps wrestling at the knot until it loosens.

Then there’s a glimmer of pale blue in the corner of her eye, and she turns and sees Bisset,
emerging from the gloom. He’s still a long ways off, barely more than a speck, but she can
tell he’s spotted her and Cho.

Hermione lets go in relief, leaving Cho. She grabs hold of Harry and kicks off the bottom of
the lake to try to give herself as much momentum as she can as she begins towing his limp
body through the water, swimming in the direction Malfoy went.

Even with the buoyancy of water, Harry’s a dead weight, his robes keep getting caught in the
currents, causing him to drag, slowing her. It’s taking four times the effort to swim a quarter
of the distance.

There’s no way that her air’s going to last.

She wets her lips and tries not to panic, forcing herself to breathe slowly and keep swimming
even though her head’s beginning to feel light and the rocks and kelp pass so slowly. They’re
moving through the water at a crawl. She can just barely make out the outline of the stands
far in the distance.
She looks up, her eyes scanning in every direction, trying to think of a solution, a way to get
air.

Bisset and Malfoy’s transfigurations will let them stay under water as long as they need, but
Hermione will suffocate if she doesn’t resurface.

She makes a decision. Tightening her grip on Harry, she swims straight up, dragging him
along with her. At first it’s easy, but the higher she gets, the more his weight pulls against her,
back towards the depths and she has to fight for every inch that she rises.

She kicks her feet harder, refusing to be beaten, even though she knows it’s costing her
oxygen. She swims up, up, up until she reaches the ice that’s locking her beneath the lake.

She pushes against it, praying that it’s thin enough to break through.

It doesn’t budge.

She hits it with her fist. Solid.

She kicks her feet more rapidly to tread water, fighting to stay there just beneath the surface.
Her hand holding Harry is almost numb, and there is a cramp crawling agonisingly from her
wrist up past her elbow as she struggles to keep her grip.

There’s almost no oxygen left inside the bubble. Her lungs are beginning to spasm, burning
as she keeps dragging in air but finding no relief. Her mind races with panic.

She needs to get out.

She has to get out!

She needs to—

The cold water around her and the thick ice overhead sealing her beneath the surface make
her claustrophobic. Her breaths come in a rapid, futile staccato as she keeps pushing against
the ice.

She needs to cast a spell to break through. But which spell? The explosion spells which aren’t
intended for underwater use. Which would work best?

Bombarda? Confringo? Reducto? Expulso?

They’re all similar. The variation between them is so subtle. If she uses the last of her air to
cast one and it doesn’t work, she’ll drown there. She doesn’t know how much ice she needs
to break through. It could be inches or a foot. She has no time to calculate. If she doesn’t cast
a strong enough spell, she won’t reach the surface. Or if it’s too small an opening for her to
breathe through. But if the explosion is too powerful, the force could injure her and Harry,
knock her unconscious there beneath the ice and who knows how long the judges will wait
before they look for her.

She can feel her concentration blurring.

Air. Her lungs are begging.

There’s no more air.

She needs a miracle.

What was it that Malfoy said when he showed her Elemental Magic? If you have an affinity,
an element will do almost anything you can think to ask.

She’s not even breathing anymore as she stares up at the ice. Can she risk it? If she tries to
use Elemental Magic and she doesn’t keep the channel small, the lake will drown her. She’s
certain of it.

She’s already on the verge of drowning. And she has no other choices.

She knows she’s supposed to use her wand, but she presses the flat of her hand against the ice
above her head, sensing the magic, that almost entity.

Everything around her goes still. She feels like a hunted deer being watched by a patient
predator. As if the lake froze itself to keep her here, paranoid as that sounds.

She can’t shake the feeling that a fissure is all it needs to crack her open.

Her hand trembles as she closes her eyes, focusing. Her magic doesn’t care that she’s on the
verge of suffocating, it flows readily through her, steady as a current. She directs it into her
hand, pressed up against the ice, just enough to connect with the icy barrier overhead. The
cold instantly runs through her nerves, pain needle-like in her veins. Freezing her from the
inside out. She holds steady, focusing her power into a pinpoint of intention, and wills herself
to take hold of the power, rather than be the one taken.

But she doesn’t have Malfoy’s affinity. The lake doesn’t see her as an extension of itself; she
is other.

But as she senses the dissonance between her magic and the lake’s, she realises that it’s not
just water magic that she feels. Because she’s using her bare hands, she can feel that there are
remnants of herself, her magic, scattered throughout the lake as if it had left the water tinged
with her power.

Magic isn’t a tool, it’s an extension of herself. She may not channel water magic the way
Malfoy does, but she knows how to control hers. And here it is, unspent and lingering, where
she left it when the lake flooded through her.

With all the force of her mind, she visualises an explosion, upward, outward, away from
herself and Harry, an opening large enough for them to escape through.

She sees it in her mind’s eye and wills all the power she can feel to give it to her. The lake
resists, but Hermione doesn’t bend.

The ice cracks, blasting upward. There’s a surge of power around her, quick and sharp, ready
to tear the connection open and drag her down, but she severs the channel ruthlessly. She uses
the last of her strength to push Harry through the ice with her.

The grey sky appears as their heads break the surface. Hermione jerkily casts the spell to
break the Bubble-Head Charm that’s now suffocating her, and gasps raggedly for air. Blessed
oxygen floods through her lungs as she tilts her head back, clutching at the ice to hold herself
up. Harry coughs, regaining consciousness when the air hits his face.

“Hermione!” he says raggedly, blinking and disoriented for only a moment before his
expression clears into delight.

She doesn’t reply, instead pushing him onto the ice and then clambering up after him. Her
arms shake with exhaustion. She collapses, lying starfished on the ice in nothing but a
swimsuit. The ice burns against her bare skin, but she doesn’t care.

“Hermione? Are you alright?” Harry leans over her, shivering but seeming no worse for wear
as he shakes her and rubs his wet clammy hands up and down her arms, trying to warm her
up.

She lies there gasping air for several seconds but manages to nod, lifting her head to see
where they emerged.

They’re a hundred feet from the shore, on the right of the stands and the open water. The
audience has seen them and there are cheers in the stands as Harry helps her to her feet,
holding her hand up in the air in a victory gesture.

Hermione pulls her hand free, huddling in on herself. She’s so cold. She wants shoes. She
wants Malfoy’s red fur-lined cape. She wants a bath. The ice is painful under her bare feet,
cold stabbing up her legs. Harry walks beside her, his robes dripping around him and making
the ice slick as he tries not to slip. Several people are hurrying across the ice towards them.
She winces at the flash of a camera as she holds out her hands for a cloak and boots from a
Ministry worker who has an armload of them.

She’s disappointed but not surprised to see Malfoy already on the judge’s platform. He stands
draped in towels and cloaks while Pansy huddles against him, clinging to his arm. He’s not
even looking at her.

His eyes meet Hermione’s for one blistering second and then he looks away from her too.

Hermione and Harry reach the stands and are helped onto them as Madam Pomfrey bustles
over with warmed blankets, muttering angrily as she pops vials of Pepper-Up Potion into
their mouths without warning. The potion burns its way down to Hermione’s stomach, but
she’s so cold, it only takes the edge off.

“I still can’t believe I got picked!” Harry is saying, “I wish I’d known ahead of time, they
only told me last night. I bet Mum and Dad would have come to watch if they’d known I’d be
down there. When’d you notice I was missing?”

“Ron mentioned it at breakfast,” Hermione manages to say between chattering teeth as Bisset
surfaces in front of the pier with Cho in his arms. The audience claps again. Bisset pushes
Cho up onto the pier and transfigures away his gills before climbing out after her, but his
expression grows sullen as he catches sight of Hermione and Malfoy, clearly disappointed to
have arrived last.

The judges are over by the open water, speaking to several merfolk that have also surfaced.

The audience is mostly quiet, not nearly as boisterous as they were during the First Task, the
voices from the stands a low, constant hum.

Ludo Bagman’s amplified voice suddenly booms across the lake, making everyone jump.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the judges have reached our decision! Merchieftainess Murcus has
told us about what happened at the bottom of the lake, and using that information, we will
now announce the scores of each champion.” He clears his throat, running a fingertip down a
slip of paper. “Marks for each champion are awarded out of a possible fifty.”

He pauses for a moment, seeming to expect cheers, but the audience is quiet, waiting. He
looks back down.

“First for Timothee Bisset, who demonstrated some remarkable skills in gill transfiguration.
Unfortunately, he was the only champion to return outside of the time limit.”

“It was because of ze ice!” Madam Maxime says loudly, her expression furious as she stands
beside Bisset like an enormous, overprotective mother. “‘E would ‘ave returned in time if not
for ze ice!”

“Other champions managed well enough,” says Karkaroff with a nasty grin.

Madam Maxime rounds on him and looks ready to fling him into the lake, but Bagman
hurriedly steps in between with his hands raised placatingly.

“Now, now!” He draws himself up. “Everyone did their best! Mr Bisset did successfully
retrieve his hostage and therefore, we agree, he’s awarded thirty points.”

There is a smattering of applause, but neither Bisset nor Maxime appear appeased by this.

“Next, Hermione Granger, who utilised the daring use of a Bubble-Head Charm and surfaced
with her hostage just within the time limit, and through the ice no less! We give Miss Granger
a score of forty-eight points!”

Hermione blinks with surprise. It’s a considerably higher score than she’d got during the
First Task. The scoring system must have been changed to prevent the judges from being so
openly biassed.

Madam Maxime and Karkaroff both look sour, but to Hermione's surprise, Barty Crouch Sr’s
stern expression briefly cracks into a thin, secretive smile. She looks at him curiously. He
scored her well in the First Task too, and supported having Rita Skeeter banned from the
school grounds.
Her eyes narrow. Why? Not that she has the luxury of being particular about support, but why
would Barty Crouch Sr be interested in her success?

She racks her mind for anything she knows about him. The Crouches are an old pureblood
family, and he’s considered a significant figure in the Ministry. He ran for Minister of Magic
a few years back. It had been a nasty campaign between himself and the current Minister,
Cornelius Fudge. After Crouch lost, Minister Fudge retaliated by moving him from the
influential department of Magical Law Enforcement to the less esteemed International
Cooperation branch, which is the reason he’s involved in the tournament.

None of that explains why he’d be supportive of Hermione.

Ludo Bagman’s voice interrupts her thoughts.

“And now, the score you’ve all been waiting for. Draco Malfoy, who accomplished this task
with an incredible full-body Transfiguration, best I’ve ever seen, and surfaced five minutes
before Miss Granger, we give a perfect score of fifty points!”

There are loud cheers at this. Pansy is jumping around, beaming, and turns to wave at the
crowd. Malfoy does not look nearly as pleased as Hermione would have expected.

Then it occurs to her, she beat him in the First task by two points. Now he’s beaten her by
exactly two.

They’ll be tied entering the final task.

“The third and final task will take place at dusk on June twenty-fourth,” Bagman is saying.
“The champions will be informed of what’s coming one month beforehand. Thank you all for
your support!”

This time there’s only a brief applause. Hermione looks towards the crowd, confused by the
lack of enthusiasm. But before she can ask anyone, Madam Pomfrey is herding the
champions and hostages towards the castle, talking about additional doses of Pepper-Up and
dry clothes. As they’re hurried along the path, Hermione catches sight of the Merchieftainess
who has stayed surfaced. Dumbledore is still with her, stooped forwards as they speak
together.

She sees Hermione and points a scaled arm directly at her. Dumbledore looks over, blue eyes
piercing.

He’s likely hearing about how Hermione threatened the merfolk when they tried to stop her
from untying Cho.

She’s lucky she didn’t end up getting points deducted.

In the infirmary, Madam Pomfrey insists on extensive diagnostic charms to check the core
temperatures of every champion and hostage. And all of the hostages are put into bed, despite
Harry and Pansy’s protestations that they’re fine.
Pansy tries to sneak out of bed and scurry over to Malfoy, whispering something to him
urgently as Pomfrey sternly herds her back into bed and uses a sticking spell to keep her
there, lecturing everyone about the dangers of residual stasis potion interfering with blood
pressure or something along those lines.

Malfoy is declared in excellent condition and is permitted to leave when his parents come for
him. Hermione is required to take another bottle of Pepper-Up Potion even though her ears
haven’t stopped smoking from the first dose. She takes it with resignation, but it still doesn’t
warm her in her bones where the cold is lingering painfully.

Bisset is kept in the infirmary as well, although Pomfrey doesn’t specify why. She keeps
looking at his scan with an odd expression. He makes no complaint as he’s dosed with
several potions and curls up on his side, his back turned to everyone. His affable charm
seems smothered by this successive defeat.

Hermione asks for permission to leave to have a bath and Madam Pomfrey brightens and
gives her a small pat on the cheek before sending her on her way.

She walks out and finds Ron, who’s standing just outside the doors of the Infirmary.

Rather than looking cheered by the sight of her, he looks even more dejected, his shoulders
slumping.

“Harry’s still inside,” she says, pulling her cloak around her more tightly, her bare legs
prickling from the cold corridor. “Madam Pomfrey is going to keep him for observation for a
few hours, but you can see him.”

“Right,” is all Ron says, nodding.

She studies him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says in a gruff voice, shrugging, but it’s clear by the way he says it that
something is Very Wrong and he wants her to figure it out.

Hermione sighs, impatient and desperate to get warm. “Ron, I just climbed out of a lake in
midwinter, if something’s bothering you, can you just tell me?”

His head moves jerkily sideways at that, irritation flashing across his face. “Oh well, you
know, it wasn’t great realising I’m your second place friend.”

Hermione stares at him in confusion. “What?” She furrows her eyebrows, trying to think of
what he could possibly be referring to, then she realises it. “Are you upset you weren’t used
as a hostage?”

Ron says nothing but it’s obvious it is.

“ That’s what you’re on about? Ron…” She raises a hand helplessly and then drops it, not
even sure what to say. “It was random. Do you think I got asked which of my friends to
kidnap? No one consulted me about it.”
“Course not.” He shuffles his feet, his voice tight. “‘Cause it’s obvious to pick Harry. He’s
the one you took to Slug Club, didn’t want me then either. No one would ever pick Ron
Weasley when Harry’s around.”

Hermione rolls her eyes and gives him a deadened stare, not hiding how cold and tired and
irritated she is. “Are you actually jealous that you didn’t get kidnapped for spectator sport?
He could have died.”

Ron’s jaw juts out at that. “Oh, come on, Hermione. Dumbledore’s not going to let anything
happen to anyone during the tournament.”

Hermione’s tempted to retort that she doesn’t think Dumbledore cares at all about what
happens to her, but before she can, Ron crosses his arms and adds.

“I’d have rather been down there than left in the stands staring at a whole lot of nothing for
an hour while everyone realised it was Harry down there with you.”

Ah, so he’s jealous because he was bored. She has to refrain from the loud scoff that’s
screaming its way up her throat.

“Sometimes things are just not about you, Ron,” she says, bristling with irritation. “I’m sorry
you didn’t get picked since it’s such a big deal to you, but it’s not my fault.”

His cheeks flush a ruddy red, but she’s not done.

She folds her arms. “And before you try to act like this is some personal tragedy for you,
maybe stop and ask yourself who’d have been left alone in the stands if it was you or Harry
as champion.”

His forehead wrinkles. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Hermione stares at him in disbelief. “Everything. Because it would be me, Ron! And we both
know it.”

He still looks baffled. “So?”

She gives a choked laugh. “You’re standing here complaining about being my second-place
friend like that’s not exactly what I am to you.” She releases a deep breath, shocked at herself
for saying it even though she knows deep down it’s true. “I've always been the secondary
friend. You’ll never choose me over Harry. And Harry will never choose me over you. And I
—” she inhales and her chest and cheekbones ache, “I know that. Do you think it somehow
hurts less to know that neither of you would choose me first?”

She blinks and swallows. “You don’t even want to be my best friend. You just care about
being secondary. Well, I’m always secondary, so complain to someone else about it.”

She storms away, ignoring him when he calls after her, telling her Harry’s his mate, to be
reasonable and not run off.
She veers off from the route towards Gryffindor tower, too angry to go there, to walk into the
Common Room and face that for all those years, she’s been the tag-along friend and she just
didn’t want to admit it to herself.

Instead, she turns down a different corridor, crossing a landing, about to catch the moving
staircase, when she hears Malfoy’s raised voice coming from overhead.

“You said Pansy was fine.”

He sounds oddly tense. It’s that clipped, militant tone he uses around Karkaroff.

Hermione stops short and the staircase she wanted to take swings past without her. She curses
under her breath. Now she’ll have to wait for it to come back.

While she waits, she peeks up to see why Malfoy is discussing Pansy Parkinson with
Headmaster Karkaroff. Instead, she finds that he’s still with his parents and the dark-haired
woman who’d been with them in the stands. They’re all standing together two floors above.

Hermione ducks back a little and mutters a quick disillusionment charm, knowing she
shouldn’t eavesdrop but unable to stifle her curiosity. She creeps slowly over to the rail and
looks up, watching the exchange.

“I said she was acceptable for the ball given that you were required to have a partner,” Lucius
Malfoy says, his voice is calm but his expression is visibly irritated, his upper lip twisting
into a sneer. “That is entirely different from seeing you carrying her out of the water in your
arms in front of an audience.”

“I didn’t choose her.” Malfoy’s voice has lost some of its flat quality. It’s more forceful.
Insistent. He’s still in his swim trunks and his cape is pulled tightly around his shoulders as
he stands before his parents. His hair is flat, falling over his eyes, which makes him seem
younger.

He’s about the same height as his father, but somehow he seems smaller standing there. His
expression is like a child who’s been caught red-handed.

“Draco,” Mrs Malfoy speaks now, her voice soft and distressed. She rests a pale hand on his
arm. “Are you — entangled with Miss Parkinson? Is she the reason you came to Hogwarts?”

Malfoy looks between both his parents, frustration visible in his eyes as he shakes his head.

Neither of them appears convinced, instead Mr Malfoy’s expression hardens further, as if

Malfoy just confirmed something unspeakably awful.

“That is the reason you entered this ridiculous competition? To ensure you could stay at this
school after you left Durmstrang without our permission, to be with Pansy Parkinson?”

The way he says Pansy’s name drips with disgust now.

Hermione’s eyes widened with surprise. It hadn’t even occurred to her that Malfoy had
travelled to Hogwarts and entered the tournament against his parents’ wishes.
So he isn’t even supposed to be here.

Bisset was right. The Malfoys would never risk their heir in such a dangerous competition.
They must have been lying during his interview in the Daily Prophet because there was
nothing they could do to remove him once the goblet made him Durmstrang’s champion.

What an unexpected revelation.

But why would he do it? Pansy cannot possibly be the reason, Hermione’s certain of that at
least. She’s watched him on the Map enough to know he doesn’t spend illicit time with her.
They don’t have a secret romance going on. They’re seen together in public, but only in
groups.

“It had nothing to do with Pansy.” Malfoy’s voice is tense, almost pleading. “I already told
you why I entered.”

The three adults glance at each other in ways that make it very clear they don’t believe him in
the slightest.

“Well, that’s excellent news, Draco,” Mr Malfoy says, his tone suddenly airy. “Because there
will be no more of this nonsense with her. Is that understood? You will not speak to her ever
again.”

Malfoy’s expression ripples and he opens his mouth twice before speaking. “Father —” his
voice is steady, but there’s a hint of a plea in it.

“Not another word,” Mr Malfoy’s voice turns to ice and now Hermione knows where Malfoy
learned his coldness from. “You’ve had your indiscretion. It is over now. You have
responsibilities to the family. You will end whatever it was you were doing together, or I will
do it for you. And you will not enjoy my way of taking care of this.”

“She’s just a friend,” Malfoy says. He’s breathing heavily now. “You said I could be friends
with her. You said as long as it was only in groups, that I — ”

An almost giggle bursts from the woman with the heavily lidded eyes. “If Miss Parkinson is
only a friend, I don’t see why you’re so upset.”

Malfoy instantly goes silent, and the woman reaches out, walking two fingers up his
shoulder. “Since you’re a ‘man’ now, who’s — what was it you said again? Oh yes – ‘old
enough to make choices for himself.’ It was a very impressive speech, I got shivers.” Her
voice is sugary and dredged in mockery.

“I want to see this man you claim to be. So…” she looks him up and down, “show us. Protect
your little friend. After all,” her tone becomes musing and she looks aside, “she looks — very
helpless.”

“Now, now, Bella,” Mr Malfoy gives a tsk. “I’m sure nothing needs to happen to Miss
Parkinson. Does it, Draco?”
It’s like watching a box’s lid snap shut. All the emotions in Malfoy’s face have abruptly
vanished. He is as vacant as a statue.

“No, Father.” His voice is clear, clipped, and emotionless.

Mr Malfoy rests a hand on Malfoy’s shoulder and squeezes in a way that Hermione can’t tell
whether it’s comforting or intimidating. “I know we’re hard on you, but it’s for the best. You
have responsibilities to the family.”

“Yes, Father,” Malfoy says, still speaking in that same detached voice.

Mr Malfoy’s mouth pulls into a thin smile. “It won't be long until all of this is over.
Everything’s been taken care of. Soon it will all be in the past where it belongs. And when it
is, you’ll be done with school, and will come home. With us.” He squeezes Malfoy’s shoulder
one more time and then releases him.

Malfoy doesn’t speak. He gives another nod, eyes downcast, but his jaw just barely ticks, and
his chest is rising and falling as if he’s breathing in quick, shallow pants.

There’s a pause and the conversation appears to be over.

Hermione doesn’t want to take an entirely new route through the castle because of Malfoy’s
truly odious and possibly murderous family. She’d known they were probably awful, but they
are worse than she’d imagined.

She removes the disillusionment spell, and when the stairway she wants passes again and she
catches it, not looking up or giving any indication that she’s noticed the Malfoys overhead
while she climbs the steps.

There’s heavy silence as she navigates the swinging labyrinth, careful not to step on any of
the trick steps. She can feel their eyes on her, tracking her until she reaches the fifth floor
landing and continues along the open passage before going around a corner.

When she knows she’s out of sight, she can’t help but pause, just for a moment to see if they
say anything else.

“Good lord.” It’s the dark-haired woman’s voice again in a stage-whisper. “Was that the
Mudblood? How revolting, just the sight of her coming along as if she belongs. It makes my
skin crawl.”

“Bella,” Mr Malfoy cuts in, his voice chiding. “You know that kind of language is frowned
upon. We don’t want anyone overhearing.”

“Oh yes, how silly of me to forget. It’s a — ‘Muggle-born.’” The word is drawn out as if it’s
ridiculous to say, and followed by a derisive laugh. “See, Cissy? Aren’t you glad that I didn’t
let you send dear Draco here? Even though you cried and cried for days and said Durmstrang
was too far away? Lucius would have given into your tears, but not me. Just imagine — if
he’d spent seven years around filth like that, who knows what we might be dealing with
now.” There’s a loud, dramatic sigh. “Hogwarts is where it all went wrong. With Meda and
 Sirius — and Regulus too, I suspect. Don’t argue with me, Cissy,” her voice has sharpens,
“you know I’m right. The corruption began in this school, which is why we must keep a close
eye on Draco. You’re so lucky to have me always with you.”

Hermione hurries away, suddenly not wanting to hear more.

She finally reaches the Prefect Bath, so painfully chilled she has to scuttle down the last
corridor, but the door swings open immediately when she mumbles the password.

Her fingers are still stiff with cold and they fumble as she closes the door and flips the inner
latch to lock it. She turns on all the taps until the hot, bubbling water is pouring out, filling
the air with the scent of summer flowers and herbs. When the water hits the bottom of the
tub, it seems to multiply, rapidly filling. The stained glass mermaid giggles and dives
underwater as Hermione drops her cloak and wand on the bench, kicking off her boots and
wading into the water without even bothering to peel off her swimsuit in her haste to get
warm.

She sinks in up to her chin with a breathy sigh of pleasure and then dunks her head under the
water, feeling the scalding liquid on her face and sliding along her scalp in a way that sends a
shiver of relief through her.

It’s so blessedly warm. She lifts her head, smearing the water and bubbles from her face
before kicking her feet up to float amid the bubbles.

She lets her eyes slide shut, feeling the heat slowly seep through her as she bumps into the far
wall of the tub and bobs there.

The door rattles.

Her eyes snap open. She looks towards the door and finds to her horror that in her haste, she
hadn’t got the latch all the way behind the slot to lock it.

She opens her mouth to shout that the bath is already occupied, but before she can make a
sound, the door rattles violently once more, the force knocking the latch out of place.

The door swings open, and Malfoy storms into the bathroom.

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

Hermione and Viktor by artysusie

The Unbreakable Vow by hannabiramochi_
Hermione's Elemental Magic by artysusie
Hermione and the Water Serpent by artysusie
She's so curious by elivrayn
Hermione and the Water Serpent by mary_fray_child
The Second Task by midori_san1
It's a Water Serpent by drami1
 The Prefect Bath
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Malfoy’s expression is cold fury as he enters the Prefect Bath, but it vanishes the instant he
catches sight of Hermione in the bathtub.

He stops short, shock sweeping across his face and then just stands there gaping at her.

Hermione stares at him in equal astonishment but manages to recover first. “Get out!”

Her voice seems to jolt him back to life. He blinks, blushes straight up to his hairline and
steps backwards, stammering something vaguely apologetic sounding, but the words haven’t
fully left his mouth before he stops short. His eyes run over her, and an odd expression flits
across his face. He pauses as if calculating, then straightens.

Hermione watches with indignant horror as he reaches over, and swings the door shut,
latching it properly this time before he turns back to face Hermione, scarred eyebrow raised
as if daring her to object.

Obviously she does.

“What are you doing?” Her voice is nearly a shriek.

He cannot possibly think he can stay here.

Her wand is across the room and she’ll have to scramble out of the water and rush straight at
him if she wants to reach it. She splashes water at him instead. “I was here first. GET OUT!”

“Don’t shout,” Malfoy says chidingly, as if she’s being childish. He looks down and jerks the
signet ring on his hand off.

He stares at it for a moment, and the corner of his mouth just barely pulls up as he tilts his
hand and lets it drop. It hits the floor with a heavy clank, the sound solid enough that it could
have cracked the tile. He doesn’t even bother to check whether he’s dented his family
heirloom, stepping over it and pulling off his cape before dropping it beside Hermione’s
cloak and abandoned boots.

Hermione watches him in disbelief, the entire situation is so bizarre she’s struggling to accept
it’s actually happening. “I’ll shout as much as I want. Get out!”

He glances back at her with scrutinising eyes. “Why?”

What does he mean ‘why’? She splutters, too indignant for words. Does he not understand
the concept of privacy? Not remember what nearly happened the last time they were alone
together?
“Because I’m having a bath and you’re not invited. Go away!”

He just snorts, shaking his head. “It’s not as if you’re naked.”

He says it tonelessly, a casual observation, but Hermione blushes all the way to the roots of
her hair.

“That — that is beside the point,” she says, her voice getting shrill. “This is my bath! You’re
not supposed to be in here!”

“Oh, come off it, Granger,” he says, toeing off his boots and looking at her slyly. “It’s not like
I haven’t already seen all your angles.” He gives a wolfish smile. “Did you think I was going
to eat you in the lake?”

Her eyes bulge out, and he gives her a thin smirk before he peels off the grey undershirt with
its red Durmstrang insignia of a double-headed eagle. Hermione looks away quickly, afraid
that if she doesn’t, she’ll stare.

She blushes again. “That’s irrelevant. This is my bath.”

He walks over, having enough sense to keep his swim trunks on, because if he tried to take
them off she’d be screaming bloody murder and then murdering him. He slips into the water
across from her. Fortunately, the bath is large enough that he’s still a good five feet away.

It’s not nearly far enough.

He closes his eyes and tilts his head back. It makes the tendons in his pale neck stand out
starkly and Hermione averts her eyes again, mouth going dry.

“I cannot believe I’ve been bathing in barrels for all these months when I could have come
here,” he says, sighing.

Hermione looks up in surprise. “You don’t have baths on your ship?”

He shakes his head, his eyes still closed. “Karkaroff does, but it’s not for students. We’re
supposed to be ‘resilient’. If we want to immerse ourselves, we get to swim in the lake.”

“But it’s winter!” she says in horror, and then scrunches her nose. “And the lake is hardly
clean enough for washing.”

“Hence the barrels. Now,” he opens his eyes and gives a smug catlike smile as he spreads out
his arms and rests them on the edge of the tub, “I have this.”

He scans the dimensions of the bath. “You could fit two Quidditch teams in here, what’s it
even for?”

“This is the Prefect bath,” she says sternly, remembering then that he is an intruder, invading
her peace and privacy and the sanctity of her post-Task bath. “It’s only for Hogwarts students
who have proven themselves to be responsible. Pansy should lose her badge for giving you
the password.”
Referring to Pansy wipes the smile right off Malfoy’s face, and Hermione feels a small gleam
of hope. Maybe if she’s annoying enough, he’ll go away. She feels much too on edge to trust
herself to make good decisions around him.

She stops trying not to look at him and instead gives him an appraising glance, hoping to
offend him. “Was she planning on coming here with you to celebrate your victory?”

He says nothing, but it sounds like exactly the kind of thing Pansy would come up with.
Hermione rolls her eyes. “That would explain why she was so upset about being kept in the
infirmary.”

Malfoy glares at her balefully. “Pansy and I are just friends,” he says in a flat voice.

She lifts both eyebrows. “Does Pansy know that?”

He flushes and looks away at that, staring stonily at the bubbles filling the space between
them.

Hermione’s clearly not being annoying enough. She leans back against the far wall. “Well, I
guess your parents will make sure all her dreams are crushed.”

He looks up, startled.

“Your family is awful, by the way,” she adds, just in case it’s not obvious that she’d heard the
conversation.

“You were eavesdropping?” Outrage flashes across his face, as if he has any room to
complain about invasions of privacy.

Hermione just shrugs. “You were having a conversation in a public passageway. Very loudly,
I might add.”

Instead of getting more upset and storming off, Malfoy deflates like a punctured balloon. All
his thin smiles and needling stares fall away and the simmering anger resurfaces. He says
nothing, just staring at the far wall, looking defeated, as if harassing Hermione was just a way
to cope.

It probably is.

Arse. He deserves to be driven off.

“You should be grateful your parents are stepping in. After getting chosen as your hostage,
she probably thinks it was as good as a marriage proposal.”

Nothing.

She tries again. “Well, I’m sure she’ll keep trying. You might be the only person who hasn’t
noticed the way she’s been throwing herself at you. Did you think that’s how she always—”

“Shut up!”
Hermione jumps, but then quickly feigns indifference. “All I’m saying is—”

“Don’t talk about Pansy!” He shoots her a murderous glare. “I’m not fucking blind. I know
how she is. I just —“ he sets his jaw and glances away. “I wanted to do something nice for
her.”

Hermione stares at him, baffled. Why on earth would anyone want to do something nice for
Pansy? She’s one of the most annoying girls in the entire school.

He seems to notice her scepticism. “She was the only person who wrote to me when I was
sent to Durmstrang. I got a letter from her every week, even though I didn’t write back. She
always wrote. Long letters too.” He swallows and looks down. “I never replied or saw her
during the holidays, but she never stopped. When I came to Hogwarts, she thought it was to
see her, and I — let her believe it.” He exhales. “Those letters were the only good thing that
happened for a long time.”

The way he says it is unexpectedly forlorn. Like he was banished to Durmstrang, sent into
exile. It’s a complete departure from all his posturing about having been sent to the ‘superior
school’ with its superior education.

Then again, it was clear from the way his aunt had spoken that Durmstrang was a
preventative measure. Suddenly Ron’s comment about Malfoy being sent to Durmstrang to
keep him away from Muggle-borns doesn’t seem so rooted in superiority as much as fear.

She cocks her head to the side. “So you didn’t want to go to Durmstrang?”

He winces and goes silent, probably trying to work out if there’s any way to lie. “No,” he
says at last, sounding resigned.

Hermione raises her eyebrows and starts to open her mouth to ask another question, but he
scowls. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She looks at him pointedly. “If you wanted privacy, maybe you shouldn’t have climbed into
my bath.”

He rolls his eyes and ignores the comment, which irritates her. She doesn’t like that he can
harass her and then have the audacity to ignore her.

“So now, you’re what? In this tournament to spite your parents?”

Nothing.

The water is warm and languorous, and she’s tired enough that she can’t help but stare at him.
She’s spent more time than she’ll ever admit, wondering what he looks like under his
uniform.

Her eyes wander across his shoulders and chest visible above the bubbles.

He’s so pale and waterlike, it’s like seeing a human version of a sighthound, bred for one
particular ability. Not quite handsome, but so striking. Mesmerising.
She forces herself to look away.

“Honestly,” she clears her throat and then scoffs, trying to sidetrack the lecherous way her
mind keeps wandering, “you’re the worst rebellious teenager I’ve ever seen. Do you really
think having a bath with me is going to teach your parents a lesson for not letting you be
friends with Pansy Parkinson?”

He looks up and stares at her in astonishment.

She just shakes her head. “You think I couldn’t figure out why you decided to climb in here?
Was I supposed to think it’s because you just can’t stay away from me? Did I lure you in like
some sort of hypothermic siren?”

He flushes up to the tips of his ears.

“I —” he starts, but it comes out weakly.

“It’s obvious,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Although, I’m curious to hear your thought
process. Are you going to write your parents a letter detailing our bath after you leave? Or
save it for a dramatic reveal someday? Or,” she scrunches her nose at him, “is this a secret
rebellion just to make yourself feel better?”

He’s glaring daggers at her again, and Hermione’s whole body floods with anticipation. She
laughs when he scowls at her.

“If you don’t shut your mouth, I will drown you,” he says in a dangerous voice. The flush has
left his ears, but the hollows of his cheeks are still stained red.

Hermione shakes her head gleefully. She’s got the upper hand, and she has no intention of
giving it up. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. It would probably make this whole thing backfire and
you’ll end up making your parents proud. They seem like the sort who’d brush off a
manslaughter charge sooner than a bath with a Muggle-born.”

“Granger — I swear—” His tone is pure murder.

She taps her chin, relishing his embarrassment. “Imagine being so bad a rebelling that even
when you —”

She doesn’t finish because Malfoy lunges at her.

She expects it, and jumps to the side to evade him, but what she doesn’t expect is for him to
transfigure. The bath is suddenly filled with the huge, coiling body of the water serpent.
Terrified astonishment floods through her.

He strikes, his enormous scaled head darting forwards.

“That’s cheating!” She tries to scramble out of the tub, but before she can escape, a coil
wraps around her hips and she’s dragged back into the bath.
“Malfoy!” She screams as his hold tightens and he pulls her into the water, twisting so that
she’s dunked beneath the surface. She beats at him with her fists, kicking and clawing and
trying to get herself free, too enraged to even be afraid.

He twists again, righting her, and she coughs, spluttering curses.

“You cheating snake! Transform back, you bastard! I’ll beat you to a bloody pulp!” She
screeches and hits him more ferociously. His scales are so hard they bruise her fists to strike,
but she’s so indignant she doesn’t care.

He slithers around her, adding another coil. His head is looming several feet above her own,
and he’s staring down at her and she can almost see the satisfaction in those cold reptilian
eyes. Then he squeezes, the muscles beneath the scales tensing, contracting around her chest.

She gasps as the air is steadily crushed from her lungs.

“You bastard,” she says again, still kicking every bit of him she can reach, but in this form it
seems he has no crucial male anatomy to target. He just coils tighter, too tight now for her to
breathe.

She tries once more and then, having enough sense not to Gryffindor herself to the grave,
goes limp in defeat.

“I’ll stop,” she forces out, meeting his eyes. “Let me go. I’ll stop.”

He doesn’t let go.

“I promise,” she says. Helplessly.

It is so unfair that he knows animal transfiguration. She’s now keenly regretful that she
hadn’t gone down that path.

The coil loosens, and the serpent melts away, shifting back into Malfoy. Except now he’s no
longer across the tub from her. His bare chest is pressed hard against her body, an arm
wrapped around her waist, the other braced on the edge of the tub, and she’s trapped against
him.

His face is inches away from hers, wet hair dripping water onto her cheeks, and suddenly her
heart is racing faster than it was when he was crushing her to death. He’s panting heavily, as
if he’s more winded than she is.

“You never know when to stop,” he says in between breaths.

Her mouth is too dry to speak, but she manages to shake her head.

“Is that —“ she fumbles, trying to form some kind of coherent sentence, “are you an
animagus? How are you able to do that?”

He shakes his head. “Advanced animal transfiguration. My water affinity is why I can sustain
it.” He drags in a ragged breath and then slumps against her as if his legs are about to give
out. “It worked better in the lake. That took more magic than I expected. Fuck.”

The curse makes her blood run hot and then hotter, and she has to swallow hard, trying to
concentrate on something that’s not his body and breath.

Of course. Hogwarts textbooks only teach ordinary animal transfiguration because

transfiguring into a magical creature requires too much power. Without animagus affinity,
maintaining an animal transfiguration requires intense concentration and magic. But Malfoy
is able to supplement his power by drawing from a secondary source, by using the Dark Arts,
and so he can sustain transfiguration forms that should otherwise be impossibly exhausting.

For anyone who doesn’t understand the Dark Arts he must seem supernaturally powerful.

God. She wants to learn that. He makes water magic feel so effortless. Like it’s hardly
different from breathing.

She’s so close to him now, she can sense his magic. Without her permission, her hands
tentatively press against his chest, places that were diamond hard scales only a minute before,
now soft warm skin under her fingers. She doesn’t know if the feeling of his magic or his
skin is distracting her more.

She tries to avert her eyes, but there is nowhere to look where there isn’t more of him. His
face, his shoulders, his arms. There isn’t an inch between them and he’s not letting go or
moving away. She feels his eyes on her, and his breath brushes against the top of her cheek,
sending a shiver through her.

“Do you know what would make my parents furious?” His voice is very low, and there’s a
dangerous quality to it she recognises, that almost suggestive, almost mocking, almost too
many things at once tone.

She looks up at him, startled by the question, and when she meets his eyes, she can’t look
away. This time, for the first time, she can see his frustration, not the aggravation he shows
towards her, but a resentment towards everything. It’s so startlingly relatable that she’s
surprised she’s never noticed it before.

He wears his gilded cage so convincingly. Acting as if he picked it out for himself.

But that’s not all she sees in his expression. His eyes are dark, and growing darker.

A reckless answer to his question crosses her mind, and she’s certain he’s already thinking it.
That's why he’s still standing here, not letting go.

Don’t you dare. She tells herself as her eyes fall to his lips. She knows better. She knows how
to make good choices, responsible choices. And this is a terrible thing to even contemplate.

Draco Malfoy is her rival.

They made Unbreakable Vows. They have cast themselves eternally at odds with one another.
There’s no going back. That knowledge echoes through her mind, sits burned into her wrist,
the thought syncopating with her pounding heart, but she wants this. Wants him.

She’s never wanted a person.

In theory, yes. The idea of wanting, yes. The wish that she could have someone who would
belong to her. Someone who would see her and want her and choose her, first and always.
Yes. She has wanted that.

But Malfoy is none of those things.

He never will be.

And yet she still feels drawn to him in the same aching, feverish way that she wants this
magical world to be hers.

Don’t help him. Don’t want him. Don’t ask what he means, you already know.

But she does. She swallows, wetting her lips. “What?”

He dips his head closer. “This.”

Their lips almost touch. She can taste his breath on her tongue.

He kisses her. His lips are soft against hers, softer than she expected anything about him to
be. His mouth barely brushes against hers before pressing lightly.

Hermione isn’t sure what it should feel like to kiss someone, but the moment his lips touch
hers, heat unfurls inside her chest. She tilts her head back to meet his lips, not sure exactly
what she wants except more. More of this.

Her eyes close slowly.

His lips move tentatively against hers. His arm around her back slides away, long fingered
hands resting on her arms instead. To keep her back or pull her in, she isn’t sure.

It’s as if the surrounding world has spun away and left them.

Then he gasps against her lips and breaks it off, drawing back, his hands snatched away from
her bare skin like the touch burns. His eyes are wide, shocked, as if he can’t believe what he’s
done. Hermione stares back at him, breathing hard, her mouth tingling where his lips touched
hers.

She doesn’t know if she’s disappointed or relieved that he stopped.

But he looks stricken. He swallows and his hand rises, and then curls into a fist and he drops
it to his side in the water. The shock on his face transforms, turning into resentment as he
stands there, glaring at her.
“You know, I can’t stand you,” he says abruptly in a sharp, vicious voice, as if he expects her
to be blindsided. “You’re driving me insane. Everything about you.”

He’s standing there in front of her, his entire body tense, face pale with two red spots high on
his cheeks. “You are the most enraging person I’ve ever known. Being around you is like
poison inside me. Your face. Your voice. Everything.” His expression just keeps growing
more and more resentful. “I don’t — I don’t even know why I had to go find you during the
task.” His voice cracks, as if he’s on the verge of a breakdown.

“It was just supposed to be a joke to teach you the Dark Arts,” he adds, his chest rising and
falling raggedly.

Hermione’s so startled by this admission coming immediately after he kissed her, that she
laughs.

“You want me,” she says.

It is so strange to realise that she was right. That her embarrassing fantasy that he wanted her
and hated it, is not such a fantasy after all.

He looks at her like she just kicked him in the stomach. As if he’d thought maybe there was
another explanation.

She isn’t sure why she said it outright, but she’s relieved that she did.

Because now he’ll sneer and tell her he doesn’t, that he would never, ever want her, or
anyone like her.

And then he’ll leave in order to prove it.

Which is what she wants, because if he does, it will be before things have gone too far. It was
just a kiss and kisses didn’t mean anything. Ginny kisses Dean all the time, and she doesn’t
even like boys. Ron kissed Lavender and now he says he can’t stand her.

If he leaves now, then it was just a meaningless kiss and not something that has her heart
fluttering and her lips tingling and her whole body alight and on edge, filled with absolute
certainty that this is only the beginning of something that could swallow the stars.

Her cheeks burn but she doesn’t break eye contact as she waits for the sneer and the denial.

He swallows, and her entire chest tightens as she braces herself.

“I do,” he says instead, his voice ragged with frustration. “I can’t help it.”

Her eyes go wide, she’s too startled to even move when he catches her by the arm.

He captures her face in one hand, holding her jaw, and kisses her again. Deeper. No longer
tentative. She can feel his want in this kiss, hungry blistering desire, so white hot it scorches
through her. The feeling of restraint when it finally snaps.
Her eyes flutter closed and she’s flooded with it, her lips moving, returning his kiss, her
hands finding his shoulders to grasp when he kisses her deeper, pulls her closer. It’s clumsy.
Feverish. Too rough.

He pushes too hard and when she responds, her teeth catch his lip, he flinches, muttering in
complaint against her mouth, but doesn’t break off the kiss. Instead, his fingers are tangling
in her hair to hold her. Fingers sliding along the curve of her skull like she belongs to him.

She gasps, lips parting against his mouth, and his tongue flicks in against her open lips.

A sharp jolt of pleasure lances through her entire body, so sudden that a small moan escapes
her.

He freezes, holds her even more firmly in place and does it again, slower. There is a raw
intensity in the way he’s gripping her. The sensation is like having a string inside her plucked,
a resonance of pleasure that vibrates through her body and out through her magic. She has
never felt anything like it before. She makes an incoherent noise in the back of her throat and
clutches at him until her fingernails sink into his shoulders, a haze of want and sensation
swallowing her mind and all she can think about is how good this feels, that she never wants
it to stop.

Why has she never wondered about any of this? Why has she never stopped to want someone
in this way before?

The water splashes around them as they pull towards each other, sending waves across the
surface and out of the tub. She runs her hands across his wet skin, tracing the planes of his
body. He’s all angles everywhere. She could count his lower ribs. He gives a ragged gasping
moan, clutching at her when her fingers slide down his stomach, burying his face against her
shoulder as his hips jerk, grinding his body against her as if he wants to mould them
together.

He mutters curses, some in English, some not, some that she doesn’t think are even real
words, but she can feel the meaning of them in the quick way they form low in his throat, the
breathlessness when they leave his lips, and the gasps as they’re cut off, replaced by new
ones.

His mouth is pressing against her neck, hot breath on her skin, as if his fingers are not enough
and he needs to feel and taste her. The caress of his lips and tongue punctuated by sharp
almost punishing nips of his teeth on her skin.

He skates his fingertips along to her shoulders, trailing across the straps of her swimsuit and
following the high neckline that runs just below her collarbones, pressing his lips just there.
Then his fingers slip under the right strap and he slowly pulls it down so that one shoulder is
bare and covers it with his mouth, sucking hard enough to leave a mark that stains her skin.

She expects him to pull the strap away further, and when he doesn’t, she realises that she
wants him to. She doesn’t want it to only be this far and no further, an arbitrary limit set by
the neckline of her swimsuit. She wants more. Everything. She wants everything. Her breath
catches inside her lungs at the thought of his long fingers stroking lower, the warmth of his
lips and tongue on her skin.

Without pausing to think, she reaches up and pulls both arms free of the straps on her
swimsuit, shoving it down to her waist before looking up to see his reaction.

He’s staring, jaw slack, eyes hooded, as if drunk on the sight of her.

Then he reaches out slowly, his hand dripping water, and his fingers actually tremble just
before he touches the curve above her breast, as if he’s afraid she’ll break.

“Fuck…” he breathes, seeming stunned by how soft she is. He moves closer, his whole body
pressing nearer. His fingers trail lower, his eyes following, mesmerised. “Fuck—”

Hermione wants to find it funny, how overwhelmed and disoriented he is, but her heart’s in
her throat, fluttering quick and nervous, feeling belatedly how exposed she is. How
vulnerable she’s just impulsively made herself.

Then he cups her right breast in his palm, and it’s so warm and his thumb brushes in a slow
circle and she forgets how to think.

His hands are soft, his fingers careful and when he dips his head and puts his mouth on her
breast, tongue hot, the sensation whips through her, a flood of pleasure to her core. She gives
a startled moan and her fingers tangle in his pale hair, holding him there so he won’t stop.
Her legs tangle with his, almost making them both fall, and he catches the edge of the tub,
barely stopping them from getting dunked under water.

Want is building inside her, not going anywhere, desire just growing and growing until she
thinks she might explode from it. She’s turning liquid inside, catching fire, and coming apart
all at once. She needs – something. More than this.

But she’s also terrified at the thought of more. Of experiencing more of something this
intense and consuming when there’s another person who will see her when she’s not fully in
control. The mere thought sends her stomach dropping, a plummet like a free fall.

Malfoy’s tongue swirls and flicks before sucking and it sends such a pulse of hot pleasure
through her that she nearly bites through her lip to hold back the sound. The sensation
annihilates her thoughts. Something deep inside her clenches, a sense of emptiness and desire
that she’d never realised existed. She had never known it was possible to want like this, to
need something so intensely, as instinctively as hunger.

She pulls his mouth back to hers, kissing him, and scrambles towards one ledge in the deeper
part of the tub, pulling him with her. Not that she needs to pull, he doesn’t let go, his lips
never leaving hers. When she finds it, she lifts herself up so that she’s seated and able to hook
her legs around his hips.

One of his hands is under the water, tracing the inside of her knee and then gradually
wandering higher as he kisses her. She parts her legs, her breath catching in her throat when
his fingers slide further. His other hand is still on her breast, squeezing and stroking in a way
that sends sharp, tight little shocks of pleasure twinging through her. There are so many
sensations that she feels like her mind may fracture from trying to focus on all of them
simultaneously.

His fingers reach the apex of her legs and he touches her there, rubbing through her swimsuit,
fumbling, not finding the right place, even when she moves her legs further apart to make it
easier.

She tilts her hips, and still it’s not —

She bites her lip, holding back a noise of frustration, and tries to be patient.

She quickly realises that she is terrible at practising patience when someone is doing
something the wrong way.

“Not like that,” she says, almost gritting out the words. She’s going to vibrate into atoms if he
misses the right spot again.

She takes hold of his hand and splays her fingers against his, guiding him until he’s touching
where she needs him, right…

There.

“Here. Do it here,” she orders thickly, trying to show him, her words unsteady, finding herself
incapable of being more coherent or educational as she moves his hand in a slow caress over
and over.

She gives a soft moan and trembles, toes curling, when he finally gets it right without
guidance.

His fingers move carefully, imitating the slow circular motion she demonstrated, every touch
making her gasp and shudder.

Her mind is lost in a kaleidoscope of sensations.

It’s so different from when she’s touching herself.

Slower. More indirect but also so, so much more intense, the build gradual and
encompassing. Her consciousness blurs, reduced to a singular but fractaling point of pleasure
and desire and need, and please don’t stop , she’s so close.

His fingers stroke, moving in circles, rubbing. She curls her body against his, burying her
face against his chest, gripping his shoulders as she feels her entire body compacting from
within until she can barely breathe from anticipation, and then he runs his thumb just there,
and she shakes and comes apart.

Pure pleasure vibrates through her, rippling outward through her magic that she feels rush
through the water, through Malfoy, spiralling into the air. He gives a ragged groan. She hears
herself half-sobbing, feels her bare skin against his.
When she goes limp, she slumps against him, panting, her entire body wrung out. He’s
kissing down the side of her neck, one palm pressed against her chest, his thumb stroking up
and down against her inner breast.

Now she can hear the quick unsteady way he’s breathing, and feel him, hard against her, his
hips rolling slowly against her stomach, inhaling shakily each time.

She only hesitates a moment before she slides a hand into his trunks. He goes still, as if
petrified.

Her fingers wrap around him, squeezing and pulling up.

The noise he makes is a yelp and a moan and groan and whimper all at once. His body tenses,
jerks, and he nearly collapses onto her. One of his hands instantly closes around hers,
clamping tight.

“Fuck! Fuck… Slow down — I’ll — You can’t just — Fuck –” He seems beyond words,
babbling and breathing rapidly as he tries to speak. He sounds as if the wind was just
violently knocked out of him.

She must have been too rough.

She’s never touched a boy there before. They’re obviously more delicate than she realised.

Her cheeks burn and she tries to let go, but he doesn’t let her pull her hand free either.
Instead, he presses her palm against himself and holds it there, biting down on his lip and
moaning softly. So, maybe she didn’t injure him?

His eyes are squeezed shut and after several ragged inhalations, he moves her hand in the
barest upward stroke, guiding it up and then down and groaning as if in complete agony
against her shoulder as his entire body tenses and shakes.

“Slowly,” he manages to rasp out.

She does it slower and his grip on her hand loosens but he doesn’t let go entirely, guiding her
while his other hand curves against the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair and he
mouths at her jaw just below her ear and nuzzles his face against hers as his hips roll up to
meet the movement of her hand, groaning each time.

Their bodies are so close, she can feel his heart pounding.

Then he whimpers low in his throat, and urges her hand to move a little faster, squeeze, tug a
bit more sharply. He draws her hand up in a few quick jerks, and gives a guttural moan, teeth
pressing against the juncture of her neck and shoulder as his hips buck unevenly several
times. He goes still, letting go of her wrist.

The hand cradling the back of her head falls loose and the back of his fingers stroke the back
of her arm, up and down.

Hermione shivers, blinking.

Everything around them seems to come back into focus, and it’s no longer just them.

The world is there again, bleeding back into the scope of her consciousness.

As she sits there, Malfoy’s head resting on her shoulder, body still pressed intimately against
hers, it begins slowly dawning on her: what they’ve done. All the thoughts she’s refused to
acknowledge before begin flooding over her now.

Things she didn’t want to think about. That she doesn’t want to know.

That he’d want her like that, and it would feel good, better than good, to be wanted that way.

She sits there wishing she still believed he was horrible.

She doesn’t even know when she stopped believing it.

She shouldn’t have let herself stop.

Her throat tightens.

She pulls back, body shrinking away from him, and the movement seems to rouse him. In the
second he takes to lift his head, he seems to process all the same things that Hermione is. By
the time their eyes meet, he has that cold, detached look in his eyes, like there’s a wall
between himself and the world.

