Green Light - SereneMusafir - Harry Potter (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Sena Khan stared at the small house situated amongst the jagged rocks in disbelief, her hands trembling as she held the letter of invitation firmly. The stonehouse opened to a set of wooden stairs that led through a patch of trees down to the beach. The cool mountain wind brushed against her temples and Sena forced herself to let go of the letter with one hand so she could shove her hair back out of her eyes.

It had taken her an entire week to locate the house based on the flimsy instructions she had been given. It was as though the location had purposely been secured by a Fidelius charm.

She could hardly believe that she’d made it, let alone what she had come to do. She’d just started her reporting career, a fledgling of just three months as they called the new recruits at the headquarters of The Daily Prophet when she had been called into Barnabas Cuffe’s office.

She’d trembled just as hard then as she was now.

She’d been convinced that they were going to let her go. The little articles that she wrote hardly ever gathered an audience and she knew the editors had noticed because she’d gotten even fewer assignments for the last few months. She knew writing about the hazardous workplace environment of the owlery at Gringotts, or her particularly favourite piece of the centaurs' unionizing efforts at Hogwarts, wasn’t favoured at the office. But it was an honest work that she believed the rest of the Wizarding Britain needed to know more about.

But clearly, it had been the last straw. They were going to let her go; after all, no fledgling who made it to Cuffe’s office came out smiling.

She’d tried her best to prepare herself for the news, but it was hard to do anything when the worst news of her life was right behind the door. She didn’t think there was anything worse than getting a taste of what could have been before having it taken away.

She forced herself to think of what her Aunt Hira had once told her, “One of the strongest women I’ve ever met told me that when you’re afraid, you take the second step. It doesn’t have to be grand, doesn’t even have to be visible. Because that step is powerful. You take the second step, and you know then that you can survive anything. ”

And so, Sena had knocked on the glass door and stepped into Cuffe’s office.

“You’re invited to write a piece on Draco Malfoy,” Cuffe had said the moment she entered from where he stood behind a grand mahogany desk. He hadn’t looked up at her.

“I—What?”

“A letter arrived this morning from Ms. Pansy Parkinson, saying that Mr. Draco Malfoy is willing to talk. But only if it’s you.” The large man had been sorting through a series of books. Gold rings scattered across his swollen hands.

“Me?” Sena hadn't been able to think or comprehend. Single words were all she could manage. She’d been stuck between trying to calm her trembling hands, breathing in the smoke fumes of the office that flowed from the cigar stuck in the corner of his purple lips, and the words he’d casually thrown at her.

Draco Malfoy.

No one had heard of Draco Malfoy in the last eight years, not since the last explosive article that had been done on him by the Prophet. Sena had been too young then to really remember, barely ten years old. But she knew the history of the most profitable articles of the Prophet, and that the one article on him had been in the top ten since the end of the Second War. The Malfoy name had slowly disintegrated from society in the time since the article. All she truly knew was that the Malfoy Manor had closed down, seized by Gringotts, and the last heir had since disappeared.

Cuffe had let out an annoyed grunt in confirmation. He’d paused and glanced up at her. A look of disapproval crossed his face as he took her in.

“As suspected, he still lives,” he’d said, taking out his cigar to blow a smoke halo. “And he’s willing to talk.”

Sena had nodded, trying to look as though she had been following along to whatever the man had been saying. She’d still been reeling by the fact that she wasn’t going to get fired. At least not at that moment.

She cleared her throat. “This is for the piece, The Battle of Hogwarts, 15 Years Later?”

Sena didn't remember the war.

Born to Muggle parents, whatever she had learned about the battle had come straight from her Aunt Hira who had been in her second year at Hogwarts at the time. But it seemed the entire Britain’s wizarding world was keen on celebrating the milestone of the battle now fifteen years later. The Daily Prophet had started the trend, promising a full newspaper coverage dedicated to the battle. Rita Skeeter was to write articles on the Golden Trio along with a tell-all biography of whoever she could get her claws on. The coverage was trusted to senior writers only, not someone like Sena.

It’d been difficult for her to wrap her mind around the fact that not only did someone want her to write something, but they’d also wanted it to be on the infamous Draco Malfoy.

The Prophet had managed to secure an interview with Ron Weasley, who’d opened up several more of his successful pubs called Red Shot, and Harry Potter, now a Head Auror with several successful cases under his belt.

There had been no word on Hermione Granger.

As far as Sena knew, they had been trying to get a hold of Granger for the past seven years, but despite the great efforts of trying to find her through her friends and past co-workers, they’d turned up to dead ends every time. The witch had always been elusive, especially since she'd moved to New York eight years ago, and the Prophet had continued to try harder every year since. Apparently, there had been a thread of a lead in Australia or New Zealand on her whereabouts and actions a few months ago. But of course, it'd led to nothing as predicted. The journalist tasked with scoping out the lead had come back adamant that it was a useless waste of time, despite not remembering where he'd gone or what exactly he had done there.

“Get a hold of yourself, Khan,” Cuffe had snapped, taking in the complete and utter look of confusion on Sena’s face. “Parkinson said they’d do it, but only if we send you. So, are you in or not?”

“In,” she immediately answered and straightened up. “Of course, I’m in.”

Cuffe grunted again and flipped through an open newspaper. “Details will be given to you by Parkinson once the confirmation of your agreement is sent to her.”

Sena nodded fervently, summoning her notebook out of her parcel with her wand and getting down to writing everything.

“Listen to me Khan, no one’s heard from this man for years. You understand how important this is right —yes? Good. I need it to be the most explosive thing to come across the paper in years. Enough of the f*cking Golden Trio— Malfoy is where the real gold is. We had to hound him down like f*cking dogs. I’m not letting go of him now that we’ve found him. I trust you understand what I mean about explosive—correct? Good. Do you need to meet with Skeeter to understand the requirements of such a piece? No? Fine, fine. Close the door behind you when you leave.”

Sena had scrambled to pull together everything she’d known about the Second Wizarding War and Draco Malfoy. She knew enough of him now to tremble as she looked up at the house. She was terrified and not just of what she had been sent out to do.

The door to the house opened and a beautiful, petite woman dressed in a tight black dress with blunt dark hair stepped out. From where Sena stood, she could see the clear annoyance across the woman’s face. The woman’s hand went to her waist.

“Are you just going to stand there?” she called out.

Sena snapped out of her reverie. She took one second to breathe in the ocean-stained air and then paced towards the house.

“Sena Khan, I presume?” the woman said once Sena made her way up the steps. She looked down at the hand Sena had stuck out to shake hers with enough distaste that she quickly put it back down.

“Yes, that’s me. I have your letter of invitation,” Sena said, showing her the letter she had taken from Cuffe.

“Pansy Parkinson,” she replied, turning around to walk inside. Sena shifted awkwardly at the door. “I trust you found us okay?”

“Actually, it was quite difficult—”

“Do you need an invitation to come inside the house, too?”

Sena stepped in, feeling the pressure of wards against her body as she did. “No, sorry, thank you. I also just want to say that this is a huge opportunity—”

Pansy stopped midway and turned around. Her feline eyes roved over Sena before she took a deep breath as if the mere presence of her inside the house troubled her. She flicked her eyes to her perfectly manicured hands before looking back at Sena.

“Listen to me very carefully. You have one chance at this, do you understand that? Just. One. Do not f*ck this up for everyone involved.”

Sena nodded. “Yes, of course. I take this very seriously and I’m very grateful—”

Parkinson turned around, vanishing into another hallway. “I’m going to go get him. Just go straight down the hallway. And don’t touch anything.”

Sena ran a hand through her hair, stunned at the short encounter. She didn’t know much about Pansy Parkinson except that she worked primarily with Zabini Industries as a marketing executive and dabbled in fashion. But she could understand now that she was not a woman to be taken lightly.

She made her way down the hallway, taking in the house.

It was a small place, a significant downgrade from the Malfoy Manor, for sure. If she hadn’t known that Draco Malfoy lived here, she wouldn’t have believed the house was fit for an aristocrat of Malfoy status. There were slivers of green throughout the house, found in curtains or the carpets, an homage to the Slytherin house.

There was a distinct smell of mint and as Sena passed the small kitchen, she saw a floating teapot pouring tea into a cup.

The walls of the deep, red-painted hallway and the sitting room that it led to were stacked with books to the ceiling. The sitting room had a couple of mismatched couches and a dormant fireplace that had even more books stacked on its mantle. Books were stacked vertically on the floor around the fireplace, the sofas, and the tables. Unlit candles littered across every elevated surface. She wondered what was chosen by Pansy and what things belonged to Draco.

Snuggled tightly between the books on the ground were paintings, elaborate abstracts of dark, moody colours. Sena thought the figures in the paintings looked like the same woman.