She immediately looks away.

He steps back, and she pulls her swimsuit back up, establishing the small barrier between
them that she possesses control over, but she still can’t bring herself to look up and meet that
flat stare of his.

She swallows and doesn’t know what to say.

There’s none of that sharp, crackling antagonism between them now. The air feels almost
lifeless, but not quite. The stillness is full of dread, of waiting for what inevitably comes next,
even though she doesn’t know what it will be.

She has never not known what will happen next. She has plans and plans and plans. When
she makes choices, she thinks about all their potential consequences, and what she’ll do in
each scenario. But she never imagined this, not really, it was just a stupid fantasy, so she
never thought about what would happen after.

She knows she should say something before he can. Something so sharp that it stops him
from saying whatever hurtful distancing insult he’ll use to put her back in her place. But she
doesn’t know what that is.

Before she can think of anything, he clears his throat.

“My parents — they’ll have me watched.” He flushes and looks away. ”I mean, they already
do, but it’ll be more after today. I won’t be able to disappear to meet up with you the way I
have been.”

He looks back at her again, and it feels like he’s expecting her to understand something that’s
being obviously implied by this, but she isn’t in the mood to sit there trying to guess
implications.

The lack of understanding must be visible on her face because he adds, “To make sure I’m
not associating with anyone I’m not allowed to.”

“Pansy,” she says, catching on, even though everything that happened before he kissed her
feels like it happened a decade ago.

He gives a short nod.

She’s tempted to laugh. This is when he decides to bring up Pansy. Right now.

“Right,” she says in a brittle voice, rolling her eyes. “Because you and Pansy really weren’t
—”

“No, we weren’t,” he says sharply, that sharp dismissive bite back in his tone as he cuts her
off.

Everything in Hermione is on edge. Not because of his tone, but because she knows she’s
made a mistake, shared something with him she can’t take back, and she doesn’t know how
to fix that. She doesn’t make mistakes. People like her aren’t allowed to.

She goes tense, her entire body contracting inward as she bristles, anger wrapping itself
protectively around all her raw emotions.

“But why did you come here then?” Her voice is just as sharp as his. “She was obviously the
person who gave you the password. You didn’t barge in hoping she might eventually show
up?”

A low colour comes into Malfoy’s face now. He leans against the far side of the tub, in that
casual way that men seem to instinctively use to take up space, to imply that everything is
theirs, that they’re entitled to it. There’s obvious anger in the set of his jaw. “I came here
because I knew she’ll be in the infirmary until after dinner. I already said I wouldn’t ever do
anything with Pansy. If I did, she would think it meant something, and it wouldn’t.”

His voice is as flat and cold as ice.

It takes a moment before the implication of his words hits her.

Pansy would think it meant something.

Silly starry-eyed Pansy Parkinson who dressed like a fairy-tale princess for the Yule Ball
would think Malfoy meant to marry her if he joined her in the Prefect Bath. If he ever kissed
her. Touched her.
 Pansy would think it meant everything; that he was in love with her and intended to marry
her. That he would.

She has no idea that his parents despise her, that they will never consider her an acceptable
match, and that Malfoy has always known it and only indulged her fantasies in order to be
nice.

But Hermione…

Hermione’s too smart to think that being kissed by Draco Malfoy means something. They are
rivals and they have ensured that they will never be anything but rivals. And even if they
weren’t, she knows where the Wizarding world places her in its social hierarchy, understands
that a pureblood boy from an old family wouldn’t mess around with or do anything to
compromise a girl he respected.

That’s something they’d only do with the ones who don’t matter.

She never thought it would be possible, but she is suddenly so bitterly jealous of Pansy
Parkinson that the feeling physically hurts as it twists into a sharp knot inside her stomach,
lodging in beneath her ribs.

“Right.” Her voice is almost a whisper. “It’s lucky I’m not such a fool.”

He says nothing in response to that, but his eyes flash.

Hermione doesn’t care. She’s always disliked Pansy, but now she despises her, hates her for
getting to be naive, and have other people put in the effort of preserving her fantasies.

That the world decided that Pansy Parkinson gets to be important enough that she’ll only be
kissed by someone who means it.

Hermione swallows the lump in her throat and forces herself to stand, stepping out of the tub,
towelling herself off, too jaded to care if Malfoy watches.

She doesn’t look at him again, even though she can feel his eyes on her, feels in the air that
there’s something he wants to say, but she doesn’t look back to let him.

She pulls her cloak around her shoulders, but when she reaches the door, she pauses, forcing
her voice to go sharp and hard.

“I suppose we can get back to studying the Dark Arts when you’re not being watched, then.
If that ever happens,” she says, and sounds convincingly indifferent. She shrugs. “It’s not as
if I’m the one who will die if you don’t finish teaching me the Dark Arts before the Third
Task.”

Then she lifts the latch and leaves.

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

Saving Harry by artysusie

Blood Magic by artysusie
The Vow by flo.riex
"I want to know everything" by Mary_fray_child
Durmstrang Draco by hellou_art
First Sight by sweetiehoney
"Teach me the Dark Arts" by enselius_art
The Yule Ball lineup by enselius_art
A Dance Between Rivals by enselius_art
"Leave it on" by enselius_art
 Fault Lines
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Hermione is short and evasive with everyone when she gets back from Gryffindor Tower.
Harry and Ron aren’t there, presumably because Harry’s still in the infirmary, and she’s
relieved not to run into them. A few people try to congratulate her on scoring so well, but
feigning a headache, she excuses herself and goes to bed.

That night she dreams about Malfoy, feels his hands and mouth on her, the weight of his
body, the water moving around them, but each time he touches her, he whispers in her ear,
“this doesn’t mean anything.”

He says it over and over and when she tries to block out the words, he lets go.

She falls, plummeting downwards, falling until she hits her mattress and wakes with a jerk,
gasping, her body drenched in a cold sweat and magic burning in her fingertips.

She hides in the shower, letting the water stream down over her skin, magicking away the
little marks on her neck and shoulders until Parvati is banging on the door, shouting that other
people need showers too.

She arrives at breakfast with a gnawing tension headache, sitting down just as the Daily
Prophet drops in the middle of the table.

Triwizarding Snooze? is the question above the fold, with a picture of the judges seated in a
row, staring out across the frozen expanse of water, not a champion in sight. The image is
still, and Hermione thinks it’s a traditional photograph until a bird flies across one corner.

Harry lets out a low whistle when he sees the headline. “I know everyone was saying it
wasn’t as good as the First Task, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“Probably because you were sleeping the whole time,” says Ron with a long expression, still
sore over his exclusion. “The rest of us were wide awake while our arses were freezing off.”

“It was actually a water activated stasis spell,” Harry says imperiously as Hermione unfolds
the paper with a snap.

The overall response to the Second Task is scathing dismissal. Apparently, Ron was not the
only person bored to tears from staring at a frozen lake for an entire hour. The criticism is
unanimous and venomous: the tournament is a waste of public resources, the lake task was no
challenge at all. Boring, in fact. With the upcoming tax hike, Minister Fudge should be
ashamed of investing so much money into an event that is little more than a vanity project.

Historically, Triwizarding Tournaments were elite, high-stakes events, a celebration of

Wizarding excellence and daring. The tournament under Ludo Bagman’s oversight is a
pathetic snoozefest, and the Wizengamot should strip its funding.

As smaller papers and editorial writers all pile on in the days that follow, the Ministry has no
choice but to do damage control. Fudge announces that an investigation will be done in order
to review the finances and planning, placing Ludo Bagman on leave during the investigation,
with Tiberius McLaggen, Cormac’s uncle, acting as interim tournament coordinator.

Hermione hopes that if nothing else, at least the backlash to the task will mean that Rita
Skeeter has better things to do than malign her, but such hope proves futile. An article
appears in the weekend’s Witch Weekly. It includes a picture of Hermione taken as she
crossed the ice after the Task, her cold skin stark against the dark colour of her swimsuit and
hair drenched and clinging to her. Harry is beside her, fully dressed in his dripping school
robes, and there are several Ministry volunteers in hats and coats.

The article is all about how incredibly inappropriate it was for Hermione to shamelessly
parade her body around in front of the audience. It’s ridiculous if not surprising, and if it were
just that, Hermione would have brushed it off.

However, Rita goes further than just attacking Hermione for the swimwear she hadn’t chosen
and her failure to instantly magic herself a cover of some sort. ‘The Muggle-born, Miss
Granger’, Rita writes, has ‘undeniably shown herself to have a habit of disregarding the
established rules of feminine decorum, which begs the question of what other inappropriate
things she might be doing. Is it really possible that a girl with no wizard upbringing can be
the best student at a Wizarding school?’ Rita speculates that it’s those boys Hermione’s
constantly seen with who have really been doing all her assignments for her, perhaps because
Hermione is the kind of girl who would do things for them that no pureblood girl would.

Malfoy’s careless words ring in her ears.

I wouldn’t ever do anything with Pansy.

She sits staring at the magazine without speaking for such a long time that Ron nervously
clears his throat. “No one’s going to believe that.”

Hermione still says nothing. Brush it off, she tells herself, but the blood is roaring in her ears
and her body feels hot and cold all at once. Just brush it off.

She wants to. She wants to not care. She wants to laugh and act like it doesn’t matter, like
nothing can get to her. But it does. People believe this. More of them than she wants to think
about.

The back of her throat starts to ache as she forces herself to sit there and not react.

If Rita keeps doing this, by the time Hermione’s done with school, all anyone will think of
when they hear the name Hermione Granger, is that she’s the Muggle-born who everyone
said was a slut at Hogwarts. She can feel her face beginning to burn as if people are already
staring at her. Any job she gets, they will raise their eyebrows and make speculations about
exactly how she got it, how she ‘really’ earned it.
Her chest is getting so tight she can barely breathe. She just keeps staring at the words until
they blur and the edges of the magazine smoulders in her palms. Ron’s saying something else
and forcing a laugh, but she doesn’t really hear it.

“All you have to do is look at anyone else’s grades and it’s obvious no one’s doing your
homework for you. Who even could?” says Harry.

“Just ignore it,” Ginny says with a tight smile, when Hermione still says nothing.

Hermione hasn’t seen Ginny much lately, but today she’s seated squarely across from
Hermione and pulls the magazine out of her hands, tossing it aside so that it slaps loudly on
the stone floor.

“Look at me, Hermione,” Ginny says firmly. “They’re trying to get into your head. Don’t let
them win.” She looks around at everyone seated nearby at the Gryffindor table. “I think that
in protest, we should all cancel our subscriptions to the Prophet and the Witch Weekly and
read The Quibbler instead. You know Luna Lovegood, she’s my year in Ravenclaw. Her dad
runs that paper and she gave me a copy the other day because she contributed an article.
Look.”

Ginny rummages in her bag and pulls out a newspaper with a cover story about a warlock
who claimed he found his cousin in bed with his wife, after he’d already killed and buried
him. The article contributed by Ginny’s friend is an investigative report into a series of
alleged thefts within Hogwarts, including but not limited to the disappearance of several
pygmy puffs and more than a dozen left socks. The article advises taking preventative
measures like hanging radishes around one’s bed and whistling twice over the right shoulder
before leaving a room.

Everyone puts on a show of reading the various Quibbler sections and making exaggerated
claims about the paper being abundantly superior to Witch Weekly and Daily Prophet, but it’s
such a transparent attempt to make Hermione feel better that it leaves her feeling even worse.

McGonagall calls Hermione to her office that afternoon, her mouth pressed into a flat line
that turns her lips white when she sets a copy of Witch Weekly on her desk. She interrogates
Hermione for several minutes about whether she’s been leaving her letters lying around, and
which boys she spends time with, all of which makes Hermione defensive and on edge.

At last, McGonagall gives an approving nod. “Very well then. You’re doing your best,” she
says as she pulls open a drawer in her desk and rummages inside it.

That’s not the response Hermione wanted. Obviously she didn’t want to be told she was
doing anything wrong, but McGonagall isn’t offering to help, she’s just sitting there telling
Hermione that she has done nothing to deserve what’s happening.

“Isn’t there something you do?” Hermione asks, not even trying to hold back the bite in her
voice. “There has to be something that someone can do to make her stop. Why is she doing
this to me? I didn’t do anything to her.”
Instead of immediately answering, McGonagall pulls out a tin of biscuits, opening it, and
nudging it towards Hermione. “None of this is your fault. There’s been a push again recently
to establish a separate school for Muggle-born students.” She picks out a biscuit of her own,
tapping it with a fingertip to remove crumbs. “It’s an old idea and Albus will never stand for
it, but the Minister has a senior secretary who’s made it a passion project. She attended the
Yule Ball as part of the Ministry delegation in order to speak to the school governors about it.
Detestable women.” Her lip twists with distaste. “Your selection as Champion was quite a
blow to her claims that Muggle-borns are incapable of succeeding the way other Wizarding
students can.” She nods towards the Witch Weekly on the desk. “I have a strong suspicion
she’s had a hand in these articles.”

There’s a lump in Hermione’s throat and she has to swallow hard to speak, and her voice still
wavers. “So — they’re doing this to me because of politics?”

“Everything is politics, Miss Granger, especially in your case.” McGonagall says in an

uncharacteristically gentle voice.

Hermione’s not sure what that’s supposed to mean, there’s plenty of other Muggle-borns. Not
a lot, but enough of them.

McGonagall arches an eyebrow and gives a long sigh. “I’ve been a professor for many years
now, and a Muggle-born worthy to be Triwizard Champion is no small thing. In fact, it is
such a large thing that many refuse to acknowledge the significance because it threatens too
much for them. Being chosen as Champion contradicts everything the world wishes to
believe about Muggle-borns. You’ve shown what you’re capable of, who you’re comparable
to, one young man in particular who is too important to insult. They cannot attack your
worthiness without demeaning his, so instead they’re doing everything in their power to
dehumanise you so that the accomplishment doesn’t count.”

That is worse than Rita just hating her. She’d prefer to be told that Rita Skeeter is entirely
malicious or bears a grudge against Hogwarts. Or even that it is arbitrary and cruel because
life is arbitrary and cruel.

But McGonagall’s explanation makes it all so calculated, so intensely personal, and also so
entirely indifferent to any personhood that Hermione possesses. Because it means that she is
not a person, she is simply a problem. There will never be any earning her way to
acknowledgement. No matter how good she is, how deserving, the only thing that matters is
that there are people with a vested interest in seeing her fail, in illuminating her shortcomings
until they’re all that define her.

No wonder Muggle-borns never get very far in this world.

When she’s silent for too long, McGonagall leans forwards. “Miss Granger, you’ve done
nothing wrong. Quite the opposite. You should be proud. You are truly exceptional.”

On any other occasion, Hermione would be stunned to receive such praise, but today the
words rings hollow. What is the point of being exceptional if it brings no help, if it just marks
her as a target?
She gives a strained laugh that comes out sounding somewhat hysterical. “But what do I do?”

“I intend to speak to Albus about all this, this is his purview far more than mine,”
McGonagall says, giving a decisive nod and Hermione feels the little flicker of hope that
McGonagall could help her gutter out.

McGonagall continues, unaware. “I imagine we’ll get more letters than usual from parents
and the ‘concerned’ public, but you don’t need to worry about any of that. You have the
school’s support.” She gives an encouraging smile. “Every faculty member here would be
pleased to vouch for you. Muggle-borns will always be welcomed at Hogwarts.”

A chill creeps up Hermione’s spine. “Wait. What are people writing to you about? That —
that they want me expelled?”

She hadn’t even thought about that. Fear claws inside of her lungs. What if she gets expelled
during the tournament? What would happen?

“Miss Granger, you’re not going to be expelled because of a story in a gossip magazine,”
McGonagall says, looking visibly affronted by the mere idea.

All Hermione can turn over in her head is that still wasn’t a denial.

Tiberious McLaggen, the temporary tournament coordinator, arrives at Hogwarts a few days
later to meet with all the judges, introduce himself to the Triwizarding Champions, and
discuss plans for the Third Task. He’s a beast of a man, towering over everyone but Madam
Maxime, with wide shoulders, small eyes, and a heavy jaw that sags beneath an
ostentatiously waxed and curled golden moustache. It’s not hard to imagine Cormac looking
exactly like his uncle in fifty years.

The three champions are summoned in order to meet him.

It’s the first time Hermione’s let herself go anywhere near Malfoy since she left the Prefect
Bath. Normally, when she so much as has a feeling he might be somewhere, she goes in the
opposite direction. It hasn’t been difficult since he’s mostly stayed clear of the castle in order
to avoid Pansy, who starts crying whenever she lays eyes on anyone else in a Durmstrang
uniform. She’s spent most of the last several weeks in near constant tears.

Hermione feels heat flood across her face when she walks into the room and sees him
already there. She tries not to look in his direction, when she can’t help herself and glances at
him from the corner of her eye, he flushes and looks away, his hand clenching into a tight fist
at his side before opening again. The Malfoy signet ring is back on his hand, and it glints
when his fingers flex.

After a moment, he looks back at her again, his stare flat and masked, their eyes meet, and he
gives a short nod of acknowledgement as if she were some sort of distant acquaintance.

She holds her shoulders stiff and squared, gaze straight ahead, even though she can still feel
him eyeing her watchfully, which irritates her. What does he think she’s going to do, forget
herself and make cow eyes at him from across the room?

Tiberius laboriously introduces himself by listing all his personal accomplishments, which
mostly seem to involve recreationally killing rare magical beasts to mount on his walls as
trophies and knowing the owners of Quidditch teams.

He’s exactly like Cormac.

“Thank you, Champions, you may go now while the judges discuss the tournament further,”
Dumbledore says when Tiberius finally stops to catch his breath while in the midst of a never
ending tale about setting his hounds on a nogtail.

The three champions spring to their feet, all eager to escape, but Hermione lets herself
dawdle on the way towards the door. Malfoy stops and turns back as he steps into the
hallway. Bisset stops too, seemingly curious to see what Malfoy’s doing.

Malfoy stares at him, which Bisset blandly returns until Malfoy sneers and turns on his heel,
stalking off. Bisset looks back at Hermione and shrugs, but the corner of his mouth curves up
as he turns and goes in the opposite direction.

Hermione gives them a few more seconds and then steps out into an empty corridor. Good.

She doesn’t go back to class but instead lingers until the judges leave.

Tiberius and Dumbledore head off in one direction, Tiberius saying something about needing
to see the Quidditch pitch and fitting in the arenas. Maxime and Karkaroff exit together,
clearly still disdainful of each other, but united in the face of a newcomer whom they distrust.
Barty Crouch Sr emerges last.

When Hermione sees him, she steps forward. She’s been rehearsing this speech over and over
in the hopes of running into him, but she still finds herself stricken with anxiety when he
catches sight of her.

“Mr Crouch,” she says, her voice coming out high from nerves, “I wanted to speak with you
—”

He stops, staring at her in surprise.

She inhales. Audentes fortuna iuvat . “I wanted to thank you for supporting my request to
have Rita Skeeter’s access to the school revoked.”

She’s been looking into Barty Crouch Sr ever since she noticed his reaction to her score after
the Second Task, reviewing what she knows of him and making casual inquiries. After her
conversation with McGonagall, her efforts have become more determined. Desperate.

It’s surprising sometimes how small the Wizarding world is, it only took one offhanded
question before Ron mentioned his older brother Percy had worked in the Department of
International Cooperation after Hogwarts, the same year Crouch was transferred there. If
anyone knew about Crouch, it would be Percy.
Hermione wrote to him and mostly learned that Percy Weasley is tremendously important and
busy and the entire trade regulation sector of the Ministry would likely be in shambles
without him. She also learned that Barty Crouch is even more important and busy and has no
time to bother with school girls. In imparting all this to her, Hermione extrapolates one useful
piece of information from Percy: Barty Crouch Sr is extremely ambitious and an exacting
perfectionist. Which makes Hermione certain that he has no intention of letting something
like transfer to a dead-end Ministry branch stop him from running for Minister again in a few
years.

She’s thought about this carefully and reached what she feels is the only conclusion that
makes sense. Minister Cornelius Fudge already has the majority support of the old pureblood
families, and he’s too smart to do anything to lose them. If Mr Crouch wants to win the next
election, he needs to cultivate an alternative voter base.

Hermione is a potential opportunity to do that.

After all, Muggle-borns do not get Ministry positions because they don’t have the
recommendations necessary to qualify when they leave Hogwarts. However, as wand holders,
Muggle-borns are a voting block that has the potential to be a meaning demographic, they’re
just overlooked and ignored because no one running for Minister wants to ostracise any
powerful and deep-pocketed pureblood families by being accused of catering to Muggle-
borns.

If Hermione wins the tournament, she would be more than qualified for a position in the
Department of International Cooperation. Mr Crouch could hire her and he would be the first
potential Minister to give a Muggle-born a Ministry position. It would be a way to cultivate
election appeal among Muggle-born and half-blood voters, as well as with non-traditional
families like the Weasleys. With the title of Triwizard Champion and the NEWT scores she’s
on track to earn, Hermione would be so overqualified by her victory it would be hard to
criticise.

If she wins, she could be a rare asset in a complicated political scene.

She’s almost certain that’s why he scored her well in the First Task, why he wanted her
included in the Daily Prophet interviews, but then supported her efforts to revoke Rita’s press
access. He wants Hermione to have a good reputation when she finishes at Hogwarts so that
it won’t be seen as questionable if he offers her a job.

That is why he was pleased by her score after the Second Task.

Mr Crouch merely inclines his head. “As a judge, it’s important for the champions to be
equipped to do their best.”

Hermione swallows and takes a leap, hoping she’s calculated correctly. “I don’t think any of
the other judges want that.”

It’s a tremendous risk for her to say that. Of course Crouch knows that Karkaroff and
Maxime don’t care about her, but to reveal that she’s at odds with someone as influential as
Dumbledore is dangerous. But it’s also strategically necessary. He needs to know that if he
wants to use her, he’ll have to offer real support.

He doesn’t have another Muggle-born who can give him an opportunity like this.

Mr Crouch’s eyes narrow and her stomach twists sharply.

“Really?” His voice is very cold.

Her heart is hammering inside her chest. “Unfortunately, the Headmaster only seems to like
people who are less ambitious than he is.”

Dumbledore didn’t support Fudge or Crouch in the last election, and she suspects that Mr
Crouch is possibly bitter about that, and resentment might be something the two of them have
in common. If Mr Crouch is as ambitious as she’s heard, she’s certain he’s just the sort of
person Dumbledore would disapprove of, although she can’t imagine where he expects to
find unambitious prospective Ministers of Magic.

She looks down and draws a deep breath before meeting his eyes again. “I hope to get a job
at the Ministry if I win the tournament.” she says. “I think I’d be an asset.”

A very brief smile flits across Mr Crouch’s face, and she’s certain it’s confirmation.

“Do your best in the tournament, then.”

She lifts her chin. “You don’t have to worry, I will but — I think I’d be more of an asset in
the future if Rita Skeeter weren’t allowed to fabricate any stories she wants without
repercussions. Surely publications have some degree of journalistic standards that they’re
expected to adhere to.”

Mr Crouch’s eyebrows rise, and his eyes narrow as he scrutinises her. “Is everything Miss
Skeeter writes a lie?”

Hermione bristles at the question. “Yes. Any of the professors here will tell you as much.”

He rubs his chin. “Well, it’s not fair to the competitors to receive a disparity in coverage. It
wouldn’t be unreasonable for me as judge and tournament coordinator to make some
inquiries.”

She almost smiles with relief. “I appreciate that.”

He turns and leaves.

Hermione releases a slow breath when she watches him walk away, her heart pounding as if
she’d sprinted through the entire castle.

It’s a tenuous alliance. Crouch will only be as helpful as she can be useful, as long as she has
political value. But any alliance is more than she has.
She knows she’s making herself Crouch’s political pawn, but she’s being used as a pawn
already. If she’s going to be exploited, she should at least get some compensation.

Audentes fortuna iuvat.

She scoffs under her breath.

Fortune favours the bold. The proverb fails to acknowledge that it’s a lot easier to be bold
when you can afford the risks you’re taking.

Hermione can’t afford them. One misstep and she will be sent plummeting. She can’t afford
to make mistakes and she knows she can’t, but she keeps taking more and more risks because
there is no way to stop. She has to keep going, she has to win because the only other option is
failure, an endless fall and no one to catch her.

She doesn’t even want to work in the International Cooperation Department.

She clenches her hand into a fist until her nails bite into her palm.

She’s choosing this.

Better to risk everything than accept a small life.

For the last week, focusing on practical things like strategising and researching Barty Crouch
has been the only thing keeping Hermione from focusing on the tight spiral of anger that feels
riven into her chest.

Now that she’s made her move, she’s forced to wait and see what will happen next, and she is
not patient by nature. Despite her efforts to stay preoccupied, she wants to just set something
on fire.

She tries to distract herself by pouring her energy into finishing her essay on the Goblin
Rebellion. The trouble is, she wants to include one of the few preserved statements made by
the Goblins. The translation in the history book is overly simplified, and so she resolved to
translate it herself instead. Unfortunately, translating fifteenth century Goobledegook is
harder than she’d thought.

The quote is dated back well before the first Rebellion in 1612, a response after the Goblins’
request for inclusion on the Wizengamot was refused.

Directly translated, there’s a long, long section about dirt also being under the Wizengamot’s
feet, being exploited, and something which is an allusion to mining or crops or maybe
diamonds? Something valuable, but the terms are so archaic they’re not in any of the
dictionaries Hermione has, and she struggles to follow the etymology. The Goblins go on to
say that, unlike the Wizengamot, they are not afraid of dirt.

The response ends with that — Comment? Observation? Threat? — hanging there.
According to the textbook, the Wizengamot never replied.
Hermione has tried multiple dictionaries and translated it three different ways, and still can’t
figure out exactly why this is the answer the Goblins chose to give in response to the
Wizengamot’s refusal.

Her working theory is that when the Goblins refer to the dirt, they’re referring to Elemental
Earth Magic. But she’s never heard of Goblins using the Dark Arts, or maybe they do, but it’s
not called the Dark Arts? Or maybe it’s just not disclosed at Hogwarts? She doesn’t know
how to include and explain the translation without revealing that she knows about Elemental
Magic.

But she’s reluctant to omit the quote entirely because it adds an extra dimension to the Goblin
Rebellion, the revelation that the Goblins not only were aware of Wizarding Dark Arts but
were also prepared to utilise them.

She’s going through another Goobledegook English dictionary, trying to quadruple-check her
translation when a Seventh Year boy comes over to her table, grinning, and asking if she
wants any help with homework, maybe over in the Restricted Section. As he asks, something
buzzes overhead, a little green beetle landing high on the window and crawling up the glass.

She’s startled by the question. No one ever offers to help her with homework. Maybe he
noticed all her dictionaries and knows Gobbledegook? That would be nice, since there are no
language classes at Hogwarts other than Ancient Runes.

The question is halfway out of her mouth before she notices how wide his grin is, sharp in the
corners, and full of teeth; the way people smile when they’re making a joke at someone else's
expense, waiting to see when they’ll catch on.

“In the Restricted Section?” she says slowly.

“Yeah,” he says, grinning even wider, his face turning wolfish. “Everyone says you love the
Restricted Section.”

Her chest tightens.

She has been trying so hard not to be angry.

She doesn’t even know this boy's name, if he’s asking as a joke, or a dare, or maybe to see if
the story is true. Does Hermione Granger really offer sexual favours in exchange for help
with homework because she’s so desperate to belong in the Wizarding World?

Belong. The one thing she wanted so much, and now somehow it’s a joke the whole school is
in on.

The fury inside her burns a little hotter and she feels a crack fissuring its way through her
sense of control.

The only thing that stops her from cursing him right there in the library, is her fear of the
consequences. If Rita Skeeter finds out she’ll say that Hermione is emotionally unstable,
dangerous, and needs to be removed from the school for the sake of student safety. Even if
Hermione isn’t expelled, she might lose her prefect badge.

Then there won’t just be made up stories about her, there will be a true one and people will
take that to mean that all the rest of them are true too.

Mr Crouch won’t have any use for her then.

She doesn’t say a word, instead shoving her translations into her satchel and leaving the
library before she can turn back around and punch him in the face.

She walks quickly, breathing through her nose in an effort to calm down.

If she goes to Gryffindor Tower and tells Harry and Ron about what happened, they’d
probably go hunt down the boy and beat him up for her. They’d probably get away with it
too, and if not, the worst that would happen would be detention or a points deduction. But
Hermione doesn’t want them to go get revenge for her. She wants to go get her own revenge.
But she can’t.

She draws a breath through her teeth in a hiss.

She feels like she’s swallowed so much rage lately, she’s poisoned herself.

She’s feels desperate just to be allowed to be angry. She has such good reasons to be angry.

Ginny once hexed a boy right in front of Slughorn, and she ended up getting ten points for it.
That would never happen to Hermione.

She squeezes the strap of her satchel, trying to force down her resentment.

She doesn’t want to think about Ginny, because she’s pretty sure that Ginny’s avoiding her.

She didn’t notice at first, but lately it’s been hard not to notice. Every time they run into each
other, Ginny has something she has to go do. They barely exchange more than a few words
unless there’s some new horrible thing written about Hermione in a newspaper. Otherwise
Ginny’s running late for flying practice, or a study group, or a promise to go with someone to
the owlery, or something else. Valid enough reasons, but daily? Every single time Hermione
sits near her?

Hermione keeps replaying their conversation in the dorm, trying to figure out what happened.
Did she say something wrong? Maybe she left too quickly or looked too surprised? Looking
back, Ginny did seem upset when she left.

Every time Hermione tries to get a minute alone to talk to her and ask, Ginny blurts some
excuse and vanishes even faster than usual.

It’s not a big deal, she keeps telling herself. It’s not like they’ve been friends for very long.
It’s just that Hermione’s really wanted Ginny’s company lately. Someone who Hermione can
vent to, who will tell her that boys are stupid and no one needs them, and the world is shit,
and who cares about what anyone says.
She tried venting to Ron and Harry, but as soon as she started to, she had started getting
really emotional and then Ron got a worried expression on his face and he asked if she was
on the rag, which made Harry look mortified. She didn't want to vent to them anymore after
that.

She hadn’t realised until then that Malfoy had never made her feel as if she was irrational for
being angry.

She hates realising it because she really doesn’t want to think about Malfoy, especially not
when she's already upset.

She thought she’d just need a few days and then she’d have enough emotional distance to box
him into a neat little corner of her mind, move on, and not think about the Prefect Bath
anymore, but her mind keeps returning to it, almost absently. A detail. The sensation of his
fingers in her hair. That tentative way he kissed her, his lips pressing against hers so carefully.
The hungry want when he’d kissed her again, his fingers curling along the base of her skull.
The strangled, breathless noises he made when she touched him.

Those memories will come out of nowhere and instantly send her heart fluttering, heat
flooding through her, but as soon as she becomes conscious of it, the feelings, the memories,
the breathless way it felt being with him, everything comes crashing down again. Her
stomach drops, and it feels like she’s fallen and impaled herself on something straight
through the chest and it takes a moment to breathe again.

Because then she remembers it only happened because she doesn’t matter.

He wouldn’t have kissed her or admitted to wanting her if she were someone important to
him.

Of course she knows she’s not important to him, she tells herself viciously, even though her
heart recoils from the knowledge like a wounded animal.

She thinks she could handle it if it was just that. She’d just pull herself together and move on.
Who cares if he looks at her or doesn’t look at her when they’re in the same room?

But the worst part is what she did: she was careless. She gave him an opportunity to hurt her,
let herself want things she can’t have, wish that things could be different, and think briefly
that they were. That was all her.

She hadn’t known it was possible to be so angry with herself, but she is. Because other
people are allowed to make mistakes and fail her, but she isn’t.

She’s supposed to trust herself, and she can’t, not anymore. And if she can’t trust herself, then
there isn’t anyone, and that — that is the worst part.

When she thinks about it, her sense of control grows fraught, so dangerously tenuous that she
feels fragile, spiderwebbed from head to toe with fault lines. One more blow, and she’s going
to shatter because everything is going wrong and she’s all alone and there’s no one to help
her or tell her how to get through.
She hides in an empty classroom and cries into her arms.

It’s warming up outside, during one of the few afternoons without rain, Hermione sets out
towards the Forbidden Forest, determined to practise Elemental Magic on her own. She’s
decided to attempt Earth Magic, since her Gobbledegook translation has had her wondering
about it.

She goes just past the tree line, the evergreens looming thick and dark overhead, careful not
to wander too deep. There’s a number of magical creatures in the forest, including centaurs
who do not like intruders and are said to shoot on sight.

She kneels down, brushing away the decaying leaves that litter the forest floor until she
reaches the soil, which is rich and dark under her fingers, still cool from winter’s chill. She
has no idea what she’s doing except that she needs to practise something.

She presses her palms into the dirt and closes her eyes. She knows she’s supposed to use a
wand, but it seems more natural to just sense the power in the earth through her fingers. Her
own magic is almost blistering in her palms.

The magic in the earth is soft, heavier than the lake. If water magic was something she felt
the pull and power of in her veins, earth magic resonates within her bones. It is a ponderous
thing. Alive, but so heavy.

She has no idea how it’s even possible to wield it. No wonder Malfoy could barely do more
than dig a hole. It’s crushing even to sense the power. The lake is impossibly large, but the
forest is somehow bigger.

It also feels like it’s sleeping. As if winter has lulled it quiet and the magic is waiting for
spring to stir it to life. She can’t even imagine the power lively, but if it were, she can
understand the whispers about things like Beltane rituals. This is the kind of power a person
could get drunk on, go completely mad if they were exposed too closely.

Channelling carefully, she tries to draw on just a little of the power, but it’s like trying to use
a kite string to shift the orbit of a planet. She feels silly even attempting it.

She isn’t sure whether it’s a lack of affinity or she isn’t using enough power or just doesn’t
know how it’s supposed to feel. It should work. It should.

Her magic is nearly seething inside her. There is a constant burn to it now, and wisps like
solar flares that slice through her. She feels so on edge, as if all her emotions and worry are
fuelling it, and she is becoming a compacting star, under so much pressure that she’s going to
collapse in on herself from the effort of trying to contain it all.

And then she’ll explode.

No.

Stay in control.
 She draws a slow breath, trying to keep her mind, emotions, and magic under control as she
attempts to channel the earth beneath her fingers again.

She breathes slowly. She needs to calm down. Maybe this is why Malfoy skips stones.
Repetitious. Meditative.

She focuses on the ground under her hands, tensing and inhaling to try to force it up, but she
doesn’t dare use very much power because she has no idea what will happen if she loses
control.

She syphons out only a little of her magic, leaning towards the earth until her hair falls
around her face, as she tries to shift the ground beneath her fingertips.

Nothing.

She suppresses a scream of frustration and sits back on her heels after several futile minutes
that have her head throbbing from the strain.

She could wait for Malfoy, but she doesn’t want to. Honestly, she’d prefer to never speak to
him again. He has made no move to resume teaching her, and she’s not going to initiate.

If he doesn’t teach her anymore he’ll die for violating his Vow, then she’ll never have to talk
to him again, and she’ll win the tournament and it will solve almost all of her problems.

She stands, wiping her hands off on her skirt before she goes back to the castle.

She’ll figure it out on her own.

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

Water Serpent sketches by darkfluffart

Cover Art by artandfancies
The Champions by artandfancies
The First Task by hiejindraws
Prefect Bath Water Serpent by chestercompany
Durmstrang Draco by kalycoris
Hermione and Draco in the lake by artemisia_flora
The Triwizard Champions by browniekim.art
Hermione and the Water Serpent by browniekim.art
The Second Task by browniekim.art
Escaping The Lake by browniekim.art
'He probably hates his reflection' by oukyn
Hermione at Gladrags by artysusie
Water Serpent - Advanced Animal Transfiguration by annavek94.art
'Do you know what would make my parents furious?' by mary_fray_child
Feral Hermione by enselius_art
Hogwarts Triwizard Champion by sunmi_art_ff
Yule Ball Dance by yunna.arts
 Green Fairy Spirits
Chapter Notes

This chapter has trigger warnings. Please check the end notes for more
information.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The Child Who is Not Embraced by the Village Will Burn it Down to Feel its Warmth -
African Proverb

“Exceptional work, Miss Granger!” Slughorn is chortling with satisfaction while Hermione
adds the finishing touches to a cauldron of veritaserum.

He sticks his face down towards the bubbling vapours and takes a deep whiff before sighing
happily. “I don’t think I’ve had such a talented student in twenty years! You could be a
pureblood.”

His tone abruptly changes as he straightens. “Miss Parkinson! Your tears will render your
potion useless. Please, do not cry in the cauldron!”

Hermione ignores everything going on around her and drops the jobberknoll feather into the
boiling potion. It instantly dissolves, turning the contents clear as water.

She extinguishes the flame with a flick of her wand and begins transferring the potion into
vials.

She catches Slughorn’s scent, that heavy, oily musk intended to cover up the scent of potion
fumes a moment before he appears beside her the second time. All the professors seem to
hover around her lately, complimenting her, and she suspects McGonagall told them to be
nice to her, or something similarly ghastly.

“Miss Granger,” Slughorn speaks in a low voice now. “I have a little invitation for you. It’s
possible you’ve heard that every Spring, I throw a private party for the Seventh Year
students. I call it my little Coming Of Age party. One last hurrah before they set off to
conquer the world. I know you’re a Sixth Year, but Minerva mentioned in a faculty meeting
that you’re older than the rest of the class, and that’s why you’re our Champion.”

McGonagall is definitely responsible for the recent coddling.

Hermione suppresses a wince as Slughorn continues, “So if my best in potions student would
like to join us,” he taps the side of his nose conspiratorially, “it’s this Friday, my office. After
dinner.”
Hermione gives a small nod, curious despite her many reservations. She’s heard about the
seventh year Slug Club party before. It’s one of his most exclusive events. Students try all
year to get an invitation. She can’t help but wonder why Slughorn is including her a year
early.

Even if McGonagall is instructing the staff to be ‘nice’ to Hermione, Slughorn never does
anything that isn’t intended to ultimately benefit himself.

He has to know she won’t be bringing Viktor this time. Hermione’s barely written to him
since Rita’s Valentine article, not wanting him to feel obliged to write back when she can’t
even keep their correspondence confidential. He probably regrets ever being nice to her.

So what does Slughorn expect to get out of it?

There’s a deafening flutter of wings when the post arrives during breakfast the next day. The
owls drop letters and parcels and newspapers as they snatch up kippers and eggs and bits of
sausage before flying back out the open window.

A copy of the Daily Prophet lands in the middle of the table.

Bagman Flees As Ministry Investigation Uncovers Bribery!

Hermione snatches up the paper, her eyes racing across the subheading.

Ludo Bagman has fled the country after the Ministry investigation discovered undisclosed
debts and evidence of bribery.

According to the Prophet, Bagman had long-standing private debts related gambling, some
which dated all the way back to the Quidditch World Cup two years earlier. Last year, he
borrowed a considerable sum from the Goblins in order to pay the debts off. Ministry
investigators discovered that this new debt was paid in full at the beginning of the year, and
shortly after Bagman redirected significant funding from other divisions in the Magical
Games and Sports Department without Ministry approval. Upon discovering the discrepancy
and interviewing those involved, the Ministry expanded the investigation and uncovered that
Bagman had paid to have the Black Lake trawled during the week prior to the Second Task,
the giant squid was driven into an underwater cave and sealed in, and all the Grindylows
rounded up and culled or caged without authorisation from the Department of Magical
Creatures. These changes were in violation of the agreed upon terms of the Second Task,
making it an international treaty violation on top of a corruption scandal.

The Ministry is trying to trace the source of Bagman’s sudden windfall, but the Prophet
claims that attempts to follow the money had been fruitless, the funding having been moved
through multiple international banks. The Goblins, having had their debts paid off and not
caring at all about Wizarding matters, refuse to cooperate. In his final interview before going
on the run, Bagman had repeatedly asserted that all he’d done was make the task safe and
take reasonable precautions after the First Task.
Hermione remembers the urgent way Bagman had been whispering to Malfoy just before the
task commenced, Lucius Malfoy’s comments about everything having been taken care of
going forward, and Viktor’s offhand remarks about the Malfoys sending money to Karkaroff
in order to get their son out of any ‘dangerous’ assignments at Durmstrang.

That bastard. Did he know his parents bribed the coordinator in order to make it an easy win
for him? Is that why he was so confident from the very beginning?

She reaches the final paragraph, which mentions that Tiberius McLaggen has been named as
the new head of the Magical Sports and Games Department, and will be permanently taking
over the tournament coordination.

She’s on her way to the Slughorn’s party, feeling pretty in her blue dress and pleased that
she’d managed to get her hair semi-tamed with Sleekeazy without help from Ginny, when she
passes Justin Finch-Fletchley, who’s heading out on prefect patrol. His badge is polished until
it gleams and he marches along with an assumed air of authority. He reminds Hermione to an
embarrassing degree of herself when she first became prefect.

She wonders what his plans are after Hogwarts, what Professor Sprout would have told him
about Muggle-born career options during his career advice meeting.

She nods at him as they pass, but rather than return the nod, he rolls his eyes and pretends not
to see her.

She stops in her path, turning. “What was that for?”

He looks startled at being confronted and tries to continue. “Nothing.”

Unfortunately for him, Hermione’s patience has worn down to its final threads. She catches
him by the arm. “Really? You roll your eyes at everyone?”

“I was looking up at the tapestry.” He gestures weakly to his left.

That is one of the worst lies she’s ever heard.

He gives an exasperated sigh and tries to shake her off. “Let me go, Granger, I need to get to
rounds.”

She doesn’t budge. “And you will, as soon as you tell me what your problem is.”

His nostrils flare as he draws a deep breath. “Fine. If you really want to know, I think how
you’re acting is unbelievable and you’re not even ashamed of it.”

Hermione is somehow unsurprised and yet still offended by this accusation.

“That’s because I’m not doing anything, you idiot,” she says scathingly.

She lets go and expects him to immediately scurry away, but it seems that now that he’s
gotten started, he means to finish telling her what he thinks of her.
“Right, you don’t even see all the problems you’re making for everyone else.” He scoffs then,
pushing his nose into the air. “You know, I chose to come here instead of Eton. Eton. I’m sure
you’ve heard of it. It took convincing, getting my parents to agree that a wizard in the family
could be more useful, but I’ve been doing alright for myself. But — you know who makes
that almost impossible now? It’s not the purebloods, I can handle them. It’s you. Every time
you do something, get your stupid face in the papers, I’m the one who suffers for it. Everyone
acts like we’re exactly the same. Do you have any idea how people are treating me because
of you?”

She stares at him in disbelief. “And you think that’s my fault? Not the ‘pureblood’s’ who
haven’t got the brain cells to realise that we’re not the same?” She laughs bitterly. “And here
I thought Eton students were supposed to be bright.”

Justin turns bright pink and draws a deep breath, clearly intending to retort, but Hermione
isn’t done.

She tilts her head to the side, studying him. “And you think, what? That sucking up to them
and agreeing that I’m some awful slag will get them to accept you?” A hard smile twists at
her lips. “It won’t.”

She steps back, giving him a once over. “It’s funny though, that you mention people thinking
we’re the same just because we’re both Muggle-borns, and how very awful that is for poor
you. Because I don’t remember you minding that so much when it came to my grades for the
last six years. You’ve been so eager to say that as some sort of shared Muggle-born quality.”

His cheeks have gone from pink to a splotchy red.

Hermione scoffs. “Maybe… don’t claim my accomplishments if you don’t want to be

associated with me, Justin.” She gives him one last withering look and steps away. “Enjoy
your prefect patrol.”

She fumes as she walks down the corridor and replays their conversation. How dare he?

She’s always been proud of being Muggle-born. Even when she’s wished to have the same
opportunities and advantages as others, she’s been proud of herself and all the things she’s
accomplished, anyway. She’s never tried to hide her heritage, or pass as a half-blood,, or
pretend to have any connection to a pureblood family.

But in moments like this, she’s also angry that being Muggle-born is all she’s allowed to be.
Her end all, be all.

She is never just her. Hermione Granger. “Muggle-born” is always tacked on, immediately
before or after, as if it’s the most important thing to know about her.

She hasn’t always minded. She liked the idea of being the one who shows the world what
Muggle-borns can do.

But sometimes she feels as if she loses all humanity somewhere in the process, that she stops
being a person at all and becomes only what can be attributed to a monolith. Both her
successes and flaws are taken and treated as collective representation, highlighted depending
on the agenda of the particular group.

It just keeps happening until the only things treated as uniquely her are the parts that no one
wants anything to do with, because they aren’t useful to someone else.

It makes her feel so alone. She doesn’t know how it’s possible to be constantly watched and
surrounded by so many people and feel so utterly isolated. Even the people who she expects
to understand or commiserate never do.

Her eyes burn and she has to blink several times before she starts descending the stairs into
the dungeons. Why does she always nearly cry when she’s wearing makeup?

Slughorn’s Seventh Year party is different from the one he held on Valentine’s Day, mostly
because there’s a ridiculous amount of alcohol. She has no idea how he’s able to get away
with it. She’s offered a butterbeer as soon as she comes through the door, but she’s still too
angry at Justin to fully register the offer before she’s declined. The sallow cheeked Hufflepuff
boy who offered looks abashed and points to a table that has bottles of firewhisky, elf wine,
trollish sherry, and several other decanters of things that she doesn’t recognise, including one
that is an unnatural shade of green that seems to swirl on its own, sparkling gold.

“Miss Granger,” Slughorn is also more cheerful this time, possibly due to inebriation. “Our
little Muggle-born is here!”

She winces and forces a smile as Slughorn addresses the room. “We have two champions
here! This night is off to an auspicious start!”

She turns, already dreading the sight of Malfoy, but instead she’s relieved to meet eyes with
Bisset. He’s there with Cho even though their relationship seems to have cooled since the
Second Task. Since then, Bisset has been noticeably distant from everyone, including his own
school.

“You know,” Slughorn laughs, and the sharp smell of boggy liquor hits Hermione squarely in
the face, “I think you’re the First Muggle-born we’ve had join us at Slug Club since Lily
Evans.” He chuckles again. “Lily Potter now. She’s a married woman! She was the most
exceptional student. A true potions prodigy, I always said. Should have been a pureblood.
Pity really.”

He pats Hermione on the shoulder several times and keeps talking about Lily until she
excuses herself and flees to the far side of the room.

Everyone is drinking and Hermione quickly regrets not taking a butterbeer, if for no other
reason than to have something in her hands. She’s already out of place as it is. She fidgets
nervously, hoping that Slughorn’s moved on. Everyone mills around, and she’s the only one
who isn’t a Seventh Year, so they mostly ignore her.

“Firewhisky?” Bisset materialises at her elbow with two tumblers in hand, the amber liquid
sparks as it swirls against the glass. Everything about him seems deflated.
He has dark circles under his eyes and the aura of a raccoon.

Hermione eyes both tumblers and takes one, not sure whether she should drink any or just
pretend to. She’s never tried alcohol because it’s against the rules at Hogwarts, and as a
prefect she always took the school rules very seriously even if other students didn’t.

But she’s never heard of anyone getting in trouble for drinking at Slughorn’s parties.

“It seems someone is ‘appy about the new tournament coordinator,” Bisset says, indicating
with his head towards Cormac, who’s holding court by talking about how well he knows his
uncle.

Hermione brings up the tumbler to her mouth and gulps a mouthful. It burns, making her eyes
water. She coughs, almost sending it up her nose. It’s as if there are flecks of fire in her
mouth, spreading across her face, but once it runs down her throat, a nice warm feeling
spreads through her and all the stress wound up inside her chest loosens.

She looks down at the firewhisky in surprise.

No wonder people drink.

She takes another sip and manages not to cough that time. She already feels better, like she’s
been silly being so anxious and angry about everything lately. She could face anything.

She really needs to get out of her head more.

“Do you know McLaggen much?” Bisset asks, casting a dubious glance towards Cormac.

Hermione shakes her head, nose wrinkling. “Our circles don’t cross much. He was the
favourite to be selected as Hogwarts’ Champion.”

Bisset gives a very French snort as if the idea of Cormac as a Triwizard champion is patently
absurd.

Hermione can’t help but smile as she takes another, larger sip of firewhisky. Now that she
knows what to expect it’s easier to drink. The burn has spread through her chest, and all the
tension inside her is melting away.

“How is Cadeau?” she asks, plopping herself down on one of the sofas. “Still bored in the
carriage?”

Bisset grimaces, then takes a sip of his firewhisky as he sits beside her. “Worse. ‘E keeps
running away. I was looking for ‘im for hours last night. ‘E was nowhere to be found and I
fear ‘e was eaten in the forest. I go back to the carriage, and ‘e is sleeping in the middle of my
bed and calls me a wet fuck when I wake ‘im.” He shakes his head, wearing an expression of
wounded disbelief. “I don’t even know what that means.”

Hermione can’t suppress her laugh. She’s grinning from ear to ear now. “Did he learn all the
rest of his insults from you?”
Bisset blushes. “I thought it was funny that ‘e could learn them.” He flutters an open hand. “I
didn’t know it was the only thing ‘e would learn.’”

Hermione spends most of the party talking to Bisset, sharing anecdotes about Hogwarts in
exchange for stories about Beauxbatons. Bisset is much nicer than everyone else at the party.
She’s tempted to tell him what she learned about Malfoy, that he was right, Malfoy wasn’t
supposed to be in the tournament, but she doesn’t want to admit how she knows. Instead,
Bisset tells her about the academics at Beauxbatons.

She’s fascinated to learn that Beauxbatons is much more passionate about preserving what
they call “l'intégrité de la magie.” The French Ministry of Magic has a department for it, that
is apparently to prevent the culture and use of magic from backsliding.

Théorie Magique Pratique is a mandatory starting class founded on the belief that excellent
use of magic begins with a comprehensive understanding of the basics.

In turn, Bisset is baffled that Hogwarts’ curriculum teaches spells from year to year based on
casting complexity rather than the ‘level’ of magical theory.

“But – then —” he gestures helplessly, almost dumping his firewhisky on her head, “‘ow do
you know why it works?”

Hermione actually giggles, taking another sip of her drink, which is no longer firewhisky but
a strong syrupy elf wine that’s easier to drink and makes all the surrounding lights brilliantly
luminous. The room has shifted out of focus, a blur that seems to spin slowly around them.
Bisset’s words float to her like little clouds.

She giggles again, and even her own voice sounds far away.

“In Fourth Year we —“ her voice trails off as she forgets what they do. “We — um, sorry—”
she has to rack her mind to remember her point. “We do essays on the fundamentals –
summoning charms, Gamp’s law,” she ticks them off with her fingers, “cross-species
transfiguration and…”

He is staring at her in horrified disbelief. “You practise magic for four years without
understanding ‘ow it works?”

Hermione furrows her eyebrows, not liking his tone.

Bisset may be able to cast complex sleep enchantments and perform merged human-animal
transfiguration so subtly that it should require a transfiguration mastery, but Hermione has
beaten him in both tasks with simpler spells and smarter improvisation.

“It’s just a different way of teaching,” she says defensively. “We still have exams. Hogwarts
is just – different.”

The room is spinning a little too fast now.

“But after school, ‘ow do you improvise and progress if you ‘ave not learned ‘ow it works?”
Hermione opens her mouth and then stops, not really sure. She frowns down into her drink,
eyelids heavy, and takes another sip. “I s’pose — you teach yourself.”

Bisset releases an incredulous breath and seems ready to say something else when the sharp
ting of a fork against glassware fills the room. Hermione looks up to find the whole room
scintillating, all the lights and reflective surfaces glowing like pixie charms in her vision.

Slughorn is standing on the far side of his office, holding the decanter filled with the glowing
green liquid. His face is flushed red with drink and he beams around the room.

“It is the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” he says.

The room undulates underfoot as everyone moves to form a half-circle.

“Do you know what that is?” Hermione tries to whisper to Bisset, but her voice comes out
loud.