As Sena walked around the room, there were some books she recognized from her own book collection back home, others were non-fiction, topics on Wizarding history, charms, and potions. She recognized a first edition of Hogwarts: A History stacked between a book on potions and a book Sena had once cited in her article called The Complete and Comprehensive Review of the Role of Hogwarts Elves: Second Wizarding War Edition.

She's mostly surprised by some renditions of Muggle authors: Shakespeare, Jane Eyre, Emily Bronte. The Great Gatsby is being shelved to the right of Anna Karenina.

All first editions.

It was irrational she knew, considering Malfoy had served his time in Azkaban, but Sena found herself looking for anything that might be considered remotely dark. She found nothing of course; no grand photos of the Dark Lord, no hidden masks, or elaborate torture devices. She knew that the information on the last Malfoy found in books or Prophet articles was embellished with fiction, as was the case often. Merlin, much to her own dislike and firm disagreement, she was tasked to add her own “spark” to the piece she was going to write.

As a journalist, it was her task to filter through the fiction and write the honest truth. But it was difficult to do so when whatever truth available on a man like Draco Malfoy was simply ugly. The articles on him before and during the war were often in the context of his family and their doings. The articles on him after the war were hardly ever about who he was and more so an amalgamation of the notorious Manor parties and continued speculation about his dark past.

She peeked outside the single window that looked out into the garden. A lone dragonfly hovered near what she recognized as white daffodils that crept along a white picket fence in the green garden. That explained the other fragrance she smelled.

She stood in the middle of the room, feeling dazed. She hadn’t known what to expect when she was first invited, but it certainly wasn’t this. The house was warm, quaint, homey. Three words that she didn’t think anyone ever associated with Draco Malfoy.

Death Eater. Wizengamot’s greatest mistake. Defamed Malfoy heir.

These were the words she had seen associated with him.

The house was an oxymoron to everything that once represented Malfoy.

Yet Draco Malfoy lived here, and these things belonged to him. This was what the life of a disappeared man looked like.

She couldn't help but wonderwhy now? What made Draco Malfoy agree to an interview after all these years later? The world had forgotten about him so what exactly did he have to say now?

She was wary that whatever story he'd come up with would just be a fabrication of the real truth. She'd suspected that one of the reasons why she was even invited was because he knew of her rookie status. Maybe he thought she was desperate enough for a piece that she'd believe everything he'd say.

She was, of course. But there was also a possibility that he believed in the honour of her past work and trusted her enough with the actual truth of what happened.

At the end of the day, what choice did she really have than to hear him out?

Sena scratched her eyebrow and glanced down at the table. Her eyes focused on a leather-bound notebook sitting beside an empty mug. The pages inside were crinkled and the book, which seemed to be bursting at the seams, was tied together by a string. A photograph peeked out at a corner. Curious, she reached down to see what was inside.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” a cold voice drawled from behind her.

Sena’s hand snapped back up. Eyes wide, she turned around to see the source of the voice.

Draco Malfoy stood at the entrance of the room.

The temperature in the room ran cold and goosebumps pricked her skin. Sena decided at that moment that the photos didn’t do the man justice.

He was wearing black trousers and a black fitted shirt that made the muscles in his lean frame stand out. His pale white hair, which was long enough to curl behind his ears, was roughly slicked back as if he'd ran his hands through them in frustration before seeing her. He was ducking his head so that he wouldn't touch the frame of the entrance and Sena could not stop staring.

He was in his thirties now. But except for a shadow of a beard across his lower half, and a couple of wrinkles on the corners of his eyes, Draco Malfoy looked as though he hadn’t aged a single damn day.

Granite made Greek god. All sharp edges, no smooth undertones.

Cold, dark, closed off.

And he was glaring at her.

“I’m so sorry. I was just looking—I really didn’t mean to—” She was already losing control under his piercing silver eyes.

“I told you not to touch anything,” Pansy snapped, squeezing through the space between Draco and the wall.

“I really am sorry. I...” Sena trailed off when Draco crossed his arms across his chest. His forearm sleeves pulled up slightly and her eyes fell on the black ink against the stark pale of his skin creeping out of his left sleeve.

His eyes narrowed when he followed the movement of her eyes but he made no move to push the sleeve down. Sena opened her mouth to apologize again when Pansy stepped in front of her, blocking the view.

Pansy glared at her while mouthing you’re f*cking it up. “Why don’t you sit down, Sena? So we can finally get started.”

Sena shut her mouth and nodded gratefully. She was royally screwing this up and she barely had seen him for five minutes. She had to get herself together because she really did have this one shot to make it count. She doubted she’d get another piece to write if she screwed her one proper assignment. Her whole career depended on it.

Draco hadn’t moved from where stood. His eyes followed her as she cleared her throat and took a seat. Every muscle of his body was as tense as a string on a violin bow, one wrong move and he’d snap.

“As per our agreement, I’m here to write a piece on your thoughts about Hogwarts, 15 years later,” Sena said, grasping her bag. Accio, she whispered and her notepad and recording quill came to her. “I work as a journalist at the Prophet—”

“Is that what they’re calling your lot now?”

“Draco…” Pansy muttered.

Sena swallowed and looked at him. “I understand your hesitancy with us. I promise to be honest—”

“For your sake,” he said, pushing himself off the wall and walking towards her. Sena sucked in a breath as he crossed the room in three long strides. “I’d hope you were honest about everything. There are many, many ways I can think about how this can affect your career if you choose to continue down this road.”

“Draco, we’ve talked about this,” Pansy said, exasperated. She squeezed the bridge of her nose and inhaled a short breath. She gave Sena a wide-eyed look as if to say you see what I have to deal with?

Sena watched Draco sit down on the red suede couch in one motion, every muscle in his body going taut and then relaxing. He looked at her as though he was waiting for a hippogriff to hatch.

Silence took over the room and she squirmed under his piercing gaze. She felt as though everything with Draco Malfoy was a game of owl and mouse. A challenge of sorts, of who would give in first. And naturally, as there probably wasn’t anyone in this world who could outwit this game of prey, Sena gave in first.

“Well, as I said, the Prophet is really interested in catching up with all those who were involved in the Second Wizarding War. We just want to know how everyone is doing at this point in their lives, how the war has affected you fifteen years later, and your general thoughts and feelings. Really, we just want to get an overall perspective of everyone involved.”

“So, Death Eaters and non-Death Eaters?” Draco asked, flexing his left hand. “And in particular, this Death Eater.”

Sena’s eyes flitted to his long, pale fingers, mesmerized by the movement, before looking at Pansy for help.

Pansy simply leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, a perfectly arched questioning brow lifted.

“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” Draco cut in, his voice lowering to a deep rumble. He leaned forward and Sena felt her entire body go rigid. She could see Pansy smirking from the corner of her eyes. “Now, let me tell you what I want.”

Sena felt herself faintly nod. She couldn’t look away from the mercury pool of his eyes.

“I want the entire world to stop capitalizing off a f*cking war that was fought by children. I want you to f*cking relax and stop apologizing because you’re here for a reason. I want the Prophet to stop making efforts in trying to find me because what I want more than anything is to finally be left alone.”

He leaned back and his face turned into a neutral mask. He scrubbed his jaw with the back of his hand. “So, we’re going to sit through this and I’m going to talk. Not about the f*cking war and my feelings. I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen because when we’re done, you’re going to go back to the Prophet with your piece so that we can be left alone. Is that clear?”

The command in his voice made Sena sit up straighter. She charmed her quilt and notebook and they floated beside her hand, ready at her summon. Spine rigid and her hands steady on her lap, she nodded. “Where would you like to start?”

Draco stared at her, trying to see what, Sena wasn’t sure. But she schooled her face and tried to convey that she was here to do her job. Honestly.

There must have been something that he saw because he gave a short, brisk nod.

“From the beginning,” Draco said. He briefly looked past Sena to the daffodils in the garden, the only sign of hesitancy Sena had seen on the man since she'd stepped into the house. Something flashed behind his eyes and then the moment disappeared and his eyes snapped to hers.

“Ready?”

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

PART ONE: THE LOSING GAME

8 YEARS AGO

Wizarding Britain

Hermione Granger stares at the looped black and white photo of fireworks exploding above the Malfoy Manor.

The words “Sunday Extravaganza at Malfoy Manor!” are written in bold black letters across the front page of The Daily Prophet. The piece under the photo details the same information about the party as it had done the week before, and the week before then, and the one before.

Still, regardless of reading the same thing every week, Hermione drinks in the words. Her fingers fidget with the corner of the paper, sliding back and forth across the edge as her eyes jump across the paper.