“Ho ho!” Slughorn gives a loud laugh. “We have a few who haven’t heard. Let me tell you.”

He holds the bottle up into the light, and the gold seems to sparkle and swirl even more
brightly. Hermione tries to track all the darting lights, barely able to follow Slughorn’s
words.

“Green Fairy Spirits are the most powerful magical drink… they even banned it back in the
eighteen hundreds.”

There’s laughter and Hermione laughs along even though she doesn’t see what’s funny.

Slughorn waggles his eyebrows. “When the law was overturned, I got a licence to brew it. I
made this batch six years ago.”

Hermione blinks slowly, still strugglings not to get distracted by the way the bottle gleams.

“Aged in a cask dusted with green fairy wings and infused with the vapours of felix
felicis…” Slughorn’s voice grows louder. “A mere drop of this will strengthen the abilities of
any witch or wizard and help them find exactly the breakthrough they’re looking for.”

Now there are excited whispers. Slughorn seems to revel in the anticipation. Everyone is
moving forward now and Hermione’s carried along as if riding a wave.

“Wandless magic!” Slughorn is saying as he waves a hand exuberantly in the air. “A full
animagus transfiguration. Just a sip has caused Seers to enter a trance and give their clearest
prophecies. They say that Damocles drank Fairy Spirits the night that he perfected Wolfsbane
Potion. So line up, everyone. You all get a taste.”

Someone to Hermione’s right is saying something and she can’t hear what else Slughorn says
next. There’s an infectious excitement everywhere, the room bubbling like a flute of
champagne. Hermione’s fingertips are tingling as she cranes her neck and tries to see.
A boy at the front gives a loud, drunk laugh and knocks back the small shot glass that
Slughorn offers and then staggers, as if struck. His eyes get an eerie greenish sheen to them
and then he lifts his hand up, opening his fingers and a blur of fluttering feathers bursts from
his hand.

He gives a disbelieving laugh. “Fuck! I couldn’t even get that spell right with my wand.”

Slughorn chortles. “Language, Mr Belby.”

One Slytherin boy drops to the floor, rolls and, by the time he rights himself, he’s
transformed into a large hare with long legs and enormous ears.

“Congratulations, Mr Rosier!’ Slughorn says, looking positively delighted.

Of course he’s delighted, Hermione thinks as she’s swept along with everyone else. He’s
enabling students to master magic they’ve probably been working on for months. Everyone
who has a magical breakthrough tonight is going to remember that it was thanks to Slughorn.

That must be why Slughorn invited her and Bisset: the possibility of a breakthrough that can
help either of them go on to win the tournament will undoubtedly benefit his reputation.

Hermione pushes forward until she’s in front of Slughorn. He holds a small shot glass out
towards her. The green potion is glowing.

“Here you are, Miss Granger.”

Hermione takes it, heart skipping with anticipation as she lifts it to her lips.

Her entire body jolts when the liquid sears across her tongue. It tastes like battery acid. She
almost spits it out reflexively. Her eyes prick, watering from the burn. An electric blistering
sensation coats the inside of her mouth, spreading numbingly across her face. She forces
herself to swallow. When it hits the back of her throat, a blinding green explodes through her
brain, as if every cell in her body has violently contracted.

Something slams into her as if she’d been kicked.

She stumbles, arms windmilling, and she’s struck forcefully on the back of the head. Colours
morph rapidly before her eyes as if she’s been slingshot through her own consciousness.

She gasps and blinks, trying to see and finds that she’s lying supine in the middle of the floor.
Everyone is staring at her. Her stomach is telling her that she’s still falling, head over heels,
down, down, down, even though she can feel the stone floor under her spine.

There’s a pain in the back of her head that’s tunnelling to reach her.

The faces overhead are swimming. But in spite of all that, the thing she is the most conscious
of is the realisation that all the magic that she’s been fighting so hard to control is suddenly
still.
She feels so light, she thinks her body might float up off the floor and bob against the
ceiling.

She gives a little laugh and lets her arm float up.

“Miss Granger…” Slughorn’s voice is distorted as if speaking through water.

She tries to push herself up without launching herself into the air. Instead, she barely moves
until a hand closes around her wrist and pulls her up. She looks up and finds Bisset helping
her to her feet. His face swims and now that she’s not lying prone, nausea slams into her. Her
throat convulses and she folds in half, clamping a hand over her mouth.

“...Alright?” he’s saying.

She shakes her head, and has to lean against him to keep her balance. Her eyes squeeze shut.

“Too much alcohol — I think.” Her voice comes out light and tinny.

She lets go of Bisset and slumps against the wall, blinking and willing the room to stop
spinning. She tries to straighten but sways.

“I should — go,” she says.

“Of course, of course,” Slughorn is saying, but she pays little attention, her focus entirely on
the door that keeps swinging left and right. Left. Right. She tries to follow it, moving side to
side in order to catch it.

She’s never felt so disconnected from her body.

At least her magic isn’t exploding, but it doesn’t seem like she’s getting any kind of
breakthrough the way everyone else did. Instead, from the moment she swallowed the drink,
all the power in her body seems to have compressed itself inward, as if it’s been locked inside
a box.

It’s not a bad feeling. She likes feeling in control again, although she’d hoped for something
other than more self-control.

She makes it out of Slughorn’s office and down the hallway at snail’s pace, managing to
reach the end of the corridor. She pauses there, peering down the hallway, trying to work out
if there’s a rhythm to the swaying. A heavy arm drops around her shoulders.

“Let’s get you back to Gryffindor before Filch finds you,” she hears Cormac say as he peels
her off the wall.

“Thanks,” Hermione mumbles and closes her eyes, walking slumped against him, letting the
weight of his arm ground her even though his cologne is so heavy it burns her nose.

“Gryffindors have got to stick together,” Cormac says, his voice both loud and far away all at
once. “That French creep looked like he was going to follow you, so I cut him off, told
Slughorn to keep an eye on him.”
They keep walking, Cormac talking the entire time, and it feels like they’ve traversed the
entire castle three times before the dizziness wears off.

Hermione’s footsteps falter to a stop and she pushes away from Cormac, tired of walking,
trying to see if she can stand on her own.

He watches her. “Are you going to be sick?”

She shakes her head, looking at the flagstones and trying not to sway.

“No…” she straightens and doesn’t fall. “I feel better now.” She smiles weakly. “Thank
you.”

“That’s great,” Cormac says. She expects him to turn and head back to the party, but instead
he puts his hands on her arm, and stares at her, his gaze oddly heavy. She meets his eyes
questioningly, and he pushes her slowly backwards until her shoulders bump the wall.

Her heart beats a little quicker. She opens her mouth, but before she can ask what he’s doing,
he leans towards her, tilting her chin up and kissing her slowly.

She’s so surprised she stands frozen for several seconds while her alcohol muddled brain tries
to catch up.

Cormac McLaggen is kissing her.

Cormac.

His lips are heavy on hers, his body pressing her into the wall so that she can feel the
unevenness of the stones against her shoulders. His tongue pushes past her teeth and then his
hands find her breasts and he squeezes them, kneading through her dress.

She must be hallucinating.

This cannot possibly be real.

It feels real, though.

Cormac’s lips are thick, and he kisses her firmly, no hesitation or reluctance, his breath hot
and eager on her mouth. He pushes his tongue in against hers, it’s flat and wet, but she
doesn’t turn away.

The part of her that isn’t astonished is pleased. Giddy inside at getting kissed without it being
broken off so she can be told how annoying she is, how awful it is to want her.

Even if it is Cormac.

He’s hardly her first choice, but it’s not as if she has options. Besides, the McLaggen family
is respectable. If they stuck up for her publicly, that might put someone like Rita off. She
should do this.
Cormac’s large hands move up from her breasts to rest on her shoulders, warm against her
bare skin where her dress cuts away. She likes the feeling of that better, even though his
hands are really heavy, almost bearing down on her.

There’s no spark or thrill in her chest when Cormac’s lips rub against hers and his body
presses closer, or when his tongue pokes between her lips, but that doesn’t matter. That’s not
important.

Cormac chose to be here with her over a party.

She closes her eyes and kisses him tentatively back, one hand resting gingerly on his
shoulder, her fingers curling in the fabric of his robes.

He groans, right against her lips, his breathing growing audibly unsteady. She can taste
firewhisky on his breath. Every time he exhales it’s uneven, heavy and stuttering.

Her heart is beating faster, and she ignores the way she feels cold even though his hands on
her shoulders are very warm. They keep pressing down more and more. She tries to shrug
them off without breaking off the kiss because it’s starting to feel like her knees are going to
give out.

Then he stops kissing her.

He squeezes her shoulders, fingers pressing in on the bones, and pushes down. Her knees
buckle and she drops like a stone. Her left knee clips sharply against the floor, and the
hallway spins, sending her stomach lurching.

She’s in shock, not sure what just happened. She must be really drunk.

“Ow…” she whimpers and then laughs for some incomprehensible reason, an awkward
giggle that forces its way up her throat even though her eyes are watering from the way her
knee is throbbing.

“It’s okay,” Cormac mutters overhead.

She rubs her knee and tries to get back up, but instead of helping her, Cormac locks his
elbows, holding her there, his hands dwarfing her shoulders.

Another nervous laugh forces its way out. She doesn’t know why she keeps laughing. Her
heart is beating unnaturally quick, her brain scrambling, trying to catch up, but everything is
blurring, and she’s afraid she’s going to throw up if she thinks about that nauseating drop to
the floor.

Her knee hurts and Cormac isn’t even asking if she’s alright.

Her thoughts keep meandering, distracted by the way the corridor is spiralling around her, the
pain radiating up her leg, the sound of her own nervous laughter, and Cormac’s breathing.

Now only one of his hands is on her shoulder, still enough to keep her there, the other is near
his stomach.
“Don’t worry — I’ll make it worth it,” he‘s saying, almost panting, and she hears the click of
a belt buckle.

He can’t be serious.

She shakes her head and tries to push him away.

“No,” her voice comes out thick as she tries to get up again. “I don’t want to.”

“It’s alright.” His voice is confident, coaxing, like she’s being shy. He’s breathing heavily
through his open mouth in a way that’s starting to make her skin crawl. “I’ll pay you back.”
Pay her back?

That’s really not what she’s worried about. She has no desire to ever have someone get her
off in a corridor. He’s just not thinking clearly because he’s a boy and he’s aroused and she
fell down so now he thinks she’s offering. Good grief.

Her fingers reach towards the ground, trying to balance as she struggles to get her shoulder
free.

“No… Cormac, I don’t —”

He pushes her more firmly back against the wall, her shoulders flat against the wall so that
she can’t shift away. His fingers are under the neckline of her dress, digging bruisingly in
under her collarbones, his thumb rubbing circles against her skin. She winces. Everything is
swimming, her attempts to free herself uncoordinated.

“It’ll be fine.”

She’s starting to get annoyed by his persistence now. Why do boys always think that ‘no’
means ‘convince me’?

She closes her eyes, trying to get her bearings, pushing at his thigh in an effort to create
space. When she opens her eyes, she’s horrified to find that instead he’s shoved his trousers
down.

“Come on, don’t be shy, Granger,” he says, his voice still confident. “I walked you back.
Everyone knows you love pureblood cock. Just put it in your mouth, and I’ll get you
information about the next task from my uncle. Anything you want to know.”

For a moment, the world freezes.

‘Everyone knows.’

Everyone knows?

They know?

Her stomach twists into a hard knot and it feels like something is lodged inside her throat.
Information about the next task?

The questions roll inside her head like dice in a can.

That boy, from last week, the one who tried to lure her into the Restricted Section. Because
‘everyone knows’ she loves the Restricted Section.

Because…

Her thoughts stall there, suspended as if her brain is trying to shield her from understanding,
even though she knows what Cormac means. She just wants it to mean something else
because she wanted this to be something nice that was happening to her. A boy really liking
her and thinking she was pretty and interesting.

But it’s not nice. It was never nice.

Cormac is here because he thinks she’ll give him a blow job in exchange for information
about the tournament, because ‘everyone knows’ what Hermione does for her grades.
Obviously she’ll be even more willing if she can get inside information on the tournament.

There is something simultaneously ice cold and yet burning taking form inside her. Seething
into being.

Cormac has known her for six years. They’re from the same House. He’s seen her books
spread out in the common room, her prefect badge, the lines of house-mates wanting her help
with homework, and he’s discounted all of it, because believing this about her gets his cock
sucked.

Her stomach shrivels, twisting as if all her organs are rotting. A deadened shock that ripples
through her.

She shoves him hard, trying to get away, but her angle gives her no force, and Cormac’s still
muttering something about what his uncle will tell him. The red, swollen head of his cock
bulging out of his briefs as he shoves his trousers further down his hips and tugs on himself
and tries to angle it towards her mouth.

Something inside her snaps.

She’s never liked Cormac, but in this moment of burning clarity, she hates him. Hates him.
She hates him.

She hates everyone.

Her eyes are burning.

She’s nearly crying with rage as her fingers fumble through the skirts of her dress, trying to
find the little pocket with her wand. Where is it? Where is it?

She’s going to murder him.

Her fury and bitterness collide at the realisation that no matter how much she wants to love
the Wizarding World, she now knows she never will.

She would have given her soul for this world if they’d just wanted her here. But they don't.
They want someone small, who does what they're told and never asks questions and doesn't
take up any space, and since Hermione is not any of those things, they will never want her,
never accept her.

She is never going to belong.

What is the point of being careful? All those years being told that she was only being good as
long as she stayed in control, if she didn’t let any of the accidents happen. Being warned over
and over that she could hurt someone if she didn’t keep her power in. Why? Why does she
have to spend so much energy holding herself back and worrying about other people when
none of them worry about her? None of them care. Not enough. They never understand. They
don’t want to. They don’t try to.

She should hurt them.

She wants to hurt them.

The desire breaks something in her.

The light unnatural suppression on her magic that she felt as she left the party is suddenly
gone. She feels all her magic, all that power trapped inside her once again, more brutally than
ever before, fuelled now by her anger. Her fury spirals, driving down, inward, burrowing into
her chest, a finer and finer point until all her rage collides with that force inside her,
shattering it, finally reaching that place she was never able to break through.

She gives a ragged gasp that twists into a scream.

Power bursts through her, exploding into her brain, a darkness like an inverted flash-bomb,
but when it strikes it holds, wrapping around her. A black haze of magic that hums in her
blood and bones and out and on and everywhere.

It happens so fast.

She can feel Cormac’s hand still holding her shoulder. She can feel his magic, the skin and
bones, calluses and tendons and nerves, all the muscles that compose it, right down to its
cells, its atoms.

How dare he touch her?

She twists her hand, her fingers curling into a fist.

There’s a wet crack, like a bundle of twigs being snapped.

Cormac lets go of her.

Magic roars inside her head.

 She pushes herself unsteadily to her feet. The power is still spreading through her, running
through her veins and nerves and settling inside her bones. Swallowing her up inside.
Shadows like black tongues of flame creep across the floor and flicker across her hands
where her magic has always burned hottest.

Cormac is just standing there, screaming, staring at his mangled hand as if he can’t wrap his
mind around it.

It’s hanging from the wrist at an unnatural angle, fingers all splayed in impossible directions.

He looks back at her, his face now a sickly grey, as if all the blood has suddenly flowed away
and not come back. His trousers and pants are shoved down near his knees, and he pulls them
up with his intact hand as he tries to back away from her.

She tilts her head to one side, watching him, there’s a haze over her eyes, as if she’s staring
through shadows. He seems simultaneously close and far away.

“Granger…” his voice is shaking uncontrollably. He sounds like he’s trying to reason with
her.

Like she is being unreasonable.

She has been so reasonable.

She curls her fingers into a fist. His mouth snaps shut.

Her magic isn’t trapped burning her up now, it’s everywhere, as if she’s just put the world
around her on puppet strings.

No spells. She simply has to want something and the magic gives it to her. Magic that is a
raging tempest of want and power, sharp edged and burning as if it were a manifestation of
her soul.

“Don’t talk,” she says, “I hate it when you talk.”

Then she smiles at him.

Chapter End Notes

Trigger Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Attempted Sexual Coercion, and Violence.

Illustrations:

Get Out by ayaka_arts.

Earth Magic by artemisia_flora
Elemental Earth Magic by artysusie
Hermione reading The Daily Prophet by browniekim.art
Wait For It Montage by hiejindraws
Blood in Excess by enselius_art
First Sight by enselius_art
Ethics of the Dark Arts by browniekim.art
Dangerous and Freeing by juxtaposedmusings
 Magic Is Might
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Hermione is kicking something. Again and again and again.

Her foot collides once more and there’s a squelching crack and the disruption makes her blink
through her fury and study the thing on the ground in front of her.

It’s Cormac.

A part of her knew that.

He’s lying on the ground, screaming.

However, there’s no sound.

Hermione has only to wish the noise out of existence and the space around her bends to her
will. The vibrations of Cormac’s screams, equal parts terror and pain, still ripple in the air,
but the sound that should result from it does not.

But Hermione can still feel it, his absolute terror.

She can feel everything. All the magic around her and in her. The power reaches beyond her
body as if poured from her. There’s no channelling, no directing it. The magic is her. She is
Magic. She has shattered the bridge between them.

The castle tries to react. The magic in the walls doesn't like making space for a new entity.
It’s vibrating, shifting, coming to life. Primed to warn against intrusions.

Hermione feels the pulse of power as the castle begins to activate, a signal to arms going out.
She catches it, smothers it, and tells the enchantments struggling in her grasp to be quiet and
leave her alone.

She’s not a threat, she’s a consequence.

The castle falls obediently quiet.

It works the same way with Cormac.

She doesn’t want him to move, so he can’t. She doesn’t want him to make noise, so he
doesn’t. She wants him to be afraid of her, and in more pain than he has ever felt in his life,
and he is.

She kicks him again for good measure.

Her hand curls into a fist, and as it does, she feels his ribs bowing inward, forcing the air
from his lungs as her fingers clench. His heart is beating so fast, she thinks it might explode.
She relaxes her grip, letting him breathe, as she leans towards him, studying him idly.

Hurting him is not nearly as satisfying as she thought it would be.

He feels so small now. It took an insignificant amount of effort to reduce him to this. His
hands had been heavy when he shoved her onto her knees, his body so much bigger, but now,
if she wanted to, she could shrink him straight out of existence.

Her fingers twitch, compressing again, letting him feel just how helpless he is.

She wants to.

She wants to crush him. To let him feel the weight of her power, like an insect, ground under
the heel. She wants to reduce him to nothing and make him face how small he is. How small
she can make him.

How dare he? How dare any of them?

She kicks him again.

There’s something wet on her face and she realises then that she’s crying. She smears the
tears away with the back of her hand.

She wants to drag Cormac in front of the school, right into the Great Hall, and throw him
down in front of Dumbledore and Rita and everyone else, and show them all. Don’t touch
me. Don’t underestimate me. Don’t get in my way. This will happen to you. This is my world
too.

And then what?

What will happen then?

She swallows, but it’s like there’s a stone lodged inside her throat.

Everything is so muddled, it's hard to think.

Her vision swims, darkness flickering across her eyes.

She’s drowning inside.

Hadn’t she thought that getting named Triwizard Champion would change everything for
her? That everyone would see her differently, realise that she belonged?

Her throat tightens.

But what happened instead? Everything just got worse and worse.

You’re going to get expelled for this.

 She freezes at the thought, and her focus on anger and retribution shatters into fragments.
Her grasp on the power flooding her slips, tearing free and exploding outward, and suddenly
she is not in control of anything.

She staggers back, her skull feeling like it’s cracked from the inside. The ground ripples
under her feet. She pulls back, dragging in the power haemorrhaging from her, trying to
smother it, cram it into something she can hold. It burns inside her, as if she's outgrown her
own body.

She’s not made to hold this much.

She drops to her knees and vomits. Green potion drips and sizzles onto the stones as her
stomach convulses.

Her brain is trying to catch up, to sort out all the confusing pieces, but nothing adds up. This
isn’t possible.

She must be hallucinating. Stress is fracturing her and she’s having a nightmare.

She squeezes her eyes shut and tells herself she’s only dreaming.

Wake up.

There’s screaming. She can’t focus on anything else because it’s so loud. She looks for the
source.

Cormac is two feet away from her, screaming. Very audible now.

No, she’s hallucinating. She just needs to wake up.

There’s blood streaming from his nose. One of his hands is cradled to his chest.

Just wake up.

He’s trying to crawl away from her.

She watches him go because it’s not real. It’s just a nightmare.

WAKE UP!

Her breath is coming faster and faster.

None of this happened. She didn’t lose control. She never does. It’s just a bad dream.

She curls into a tight ball, trying to breathe. Her heart is pounding as if it intends to break
through her ribs.

You’re going to get expelled.

You’ll have to go back to the Muggle world and never, ever use magic again.
Her panic threatens to shatter her, but she lurches to her feet.

She can’t let Cormac get away. If she does, he’ll tell someone. It’ll be her word against his.

He’s pureblooded, rich, with Ministry connections.

Stop him.

The instant her whirlwind, panicked mind arrives at the thought and manages to balance
there, her magic floods forward and slams Cormac into the ground, hard enough to crack
another rib. He gives a hoarse cry and cannot move, as if nailed into place.

She creeps towards him, hands twisting in the skirts of her dress. Her whole body is shaking,
swerving between hot and cold.

How is she going to fix this? How can she possibly fix this?

She reaches blindly, instinctively, into her pocket for her wand.

One thing at a time. Break it into manageable tasks.

She kneels next to Cormac, her hands trembling.

He looks terrible. She doesn’t remember exactly what she did. It’s just a blur of hurt him,
hurt him, hurt him.

Magic keeps surging through her, knocking her off balance as if there are tidal waves moving
through her. She almost falls.

Of course, she hurt him. She wanted to hurt him.

Her empty hand curls into a fist and she can feel his bones again, like they’re in her hands.
Fragile as sticks. Squeeze a little harder and every single one will —

She forces her hand open, drawing a gasping breath.

She has to make it like this never happened.

She waves her wand shakily, muttering episkey over and over, but her magic refuses to
cooperate. It twists out of her control like an eel. It won’t take the right form, won’t even heal
a scratch.

Her wand feels like little more than a stick in her hand.

Cormac lies there, his face stark with terror, the whites of his eyes glaring in the low light, as
if she something out of a nightmare.

Not one of the spells work.

Don't panic. Think, Hermione. He can’t go missing. No one can know.

You only lost control for a little while. You can still fix this.

She grits her jaw, resolving herself.

“Look at me,” she says.

He cowers away.

“Look at me!” she snarls, and his whole body jerks, head swivelling unnaturally, and now
he’s staring at her without blinking.

She points her wand at his face, trying to focus, to centre herself on what she needs to
accomplish.

There can’t be any trace.

She grasps at the magic, trying to hold on and control it. It writhes, but she cannot let Cormac
tell anyone what happened.

“Obliviate,” she says forcefully, ignoring the ache in her throat.

She shoves the magic through her wand, not caring that it doesn’t want to cooperate. Pain
sears up her forearm, but she pushes harder, and the spell slams into his face.

Her arm goes numb from the amount of power that just surged through her, a force like being
punched through the chest. She gasps, and can’t breathe.

Cormac’s face goes slack, all the fear washing away.

She forces herself to inhale. Her lungs are scorched, magic burning, scintillating through her
nerves and veins, waiting to flare out again if she’ll just let it.

She knows she needs to push it down, but her hands are trembling and even her wand feels
too heavy. She wants to drop to the floor and just lie there until everything stops spinning.

Her wand hand throbs, prompting her to look down. Her fingers wrapped around the handle
of her wand are turning as black as charcoal. A gradient of darkness spreading up her hand.
She stares in horror.

Movement catches her attention. Cormac is shaking his head, blinking slowly, his eyes blank
and disoriented.

He doesn’t look afraid.

She swallows, mouth dry. “After — after you left me at Gryffindor Tower, you headed back
to Slughorn’s party. You were drunk. You fell down the stairs. You should — you should go
to the infirmary.”

He groans as if suddenly registering all the pain he’s in and she turns and flees.
She doesn’t know where she’s going, she just knows she needs to get away, to hide, to figure
out what happened, figure out how to control it. She runs blindly through the corridors of the
castle.

As she turns a corner and her toe catches an uneven stone. She stumbles. The floor rises up
towards her face.

No! There’s no time to do anything but brace herself for the impact.

She passes straight through the floor.

She barely has time to register it before the corridor below opens beneath her and the next
floor rushes up towards her face. She throws her hands out, trying to protect her head, and
falls straight through again.

She keeps falling.

Faster and faster. Everything is a blur around her.

She tries to catch herself, but there’s nothing to catch and none of her to grab with.

She’s intangible, moving impossibly fast, and now she doesn’t know what direction she’s
going in. It’s as if she’s been flung out of the atmosphere, beyond the confines of gravity. No
up, no down, no stopping, just being carried endlessly on. As she falls, her sense that she has
ever had a body at all vanishes. Her consciousness is flung outward like a net. Flashes of
everywhere she knows. Of people she knows. Glimpses of rooms in the castle. The forest.
The lake.

Harry, on his back on the Common Room sofa, snatching a golden snitch out of the air as he
laughs at something Ron’s saying.

Cormac limping dazedly down a corridor in the castle.

Ginny, somewhere that Hermione can’t make out. She sighs, her head tilting back. “I’ll get
over it.”

Bisset, standing somewhere in the castle, turning around as if lost. Cadeau emerges from the
shadows and Bisset waves him down a darkened corridor before going in the opposite
direction.

Dumbledore, frowning at a portrait in his office. “Are you sure, Phineas? I’m sure that for a
moment, I felt—”

Glimpses of dozens of rooms and classrooms in the castle. Corners of the library and secret
passageways. The forest. The lake. The merfolk in their underwater village. Hogsmeade.
Diagon Alley. King’s Cross Station. Her bedroom back home. Her parents, side by side on
the sofa in the sitting room.

Flashes of things zip past faster and faster. Spreading outward and dimming. Hermione wants
to stop. She doesn’t know how long she’s been falling, but she doesn’t know how to stop. Or
what will happen if she does.

What will she do?

She needs help. She doesn't know what’s happening.

Where can she go? Who would help her?

She remembers collapsing as she resurfaced in the lake, and Malfoy grabbing hold of her and
dragging her the rest of the way out.

Malfoy.

The instant she thinks of him, she can see him, as if she’s known exactly where he is the
entire time, but had refused to look.

He’s alone in the clock tower.

He’ll probably know what’s happening to her.

She’s barely formed the thought of wanting him before she abruptly re-materialises, falling
straight out of midair.

Malfoy’s pale eyes go wide with surprise, but he doesn't have time to react before she crashes
into his arms.

Her shoulder collides with his chest and they both go sprawling onto the floor.

Hermione lies on top of him in a daze, feeling as if her mind has been violently shoved back
into her body but the synapsis haven’t aligned. Everything feels wrong, as if her
consciousness has been put inside her brain upside down and backwards.

She’s viscerally aware of the weight of her physical existence. She can feel everything, the
texture of her bones, the cells, the spiderweb network of nerves, the muscular contractions of
her heart, the movement of her internal organs, and the burbling of her stomach acid. It’s
revolting. She wants to vomit.

“Did you just — apparate on top of me?” Malfoy has her by the shoulders and pushes her up
off, his voice disbelieving.

Hermione sits straddling him for a moment, and her barely functioning heart somehow
manages to skip a beat before her head lolls straight back, followed by her shoulders and
spine, and she tumbles off Malfoy in a backwards somersault.

He swears, flinging out a hand to catch her, but his fingers just barely miss, and she hits the
floor with the top of her head and topples sideways.

She can’t seem to remember how to make her arms move. She’s distantly aware that
something hurts.
Several somethings.

She lies there in a contorted heap, trying to make her eyes focus and feel where her jaw is so
that she can try to make it move. How does this all work? She’s never had to think about any
of it before.

“Granger? What happened to you?” Malfoy’s leaning over her, his wand held aloft in one
hand, the tip illuminated.

She tries to answer, but she feels as if it's taking everything in her power not to let her mind
slide straight out of her body. It’s like she’s forgotten how to be a body in a body shape doing
body things.

The edges of her are all blurred. She feels terrible and soupy, it's so hard to stay like this.

The room feels like it’s spinning in concentric circles. She’d forgotten how loud the clock
tower is, all the clicking, rotating mechanisms of the clock. Couldn’t Malfoy have been
somewhere quieter?

He’s kneeling over her, one hand holding an illuminated wand, getting her arms and legs
untangled and interrogating her.

“What happened? Are you drunk?” His tone rises with the second question. “How did you
apparate inside the school?”

So much for Malfoy knowing what was happening.

There’s a pause, and then his voice drops very low.

“Where did these bruises come from?”

Hermione doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about.

“Granger.” He snaps his fingers in front of her face. “Did someone do something to you?
What happened? Say something.”

She feels the rough stone floor under her fingertips, uneven enough to make her skin crawl,
and tunes out Malfoy’s continuing barrage of questions, which are the same questions he’s
already asked, just more angry sounding every time he repeats them.

She hates this.

It’s so hard to think, to track words, and sounds, all the sensations while trying to think.

She feels like she’s turning liquid, her hands sliding through the floor. Her feet and legs
follow. She’s slipping back into that place where she’s weightless —

“Granger!”

Something collides with her cheek, flat-sided and forceful.

Hermione’s head whips to the side and her teeth click against each other.

Her consciousness snaps back into her body with the force of a gunshot.

She stares at Malfoy in shock.

He slapped her across the face. He’s leaning over her, one hand raised as if he intends to do it
again.

How dare he?

Without pausing to think, she forces her hands to re-materialise and slaps him as hard as she
physically can.

Her hand cracks violently across his cheek, hard enough that the force burns her palm, and a
scarlet handprint instantly blooms across his skin. She feels the impact up to her fingertips.

He stares at her in shock, and then his raised hand finds his face. His tongue runs across his
lip. It's bleeding, split against his teeth.

Blood runs in a thin line down his chin.

There’s a deafening silence as they stare at each other. His wand has fallen from his hand,
lying somewhere on the floor, still illuminating them both within its halo.

“You hit me first,” she finally says, her voice a defensive mumble, her capacity for speech
returning at last.

He just keeps staring at her, looking as if there are approximately four hundred thousand
things he wants to say, most of them vicious. His face is pale except where it’s stained scarlet
by her handprint.

“You were melting through the floor, not saying anything,” he finally says, as if explaining
something to a child, his voice corrosive as battery acid. “What did you want me to do?”

She has no answer. She has never melted through surfaces before and hasn’t the faintest idea
what the proper protocols are. She averts her eyes. “I — don’t know.”

Her astonishment that he slapped her and her immediate, outraged retribution seems to have
seared her consciousness back into her brain, deep enough that she no longer feels on the
verge of melting back out of it.

She feels less disembodied and much, much more drunk. There is a pain in her chest as if
someone has stabbed her and then filled the wound with embers that are radiating through her
blood. She’s been set on fire inside, but she feels corporeal and assembled properly again.

She turns her head and reaches shakily out and rests her fingers on Malfoy’s hand. She pets
him awkwardly.

“Sorry,” she says, her cheeks getting hot.

He exhales and sits back, rubbing the blood off his chin. “It’s — fine,” he looks up at the
ceiling. “Not exactly how I imagined this going, but — never mind. What happened?”

Hermione barely hears the question. She’s unexpectedly distracted by the feeling of his hand
under hers. He’s so reassuringly corporeal. She’d never noticed before how nice that is.

She slides her fingers further until her palm is pressed flat against the back of his knuckles.
She can sense the cool fluid feeling of his magic under the surface of his skin, and it sends a
humming frisson through her. Latticed across his hand and wrist in scars almost as faint as
spider silk, she traces them and they resonate at her touch.

The Unbreakable Vows, she realises then, following them with her fingertip. A shiver runs
through his body and he pulls his hand away.

He leans towards her again.

“What happened?” he asks. His fingers brush against her shoulders, finding a spot on her
collarbones that’s tender.

She flinches, and he instantly pulls his fingers away.

He stares down at her and everything about him seems to grow sharp. “Who did this to you?”

She stares at him wide-eyed, heart pounding.

She can’t let him find out about Cormac. She can’t let anyone know what she did to Cormac.

“No one,” she says, her throat getting tight. She shakes her head. “It’s nothing.”

He doesn’t seem to believe her. “Then what happened? Why are you —“ he gestures at her,
“— like this?”

She swallows and closes her eyes, avoiding his stare.

What happened is a very good question which she would also like to have the answer to.

She tries to replay events, the party, but it’s all disjointed and surreal. Her recollection is like
looking through fogged glass. Everything is dim and uselessly nebulous, even the voices
warped and far away. A blur punctuated with only brief moments of clarity, but even those
memories swim and distort.

“I don’t know what happened,” she finally says, her voice muffled and plaintive. “I’m really
drunk.”

“Yes, I managed to notice that.” He sits back and pinches the bridge of his nose, rubbing his
cheek.

She ignores his snark, curling onto her side and cradling her head.
She knows she should just tell him she lost control again, but she doesn’t want to. He’ll think
she’s so inferior if she admits it.

It’s not like he thinks you’re anything special, anyway.

Everything inside her darkens and grows sharp. She huddles in on herself, curling around at
the burn inside her, wanting everything to stop moving.

“Granger.” Malfoy’s voice cuts in, drawing her back.

She blinks and looks over her shoulder, as his face swims into focus. He’s watching her
carefully.

“Do you have any idea how you managed to apparate?” The way he says it makes it sound
like he’s asked several times already.

Is that the thing he’s stuck on? Hermione had barely even thought about that detail in light of
everything else, but then again, he doesn’t know about everything else, and the castle is
supposed to have a spell to prevent apparition.

She rolls back onto her back and lets out a sigh. “No, but — I was at a party. Slug Club. We
all took a potion.”

“What kind of potion?”

She’s half-aware that he’s pulling her off the floor and sitting her up against the wall,
checking her over, probably for signs of splinching. Everything swims more when she’s
upright.

The noise from the clock tower gears are grating on her nerves, clicking over and over. The
room sways. She feels his hands on her face and then her eyelids are pushed back and she
blearily sees him peering at her.

He taps her cheek. “Tell me about the potion, Granger.”

His hands are cool against her feverishly warm skin.

“Alcoholic,” she says. “Green. It was supposed to help with magic.” She furrows her
eyebrows, trying to remember more. “But it didn’t feel right. My magic went flat.”

Malfoy gives her a strange look.

“And then – “ Her chest clenches and her whole face burns, and she just forces herself to say
it. “I think I lost control of my magic. It burst out, and it was all over and I was trying to
control it, but I — I fell, and I thought I was going to get hurt, but I went through the floor
and I kept falling, and then — I was here.”

There’s a pause.

“Your magic burst?” he says doubtfully. “As in — accidental magic?”

No, it wasn’t accidental magic. Accidental Magic is a quick explosion in response to her
emotions, a manifestation of her feelings. This was more like a sustained eruption, and
everything that happened, she wanted to happen.

Hermione shakes her head, squinting one eye shut, trying to remember details. It was so
fast. She was angry. Angry enough that she didn’t want to hold back anymore, didn’t care
what would happen if she didn’t. And when she felt that way, finally believed it, it was like
she broke through the barrier that had always held her back.

She gives a startled gasp as she puts it all together and lurches forwards.

“Malfoy, I know what happened.” She grabs him by the shoulders. “I’ve reached my source.”

He stares at her with a look of incomprehension.

“Your – source?” He repeats slowly.

“Where my magic comes from,” she says. “That’s what this is! That’s what the potion was
for. It was supposed to help — with a breakthrough. Whatever people were working on.”
She’s talking fast, words tripping over each other. “I thought it didn’t work at first because I
was still trying to stay in control. But then — when I stopped wanting to hold back, that’s
when everything happened. The potion pushed me through.”

He’s silent for a long moment. “Can you describe it?”

She draws a deep breath. “It’s like — channelling an element, except coming from inside. It’s
stronger, you know, raw, like a — a — ” She struggles to put it into words. She can’t
remember the last time she felt this relieved. “It’s not diluted, since it’s the essence of my
magic. When I used it for a spell, it was so strong it burned.” She looks down and finds that
her fingertips on her right hand are still stained black. At a glance, they’d be mistaken for bad
ink stains. She shows him. “Look.”

He just glances at her fingers. Then he blinks and looks again and grabs her wrist, pulling her
hand closer, his wand near her fingers like he’s trying to see them clearly.

“This – happened when you used a spell?”

Hermione nods, so excited she thinks she may start vibrating.

Of course, that’s what this is. Her source! She’s done it, finally, after he was so sure she
couldn’t. That Muggle-borns couldn’t. She did it.

She tips back her head and laughs, flooded with relief, and her magic rushes through her fast
enough to make her head spin. All these months of practising and struggling, they meant
something, they were bringing her here. She can do anything.

“Granger,” Malfoy’s sharp voice interrupts her thoughts. “Stop it”

She jumps, and realises she’d started fading, the outline of her body blurring as her magic
hums, too elated to stay in one place. Malfoy’s hand is clamped around her wrist, as if to
physically keep her there.

She forces herself to focus.

When she’s properly corporeal again, Malfoy resumes his inspection of her hand, acting as if
he’s never seen one before.

He keeps twisting it under the light of his wand and studying the way the tips are almost
charcoal black and the tiny little tendrils of dark that run down her fingers towards her palm.
His eyebrows knit together into a furrow.

He touches one fingertips gingerly, as if he thinks she might burn him. The sensation sends a
shiver through her that makes her heart speed up.

It’s then that it finally occurs to her they’re alone together for the first time since the Prefect
Bath.

The realisation makes her stomach somersault, the urgency of the present finally giving away
to past events.

Now that she‘s thinking about that, she also realises she is supposed to be angry with him.
She’s been angry at him for weeks, and in the chaos she somehow forgot, and now they’re
huddling on the floor of a clock-tower together, her hand in his, and it feels like if she was
going to tell him how much she absolutely despises him and wishes he’d die, she should have
done it earlier.

She tries to pull her wrist free, but he just grips her tighter.

“Be still,” he says in a stern voice without looking up.

It inexplicably makes her blush.

She purses her lips and tries to look away, ignoring the heat along her neck and the way her
heartbeat’s rising. The silence is deafening, punctuated only by the clock gears. She’s
overcome by the sudden need to say something.

“Did you know your parents were interfering with the tournament?” The question bursts out
of her.

He freezes and then looks up with an expression of disbelief. “Really? That’s what you want
to talk about right now?”

Considering the other things she could have brought up, she feels like she’s being generous.
She just shrugs. “Did you?”

He looks down, his jaw tensing, rubbing his thumb against the centre of her palm. A tingle
runs down her spine and pools in her stomach.

“No,” he says after a moment. “Not until just before the Task started. I’d already told them I
didn’t need help. I — I’d thought they’d listened, but of course not.”
Hermione exhales, considering this. She should be angry. She knows she should be. It’s best
to be angry, to resent every detail that she knows about him. His cheating puts so much at risk
for her, but she sees no use in arguing this particular point.

The lake task was easy for him. It was always going to be.

What his parents did was render his accomplishment meaningless.

She says nothing, which seems to annoy him.

He scowls. “Now that we’ve got that incredibly urgent matter out of the way, do you happen
to know the name of the potion you took?”

Hermione tries to remember, tries to ignore his fingers, which are still wrapped around her
wrist.

“Fairy Spirits, I think. Yes. Green Fairy Spirits”

His eyebrows draw together again and he looks down again. “Fairy Spirits? Fairy Spirits
wouldn’t —“ he stops, and his voice gets very sceptical. “Are you sure? Describe it.”

She tries to think, but it’s very hard to remember anything when he’s so close and he keeps
touching her hand. No matter how hard she’s tried, it’s impossible for her to forget what it
feels like to be with him, and she’s intoxicated enough that it doesn’t feel like a terrible idea.

“Slughorn made it. It was green, we all had a sip. It tasted terrible. I wanted to spit it out…”

She trails off, because as she’s been talking he’s taken both her hands, and seems to be
comparing them. He has a bizarre expression on his face like he doesn’t believe his own eyes.

“What is it?” she asks, not understanding why this is more disconcerting than the melting
earlier.

He doesn’t look away from her hands. “This is your wand hand.” He indicates her right hand.
“You used one spell. Did it look different when it cast?”

“I don’t remember. Maybe? I was mostly focused on making it work.” She hopes he won’t
ask which spell she used. “The magic wouldn't do what I wanted, so I had to force it.”

He’s quiet for a moment, just staring at her with an unreadable expression.

“I need to do some research.”

It’s the first time he’s ever offered to research anything. He’s always been very clear that his
existing knowledge is the outermost limit of what he offers her; he will make no efforts on
her behalf.

He lets go of her left hand, tilts his head back and rubs the back of his neck, looking
uncertain.
“You need to come with me.” He swallows. “You can’t stay here. I need to keep an eye on
you.” He massages the still red side of his face. “I’ll find a way to sneak you onto the ship.”

That sounds like an incredibly terrible idea.

Hermione’s eyes narrow. “Aren’t you being watched? Isn’t that the whole reason we haven’t
spoken to each other in over a month?”

She doesn’t even need to be sober to imagine all the ways that could go wrong. A few
students have already tried sneaking onto the Durmstrang ship. Karkaroff threw fits about it,
and accused Dumbledore of using students as spies.

If Hermione was the one caught, the consequences would be even worse.

Malfoy’s parents would undoubtedly find out. Malfoy would get little more than a scolding
and extra supervision, but Hermione would probably be accused of trying to seduce her
opponent in order to get some kind of tournament advantage. The Malfoys would likely try to
have her expelled for violating the student code of conduct. Even if she wasn’t expelled, as
Prefect she’s been made glaringly aware that the residences of the other schools are strictly
off-limits to all Hogwarts students. She could very well lose her Prefect badge.

Barty Crouch would probably stop supporting her too.

Malfoy winces. “Yes, well —“

“No,” she says, and finally wrenches her hand free from him. “Absolutely not.”

He just blinks, as if he never imagined that she would refuse.

“I’m going to go back to the Gryffindor Tower,” Hermione says. “I’m feeling better, and I’ll
be missed if I don’t.”

Malfoy stares at her as if she’s lost her mind.

“Granger, there’s something wrong with you. You apparated inside this school, which, unless
you’re part house-elf, should be impossible. You have casting burns. And let’s not forget how
you almost melted through the floor.”

Hermione wants to ask him exactly what casting burns are and why that’s important, but she
suspects that asking would be an admission of weakness and he’ll take advantage of it.

He doesn’t seem to understand how extremely ruined her life could be if she got caught in an
even vaguely compromising situation with him.

So she waves him off. “That’s just because I was drunk.”

He makes an incomprehensible sound in his throat. “No! That’s not how being drunk works.
And also, you’re still drunk.”
She heaves a sigh, rolling her eyes. “Not as drunk. And even if I was, I’m not getting on your
ship.” She stands up to prove that she’s sobered. “See?” She braces herself surreptitiously
against the wall and holds out a hand to show him. “I’m not evaporating anymore. I’m fine.
I’ll just go to bed.”

He swallows. “Granger, you don’t understand —”

“Unless you’re going to tell me what I don’t understand, I don’t care,” she says.

She raises her eyebrow, daring him to explain himself. She would love an explanation.

He starts to open his mouth but then stops and avoids her eyes, hands curling into fists in
front of him. “I’m not sure. That’s why I need to do some research.”

She just snorts in derision and turns on her heel, swaying dangerously for a moment before
she recovers her balance and heads towards the stairs.

He chases her, and tries to stop her until she threatens to slap him again, and then resigns
himself to following her through the castle, making snide comments about how impressively
sober she is every time she wobbles and needs to use the wall to stay upright.

Hermione hisses at him to give her space, muttering warnings about Filch, but he refuses to
back off and trails closely behind her, watching her as if he expects her to dissolve before his
eyes again even though it’s not even an effort to keep herself corporeal now.

By the time she reaches the portrait hole, she’s had enough and rounds on him, waving a
hand in front of his face.

“See? I made it, and I’m not even a little bit disembodied. Go away.”

He draws a deep breath, his eyes going from her to the portrait hole and then back as if
debating with himself.

Finally, he lets out a deep breath. “Just go to bed,” he says, as if going to the tower had been
all his idea. “Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t use any magic. Don’t go near the lake.”

She scrunches her nose at him. “Why would I go near the lake?”

Something flashes across his expression, and he glares at her. “Just go to bed,” he says
through gritted teeth.

He is so irritating.

She glares right back. “I was already planning to because it was my idea.”

She storms over to the portrait. The Fat Lady is snoring and only mutters under her breath
when Hermione accidentally crashes into the picture frame and has to catch herself.

Malfoy is still standing there, hovering at the corner, and watches as she climbs through.
Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

They Spin Across The Floor by drami1

The Triwizard Champions by Mary_fray_child
Then She Smiles by artemisia_flora
The Second Task darkfluffart
"What Would Make My Parents Furious" by boomdafunk
"Don't Talk" by heijindraws
 Aftermath
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Hermione wakes up the next morning, disoriented, blinking for several seconds as she tries to
figure out where she is. She feels flattened, like someone shot her through the chest,
emulsified her brain in cotton and then poured it back into her skull.

She sits up with a lurch and promptly topples back into her pillows, clutching her face as pain
shudders through her head. How she even made it to her bed is beyond her.

Oh god. She lies there, and the events of the previous night trickle back into her memory. The
party. Cormac. Malfoy.

She feels terrible. She knew about hangovers, but she had no idea they were this awful.

She makes it down to the Great Hall for a late breakfast, positively green with nausea as she
creeps gingerly into a seat next to Harry.

“Wild party, I heard,” he says in a voice that’s unnecessarily loud.

“How late d’you stay?” Ron asks, looking over at her.

She groans, pressing her palm against her forehead, wanting to hit them if they won’t stop
shouting. Even sounds are nauseating.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles, “I lost track of the time.”

“Did you hear about Cormac?”

She chokes on the goblet of pumpkin juice she’d started to drink and it shoots up her nose,
burning. She coughs several times and wipes away tears.

“No – what about Cormac?” she croaks.

“He’s in the infirmary,” Harry says, and Hermione barely hears it over the screech of a fork
on someone’s plate

Apprehension lances through her. She looks between the boys’ faces for any hint of what
they know or suspect, but Harry is preoccupied with his eggs and Ron’s spearing a sausage
with his fork.

“He fell off the moving staircase sometime last night,” Harry says, looking up. “Romilda
found him this morning. You know how she is — she started screaming like a banshee saying
he was dead. By the time the Professors got there and realised he wasn’t, the story was
everywhere that he’d been killed. Turns out he was drunk and fell off the stairs, and since it
was past rounds, none of the prefects found him. Filch’s cat has a cold or something, so he
wasn’t patrolling last night.”

“That’s — awful,” Hermione says, trying not to look relieved.

“I thought McGonagall was going to hex Slughorn,” Ron says. “He’s in loads of trouble.
They’re saying there might be a school investigation.”

Hermione’s chest tightens and she forces herself to casually inquire. “Is Cormac alright?”

Harry shrugs, seeming unconcerned. “Oh yeah. He’ll be fine. It’s not a big deal. Bruises and
broken bones, he’s had worse playing Quidditch. Madam Pomfrey will get him fixed up.”

The school’s buzzing with gossip about the party — there are whispers that Cormac is dead
and the school’s hiding it, stories of secret duels in the corridors and faculty coverups. The
professors are tense as they hurry through the halls, looking unusually frazzled for a
weekend.

There’s already enough international attention on the school without stories coming out
about a professor giving students alcohol.

Everyone is well aware of how well-connected the McLaggen family is, and what kinds of
problems they could cause if they decide to make a fuss.

Hermione waffles between feeling guilty and reassuring herself that Cormac deserved it and
more.

She said no; he didn’t listen. She should have castrated him. Although she tells herself that
it's for the best that she didn’t, there wouldn’t be any way to pass off castration as a result of
falling off the stairs. It’s all turned out remarkably well.

Still, she jumps, filled with dread whenever she hears Cormac’s name, fearing a summons
will come from Dumbledore, that she’ll go to his office and find the school governors and
Cormac’s parents glaring at her as Cormac points, saying, ‘It was her. She attacked me.’

By noon, she’s not sure if she’s more hungover or sick with nerves.

Fortunately, since knowledge of the Slug Club party is now widespread, no one questions that
she feels sick. She retreats to the girl’s dorm without arousing suspicion, and sits in the
window seat, staring at her right hand.

Overnight, the black burns staining her fingers faded entirely away, leaving no trace. Casting
burns, Malfoy called them. She inspects her hands in the light, trying to understand what was
so interesting about her hand last night.

Now that she’s sober and slightly less nauseous, she’s more aware of her body and able to
sense the magic inside her, a weight and heat like molten glass inside her chest. When she
presses her hands against her ribs, she can feel it. Her source.
Her toes curl in repressed elation.

She doesn’t have to delve for it anymore. The magic is right there, all she has to do is let it
out.

She flexes her hand, then hesitates, remembering Malfoy’s final instructions about not using
any magic. She shakes her head, dismissing the thought. Purebloods all grow up with their
sources, therefore it can’t be that dangerous. He’s in denial.

She picks up her wand, but it feels lifeless in her fingers. She can’t understand why. She
examines it carefully, looking for cracks or any burn marks worried that she damaged it when
she obliviated Cormac. It looks normal. She cradles it in her fingers, stroking it mournfully
before laying it aside.

She curls her fingers into a fist and then opens them, murmuring a charm, visualising clearly.

Nothing.

Well, she hadn’t expected it to be that easy. She tries again, saying the spell more forcefully.

Again, nothing happens.

Affronted, she sits forwards and stares at her hand, saying the spell carefully, enunciating
each syllable, visualising the result in her mind’s eye, but there’s none of that familiar feeling
of magic flowing through and taking on the shape of her intentions.

Obviously magic is there, but it feels – different. Something deeper, stronger. Sharp and
undiluted. And wild.

She should’ve asked Malfoy for more information about sources. She’d kept putting it off
because she hadn’t wanted him to mock her and ask why she needed to know when a
Muggle-born like her would never have one.

She curls her hand into a fist and sits contemplatively, wondering what exactly is so urgent
for him to go research. ‘How to keep face when your entire worldview, sense of self-worth
and self-entitlement is a proven lie?’ She snorts. Maybe casting burns? Then again, who
knows why Malfoy does anything.

There is the wager, after all. She taps a finger on the stone windowsill, deep in thought. He
might be stalling because he knows the longer she practises with this new power, the greater
a threat she’ll be in the Third Task. They’re tied now. In score and maybe now in magic too.

He could be buying himself time. The suspicion steels her resolve.

She draws a deep breath and sets her jaw. She has to be as ruthless as everyone else. There’s
no such thing as fairness.

She stares at her hand and lets herself plunge into the darkness, taking hold of the power.

“Avis,” she says, her voice commanding, needing the spell to obey her.
The power breaks through her like a wave, twining through her body as if possessing her. A
flood of canaries pour from her hands, dozens, hundreds, filling the room, more and more.
She squeezes her hands in fists to stop them, but they don’t stop, only keep coming,
materialising around her until she screams a spell to unmake them, desperate to have them
gone.

Rather than vanish the way conjured things usually do, the canaries wisp slowly away like
apparitions, turning dark and shadow-like before melting into the air around her. It gives
Hermione the distinct sense that the magic is still there, lingering around her, it’s just stopped
existing as birds. She can feel it subtly. A touch at the back of her consciousness like the pin-
prick of a needle.

She licks her lips nervously and looks down at her hands.

Her fingers on both hands are blackened, all the way to the palms, and numb up into her
forearms as if electrocuted.

She wants to experiment more, but she’s nervous about the cost of this magic. She doesn’t
know exactly what the price will be and how carefully she might need to ration it. Even
beyond the way her hands are twinging, that one spell has left her feeling torn open inside,
like she reopened a wound that just stopped bleeding.

She presses her hands against her chest, breathing slowly, telling herself she’ll get used to it.

She goes to the library, looking for information, hoping that something has slipped beneath
the censorship. Malfoy is not there. She flips through an index, feeling resentful that he has
access to so many resources that he doesn’t even need the Hogwarts library when he wants
information. He can get any question he has answered and he barely even cares, never shares
it unless she corners him, and asks the right question.

Except for that useless ethics book back at the very beginning with its nonsense and circular
reasoning.

She slams a book shut, earning a warning glare from Madam Pince, but as Hermione stands
seething, she thinks about that book again.

It had talked about mastery, but then it had said something else. What was it?

A practitioner who let the dark in .

She pauses, considering the strangeness of the phrase. If she’s being honest with herself, she
hadn’t followed a lot of the points in the book the first time she read it because she hadn’t
understood what practising the Dark Arts was, and even after Malfoy had explained the
fundamentals, she hadn’t grasped it until she started practising them herself. But she
remembers the author had made a distinction between mastery of ‘the darker arts’ and
someone who ‘let the dark in’.

After Malfoy told her about sources and prices, Hermione assumed letting the dark in was a
sort of possession. The Dark Arts are an exchange, a partnership, a channelling of power
beyond one’s self. Everything that Malfoy has taught her falls into that category, so she
assumed that letting the dark in was a reversal — of allowing that source to use her.

But maybe it means something else.

She looks down at her hands. She put makeup on the back of them to hide the darkness, and
what still shows through just looks like ink stains. It’s already fading again.

The magic has to be her source. It’s the thing she’s been working towards for months, it’s the
place where she’s always drawn her magic from, only before it was like a tiny pinprick
opening where the power dispersed, assimilating inside her, and now it’s like she’s torn it
open and the magic comes so quick it floods her.

Which makes it her source.

She’s almost sure of it.

Almost.

She eats dinner alone on Sunday. Even though Quidditch is cancelled for the year because of
the tournament, there are informal matches held on Sunday afternoons. Harry, Ron, Ginny
and Dean haven’t come back yet.

She’d spotted Malfoy briefly when she entered. He was leaving, and there were Slytherin
boys right behind him. His silver eyes had slid across her as if he’d never laid eyes on her
before.

She tells herself she doesn’t care. She doesn’t need Malfoy. She’ll figure everything out
herself the way she always has.

She’s deep in a mental analysis of her magical self-study when a raucous amount of noise
interrupts her thoughts. A cold knot settles in her stomach as she looks up to see Cormac
arriving at the Gryffindor table, a grin on his face.

She experiences a brief but vicious sense of satisfaction that the hand that she shattered is still
in a sling, but it appears that the rest of his injuries have been healed and he is neither dead
nor much worse for wear.

She forces herself to look away and ignore all the sympathetic coos as he regales everyone
with lurid details about how many broken bones he’d had.

He deserved it. He deserved it. She keeps reminding herself as she stabs at her dinner and
ignores him.

“I mean it, someone made me fall,” Cormac says in an unusually low but intense voice that
carries down the table.

Hermione’s blood runs cold, and she looks up.

One boy nearby laughs. “Weren’t you drunk?”

Cormac shakes his head, scowling. “Yeah, but not that drunk. I think — “ he lowers his voice
ominously, “– I was bewitched.”

Hermione’s spine goes rigid and fear lances through her.

“You probably just drank too much. Remember how Roger Davies thought he was bewitched
because he kept bumping his head into door frames, and then it turned out that the potion he
was putting on his hair had Billywig Sting slime,” says one girl, who looks annoyed with the
way Cormac’s been monopolising the conversation. “You know, they’re saying Slughorn
might get sacked for this.”

Cormac shakes his head, starting to look angry. “No. Something happened. I told the
professors, but all they want to know is how much firewhisky I had, so I’m thinking I’m
going to get a proper investigation. My family, we have connections with the Department of
Mysteries. There’s been some weird stuff happening here, you know. I heard Lupin saying
that the way the lake froze all of a sudden like that didn’t seem natural. And somebody keeps
robbing Slughorn. All those missing potions, remember? It’s all connected. I bet, if my dad
writes them a letter, especially now that my Uncle Tiberius is a Ministry Department head,
they’ll have to start a Ministry investigation. It could be something. You know, with the other
schools here, all those students who barely speak English, who knows what they’re up to.
Could be those Durmstrang freaks are using some Dark Magic on us.”

“I thought you liked those Durmstrang freaks, or did I just imagine you wearing a Hogwarts
for Malfoy pin?” It’s the same girl again. Hermione wants to hug her.

Cormac has a very insincere smile on his face now. “Malfoy’s different.”

The girl laughs and stands up. “Right.”

Cormac just rolls his eyes and as soon as the girl walks away, he resumes his accusations.

Hermione sits there, eavesdropping, cursing inwardly. She obliviated him. Definitely
obliviated him. Why didn’t it work?

Is he baiting her? Did her spell not take?

She glances over again.

He’s not looking at her. He’s clearly paranoid, but she’s sitting six feet away and he hasn’t
even looked at her. Sitting there, she swears she feels her magic draped over him like a veil.

An obliviation spell should make him believe what she told him: he was going back to the
party, and he fell because he was drunk. He should believe that, he shouldn’t even be able to
question it. That’s how the spell works, So why is he going on about being bewitched?

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Her heart is thundering, and she has to force herself to keep her expression impassive. She’s
gripping her fork so tightly that it’s leaving a dent in her palm.

She’s going to have to do something about this, really fast, and she has no idea what because
her wand doesn’t work and apparently she can’t make obliviation spells stick, and Cormac is
still talking.

A cold sweat spreads across her back.

When he stands to leave, Hermione follows him. He’s near the end of the corridor when she
exits the Great Hall, and she quickens her pace just a little to keep him in sight.

When she gets around the corner, he’s already disappearing around the next, and she breaks
into a run.

Don’t go in blind, Hermione. Make a plan. What are you going to do when you catch him?

She has no idea.

Something dark swings out from behind a large statue and grabs hold of her. She yelps with
surprise, kicking wildly as she’s dragged behind the statue, and finds her face inches from
Malfoy’s.

“What are you —?” she starts but he covers her mouth and pulls her down so that they’re
both crouching behind the statue and proceeds to crush his body against hers, his head
ducked down so that their cheeks are nearly touching.

“Shhh,” he says, the air brushing against her shoulder.

She stays there, frozen. Her heart pounding. She clutches at Malfoy for balance, her entire
body rigid with dread and anticipation because she has no idea what they’re hiding from.

Instead nothing happens. They just stay huddled there in a way that is far too intimate, and
the hallway remains empty.

He can’t possibly have ambushed her just to hug her behind a statue.

She’s about to shove him away when she hears heavy approaching footfalls.

Malfoy presses himself even closer as the footsteps stop, their bodies pressing together. Her
mouth goes dry as her stomach somersaults.

“Where is he?” a gruff voice says. Hermione vaguely recognises it. Boyle? Or maybe Goyle.
A Slytherin, one of the Beaters on their Quidditch team.

“He wasn’t far ahead,” says another voice.

Malfoy isn’t even breathing.

“His dad said we were supposed to know everywhere he goes.” Goyle sounds annoyed.
“I reckon we tell him he disappeared.”

She can feel the silent ‘fuck’ Malfoy mouths. When he said he was going to be watched, she
hadn’t realised he meant literally tailed around the castle.

Feet shuffle. “He likes the lake. By the first year boats.”

“Yeah. Let’s look there.”

The footsteps retreat, fading into the distance, and Malfoy exhales and leans back enough that
she can see his face.

She stares at him. “Your parents are insane.”

He flushes and looks irritated. “Can we not talk about this right now?” he says. “I don’t have
much time before I have to let them find me again. I need you to submit a form that you’re
going home for the Easter holidays so you can leave the school.”

Easter? Hermione forgot it was even coming up. It’s next weekend.

No one goes home for Easter.

“Leave this Thursday at the latest, although Wednesday would be better,” he’s saying, as if
it’s entirely normal to ambush her and tell her to leave school.

Her legs are starting to go numb from being crouched behind the statue.

She stares at him sourly, hardly able to believe he grabbed her for this. “No.”

He looks astonished. “What do you mean, no?”

“No, I’m not going home just because you say so. I haven’t had any trouble since Friday
night. Look, I’ve been practising. I figured this out last night.” She lifts her hand, curled into
a fist, and with a slow exhale, opens her fingers.

As her fingers unfurl, fire sparks come to life in the palm of her hand, but unlike her bluebell
flames, there’s no colour to this fire. The flames in her hand are black.

Like a shadow of a fire.

It took an embarrassing amount of time to figure out how to control it and only wield a tiny
bit, rather than having flames flying everywhere. And it’s currently the only spell she can
control that doesn’t turn her fingers black.

Fire’s always been the easiest for her.

There’s a feeling like a live wire running through her arm, but her fingers don’t go numb and
it doesn’t hurt inside her chest to make this. It’s as simple as breathing.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” She looks up at Malfoy, whose face is shadowed by
the flames in her hands, the angles of his features that should catch light darkened by the
strange inversion she holds.

“No,” his voice is hoarse, and he stares at the shadows cupped in her hands. “How did
you…”

He reaches out like he wants to touch it.

She can’t suppress the little thrill at his reaction and lets the shadow flare a little larger,
twisting towards him, but when the flames brush his skin, he jolts back.

“Stop. Stop it!” He suddenly looks panicked and tries to grab her wrist.

Startled, Hermione closes her hand, extinguishing the fire, cutting off the connection too
fast.

Everything spins like she’s bottling something not meant to be contained, and she wants to
reach for the wall to steady herself, but Malfoy has grabbed her wrists and he’s looking at her
fingers.

“You fucking idiot.” He looks up at her and now he’s angry. His eyes flash and his lip curls,
revealing teeth. “I told you not to use magic.”

He shakes her.

Hermione jerks free, defensive fury lashing through her that he’s not impressed at all, he’s
just angry. Just like when she finally managed to use Elemental Magic. He’s always angry
and critical and never cares that all of this is really hard for her to figure out.

Of course he’s not going to be impressed. Her cheeks burn. It was stupid — childish, to even
think he would be.

He probably only cares because premature death might be a violation of his Vow because he
can’t teach her if she’s dead. Everything with him is always selfish, even kissing her in the
Prefect Bath was just a way to get back at his parents without hurting anyone who matters to
him.

She hates him.

She stands up, not caring if anyone sees them. “I don’t have your luxuries, Malfoy. I don’t
have resources like libraries and tutors and family I can go to for answers. I don’t even have
time to be careful. I only have six months to master everything. I’m not waiting for your
permission! ”

Her voice is rising.

He grabs her by the jaw, and she jerks back, clawing at his hand, but his fingers dig in, tight
enough that her inner cheeks dig in against her teeth.
She bares her teeth. “Don’t act like I’m important or that you care what happens to —”

He cuts her off by clamping his other hand firmly over her mouth and dragging her back
down behind the statue. She almost bites his palm out of sheer spite.

“Granger,” he says, looking into her eyes, his voice low. “If you lose control of that magic,
you could kill everyone in this school. Or — do something much worse. I’m not entirely
sure.”

There is a long silence as Hermione processes what he just said and then has to reprocess it,
certain that she’s misunderstood. She stares at him, her eyes nearly popping out of her head
as she tries to spot some tell, some hint that he’s lying, trying to control and manipulate her,
but he just stares back at her and maybe in that context the panic in his expression is not
unreasonable.

“W—?” She’s so shocked she forgets that his hand is muffling her.

She closes her eyes, trying to compose herself, pulling his hand away from her mouth and
speaking in a strained whisper

“What — what do you mean?” And now she’s angry at him for a different reason. “And why
didn’t you tell me?”

He stares back at her in exasperation. “You were drunk, remember? Barely able to focus, and
dissolving intermittently. When exactly would have been a good time to freak you out
completely?”

“Any time!” She snarls. “Telling me at any point would have been a good time!” She had no
idea it was possible to pour so much outrage into a whisper.

He looks offended. His right eye twitches as he studies her, his jaw locked so tight she can
hear his teeth grinding together. “Well, I didn’t think that making you panic by saying, ‘you
know what this magic looks like? Like you’re a mass murderer,’ would have helped the
situation,” he snaps back.”You never listen to what I say.”’

She wants to strangle him. “So you just left me for days? I’ve been practising! I had no idea.”

He just sneers back. “I told you not to use any magic. It was one of the last things I said.
You’re the one who didn’t want to come with me. I tried to keep an eye on you and you
threw a fit and just bolted through the castle.”

“Because you didn’t tell me it was that serious.”

“I offered to sneak you onto the ship, so it was obviously serious.” It’s hard to say which of
them is angrier right now. The narrow space between them seems to shrink with every
passing moment, each exhalation of furious breath. “Well, now that you’ve proven I can’t
leave you unsupervised, you have to apply to leave this weekend so you can come with me.
I’m not asking.”
Her brain short circuits, like a train derailing violently from the subject of ‘extremely
dangerous magic’ to ‘travelling on holiday with Malfoy’.

“Wait. We’re travelling together?”

“Yes,” he grits out like it was obvious. “That’s why I need you to submit a form, so it looks
like you’re home on holiday. I know someone who — should have answers.”

Hermione’s heart is suddenly beating very fast. “Oh!” She bites her lip, trying to hide how
nervous she feels at the prospect of being alone with him again, especially for an extended
period of time.

“Alright,” she finally says, looking back towards him with her best blank expression. As if
she didn’t have a semi-tantrum – albeit an entirely reasonable one — in front of him mere
moments before.

He exhales then, distracted as he glances down the hallway, which is still empty. “Good.” He
nods. “It’s best if we can leave Wednesday. But Thursday can work.”

He takes her by the shoulders and stares at her.

“Don’t use any more magic,” he says slowly, as if she is an extremely stupid child.

She nods, rolling her eyes, but begrudgingly in agreement that it’s for the best despite her
misgivings about his intentions.

“Skip classes if you have to, but don’t use a single spell. Owl me when you know the day
you're leaving.”

He checks his watch. “Fuck. I have to go.”

And then he’s gone.

She goes to McGonagall early the next morning. The Deputy Headmistress looks unusually
harried by the ongoing faculty investigation into Slughorn. Hermione has prepared a whole
sob story, saying that she knows it’s too late to request to leave, but her mother just wrote that
she wants to see Hermione again before the next Task and it doesn’t feel right to say no when
her parents see her so rarely as it is.

All lies. Hermione hasn’t even told her parents about the tournament. They neither
understand nor appreciate the laissez-faire approach to health and safety that the Wizarding
World has and have been extremely suspicious about all of Hogwarts’ extracurriculars ever
since Hermione made the mistake of telling them about Quidditch.

But Hermione looks convincingly forlorn and McGonagall says it’s alright, that she’ll make
an allowance.

And like that, it’s settled. She goes to the owlery and sends an unsigned letter to Malfoy,
telling him she’ll be in Hogsmeade after dinner on Wednesday, assuming he can figure out
who it’s from.

She’s just reached the bottom of the owlery steps when she hears footsteps and Cormac
comes around the corner, nearly running into her. He starts but then relaxes when he sees it’s
her.

“Cormac,” she says, recoiling at the sight of him. She’d been so distracted by Malfoy and her
newfound but latent potential as a mass murderer, that she’d briefly forgotten about her
Cormac problem.

He smiles at her. “Hermione.”

She forces a smile in return and studies him, looking for any hint at what’s gone wrong with
her spell. “What are you up to?” she asks, forcing her voice to stay light and conversational.

He shrugs, lifting his good hand to show the envelope. “Letter to the Ministry. I’m requesting
an investigation. You probably heard about what happened to me after I took you back to the
tower.”

Hermione forces a nod, eyes glued to the letter he’s holding. “Oh,” her throat tightens, and
her heart pounds as she realises that has to do something right now. “I heard you at dinner last
night. You really think someone attacked you?”

“Yeah.” He nods and launches into an intense monologue about how incredibly important his
family is and how everyone knows who he is and obviously someone must be out to get him,
glancing around as he talks as if worried someone might overhear.

She wants to punch him in the throat, but she lets him ramble, as she allows herself to dip
into that well of power inside her. A guilty corner of her conscience reminds her about what
Malfoy said. No magic.

She has to. Besides, she’s not technically casting a spell.

She can sense Cormac’s magic. It’s a feeling subtle as a pulse, but when she focuses
carefully, it’s there under the surface. It feels like a candle, orange, flickering, and with it is
her magic, draped over him like a cobweb that she could just pluck off.

Her obliviation spell, she’s certain.

It feels so tangible.

Cormac’s still talking. Somehow he’s moved on to Quidditch and his chances in the try-outs
and a conspiracy theory that maybe someone threw him down the stairs because of what a
competitive threat he’d be in the Quidditch World Cup. He’s such an idiot.

She curls her fingers, feeling her magic on him. It responds to her like they’re still connected.

She tries to pull it off. The connection breaks. She has to try several times, fingers twitching.
Miss.
If her face betrays her frustration, Cormac doesn’t notice.

There.

It’s like ripping off a bit of plaster.

She jerks the spell free of his mind.

Cormac’s voice cuts off, his eyes losing focus. He sways and touches his temple before
looking up at her. He looks confused and then more confused.

Then scared. Really scared. His skin goes greyish, and he shuffles, eyes going wide.

He definitely remembers now.

He recovers impressively, forcing a laugh. “Sorry. What was I saying?”

His hand moves towards his pocket, towards his wand.

“Don’t,” she says.

He stops and feigns innocence. “What?”

She steps forward, and this time he recoils, his entire body crumpling inward.

“I’d meant to let you off,” she says, “but you’re causing problems for me.”

He swallows, tongue darting out, and now he’s glancing around, not looking for
eavesdroppers but for help.

“Look, Granger,” he has his good hand held out to ward her off, trying to reason with her. “I
didn’t do anything. I thought you were into it. Everyone’s saying you are.”

Hermione thought she was calm and controlled, but those words make everything inside her
sharpen. Magic presses through that tear in her chest, spreading outward with a burn like acid
along her nerves.

“Who?” The question comes out of her, but the voice doesn’t sound like hers, it crackles like
fire.

Cormac’s eyes are darting around wildly, looking for help, or a way to run.

She would enjoy it if he tried to run.

“Higgins. And — um — Sel-Selwyn, a few others, fuck, I don’t remember — It was just
boys faffing about. You know. P-lease – stop!”

The please is choked out.

He isn’t looking at her, not at her face. He’s looking at the floor. She follows his gaze and
finds that the shadows in the hallway are moving, lengthening.
She stares.

Malfoy’s warnings ring in her ears. That she could kill everyone, or maybe something worse.
That feels terrifyingly doable.

Her mouth goes dry and she swallows.

Control, Hermione.

But she doesn’t want to. She wants to murder him.

Cormac whimpers like a cornered animal.

The air around her is rippling with heat, like standing too close to a fire. There are singe
marks appearing on his robes and the envelope in his hands spontaneously combusts, gone in
less than an instant.

Cormac gives a small scream.

She believes Malfoy’s warning now. This can’t be a source, this has to be something else.
Something new.

Her head is throbbing, getting light, as if she’s bleeding out, the magic flowing too fast even
though she’s not trying to do anything.

Stay in control, Hermione. Deal with Cormac.

“If you cause problems for me, I am going to make you suffer. ” She sounds ice cold, but
inside she’s burning. She’s burning.

Her words come fast and she can barely hear the words over the roar of blood in her ears.

“If there is a hint of anything, if the Ministry or anyone else bothers me, I will assume it’s
your fault. If you try to run, I will find you, no matter where you go or hide, and when I do, I
will tear your magic out of you by the roots, I will rip it straight from your soul. Do you
understand?”

She doesn’t know if she can actually do any of that but Cormac doesn’t know, and she feels
so power-riven that she suspects she could if she wanted to. She could do anything.

His magic is fragile, and hers is real, as tangible as the castle they’re standing in.

Cormac nods, looking like he’s about to wet himself.

“Say it.”

“I — understand.”

She lets herself breathe then, feeling a little calmer, a bit more in control.
“Good.” She draws a deep breath, and an idea comes to her. “I want you to find out how Rita
Skeeter is getting stories about me. You have a week”

She leaves Cormac trembling in the owlery, promising over and over, to find out anything she
wants. As soon as she gets a safe distance away, she collapses against a wall, fighting to drag
the magic back under control, it feels as if it’s spread out from her, filling all the space around
her, and if she’s not careful, that everything around her will begin unravelling. She has to get
it back inside.

She braces herself and pulls but it’s like trying to inhale all the oxygen inside a room.

The room spins around her, and she slumps to the floor.

Her vision is tunnelling.

She tells herself very firmly that she’s not going to pass out. She refuses to out of sheer
willpower. But the tunnel gets longer and longer until the room is a speck in the distance, she
grasps wildly towards it.

Then it’s gone.

Darkness rushes in.

She wakes with a blistering pain in her head, and her whole body is singed on the inside.

She doesn’t even have to invent an excuse to skip classes, she’s sick and exhausted and
doesn’t dare cast a spell. She’s half-afraid to even think one.

She declines Harry and Ron’s offers to walk her to Hogsmeade on Wednesday, even though
she feels guilty for excluding them when they’re make an effort to keep ‘the trio’ intact.
There's a part of her that wants to finally come clean, tell them everything, show them what
she can do so they can be part of it, but she's afraid of how they'll react. What they'll say if
they find out she's been learning the Dark Arts from Malfoy. It's only been in the last few
weeks that Ron’s stopped acting like he’s just waiting for her to start dating him, and things
to feel almost normal again. If she tells them what she's been doing, she's afraid it'll mess
everything up again.

She tells them it’s too late to get permission slips to leave school grounds just to escort her.
Ron grumbles about what a stickler she is as she hugs them both, and sets out with nervous
anticipation, a weekend bag clutched in her hands.

She’s only halfway to Hogsmeade when she catches sight of a flash of blond in the forest
along the road. It’s Malfoy, and it’s the first time she’s seen him wearing something besides
his school uniform.

Or swim trunks, her brain helpfully reminds her.

Her cheeks get hot as walks towards him and forcefully tries to banish the image.
He’s wearing an ambiguous mix of wizarding and almost Muggle-ish attire, as if trying to
blend in but not knowing how. His hands are hidden in the pockets of a long, black wool coat
with its collar turned up, covering his face to the cheekbones, as if his most telling feature
isn’t the bright silver-blond hair.

He doesn’t greet her, just glancing up the road to see if she’s being followed before holding
out an arm towards her.

She looks sceptically from his arm to his face. Is he planning to 'escort' her to the Hogsmeade
train? Arm in arm?

He just holds his arm out more forcefully. “Haven’t you side-along apparated before?”

Oh, of course they're not taking the train. She kicks herself for immediately realising that.

She hasn’t ever tried side-along apparition. She knows about it, of course. There were
supposed to be apparition lessons around Christmas time for Sixth Years, but the tournament
and ball have derailed the usual academic schedule. She grabs the wool sleeve of his coat,
gripping tightly.

“Don’t let go,” is all the warning she gets.

They vanish.

It’s like being violently crushed into herself while travelling at the speed of light. The
universe bends around them. The outside of her body is all trying to get into the inside and
she would scream if she were physically capable of it.

They reappear in an alley, and Hermione nearly topples into a bin as she flails about gasping
and trying to recover herself.

“How is that legal?” she chokes out.

“It gets easier once you know what to expect,” Malfoy says, looking unphased as if being
disassembled, blended, and reconstituted is normal. “Side-along feels worse.”

When she glares at him for mentioning this only after the fact, but he only shrugs
unrepentantly. “How would you get us here?”

She looks around, not knowing where ‘here’ even is. It looks — Muggle. “ Where are we?”

He opens his mouth to answer and then pauses. “I don’t know. It’s a Muggle town.
Somewhere in England, I think. Maybe Ireland. I'm pretty sure it's England.”

He walks towards the main road, glancing around apprehensively before stepping out. She
follows him. For someone who doesn’t know where they are, he seems to know where he’s
going. Although he stiffens and recoils just slightly every time he sees a Muggle, like he
expects them to all suddenly come at him with pitchforks.
Hermione looks around as she follows him. The town is fairly nondescript, not particularly
touristy, which means there's no signs anywhere saying which part of England they're in.
“How do you not know where we are?”

“I was brought here before,” he says under his breath. “That’s all you need with apparition.
The name and exact geographic location wasn't important, so I wasn’t told.”

He stops in front of an inn, his eyebrows furrowing as he reads the sign to verify what it is,
before announcing, “We’ll stay here,” and going in.

If Hermione were to grade Malfoy on trip planning, he’d get T, for troll, because he is the
worst trip planner ever.

He walks straight up to the desk and proceeds to pull out an obscene amount of Muggle
money while requesting a room.

Room. Singular.

Hermione has to remind him that they need two, while she picks up several bundles of pound
notes and shoves them back into his pockets, praying that they don’t get mistaken for bank
robbers, because what kind of insane person walks around with that much money in their
pockets? Rich idiot.

It’s clear that he has absolutely no comprehension of conversion rates.

Then, Malfoy almost gives his own name but realises belatedly that he shouldn’t, and stalls,
apparently never having come up with a pseudonym before. Hermione quickly supplies the
first name that comes to mind, Wilkins. Wendell and Monica Wilkins. She registers
immediately after very confidently announcing the names that she just gave them the same
surname, and has to say with a straight face that she and Malfoy are not married, they’re
siblings.

She’s astonished that they somehow manage to still get the keys.

Once they’re on their way up the stairs, instead of apologising for being completely useless,
Malfoy just complains about being named Wendell and very helpfully tells her in no
uncertain terms that no one would ever, ever, ever mistake them for siblings.

The two rooms are side by side, Hermione takes the first, unlocking it and relocking it the
moment she’s inside to make clear that Malfoy is not welcome and that she doesn’t care at all
about how much he hates the name Wendell Wilkins.

She checks the bathroom, peeks into a little closet, and then goes further to find the bed,
tucked in against one wall. Everything is neat and tidy. It’s actually quite nice. She drops her
bag at the foot of the bed.

She looks out the window at the street below and then beyond, trying to spot a landmark or
something to give her a sense of where they are. There’s a thick fog beginning to descend and
she can just barely make out a forest in the distance.

There’s a rap at her door.

Malfoy’s standing there and seems to have worked through the stages of grief regarding his
fake name. He’s all business again. “We should go before it gets dark.”

He ignores her questions about exactly where they’re needing to go, and who they’re seeing
as they return to the alley.

As he holds out his arm for her, he takes a deep breath. “If he’s not there tonight, we’ll have
to keep going back.”

They reappear at the edge of the forest Hermione had seen from the window.

The air around the forest is cold and uninviting. It’s unsettling down into her bones. She starts
to pull away, but Malfoy catches her by the wrist.

“Ignore it,” he says, pulling her with him towards the trees. “It’s just a repelling charm.”

He presses a small knot on the trunk of a tree. The branches peel back, revealing a crooked
path that leads straight into darkness.

He steps onto it, tugging her forward. “Come on, we have to move quickly.”

The path winds, meandering and Malfoy moves along it rapidly, not running but never
letting his steps slow no matter how many roots and dips there are.

There’s a crack and rustling behind them. Hermione looks over her shoulder to see the
branches and trees shifting back into place, closing the opening, and the path vanishing,
following them as they hurry deeper into the forest.

Whoever lives here is not fond of visitors.

Within minutes, they’re practically sprinting to stay out of reach of the closing pathway and,
because of that, she runs headlong into Malfoy when he comes to a sudden stop. The forest
behind them goes quiet as she stares over his shoulder at a dark cottage that sits in the centre
of a clearing.

A cold, dimming light filters down through the trees to illuminate a slouched building that
looks on the verge of collapse, as if it’s only upright out of sheer obstinance. The cottage is
humped in the middle with a thick thatched roof that runs down to the ground, resembling an
old woman wearing a shawl while hunched down in the centre of her garden.

And what a garden it is. Every plant that grows is deadly poisonous, both muggle and
magical. Henbane and aconite, wormwood, white snakeroot, rosary peas, oleander, and
devil’s trumpet. Full beds of amanita muscaria with their recognizable red spotted caps and
other toxic mushrooms grow along the walls of the cottage. There are other plants Hermione
doesn’t recognise, and a number that shouldn’t be able to grow in England, but there they are,
in bloom, as if it were summer in this cold, dank forest.
 Even more ominous than the plants themselves are the row of beehives along the thicket
fence. They emanate a low steady hum in the air. Hermione knows that at least some of the
properties in the plants here can be transferred through their pollen. A drop of that honey
would be laced with toxins, their telltale tastes hidden but still lethal.

Malfoy is unconcerned, barely glancing at the plants as he walks through the poison garden
to the door of the cottage, rapping twice while Hermione picks her way carefully after him,
evading a grasping Venomous Tentacula that tries to twine around her ankle. Beneath its
spiky green branches, the bones of little animals lie half-buried in the garden mulch.

When she reaches Malfoy, he glances at her. “Don’t make eye contact.”

Before she can ask why the door swings open.

If Hermione had time to expect anything, she would have assumed the house belonged to a
hag from a children’s story, with a long nose covered in warts, sharpened teeth, green hair
and toadstools.

Instead, a hook-nosed man with a sallow face and black eyes glares at them.

“What do you want, Draco?”

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

Get Used To You Like This by enselius_art

An Angry Boy by te al latte
Hermione and the Water Serpent by _instantcrush_
Yule Ball Dance by jischw
In The Clock Tower by bubs_bean
Antagonism at First Sight by _instantcrush
Falling by browniekim.art
The Triwizard Champions by camiiiie4
Melting by lvmaruva
Perpetually Fighting by te al latte
 Severus Snape
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Malfoy is unfazed by the cold welcome and the baleful way that he’s being glared at.

“Sir,” is all he says in greeting before glancing at Hermione. “This is Severus Snape.”

That is all that he manages to say before they’re both unceremoniously dragged inside,
through a cramped hallway and then into an even more cramped sitting room, filled with
bookshelves that all look to be on the verge of collapse. With a harshly snapped order not to
touch anything, Severus Snape sweeps into another room, black robes flapping around him
like a darting bat. Hermione catches a glimpse of an enormous cauldron emanating a sickly
orange glow before he looks back and catches her. She looks away quickly, but the door
between the two rooms slams shut.

She rounds on Malfoy.

“Who is that?” she asks in a loud whisper.

”Snape. One of my summer tutors,” Malfoy says, immediately ignoring the order not to touch
anything by picking up and fidgeting with a small mechanical bird that sits on the mantel.

Hermione glances around. “And what does he — do?”

“Pest control,” Malfoy says in a bland voice.

Hermione gives him a piercing glare that he fails to notice because the bird has transformed
into a small snake that slithers down his hand before taking the form of a bracelet around his
wrist. He holds his hand up and looks admiringly at it.

“What kind of ‘pests’?”

“Oh you know,” he pokes at a few books until one tries to bite him, and then draws his hand
away, rubbing a knuckle ruefully, “anything bothersome. There was one time, I heard where
he —”

“Be quiet,” comes a harsh voice from the doorway as Snape appears bearing a tea service and
a resentful scowl. “Your intrusion nearly ruined a potion I have spent the seven months
brewing. Sit down, both of you.”

They seat themselves on a sofa while Snape settles himself into a deep but very cramped-
looking armchair. He sits there, pouring tea only for himself with spidery long fingers, all
while glaring at them with bone-corroding rage. Finally, he speaks again.

“I believe, Draco…” his voice is unexpectedly silken, “that when I brought you here, I said
that you were never to reveal this location to anyone.”
Malfoy ignores the tangible threat of murder in the undertone of his tutor’s voice and clears
his throat. “I need your expertise on a — personal matter.”

Hermione has to fight the urge to turn and glare at Malfoy, who said just a minute earlier that
Snape’s expertise was ‘pest control’.

The only reason she doesn’t is because she feels it’s best for them to present a united front,
and she’s sure that Malfoy didn’t bring her here to have her killed because that would
interfere with his Unbreakable Vow.

However, she feels less confident about murder being entirely off the table when Snape turns
his beady black gaze on her, a probing, analytic stare, as if calculating how much she weighs
in case he needs to dissolve her body in acid.

“Indeed.” The moment her eyes meet his, something subtle as a shadow grazes against the
inside of her consciousness.

Her magic reacts with the force of a gong going off in her skull. She starts, almost upsetting
the entire table and tea service as she clutches at her head.

“What was that? What did you —” she stammers out, but the feeling’s gone as quick as it
came and her voice falters.

Snape’s eyebrows furrow and he looks back at Malfoy with an expression of disbelief. “Isn’t
this Hogwarts’ Champion? The Muggle-born?”

The question is met with a guilty silence.

Snape’s glare somehow intensifies. “Draco, what have you done? And please,” he bites out
the nicety, “get directly to the point. I have a portkey activating in an hour, and I will not miss
it, not even for you.”

Malfoy straightens as if a fire’s been lit beneath him. “We need information on Black Magic.”

Black Magic.

Hermione can’t help but feel disappointed that the name for it isn’t something more clever
and less obvious. That’s what it’s called? Black Magic because ‘oh look, it’s black coloured
magic’. Honestly, no one takes naming things seriously.

She’d hoped for something in Latin or at least more ominous, like ‘shadow casting’ or maybe
—

She pauses in her mental diatribe because Snape is staring at Malfoy as if he’s completely
lost his mind.

“No,” is all he says.

“Please, sir,” Malfoy says, the words sounding forced, desperate, “It’s important.”
Snape’s expression hardens, and there’s a tangible shift in his demeanour, from very irritated
to deadly serious.

He glances at Hermione as if reevaluating her, moving her out of one box and into a new one
and then turns his attention back to Malfoy again.

It irritates her, being treated as if she’s so simple and easily quantifiable that a mere glance is
all it takes to put her in her place. The lack of effort required for the insult is a slender wedge
sliding between the cracks of her newly fragile sense of self-control.

Her magic seethes and sharpens inside her chest. She’s been holding it in ever since crossing
paths with Cormac, and it’s beginning to feel like she’s been holding her breath for too long.
It’s mostly a low throb that she can ignore, but it’s causing a dizzy strain in her head from the
effort.

She flexes her fingers, trying not to move, and forces herself to stay calm.

Snape is Malfoy’s acquaintance. If this is the person Malfoy hopes to get information from,
then she should let him do it. As long as she gets answers, it doesn’t matter what he thinks of
her.

Instead of answering, something offensively pitying enters Snape’s expression as he studies

Malfoy. He lets out a soft sigh.

“Draco,” his voice is soft as velvet, “I know your family is hard on you, but Black Magic will
solve nothing.”

“I —” Malfoy starts to argue, but Snape cuts him off, his voice hardening.

“No. I taught you a number of things your parents didn’t want you to know, but there is a
reason it is forbidden magic. You cannot imagine what it would require. Whatever dreams
you have of proving yourself, Black Magic will not be the solution you think it is.”

Snape inhales and his eyes drop as his voice grows sympathetic again. “You are young. I’m
sure you feel old enough to make that choice, but I assure you, you cannot even begin to
comprehend it. I don’t say this lightly, but I would sooner see you follow Regulus than
consider Black Magic.”

Malfoy pales, red spots appearing in the hollows of his cheeks.

“That’s not why I'm here. I’m not an idiot, I’m not trying to use Black Magic, I’m trying to
figure out how to control hers.” He gestures towards Hermione with a jerk of his chin.

Snape doesn’t even glance in her direction this time, only scoffs, sipping his tea.

“I doubt a Hogwarts schooled Muggle-born has any proficiency in the Dark Arts. Certainly
not Black Magic.” His lip curls. “Really, Draco, I expect better lies from you at this age. I
admit, I’m impressed you managed to lure her here, but did you really think a story like that
would convince me?”
Anger ignites in Hermione’s chest. She’s not going to sit there and let Snape insult her and
treat her like some ninny that Malfoy can manipulate.

“Then what’s this?” she asks as she shoves her hand forward and opens it, letting the black
flames spark to life right in Snape’s face.

It’s wondrous. She has to bite back the sigh of relief. After keeping the power bottled up for
several days, letting it out again is like getting drunk on pure oxygen. It hits her faster than
firewhisky.

She keeps her expression calm, with just a hint of mockery, even though it takes a supreme
effort to control all the magic bleeding out of her like ink in water. She can feel it spreading
through the air, illuminating everything around her. The spells and enchantments in the room,
and the house beyond. All the magical plants outside, their roots reaching down, drawing
from potent stirring magic in the earth. Snape’s magic, dark and secretive. And Malfoy
beside her, cool and sharp as crystal. It calls to her. A resonance only she can hear.

The world on strings that she controls.

Her breath shortens and the shadow flares larger.

Maybe Snape will take her seriously if she burns his house down.

She could.

Why shouldn’t she? People should take her seriously, be afraid of her, learn not to –

A hard hand clamps around her wrist. “Stop it.”

She looks over and finds Malfoy glaring at her.

At her, as if she’s the one doing something wrong.

“I’m just making a point,” she says defensively, trying to twist her hand free, even though
she’d forgotten the point for a moment. As he stares at her with incredulous anger, she
remembers again that using her magic is incredibly dangerous.

She draws a sharp breath, bracing herself as she pulls the magic back in. Again it feels like
she let out too much and now it barely fits. She has to crush it inside herself, holding it like
an over-large breath inside her lungs. There’s too much to contain, pressing against her skin,
throbbing through her veins, and burning inside her lungs.

Her head spins as it fights to escape her control. Power ricochets through her nerves and
darkness bursts through her mind, swift and violent.

She can’t see for several seconds, and when the room swims back into view, her ears are
ringing. She’s fallen back on the sofa and Malfoy’s leaning over her, his hand still wrapped
around her wrist. Her vision tunnels and she clutches at him, feeling as if she’d briefly
atomised.
She’s going to fall again. Through empty space until she's nowhere and everywhere and
maybe even Malfoy won’t be able to drag her back!

The feeling passes after a moment, and when it does, she finds Malfoy rather
compromisingly leaning over her as she slumps back with both her hands tangled in the front
of his coat, gripping him for dear life.

Snape is staring at them both as if they just dropped a dead body in front of him.

“Draco,” he utters the name like it’s a profanity. “ How did this happen?”

She and Malfoy simultaneously spring apart, and it’s hard to say which of them looks more
mortified.

“I don’t know.” Malfoy’s blushing, refusing to look at her. “She showed up on Friday night
coming apart with magic, so drunk she was barely aware of half the things she was doing. I
thought it was a curse at first, that someone had fucked up a ritual or poisoned her. She’d
been at some event of Slughorn’s. But she had casting burns—she showed them to me. That’s
when I knew she’d used Black Magic, but she kept going on about sources and didn’t seem to
realise it had been anything different.” His expression is frayed. “I swear, she shouldn’t be
able to. I tested her — months ago — and there was no —”

Hermione stiffens. “You did what?”

Malfoy blanches, swallows, and gets a shifty look about him. “I mean — I just —”

“You tested me? Months ago?” She narrows her eyes. “When did you test me?”

He clears his throat, still averting his eyes. “It wasn’t exactly a —”

“When?”

“After you tried Elemental Magic the first time, at the lake,” he says, his shoulders reaching
his ears. “The magic that caused the fog didn’t look right.”

“You —” she chokes with outrage. “You said it was accidental magic!”

He shifts awkwardly, ducking his chin behind the collar of his coat. “Well — you did do it —
accidentally.”

She wants to bludgeon him with something, perhaps the teapot. She’s seething mad. “How
exactly did you test me?”

He glances away and mumbles, “The Blood Magic. I thought it would be obvious – that you
wouldn’t be able to hide the signs of Black Magic then. It should have shown up. I don’t
know how it didn’t.”

Of course. That snake, showing up in the library and prompting her to ‘pick a hand,’ even
though he’d probably been holding Blood Replenishing potion in both hands. Baiting her.
Watching her. All these months. Because he knew and he just let her stumble around blind,
not understanding what she was dealing with.

“And?”

He shakes his head. “It was normal – enough, so I thought I’d imagined it. No one is
accidentally a Black Magic wielder, that’s not how it works!”

“You two may be the most idiotic pair I have ever had the misfortune of meeting,” Snape
says, interrupting them both with a venomous expression. “As if you know anything at all
about Black Magic, Draco. Start at the beginning and explain exactly how all of this
happened.”

Malfoy straightens with a sigh of relief that Snape is finally listening.

Hermione still wants to hit him.

“Several months ago —” Malfoy begins.

“No, no. Not you, Draco,” Snape says in a cool voice. “I’m not asking for the sanitised
version, which you have undoubtedly rehearsed several times before coming to me. It’s clear
to everyone how much you enjoy leaving things out. I want to hear her version of events.” He
looks at Hermione, his eyes glittering and he’s not dismissing her anymore.“Perhaps you
could begin with how you became so — intimately acquainted with Draco.”

Hermione and Malfoy both blush.

“We’re not — intimate,“ she says quickly, “it’s strictly an academic — I mean, you see,
several months ago, we made a – ”

She glances at Malfoy, who’s shaking his head vigorously to warn her not to mention the
Unbreakable Vows. Unfortunately, she has no idea how she’s supposed to explain their
relationship otherwise.

“It’s — a long story,” she finally says, hoping they can jump straight to the Black Magic part
and omit all the lead up. “I really don’t think we have time to go over it all.”

Snape just folds his arms. “I would suggest you hurry, or I can pour a phial of Veritaserum
down your throat and drag the answers out.”

Hermione bristles and scowls belligerently. “That’s illegal.”

Snape raises one eyebrow, taking a sip of tea. “So is using Black Magic and teaching a
Muggle-born the Dark Arts. I doubt the Ministry will care about unauthorised Veritaserum
use in a case like this,” he says with a savage calm.

Hermione gapes at him.

Malfoy makes an entirely undignified noise beside her. “It is not!”

Snape levels him with a glare. “And you would know this, how? Did you actually think to
check?”

“No one has ever —”

Malfoy’s voice abruptly cuts off.

Snape sets down his wand and sneers at him. ”You know nothing, Draco. Be quiet.”

Malfoy sneers right back and makes several rude hand gestures, but Snape ignores him,
staring so piercingly at Hermione that she’s beginning to miss the moments when she wasn’t
worth paying attention to. Obviously Malfoy had a plan and now he’s silenced and she’s
supposed to pick up where he left off, but he didn’t tell her about the plan.

Absolutely the worst trip planner.

Without a doubt.

“It’s Miss — Granger, isn’t it?” Snape inquires in his soft, dangerous voice.

She gives a nervous nod.

Snape gestures lazily towards her with an open hand. “Begin. And leave nothing out.”

She doesn’t know what story to tell other than the truth, so she starts from the beginning.
When she mentions the wager, Malfoy winces and puts on the air of a martyr, while Snape
looks like he wants to flay him. When she tells him about their Unbreakable Vows, Snape
becomes so incensed she fears he may begin smoking. He turns on Malfoy and berates him
for an entire minute.

Malfoy sits, forced to accept the myriad of insults in an aggrieved silence until Snape is
nearly breathless with rage that he has to stop and signal for her to continue.

Hermione ignores the instructions not to leave anything out and omits as many details as she
can, all her arguments with Malfoy do not feel nearly so witty when recited before Snape,
and the idea of disclosing things like the almost kiss by the lake, the entire prefect bath
debacle, or her near-murder of Cormac are completely out of the question.

She keeps her version of events focused on Slughorn’s party and the Green Fairy Spirits and
how it was probably alcohol that allowed Hermione to finally reach her source, not a
blistering desire to commit murder and burn the Wizarding World to the ground.

Snape barely seems to even be listening by the end. He keeps glancing at Malfoy, who
assiduously avoids meeting his tutor’s eyes.

When she finishes, Snape barely notices. He sits glaring at Malfoy, looking like he’s trying to
drill a hole in his head, while Malfoy stares back as unexpressive as a brick wall.

Finally Snape sighs with exasperation and stops. “You told her purebloods have sources?”
Malfoy opens his mouth to argue, but no sound comes out. Snape flicks his fingers and the
silencing charm vanishes.

“No,” Malfoy immediately says, shaking his head. “I never said that.”

Hermione scoffs. “Yes, you did! That very first time in the Come and Go Room, you said that
Wizarding magic isn’t a nebulous source but a flame in the soul passed down, and if I wanted
to practise magic, the way purebloods do, then I had to recognise it. I don’t have family
artefacts, so I went — inward. It was the only way.”

Malfoy’s mouth hangs ajar.

“That — “ he splutters. “It was a metaphor.”

Hermione looks at him blankly.

“It’s —” he groans and buries his face in his hands, “it’s something my father likes to say. It
wasn’t literal. I didn’t mean it literally.”

She opens her mouth to say something scathing, but no words come out because she has not
just spent the last five months attempting to do something metaphorical. She refuses to
believe it.

“But — then what have I been doing?” she finally manages to ask, not bothering to mask her
outrage.

“Discovering Black Magic as an illegal extracurricular project,” says Snape in a dry voice.
His outrage appears to be spent. He looks very tired as he sits, stirring what is his third or
fourth cup of tea, as if it’s all that’s sustaining him through the current trial.

Hermione looks expectantly at him, waiting for him to expound, but he offers no further
information.

Do answers have to be pried out of everyone?

“What is Black Magic?” she finally asks through gritted teeth.

Snape sets the spoon aside and wraps his eerily long fingers around his cup. “Black Magic is
the rare ability to channel pure magic.”

“That’s what Black Magic is?” Malfoy sits forward, and now he looks indignant. “But you
told me pure magic can’t be channelled, that it wasn’t even possible.”

“Yes, because I lied to you,” Snape says in a bland voice. “Your parents had no desire to have
their son learn anything that would get him killed or thrown into Azkaban.”

Malfoy’s eyes bulge and he looks ready to combust. “Anything else you lied about that I
should know?” His voice is vicious, but Snape is unphased.
“I’m sure there are, but I can’t recall all of them. I’ve been teaching you for so many years
now. If I’d known what a fool you’d turn out to be, I wouldn’t have even taught you about
Unbreakable Vows,” he replies with a delicate degree of spite as he sips his tea. “However, as
I am leaving in fifteen minutes, I believe you have more pressing topics to discuss than your
private education. It is pre-eminently clear that neither of you has any idea what you have
done.”

Hermione is tempted to say that she did the majority of the work, but generously decides to
let Malfoy share the blame.

“Why is using Black Magic illegal?” she asks with an edge of impatience creeping into her
voice.

She took three days off school to be here and so far she’s done most of the talking while
Snape sits drinking tea and interrogating them.

“Because,” he enunciates the word slowly, “it is dangerous. Because its wielders have a
tendency towards using it to do terrible things. And,” he pauses as if debating what he’s about
to say next, “because the ability has always been found predominantly in Muggle-borns.”

Hermione knows that Snape just used the words ‘dangerous’ and ‘terrible’ and Malfoy
already made similar claims, but a small part of her still can’t help but feel smug at this news.

She tries to conceal her sense of triumph, but Malfoy doesn’t miss it.

“Why Muggle-borns?” he asks, as if he is suddenly the disenfranchised party.

Snape leans back into his chair, pressing his fingertips together. “You know how magic
behaves, Draco. Once it finds a place to accumulate, it does so by assimilating itself; it takes
on the traits and characteristics of the source. In inanimate objects, the power simply builds,
but within anything living, the magic is utilised, channelled. This is true of any magical being
or creature you can think of. It even applies to magical plant life. However, there is an odd
exception to the rule. Muggle-born children suppress their magic as a result of their
environment. They don’t know how to treat it as a natural extension of themselves. They’re
afraid of it, they don’t understand it. As a result, it often manifests uncontrollably during
emotional outbursts. The more it develops, the more it tends to be suppressed.”

Snape taps together his index fingers. “The trouble is, the more it builds, the more magic is
drawn in, it has nowhere to overflow in the way it would in an element, it isn’t being used,
and so eventually Muggle-borns can become a vortex of power. If the suppression goes on for
long enough, it builds to the point of being more magic than they can assimilate for casting,
and the strain tears the channel open. When that happens, the power that comes through is
raw and overly malleable. It’s considered pure magic because it has no traits of assimilation
the way most magic does. But Black Magic has always been the more popular and —
preferred name for it.”

“It’s not just found in Muggle-borns, though. There are stories of purebloods using Black
Magic,” Malfoy says.
Snape rolls his eyes. “Yes, purebloods do occasionally wield Black Magic, but it’s a
manufactured ability, achieved through external overload rather than internal suppression:
over-channelling elements, imbibing certain potions, and other procedures intended to exceed
the amount of magic a body can physically endure. Occasionally, the process will rend a
channel within the body. However, it has a disproportionately high failure rate. The wizards
who manage it don’t emerge with their sanity intact, although mutilating one’s self into a
state of greater power is hardly a choice anyone sane would make. In Muggle-borns, it’s what
you might call a natural phenomenon under the right circumstances.”

“Nevermind purebloods,” Hermione says, unable to hide her impatience. “What I don’t
understand is if Black Magic is something Muggle-borns naturally can do, why aren’t there
more of us who can do it? Do they just not know how to? How long has this been around?”

Snape glances towards the ceiling. “It was the thirteenth or fourteenth century, I believe.
Back when most of the advancements of the Dark Arts were being made.”

Seven hundred years ago? Hermione is reeling at this. Then that means Black Magic is
known, studied—there must be techniques and research on it.

“What happened then?”

Snape raises an eyebrow. “It was determined to be too dangerous. The Wizengamot voted
unanimously that the study of Black Magic be outlawed and abandoned until it disappeared
from memory. It’s illegal to even directly refer to it in modern writing.”

Hermione scoffs at that. “What do you mean, abandoned? If it’s the nature of magic to make
Muggle-borns capable of Black Magic, other people can’t just decide to un-discover it. You
can’t reverse progress like that. Even the Unforgivables, you can make laws preventing their
use, but they don’t disappear.”

Snape simply stares at her, condescension in his long face. “And why do you think the Dark
Arts are so carefully kept among purebloods nowadays?”

Hermione’s chest clenches, and she feels idiotic for not having just immediately understood
why Black Magic can be seven hundred years old and yet she’s never heard of it.

Malfoy chooses this moment to be voluntarily and damningly silent, with no arguing or
indignation or scepticism.

She inhales.“Do you mean to say that the reason Muggle-borns aren’t allowed to study the
Dark Arts and can’t go to Dark Arts schools like Durmstrang is to keep us from realising we
have Black Magic?”

Even as she asks it, she realises the question is rhetorical. Of course. Of course that’s why.
It’s never been because Muggle-borns can’t use the Dark Arts.

Still, a part of her refuses to accept it.

“That still doesn’t make sense though,” her voice is tense. “The Muggle-borns who could use
Black Magic wouldn’t have abandoned it because the purebloods or the Wizengamot didn’t
like it. They would have taught other Muggle-borns themselves. In secret, if they had to.”
Her throat tightens and she swallows. “They must have.”

Her mind is spinning with possibilities, heart already racing at the thought.

What if there’s a school for learning Black Magic? A secret one, formed without Ministry
approval. Somewhere that Purebloods just don’t know about. Maybe they’re waiting for
Muggle-borns like Hermione to find them.

If she could go there —

They would want her.

“I assume you’ve studied at least a degree of Wizarding history, Miss Granger. Consider the
period we’re discussing.” Snape’s condescending voice disrupts her thoughts like fingernails
on a chalkboard. “Wizarding Europe was in the midst of an era of discovery. The Dark Arts
were widespread. Alchemy was at its peak. Flamel created a Philosopher’s Stone. Many of
the potions still used today were first developed at that time, such as Floo Powder, and, if you
believe in children’s tales, the Deathly Hallows were invented at that time as well. All in the
span of approximately a hundred and fifty years. Can you think of any other periods in
wizarding history with comparable advancements?”

Hermione shakes her head.

He stares at her, his expression a mixture of sardonic and condescending. “Why do you think
it stopped? All that?”

“We’re not here for a history lesson. That’s not important,” Malfoy cuts in abruptly, with a
sharp edge to his voice. “We came for practical information. What does Black Magic do?
How does she control it? What happens if she keeps using it?”