The Malfoy Manor was filled to the brim and stone with the most eclectic and unusual guests once again with Wizarding Britain’s greatest night of the week! Rumour has it Babita Bombsewell was seen with the Department of Magical Transportation's very own Jr. Austin Kingston. Entertainment of the night featured the musical witch sister act The Three Cackling Witch Brooms. As usual, the Malfoy host was not seen all night. Partygoers and speculators assume the host does not deem the guests suitable enough to grace his presence-

“Sorry, I’m late!”

Hermione hisses and looks down at the bead of red on her finger. She stares at the wound, unable to look away as the blood drips down the side of her finger.

A head with long raven hair bobs into her office.

“Episkey,” Hermione mumbles and looks up when the wound vanishes.

“Come in, Amina,” Hermione says, roughly pushing aside the newspaper. Amina Malik walks in, her arms filled with books to her chin with titles that she can’t recognize from where she sits.

“You are one tough witch to find,” Amina says, dropping onto a red velvet chair across from Hermione with a loud flourish. She slides aside the stacks of organized parchments with a quick wave of her wand and slams the books onto Hermione’s wooden desk. “It’s as if you’re purposely trying to hide from everyone.”

“How are you doing, Amina?” Hermione pulls one of the books closer so she can read the title. She doesn’t bother telling her friend that she did in fact purposely seclude herself in an office hidden from the rest at the Ministry.

Amina abruptly stops the book with a slam of her hand. “I have a request.”

Hermione leans back and crosses her arms. “A request?”

“Well, it’s more like I’m here to collect my dues, Ms. Granger.” Amina gives her a conspiratorial grin.

Hermione just co*cks her head, apprehensive. She’s known Amina long enough now that she probably does owe her a favour or two. The last time they had collaborated was for Amina’s book called "Bobcats, Bats, Beetles and Other Magikal Creatures of the Desert," where Hermione had served as an editor. But there were times before when Hermione reached out for Amina’s assistance on her own books or scholarly papers. Amina, who remained in her hometown in Morocco most of the time, only came to London for lectures, book signings, or by request from Hermione.

Amina taps her tanned fingers on the book as she surveys the office.

It’s a small, cramped office that only seems to give off the effect of spaciousness because of how pristine and organized Hermione keeps it. The Ministry had offered her a much larger office on the main floor, but she'd adamantly refused, preferring the seclusion and the comfort that came from the small space.

The walls are shelved to the ceiling with academic texts and some of her own work that Hermione only keeps as a reference for future works. All are organized meticulously according to the author's last name, followed by the year of publication.

Her desk, an adequate reflection of Hermione’s mental state of the day, is usually well organized and contains the only signs of Hermione’s personal life in the office. A photo of Harry on his Auror inauguration day is to the right of a snapshot of a rare outing of her and her friends to Ron’s pub, Red Shot. On the left of the desk, beside Neville’s gifted cactus of the month, there’s a photo of Ginny grinning, standing victoriously with her broom at the end of a successful Quidditch game, her arms wrapped tightly around a sweetly smiling Luna.

As it is Monday, the desk is littered with loose parchment, random books Hermione collected over the weekend for this week's reading, and The Daily Prophet she couldn’t help but pick up on her way to work. She may be slightly overwhelmed today.

Amina’s eyes snap back to Hermione. Her green eyes twinkling, she says, “We’re looking for Kahif Al-Noor, Hermione.”

Hermione’s mouth drops, stunned.

Kahif Al-Noor.

Her mind whirs into motion as it pieces everything she knows about the topic together. She tilts her head to see the writing on the spines of the books. Sure enough, they’re all associated with the famous cave.

Oh, Amina was good.

“That’s not all.” Amina’s smile widens, knowing the weight of the news she’s about to drop. She wiggles her eyebrows at her. “I want you with us.”

Hermione’s own brows lift and her pulse quickens at the thought of an adventure of such scale. The extensive amount of glorious research, the many, many checklists she's itching to tick off, the actual trip in itself... She wills her hands to remain steady on the table. She’s getting ahead of herself. “You want me to come?”

Amina nods. “There have been a few other expeditions in the past and almost all of them have been unsuccessful. Records of the expeditions always note how they get close to Kahif Al-Noor, or some semblance of the cave, and then it's as if it falls straight through their hands and they’re lost again. Considering we used all our resources last year on the polar expedition, I had to do some serious grovelling from a benefactor to sponsor us.”

“Someone I know?”