Hermione turns on him with a glare, wanting to tell him to shut up. S he very much wants to
know what happened. But Malfoy’s not looking at her or Snape. His gaze is fastened on the
clock.

Their time is running out.

Snape sets his teacup down. “I’m flattered, Draco, that you think I would have any personal
experience with Black Magic, but until today, I’d never seen anyone use it.”

Hermione and Malfoy both stare at him in disbelief, and he spends several seconds appearing
to enjoy their horror.

“Fortunately for you,” he finally continues, “I have read a few books on the subject, as it’s a
source of personal curiosity.”

“And?” Malfoy isn’t even attempting to conceal his impatience.

“Black Magic varies in every wielder. Magic is, by its nature, malleable. Black Magic takes
that to the extreme. It is change. It can alter almost anything into what that its possessor
desires, whether that desire is conscious or subconscious.”

A thrill tingles through Hermione, her fingers flexing involuntarily. Can she really do
anything ? No more drilling spells and wand movements until her head feels ready to crack
open from the rote memorisation. Not even struggling to connect and channel elements? Just
power and ability.

“But it’s dangerous,” Malfoy says, apparently determined to ruin everything.

Snape nods, studying Hermione with a look of disapproval as if he can see her churning
thoughts. “Yes. Anyone with sense would stay far away from such power. Desires wrought
with Black Magic are not easily reversed. Desires are intensely emotional, and emotions do
not generally consider potential consequences. When what’s rational and emotional collide,
the magic will choose the emotion.”

Something inside Hermione turns ice cold.

That is why she couldn’t heal Cormac after she’d hurt him, even though she’d needed to. She
had wanted to hurt him. Even when she knew she needed to heal him, it wasn’t enough to
outweigh her anger. Even obliviating him had been a struggle because deep down, she didn’t
want him to forget, she’d wanted him to be afraid of her forever. She’d managed to make him
forget it was her, but he didn’t forget his fear.

That’s why the magic doesn’t cast well unless she is determined and forceful, because she has
to want it, not just in her head, it has to be a feeling, she has to will it and make it bend. It’s
when she makes the magic do what she’s decided, that her hands burn.

“Is it —“ Malfoy hesitates, searching for the right word, “ doing anything to her?” His voice
is tight. “Will something happen if she keeps using it?”

Snape stares at him without blinking. “It depends entirely on her.”

But Malfoy doesn’t seem to believe him. “What’s the cost?” he demands, his voice
challenging. “There has to be a cost. You’re the one who always said that magic never comes
free.”

Snape inhales sharply. “That is the rule of the Dark Arts, Black Magic follows its own rules,
bears its own consequences. After all, tearing one’s magic open is not something that happens
on a whim.”

He looks pointedly at Hermione as he says this, and she knows then he wasn’t at all
convinced by her vague explanation that getting drunk and trying Green Fairy Spirits made
her spontaneously capable of Black Magic.

He taps his fingers impatiently on the arm of his chair. “That’s why it’s considered such a
danger. If the power came with a proportionate consequence each time it was utilised, there’d
be less to fear.”
Malfoy still appears unconvinced. “She had casting burns.”

“Yes, but they won’t kill her. She has enough magic, she’ll regenerate from them naturally.”
He stares hard at Malfoy. “You are in much more immediate danger.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hermione asks, her voice raised in order to ensure she’s
answered.

Snape lifts one shoulder. “There’s nothing like Black Magic in the world, it’s difficult to
explain how anomalous it is to think of a human channelling that degree of power. Think of
yourself as a tear in the fabric of reality. A single thread imbued with what some believe is
the power of the universe itself. How long do you think you can contain it before it
overpowers you? When that happens, there will be a blast radius and fallout. Draco will be
the one closest to it.”

“You think Malfoy is the person closest to me?” Hermione says, staring at him
incredulously.

Snape raises an eyebrow. “I don’t see anyone else.”

Hermione huffs and then stammers. “That’s just because he brought me.”

“And does anyone else know about your new abilities?” Snape’s voice is sweetened arsenic.

Hermione swallows and heat rises to her face. “N-no.”

His lips disappear as he presses them together, studying her as if she’s an exotic variety of
cockroach. “Then my point stands.” He exhales lightly. “Not that it’s any concern of mine.
Your time is up.”

She blinks, startled by the abrupt conclusion of the conversation as he stands and walks away
without another word.

“Wait!” She nearly lunges after him. She needs more information. He’s barely told them
anything.

He’s already walking down the hallway, his robes catching in the air and flitting as he moves
rapidly down the narrow passage into another room.

She follows him, having to scramble over boxes and piles of books and other odds and ends
to keep up. “Wait. You can’t leave. I need to know more. You said you read books about it.
Do you have them?”

“No,” is the curt reply.

She grits her teeth. Why is it never that easy?

She has a thousand questions. She doesn’t even know which one she’s most desperate to have
answered. She scrabbles through them. “At least tell me what happened to the Muggle-borns
who first used Black Magic. What could they do and why — why didn’t they make things
better? Didn’t they want to?”

Irritation catches in the corners of Snape’s mouth as he turns to stare at her. The unlit room
makes his black eyes stark and terrifying against his pale skin. “I doubt you would enjoy my
retelling.” He snatches up a travel bag, checks its contents and snaps it shut, his tone turns
mocking. “Might I suggest a library? Oh, no, perhaps not.”

He steps around her, heading into the next room.

The comment catches her like a punch to the throat. Her hands shake and her magic vibrates
through her entire body, dispersing it into the air around her.

She grits her teeth and follows him into the kitchen where he’s syphoning the orange potion
into little glass ampoules.

“You know I can’t get into pureblood libraries,” she says, her voice sharp with frustration.
“Just tell me this. Why waste our time if you weren’t going to give us answers?”

Snape stares at her from over his cauldron. “The reason I spoke to you at all is because Draco
brought you and you made a spectacular scene in my sitting room.” He seems to notice the
way her magic is rippling, threatening to destabilise inside her, and shakes his head
dismissively. “I can’t help you. Furthermore, I have no desire to. What? Did you think I’d be
so impressed that you stumbled blindly into unfathomable power that I would offer my
services free of charge? I’m not a charity. I’m sure the Ministry will notice you very soon,
and I have no desire to be implicated in aiding a criminal.”

“What do you mean?” Malfoy’s voice cuts in. He’s standing in the doorway, the shadows of
the dark corridor making him seem taller.

Snape rolls his eyes. “Come now, Draco, you must realise there are measures in place for
events like this. Do you truly believe she’ll remain undetected for long? I’d give her a month
at most. If you have any sense, you’ll write everything you know about the Dark Arts into a
book, give it to her in fulfilment of that idiotic Vow of yours, and then stay far away. Tell
your parents what you’ve done so that your father can prepare, and let her self-destruct in
peace.”

“I didn’t come here for help with my Vow,” Malfoy says with a sneer.

Snape stares at him with a dour, disappointed expression. “Yes, I’ve realised that.”

Malfoy flushes, but doesn’t look away. “Then will you help me?”

“No,” Snape says flatly, “I will not. Helping you with your illicit relationship with a Black
Magic wielding Muggle-born is not in my job description.”

Hermione's mouth is half-way open to retort that she and Malfoy are absolutely not in any
kind of relationship, illicit or otherwise, but Malfoy speaks first.

“What about – helping me as a friend?”

Snape looks down and sighs, his shoulders drooping, as if he’s annoyed to be having this
conversation. “Draco, I am not your friend. I have never been your friend. Did you really
believe that I had nothing better to do with my time than befriend a thirteen-year-old?”

Malfoy stiffens.

Snape stirs the cauldron vigorously before filling more ampoules, not looking up at him.
“Your parents wanted your grades improved, as well as someone you might ‘confide in’ after
you started going to pieces at Durmstrang. I taught you the basics of occlumency, a few
’contraband’ potions, and then educated you according to your parents’ specifications. Any –
‘friendship’ that you imagined existing was simply a requirement of my employment.”

Hermione can see the muscle in Malfoy’s jaw ripple as he clenches it, but then he raises an
eyebrow with a look of insolence on his face. “If you’re afraid of her, just say so.”

Snape bristles contemptuously. “Anyone with a modicum of sense would be. I’m sure you
expected me to be flattered that you brought this problem to my door, but I am not. I’m no
longer paid to put up with you. See yourself out.”

The mask of insolence slips, and for a split second Hermione glimpses how hurt Malfoy is,
and how hard he’s trying to hide it. He looks shattered.

His fingers curl into an empty fist, and he swallows. “I see,” he finally says. “I’ve wasted
everyone's time, then. I won’t bother you again.”

He turns, fingers snagging Hermione’s wrist and taking her with him as he heads for the door.
The door has a bolt that doesn’t seem to want to budge, and after three tries, trying to move
it, he snaps, swearing viciously at it and bringing his fist down so violently on the bolt she’d
swear he’s split his knuckles on it.

It gives in with a protesting groan, unbolting itself, and creaking open, and Malfoy just
stands there, breathing unevenly, as if he wanted to hit it again.

It’s a stark contrast to the way he acted when they arrived. He was so relaxed, and she
realises now that’s how he is when he’s comfortable. Now it’s gone. The mask is back in
place, that flat look in his eyes, as if everything he’s thinking and feeling is hidden beneath a
mirrored surface.

There’s an irony in it, Hermione would have taken so much pleasure in this altercation a few
months ago. After all, Malfoy’s supposed to be what everyone aspires to, that perfect
pureblood, but she’s close enough now to see now how fake it all is, the shine and prestige a
mould he’s been shoved into and left to suffocate inside. She feels like she should take
pleasure or comfort in finding out that he is also miserable and alone, but instead, she just
feels betrayed by it.

What is the point of the Wizarding World’s structure and system of hierarchy if even Draco
Malfoy is miserable?
 The forest and garden outside is dark now, and it’s started raining. They stand there together,
staring out into the darkness.

“Well, at least we know that Black Magic’s not necessarily bad,” she says, even though
Snape definitely implied that it was mostly bad. “And we know what it is now, so — that’s
good.”

It’s strange being the one trying to see the bright side.

He nods stiffly.

Just before they step outside, Snape’s voice stops them.

“Wait, Draco.” He sounds resigned.

Malfoy turns, glaring at Snape, who looks like he already regrets whatever he’s about to do.

“Do you need something?” Malfoy’s voice is icy.

Snape heaves a dramatic sigh, pressing two fingers against his left temple. “If you are
determined to dig yourself a deeper grave, and there is nothing I can say that will stop you or
convince you to stay away,” he sounds very tired, “then — I would advise visiting the Fawley
Archive.”

Malfoy just looks at him warily. “Fawley. Really?”

Snape gives the barest nod. “You’d be unlikely to encounter anyone there if you brought
along a companion who — shouldn’t be allowed. You might be surprised by the things kept
there due to all the family’s old contracts.”

Malfoy thaws so quickly in response to this advice, it’s almost pathetic. Hermione wants to
shake him, an irrational wave of anger makes her chest clench. He is supposed to be stiff and
unrelenting and entitled. Not human and as desperate as she is.

He nods. “Thank you —”

“Don’t!” Snape snaps, cutting him off. “I’m not helping you. This does not make us friends.
I’m simply making several observations aloud in the comfort of my own home. Now, get out,
and I warn you, if you ever bring anyone here again, I will poison you both.”

He barely flicks his hand and they’re both flung bodily out the door, which slams behind
them.

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

The Misadventures of the Wilkins by te al latte

The Cottage in the Woods by artemisia flora
The Triwizard Champions by _instantcrush_
Shadows like Black Tongues of Flame by nvzch_art
In the Owlry by bubs_bean
Yule Ball Dance by daveka_art
LTDI sketches by te al latte
Cottagecore Snape by te al latte
LTDI dramione meme by te al latte
Let The Dark In Hermione by leulah
 The Fawley Archive
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

“Why didn’t you just tell me about Black Magic? Why did we have to wait until you saw
Snape to even say what it was?” Hermione asks as they finally reach the edge of the forest.
It’s been an extremely wet journey.

Malfoy hasn’t said a word since they left the cottage.

He sighs behind her. “Because in the stories I’ve heard, Black Magic is what the insane Dark
Wizards use, the ones that people still only talk about in whispers. Black Magic is completely
forbidden even at Durmstrang. Looking into it is what got Grindelwald expelled.”

No wonder Snape had been incredulous when he’d brought the subject up. Did he actually
think Malfoy wanted that kind of power in order to defy his parents?

Hermione finds it hard to imagine Malfoy really wanting to hurt them, especially after
watching him emotionally ricochet in response to Snape’s dismissal and begrudging advice.
Beneath that razor sharp exterior, she is beginning to suspect that Draco Malfoy is not nearly
as cruel or cold as he pretends to be.

In fact, he seems rather fragile.

“Well, that explains why you panicked when you saw the burns on my hands. Although,
those wizards were all purebloods, right? So, it’s not the same, really.”

They emerge from the forest and stand there wiping water off their faces. The town is a
cluster of light in the distance.

“I’m not planning to kill anyone, in case you’re worried,” she adds, hoping to rouse Malfoy
from his depressed silence.

She doesn’t haven’t any intention of going around committing crimes, raising armies or
razing armies, although she has to admit, she likes the idea that she could if she wanted to.

Malfoy just looks at her doubtfully, as if he isn’t convinced that she’s above such things. But
since he hasn’t run straight to the Ministry about her new powers, she chooses not to take
offence.

“We’ll see,” he says ominously, and holds his hand out.

His pale fingers are wet with rain. They wrap around hers, gripping tightly as he apparates.

They land back in the alley, but rather than immediately heading back towards the inn,
Malfoy stands there, lingering even though the place has only been made worse by the rain.
There’s a broken gutter dripping badly onto a pile of cardboard and one of the bins looks as if
an animal’s been in it.

“Fuck,” he says after a moment. “I wonder if my parents paid Snape to tell me where he lived
because they were afraid I was going to run away.”

Hermione’s surprised to hear him volunteer information for once and can’t help but press for
more. She has so many pieces of his puzzle, but she still doesn’t know how they all fit.

“Why? What happened at Durmstrang?” she asks in what she hopes is an innocently
conversational tone.

No such luck. Irritation flashes across his face and he turns to glare at her. “You’re never
going to stop asking, are you?”

She doesn’t dignify the question with a response.

The muscle in his jaw twitches and he glances away. “It doesn’t really matter” He shrugs. “I
was supposed to go to Hogwarts.”

Hermione’s eyes widen, but she refrains from interrogating him, instead waiting for him to
continue.

“But the year before I would have started, my mother’s cousin died.”

“Regulus?” the question bursts out of her.

His flat expression splinters with annoyance. “Yes,” he bites out, “Regulus. He was the Black
family’s heir. When he died —” he exhales, “– everything changed.”

Hermione’s tempted to point out that the Black Family still has Sirius, who’s alive and well,
but she’s afraid to interrupt when she’s finally getting some answers.

“My aunt — she said Regulus died because he was weak, because he didn’t care about his
family, and it was all Dumbledore’s fault, that being at Hogwarts was the start of what
corrupted him. She said I’d end up the same. She convinced my father that I should be sent to
Durmstrang instead, to be kept away from bad influences.”

Malfoy turns suddenly, walking out of the alley. Hermione has to chase him to keep up. She
worries he’s going to stop there, but it seems that he’s decided to get it all out.

“The thing is, most students at Durmstrang know the school they’ll be attending years before
they start. They have language tutors to prepare. But my father didn’t make up his mind until
that summer, I didn’t have time. A third of the classes aren’t in English, and I fell behind
almost immediately. And —” he inhales and winces, “– my mother worried. She hadn’t
wanted me to go to Durmstrang, it had been a huge fight between her and Father, so she’d
comfort herself by donating money to get me excused from assignments she considered too
dangerous or unnecessary. She meant well, but – at Durmstrang, she might as well have
painted a target on my back.”
Hermione hadn’t considered that angle when Viktor mentioned Malfoy’s special paid
exemptions. At the time, she’d seen Malfoy through the lens of privilege, within the context
of knowing him first and foremost as Durmstrang’s champion and the tournament favourite,
the best in his year. But that perception, she realises, is retrospective.

Being academically and physically brutal is an intrinsic part of Durmstrang’s school culture.
The students are required to be hard and resilient. Karkaroff is said to relish weeding out
students. One of the prerequisites for any students wishing to join the school’s delegation was
rowing the Durmstrang ship to Hogwarts. The ones who hadn’t ‘pulled their weight’ on the
journey weren’t even been allowed to put their names in the Cup.

The student culture is tight-knit because they are constantly fighting for survival together.

A student that fell behind and then got special exemptions because he was rich enough to pay
for them would have been absolutely despised by the rest of the student body.

It explains why Malfoy said that letters from Pansy were the only good thing that happened
to him there for years.

But she can’t see how he became Durmstrang’s Triwizard Champion if that was his start.
How did that work?

“But you’re top of your class now,” she says.

“Yes,” he says without looking at her. “It’s incredible the grades you can eventually get when
you only see tutors during your summer and winter holidays because you’re expected to
catch up and make your family proud, and you’re told you’ll get to see your friends again
when you’re top of your class. But then —” He gives a vicious laugh. “Then when you
finally are the top of your class, your friends are no longer good enough for someone as
successful as you, you can do better. And also, not ‘turning out weak’ is something you have
to keep proving over and over by always doing exactly what you’re told and never having a
fucking opinion about anything. It’s great, definitely worth the effort.”

She has no response to this.

They walk on in silence and Hermione remembers belatedly that she’s supposed to be angry
with him right now, but she somehow forgot because he’s being so – forlorn.

But really, she should be so angry with him. For one thing, he suspected her Black Magic
abilities for months without letting on and even had the audacity to covertly test her. And
that’s just scratching the surface of his offences, and the fact she’s walking along beside him
having to remind herself of this is unbelievable.

She spends several seconds trying to manifest the rage that should be there, and when she
can’t, she changes the subject instead.

“That archive Snape mentioned, will we — go there?”

He nods absently. “Yes. Tomorrow.”

Her heart jumps all the way into her throat, and her stomach flutters. “A-and – “ she hates
that she stammers. “I’ll be able to get in?”

“Yeah,” he says, although he doesn’t sound at all enthusiastic about it. “Access is sealed by
blood, only certain families can enter. My father took me a few years back, and I have the
family ring. It’ll be fine.”

“And – I can go in too?” Her heart beats even faster.

“Yes.” He sounds impatient now. “As long as you’re with me.”

She exhales, heart pounding, mind already spinning with excitement about what they’ll find.

“Although I wouldn’t be hopeful about what we’ll find,” he adds with a sullen voice,
interrupting her thoughts. “The Fawley Archive isn’t somewhere that anyone goes unless
they’ve exhausted other options.”

Hermione has to resist the urge to make an offended squawking sound. She can’t imagine
why anyone would not want to go to a library. “Why?”

He scoffs. “You’ll see.”

Hermione can barely sleep that night. She lies in bed, organising her thoughts and making a
list of all the things she wants to know and planning the next day carefully.

If she finds everything she needs about Black Magic, maybe she’ll be able to sneak in a bit of
light reading about other things. So many other things. All the things she’s wondered about
and not been able to find information on.

There’s so much. Her stomach is in knots thinking about it.

As soon as it’s light outside, she’s up and getting ready, dressing carefully and checking the
shine of her shoes and ensuring that she looks like a proper witch, and specifically the kind of
witch that would be allowed in an exclusive library. It’s still early when she’s finished
preparing. Malfoy didn’t mention the archive’s hours, so she does some assigned reading she
brought, goes for a walk, gets breakfast, reads the local paper, and finally when she can’t find
anything else to do, knocks insistently on Malfoy’s door until he opens it.

He answers, bleary-eyed, with wrinkles pressed into his face.

His hair is ruffled, and he isn’t wearing a shirt.

She blinks repeatedly, trying to process the sight, her thoughts derailing completely.

She’s so used to him always looking groomed and distant, she’d sort of imagined he slept on
his back, fully dressed in robes like a vampire.

She hadn’t mentally prepared herself for this. And he’s standing so close.
Her mouth goes dry. Her heart starts pounding, and she feels warm all over in a way that
doesn’t feel like her magic at all but a circulatory issue.

“What’s wrong?” he says, as he rubs an eye with the heel of his hand.

Right.

Rightrightright.

She bounces on her toes, needing to swallow in order to speak. “Do — do you know what
time it opens?”

He just peers down at her. “What?”

She splutters, trying not to stare at him, instead inspecting the doorframe. “The -– the library
— the archive. It’s already nearly nine o’clock. I’ve been waiting for hours.”

He closes his eyes and exhales, looking annoyed. “Did you really wake me up because of
that?”

Hermione glares at him, finally summoning the will to ignore his lack of clothing, her hands
on her hips. “I’m sorry, is this not important anymore? Do you have something better to do?
You claimed you needed to keep an eye on me, that it was urgent we go on this trip for
answers because I’m so dangerous. I could have burned down this entire village three times
by now, even without Black Magic. If you wanted to sleep in on this trip, you should have
told me and I would have brought more homework.”

He only looks at her in a blank way that primarily communicates that he is not a morning
person.

“You brought – homework?” he says slowly.

She starts to open her mouth to answer, but he holds his hand up. “No. Don’t tell me. I don’t
really want to know.” He sighs, shoulders sagging as if she is being unreasonable. He runs a
hand across his face and through his hair, making it all stand up. “Give me ten minutes and
I’ll — be up.”

He starts to shut the door and then pulls it back open, looking suddenly awake. He stares
piercingly at her. “Don’t you dare use Black Magic just because you’re bored.”

Hermione rolls her eyes and goes back downstairs to wait for him.

The place they apparate to is an abandoned cemetery. The grass is so overgrown it’s falling
over the tombstones. There are crumbling statues of angels, all their details eaten by time,
and wings and arms broken off. In the centre of the cemetery is an enormous mausoleum
covered in gargoyles, the only structure that seems immune to the deterioration of time.

There is no repulsion charm on the area that Hermione can sense, but the atmosphere is cold
and repressive, with an eerie mist that refuses to burn off in the light of day.
As they get closer, there’s a subtle hum in the ground that Hermione can feel in her bones as
they get closer to the mausoleum. Whoever made this place used Elemental Magic. Earth
Magic.

Seated at the front of the mausoleum sits a huge gargoyle, stretched out across the entrance. It
opens its eyes when Malfoy and Hermione reach the foot of the steps. Its flattened muzzle is
mottled, as though made of varying types of stone, and the stone gaze has an unnerving
sentience behind it.

It sits up, wings stretching ten feet into the air. Several large clumps of moss and lichen fall
off, scattering across the ground.

Malfoy stands frozen, his thumb running nervously across the signet ring on his hand. He
looks over at Hermione, and then steps forward, pulling the ring off and dropping it in a stone
basin carved between the gargoyles’ paws.

The gargoyle looks down, studying the ring for a moment and then extends a huge stone paw,
several gleaming metal claws slide out.

Malfoy drags his palm across one claw before Hermione can wince or say anything about
bacteria. It slices his hand open, coating the stone with blood.

No wonder he was so casual about the cuts necessary for Blood Magic. What is it about
wizards and their obsession with blood?

The gargoyle lifts the paw to its face, licking its claws. The blood smears across its nose and
face, and it’s then that Hermione realises that the mottling on the face is layers and layers of
dried blood. Every time anyone comes here, they have to bleed for access.

She watches Malfoy pull his hand away, healing the cut casually as if there was nothing
unusual about having to slice himself open in order to go places, and then he picks up his
ring, sliding it back onto his hand.

After a moment, the gargoyle stands, and the door into the mausoleum grinds open.

Malfoy turns and looks at her. “Ready?”

Hermione follows him closely as he walks through the doorway. The moment they’re
through, the door swings shut behind them. They’re lost in darkness for a moment before
dim, blue sconces flicker to life, casting them in cold shadows.

She stares up at him, feeling like she should say something, maybe thank him? But
everything between them is so confusing—will she sound stupid if she acts like it’s a big deal
that he brought her here and cut his hand? Maybe it isn’t. Maybe purebloods are always
cutting themselves and using their blood, and acting like it’s a big deal will betray her
ignorance, make her look like a stupid, backwards Muggle who doesn’t know anything.

Or maybe it is a really big deal that he’d use his blood for her and she’s being really
ungrateful.
She has no idea.

No one ever told her the rules about things like this. At this point, everything she feels around
Malfoy borders on irrational, as if she’s incapable of experiencing any degree of normalcy
around him.

She swallows and looks away, trying to stay on mission.

They’re standing in a mausoleum.

Really, she shouldn’t be surprised since it’s what they walked into, but she’d assumed it must
be a facade, that she’d step in and there’d be shelves and a librarian, not an actual tomb.

Her palms feel damp and she rubs them against her skirts, trying to appear calm, even though
her heart is battering against her ribs. “Where is it?”

He stares at her for a moment before looking away. “Here.” He pushes at the sconce hanging
down the wall. A door swings open.

Hermione nearly trips over herself in her haste, irrationally overcome with the fear that the
door will snap shut when she’s only gotten a glimpse.

She pushes past Malfoy into a large, circular room. There are no shelves creating aisles, the
floor is mostly empty, with only one desk and chair. There isn’t a single window, instead the
room is illuminated by little glowing balls of floating light.

There is also no ceiling. At least not one Hermione can see.

It’s like standing at the bottom of a well.

The walls go up and up and up, vanishing into darkness, and they are covered with shelves,
all crammed full of books and scrolls. To reach them, there’s a lattice of narrow steps and
walkways built out from the shelves, zigzagging up into the darkness.

The shelves go on and on as far as Hermione can see, eventually disappearing into the gloom
overhead.

It is dizzying and terrifying and wonderful.

She had no idea there were this many books in the Wizarding World.

“The Fawley family was obsessed with record keeping,” Malfoy is saying behind her,
somehow already sounding bored, his arms folded. “Augustus Fawley, in particular, kept
everything. If it was written down, he wanted it immortalised. When the Ministry was built,
he funded the construction of their archive in exchange for an agreement that a replica of
everything be interred here. A preservation effort. He wanted to create a monument of British
Wizarding history. He used to sponsor publishers too. Every edition of every book, every
contract on the thickness of a cauldron bottom or export rate of spotted newt eyes in a given
month, everything is here.” He scuffs his shoe across the stone floor and looks up. “I suppose
it’s something to do with a family fortune.”
Hermione only half-hears him. She feels as if her eyes are growing larger and larger inside
her head as she tries to take in how many books loom over her. Centuries upon centuries of
knowledge. She walks towards the nearest shelf and her fingers tremble before they brush
against a gilded spine.

She can touch it.

The shelf blurs. It takes a moment to realise that she’s crying.

“Granger?”

She starts and finds that Malfoy followed her. She hurriedly turns her face and tries to wipe
away the tears.

“Are you alright?” He looks around the room, his expression baffled. “Should we go?”

She shakes her head violently. “No! I don’t want to go. It’s perfect. I just — I never — I
never thought I’d be here.”

She gestures at the surrounding space, trying to express how overwhelming it is.

He looks incredulous. “Here?” He looks around doubtfully. “You wanted to visit the Fawley
Archive?”

“Well,” she blinks, trying to banish the tears that keep coming. “I didn’t know about this one
specifically. I just – ” she clears her throat, “I never thought I’d see one of these libraries.”

She smears at the tears on her cheeks. “Back in my first year, there was a book I read,
‘Historic Places in the British Wizarding World.’ Magic libraries sounded like a fairy tale. I
— I made this whole list of the ones in the book that I wanted to visit. There’s one near
Diagon Alley, you know.” She looks down, not wanting to see his reaction. “I found it before
my second year, while shopping for school supplies, but when I went there, tried to go in,
they — they said I couldn’t. I didn’t know then, about— everything.”

Her mouth twists and she’s burning all over. “At first I thought I just needed a school note or
a chaperone, and they — they got really cross with me.”

She blinks several times, remembering how embarrassed they'd made her feel for thinking
she'd be welcome there.

“When I told my friends afterwards, they tried to cheer me up saying, ‘Probably rubbish
anyway. Who would even want to go there?’” She swallows. “They meant well, but I — I
really wanted to go in, just to see it…” Her voice wavers a little and she has to blink again
and then clear her throat. “It’s stupid.”

She wishes Malfoy would have the courtesy to hear this explanation and walk away, but he
keeps hovering, his expression frozen. Then he looks up and around the room.

“I never thought about that,” he finally says.

He coughs and clears his throat, looking awkward. “If I’d known I — This isn’t even one of
the good ones.”

She wants to kick him in the ankle. Her annoyance is so great it manages to make her stop
crying.

She glares at him. “Shut up.”

He flushes to the tips of his ears. “I just meant –“

She holds up a hand, not wanting to hear it. “Let’s just pretend this whole conversation didn’t
happen.” She draws a deep breath. “How do we find what we’re looking for?”

“Right. Yeah, sure.” He looks up, tilting his head from side to side like he’s already
developed a neck cramp. “So, it’s an archive. Everything is stored here chronologically by the
year it was written or printed. The most recent years are at the bottom. It grows upward when
the shelves fill.”

Hermione looks up again at the shelves disappearing into the gloom overhead. “Oh.”

She’s beginning to understand why nobody comes here if they can help it.

She draws a deep breath. “I don’t suppose summoning charms work.”

Hermione had always considered the Astronomy Tower to be Very Tall. She’d thought the
Quidditch stands terrible and precarious.

They have nothing on the Fawley Archive.

She climbs up and up and up, until the floor disappears into the darkness, and still the little
date plaques on the shelves aren’t even past the seventeenth century. One of the floating orbs
rises slowly ahead of her. The orbs function as guides. Malfoy showed her how to tell it what
she’s looking for and it’s been steadily rising as she climbs determinedly after it.

Her hands are cramping from gripping the rails and her legs are burning and she has no idea
how she’s going to get back down.

She regrets every tear she shed over this place. The Fawley Archive is stupid.

No wonder Malfoy looked at her like she was bonkers when she started crying and
immediately assumed it was because she wanted to leave.

She’s relieved they split up and he can’t hear her cursing as she climbs yet another flight of
rickety stairs and finds that she’s still in the seventeenth century section.

She thinks she can make out the stone ceiling overhead when the light finally stops and hangs
suspended beside a pile of old scrolls. She slumps down on the walkway and has to catch her
breath for a minute before even pulling one down. Her arms are trembling from the exertion.
“I found something, I think,” she calls, and her voice drops like a stone down a well to the
place where Malfoy is a dim speck below. Whatever he found apparently didn’t require
nearly so much climbing. Lucky bastard.

She pulls scroll after scroll off the shelves, reading quickly, but they’re all handwritten and
both the spelling and vocabulary antiquated and it makes her grateful that she’s been studying
the goblin rebellions for the last three months and gotten used to the language of the time.

She’s disappointed to find that it’s not exactly the information she was hoping for. It’s about
Black Magic, but not what happened to the Black Magic users. These records are older
covering the period when Black Magic was discovered.

Her eyes strain and her neck rapidly cramps, but she doesn’t care at all because the
information is exhilarating. Terrifying but exhilarating.

She reads and reads and doesn’t stop until Malfoy climbs up to join her and threatens to start
eating parchment if they don’t leave to get food.

“We can come back tomorrow,” he says, practically dragging her down when she refuses,
saying she isn’t done. “My eyes are going to start bleeding. We have been here for hours.
There isn’t even a bathroom.”

She finally agrees and they begin the arduous task of descending the archive all the way to
the bottom and by then she’s ready to admit that she’s also starving.

They eat at a pub in the village just around the corner from the inn. Malfoy reads the menu
three times, looking skittish and suspicious about being around so many Muggles, and finally
orders a steak and kidney pie, while Hermione orders fish and chips, one of the few things in
the Muggle world that she misses at Hogwarts.

“Want to know something funny?” she asks while they’re waiting for their food. “It was
actually Salazar Slytherin’s acolytes who discovered Muggle-borns could use Black Magic.”

Malfoy looks up, his hair falling distractingly over his eyes. “Really?”

She averts her gaze but still manages an imperious nod. “They were trying to prove our
magic was inherently inferior. The idea being that if we could be reclassified as non-wizards,
we’d be ineligible for admission at Hogwarts. That was Slytherin’s whole thing, you know,
and since the other founders wouldn’t go along with it he was trying to find a way around
their policy. He died before they ever got anywhere, but two hundred years later, when Dark
Magic was really advancing, a few of his acolytes took in a whole group of Muggle-borns
and taught them everything they knew about magic and the Dark Arts, thinking that it would
conclusively prove that even with the same training and knowledge that Muggle-borns just
couldn’t compare. Instead, almost as soon as the Muggle-born got adept with the Dark Arts,
they’d start channelling Black Magic. Apparently, it’s a sort of natural progression.”

Malfoy says nothing, his lips pursing.

A sly smile spreads across her face. “Can you even imagine how idiotic those purebloods
must have felt? How embarrassing, to be so sure and then –”

Malfoy gives her a pointed look. “Is this your idea of subtlety?”

She raises her eyebrows innocently.

He leans towards her, and her stomach flips.

“I don’t know that you’re capable of such a thing," he says in a soft voice, "but you might try
being nice to me for five minutes. For the sake of variety, if nothing else.”

She rolls her eyes, wanting to retort but since he is footing the bill for her room and he did
cut his hand open so she could visit a library, she supposes five minutes is not too much of a
demand.

She plasters on a smile. “Did you find anything interesting?”

He shrugs, looking down, fingers trailing across the grooves worn into the table. “The
Department of Mysteries studied Black Magic a few times. In purebloods mostly. Other than
that, I was looking into the laws.”

“And?”

He looks up then, staring straight at her, his eyes piercing. “You cannot get caught.”

She drops the smile, shrugging impatiently. “I know. I got the message from Snape
yesterday.” She leans forwards on her elbows. “On that front, I have good news. I can still
use normal magic. It’s been done in the past at least. There’s just a trick to it. The reason my
wand doesn’t do well with Black Magic is because it’s made for wizarding magic. Wands
aren’t supposed to pick up just any magic, you know. But, I still have wizarding magic,
plenty of it still assimilates, according to what I read. So if I can learn to sense the different
magic inside myself and use them separately, then I can still cast with my wand. I just have to
practise.”

He looks relieved by this.

Their food finally arrives, and they eat in ravenous silence for several minutes until Hermione
speaks again.

“According to some stories, I can also make a familiar out of magic. Most of the Muggle-
borns had them. They’re almost like a patronus, and they’re very useful since they’re an
extension of their creator. Which means they can be really smart and they can even store
power, so that if I was needing a lot of magic, I wouldn’t have to draw it all directly and risk
getting overwhelmed. One witch I read about –”

“You’re not making a familiar.”

She stares at him in affront, her back going stiff. Since when does he think he makes rules for
her? “Why not?”
He sets down his fork. “Because, if you make things, they’ll stay made.”

“Yes, that’s the point.”

“No, you don’t get it. This is beyond Elemental Magic or anything else. If you make
something with Black Magic, it stays made. You die, it’s still there. It’s real.”

“I know that,” Hermione says with irritation, not seeing why that precludes her from making
a pet.

“ Anything you make,” he says again. “For example, Ekrizdis wanted something that could
physically and psychologically torture all his captives in Azkaban, so he made Dementors.
It’s been five hundred years and we still have the damn things. They never die.”

Hermione stares at him in astonishment. “Dementors were made with Black Magic?”

He nods. “It’s assumed that’s where they came from. It’s not exactly provable since he was
dead by the time the Ministry found Azkaban, but there isn’t any other good explanation for
the way Dementors exist. Unspeakables have tried dozens of times to get rid of them or
dematerialise them. They’re amortal.”

Hermione knew that some magical creatures were created, usually via cross-breeding, but she
hadn’t considered the idea that Black Magic could create something that had never existed
before, something brought into being. The implications are mind-boggling.

She can’t help but wonder if Dementors are the only ‘created’ beings or if others are also the
secret creations of Black Magic.

She tilts her head, nibbling on a chip. “If Dementors were made with Black Magic, I wonder
if I’d be able to —”

“No. We’re not going to see if you can unmake a Dementor either,” Malfoy cuts her off in a
flat voice.

She bristles, annoyed that he guessed what she was thinking and immediately vetoed her
idea.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she says in a sharp voice, then remembers that he is helping her.
She exhales, trying to calm down, but it’s been a long day and her magic is pressing outward,
fraying her.

She squeezes her hand into a fist, drawing a deep breath. “Think about this from my
perspective, if I could do something useful like getting rid of the Dementors, it would force
the Ministry to see Muggle-borns differently.” She feels like she’s only just beginning to
imagine the possibilities of her new powers. Her throat tightens with a nervous excitement.
“See me – differently.”

Malfoy presses his hand flat against the surface of the table, fingers flexing.
“Granger,” his voice is irritatingly tempered, like he’s attempting to reason with her and since
she’s very stupid it requires speaking slowly, “the Ministry already knows about Black
Magic. They know better than you what it’s capable of. That’s not the –”

She smacks the table impatiently, making the silverware jump. “Well, they’re wrong to hide
it. People should know about it. Never mind showing the Ministry then, I’ll show the rest of
the world. It’s not like it’s the thirteenth century anymore. There’re radios, newspapers, and
lots of other ways to communicate internationally. They won’t be able to cover it up and hide
it. I could do things like getting rid of Dementors and then everyone could see how helpful it
can be. This —” she’s so overwhelmed and frustrated that he refuses to see this from her
perspective, “Malfoy, this could change everything for me.”

He sighs, the muscle in his jaw tensing, and there’s no understanding in his expression.
Instead he looks irritated. “If you go and so helpfully ‘solve’ the British Ministry’s dementor
problem, how do you actually imagine they’d see it? Do you think they’ll give you a First
Class Order of Merlin? Let you shake the Minister’s hand? Thank you just because they can’t
cover it up? No, they won’t. They’ll spin it. Find a way to twist anything you do using every
flaw you have and every mistake you’ve ever made. The newspapers won’t call you helpful.
They’ll report that you used forbidden magic to destroy the only thing standing between
everyday wizarding folk and the unspeakably evil criminals in Azkaban. They will make sure
that everyone believes you are the worst thing that has ever existed.”

Hermione knows, as soon as he says it, that he’s right.

Rita Skeeter would love to write that article.

Disappointment and impotent rage well up inside her.

She glares at him in frustration, magic and fury burning in her chest. She gives a sharp
choking laugh. “So what? You expect me to just hide my abilities because people will say
bad things about me? They already do.”

Malfoy leans across the table towards her, suddenly looking furious as if his patience has
snapped. “Listen, you idiot. If you get caught using Black Magic, they’re not going to just
insult you in a newspaper article — they’ll kill you.”

She’s so enraged that this warning barely phases her at all. Her hands are trembling, and she
can feel a distinct burning feeling at the back of her eyes.

Why does he keep doing this? Refusing to see anything special about her having Black
Magic. Treating her like she’s stupid for wanting to use it. After she’s been told over and over
that she’ll never be enough. She finally is, and all he cares about is making sure that no one
finds out. Acting like her abilities are nothing but a problem.

Then she realises it’s because to Malfoy, her abilities are just a problem. They’re rivals—and
now she has potentially unfathomable power. The best way for him to keep her under control
is to scare her so that she never learns how to use her abilities. And the easiest way to do that
is by pretending it’s for her own sake, that he’s trying to help her.
Of course that’s why he’s here, suddenly willing to be so helpful. The same reason anyone
ever helps her; to benefit themselves.

‘Helping her’ is Slughorn, finally inviting her to a party even though she's deserved a place
there for years, to get close to her Quidditch star boyfriend. And Barty Crouch only caring
about her reputation if it provides him with a political pawn. Or Ginny pretending to be her
friend to make sure she doesn't out Dean.

And Cormac volunteering to take her back to Gryffindor tower when she was drunk.

They never actually care about her.

Malfoy’s manipulating her, just like everyone else.

She glares at him across the table, her voice low and vicious. “Well, that sounds like a
problem for me to deal with.”

“What?” He sits back, his expression is startled for a split-second and then that flat, defensive
mask drops across his features.

It’s the exact same expression he wore when he told her that unlike Pansy, it was alright to
mess around with Hermione because she doesn’t mean anything. Seeing it again is like a slap
to the face. Her cheeks, chest and hands burn and she draws back, almost recoiling to
distance herself from it.

Her resentment and anger rise, crackling through her. She’s been so distracted with keeping
her abilities under control, she thoughtlessly accepted that Malfoy was helping her and forgot
that he’s actually completely awful.

Her jaw tenses, her throat growing so tight she can’t even speak. She pulls out her bag and
puts down enough money to cover her food before standing up, feeling as if she may very
well explode right there in the pub if she has to look at him for another minute.

She inhales and forces her voice to work.

“Don’t worry, I won’t incriminate you if I get caught.” Her voice is ice cold, trapping all her
emotions deep down inside her, far beneath the surface. “Why don’t you just do as Snape said
and put everything you know about the Dark Arts into a book? It’s not like you ever really
put any effort into teaching me, I’ll probably be able to learn it all faster on my own. Then,
your obligations are out of the way and we can stop pretending like you care at all about what
happens to me.”

She stalks out of the pub and goes back to the inn, storming up the steps to her room. Once
inside, she slumps against the door. She barely slept last night, there is so much magic inside
her, half her energy is being spent solely on the constant effort of containing it.

It feels like there’s a cut somewhere inside her chest, and it stings and aches, but this wound
doesn’t feel caused by magic.

You stupid, stupid little fool.

She draws her knees against her chest and wraps her arms around them.

Malfoy is nothing but ice shards. Every time she lets herself go too close, she cuts herself
open on him and is left standing there, nursing a wound with no one to blame but herself
because she knows better. He has been very clear about what he thinks of her.

Wanting her physically didn’t change that, why would she think that having Black Magic
would?

But she did.

She thought she was finally… enough.

But he has coldly brought her back to earth, reminding her that nothing will ever be enough
to make up for the fact she’s not a pureblood. It’s a fatal flaw and one that will always define
her. For him and everyone else.

She draws a deep breath, closing her eyes. Well, if there’s nothing she can do to be good
enough, then she’ll just do whatever she wants.

She opens her eyes, hold her palms out, and lets her power pour from her hands.

Black Magic floods out, filling the space between her palms. More and more. Instead of
growing, it condenses. She keeps going. It feels like she could have run a lake dry with the
amount of power rushing through her.

Maybe Snape was right, and she has somehow ripped a channel straight to the power of the
universe.

She funnels it out into the space between her hands, and this time her fingers don’t darken or
burn because she wants this. There’s no conflict within this desire.

It's only when her fury finally begins to burn off and she forces herself to keep going, that her
arms begin going numb, fingers turning black, the gradient of darkness climbing up her
hands, past her wrists. Her vision tunnels. She grits her teeth, slowly reining in the power,
drawing it back.

It definitely works better when she doesn’t stop all at once.

Not that it stops her arms from dropping to her sides, numb to the elbows. She draws several
deep breaths, her ears ringing while her vision swims. It takes a minute before she’s
recovered to actually look at the thing she’s made, hoping it's not a dementor.

God, Malfoy will never let her live it down if it is.

At first sight, it looks like more of the flames she’s already made, just self-sustaining. Despite
the enormous amount of power she just poured out, the object hovering in the air is barely
larger than a golf ball, so dark it looks like a hole in reality, a void of light, but the edges
morph, and it moves.
As she watches, it sinks to the floor and flickers of ears emerge, then a tail, and before her
eyes, the ball spreads itself out into the vague shape of a kitten.

Well, not exactly a kitten, more a blob with some intermittent cat-features. Two fire-bright
eyes blink back at her.

It’s the smallest, blackest, most nebulous kitten that has ever existed.

Hermione scoops it up, making a little chirping sound. It’s almost intangible, the barest
weight on her palm as it clumsily topples over, as if it doesn’t know how to move properly
yet. She cradles it, crooning softly.

“Hello,” she murmurs, a smile breaking through her previous gloom. “Oh, you’re so small.
I’ll have to make you bigger.”

She holds it in her hands, admiring it from all angles, a tiny flickering fluff ball. She uses a
fingertip to scratch between the ears, which keep fading in and out of existence, as if it’s still
deciding about them.

“What can you do?” she asks, walking over and setting it on the desk and watching it wander
from edge to edge, trying to knock things onto the floor.

It is definitely going to be some kind of cat once she can make it a bit more corporeal —
assuming that she can make it more corporeal. It’s not as if the scrolls she read laid out the
exact method for creating familiars, it was more like anecdotes and theories about how it
worked.

Now that she’s actually made it, there’s a guilty knot in her stomach for being so impulsive.
What is wrong with her?

She just brought a semi-living thing into existence out of spite.

She’s not usually like this, she tells herself, but reassurance rings very hollow.

That might have been true a year ago. Back then, Hermione Granger was the furthest thing
from impulsive, always making careful choices that wouldn’t risk the plans she’d mapped for
herself, but when Ron and Harry laughed at the idea of her as a Triwizard Champion, it was
like she abruptly reached a hard limit on her capacity to deny herself, and her self-control
shattered all at once and forever.

The moment she ripped a corner off her essay and stepped over the age line, she crossed a
Rubicon, and since then, she’s been one impulsive desire after another. As if all her emotions
and desires were pressed down and ignored for so long that now they’ve broken out all at
once and consumed her.

Now that she isn’t bursting with magic and seething with outrage towards Malfoy, she feels
how very impulsive she was. She didn’t stop, she didn’t think, she just reacted because she
was so angry. Her heart thuds guiltily against her ribs, a sick bruised feeling spreading inside
her..
Well, it’s too late for regret. It’s done. Besides, there wasn’t any good reason not to have a
familiar, and she’s allowed a pet at Hogwarts.

She can feel the cat through her magic, like a new sense. An extension of herself. Her
consciousness shapes it, and it responds to her. She wonders if it will eventually develop its
own sense of will, or always be an extension of what she wants, to act like a cat only as much
as Hermione wants it to be a cat.

Before she can puzzle over it, there’s a knock at her door and she jumps in surprise. The
kitten flattens itself on the desk, resembling a puddle of spilled ink.

“Grang — ” Malfoy’s voice comes through the door but then abruptly cuts off.

There’s a pause.

“Monica,” he grinds out the pseudonym, irritation tangible with each syllable.

For a guilty moment Hermione thinks of scooping the kitten into a drawer and hiding it, but
the impulse passes.

She goes to the door and opens it, not caring at all if Malfoy sees it.

He’s so mad when she opens the door that she assumes he must already know; that he’s
guessed exactly what she’s done.

His face is pale with rage, eyes glittering silver.

“You think I’m here because I can’t come up with a way to get rid of you?” he asks the
instant she has the door open.

She wants to smack him, but before she can respond, his eyes land on her hands and go wide
with horror. He grabs her by one wrist, holding it up, and then grabs the other, lifting them,
following the darkness that goes all the way up her arms.

He looks at her, aghast. “What did you do?”

He glances immediately past her, into her room.

The kitten, still on her desk, has turned from black into a flaming shade of furious red, as if to
match Hermione’s defensive mood. Its back is arched, and it looks capable of spitting fire.

Malfoy stares as if he can’t even believe his eyes, managing to grow even more pale with
anger, while Hermione is confronted with the realisation that while flaming, her kitten looks
eerily like a miniature version of the fire cat he’d made months ago.

She wants to tell him that it’s a complete coincidence, but she doesn’t want to be the one to
point it out.

Finally, he turns back to glare at her, still gripping her by both wrists. “Do you do everything
just to spite me? Is there any actual point to that brain of yours?”
 She bristles even though she did do it just to spite him. “My choices don’t revolve around
you. You don’t get to tell me what I’m allowed to do.”

He squeezes her wrists. She tries to get free, twisting her arms, which only pulls him into her
room. She scowls furiously at him.

“I’m not letting people control me anymore,” she says. “I spent my whole life following the
rules, doing whatever I was told because that was supposed to make me belong. Well, you
know what? It never worked. I tried and tried. No one wants me to belong. So what’s the
point? None of the rules give me anything, they just spare people like you the inconvenience
of my existence.”

Her jaw trembles and she wants to kick him.

She shakes her head fiercely. “I’m not doing it anymore. I’m making my own rules. No one’s
going to tell me what I’m allowed to do with my powers. If something bad ever happens to
me again, at least it won’t be while I’m suffocating myself for everyone else’s benefit.”

Malfoy is unmoved by this. He just glares at her.

“You are an idiot.” He shakes her. “I spent this entire day reading five hundred-year-old laws,
trying to find out if there are any options other than death or in pieces in a Ministry lab if you
get caught. Do you think I did that because it’s my idea of a good time? No.” He shakes her
again. “You know what I found? Nothing. There’s no loopholes. If you get caught, you’re
dead. I can’t do anything. You are fucking with the universe, you have no control, and I am
the only one between the two of us trying to keep you alive. Why can’t you see that?”

“Why?” she snaps.

“What?” He looks completely baffled by the question.

“Why do you want to keep me alive?” she asks, her voice crackling. “Why do you care if it’s
not just because of the vows. You’ve always been very clear that I don’t belong in this world,
that you wish I didn’t, that you hate me, and that I’ll never matter because I’m not a
pureblood. So, why do you care if I’m alive?”

He blinks, looking blindsided. He swallows, his throat dipping as he stares at her.

“Because —“

He stops like the answer is caught in his throat.

He swallows. “Because you’re my –” He exhales and then stammers out: “Y-you’re my

person.”

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

The Yule Ball Dress by heeidii

Hermione's Fire by willow
Black Magic by selkie0101
Severus Snape by artemisia_flora
Hermione's Power by daveka_art
Trial By Fire by browniekim.art
Draco and Hermione by dzhusyart
Yule Ball Dramione by lilitheillustrator
Stairway Eavesdropping by enselius_art
 A History of Black Magic
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Malfoy’s words drop like a bomb about to go off.

Hermione stares at him, too surprised to speak.

“Your – person?” she finally manages to say, because she has no idea what that’s supposed to
mean, but she’s certain it's probably offensive, most likely proprietary or something.

Malfoy looks equally startled. He lets go of her wrists, and steps back, standing there
awkwardly, his jaw working several times.

“I don’t mean it like you —” he stops and then starts again. “I just meant that — you’re the
only person who – ”

He gestures, as if hand motions will make whatever he’s trying to say more obvious, then
seems to realise it doesn’t and drops them, fingers curling into fists as he draws a deep breath.

“After — after Regulus died, my parents didn’t give me choices anymore,” he says in a tight
voice, changing the subject without warning. “Everything became different after he was
gone. I didn’t do anything, but all of sudden everyone treated me like I was —“ his throat
works for a moment, “Like I was flawed too, and couldn’t be trusted anymore, I had to be
watched and managed even though I always did everything I was told. I got this idea that if I
came to Hogwarts and won the tournament, it would prove to my parents that they were
wrong about me, and they’d — they’d finally see that.”

His words involuntarily resonate with Hermione. See me, she’d thought, when she threw her
name into the Cup and imagined herself being made champion.

She smothers the idea of relating to Malfoy at all, folding her arms tightly across her chest so
that her elbows stick out.

“Obviously,” he says, “that all went to shit. You were there when I walked into Hogwarts,
and you stuck out so much it was jarring, like – seeing colour for the first time. I don’t even
know why, there were just all these little ways that you didn't blend in with everyone else,
you didn't even try. When I found out that you were a Muggle-born, I had to find out for
myself what was so terrible about you. That’s why —" he looks embarrassed, "— why I
spoke to you that first time in the library.”

Hermione can still clearly remember the first time they ever spoke; the way he started the
conversation with such obvious fascination in his eyes.

However, it’s ridiculous for him to say that she’s ‘his person’ just because he decided to walk
up to her once and then proceeded to be as pretentious, aggravating, and insulting as possible
ever since, not to mention manipulative and controlling and a lot of other things that make
her want to scream at him sometimes.

These sentiments must show on her face, because he looks both deflated and annoyed as he
stares at her.

“Anyway, that's not the point," he says, shaking his head sharply. "What I'm trying to say is
that the whole point of making that bet with you was to prove my parents were right, that
everything they said about Muggle-borns was true. Because if I could do that, then —” he
swallows, “I would have forgiven them for sending me to Durmstrang.”

Her chest grows tight, like something’s wrapped around it, squeezing her. She studies his
face. “And will you – forgive them?”

He doesn’t immediately answer, studying her with an expression that is simultaneously full of
longing and complete despair.

“No,” he says softly, “I don’t think I ever will. And for a while, I hated you because of that.”

Hermione’s heart slams so violently into her ribs she thinks it might leave a bruise visible on
the surface of her skin.

She’s feeling too many emotions all at once.

Then he gives a bitter laugh and looks away. “But they were right about me. Everything they
were afraid of has happened since I got to Hogwarts. I despised my aunt for constantly saying
I was like Regulus, that I’d end up just like him if my parents weren’t careful, but maybe she
was right, maybe I was the only one who couldn’t see that.”

His mouth twists and he stares at her again, his expression growing strained. “If I were more
like my aunt or my father — more the way I'm supposed to be, I’d be relieved right now,
because it would be easy to get rid of you, but I can’t do that. I didn’t even know I could be
around someone and not feel like I’m suffocating, but now I finally know how many lies they
told me, and that it’s not proof I’m flawed that I want the things I do.”

He exhales again, almost a laugh. Maybe it is a laugh. “My family was right about me all
along, and just knowing that should be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, but I don’t
care because you're — the best thing.”

Hermione stares at him in frozen disbelief. Because if anything, that is even more ridiculous
than him calling her his person.

She wants to laugh. She wants to inform him that he is completely insane and then call him
every single rude name that she knows.

Because she has been really annoying. Intentionally annoying, in fact. Every part of her that
she has ever been told is difficult, that makes her hard to like, hard to even tolerate, she’s
indulged in around him. All those aspects of herself that she tries so hard to suppress around
her friends, hoping that then people wouldn’t mind her as much.
She never put that kind of effort in around Malfoy because she wanted him to suffer, and she
sometimes feels like she’s a punishment.

And he —

He thinks she’s the best thing?

Her eyes are burning because he’s so enraging she can barely stand to look at him. How dare
he say that? She opens her mouth but all her words get stuck in her throat.

She wants to kick him in the knee.

She draws an unsteady breath.

“Well, that makes you really stupid,” she finally says, the words sharp but threatening to
wobble, “because I happen to know that I’m very tiresome.” Her voice is caustic, her whole
body is tense, nearly vibrating with emotions that she refuses to be having right now. “You
obviously don’t know many people.”

He shakes his head and, to her growing outrage, he looks annoyingly composed, like he just
needed to get all that off his chest.

Most likely he can tell that she’s about to burst into tears and he knows that gives him the
upper hand in the current argument.

“I happen to know more than ten people,” he says in a softly mocking voice.

Hermione is forced to glare at him in silence for making a joke right then, because she will
not give him the satisfaction of crying in front of him twice in one day.

"I’m almost certain I’m never going to find anyone else quite like you," he continues
conversationally as if they're discussing a seasonal weather event. "You’re — terribly
strange. I'm convinced the universe went all out when it made you. So I really have no choice
but to try to keep you from killing yourself.”

She swallows the very large stone that has lodged against her voice box and shakes her head
stubbornly. “Well, I’m going to learn how to use Black Magic, and I don’t care if it’s
dangerous, or what your opinion is about it. I’m already risking my whole life in this
tournament. If you’re only helping me to hold me back and tell me what I can and can’t do
then —” she forces herself to meet his eyes and lift her jaw in defiance, “– I don’t want you.”

He stares back at her, looking exasperated now. “If I was trying to control you, do you really
think I’d give you free range of the entire Fawley Archive?”

She blinks. He does have a point there. In fact, when he puts it in those precise terms, maybe
she did overreact. Just a tiny bit.

He then exploits his momentary rhetorical advantage by taking a step towards her.
Her pulse rockets up, blood roaring in her ears. She wants to back away, but she doesn’t want
to look like she’s retreating, like she’s afraid or overwhelmed, because she’s most certainly
not. She stands her ground as he closes in, even though it takes every ounce of her self-
control.

“I’m trying to keep you alive.” He touches her cheek with the tips of his fingers; it makes her
shiver and she bristles on instinct.

“You make it very hard,” he says. “It’s really annoying.”

She clears her throat, trying not to get distracted by the proximity and words and hands and
— touching.

“What about the tournament, then? We still have our vows,” she asks in a very haughty voice
that she usually reserves for lecturing Harry and Ron about the importance of exams, trying
to keep her focus away from his nearness and things that aren’t his face and eyes, and the
warm feelings running through her.

“I don’t know. I haven’t worked that out yet.” His breath fans across her cheeks. “I’ve been
— sort of distracted.”

His face dips closer, and that distracts her. Everything else suddenly feels insignificant, like
nothing matters except the possibility in the narrow space between their faces.

As she stares up at him, she thinks she understands why he said ‘my person.’ Because there is
no word for them, no category they fit neatly inside. They’re not merely rivals, or enemies, or
friends, they’re definitely not dating, or partners, or lovers; they’re intricately tangled with
each other, not because they function in a particular role together, but simply because their
collision course seems as inexorable as the movement of the stars.

She wants to fall into him.

It feels like she’s meant to.

She’s barely breathing as she tilts her face towards his. His thumb follows the curve of her
cheekbone and he looks at her like she really is the best thing as his head dips lower.

Footsteps rattle up the stairs, startling them both.

They spring apart, eyes wild, faces flushing as the inn-keeper comes around the corner and
opens the custodial closet across from Hermione’s door.

Her heart is pounding a mile a minute, and she and Malfoy stare wildly at one another until
he clears his throat.

“Goodnight — Monica,” he says in a choked voice and bolts for his room.

Hermione expects Malfoy will come back once the inn-keeper has retrieved the towels and
buckets he came for. He doesn’t.
She hovers near her door for a little while, listening for the sound of returning footsteps,
debating going to his door even though she can't come up with any good excuses for it.

She hears the shower running through the wall.

Fine. She huffs, bolting her door before she turns away, taking a shower herself because she's
generously coated in archive dust.

She spends the rest of the evening giving her kitten more magic and trying out names for it.
Even though she just spent a week’s worth of power creating her cat, Malfoy left her feeling
jittery and off-kilter, teeming untapped energy all over again. The kitten seems to drink it in,
growing a little more defined and real with every little bit of magic she pours into it.

Once she feels even, she spends the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to cast spells
with her wand again.

It turns out that her old technique for trying to find her source works for finding her
assimilated magic.

She closes her eyes and dangles her fingers over her wand until she feels the draw, the
connection between her wand and her magic that has spanned years now. It’s like it’s just
waiting to be called again.

There’s a spark. A channel. She catches her wand up and manages a brief lumos before the
Black Magic surges forward, blotting it out. As the light inverts into dark, the kitten flares
like a flame itself.

She draws a deep breath and keeps working at it, reminding herself that she’ll have classes
next week and losing her ability to practise in class would be really noticeable.

She drills herself until late into the night.

There’s a knock on her door early the next morning and this time she’s the one who stumbles
out of bed and answers the door, only half-awake.

Malfoy is standing there, fully dressed and studying her sternly, mouth pressed into a resolute
line, but the severity is ruined because he starts blushing and looks away, swallowing several
times before speaking.

“I have to go back to the archive today,” he says in a tight voice. “If I bring you again, will
you promise not to try anything you learn there without telling me?”

She’s tempted to ask what he’ll do if she doesn’t promise, but she really wants to go back,
and he’s not making her promise not to do anything, just to tell him.

That’s probably his idea of a compromise.

She inhales and says, “I promise.”

When they get to the archive, she climbs upwards with efficient resolution. They’ve come
more prepared: she has a notebook, a pencil, a pocketful of snacks, a sandwich, and water,
having informed him that she intends to stay till dinner.

This time she’s more specific with the glowing orb, telling it she wants records on the
outlawing of Black Magic. The orb floats off to a completely different section of the shelves.
Records from the Wizard Council. At first the notes elude her, referring to previous meetings,
unspecified opinions held by various members of the Wizard’s Council, and discussions of
inconsequential matters like someone’s stomach condition, but the more she finds, the easier
it is to tell the lights exactly what she wants next. Then the notes move on to other matters
and it begins to make sense. In a horrible way.

She’s crouched down on one of the landings, empty food wrappers in a neat pile and a scroll
unrolled across the full walkway, when she feels it shift as Malfoy climbs up and comes to
stand beside her. She has no idea how long they’ve been there, but she suspects it’s been a
very long time, because her eyes are burning and she’s developing a headache from squinting
at the cramped handwriting.

He says nothing, waiting until Hermione reaches the end of the section.

She sits back on her heels. Her heart is pounding, and she feels cold all over as if the
temperature of the archive has been steadily dropping lower and lower, and her body is
slowly going into shock.

“Well, I found out what happened,” she says. The air feels empty.

There’s only silence.

“They asked for seats on the Wizengamot. The Muggle-borns with Black Magic.” She stares
into the distance and it’s almost like she can see it playing out in her mind. “Black Magic was
becoming more common, you know, during the Great Advancement. The Dark Arts were
widespread and once Muggle-borns knew it was possible…” She clears her throat. “At first,
everyone thought it was the next stage in magical ability, like the discovery of the wand.
Purebloods tried all kinds of ways to replicate it in themselves, a few even put their children
in Muggle homes, but that didn’t really work. The early suppression had to be fairly intense,
so eventually it was just seen as a Muggle-born ability.”

Her words trail off, imagining herself there in that period of so much possibility, and she has
to rouse herself to continue speaking. “But once it was clear that purebloods wouldn’t be
using Black Magic too, the Wizengamot proposed banning it. They said it was too dangerous
and shouldn’t be encouraged. Several prominent Muggle-borns petitioned for seats then,
arguing that they had a right to be a part of the vote, that they had made the qualifying
contributions to society, and since the law would primarily affect them that they should be
part of the process of writing the law.”

Malfoy still says nothing.

She tries to force her voice to brighten, instead it goes sharp. “The Wizengamot was passing a
lot of new laws then because of the boom of progress during the Great Advancement.
Although most of the laws were to restrict magic use if the users weren’t human. They
wanted to regulate the forging of goblin silver, ratify the wand ban, restrict alchemy to
wizards… things like that.At the same time, the Goblins made a petition for seats as well.
The Wizard’s Council worried that if they rejected both petitions, the Goblins and Muggle-
borns might ally. The possibility of goblin silver and Black Magic being used together
terrified them, but of course they wouldn’t even consider giving them seats or not passing the
laws.”

Hermione’s hands are clenched into fists, nails biting into her palm until the skin threatens to
break.

“They have a line in here,” she tries to find it, but the writing is so cramped, and she has piles
of scrolls around her. She gives up. “There was a line about how if they capitulated, it would
open a floodgate, enabling the rights of the inferior with no end until Muggle-borns and
Goblins were living side-by-side with wizards, and families would be forced to abandon their
lands to free elves and accept association with lesser beings as if they were equals, like those
are all the worst things imaginable.” Her words tremble with anger. “They go on and on
about the need to maintain order, and the importance of the existing hierarchy that they just
happen to be at the top of. So, guess what they did?”

She doesn’t expect an answer, but Malfoy finally speaks.

“They caused the Witch Hunts.”

He doesn’t say it like it’s a guess. It’s a statement, like he already knew.

She doesn’t let herself stop to think about that. She needs to get this all out, to say it aloud,
because then it’s really real and not just some horrible things she’s made up in her head that
she can’t prove because no one will ever believe her.

“Yes —” her voice cracks. “The Wizard’s Council did. Because of the ‘threat’ of Black
Magic, they decided that dealing with Muggle-borns directly was too dangerous, and that
civil war was not an option since they couldn’t ensure victory. So they put the law about
Black Magic on hold while they pretended to consider the petition and then started rumours
in the Muggle world about witches being dangerous, stories that they put children in ovens
and ate them. Turns out Blood Magic didn’t have anything to do with it at all. That was just
the story they told in the Wizarding World to make it sound like the Muggle-borns brought it
on themselves. Like they deserved it, and shouldn’t be helped. They even communicated with
the Churches about places where Muggle-borns were known to live, and ways to catch them,
warning them about Floo powder, that it’d be better to drown them. Once the Hunts were
underway, the Wizard Council declared the rising tensions with the Goblins a rebellion, and
said it was necessary for the wellbeing of the wizarding kind to suppress it in light of the
current instability being caused by the Muggles.”

She swallows several times past the heavy weight lodged firmly in her throat. “You know,
there was a period of more than a hundred years during the Witch Hunts, where there wasn’t
a single Muggle-born recorded attending Hogwarts for the full seven years. They were all
caught…” Her voice dies.
 “So — that’s why the Muggle-borns never passed Black Magic down. There isn’t any secret
school of Black Magic anywhere, because there wasn’t anyone to teach. After that, it was
easy to quietly pass a law to make Black Magic illegal. Most people didn’t even know about
it by then.”

She finally looks up at Malfoy.

He looks resigned by all this information rather than shocked. She wanted him to be shocked,
to take offence at the accusations and argue that it couldn’t be true. A part of her wants him to
prove her wrong.

She’d like to be wrong this time.

But he just looks at her like he’s sorry she knows now.

She hates the expression on his face.

“Did you know ? Did you already know all this?” She stands up and faces him.

He nods slowly, his expression all mask. “I realised when Snape was talking about the
timeline, when it all happened. After we’d talked that one night about Blood Magic, I’d done
research, trying — ” he flushes, “— trying to prove that you were wrong about the Witch
Hunts. My parents always used the Witch Hunts as an example of this horrible thing that
Muggle-borns caused, and how we’d suffered because of it. I never questioned it. But you
were right, the story didn’t add up, that no one cared for so long if it mattered the way they
said it did. I hadn’t pieced it all together until Snape was talking. Then I realised it.”

Hermione feels like she’s simultaneously empty inside and so full of anger that she can
barely contain herself.

“Were you going to tell me?” Her voice is sharp with suspicion, remembering how he tested
her, watched her, always had so much more access to information than she does.

Her magic ripples inside her.

He holds his hands out placatingly. “It was just a theory. I didn’t know for sure, it just —” he
looks down, avoiding her eyes, “it was the kind of thing my family would do, to make sure
they came out on top. My aunt, she thinks that because she’s better than everyone, that gives
her the right to do anything to them if they get in her way.”

Hermione turns away, trying to wrap herself around the emotions and thoughts beating
against the inside of her skull.

The end of Black Magic’s first era is so tragically ignominious. They could have upended
everything. They could have caused a revolution, but instead, they vanished entirely from
memory. While it could simply be the failing of the archive, there were no records Hermione
could find indicating that the Muggle-borns even realised what happened, how they’d been
played.
Fools, so stupid, all of them, thinking things were fair. What kind of idiot believes things are
fair?

But Hermione is entirely at a loss about what she’s meant to do with the revelation. The
Wizarding World has had hundreds of years to stack the odds against her.

She had already lost before she ever knew she was playing. Before her first glimmer of
magic. Before she was even born.

They intentionally only left the edges of society for her to even exist on.

Learning the Dark Arts, illegal. Practising Black Magic, a death sentence. The information
about what happened, obtained by entering an archive she should never have had access to.

They have only left enough space for Hermione to be small and inconsequential. Another
Muggle-born who will never count for anything because she’s excluded from every way in
which she could.

As Malfoy said, they already know what she can do, the possibilities she contains, and they
would rather let the Wizarding World stagnate, leave the fourteenth century as the pinnacle of
Wizarding progress rather than allow anyone else in the magical world to encroach on the
sense of superiority they’d made their exclusive domain.

Her magic burns like a brand inside her, pulsing with her heartbeat until the air around her
ripples. Her hands flex, breath shortening from the effort to contain it.

“Let’s get out of here,” Malfoy says, interrupting her thoughts. His expression is strained, like
he can tell she's teetering on the edge. He moves towards her gingerly. “We’ll come back
later if you want. I think we should take a break.”

His tone is placating, uncharacteristically void of demand. He says ‘we’ even though she
knows he means ‘you.’

She wants to say no. There’s more here. She’s only scratched the surface, she's certain, but
she doesn’t want to be in the archive any longer. All these records sit with their open
admissions of wrongdoing, restricted to those with a vested interest in maintaining the
coverup.

She’s starting to hate it. Maybe she’s going to hate all the libraries she ever aspired to enter,
now that she understands why she wasn’t allowed. She wants to scream.

If she stays here, she is just going to get angrier and angrier and it’s very possible that she
might do something she can’t take back.

She doesn't argue, she lets him wordlessly lead her down the steps that wind back and forth,
back down to the floor.

They go back to the same pub and get a booth. Rather than seat himself across from her,
Malfoy slides in next to her, blocking her in. It’s a rather transparent attempt to keep her from
storming out mid-meal.
She pretends not to notice, which isn’t hard because she’s still in shock. She’s so angry at the
unfairness of it. They followed all the rules. The Muggle-borns could have just threatened the
Wizengamot, refused to comply with any laws regarding Black Magic, but they tried to do
things the right way.

What is even the point of following the rules, if everyone on top gets to break them?

The opportunities are all illusions, so that when someone like her complains, points out the
injustice, the people born to win can look down and say, ‘it’s just because you don’t have
what it takes.’

The anger in her chest burns savagely.

“Stop glaring, you’re going to burn a hole in the seat,” Malfoy mutters in her ear.

She turns her glare on him. “If I wanted to set everything on fire, I would.”

He sighs and lets her seethe in peace.

After a minute, he speaks again. “I’m sorry.”

Her whole body twitches, and then she gives a sharp laugh. “That really doesn’t cut it.”

She says it in the most vicious tone she can manage because she wants to be angry at him
right now because if she can’t aim her fury at one person then she has to direct it at the entire
world, and then it will be futile, empty, like shouting into the wind.

But she doesn’t want to be angry at him either, because he’s still here. He’s here with her, and
he let her go looking for the answers, even though he knew what she’d probably find. If she
drives him away and he abandons her, she’s afraid she’ll unravel.

She shifts, not wanting to be in public, but she’s trapped. She’s tempted to crawl under the
table to get away.

She wants to scream. She thinks she’s about to start if she has to keep sitting there trying to
keep quiet and act like nothing’s wrong, when everything is wrong.

“Was saying that supposed to make me feel better?” she asks almost compulsively. Her voice
is tight and scathing, her body so uncomfortably still that the tension makes her left calf
cramp, the pain lances through her.

Instead of rising to her bait, he shakes his head, apparently determined not to have a fight
with her right now even though she is desperate to fight.

“No. I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

She looks away and hears him draw a deep breath.

“I spent my whole life hating Muggle-borns,” he says after a moment, and she doesn’t know
how that’s supposed to make her feel any better.
 “I thought all the things I was angry about were your fault. I was always told things had to
be that way because of people like you. That you ruined all the good things we could have
had, so you didn’t deserve any part of what we had left. Now – it turns out that the opposite is
true, so —“ there’s a pause and he clears his throat, “if you hate me now, that’d be fair. I
wouldn’t argue.”

He doesn’t seem to expect an answer to this. He turns away, fingers nervously drumming on
the table as he looks for a server.

Hermione sits frozen, processing this. It feels like everything is removed from her. Far away
down a tunnel.

She is buried. She is so alone.

She wants to say something, but everything is jammed up, a tangled knot of emotions inside
her chest. His fingers drum across the table again, grating against her fragile sense of
equilibrium.

She puts her hand on top of his, stilling his fingers. He tenses for an instant and then doesn’t
move.

Her palm is pressed flat against the back of his knuckles, the signet ring on his hand is almost
bitingly cold, and she grips his fingers tighter. She isn’t sure what she means by it, she'd just
meant to still his fingers, but now she can't let go.

She doesn’t think she could pry her fingers away even if she wanted to. The metal from the
ring gradually warms against her skin and she keeps holding on. Malfoy is reassuringly
tangible in a moment when it feels like everything she has ever wanted is slipping away from
her, sliding through her fingers as though she has always been an immaterial part of the
world.

“Do you want to go back to the archive?” he asks as they leave the pub, acting very
convincingly like she hadn’t just spent an entire meal inexplicably gripping his hand for dear
life.

Her fingers feel empty now, and she curls them up, fidgeting with the cuff of her coat sleeve
instead.

She feels that she should go back to the archive, but the thought fills her with a physical
sense of revulsion.

It doesn’t help that she’s coated in five hundred years of dust. She can smell it on her hands
and clothes, her fingers have grime worked into the ridges of her fingerprints despite her
washing, and her hair feels covered too.

“I think I want a shower,” she says.

He nods, discreetly rotating his wrist a few times like his forearm has a cramp in it.
They walk back to the inn in silence. She feels him glancing at her, trying to gauge her mood,
and she pretends not to notice. She feels as if she’s levelled out somewhat from the initial
shock she felt. She already knew how the story ended. Despite his overall evasiveness, Snape
had made it obvious that she wouldn’t like any answers she’d find, and even though she’d
wanted so much to unearth some revelation that could set the whole world right, she hadn’t
really believed there was going to be another even more secret school waiting for her where,
this time, she’d truly belong.

She mostly feels an empty sort of grief. Like she’s lost something even though she never had
it.

Now, she knows she never will.

After she’s showered, she lies on her bed, wrapped in a towel, and then holds up a hand,
letting her magic flicker like fire along her fingers. The kitten, which looks like an ink stain
on the pillow, comes over, its form still mostly nebulous, but with distinct ears now.
Hermione lets her fingers trail along the cat’s back, magic flowing into it.

She’s beginning to understand why Black Magic users usually had familiars. The cat is like a
little pressure valve to pour her pent up power into instead of feeling like she has to
constantly hold it all in. Now, when there’s too much, she just lets it seep into the kitten.

She feels a purr vibrate through the shared magic. She curls onto her side and presses her face
against its body. Its soft and warm, its black flamelike fur smelling ozonic with a synaptic
burn that tingles through her mind. It bats at her nose with a tiny paw.

The magic inside her feels more stable now, less like a raw wound and more like a channel,
but Hermione feels lost. A wandering planet with no gravity to hold her within a path of
orbit.

She has power, more power than possibly anyone in the Wizarding World, but instead of
giving her a road to the life she’s always wanted, it leads off a cliff.

The world she lives in is built on so many lies and so many lives that the present is half-
invented, and so cleverly constructed that it’s become self-sustaining. Muggle-borns have a
tendency to suppress their power, which could be made into a strength, but they’re deprived
of the opportunity to make it one. As a result, they struggle with magic at school, which is
seen as proof of their inferiority. They can’t practise during the summer, so they fall behind,
making them more likely to rank low in exams. They don’t have tutors, so they finish school
without additional recommendations. As a result, no one sees them as qualified, and so they
never get special opportunities, or important jobs, or even visible jobs regardless of what anti
discrimination acts exist.

Repeat the cycle long enough and eventually every thread of the narrative says over and over
that Muggle-borns are lesser, that they are made that way.

The only way for Hermione to break free from that inevitable path is by being criminal,
openly practising magic she shouldn’t legally have, and simply damning herself in another
way.
 It’s never been about Hermione or any other Muggle-born needing to break through the glass
ceiling, to prove that they have what it takes. The Ministry knows they have what it takes,
and they’ve gone to great lengths to ensure they’ll never succeed in having it again.

There will never be any place for Hermione if she plays by the existing rules. Her options are
conform or rebel.

She will not conform, but she’s not sure how to rebel either in a way that isn’t just an
ultimately futile form of resistance.

But she wants to do something . Needs to. Her emotions and magic and mind are keyed up,
leaving her restless and on edge with the urge to act. She wants to get back at the Wizarding
World for taking so much from her when all she ever wanted was to matter, to feel like she
counted.

Now, she wants to do something that will enrage them, to aim somewhere it will hurt them
most.

There’s a soft knock on her door.

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

The Vague Shape of a Kitten by mignonnettes9

The Barest Weight In Her Palm by niashipsmantids
She'll Just Do Whatever She Wants by cocotamarindo
A miniature version of the fire cat by chronictonsillitis
A blob with some intermittent cat features by artemisia_flora
The Unbreakable Vow by kosmickriss
Confession by booklover.dreamer
VoidCat by artemisia_flora
'Y-you're my person' by emmilliaart
Malfoy sleeping in Hermione's imagination by arangtriestodraw
A Dark Familiar by lvmaruva
A blob of primordial power by nvzch_art
The Triwizard Champions by mary_fray_child
Midnights Hermione by hiejindraws
 First
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Hermione doesn’t move from where she’s lying on her bed.

There’s another knock.

She closes her eyes and ignores it.

She knows it’s Malfoy, probably coming to be annoying about something. She’s not even
dressed yet. Can’t he leave her alone for a few hours? He’s such an over-controlling arse.

He knocks for the third time.

She sighs, rolling her eyes as she sits up, gripping the towel around herself and double-
checking that it’s securely tucked in as she goes to the door and peeks out, trying not to make
it obvious that she isn't wearing anything.

The attempt is futile.

He immediately notices. His eyes grow round as saucers, and he goes from his usual pale
white to pink to red in a matter of seconds and just stands there, staring at her bare shoulders.

“What is it?” she asks impatiently, because the hallway outside is much colder than the air in
her room and it makes her skin prickle.

He blinks, tearing his eyes away from her body to meet her glare. “I — um — I just wanted
to — “ he swallows visibly. “I was checking — that you’re alright. Not — doing anything —
stupid again.”

She knew it, he had come to be annoying. She’s tempted to slam the door in his face, but he
looks so mortified by her lack of clothing that she decides to stay and watch him suffer.

“I’m fine. I just took a shower, like I said I was,” she says in an acid voice, no longer
endeavouring to hide the towel.

He flushes even redder, eyes darting up and down quickly, as if he thinks if he does it fast
enough she won’t notice. “Right. Yes. I — see that.”

Hermione knows that boys turn entirely stupid when they’re turned on. She’s borne witness
to Harry and Ron’s slack-jawed distraction when certain girls who look certain ways go past,
but she’s never encountered it quite so abruptly or had the attention focused on herself.

She knows she can be pretty sometimes, but in her mind it’s something that requires certain
conditions. With the right makeup, hair products and dress, Hermione Granger can be pretty,
but it’s not her natural state of being.
Right now she’s literally scrubbed down to her pores. Her hair is doing whatever it wants,
and she’s wearing a towel that’s a deeply unflattering shade of dingy pink.

But Malfoy is staring at her as if she is the most mesmerising and edible thing he has ever
laid eyes on, and he keeps swallowing – like he’s hungry for her.

She can feel his eyes on her skin as if the pale silver in them were molten.

It’s searingly warm, and her hollow rage is forgotten as her skin prickles for a different
reason. As she stands there, a quickening in her blood cuts her breath short as a shiver slides
down her spine.

She fidgets with the doorknob and lets him stare, her whole body growing warm, not the heat
of rage inside her chest, but somewhere lower.

She can’t help it, there’s always a spark when he’s close, that gravitational pull. Normally
she’s distracted from it because there’s an agenda or they’re fighting or she’s antagonising
him, but right now she’s just standing there, feeling it and the draw is spreading through her
until she feels infected to the marrow. Longing fills her.

She’s so empty. All the things she’s clung to have fallen apart. Her dreams seem naive to the
point that it’s embarrassing to admit that she had them. All those ambitions she sustained
herself on, that life she was going to earn someday, none of it will ever be real. It was never
going to be.

The sense of betrayal she feels has her nearly overcome by the need to do something to
reclaim some kind of vicious agency. To not just be a pawn in someone else’s game.

To refuse to stay on the path she’s been chained to.

To cut back at the people who trapped her there in a place where it’ll hurt most.

As she stands there, she understands now the rapid calculation in Malfoy’s eyes when he
chose not to leave the Prefect Bath. That spiteful desire he had to do such a ‘terrible’ thing.‘

She’d mocked him for it, considered it laughable then, a pathetic form of rebellion, that
toothless form of vengeance. But now, as she stands here, burning with impotent rage, she
understands the feeling of being so suffocated and hemmed in on every side that even a sliver
of agency feels worth seizing.

After all, sharing a bath with her was going straight for the jugular. Purebloods don’t even
need to associate with Muggle-borns to be considered Blood Traitors. Dumbledore’s
considered a Blood Traitor just because he supports the ‘idea’ of them.

If anyone is going to understand the consuming desire she has to do something in retribution,
to take something for herself just because she wants it and knows the Wizarding World would
consider the act an atrocity, it would be Malfoy.

She swallows.
She’s done a lot of things on impulse, out of spite, but this feels like leaping off a cliff.

She adjusts her grip on the doorknob, wetting her lips. “Malfoy?”

“Yeah?” His voice comes out a bit ragged, his eyes fastened on the place where her towel is
tucked in on itself.

She draws a deep breath. “Do you —” she swallows, “– do you want to make your parents
furious again?”

She watches as he processes the question.

There’s a delay, like he doesn't immediately register the meaning and has to run it through
again to verify he’s heard correctly.

His head jerks as he looks up at her face. His eyes are even darker now. Like gun-metal, or a
storm.

“What?” he manages to croak.

She feels mad as she steps back into her room, letting the door open wider in invitation. Her
heart’s racing, beating harder and harder until her ribs feel bruised by it. She’s even more
nervous now than she was before the First Task. A literal dragon would be less terrifying than
the figurative one in front of her.

Her magic hums like a steady pulse inside her and its assuring presence is the only reason she
gathers the nerve to repeat herself, “Do you want to make your parents furious again?”

He looks blindsided, just stares at her dazedly and finally nods slowly.

“Yeah? I mean, yes —” He chokes and clears his throat. “Definitely. A definite yes.”

He still looks caught off guard, but now the way he’s staring at her is less longing and more
predatory.

Her heart rate spikes. She’d thought she’d be the hunter, but now, as she lures him in, she
feels more like prey. She backs up another step, and this time, he steps forward, into her
room.

When the door swings shut behind him, she hears the click as the latch catches. No one is
going to interrupt them this time.

A shiver of anticipation runs up her spine. The air is overwhelmingly tense.

“I should warn you, I’m very dangerous,” she says jokingly, trying to break the tension
before he’s too close and it’s all real. Not that it isn’t already, but —

She’s not entirely sure. She’s equal parts panicking and thrilled.

The pulse in her throat is fluttering like a hummingbird.

He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even seem to notice the joke as he moves towards her.

“I know,” is all he says as he takes another step.

He’s very close now. Her stomach flips.

She can’t help but smile, even though she’s so nervous she can barely breathe.

“You’re not scared of me? Not even a little?” Her voice rises with a teasing hopefulness,
because if it’s funny then the room won’t feel so much like the air just before a lightning
strike.

He’s mere inches from her now, eyes tracing over her bare skin so slowly she can feel his
gaze as vivid as if it were his fingers gliding along her body. Her body is electric, like there’s
a charge running across the surface of her skin. The moment lasts an eternity.

Finally, he shakes his head.

“Not in any way that makes me want you less,” he says in a thick voice.

There’s a tempest of emotions and sensations that all blur intoxicatingly inside Hermione. His
words make her strangely lightheaded.

She rises onto her toes, her hand pressing against his chest until she can feel his rapid
heartbeat against her palm as she kisses him.

She’d meant to have him kiss her. But she’s vibrating and going to shatter like crystalware if
tension rises further. She can’t wait anymore.

Their lips meet and it’s like a part of her breathes again.

His body melts against hers, arms sliding along her ribs and he presses her back until her
shoulders meet the wall. One of his hands finds her face, cradling her cheek. There’s a heat
and hunger in the way he breathes her in, inhaling each time as he kisses her, as if she’s
oxygen.

His magic is cool even though his fingers and breath and body are warm. He keeps kissing
her and his fingertips trace along her nose, cheeks, and the curve around her jaw, like he’s
mapping her features, over and over. As if he needs to know the precise way her face rests
between his palms and fingers.

As he kisses her, her magic thrums inside her chest, as though her desire is a wavelength that
her magic is attuned to. The feeling of want inside her grows until there's a sense of infinity
within her.

She deepens the kiss, pulling him nearer, wanting more. God, she wants so much more.

It feels as if there are aspects of her that have been left starving her entire life. She kisses him
hungrily, pulling him close, closer, until his weight is pressed against her, bodies tangled, and
it still doesn’t feel close enough, doesn’t even take the edge off.
It’s not enough. Never enough. The thought syncopates with her heartbeat.

What if he was hers?

The question rises within her equal parts possessive and craven.

She smothers it ruthlessly.

It is not like that.

This is not about that. She’s getting revenge. She’s taking what she wants. That’s all. Just like
the last time.

It doesn’t mean anything.

Anger burns inside her chest, a bright sharp lash of pain, and her fingers tangle in his clothes,
the other hand twisting in his hair, pulling hard until he groans. She feels his teeth in his next
kiss, sharp enough to cut through the cacophony in her brain and make everything quiet.

She drags him in and bites at him, and he nips back, sharp enough that it tears a startled gasp
from her.

But then he holds her face and whispers, “Gentle,” as he kisses her softly, and she’s drowning
again.

He could be yours, the pathetic thing inside her whispers as she meets his kiss, even though
this is supposed to be about revenge and spite, and doing something she knows would make
all the purebloods like his parents furious.

She’s not doing this because he called her his person, or because she thinks that they have
any chance of being something.

There’s the tournament and the Unbreakable Vows. Even if they both wanted to be together,
they’re not anything lasting, she reminds herself. It’s not an opinion, that’s a fact.

Refusing to listen anymore, she ignores the peculiar ache that pulls through her chest and
tries to lose herself in the physicality of what’s happening. Focus on the here and now, not on
stupid fantasies.

Her towel comes loose, slipping down her body and falling to the floor. She feels the cold
wall against her shoulders and the heat of his fingers as they slide across her bare skin. His
breathing is already heavy, almost gasping every time he touches her.

She doesn’t track how they get from the wall to the bed, the touch and sensations blur until
he’s seated on the edge of it, she’s between his legs and he’s pulling her onto his lap to
straddle him. As he kisses down her shoulder, she catches sight of her little cat, seated on the
desk, glowing an indignant fiery orange, and looking profoundly disappointed in her.

God, she really didn’t think this through. They should have gone to his room.
Surely it won’t do anything. There’s no reason to worry.

She returns her attention to Malfoy.

He’s still fully dressed, and she’s already naked. She hadn’t considered that inconvenient
disparity. She breaks off the kiss to get his coat off and find the buttons on his shirt.

While she’s doing that, he watches her in a way that makes her entire face grow hot. She tries
to get the buttons undone as quickly as possible, but it’s made difficult because his hands start
moving again. Wandering. They’re all over her, touching her bare skin very distractingly, and
he keeps muttering things in her ears and against her neck in languages she doesn’t know.

He’s hard and pressed against her, and she’s sensitive and overwhelmed by how intense this
is, to be wanted like this. Her magic keeps flaring outwards like a new sense that she hasn’t
adapted to and can’t fully control. It gives her glimpses into things around her, flickers of
sensations bleed into her consciousness. The weight of her breast cupped in a palm that’s not
hers, the heat of her bare skin, the press of her body, a heavy longing in the blood.

It’s overwhelming, like her mind is trying to go in a thousand directions all at once.

She forcibly drags her magic in and tries to focus on something tactile, running her hands
through his hair, watching the way it slides between her fingers, the pulse under his throat,
the colour of his eyes that’s shifted somehow darker, trying to narrow her awareness of the
world into a sliver where only he exists.

She brings his mouth to hers, ruffling his hair until it stands on end, and he lets her. It should
be funny, she would never have imagined that this would be the way she’d finally muss up
Draco Malfoy's cold, perfect appearance and knock that detached expression from his face.

There’s nothing cold or detached in the way he stares at her.

She kisses him until she’s memorised the taste of his tongue, while she unfastens every
button in her path and she can feel his heated skin under her fingertips.

As she straddles him, there’s none of the weightlessness that water provides, but it’s
grounding; the gravitational pull between them is not buoyed by anything. She kisses along
his neck, pulling his shirt aside to bare a shoulder, and he draws a shuddering breath. His
hands keep running up and down, from her hip to her back, tracing the shape of her shoulder
blades. She shivers with a startled gasp when one dexterous finger glides up her spine to the
nape of her neck and his fingers curl through her hair.

She draws back enough to study him. There’s a flush running across his cheekbone and the
ridge of his nose, bisected by the scar across his eye.

She reaches out tentatively and touches the very edge of the scar where it crosses his
cheekbone.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” she says, her voice a whisper.

She kisses him again, and his arms wrap around her. He twists, putting her down on the bed
so that she’s laying underneath him. He leans on his forearms, gazing down at her. There’s a
bare strip of skin down to his stomach where she got his shirt undone, and his hair is rumpled
and falling over his eyes.

She feels like she should be embarrassed or self-conscious at being so exposed, but instead,
she feels — seen.

She inhales and reaches up to touch his face.

“Take your clothes off,” she says softly.

His eyes never leave her as his fingers find the remaining buttons on his shirt and then his
trousers. She watches his clothes slide off, falling to the floor until he’s as bare as she is. For
a moment they just stare at each other, then he looks sheepish, as if he’s not sure what to do
next.

He looks down at himself and then back at her face, like he’s trying to gauge her reaction,
what she thinks.

She’d never really considered that he might care about her opinion of him. Her stomach
flutters.

Sex has always been, in her mind, something very physical. But right now, it feels more like
sex is losing all the means of hiding, daring to let someone see you in the most vulnerable
way you can be, having to hope they’ll be kind.

It’s a wonder that people do it at all.

She sits forward and reaches for him.

When he kisses her again, there’s only skin and heat.

He kisses down her body, fingers trailing everywhere. She didn’t know she had that many
erogenous zones.

She kisses him and touches him back, fingers exploring, but only half-heartedly because
keeps thinking, now we’ll have sex. She can feel him pressed against her, and she’s heard
enough stories to know that boys are really eager. That once the clothes are off, everything
goes very fast.

But Malfoy doesn’t appear to know this. He acts like a lover, even though, obviously, she
knows that it’s not romantic, that they’re not like that.

Just because he said he doesn’t want her to die doesn’t mean that this is romantic.

Not wanting someone to be dead is a sentiment that could be applied to almost anyone.

She certainly doesn’t have any feelings for him. This is just physical. A physical want that’s
hooked itself inside her ribs.
It’s all hormones.

She is certain she will vibrate out of her skin if he keeps touching her though.

His fingers wander everywhere, mouth tasting her, nibbling and sucking at her skin until
there is a tense coiling ache inside her. The heat of his mouth on her breast makes her whole
body writhe, and she’s ready to scream when his fingers finally find their way between her
legs.

Electricity courses straight through her. She jolts, giving a quick, gasping moan.

There’s no swimsuit or water, it’s just him touching her.

“Here? Right?” he says, his lips hovering just above her breast, and the sensation is so acute
she can barely breathe.

The only response she manages is a whimper through clenched teeth. She can’t even nod. Her
entire body has gone taut and so has her magic, and she is suddenly viscerally aware that it’s
a part of her, that her magic and her body are one and the same. In all things.

Including this, apparently.

Her jaw clenches and she has to hold her breath, trying to stay focused and not fall headlong
into sensation. She can’t lose control.

She is suddenly not sure if this is a good idea. She hadn’t considered that she might –

She tries to open her mouth to say something, but his fingers do something new and her brain
short circuits. Her body clenches inside in a way she didn’t know it could.

A moan is all that escapes her.

He does it again.

His tongue flicks against her breast.

His fingers swirl, caress. A slow circle.

Right there…

Her magic coils tighter. Her fingers twist, clawing at the duvet, legs tensing, toes trying to
find purchase as his fingers stroke again.

He remembers exactly how she —

She can’t even think. Her whole body is trembling, a seismic ripple that’s originating from
inside her.

Stay in control, she reminds herself, you don’t want to hurt him.

She has to fight to hold fast to reality, afraid she’ll lose focus.
She’s gripped by the inexplicable urge to demand why he’s doing this to her. She feels like a
star that’s burning itself up all at once, and he’s not helping to make it any more manageable.
Instead, he’s making it much worse with every impossibly pleasurable sensation he somehow
coaxes out of her.

Her hips buck, and she makes a feeble attempt to tear herself away, but he pins her in place
with his knee, and his fingers keep following the pattern she showed him. His mouth is on
her breast, sucking, sending pleasure burning through her like a brand. A bolt of pleasure
shoots straight to her core.

She’s climbing through the atmosphere, the air growing thin inside her lungs until it’s
completely gone, and at any moment now, she’s going to burn across the sky like a comet.

Her head drops back, spine bowing upwards. She keeps trying to open her mouth to tell him
to stop, but all that escapes her is a tight-throated, gasping cry that he takes as
encouragement. The instant before she tries to shove him away in a panic, she shatters. Her
magic unspools inside her, compressing for an instant before rushing outwards.

Her body shakes as her consciousness fractals. Her hands burn from the effort it takes not to
let everything catch fire around her.

When her consciousness finds its way back inside her mind, she lies there, feeling boneless,
her chest heaving. There is so much magic in the air, she can feel it like smoke inside her
lungs when she breathes.

Malfoy’s face is hovering over hers, and when her eyes focus again, he looks offensively
smug as he kisses her. She can taste her magic on his lips, heady and intoxicating.

She pulls him close, desperate for the warmth and comfort of his skin against hers. Her
fingers are black to the palms, but she barely notices.

She never wants this to end.

His fingers tangle in her hair, and then his mouth is hot near her ear and he’s asking, his
voice ragged, “Can I?”

She nods quickly because of course, that’s supposed to be the whole point, and it’s only after
she does that niggling little details cross her mind, crowding into her consciousness.

Things like contraception.

Of course Madam Pomfrey has ensured that every single girl at Hogwarts knows the spell,
but Hermione’s wand magic isn’t quite that reliable yet. There are potions, but she didn’t
bring any because she hadn’t put sex with Draco Malfoy on her Easter holiday agenda. She
smothers the part of herself that’s endeavouring to panic. It’ll be alright, she reassures herself,
calculating rapidly, it’s not the right time of month anyway, and if she wants to be extra sure,
she can make a potion when she gets back to Hogwarts.
 Beyond contraception, however, there’s also the fact she’s never done this before, and
thinking about doing it is rather terrifying. She’s heard it can hurt, sometimes a lot. She’s
never shied away from pain, but knowing it’s going to hurt is different, especially when all
the sensations are so intense.

Her hands curl into nervous fists, her whole body going tense, legs drawing together just
thinking about it hurting.

“You sure?”

The question jolts her from her mind and she looks up.

He’s staring at her. He looks as uncertain as she feels, like it’s new and terrifying. A leap.

Instead of feeling even more worried by that, his expression somehow reassures her. That
she’s not being unreasonable for feeling freaked out. She’s never done this. She’s allowed to
overthink it a bit. But it’ll be alright, they’re figuring this out together.

She nods again, and this time, she is sure.

Sex is more complicated than Hermione expected for something as mechanically simple as
inserting tab A into slot B. She’d assumed that since it was all natural, things would just
intuitively happen.

It’s actually – tricky.

It takes a bit of manoeuvring to get the alignment right. He’s taller than her, which
necessitates wriggling around trying to get their hips at approximately the same place. Then it
becomes really obvious that neither of them has ever done this before when he nearly loses
his balance and falls on top of her. He flushes so brightly he looked sunburned.

When it’s all worked out and aligned, he starts to push slowly into her. They both gasp,
clutching at each other, her fingernails instantly digging into his shoulders to make him stop.

He goes so still, she doesn’t think he’s even breathing.

She’s breathing, very slowly, trying to force herself to relax even though her entire body is
tensing up from nervousness and anticipation of pain.

Relax.

She closes her eyes and focuses on the thought, willing herself to stop tensing up because she
knows it’s not going to help. It’s like elemental magic, she tells herself, you just have to relax
and let it happen.

She exhales slowly, the tension gradually ebbing away. She makes her fingers uncurl, there
are little crescents from her nails on his skin. As she relaxes, her magic flares out.

She nods unsteadily and he moves again, slowly.

 As he sinks into her, it doesn’t hurt, but his whole body shudders. He gasps and whimpers,
biting down on his lip and going still, eyes squeezing shut. His hands are shaking so much
they make the mattress tremble.

He doesn’t move again for several seconds.

If he’s not going to move, maybe she’s supposed to. That makes sense, then she can control
the speed and depth.

She shifts her own hips up, taking him deeper. A strangled noise instantly escapes him.

“N-no!” One of his hands manages to find her hip and he tries to pin her in place, shaking his
head rapidly. “Nodonwantcomyet.”

The words are desperate, garbled, and all on top of each other.

She doesn’t exactly make it out but she gets the gist and stops. “Sorry.”

His head drops, his lips near her forehead, and he moans like he’s in pain.

“Fuck,” he finally exhales the word into her hair. He just barely moves, sliding in a little
more, and his whole body shudders again.

“It’s just —” he’s trying to explain, his voice thick, “I’ll — fuck – Oh fuck…”

“It’s okay,” she says, trying to be helpful.

He shakes his head, his fingers curl, tangling in her hair as his breathing steadies, but he still
barely moves.

Maybe she’s squeezing too hard. That was the problem in the bath.

She tries to make herself relax more, but when she does, her magic slips completely free of
her control, as if it had been waiting to escape. Her consciousness follows it against her
volition, and suddenly she can feel him as if his body were hers.

The tension as his hands flex, the tangle of her hair biting into his skin, the heat of her body,
soft and comforting and liquid, a radiating, a scorching pleasure, that is blisteringly exquisite
and forming an inferno he’s at teetering at the edge of, on the verge of being swallowed by.

She’s dazed by the intensity of feeling her body and his at the same time. He is not in pain at
all.

Her own body reacts to the sensations, even though they’re not hers. She can’t hold still.

She has to move, it’s too intense not to move. Everything insider her is screaming to move.

She arches, biting down on her lip as a low whimper is dragged from her, heating twisting
low inside her as he goes deeper.
His hips press against hers, an arm sliding under her back, crushing her against his chest, his
lips brushing near her hairline, hot breath sweeping across her face and along her scalp.

She’s trembling from all the sensations, drunk on the rush of pleasure.

She keeps waiting for it to hurt. For there to be such sudden piercing pain that it obliterates
every hint of pleasure, but it never comes. There’s a pinch. A stretch that teeters just on the
verge of pain when he moves quickly. But it doesn’t hurt.

It feels as if they’re transmuting. Her fingers curl through his hair, silk against her skin, feels
him shiver and the pleasure that runs down his spine as she tugs. Her hands slide across his
shoulders, chasing it through his nerves.

A crescendo builds inside her.

There’s a rush in his blood, pleasure tears through him and his hips jerk several times. She
feels a pulse inside her, pleasure crystallising through his consciousness for an instant before
it bursts apart.

It rushes through her into her brain, bright and brilliant as a new star.

Her magic explodes out of her like a shockwave, floods through their bodies, through her
room, Malfoy’s room, the stairway, so intensely she could fall out of reality again. She just
barely manages to drag herself back together as she clings to him, focusing: here, here, I
only want to be here.

She repeats it over and over until her consciousness finds her body as a focal point again. She
lies there, clutching at him, as magic fades from her eyes.

Malfoy’s ribs dig in against hers as he lies gasping on top of her, catching his breath, as she
lies there trying to reorient herself within the confines of her body. It takes a moment before
her vision works, so she centres herself on the sound and sensation of his breathing, and his
body still entwined with hers.

She inhales unsteadily as everything grows clear. She expects him to push himself up and off,
and even before he does, she’s already dreading it.

It’s about to be over. Her chest aches.

He’s probably going to regret it. Now that he’s not distracted by being turned on, he’ll start
thinking; he’ll think about his family, or maybe he’ll think about contraception now and freak
out and then be angry at her because he assumed that since she invited him in she’d taken
precautions.

Something. There will be something, she’s certain of it.

He’ll find a reason to turn cold again, like the chill that comes after sunset.

And she’ll be left in the dark.

She lets her arms slip away and drop to the bed, so it won’t seem like she’s clinging or
anything.

She’s already imagining all the possible scenarios, trying to run through them all as fast as
she can because it’s easier, better to be mentally prepared, to know what’s coming.

It didn’t mean anything, she reminds herself.

She already knew that, so it’ll be fine. She’ll be fine.

He moves again, sliding his hips more slowly against hers, still inside her.

The movement is shallow, and so is his breathing. One of his hands slips under her head,
tangling in her curls at the base of her skull and he buries his face against her neck. His
breath stutters across her skin as his hips move again.

She lies there in confusion, trying to work out what’s happening.

Didn’t he already come? She was certain that he did.

“What are you doing?” she finally asks, craning her neck to see his expression.

He shakes his head, his face screwed up like he's about to cry. He looks lost, and Hermione‘s
getting more and more bewildered.

Why is he upset?

“I can go longer,” he grits out. “Not over – yet. I can keep going.”

His hand is trembling against the back of her neck.

She subsides for a moment and lies there in confusion. Is this something about stamina? It
must be, because he doesn’t seem to be enjoying it at all. He keeps pressing his face against
her shoulder, and hissing and flinching like it’s painful each time he moves.

She’s about to say something sarcastic so he’ll stop, but before she can, he gets his arm under
her back and pulls her against his chest in a tight embrace like he thinks she’s about to slip
away. He nuzzles under her ear, kissing the dip below her jaw.

“I can keep going,” he says again, like he’s trying to convince her.

The sharp words on her tongue die, her chest clenching so tight she can barely breathe.

Why is he so determined to draw everything out? He’s been doing it the whole time. If she
thinks back, she’d kept expecting it to all go faster, and he kept doing things so it wouldn’t.

So it would last as long as it could.

Her throat grows tight. She opens her mouth but can’t get her words out.
 She can feel his heartbeat, it’s rapid, racing in his chest. She wets her lips, drawing a
quavering breath. Her fingers curl hesitantly against his shoulders, touching him again, her
fingertips pressing against his pale skin. There are marks there from her fingernails.

She forces her voice to work. “You know —” she says, the words faltering, catching in her
throat, “y-you don’t have to leave. If you want — you can — you can stay here, tonight, with
me. Only — only if you want to. I don’t — “ she feels strangely faint. “It would be —”

She doesn’t know what to say it would be.

“You can…” she manages to get out before her voice fails her again.

Well, that came out as terribly as possible.

He goes still.

Dread crawls through her entire body, turning her cold, her insides shrivelling, and she
regrets her words with such intensity that she feels physically ill.

Her heart seems to stop beating entirely as her words just hang there. Her body’s hot and cold
all at once.

“Really?” The words are muffled against her skin, but his hand clutches tight in her hair. “Is
that alright?”

Her heart starts pounding, flooded with relief and she nods jerkily, trying to catch a glimpse
of his face from the corner of her eye. She has to fight to keep her voice casual. “Yeah – of
course.”

He collapses then, wrapping his arms around her until she’s so entwined she thinks he’s about
to turn into a sea serpent again. Then his whole body relaxes as he holds her.

He buries his face against her neck and shoulder, pulling her even closer. “Okay. Yeah.”

The heat of his breath rushes along her neck, and she’s free-falling somewhere inside herself.

Her whole body is suddenly unnaturally light, like she’d float away if he wasn’t there holding
on. She wraps her arms tightly around his neck, closing her eyes, terrified that this is what
coming home is supposed to feel like.

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations

Elemental Magic by enselius

'Did you know?' by arangtriestodraw
Tension by heijindraws
Casting burns by hellou_art
Tangible by bubs_bean
A witch and her familiar by pollux_art_
 Recalescence
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

When Hermione wakes the next morning, the first thing she notices is that her cat is bigger.
Instead of the little golf ball sized void, it’s grown to almost the size of a real kitten.

Simultaneous with that discovery is the realisation that it’s lying on Malfoy’s back,
apparently having overcome all its previous disapproval sometime in the night and
reclassifying him as its own personal heat source.

Malfoy, for his part, is sound asleep on his stomach, face buried in a pillow, long limbs
spread like a starfish across her bed. One arm wrapped firmly around her waist, and his ankle
hooked with hers to keep her near.

It’s not the most comfortable position, but Hermione is much more concerned with her cat
than the current contortion of her spine, because her cat, which hasn’t deigned to cuddle with
Hermione even once, is curled proprietarily up between the shoulder blades of Draco Malfoy,
who doesn’t even think it should exist.

It is honestly offensive.

She shoots it a dirty look and it just settles itself more securely, firelight eyes sliding shut.

“Go away,” Hermione whispers at it, perhaps more scathingly than is necessary.

It's not that she's jealous or anything. Malfoy will undoubtedly be annoyed if he wakes up to
find the familiar she made to spite him, using him as a cat bed. Even though Hermione
possesses significant mental and emotional fortitude, she'd rather not start the morning with
an argument while naked and staying in a inn where they're supposed to be siblings.

The cat ignores her.

“He’s not yours. Get off,” she mouths threateningly, afraid that if she moves too much, she’ll
wake him.

The kitten doesn’t even open its eyes.

It’s then that Hermione considers that maybe verbal commands aren’t the way to do it. She
hasn’t really had time to sit down and experiment with how a familiar ‘works.’

She draws a deep breath and sinks into her magic, finding the connection between them. She
wills firmly for her cat to go somewhere else, and watches with surprise and fascination as
the kitten wisps away, and instantly re-materialises on the desk, looking offended by the
relocation.

In retribution, it knocks all her pens on the floor.

Hermione lets it fume, returning her focus to Malfoy. She shifts very slowly onto her side to
watch him sleep. His lashes are fanned across the top of his cheekbones like ashy smudges,
the scarred eye hidden.

She tilts her head, pressing it into the pillow. His features are so strangely angular. She’s
tempted to reach out and trace them.

Usually, she feels restless when she wakes. There’s always an immediate sense of urgency, so
many things she should be doing, thinking, planning, working on. She needs to be ready at all
times.

But as she lies there studying him, that anxious need to busy herself is quieted by her desire
to simply exist in this moment. To stretch it out, and pay attention so she won’t miss any of
the details.

The peaceful contemplation only lasts a minute before questions and worries spring into her
consciousness, because as she lies there, it grows excruciatingly clear that there is absolutely
nothing simple about what she's done.

Why on earth did she think that having sex with Malfoy was somehow going to be simple?

That it wouldn’t mean anything. Not for her or him.

It did. She knows it, she can feel it, like there’s an additional weight inside her chest. She’s
pretty sure it meant something to him too, because he’s still here.

He wanted to stay with her.

Just thinking about it makes her heart beat faster. It's terrifying and exhilarating and a lot of
other things that she's not quite ready to confront head on.

She doesn’t even want it to be simple anymore. She doesn’t care if what they have now is so
intricate that it would take a lifetime to untangle. That it can never be untangled. She wants it
to be so complicated it lasts forever.

But she knows that’s irrational.

She exhales, trying to force her feelings back into alignment with reason.

It was just sex. People have sex all the time. It means nothing. It’s not a commitment.

He doesn’t belong to her.

She doesn’t want Malfoy. Not rationally, at least. He infuriates her beyond words, makes her
so angry sometimes she thinks she might literally explode, and that's a legitimate concern
when she has all this magic running through her. He has a unique talent for being almost
lethally irritating and then conveniently helpful and so abruptly pathetic all at once that she
can't even keep track of how she's supposed to be feeling about him. Who wants to be stuck
with someone like that?
Certainly not Hermione.

Not... rationally.

But there is something so achingly comforting in the thought of never letting him go, of
holding on. She feels as if she was made to hold on to him.

She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to think without getting sidetracked by the cacophonous
rush of emotions tumbling through her, or distracted by his physical presence beside her. The
warmth of his skin where his arm loops over her waist, the tempo of his breathing, even the
bone of his ankle where it presses against her leg, she tries to ignore it, but only feels more
aware of it the harder she tries. He’s here with her. Here.

He wanted to stay with her.

Her chest squeezes and her head feels light again.

What is she going to do?

The Final Task is so close. She can’t lose. The mere thought of losing is enough to make her
panic.

She will not lose just so Malfoy won’t hate her. Even now, in this moment, she will not
consider it, even though she knows it means she’ll lose him.

Her throat tightens and her whole body turns leaden, like she could sink through the mattress
and suffocate there.

But… maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe he’d want her to win.

Hermione winning could be the best thing for both of them.

She has always equated the idea of winning with punishing Malfoy, doing to him what he
wanted to do to her, stripping him of everything that made him who he is. But what if she’s
seeing it all wrong?

Knowing what she does about his family now, maybe it wouldn’t be the loss that she
imagined. He said he’d never forgive his parents for lying to him, it’s possible that he wants
the chance to be free of them.

Then he would be hers. Just hers.

Everything starts clicking into place.

If she’s Triwizard Champion, she’s almost assured a job working for Barty Crouch once she
finishes school. And there will be money from winning, not an inheritance worth, but still a
pretty good sum. She could give it to Malfoy while she completes her Seventh year at
Hogwarts. He could live in Hogsmeade while he’s figuring things out. He’s educated enough
that he probably wouldn’t have any trouble getting a job. Then when she’s finished at
Hogwarts, they can —
She cuts her mental path off, knowing she’s getting ahead of herself.

She presses her palms over her eyes, trying to squeeze sense back into her brain. She’s had
sex one time and now she’s planning a whole future together, imagining them keeping house
together and visiting him on Hogsmeade weekends.

She’s just as bad as Lavender and Parvati are when they fancy someone. Next thing she
knows, she’s going to be studying her tea leaves.

No, she reassures herself, she’s not being silly. She has to win, no matter what, really this
flight of fancy is objectively logical. She’s just hoping that when she does win, he won’t hate
her forever.

She chews at her thumbnail.

Malfoy is certain to have a lot of opinions when she tells him her plan. Knowing him, he’ll
disagree by default, but if she has all the logistics worked out and presents it very carefully,
maybe he’ll see her point.

The first thing to do is more research. She’ll get all the details worked out before she
mentions it, or even hints at what she’s thinking.

Admittedly, it's not her most ambitious dream, but winning the tournament and getting a
place in the Ministry working for Barty Crouch is pretty far — further than any other
Muggle-born. Even if that's as far as she ever gets, if Black Magic is just a secret she has to
spend her life keeping, she could be alright with that, if she isn’t alone.

If she has Malfoy, maybe he’d be enough for her.

Obviously, that’s also all predicated on the hope that things don’t go completely sour the
instant he wakes up...

As if sensing her rising dread, he shifts in his sleep.

She looks over at him, watching as his breathing changes and his eyebrows draw together.

His eyes slide open, revealing just a sliver of silver irises that immediately lock onto her face.

She has a brief moment of panic, her heart stalling as she studies his face, catching every
twitch of muscle, the way his eyebrows furrow and his mouth moves.

The corner of his mouth lifts.

“Hi.” His voice is thick with sleep.

She exhales unevenly.

“Hi,” she says with a nervous smile, watching for any hint of what’s about to happen next,
but he doesn’t say anything else.
She feels like she should say something, but she has no idea where to start.

She swallows several times, hoping that the right words will just come to her, but before they
do, he shifts forward. His forehead and nose brush against her face and then he kisses her.

It’s a slow, lazy kiss. Lips brushing, noses nuzzling. His hand comes up and seems to cover
half her face.

The kiss is as slow and warm as waking up.

He doesn’t close his eyes, instead he watches her through heavy lids as their lips meet. He
finally draws back just enough to break off the kiss. “Hi,” he says again.

She has never felt so stupidly happy in her entire life.

She exhales with relief and presses close, kissing him, her fingers finding all those angles
she’d wanted to explore.

As the kiss lingers, his fingers trail down, finding her bare breast and curl around it, cupping
it against the heat of his palm.

It’s all unhurried. He doesn’t hurry, and this time, neither does she. There is no particular end
point they’re under a deadline to reach. She lets herself take the time to notice all the things
she was too distracted to pay attention to the night before.

Morning light suits him, the fragile early spring rays limning his pale features. She
memorises his details with her fingertips. She notices the shape of his collarbones and the
steps of his ribs, the way he breathes when she touches him. She runs one fingertip along his
shoulder all the way down to his hands, watching his long fingers curl and flex when she
glides across his inner wrist and palm. She counts the blue veins and scars of the Vow where
they twine around his arm.

When she slides a hand down his torso, she watches him shiver, a flush rising across the ridge
of his nose.

She has moments where she feels dizzy and irrational, when she wants to get up and lock
herself in the bathroom until her brain calms down because everything she’s feeling is so
overwhelming. It’s not her magic overcoming her, she’d feel more in control if it was that.
All these feelings just keep rushing through her, so intense she doesn’t know how to make
sense of them. She has moments where she wants to cry even though she's not sad.

She feels the kind of happiness she’s imagined other people experiencing.

When she’s watched the people around her, their lives have always looked so complete, their
happiness intuitive, like they just know how to do it. It’s not something they have to worry
about or deconstruct to verify whether or not it’s real. They just seem to know. When
Hermione feels happy, there's this constant sense that she's pretending, pantomiming
happiness in an attempt to imitate the ways she's seen it done, because if she pauses for a
moment or lets herself think, it will all wash out like chalk art in a rainstorm.
She thought she'd never be happy in the way that other people are, that it couldn't possibly
happen in a way that would feel real for her.

But as Malfoy’s lips trail a meandering path down her throat and he pushes away the tangled
sheets until their bodies are only tangled in each other, she is happy, and it feels entirely real.

“Tell me something about you that no one knows,” he says.

It’s the first foray into conversation they’ve had, and it’s not the question she expected. She’s
been carefully keeping her mouth shut because she was afraid if she said the wrong thing, it
would bring reality back and then everything would be over.

She keeps thinking, just a little longer. Just a little longer —

The question sits right on the edge, balancing between reality and this weird little bubble of
ignoring the outside world.

As he asks it, he twists one of her few curls that survived the night around his finger, studying
it with open curiosity, tugging and watching the way it springs back.

She shifts awkwardly, glancing up at his face. “You probably already know more of my
secrets than anyone now.”

She meant it facetiously but as said it, she realises it’s actually true. Draco Malfoy somehow
knows more about some of her most carefully kept secrets than even Harry and Ron, who
have been her best friends since First Year.

How did that happen?

His eyes gleam and he doesn’t look put off by this. In fact, he seems pleased. “Tell me
another one.”

She thinks for a moment, trying to come up with something that isn’t related to school or the
tournament or Black magic. He probably means for her to tell him some funny anecdote but
she can’t think of many amusing secrets that don’t incriminate Ron or Harry in some kind of
trouble, so she tells him something that no one in the wizarding world knows about.

“When I was little,” she says slowly, “my parents didn’t like to have strangers watch me,
they’d worry I’d — I’d do something.” She glances at him, checking that he’s tracking what
she means by that. “So, I’d visit my uncle when they’d go out to dinner. He lived in London,
which was a lot closer than my Nan. He was very quiet and calm, I never felt out of control
with him, and he collected all these puzzles. There was a whole wall of them in his house. He
used to lend me one each time I came, so I could try to solve it at home. He’d tell me I was
clever enough to figure out anything if I put my mind to it because I was like a puzzle, that I
had a mystery hidden inside me, and we just had to figure it out.” Her throat presses upon the
emotions lodged there. “He died before I found out I was a witch. I wish I could have told
him, I bet he would have liked it.”
“How old were you when he passed?”

She inhales deep enough to make her lungs ache. “Eleven, but my letter didn’t come until the
following summer, so it was after we’d buried him. He didn’t die suddenly or anything. We
all knew it was coming.”

His expression softens. “Still, I’m sorry.”

Hermione exhales and avoids his stare.

She’s gotten used to avoiding conversations about her family because some many people act
incredulous about the mere idea of Muggles, like it’s a revelation that they can have lives and
do things that matter and aren’t just funny anecdotes. It’s almost foreign to have them treated
like people.

“Thanks,” she says after an awkward silence.

She knows they’re wasting time just lying there. If she wants to win the tournament, there’s
still a lot she needs to sit down and figure out, but she can’t bring herself to let the morning
end. Malfoy is just lying there, watching her, in no apparent hurry to get up either.

“Now you have to tell me something no one knows,” she says.

He blinks. “That no one knows?”

She nods with false solemnity.

He thinks for a moment and then the corner of his mouth just barely lifts. “Do you want to
hear something terrible?”

“I don’t know,” she says, giving him a sidelong look, not sure if he means it jokingly or if
he’s going to tell her something truly awful. “How terrible?”

He rolls onto his side so that they’re facing each other and then gives a deep sigh, his
expression grave and eyes lowered, as if he’s about to say something legitimately dreadful.
“The first time I realised you were pretty was when you threatened to hex me.”

She gapes in astonishment. “What?”

He nods, still looking very serious. “It was terrible. I had to close my eyes because I was
afraid you’d notice my sudden internal crisis.”

She shakes her head in disbelief, trying to remember exactly how that particular altercation
had progressed. She'd thought she had him frozen in fear, and he was standing there being
horrified about finding her pretty?

“But — I was stabbing you with my wand.”

He drops back onto the bed, eyes closing, and he looks almost angelic lying there among the
white sheets. “Yes, I know. It would seem I have strange tastes.”
Her stomach flutters at this, but she only scowls at him.

“Yes, you do,” she says, agreeing but not sure that she likes the idea as it relates to her.

After all the time she’s spent trying to be likeable with others and always feeling as if she
perpetually fell short of some standard, here’s Malfoy, who knows probably the worst version
of her, and is unapologetically keen on it.

If she'd known being likeable was that arbitrary, she would have saved herself a lot of effort
and grief over the years.

“I have to admit,” he adds, interrupting her stewing, his eyes open again and there’s a dark
heat to them. “I think I may like you even more when you’re not threatening me with
grievous bodily harm. Although,” his lips curve into a sharp-edged smirk, “I’m still debating
it.”

Malfoy is the one who finally decides that it’s necessary that they get up and leave her room.

Because he is hungry. Starving.

On the verge of death, in fact.

He’s really over dramatic at times, which is a strange thing to discover beneath the default
stoicism.

Hermione can’t argue with the necessity for food, and doesn’t because she really needs to go
back to the archive. She’s started making a mental checklist of everything she’s going to need
to figure out, as well as possible contingencies, so that when she tells him her idea about
winning the tournament her case will be compelling and he’ll think it’s a good idea.

But the minute they’re out of her room, everything between them turns awkward.

All the familiarity evaporates and they’re stiff and terse. He comes out of his room after
going to get dressed, and the first thing she notices is signet ring, whose absence she hadn't
even noticed the night before, back on his hand. Even though she knows its because he needs
it in order to enter the archive, its reappearance twists something inside her. Like everything's
been reverted back.

They avoid each other’s eyes and don’t really talk while they’re getting breakfast, and walk
in silence to the alley. When they get there, she quickly grabs the sleeve of his coat rather
than wait to see if he wants to hold hands because what if he doesn’t and then she’s standing
there like some naif.

It’s not until after he slices his palm open for the gargoyle, for what is now the third morning
in a row, that she finally forces herself to break the silence. She turns as the door swings shut,
watching him slide the ring back onto his finger.

“Is it —” her throat tightens because she hates it when she doesn’t know the answers and has
to ask people to explain.
He stares at her, eyes piercing in the dim sconce light as he casually heals the cut on his hand.
There’s a trace of scar left behind.

Her heart beats faster as she watches him wipe away the blood and she forces the question
out.

“Is it a big deal among purebloods to use your blood for someone?”

He doesn’t immediately answer. She feels her face growing hot with embarrassment, nearly
overcome by the impulse to be defensive so she won’t look ignorant. Her hands ball into
fists.

“Yes,” he says at last.

Her stomach drops through her body and then all the way into the earth’s molten core.

“R-really?” she says, hoping that he’s being sarcastic.

He nods, shrugging as if it's common knowledge. “Generally, it’s only done for family.”

Of course. She wants to kick herself for not just realising that. Other purebloods have their
own blood, they wouldn’t need someone else to cut themselves.

She stares at his chest, cheeks burning, too embarrassed to look up and meet his eyes.

“Oh.” Her hands are are starting to cramp. “I didn’t know that,” she says in a stiff voice,
“Then – thank you, Malfoy. For — for doing that for me.”

There’s a painful silence.

He says nothing. She's certain he’s just basking in the moment, now that's she's been forced
to finally confront how unwittingly oblivious and ungrateful she is, that she doesn't even
know when she's breaking basic rules of etiquette because she's too much of an outsider to
even understand how things are supposed to work.

“Then you should call me Draco.”

She looks up, flustered. “What?”

He’s not gloating the way she assumed, although he does look amused.

“To thank me, you can call me Draco.” He tilts his head to the side, a smirk lifting the corner
of his mouth. “We did have sex with each other — twice now. So,” he shrugs, “I think it’s
alright.”

“Draco?” she repeats.

His name feels very odd on her tongue.

“Yes, just like that.” He smirks again. It’s actually closer to a smile, and walks around her to
open the inner door.

It’s by far their least productive trip to the archive, because instead of going their separate
ways and doing their own research, Malfoy follows her. He doesn’t ask, he just goes with her
as if it’s assumed that they’ll stay together.

Hermione has fantasised about having a research partner; the idea of someone interested in
all the same things she wants answers to is a dream come true. But while Malfoy — Draco,
technically meets the criteria, it turns out that he’s extremely distracting.

He hovers so close that she can’t even read a sentence without losing track of it a couple
times, and when she tries to elbow him away or glare, he takes her attention as an invitation
to do things that are not at all research related. Things that involve her back being pressed
against dusty walls and Draco’s hand in her curls.

She does manage to find a bit more information on controlling her magic, and learns that
familiars are specifically important because they help a wielder vent their power if they
overdraw rather than over-imbuing a location or making places magical that aren’t supposed
to be.

Which… probably accounts for the way her kitten doubled in size the night before.

But by the time she manages to find just that little bit of information, her lips feel swollen,
her hair is nearly a veritable halo around her head without so much as a single intact curl
remaining, and she’s pretty sure she has a hickey on the side of her neck.

She’s tempted to show her research discovery to Draco to demonstrate she was perfectly right
to make her cat, but refrains, because now she’s found that she likes thinking about how
worried he was about her.

When they leave in the early evening, before she can catch hold of his sleeve for the
apparition back to the village, he slides his arm around her waist and kisses her right on the
tip of her nose before they vanish.

She’s so surprised, she almost doesn’t mind the side-along apparition, and when they land,
they just stand there. Staring at him, she feels giddier than when she was drunk on
firewhisky.

“There you are,” comes an incredibly unwelcome voice.

Hermione starts and tries to spring away, but Draco’s arm around her back tightens, and he
pulls her closer.

They both whirl to find Snape standing at the opening of the alley, glaring at them as if they
are individually and collectively responsible for ruining his entire life.

His black eyes rake balefully over them.

 “Well,” he says icily, “At least it’s not difficult to see what you’ve been doing.”

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

Yule Ball by spicey_doodle_art

"Gentle" by arangetriestodraw
 The Prince's Tales
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Draco’s entire body goes taut as he glares back at Snape.

“How did you find us?” he asks, his voice ice cold. “Did my parents send you?”

Snape rolls his eyes, his sallow face seeming disappointed. “If your parents had any idea of
what you were up to, I would not be the one they sent.”

That only makes Draco grip Hermione tighter, like he’s about to apparate away with her.

Snape glances around, nose wrinkling at the alley surrounding them. “This town does not get
many visitors. I suspect everyone within a mile has heard about the ‘Wilkins siblings.’ They
think you’re a pair of runaways. If you hadn’t wanted me to find you, you should have gone
somewhere else.”

They both simply stare at him, they hadn't considered that Snape would ever want to find
them.

Snape sighs with impatience. “Speaking of transparent cover stories, Draco, where do your
parents think you are right now? I’d expected them to be tearing the country apart by the time
I returned.”

Draco relaxes enough to shrug. “Reykjavik, with a schoolmate. I think they prefer me
anywhere but Hogwarts, and Petr still owes me about half his soul from his bet on who’d be
Durmstrang’s champion.” The indifference vanishes and he scowls at Snape again. “Now,
what do you want?”

Snape gives them a dour look, as if the answer is obvious. “To hear about your progress. I
take it by the dust on your clothes that you’ve come from the Fawley Archive.”

“I thought you weren’t my tutor anymore,” Draco replies with a sneer.

“Yes, because I was hoping to deter you,” Snape says, glancing dismissively away and then
back, “but you seem determined to throw your life away and there’s nothing I can do to stop
you that wouldn’t result in — unpleasantness. I will not be the one held responsible for the
terrible choices you’re endeavouring to make.’”

“Then leave us alone,” Hermione says.

The corner of Snape's mouth tilts up and he looks squarely at her. “If you don’t cooperate, I
may feel obliged to write a letter to Draco’s father mentioning how nice it was to see him and
his fellow champion over the Easter holidays. I’ll let you choose.”
Draco stands frozen for a moment, the muscle in his jaw rippling. Hermione’s chest and
hands grow hot with magic, and she wonders if she could just atomise Snape where he
stands. The intense desire to do so is already present, she doesn't think it would even be that
difficult.

Unfortunately, it’s not an ideal time to ask Draco what he thinks of this solution.

“Fine,” Draco says through his teeth.

“Excellent. I’m so glad we’re all in agreement,” Snape says silkily, and turns on his heel,
leading the way to a cafe that he’s apparently familiar enough with to greet the proprietor by
name.

They awkwardly order tea and sandwiches at the counter, Hermione counting out the right
tender because Malfoy is still baffled by her attempts to explain the currency, while Snape
observes them with beady-eyed interest.

They sit down across from him in a far corner, and Hermione can feel some kind of privacy
spell there, ensuring that the Muggle at the counter pays them no more attention.

Snape’s gaze suddenly narrows on her, and his nostrils flare.

“I hope you’re taking contraceptive measures.”

Hermione’s tea was halfway to her mouth, and she smacks her mug down in order to keep
from dumping it on herself. Her face grows so hot, she thinks she’s about to spontaneously
combust, while Draco turns red all the way up to his ears.

She opens her mouth to protest, but Snape cuts her off.

“Don’t bother lying. I’m a Potions Master, my senses are acute. The two of you reek of one
another. Now,” he flicks his fingers as if waving away some kind of horrible dead thing that’s
been disturbing his peace of mind, “tell me what you’ve learned.”

Hermione lets Malfoy talk first, which he does haltingly, looking like he wants the floor to
swallow him. Hermione doesn’t even try to interject, distracted with trying to sniff
surreptitiously at her clothes and smooth her hair out.

He can’t possibly tell. It must have been a bluff to see how they’d react. He can’t actually
smell that they had sex.

Still, she mentally moves brewing a contraceptive potion to the very top of her to-do list once
she gets back to Hogwarts.

As Draco reviews what they’ve found in the archive, Snape’s expression grows increasingly
judgemental and dour, as if he’s trying to use every micro-expression he’s capable of to
communicate the terrible mistake Draco’s making.

Once Hermione manages a subtle freshening charm with her wand, she sits glowering right
back at Snape.
When it’s her turn to talk, she sits very straight and feels like she’s in recitation.

Snape listens in silence, his eyes frequently flicking over towards Draco, and it’s clear he
doesn’t really care what they’ve learned so much as how Draco ‘feels’ about it, and whether
their journey of discovery has dissuaded him. He barely pays any mind to Hermione until she
mentions her familiar.

“A cat?” he repeats, straightening, mouth pursing. “You made a cat?”

“Yes,” Hermione says, jutting her chin forward, “familiars e common among Black Magic
practitioners. They help with managing overflow.”

Snape gives Draco another long look full of implications that Draco is either oblivious or
immune to.

“Well,” he says after a pause, “it’s fortunate it’s nothing too noticeable.”

“It’s not exactly just a cat,” Draco says, interrupting for the first time, apparently
disappointed that Snape isn’t piling on Hermione. “It likes to catch fire occasionally.”

Hermione elbows him. “It only happened a few times, and I don’t think it was even really on
fire, it just changed colours.”

“Right, it’s just a colour changing cat,” he says, his voice oozing sarcasm, “you can get those
in most menageries.”

She kicks him in the ankle and he turns on her with a hiss.

“Draco,” Snape interrupts them, tone pointed, “will you go order a new pot of tea?”

They turn from each other to level a unified glare at Snape. It’s an incredibly transparent way
to send him away for a few minutes.

“No,” Draco says.

Snape’s eyes narrow. “I can still write to your father.”

A furious flush rises in Draco’s cheeks, and he opens his mouth to argue.

“Tea,” Snape orders. “Now.”

Draco stands and then leans towards Hermione. “Don’t believe —“

“Tea, Draco.” Snape’s voice is deadly.

He stalks over to the counter, and Hermione is left staring at Snape.

“So,” she tilts her head to one side, appraising him back, “is this why you’re really here? To
get him away long enough to threaten me?”
Snape snorts. “Miss Granger, if I were a threat to you, you would already be dead. I’m here to
educate you on a few of the finer points my former student may prefer to ignore.” He brushes
away a few crumbs on the table. “Draco has a great deal resting on his shoulders. You may be
aware that in an ordinary case, his mere association with you —” he eyes Hermione
pointedly, “— such as it is, would be enough to have him disowned by his family, however,
Draco’s situation is — unique.”

Hermione shrugs. Draco doesn’t have any siblings, which probably makes him difficult if not
impossible to disown, but that’s obvious and she doesn’t care.

“Draco,” Snape continues, “is young and more soft-hearted than he wants anyone to know.
His family’s standards have been more exacting than was necessary, and it has left him with
some peculiar vulnerabilities. It’s hardly difficult to understand why you appeal to him, and,
unfortunately, because of that, I have no confidence in his capacity to be at all reasonable on
the matter.”

Hermione arches her eyebrows, her voice cool. “But you think I’ll be ‘reasonable’?”

Snape nods, appearing resigned to this travesty. “While Draco has not had the easiest life,
there have still been certain things always assured for him, things that people like you and I
know better than to take for granted.” He stares piercingly at her and his voice becomes very
soft. “Surely, if you actually care about him, you won’t expect him to give up everything for
you.”

Hermione’s heart is pounding unevenly in her chest, but she replies as calmly as she can
manage. “Maybe I’m not asking him to give up anything. Maybe I’m saving him.”

The inky darkness of Snape’s gazes sharpens into a razor-like obsidian. “So then, you’re his
— protector? And your plan is to what? Let me guess,” his low, silken voice turns cruel, “win
the tournament and use his Vow to strip him of everything he has ever known, and then when
he has nothing left, he will have no choice but to depend on you, and you will finally feel as
important as you desperately wish you were.”

Hermione stares at him wide eyed, feeling as if he’d just slugged her squarely in the chest.
For a moment, she can’t even breathe.

His black eyes gleam with triumph. “Vow or not, his family will not let him go. It’s out of the
question. You should have seen what they did to get Regulus in line when he tried to resist.
They will go much further for Draco.”

Her stomach twists into a tight knot. “What do you mean?”

Snape raises one eyebrow, a taunting expression creeping across his face. “Oh, Draco hasn’t
told you.”

She bristles and wants to spit at him. “I know that he died,” she says tightly.

He eyes her sardonically. “Yes, everyone knows that.”

Her cheeks burn.

Snape looks down and appears to be studying his tea leaves. “You may as well know.
Regulus Black died a few weeks before he was to be formally betrothed. It was an extremely
late betrothal by pureblood standards, but Regulus was a second son, and delays were to be
expected due to the complexity of altering old family inheritance laws. What most people
don’t know is how difficult it was to make Regulus agree to it.”

Hermione can barely refrain from demanding to know why, but she knows Snape won’t tell
her a single detail more than he wants to.

“The Black family is not known for their tolerance of obstacles threatening their interests.”

The word ‘obstacle’ feels as loaded as a gun.

Snape lifts an indifferent shoulder. “The obstacle was removed. Regulus was made to fall in
line. All appeared in order until his body was pulled out of a lake. The shock killed his
mother. Officially, his death was an accidental drowning, but I’ve never heard of anyone
writing letters that they leave with their shoes before ‘accidentally’ drowning.”

Hermione sits staring at Snape, frozen with horror.

“Were you —” she forces her voice to stay steady, “Were you involved in removing that
obstacle?”

If Snape is offended by the insinuation, his expression doesn’t show it. “No. The Blacks
prefer keeping things within the family, but in my line of work, I do hear things.”

Hermione has gone cold all over.

The aunt. Bellatrix. Hermione’s certain of it. She can still remember the way Draco shut
down after she threatened Pansy Parkinson.

That was a very real threat. And that was just over an unacceptable friendship.

Her mouth is dry, heat burns in her chest, but she forces herself to swallow and act
unaffected. “I hope you didn’t tell me this, thinking it’ll scare me, because you’ve only made
me more convinced that Draco needs someone to save him.”

Snape’s eyes narrow at that. “You’re in Gryffindor, aren’t you?” He asks the question in a
tone that most people might use when accusing someone of murder.

Hermione gives a haughty nod.

His eyebrows draw down into a v, and he seems to be reevaluating something, debating with
himself.

“My best friend at Hogwarts was a Muggle-born,” he says abruptly.

Hermione’s eyes widen. She can’t imagine Snape voluntarily being friends with anyone.
He looks away from her, staring into the distance, his entire face growing pinched. “My first
friend I ever had. People used to call her a prodigy. She was – exceptional.”

His mouth twitches in a brief, almost smile.

It’s horrifying.

“I knew her even before she went to Hogwarts. I was the one who told her what she was, that
she was a witch. My mother was a pureblood, from the Prince family, but she made the
incomprehensible and regrettable choice to marry a Muggle. Despite not being a pureblood,
my lineage and grades were such that I was employed as a study partner by purebloods
students who required companionship during their summer tutoring. That was how I was able
to study the Dark Arts.”

Hermione had assumed until then that Snape was a pureblood. Apparently not.

“As you likely know, such opportunities don’t exist for Muggle-borns,” Snape continues. “I
considered the idea of secretly teaching my friend what I was learning, showing her what I’d
discovered, but —” his voice grows pointed, “I knew that if I did, I would be giving her a
glimpse at a life she could never have, skills that would endanger both our futures. I had no
choice but to hold my tongue and let our paths diverge.”

He stares piercingly at Hermione, as if there is a very obvious moral that she’s expected to
understand, and then, as a result, relinquish all claim on Draco.

She just blinks slowly at him. “That was Lily Potter, right?”

Surprise flashes briefly in Snape’s eyes.

Hermione nods slowly, mind churning, weighing all the information that’s been dumped on
her during the last week. She feels as if she’s being crushed under all of it.

“Yes, that must be Lily,” she says with certainty, “they still talk about her at Hogwarts,
Slughorn and some of the other professors. They like telling me about how special she was.
I’ve met her a few times.” She feigns a frown, reviewing what she knows of Harry’s mum.
“She’s married, she has a son, and a husband who is very rich.”

She looks at Snape, mirroring the dour expression he likes to use. “Is that the life you chose
for her, your brilliant friend? Becoming a housewife?”

Snape’s nostrils flare and he looks like he wants to reach over and wring Hermione’s neck.

She shrugs, feeling brazen and not caring because Severus Snape is horrible and she would
like to offend him. How dare he decide what Lily Potter should be allowed to know?

“I mean, I don’t know her well,” her voice is scathing. “Maybe she’s really happy, and being
a mum is all she ever wanted, a real dream come true. But who gave you the right to decide
that for her?”
The air around her ripples with anger. “Because maybe, just maybe —” her voice rises, “—
that’s not what she wanted. Maybe she worked that hard at school, trying to be the best, so
good people would still talk about her decades later because she wanted more, because she
had dreams about doing amazing things, but no one ever gave her the chance. If she was as
smart and special as everyone says, why wasn’t she given the opportunity to choose?”

Fury flashes across Snape’s face and he loses his composure.

“Choose what?” he snarls. “Choose to become a criminal? To become something like you?”
His teeth flash, more snarl than sneer. “Do you think I wanted her to end up James Potter’s
trophy wife? I chose the better life for her.”

Hermione bares her teeth right back and wants to throw the empty teapot at his head and
follow it with all the rest of the dishes on the table.

“Muggle-borns are not pets!” Even if there wasn’t a privacy charm, she doesn’t care that
she’s shouting. “We don’t need people to make decisions for us!”

She wants to shake him. She wants to scream, because she can see her life — what was so
nearly her life — play out: where all the years of effort and trying didn’t matter because
every door is shut, they’re always shut and she’s never allowed in, and there is no option but
to be small and inconsequential and nothing, and then be looked down on for it.

That was so nearly her.

So close, the mere thought leaves her trembling.

“You left her trapped in the cage that the Wizarding World has built around every Muggle-
born who’s ever come to this world. Even though you knew she was meant to be great! You
could see that she was, but you thought that because her cage would be rich and shiny on the
inside, that it was better than giving her any choice in the matter.”

The words are pouring out of her.

“And now,” her chest is heaving with rage and she finally feels like she’s piecing it all
together, “you want me to do that to Draco, don’t you? To leave him trapped with no options
except what his parents want, and delude myself that he’s happy because he has so much
bloody money. As if we don’t both know how suffocated he is. As if I’d leave him behind
when he was the one who let me finally have a choice in my life.”

Rather than be chastened, Snape is radiating outrage to mirror her own. His eyes glitter with
fury. “You are pathetically young. You cannot even comprehend how cruel the world is. You
think robbing someone of everything they can comfortably possess is freedom? Do you
imagine that leaving him stripped of everything in the world except yourself is anything but
an infinitely smaller cage?”

His eyes rake balefully across her face, and he leans towards her, his voice dropping into a
deadly whisper. “You think that because the world has wronged you that your anger is
righteous, but you are a defect in the eyes of this world. And when the Ministry finds you,
because you are too infatuated with your own sense of justice to be careful, what, pray tell,
will Draco have then?”

There is a firestorm of such rage inside Hermione that the air is vibrating. Her chest heaves,
but before she can reply, a teapot slams down into the middle of the table with such a loud
bang it’s a wonder it doesn’t break.

“Your tea,” Draco says in an icy voice, standing over them.

Hermione and Snape just sit glaring daggers at each other, and after a moment Draco speaks
again.

“Well,” he says in a tone of false civility, “Since you two appear to be done talking, Granger
and I will be off.”

Hermione stands up without a word, afraid that if she opens her mouth, she’ll say a lot of
things that she’s not at all ready to say when Draco can hear them.

She wants to get away as fast as possible, until they’re alone and she can wrap her arms
tightly around him and promise herself that she isn’t going to let anything happen to him.
That she’s not being selfish.

She’s not a cage.

They’ve only taken a few steps, not far enough to escape the privacy charm before Snape
speaks.

“Draco, a word.” He somehow sounds entirely composed again.

Dread crawls up Hermione’s spine, she reaches out and tries to stop Draco from stopping or
turning back.

‘Don’t’ she wants to say, but the plea catches inside her throat and it’s too late, he’s stepping
back.

Snape stands and leans towards him, saying something in a low voice.

Hermione stands watching, her body so tense that one of her legs starts jittering
uncontrollably. Her stomach is twisting in on itself.

Is Snape telling him that she plans to win the tournament? That she admitted it?.

He’ll probably make it sound as horrible as possible — that she plans to trap Draco with her.
That’s she’s just the same as his parents, horrible and controlling, assuming that she knows
best for him.

And isn’t it convenient that this little arrangement won’t require any sacrifices on her part?

There’s a pit opening up inside her, eating her from the inside out as she watches everything
fall apart, powerless to stop it.
Of course, this was all too good to last. Didn’t she know that?

He turns to look at her, and her fingernails cut through the skin and into her palms. She forces
herself to meet his gaze. His eyes are searching, and she stares back, stricken.

She wants to say, I’m sorry. I wasn’t meaning it that way. I was going to tell you, I have a
plan.

I’m not a cage.

But her voice still won’t work.

He looks back at Snape. “She’ll be fine.”

Then he comes back to her, and takes her hand.

They’re halfway back to the inn before she trusts her voice enough to speak.

“What — what did Snape say to you?”

His fingers twitch almost imperceptibly against hers.

“Oh… he was just reminding me about a principle of magic,” Draco says as if he’d already
forgotten the conversation.

Relief floods through her for a moment before she realises that he sounds deceptively casual.

She looks up at him. “Which one?”

There’s a lull of two footsteps before he replies again in that carefully indifferent voice. “The
way magic takes on the traits of its environment.”

Her eyebrows furrow as her mind calculates, scanning through the potential implications.
“Why would he mention that?”

There’s a longer silence this time. She hears him draw a breath.

“Because…” he says slowly, “when magic takes on those traits, it often magnifies them. It
can turn into what’s known as an amplification cycle.”

“And how does that relate to me?” she asks, even though she’s certain she already knows.

He glances at her, an unreadable expression on his face. “Snape thinks you’re angry, and now
your magic is fuelling it.”

Pressure spikes inside her head. She wants to whirl and say that she has a lot of reasons to be
angry, that anyone would be angry if they were dealing with as much as she is. That it’s not
like she wants to be angry.
No one understands how much she’s holding in, how much pressure she’s always under. If
her magic is being shaped by her anger, and fuelling it as a result of that, it’s not her fault.
She’s not trying to –

“I told him you’ll be fine.”

Her heart lurches all the way up into her throat and she stops. “What?”

He can’t actually believe that. If her magic is reflecting her strongest traits, magnifying them
—

He knows what she’s like.

He stops, turning to look at her. “You’ll be fine,” he says again and shrugs. “I don’t think
Snape brings out your best. His assessment’s biassed.” His grey eyes study her
contemplatively. “What did he say to you?”

She looks away. “Oh, you know, just that I’m ruining your life.”

Irritation sweeps across his face. “I knew he’d say something like that. I tried to tell you not
to listen to him.”

“I won’t,” she says, but avoids his eyes, turning to walk on.

He catches her by the arm, turning her back. “Don’t listen to him. Whatever he said, don’t
believe it.”

He waits until she meets his eyes and nods before he lets go.

When they reach their rooms, they pause awkwardly, looking at each other, waiting for the
other person to speak first.

Hermione clears her throat. “I should take a shower,” she says after a moment, gesturing at
herself.

He blushes, clearly remembering Snape’s comment, and nods.

There’s another pause.

They eye each other.

Draco speaks, his voice uncertain, “Do — do you want to —”

“Join me?” she finishes.

She can immediately tell that’s not what he was about to ask because he looks completely
blindsided.

His mouth hangs open for a moment before his eyes light up.

“Yes,” he says then, like he thought she’d never ask.

She forgets all about the painful awkwardness the instant they’re behind closed doors.

The door hasn’t even clicked before he has her face cradled in his hands and he’s kissing her.

I’m not a cage, she tells herself as she pulls him closer.

They barely break off kissing as they get each other’s clothes off, and cram together into a
shower that barely has space for two. Hermione slips on the tile and nearly tears the shower
curtain down. They laugh like it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened as they cling to one
another.

He has dimples that only appear when he laughs. She touches the places with her fingertips,
marking where to look when she wants to know if he’s really happy.

She can make him laugh. That’s something. Surely that must be worth something.

He kisses her under the spray of the shower, his hair plastered against his forehead, fingers
dripping water as they chase all the rivulets streaming down her skin.

“Draco,” she says slowly, feeling every syllable of his name on her tongue because she’s been
debating whether to say anything for the past twenty minutes. They’re lying on her bed, half
dressed, him in trousers and her wearing his jumper.

It's early evening, and she’s been using his stomach as a pillow and practising spells with her
wand, working her way up through the fifth year curriculum. She’s hit a wall on a few that
involve complex components that require sustained focus and channelling.

Draco’s been watching and offering the occasional entirely unhelpful bit of advice because he
has absolutely no idea what it’s like to control two separate forms of magic simultaneously.

After nearly having his head bitten off for yet another useless recommendation, he’s
preoccupied himself by winding his fingers idly through her hair.

“Mmm?”

She draws a slow breath, bracing herself. “Snape told me what happened to Regulus.”

She knows it’s going to kill the mood, but she feels like she can’t put off every conversation
until a nebulously noncommittal ’later’.

His fingers go still and she watches his expression freeze into a mask. After a moment it
vanishes and his features grow hard with irritation instead.

He rolls his eyes, sighing with exasperation. “Of course he did. Did he call it an accident or
say what really happened?”

She gnaws at her lip. “What really happened?”

“Right,” he looks away, “well, now you know.”

There’s a long, heavy silence as he stares across the room with a stony expression.

“Do you want to know something funny?” he asks. She knows that when he says ‘funny’ he
means ‘terrible’.

“Sure.”

The muscle in his jaw ripples.

“He was at the manor the day before.” He looks down, his lashes hiding his eyes. “He used
to come to see my mother a lot. They were close. That time, as he was leaving, he stopped to
talk to me — it’s the clearest memory I have of him —” he swallows and suddenly looks so
deeply betrayed, “he said he wished he could be like me, because I was a born heir, I wasn’t a
spare like him. That it was lucky they had me, because I could give the family what they
wanted.” He exhales raggedly. “I thought – for years I thought that it was such a
compliment.”

Hermione frowns as she considers everything. “I don’t understand though, can’t they just
take back Sirius? What does Regulus dying have to do with you beyond your parents making
you go to Durmstrang?”

He goes still and looks awkwardly at her, like he’s only just realised that they’re not the same
page about something. It’s the same look Harry and Ron get sometimes when they realise that
she doesn’t know how the Wizarding World ‘works’.

He shifts and clears his throat. “Well I’m not actually a Black by name, but as far as the
bloodline goes, I’m the only one left who can continue it.”

He says this like it’s completely self-explanatory.

“But Sirius is still alive, and even if he’s precluded by being a blood traitor —” she blushes
despite her best efforts not to, “– so — so are you.”

Malfoy looks even more uncomfortable now. “Yes, but I’m under thirty.”

She’s starting to feel like he’s being intentionally vague. She sits up to glare at him.

“It’s not something people talk about,” he mumbles, looking as if he'd rather be doing
literally anything but having this conversation. “Children don’t come easy for purebloods. It’s
generally believed that magic is more powerful to pass down the younger you are. My
grandfather was thirteen when my aunt was born, and barely seventeen when my mother
was.”

“Thirteen?” Hermione repeats aghast.

“That’s not legal anymore,” he says quickly, like that makes it better. “If it were, my aunt
would have probably had me married off at ten.” He grimaces and waves a hand. “The
Ministry passed laws preventing formal betrothals, handfasting, and marriages until both
parties were of age; and by making those children illegitimate, it made their inheritance
contestable, which put off the old families from doing it secretly. But most people believe
 that any children born after thirty years will probably be squibs, and even if they aren’t, they
won’t be — strong. When Regulus died, Sirius was too old to be a viable alternative.”

“I see,” Hermione says doubtfully, because even though it lines up with what Ginny had said
about the pressure to marry young and not have children too late, the whole thing sounds
ridiculous.

There’s nothing that indicates that magic is any less potent after the age of thirty. Dumbledore
defeated Grindelwald when he was sixty-five, and Grindelwald had been even older and
running around sparking an international war.

Do they think teenagers would be better suited to go around defeating Dark Wizards?

Or do they think the potency of sperm and eggs somehow, inexplicably, works by different
rules than all the rest of magic?

She doubts they’ve proven any such thing, the magical world grossly unscientific.

“Anyway,” Draco seems mortified by the entire subject, “that’s why I’m — important. They
expect me to — continue the Black and Malfoy lines.”

“Because you’re virile breeding stock,” she says in an acerbic voice, to make sure they’re
being very clear about what they’re talking about and how stupid it is.

He blushes up to his hairline and buries his face in his hands. “It’s more politely referred to as
carrying on the family legacy.”

Hermione climbs on top of him, pulling his hands away as she leans over him, her hair falling
around them. “I don’t really care what it’s politely called. It’s stupid, they’re using you.”

She pulls him up so that she’s straddling his lap.

His long fingers slide up her legs and under the jumper, thumbs tracing the contour of her
hips to her waist before pulling it up over her head. The blush is gone now, his silver eyes are
storm grey as he looks at her.

“No,” he says in a thick voice. “It’s not really important, is it?”

She shakes her head, arms sliding around his neck, pulling him closer until their bodies are
pressed together, finding his mouth with hers.

His family doesn’t deserve him.

But she will.

She’ll figure everything out. It won’t be a cage, but the whole world opened to them both.

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

Make Your Parents Furious by te al latte

Go Away by animusdiscidium
The Person She Wants To Be by allyria
The Black Dress by catmintandthyme
A Mystery by catmintandthyme
Meow by mitr.aiii4
The Prefect Bath by grimwyn
He's Not Yours by scaleybitch

Note: I'm no longer going to be maintaining an update schedule. I know that's

disappointing for readers (it's distressing for me since I'd hoped to have this story
completed this summer). I'd intended to get ahead on writing during my Christmas
break, but due to some unfortunate events and health issues that writing did not happen.
This isn't a hiatus, the story will continue to be updated, but recently I've just felt like
I've been posting chapters more because they were due rather than because I felt they
were ready and I think it's in the longterm interest of the story to pace myself and update
as I feel prepared to do so.
 Managing Muggle-born Population Growth
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

They go back to the Fawley Archive on Sunday. They’re supposed to be back at Hogwarts
early on Monday morning before classes begin. Hermione had assumed when she packed that
they’d be back on Sunday night, but without discussing it, it seems mutually agreed that
they’ll be staying at the inn for an extra night.

“I want to see the Department of Mysteries’ research on Black Magic,” she says when they
walk into the large circular archive for the last time.

A look of intense guardedness sweeps across Draco’s face when she says this.

There’s a beat before he replies. “Are you sure?”

She raises an eyebrow, facing him. “Do you think it’s worse than what we’ve already found
out?”

He avoids her eyes. “In general, threats to the Wizarding World aren’t afforded, well — much
of anything.” He squares his shoulders. “Admittedly, the people they caught were horrible,
but there weren’t any limits on what Unspeakables could do to them once they had them.”

Hermione considers this. It’s one thing to know that Dark Witches and Wizards are out in the
world committing atrocities, but there’s a more paralysing dread in knowing the government
does the same.

She swallows, wetting her dry lips. “Well, I still want to know what they found. I need to
understand my limits and possibilities. There’s only so much I can figure out based on
anecdotes from six hundred years ago.” She’s determined to put on a brave face regardless of
what she learns. “Besides, aren’t you the one who’s constantly harping on how I need to be
more careful?”

He doesn’t look at all encouraged by this attempt at positive thinking.

They climb to a section marked eighteenth century, and Draco watches her like a hawk when
she begins reading, as if he expects her to explode at some point.

Hermione is mostly unphased by what she learns. She knows enough about Muggle history
to know how terrible people can be, and, unlike Draco, she’s never believed in anyone’s
inherent superiority. The Black Magic wielders that the Ministry captured were all
purebloods.

Draco gradually thaws from watch duty as she keeps reading through scrolls without
reacting. The research is only marginally useful, despite technically sourcing in the same
way. Black Magic is very different in purebloods. In opening the channel, the Dark Wizards
have often completely mangled themselves, and the Black Magic manifesting resulted in an
amplification cycle, mirroring and accentuating the extremes they went to, whatever traits
that motivated them consuming them until they were nothing but monsters obsessed with
power and fixated on their self-inflicted pain.

Hermione has no intention of being like that. She has things in life that she wants, things that
are too important to lose sight of.

The experiments are less useful than the records from the Department of Magical Law
Enforcement on how they hunted down and apprehended witches and wizards suspected of
Black Magic. Hermione reads those sections with avid interest and looks up at Draco in
surprise.

“I apparated in the castle. I didn’t realise that.”

He glances at her from a scroll he’s just pulled off a shelf and seems to be idly skimming.
“You didn’t?”

She shakes her head. “Well, it wasn’t like side-along or the way the books describe normal
apparition. I didn’t disapparate because I wanted to go to a different location. I just —
dissolved because I didn’t want to hit the ground. And then I was — everywhere. I could see
all these people and places that I knew, but I wasn’t going to them. It felt like I was spreading
out so much I was about to stop existing. And then —” she doesn’t know why she blushes, “–
then I thought about you, and it was like my body snapped back together.”

A hint of a smile appears in the corner of his mouth, and a light glimmers in his eyes.
“Really? You just thought of me and —” he gestures upward, referencing the way she’d
fallen out of the sky and nearly flattened him.

She nods, hiding behind her scroll. “Yes. Anyway, Black Magic apparition is different. With
side-along, it’s like getting crushed into the tube and then popping out the other end, but the
way it happened to me, I could choose where I was going after I’d vanished, I just had to
focus on bringing all of myself through.” She purses her lips, frowning. “I wonder if it would
be different if I hadn’t been so drunk.”

“I’d call that a safe bet.”

She laughs and turns back to the shelf. As she does, a scroll catches her eye. It’s sticking out
from when she pulled out the scroll in her hands. She reaches to push it back in place and
sees the words “....Managing Muggle-born Population Growth.”

She tugs the scroll out enough to read the entire title. Below a Ministry seal and a Department
of Mysteries stamp are the words, Cultivation of Obscurials In Managing Muggle-born
Population Growth.

Hermione stares at the words. She’s never heard of an Obscurial.

She slides the scroll out of its housing tube, unfurling it.
The words burn themselves into her eyes and then down the optic nerve to sear themselves
into her memory.

“Granger?”

She blinks and lifts her gaze to find Draco staring at her.

There’s something off about his expression, but she can’t place it.

She can’t think.

Her mind has stalled, trapped in a loop that keeps repeating words in the scroll over and over.

The disruptive nature of Muggle-born assimilation is well-documented in Wizarding

society. As the popularity of Witch Hunting has diminished in the Muggle World, the
enrollment rates of Muggle-borns in pureblood establishments has seen an
unprecedented rise. The endless flood of Muggle-borns is a threat to the existing social
order unless measures are taken by the Ministry.

She keeps staring at the words as if looking at them hard enough will make them rearrange
and say something else.

“What are you reading?” He’s walking towards her, and she can’t seem to move as he plucks
the report out of her hands, glancing down at it.

She stands there and watches him read it. Knows what he’s seeing: the paragraphs predicting
population increases, the demographic shift if Muggle-borns continue to enter the Wizarding
World, and the increasing risks of diluting ‘magical’ lineages. With the Statute of Secrecy in
place, Muggle-borns are no longer going back to ‘their kind’, but are expecting jobs and
housing and permanent integration into the magical world.

Studies on the manifestation of Obscurials indicate that the affliction is exclusive to

Muggle-born children, with rare exceptions. The conditions necessary to prompt
Obscurial development are found to occur when Muggle-born children repress their
magic so entirely that the magic develops into a separate entity, called an Obscurus,
which manifests as a parasitic force capable of nothing but indiscriminate destruction.

The condition of Obscurial development is both irreversible and fatal for the host.

There has been a notable rise in Obscurials occurrences throughout Europe; as

incidents continue to climb in certain areas, there is growing evidence that the events
correlate with the local adherence to Secrecy Laws.

Without Wizarding intervention following early magical outbursts, Muggles are known
to punish or torture children displaying magical abilities. This results in accelerating
the repression. Areas in which Obliviator interference is limited to non-relatives see
much greater rates in Obscurial incidence.

Obscurus manifestations generally occur by the age of ten. By simply outlawing all
contact with Muggle-borns and their families until the mandatory invitation to
 Wizarding education at the age of eleven, the Ministry will permanently reduce the
number of Muggle-borns entering the Wizarding World solely by means of non-
intervention.

The report ends with an indifferent aside:

This enforcement of Secrecy is unlikely to result in any widespread Secrecy violations.

Obscurial attacks are typically targeted at immediate family whose deaths can be easily
concealed as a local incident.

By restricting methods of population control to the Muggle world, public awareness or

objections are unlikely to occur.

Draco reaches the end of the report and looks at her, stunned.

Something snaps inside Hermione.

While he was reading it, she was frozen, but now, seeing his expression, the confirmation in
his face that the words are real, her body lurches back to life

Her heart is beating so hard she can hear it.

She wants to throw up.

She’s been punched straight through the chest.

She tries to breathe, and a hysterical sound escapes her.

“Granger...”

She hears a voice. Draco’s voice, but it’s far away.

They did it on purpose, is all she can think. They did all of it on purpose.

They didn’t just cause the Witch Hunts, they’re still leaving Muggle-borns to die.

She blinks through the watery haze collecting in her vision.

All that time… All those years when her magic was so crammed inside her body, she
constantly felt on the brink of an explosion. When her mum stopped working at the practice
to stay home with her; when requests to go to school or see friends were evaded because ‘I
know you want to, darling, but what if there’s an accident? Best to be safe. We can do
something quiet. Shall we visit the library?’

None of that was an accident.

The Wizarding World knew where she was. They knew she was magical. They knew exactly
which room in her house she slept in when it was time to invite her to Hogwarts. Why had
she never thought of that? Never wondered?
Someone could have come at any point to tell her and her parents that there wasn’t anything
wrong with her. They didn’t. They waited and waited, put it off as long as they possibly
could, hoping she’d self-destruct before they had to let her in.

She wants to scream.

She needs to tear everything into pieces. Burn it all and leave nothing but ruin.

The Wizarding World should be ashes.

Her body jerks.

She’s being shaken. Something is gripping her by the shoulders, hard, and shaking her.

There’s a black haze over her eyes. She has to blink through it in order to see and realise that
she’s kneeling on the walkway, and her knees ache like she fell.

Draco has his hands on her shoulders, he’s the one shaking her, saying her name over and
over.

“Snap out of it. Come on, I need you to pull it together. Granger! Granger, stop it!”

She stares blankly at him, not understanding what he’s going on about.

“They did it on purpose.” Her voice is small and dazed, like it’s coming out of a child instead
of her.

He pauses and meets her eyes, his eyebrows knit together. “I know. I’m sorry.”

But he doesn’t know . He doesn’t understand .

She tries to explain.

“I used to be so scared that I was going to hurt someone,” her voice comes out a little
stronger, but it’s still wavering, wobbling unsteadily. “I was always trying not to lose control.
Not to feel things too much, so that I wouldn’t —”

Her voice cuts off and she can’t breathe.

Every bone in her chest is fractured. As if someone has reached inside her body and snapped
them, the pain inside her is incalculable.

She was happy.

Yesterday she was happy.

And today she was happy.

And now, she doesn’t think she will ever be happy again.

A fractured sob manages to break itself out of from inside her chest.
She keeps breathing faster and faster, and each time she inhales, pain cuts through her, a
bright line of red that becomes all she’s capable of comprehending.

She read Hogwarts: A History over and over, memorising whole passages until she could
close her eyes and construct the castle in her mind, until she could believe that she’d go there,
and everything would finally be alright.

She’d belong once she got there.

Lying in her bed every night, her wand gripped in her hand, feeling her connection to the
magic, because then it was all real. There was a place for her. She'd go there, and belong, and
everything would be better.

But there was never a place for her. There will never be a place for her.

“Granger,” Draco’s steady, implacable voice cuts through the fog. “You have to stop.”

She blinks at him, uncomprehending.

His face is ghostly pale.

What does he want her to stop? Stop being upset? Does he really expect her to not be upset
about this? Before she can say anything, the loud shuddering sound of twisting metal fills her
ears. She looks up, trying to find the source of the noise and finds that the archive has
vanished, swallowed in darkness.

She looks down. Her magic is pouring out of her, through her skin, filling the air. They are in
the eye of a hurricane.

The space vibrates, a constant hum that grows steadily louder.

She shakes her head. “I’m not —”

But she is.

Magic is haemorrhaging from her, but she doesn’t know when she lost control.

“Come on.” Draco’s face comes closer. He’s squeezing her shoulders, reaching up and
touching her face with his fingers, pushing her hair back so he can stare into her eyes. She
can tell he’s trying to stay calm. “You need to build a wall around it.”

What do walls have to do with anything?

He squeezes her shoulders again, like he’s trying to be reassuring, but another screech of
metal makes them both start.

“You visualise a wall inside your mind. You build it, piece by piece with your magic. You
put it around everything you don’t want to feel.”
“What?” Her head feels light. There is an oppressive weight bearing down on her shoulders,
her chest.

She can barely feel his hands.

“I really need you to do this for me,” he’s saying, his voice growing increasingly tense.

She tries to pull away from him. Why is he getting upset? She is the one who should be
upset!

They did it on purpose.

How many children? They would have all been children.

All under ten.

The realisation hums inside her head until she feels as though her skull crack open from the
intensity.

She wants to get away.

She tries to tear herself away from Draco, but he doesn’t let go, instead he shakes her as if
trying to force her attention back onto himself.

“Granger, look at me. You think you’re better at everything if you’re just given the chance to
learn it. I’m teaching you something. You can do this, but you have to try. ”

What is he even talking about?

The thrum of magic in the air is about to split her open.

His face slides out of focus.

He’s still talking about walls.

She doesn’t want to make a wall. She wants to scream.

The air around them threatens to shatter.

She’s going to hurt someone, the way her parents warned her.

And it’s going to be Draco.

Just like Snape said, a blast radius and fallout.

Draco will be the one closest.

“Let me go.” She tries to twist away, but he wraps his arms around her shoulders, crushing
her against his chest.
“Listen, I can’t apparate you out of here,” he says in her ear as she tries to wrestle herself
free. “You need to stay in control until we can get outside.”

Apparate.

Her mind zeros in on the word.

Of course. She could apparate in Hogwarts, through the wards. She can apparate here.

If she leaves, he’ll be safe from her.

She has to do it now.

There is so much magic, she can hardly hold it back anymore.

She closes her eyes and feels herself drop out of reality. She hears Draco yell as everything
vanishes around her.

Falling.

She’s falling again. But she can’t scream. She has to be tangible, physical, to scream.

She needs to scream.

She slams into the ground with a force that nearly breaks her ribs, her mind struggling to
rearrange itself as the magic keeps clawing its way out of her.

She pushes herself up to her knees.

They did it on purpose. They left you on purpose. You and all the Muggle-borns.

They will never want you!

She screams. Her fury exploding out of her, pouring out of her body and into the surrounding
air, as if fire could pour from her lungs.

She is the Horntail in the arena, and fury black as ink has been building up inside her. Now
she could burn the world down with all her rage.

All those Muggle-borns.

Children.

They were all children who didn’t know why they were different. Who couldn’t help but
ignite with their emotions.

She keeps screaming until her throat is stripped raw and there’s no air left inside her lungs.
When she drags in a breath, she chokes on smoke.

Coughing, she forces her eyes open and finds everything around her charred destruction.
She’s kneeling in a crater. As if an asteroid struck, incinerating everything in an instant.
Heat smoulders up from the ground and wreckage, trees and earth burned to nothing.
Destruction carved like a fiery claw reached down and tore open the earth. There is a gouge
at least twenty feet wide carved into the ground before her, running on and on.

She stares at it and feels nothing but a sense of satisfaction.

She feels like Death, like a reckoning that has been too long delayed.

Maybe she is a punishment.

Maybe she has always been a punishment.

The thought flares like a struck match inside her, down her arms and along her fingertips,
igniting through her. She inhales slowly, spreading her hands to embrace it.

“Fuck…”

Her breath catches in her lungs, and her magic slams against the inside of her chest so
violently her vision blacks out for a moment. It’s like a bucket of ice being poured onto her.

Everything spins, the sky rocking as she twists around and finds Draco standing a few feet
behind her.

He looks on the verge of passing out. His face has turned greyish and he’s staring around in
horror.

How is he here?

She thought she was alone. She could have killed him.

“How are — where did you come from?” Speaking makes her realise how raw her throat is.
It feels like she clawed it open inside.

He looks at her, dazed. “I fell through with you. You fell, and I — went after you.”

Her head throbs enough that her vision distorts. He saw. He was supposed to stay behind and
not see her like this. Not realise how angry she is, that she is just a wound inside.

She tries to stand, but her legs won’t hold her. Her whole body has gone numb as reality
slowly bleeds in and her shock fades.

One thing is very obvious.

“I’m going to get caught now,” she whispers and then laughs.

Snape gave her a month. She made it nine days.

She thought she’d be so smart, so much better than everyone who’d come before.

All her stupid plans.

She’s not even going to make it to the Third Task. She starts laughing more. Louder.
Hysterical.

She was so happy an hour ago. She thought she’d figured it all out. Fixed everything wrong
in her life by finding Draco.

She can’t stop laughing.

“Stop it.”

Her wrist is grabbed and she’s dragged to her feet. Draco pulls her arm over his shoulder.
She’s too uncoordinated to struggle but still shakes her head, her laughter fading even though
her chest keeps stuttering.

“Go away,” she says, twisting, trying to sink back to the ground. She feels as if she’s bleeding
to death.

Her vision swims.

He just pulls her more firmly against his body.

“We have to get out here before anyone shows up.” He looks around and the strain around his
eyes is so obvious. Why did she ever think he was hard to read?

“Do you know where we are?”

She looks around dazedly, looking for something familiar in the ruin.

The world is spinning, and she has to fight to focus. Her hands and feet have gone numb.

“The Forest of Dean,” she finally says, her voice tinny. “I camped here once.”

When he speaks, it’s far away. “Well, if we’re lucky, maybe they’ll think it was an
Obscurial.”

She gives another hysterical laugh that’s half a sob before her head lolls against his chest.

He pulls her closer, and she barely feels it when he apparates.

She jerks awake, cold with terror.

She tries to lunge from her bed but finds herself trapped, pinned in place. A weight is
wrapped around her stomach, holding her down.

Everything rushes back.

She’s been caught.

She’s in the Ministry. They must have come when she was unconscious.
Where’s Draco? If he was with her, what did they do to Draco?

She’s tangled in something. She kicks wildly but can’t get loose.

Something wraps around her shoulders.

She screams, her magic surging through her like fire, fingers clawing as she tries to get free.

“It’s me!” Draco’s voice is in her ear. “Stop! It’s me!”

She freezes, and finally the dim room comes into focus.

She’s at the inn, twisted up in the sheets. Her cat is staring at her through the darkness, eyes
glowing embers in the darkness. It’s gotten even bigger.

She feels its magic. That reassuring thread between them. Everything is fine. It’s just her
that’s panicking. Her heart is pounding in her chest.

Now that she’s not shot through with terror, her strength drains out of her.

She drops back down onto the mattress.

The cat shivers and flares, rippling like a shadow as it lengthens, seeming to grow again.

Her entire body hurts.

It’s worse than the morning after she first used Black Magic. This time, it’s like she’s been
flayed, a translucent layer of skin across her entire body sheared off. There is a raw pain
coming inside and out that radiates from her.

“Everything’s alright,” Draco says from beside her, and Hermione distantly wonders if it’s
her or himself he’s trying to convince.

He’s lying beside her on the bed. She can’t read his expression now. Everything has been
neatly put away, his face void of the emotions she’s come to expect. That intimacy is now
gone.

When she keeps staring at him, he looks away.

Even if he had lied convincingly, she wouldn’t believe him. If things were alright, he’d be
calling her names, and they’d be having an argument right now. He’d be saying things like
how she’s an idiot, that she had to control how much magic she channelled, that the Ministry
was going to be looking for her now.

But he isn’t saying anything. He isn’t telling her to do anything, not even something illogical
like building a wall inside her head.

He isn’t saying anything at all.

“I brought you back here because I wasn’t sure where else to go,” he finally says. “We’ll
have to go back to Hogwarts tomorrow or it’ll raise questions. You drew too much magic
after you lost control and you went into shock. You’ve been unconscious for a few hours.”

She wants to say, ‘you should have left me’ because it would get on his nerves. Maybe he’d
yell at her then.

She wishes he was yelling, but the mask is in place, Draco is gone.

Malfoy is the one watching her, and there is freezing indifference in his stare.

She knows she’s made a mistake. She lost control the way she’s always been afraid she
might. The rage inside her that she’s tried so hard to pretend isn’t there finally ate her. Tore
her to pieces and swallowed them one by one.

She feels transmuted, as if somewhere in her anger, she altered herself fundamentally,
rewrote the fabric of her being. She can already feel her magic rising through her, and it
aches like heat near a burn wound. There’s an unsteady fury as growing and endless as a
cosmos.

It feels as if she is hardly a person at all now. She is a manifest injury.

She was made to self-destruct.

Her hand flexes as she tries to contain it, to tamp it down. Don’t think about it. Don’t feel it.
That’s all she’s ever known how to do: to swallow her feelings, press them down.

But now there’s more than she can hold.

Draco’s fingers brush against hers and she snatches them away, containing the heat inside her
fists.

Don’t think. You’ll lose control again.

She tries to distract herself, focusing on other things always helps when she’s upset.

“How — do you build a wall in your mind?” She’s curious why walls were the thing he’d
kept talking about inside the archive.

There’s a long silence.

“Well, first, you empty yourself of emotions,” he says in a voice as distant as a star.
“Occlumency is supposed to be protective, so that no one can enter your mind, but it can also
clear your head, help you stay focused. You use your magic to put memories or emotions, or
anything that makes you vulnerable, away.”

Occlumency. The thing Snape had taught him in order to cope at Durmstrang.

He’s still talking. “You make your mind calm and clear. Somewhere you feel safe. Anything
that makes you feel weak, that you can’t control, you use your magic to create a barrier
around it. Piece by piece, if you have to. Build a wall around it, so that it’s cut off from you
and you don’t feel it anymore.”

So that’s how he does it. She understands that distant look in his eyes now.

She can see it, not a mask at all but a wall between them, even though they’re physically side
by side. He’s put her away somewhere.

Her eyes prick and burn, and she’s glad the room is dark.

She wonders if it’s possible to use occlumency when the thing she can’t control is herself.
When there’s nowhere to run, no wall she can build, where her anger and magic aren’t right
there with her.

The silence in the morning is oppressive. All the familiarity that had gradually grown
between them has evaporated. She doesn’t think Malfoy slept. He’s already awake when she
gets up, his face strained. He won’t meet her eyes or say anything, but she can feel his eyes
on her whenever she looks away.

She wishes he would just go away and be physically absent as well as emotionally absent, but
he probably expects her to burst into flames again.

She feels tenuously even, in a very raw way, as if she’s managed to perfectly balance on a
razor, but the blade is slicing through the soles of her feet.

She’s in control.

Not because she knows how to build a wall, but because she’s crammed everything down so
far that she almost feels disconnected from her body.

She packs methodically without a word, pretending not to feel Malfoy’s eyes on her back,
watching for any hint of instability. Finally, finally he leaves.

As soon as he’s gone, Hermione stops packing and turns to stare at the phone on the desk.

She swallows several times and picks it up, dialling and lifting it to her ear, listening to it ring
on the other end.

“Hello!” Her mum’s voice comes on.

“Mum —!”

Hermione clutches the receiver against her ear, her voice cracking, drowning with guilt for
the way she never wants to go home. All her hollow excuses for why she needs to spend all
the holidays at Hogwarts because she can barely stand to be home even though her parents
try so hard.

She feels so ungrateful. Her hand trembles so violently the plastic receiver clips her jaw.
No. Don’t think. Stay in control.

“This is the Granger Residence,” her mother’s voice continues, and Hermione’s heart
plummets as she realises it’s a recording. She sits listening to her mother give their names,
and recite the number for the dental clinic.

There’s a long beep and then silence.

She nearly hangs up without speaking, but an idea halts her.

What if her parents have been waiting all this time for her to finally look back instead of
plunging headlong into her preferred life? They tried so hard, and Hermione has spent the last
seven years running from them.

“Hi, Mum,” Hermione says and her voice wobbles. “It’s me. You’re probably still at Nan’s
for Easter. Should have called there, sorry. I can’t remember her number. I was in a town and
there’s a phone so…”

Her voice trails off, but she forces it to brighten.

“Anyway. Everything at school is going really well. Harry and Ron both say hi. I know I
owe you a long letter. There’s been a lot of homework lately. I just —” She swallows. “I just
wanted to call and say thank you – for um — for never — never treating me like I was bad,
like there was something wrong with me, because I was — different. You know? You and
Dad. I know it was really hard when I was little. I don’t think I’ve ever told you how
important it was that you never got cross.” Hot tears burn a trail down her cheeks. “Anyway,
I was thinking about you and I wanted to make sure you knew.”

She sits there, clutching the receiver, wanting to say more but unable to find the words
because there has always been so much she held back from her parents. “Anyway. I’ve got to
go. I — I love you.”

She hangs up and sits thinking about all the other Muggle-born children.

Stories in the news about fires, gas explosions. Other local ‘incidents’ mentioned in the news
that seem so sudden and arbitrary but get forgotten so quickly. Every one of them is now
recast with doubt and malevolent intent.

She’s wondered before why there were so few Muggle-borns, never more than a handful in
any given year, and accepted the explanation that Muggle-borns are accidents. Unnatural.
Wrong.

That’s how Muggle-borns are treated, anomalies that the Wizarding World is kind to tolerate.
That it's generous of them to put up with these freaks of nature.

How many more should there be?

And it isn't even because of Black Magic. The report made no mention of Black Magic as
part of their rationale, they simply didn't want Muggle-borns.
Hermione was one of the lucky ones, because she had parents who loved her enough to try so
hard. They'd encouraged her to control it but not suppress it. She’d stifled her power, but
never so much that she disassociated from it or cut herself off from it entirely. Her parents
kept her isolated out of caution, but they never punished her for the outbursts or made her
feel unwanted or defective because of them. They'd been proactive in never letting Hermione
hate herself for it, been so proud and encouraging when she found out that she was a witch.

Looking back, she wonders if perhaps it had been a near thing that she didn’t turn into an
Obscurial.

If an Obscurus parasite is mindless power and indiscriminate destruction, then Black Magic
is desire manifest, raw power driven by the subconscious, by desire and a person’s most
fundamental wants.

The distinction between them is as slender as two sides of the same coin.

Heads, you live. Tails, you die.

Well, based on her odds, she’s still going to die.

She sits, lost in thought until her kitten springs up into her lap giving a coaxing mewl. She
runs her fingers along its back. It’s so much bigger now, too large to hold in one hand. It
makes her wistful at how quickly it grew. She’s barely given it the attention it deserves.

Everything has happened so fast.

The kitten is convincingly catlike, eyes oddly fiery, and its body strangely shadow-like when
scrutinised, but without close inspection, there’s nothing too apparently off about it.

Malfoy comes to the door, bag in hand as Hermione sits, scratching the kitten’s forehead.

“Have you named it?” Malfoy asks. He hasn’t come into her room, he’s just watching from
the door.

She doesn’t look up. “I was going to name it Abyss, kind of as a joke. There’s a quote about
how if you stare into an abyss, that it’ll stare back into you, and I thought it would be funny.
But I think I’m going to call it Jinx.” She lifts the kitten up, setting it on her shoulder. The
kitten balances and scrambles over to drape itself around her neck, almost hidden under her
hair as she picks up her bag. “People always say that black cats are bad luck to cross paths
with.”

Something in his expression tightens. “It’s a familiar, that means it’s an extension of you.”

She walks past him, her bag in hand. “I know, that’s why I’m naming it Jinx.”

Check-out goes smoothly. Hermione pretends not to notice when Malfoy casually obliviates
the innkeeper after paying him, telling him that he didn’t notice anything odd or particularly
memorable about either of them, that he’s going to forget anything strange that might have
happened.
It only takes a few minutes before they’re out on the street, headed towards their regular
apparition point in the alley. There is nothing but unbearable silence between them.

“The Ministry shouldn’t have any reason to suspect you,” he says, abruptly breaking the
silence. “If we act like everything is normal, there’s no reason for them to connect you with
what happened at the Forest of Dean. You don’t have an apparition licence yet and there’s
nothing to trace to your wand.”

She gives a quick nod without looking at him. Instead of offering his arm, he grips her elbow
as he jumps. They reappear in the same place along the road to Hogsmeade that they left at. It
feels like a lifetime ago.

It’s drizzling in Scotland, the dampness of the air immediately permeating their clothes. A
thick fog blankets the route back.

The road is empty, and the trip is over, and as she stands there, she remembers all the things
she’d meant to tell him back before things went wrong.

Couldn’t she at least –

“You go ahead,” Malfoy says in his detached voice before she can speak, “I’m supposed to
meet Petr at Hogsmeade Station.”

He’s not looking at her but scanning their surroundings, his grey eyes sharp and narrowed.

Because he can’t be seen with her.

She’d almost forgotten how different things will have to be now.

When they get back to the castle, they’re going to act like strangers again. They’ll have to.
People are always watching him.

What would even be the point of telling him all her stupid ideas?

“See you around then,” she says, and walks away, feeling as if there’s something knotted
inside her chest. All her emotions twisted up and tangled in each other and doomed to die, to
shrivel into dust like vines deprived of water.

It doesn’t matter.

It's not important. Not as important as other things are.

“Granger.”

She stops walking, hating the way her heart caught against her ribs and now is beating faster,
the way it rose inside her the instant he said her name.

She wishes now she’d been like him, and just told him to call her Hermione. She’d thought
he just would at some point, say her name as if it was the most natural thing on earth for him
to call her that.
 Maybe he was waiting for her to say he could, and she never did.

It's too late now.

Still, she can’t help but wonder what her name would sound like if he said it.

She looks back over her shoulder.

He’s standing in the road, watching her, half hidden in mist. He forces a smile.

It's one of those fake ones that doesn’t reach his eyes and lacks even a trace of the dimples in
his cheeks. But he meets her eyes.

“You won’t get caught,” he says.

He says it calmly. Like it’s a statement of fact. Not a truth he's convincing himself about, but
as if it is as inevitable as the dawn.

He is so sure.

She forces a thin smile of her own, but doesn't answer.

Because he doesn't know yet that she plans to be.

Chapter End Notes

Illustrations:

Yule Ball Dress by si3fru

Prefect Bath Comic by dzhusya
She feels his breath by Anastraa
Granger, right? by dramiona_sl
The Malfoy Family by catmintandthyme
World on puppet strings by anastraa
My person by roscoreeyes
 Cornered Animals
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Breakfast is just finishing in the Great Hall when Hermione gets back to the castle. Walking
through the halls, she feels as if she’s wearing Hermione Granger as a costume, a mask that
hides who she’s become. She takes her bag up to her room, and unpacks by dumping
everything into a laundry bin, banishing all thoughts and feelings from the last few days as
she changes into Hogwarts robes and packs her satchel for classes.

She’s determined to pretend that nothing has happened. Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think.
The words are practically tattooed on the inside of her brain. She cannot lose control.

No one can suspect her.

She almost leaves Jinx on her bed, but hesitates. Leaving her familiar in a dorm where others
could come across it when Hermione isn't there is risky.. She isn’t entirely sure how Jinx
behaves when alone because whenever they’ve been separated, Hermione’s been distracted
with - other things.

Jinx is light enough that she barely feels it. She slings her satchel across her shoulder and
heads to her first class for the week. It’s Ancient Runes, which is lucky because there’ll be no
wand-work and she feels like using magic when she’s fresh with rage would be like holding a
lit match near dry tinder.

“Hermione!” Harry waves her over when she enters the Great Hall for lunch. She walks
towards him repeating ‘act normal, don’t think about anything’ as she scans the room.

Malfoy is over at the Slytherin table, sitting beside Petr and shadowed by those two Slytherin
boys again. He’s back in uniform, his expression as void of emotion as it was when she
regained consciousness.

There’s an instinctive longing at the sight of him, as if she’s no longer a complete person on
her own. He’s mine, she wants to say, he’s just pretending with all of you.

But she can’t, and now there wouldn’t even be any point in making that kind of scene.

He’ll be fine without her. He rebelled once; he’ll do it again.

She focuses her full attention on Harry, crushing him in a hug, overwhelmed by a desperate
need for normalcy, to feel like it hasn’t all been fake. To pretend the last week never
happened.

She buries her face in his robes and he squeezes her back until her ribs ache.

“How was Easter?” Harry asks as he piles food on his plate, shoving aside a copy of the
Daily Prophet headlined with an article about grave robberies. Hermione ignores it, her focus
on the smaller blurb about a fiendfyre incident in the Forest of Dean. Aurors are
investigating, but there are no leads.

“Good. We went to my Nan’s as usual,” Hermione says, finding the lie easy. “And I got a
cat.”

Harry looks up at her in astonishment. “A cat?”

Hermione pulls Jinx out from where the cat’s been hiding under her hair. “I stopped at a
menagerie when I was heading home, and couldn’t help myself. This is Jinx.”

“What kind of cat is that?” Ron asks as he arrives at the table, and Hermione realises that in
the light of day, in a crowded Great Hall, Jinx does look a bit weirder than a normal cat, even
by Wizarding standards

“The proprietor at the Menagerie wasn’t sure about the breed.”

“It’s like a void,” Ron says, leaning across and trying to poke at Jinx, who responds by
hissing and going from black to a glowing, flaming red.

Ron snatches his hand back. “Bloody hell!”

Hermione forces a laugh and fights the urge to hiss at Jinx that colour changes are strictly
against the rules. “It’s a rare breed, I think.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Harry says, watching Jinx with fascination. “It must be
some kind of crossbreed. You were able to get it at a regular menagerie?”

“Yeah,” Hermione says, petting Jinx with a heavy hand to conceal most of the kitten’s body,
desperate for a new subject. “How were the holidays here? Anything interesting happen
while I was gone?”

“Slughorn’s retiring,” Ron says around a mouthful of food. “They made an announcement
about it Friday.”

Hermione’s head snaps up with surprise. “He is?”

Harry shrugs. “Officially, he’s retiring. I’m pretty sure it’s just a way of saving face and not
getting fired because of the thing with Cormac. The governors are keeping him for now since
it’s the middle of the school year, and he’s Head of Slytherin. But Slug Club’s disbanded for
the rest of the year.”

Hermione squirms, a guilty knot forming in her stomach. “Wow. That’s — he’s been a
professor here for almost sixty years, right?”

Both boys nod.

“I wonder who will replace him,” Hermione says in a weak voice, poking at her lunch,
appetite suddenly gone.
She’s never particularly liked Slughorn, but she hadn’t meant for him to get fired.

“I don’t know, I can’t imagine anyone else,” Harry says.

“Anything else?” Hermione asks, desperate for yet another change of subject.

Harry and Ron look at each other, something unspoken passing between them.

“I can’t think of anything,” Ron says, standing abruptly. “I just remembered I left an essay in
my dorm.”

Hermione watches in confusion as Ron quickly hurries towards the doors of the Great Hall.
His abandoned plate is still half full.

She looks at Harry. “What’s that about?”

Harry avoids her eyes. “It’s not really for me to say. Maybe – ” he shifts awkwardly on the
bench. “Maybe ask Ginny.”

Hermione’s spine stiffens at the reference to Ginny. “What, is it some kind of Weasley
secret?”

Harry gestures awkwardly with one hand. “It’s nothing, really. Don’t worry about it.”

Hermione releases an irritated breath, not particularly in the mood for another problem, but it
helps remind her that she has problems enough within the school even without even thinking
about the external ones. “Fine.”

She lifts Jinx up onto her shoulder and grabs the strap of her satchel.

It’s time to find Cormac.

According to the Marauder’s Map, Cormac is in the Gryffindor boys dorm. Alone.

Which is perfect for Hermione.

She leaves Jinx on her bed, concerned that a kitten might dampen the fear she hopes to
inspire.

She’d rather put this visit off until her magic is stable, but she doesn’t know when that will
be, and if Cormac’s done what she told him to, she wants to know.

Rita Skeeter has been a thorn in her side for too long.

She ascends the steps of the boy’s dorm, and as a courtesy, knocks once before swinging the
door open.

The expression of horror on Cormac’s face when Hermione walks into the room is pure
delight. The low simmering fury inside her warms a little.
 He’s still wearing a cast on the hand she broke. It should be healed by now, so it’s probably
to milk his injury.

“It’s been a week,” she says, swinging the door shut behind herself and enjoying the way he
flinches. “I hope you’ve been busy.”

He chokes. “I—”

“Nothing? Really?”

“No! I tried – I swear. Skeeter mostly talks to Slytherins.”

Hermione feigns surprise. She’s never really indulged in vindictiveness, but right now she
feels like she could hold Cormac’s head underwater and drown him. And she is disappointed.
He was supposed to fix this problem for her. That was the only silver lining to his existence.

She is angry about so many different things, and this is something she can control.

She walks towards him, her footsteps meandering, trying to build up his fear by drawing her
response since she doesn’t trust herself to use magic. “I thought your family was important.
All those Ministry connections you’re always bragging about. All that boys’ talk. You
certainly didn’t have trouble hearing about stories that involve me.”

Cormac’s eyes race around the room. He keeps hesitating, like he’s about to throw himself off
the bed. But the door is behind her, he’ll have to get around her to escape, get even closer
than he already is.

She laughs.

She can’t help it. She is so angry, and it’s so easy to compact all that rage down and aim it
squarely at Cormac. All that bravado and entitlement, but this is what he truly is. Pathetic and
helpless. Cornered.

When she laughs, he lunges left, his good hand scrabbling, and snatches up his wand laying
on the bedside table, managing to get off one spell before hitting the ground.

It happens so fast.

She barely makes out the mumbled diffindo .

The left-handed casting is sloppy, but he’s cast it with enough determination to sever her
throat. In such close range that there's not time to dodge.

The hex is angled too high and slightly left, and that’s the only reason it doesn’t kill her as
she flinches back.

Pain explodes across her face.

There’s savage triumph and relief in Cormac’s expression. He scrambles to his feet, already
trying to cast another spell.
Fury rips through Hermione’s body, power exploding out of her, quick enough that her vision
goes black, seizing everything in the room.

Cormac’s entire body goes still. The dust in the air stops moving. Every shadow in the room
darkens and grows sharp.

The pain in her face is excruciating.

Hermione reaches up and touches her cheek. Her fingers tremble when she feels the gash
across her cheekbone and recoils when she touches bone.

It’s bleeding everywhere. Her fingers are coated in blood. She can feel it streaming down her
face and neck.

She knows facial wounds bleed badly, but this feels like a lot of blood.

A little lower, and he would have severed an artery in her throat.

She miscalculated.

She hadn’t thought Cormac had it in him to attack her again, but that was stupid of her.
Cornered animals will bite the hardest.

Stupid. Careless again.

She’s making too many mistakes. She needs to be more careful, but it’s hard to be careful
when everything is going wrong and even her own body feels barely within her control.

“Episkey,” she mutters, and her fingertips singe as the spell takes effect. It’s not enough to
heal a cut that deep, but the bleeding slows down.

She looks up at Cormac. Now, she’s so on edge she glimmers.

“That wasn’t very nice,” she says slowly, though her heart beats like a drum in her chest. “I
thought we had an understanding, Cormac.”

Hermione’s still working out the intricacies of magic that is desire based. It’s one of the most
counter-intuitive things she’s ever had to master. As a result it’s actually fortunate that
Cormac McLaggen brings out the worst in her.

She wants to hurt him. She doesn’t have to convince herself that it’s necessary. It’s a physical
need.

She hates him to a degree that is cellular, and now she has every reason to do something
horrible to him, something that will make him so afraid of her that he will never, ever dare
cross her again. She wants that with every fibre of her being.

No more mistakes.
If he manages to put together what she is, why she has the power that she does, things will go
downhill very fast.

She barely has to think. Her power slams him down onto his knees so hard that she feels his
bones crack against the stone floor, pain radiates through his femurs.

It’s intensely satisfying the feeling of controlling everything .

His left hand is still extended from casting the curse at her.

She eyes his wand. “I should break this into pieces and make you eat them.”

He can’t move except to breathe. His vocal chords bulge in an attempt to beg, but she doesn’t
let him.

Let him eat his words. His apologies can choke him to death for all she cares.

The feeling of power makes her light headed. Or maybe that’s blood loss.

She almost laughs.

There’s a giddiness rushing through her and her magic, a syncopated rhythm mirroring the
throbbing pain in her cheek. Watching him strain, terror beading on his skin. His heartbeat is
a near thrum.

She can’t remember why she’d been so panicked and horrified over hurting him the last time.
This feels right.

Just.

Her anger and magic grows a little larger, a hunger that wants to swallow her.

Not yet.

She barely feels like herself.

Hermione Granger isn’t here anymore, her rage has swallowed her whole.

“I thought we could operate on trust,” she says in a detached voice because if she lets herself
feel anything she will set the tower on fire, “But clearly I’m going to need to be more
creative.”

She laces her fingers through his hair, wiping the blood on her fingers through it, wrenching
his head back until his throat is bared. She’s not sure what she’s doing, she just knows that if
she does this, he’ll never be able to hurt her again.

She holds her other hand above his face. The one not dripping blood.

Her magic flares like black fire along her fingers, and then it falls from her fingertips straight
down into his eye. The entire surface from pupil to sclera turns black.
It is the strangest sensation Hermione has ever felt. It’s like the expansion of her
consciousness into Jinx, but this time, there’s someone already there.

Cormac’s horrified, panicking consciousness lives in residence, but now Hermione’s magic is
burrowing into his mind like a parasite travelling along his optic nerve and straight into his
brain.

She can feel his unadulterated fear, glimpse the movement and shape of his thoughts as he
realises what she’s done.

It’s like looking through a terribly long telescope.

“Now, I’ll always be with you,” she says with a thin smile, even though it pulls the gash on
her cheek. She watches as his eyes clear.

She leans closer, enjoying the stripe of terror that burns through him. She can feel it.

“All I have to do now to kill you or hurt you is feel like it,” she says softly. She has spent an
entire week reading about all the terrible things that Dark Wizards and Witches can do. She is
brimming with ideas. “If you ever try to attack me or anyone else ever again, I will make you
break every bone in your body, one by one, heal them, and then do it all over again as many
times as I want. Maybe so many times they won’t heal anymore. I don’t even need to be there
to make you do it. I could be in my room, I could be eating dinner, and I could make you sit
here and cannibalise yourself because you're not useful anymore. So, you’ll want to be useful
now, won’t you?”

She allows him to nod.

She lets go of his hair, the gold is streaked with her blood. Gryffindor house pride.

“Did you learn anything ?” she asks as she steps back.

“R-rita Skeeter,” his voice is shaking so much the words are difficult to understand, “sn-sn-
sneaks into the school.”

Hermione’s eyes narrow. So it’s not an informant? Perhaps a disguise? A guest at Slughorn’s
party. A student sometimes? But how would she have gotten ahold of Hermione letters?

She grinds her teeth in frustration. She cannot risk being spied on anymore. “How? With
Polyjuice potion?”

Cormac shakes his head, and she can tell that he’s being truthful. “I don’t know how. I just
know she comes here herself. But the only ones who know how are Slytherins. They won’t
tell me.”

Everything is getting fuzzy, the edges of her vision blurring black.

Hermione’s head drops back, and she struggles to breathe.

She’s never used her power for this long before, and she doesn’t have a lot of experience with
blood loss. She swallows and tries to stay focused and in control, but something razor edge
crawls through her, sharpening her anger until she feels as though she could grow fangs.

She is just barely keeping control.

“I guess you’ll have to try harder .” Her head tilts as she stares at Cormac, who’s still pinned
like an insect.

She can see how ghastly she looks through his eyes. Cover in blood, her face sliced open, her
eyes venomous.

She looks like a monster.

She hates him.

She hates everything.

All those children, and no one cares, and she can’t tell anyone about it because how can she
explain without admitting everything. She can’t yet. She has to swallow it, hold it all inside,
and pretend that she’s fine. But she’s not fine.

She’s still in the Forest of Dean. Screaming.

Don’t think about it.

It takes a monumental effort to hold it back, to stop there.

She doesn’t say another word, she just turns away. She can barely see the knob on the door,
almost misses when she reaches for it.

She stops breathing as she descends the stairs because even breathing threatens the focus
necessary to stay in control. It’s like trying to fight her way back to the surface of her own
mind.

There’s something important that she’s forgotten.

Dread gnaws at the back of her mind.

There’s something she needed to remember. What was it?

She barely makes it back to her room, it’s fortunate she went after Cormac during lunch,
because the tower is empty. She catches sight of her reflection. She looks like a victim of an
attempted murder when she catches sight of her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

She’s covered in blood.

She is the victim of an attempted murder.

She gingerly washes her face, getting as much blood off as she can and then inspects at the
cut. It’s really deep, a little lower, and she’d probably be able to see her molars through the
gash. She’s going to have to go to the infirmary. It’s a clean cut, but she doesn’t know
anything about complex tissue healing. If she tries to use Black Magic to heal it herself, it
might restore her skin and cheek perfectly, or it might mangle half her face with scar tissue.
She’s not in control enough to take the risk.

She misses History of Magic that afternoon as Madam Pomfrey fusses over her face, She’s
relieved that the matron appears to accept Hermione’s lie that she was practising spells for the
next task and one ricocheted.

“What you need is a good dittany and firecrab salve,” Pomfrey clucks under her breath as she
hovers over Hermione, murmuring spells to knit her cheek back together. “It’ll hurt a bit, but
it’ll spare you too much scarring. I’m all out, but I’ll have Horace brew some up for you as
soon as he can.”

She gives Hermione a mirror so she can inspect the now closed wound. Cormac caught her
right across the cheekbone, nicked the tip of her ear, and lopped off a large chunk of her hair.

She has to fight not to wince at her reflection.

She zeroes her focus in on Cormac, who’s in the shower, washing her blood out of his hair.
She sharpens the connection into a tangible edge inside his mind and feels his immediate
panic.

A cornered animal.

Maybe he’ll chew off his own limbs next.

She feels his legs give out before she returns her attention to her reflection. Her cheek is
swollen, which Pomfrey assures her will go down once the tissue has more time to recover.

She stares at her reflection.

It’s lucky this happened after her trip with Malfoy. He’s not going to find her pretty
anymore.

It's a stupid thing to care about considering everything else, but she can’t stop thinking about
it. How he'd react if he saw her like this.

Even though she and Malfoy were never going to actually work. It was only because they
were away from school and everyone who knew them that anything happened in the first
place. He only liked her because he thought she was smart enough to keep her emotions
under control.

And now he knows she can’t.

She swallows hard and turns the mirror over so she can’t see her reflection anymore.
“Can I make the salve myself?” she asks.

Pomfrey steps back, giving her an odd look, as she casts a charm to grow Hermione’s hair
back. “My dear, there’s no need. Horace would be more than happy to —“

“I want to make it myself,” Hermione says quickly. “If that’s alright. It’s good practice.
NEWTS are really important for me, and I can’t practise in the summer, so any chances I get
are important.”

She sounds pathetic, but she’s trying to sound pathetic.

She needs access to Slughorn’s supplies.

“Well,” Madam Pomfrey says doubtfully, “if you’re sure.”

Hermione departs from the infirmary with a phial of pain relief that’s supposed to be paired
with the salve, and a permission slip to use one of the potion classrooms for brewing.

“Bloody hell,” Ron says when he sees her coming into the Common Room. “What
happened?”

She shrugs like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t cut her to the quick the way everyone is staring at
her. Not in amazement, like when she entered the Yule Ball, but with aghast expressions. Her
face burns and the blood flow makes the scar throb. She swallows hard when her eyes start to
prick.

“I was practising a new spell and didn’t go as planned. Pomfrey says it’ll heal up fine.”

“You look like you tried to cut your head in half.” Harry leans in, inspecting her cheek.
"Gosh, you even cut off part of your ear. I don't think that part grows back. Remember Mad-
Eye Moody, lost part of his nose in a duel, still looks funny."

They are really, really awful at making her feel better.

“Apparently some spells ricochet a lot, and I didn’t know that until one nearly chopped my
head off. So I’m lucky to be alive,” she says in a prim voice.

“This is why Lupin says you should only practise Defense spells with a partner,” Harry says,
straightening and using his best lecture voice, as if he were the epitome of responsible
behaviour.

Hermione scowls, clenching a hand into a fist. “Right, because if two people had been there,
this would have gone loads better. Maybe we’d both be dead. Pomfrey’s given me a recipe
for a salve that I’m going to brew tonight, so it’ll be mostly healed by tomorrow.” Then she
flushes. “Could you bring up some dinner? I’d rather not have everyone see me like this. I
really don't need that.”

She waits until most students are at dinner to go to the dungeons. The numbing cream that
Pomfrey applied is starting to wear off.
 She checks in with Slughorn, who doesn’t appear handling his impending retirement well.
He’s quite drunk. He accompanies her to the classroom and unlocks the supply closet,
throwing it open and mumbling about people taking what they want and nevermind poor old
Sluggy.

The recent break-ins have resulted in a new charmed lock on the door, and several runes and
spells set into the door frame that Hermione recognises enough to know that they’d be very
hard to get around. It’ll take a lot more than an Alohomora or any other basic spells. There’s
runes that will set off alarms, and there’s a charm to spray a potential thief with a sleep potion
and staining dye.

She’s been reviewing potential methods for breaking in anyway ever since Snape’s comment
about contraception.

Before everything had gone spectacularly wrong, she’d thought to recruit Malfoy, since he’s
the one who’s caused the heightened security not to mention her need for contraceptives.

She’d expected it to take at least two nights so she could perform a full survey first and
develop a plan. Malfoy would put stasis spells on the charms while she disabled or changed
the runes, and then they'd have to put it all back after she was done.

However, this is simpler and doesn’t require telling Malfoy that she wasn’t on contraception
before. Inadvertently, Cormac did her a favour.

She busies herself setting up her cauldron for the salve and reviewing the recipe until
Slughorn loses interest and wanders off, leaving the classroom door wide open. She debates
shutting it, but worries about looking suspicious. She moves to a table that can’t be seen from
the door. Then she reaches up to the back of her neck where Jinx is hidden under her hair,
scratching the cat’s ears.

“Can you keep watch for me? Make sure no one comes in?” she asks both aloud and through
their magic.

This is the first time she’s trying to use Jinx as a proper familiar and she isn’t sure how it will
go.

Jinx jumps down without protest. Quick and silent as a shadow, the kitten slinks out into the
hallway, disappearing.

Hermione pulls out a second cauldron.

She works fast, wanting to have the contraceptive done and taken before Slughorn comes
back. Fortunately, the salve is a simple recipe that requires more patience than anything else.
She pulls a firecrab shell out of the stone crock and puts it at the bottom of the pewter
cauldron before covering it with a thick layer of chopped dittany. It starts smouldering while
she powders Slughorn’s last beetle, Wiggentree shavings, and then puts both into a pestle to
grind together with several Lionfish spines. She pours the Horklump juice in until it’s a
smooth paste and pours it over the dittany until everything is submerged.
Now it just simmers until the firecrab starts sparking.

She turns to the silver cauldron for the contraceptive, sprinkling a dram of Moondew drops
over pennyroyal and letting it rest while rapidly pulping a pomegranate.

Her face is beginning to throb steadily, but she ignores the pain and sinks into the rhythm and
methodical process of potion making, in the back of her mind she can see through Jinx’ eyes
from where the kitten crouches in the shadowed dungeon hallway, ears pricked forward.

She drips salamander blood into the contraceptive as she cuts the heat. There’s a buzz
overhead, and she glances up to see a beetle flying towards the lamp illuminating her
workspace. It bangs into the metal as it tries to land and misses, bumping into the glass.

Hermione returns her focus to the potion.

She watches the salamander blood settle across the surface before adding wolfbane tincture.
The contraceptive potion turns its trademark milky white with a reddish sheen.

It’s supposed to cool for a few minutes before bottling.

The pewter cauldron spits several tiny sparks.

She turns back to the salve which has simmered down to a thick paste.

She scrapes the potion out of the cauldron and into a small bowl and then folds in a dram of
Flobberworm Mucus and a dram of Sloth Brain mucus. The resulting salve is horribly sticky
and sparkly looking as it sits steaming in the bowl.

She has to put that on her face?

She sets it on the table behind her to cool.

She turns back to the cauldron of contraceptive.

The Witch Weekly makes jokes about this particular one, calling it ‘the desperate witch’s
cure’. Ironically, it was included in the same issue as one of the articles all about Hermione
being the school slut.

There are simpler contraceptives to pick up from the apothecary, not to mention spells. But
those ones are supposed to be done before sex.

This is the cure for dire carelessness, for just the kind of witch that Rita Skeeter claims
Hermione is.

An accusation that is apparently not entirely off the mark. After all, Hermione did jump right
into bed with a pureblood who wanted her; deluded herself into thinking that now there was a
place for her in the world, she no longer had to care about the consequences.

Stupid.
In retrospect, it all feels surreal. The way she’d wanted Draco had been consuming, like it
couldn’t possibly be wrong because nothing and no one had ever felt so much like everything
she’s always wanted.

But when she was eleven, she thought the Wizarding World was the answer to all her
problems and insecurities, a cure for all those wounds and fears inside her. The same hope
and promise, that she was wanted, and she would belong.

A lie every time.

She ladles out a dose so it can cool.

She puts all the remaining contraceptive ingredients back in the supply cabinet, and pours the
rest of the potion into the water bottle she’d bought for the archive, stashing it back in her
satchel.

Best to save some, just in case.

Not that she expects a just in case.

She downs the remaining dose.

It’s very earthy, and sends an icy feeling through her torso that’s strong enough to make her
stomach churn.

Then it’s over.

She gives a little sigh of relief, one looming stress resolved. She opens her eyes just in time to
see Jinx flying through the air towards her work station.

The kitten catches the lamp overhead between its paws, and the force sends the lamp
swinging so far it flies it off the hook. Hermione watches, frozen in astonishment, as the lamp
plummets down into the middle of Hermione’s workspace with a crash and explosion of
glass.

She throws her hands up to protect her face and her magic flares out on instinct, a shadow
wrapping around her and atomising the flying shards of glass.

She drops her hands and the darkness vanishes.

“Jinx!”

She stares in horror at the mess of glass and materials strewn everywhere. Jinx lands easily
amid the wreckage and leaps again, this time after a beetle that is crawling out of the debris,
its wings unfolding as it tries to fly away and escape.

Jinx bats the bug out of midair, sending it to the floor.

Stick legs wave about wildly as the beetle tries to right itself.
With a final leap, Jinx closes in and proceeds to eat it.

That startles Hermione from her shock. “No! Don’t eat bugs! For heaven’s sake.”

She picks Jinx up off the floor and tries to pry her cat’s mouth open as Jinx squirms with
indignant resistance. Finally, she gets a finger in and manages to scrape the semi-crushed bug
out of Jinx’s mouth.

“Ew! We don’t eat bugs! You were supposed to be keeping watch,” Hermione says, holding
the bug by one leg and staring at her workspace. “If you ruined my salve, I’m going to be so
annoyed with you.”

She drops the bug into an empty ingredient vial on the table and sticks the stopper into it to
keep Jinx from eating it again, while she turns to survey the wreckage.

Jinx smacks the vial, sending it to the ground.

The bottle bounces off the stones with sharp clinks but since it’s a supply container, Slughorn
charms them unbreakable.

It rolls, bumping Hermione’s shoe. She picks up the vial.

“Have you never seen a bug before?”

It occurs to her then that Jinx perhaps hasn’t.

“Come here. Look but don’t eat.”

She holds it out for Jinx to inspect, staring at it herself. It has a green shell and magenta
features and antennas that have funny little shapes on them.

Hermione’s eyes narrow.

As she stands there staring at it, she remembers flicking away a bug on the plate at
Slughorn’s Valentine party. A beetle flying overhead in the library right when that boy came
over and tried to invite her into the Restricted Section. Was there a beetle in the owlery when
she’d been reading Viktor’s letter? Would she have noticed if there was?

Everything clicks into place.

Rita Skeeter does come to the school in person and in disguise, just not as a human. She’s an
Animagus.

Hermione researched Animagi when she was preparing for the Second Task, and one thing
that the books reminded students of exhaustively is that all Animagi must register themselves
with the Ministry. It’s a publicly accessible registry. Hermione requested a copy because
she’d wanted to see what kinds of animals successful Animagi turned into and there were
only seven people registered in the last century.

Rita Skeeter’s name was not on that list.

Being an unregistered Animagi can earn a sentence in Azkaban.

“So, this is how you’ve been sneaking into the school,” Hermione says, setting the vial on the
table amid the wreckage, hoping that Rita Skeeter is as scared as she should be.

Hermione has leverage on this woman, finally.

She owns Rita Skeeter. She can make her do whatever she wants.

Unless…

One terrible detail bears down on Hermione’s mind.

She used Black Magic when the lamp exploded. It was completely involuntary but
undeniably visible.

It’s possible that Rita was too distracted with the general calamity to have noticed, but if she
did, if she saw Hermione’s magic, then Rita is still dangerous.

It’s one thing to control someone as stupid as Cormac, but Rita would be a cockroach if the
universe were more fair. She will know who to run to in the Ministry, who would believe her
if she reported a Muggle-born with strange powers.

The Ministry would have the resources to protect Rita from Hermione, and they’d know
exactly who they were after.

She can’t risk Rita escaping.

“Good gracious!”

Hermione nearly jumps out of her skin. Slughorn is standing in the doorway, staring aghast as
the destruction of Hermione’s workspace.

“Professor,” she says, straightening and trying not to look at the vial in front of her. “I — the
lamp fell.” She points awkwardly up, hoping that Slughorn will look up and she can swipe
the jar, but Slughorn seems completely absorbed in the mess and the broken glass
everywhere.

“My dear girl, you are having a terrible time today.”

Hermione laughs awkwardly, wanting to say that her day would be remarkably better if he
would just leave her in peace for five bloody minutes.

Slughorn walks closer. “Did you lose your salve?”

“Oh, um. No, I put it here just before.” She steps over to where she’d set it to cool. “Does this
look right?”

She tries to inch around him, hoping to swipe the jar and stick it into her pocket, but to her
horror, Slughorn catches her chin with his thick fingers and tilts her face up to inspect her
cheek. “Yes. I think that will help nicely. Why don’t you run along to my office? There’s a
glass there so you can see. The sooner you apply it, the better.”

She opens her mouth to protest.

This can’t be happening.

“But — shouldn’t I clean up?” she asks awkwardly, clutching the dish in her hand, not
wanting to leave Slughorn alone with Rita, even though his face is bright red with drink and
she can smell the wine on his breath.

He chuckles. “Miss Granger, I think the cut on your face is more pressing than a few broken
vials. Don’t want to lose that pretty face.”

She forces a smile. “Right. I’ll be right back.”

She sprints down the hallway to Slughorn’s office and smears a dollop across her cheek as
soon as she sees the mirror on the wall.

Her face explodes in pain.

The salve stings like agony. She nearly screams. Her eyes water so much she can’t even see
her reflection. She tries to scrape the carelessly applied salve off, but it does no good. The
flecks of firecrab shell have burned into her skin, needles of pain stabbing into her skull.

It takes a minute before she can even think straight.

Salves are supposed to soothe, aren’t they? Not this one. She slumps against the wall,
cradling her face in her hands, waiting for it to stop burning, and trying not to cry.

She was probably supposed to take that pain relief before she applied it.

She pulls it out and gulps it down. Everything becomes rapidly numb, her head nearly lolls
back, but she forces herself to her feet, trying to stay focused.

She needs to get back to get Rita.

She pushes herself up and hurries back, squinting, her eyes still watering. She reaches the
door just in time to see Slughorn sending several ingredients jars flying across the room and
into the supply cabinet.

Including the vial with Rita’s telltale green beetle body inside it.

The supply cabinet door begins to swing shut, and it’s sheer desperation that makes her throw
her hand out. A glimmer of Black Magic flies across the room, but the door still swings shut,
latching with a click.

She stares in disbelief.

 She had Rita. She had her in a bottle, but now she’s locked in a supply cabinet that’s under
tight watch and Slughorn is — brewing something that looks both experimental and entirely
illegal.

He potters drunkenly about the classroom, humming under his breath.

She presses her hand against her face, trying to make a new plan before the potion has her
entirely incoherent.

There’s potion class tomorrow, double with Slytherin.

She’ll just have to steal the vial with Rita when she goes to retrieve her ingredients.

Chapter End Notes

10/22/23 update: I know it's been a while since I updated. This story is not abandoned,
I've just been very busy and haven't had the ability to give this story the time and
attention it deserves.
End Notes

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