“Unfortunately, it has to remain confidential for now. He wants to keep his name undisclosed until we’ve rounded all the people needed. Something about not wanting to prevent people from joining. But we have everything and everyone ready. Except for you, that is. There’s truly no one else I can think of that can help us on this.”

Hermione takes a long brown curl near her ear in her fingers, idly twirling it in her hands as she thinks about the proposition. She wants to say yes, of course. But there are too many factors, too many variables at this point in her life that she has to consider. She’s no longer seventeen, ready to upend her entire life and education, to go on a search.

She sighs. “I don’t know if I can help you. If it’s been unsuccessful before, I’m not sure there's much I can do.”

Amina laughs, giving her an incredulous look.

“Listen, if you were able to find the damn Horcruxes in the middle of a war as a child, you most certainly can help us find the Kahif Al-Noor.”

Hermione flinches at the memories. They rarely ever talk about the war. Amina hadn’t been there during the war, having spent most of her time in Germany for her own studies. Still she had family in London during those years, so she’s aware of what happened and what Hermione had been doing then. They’ve never discussed any of the details and she’s thankful for having at least one solid friendship that isn’t tainted with memories of the war.

“That wasn’t just me, Amina. It was a group effort.”

Amina’s face softens and she reaches out to grab Hermione’s hand. She squeezes it once.“Let’s not kid ourselves. Those two would not have been able to do anything without you.”

Hermione removes her hand, shifting awkwardly in her seat. Her eyes catch the fireworks and the Manor again.

Amina continues. “We've managed to get Safia al-Jabar’s diary. According to her entries, it’s assumed to be the most accurate account of someone who may have actually seen the cave. Hermione, this is huge.”

Hermione bites her lip. She’s tempted to agree now and to leave tomorrow.

The Kahif Al-Noor, or the Cave of Light, was a myth of the desert. Known as a cave that opens to a secret oasis that enables its finders to achieve enlightenment, the Kahif Al-Noor was assumed to be as real as magic itself.

Although the significance of the cave is not rooted in a particular culture or religion, it was referred to a few times in texts of the Library of Alexandria in a philosophical context of holiness.

Originally most popular in Muggle history centuries ago, travellers and seekers of enlightenment would travel from across the world. However, as most legends went, every effort made had resulted in nothing and over the last few centuries, expeditions decreased with futile attempts at finding the Kahif Al-Noor. It was long forgotten now, lost in history as most myths were eventually. She was sure the cave wasn’t common knowledge to most wizards and muggles; the only reason why Hermione knew herself was that she'd stumbled across its mention during a research project on mythologies and ancient runes.

If it’s true that Amina somehow managed to, under all improbable causes, acquire a diary of someone who claimed to have seen the cave, it changes everything. Hermione hasn’t heard of Safia al-Jabar, but if she did in fact find the cave, then there's a possibility that they might just find it again. It was a small chance, but a chance nevertheless.

“I don’t know how you managed to get a hold of the diary.” Hermione rearranges the loose parchment on her desk as a way to do something with her hands. She gestures to her teapot as an offer and Amina shakes her head no.

“I was originally doing research for a project of mine on North African dragon breeds when I somehow found a copy of Safia’s expedition reports. One thing led to another and I ended up diving into the expedition reports where her name was mentioned a few more times. I had to pull in some serious strings and favours to acquire a copy and license to go ahead. One of the requirements of the expedition is that once the cave has been found, it will be turned into the International Wizarding Preservation Society, in conjunction with the Muggle counterpart, as a World Heritage Site. Besides, there are some advantages to being Amina Malik. I am, after all, a prominent and reputable historian and archaeologist of Wizarding North Africa.”

Hermione smiles in agreement. “When’s the expedition?”

Amina grins again and leans back in her chair, letting go of the book. Hermione grabs it and flips open the cover to dig into the pages. “We leave next week. It’ll be for a month or so at least.”

Hermione deflates immediately. She forces herself to slowly close the book and pry her fingers away. “Oh. That’s—that’s really fast, Amina. I’d have to talk to John and arrange something with the Ministry about my work... I don’t know what can happen on such short notice.”

“If I recall correctly, there was an international media piece on Wizarding Britain’s Golden Girl that I had redacted for said Golden Girl who also happens to be sitting in this room.”

Hermione sighs and picks at a stain left behind when she clumsily spilled over her tea. So that was the favour Amina had come to collect. “Amina, I’m really thankful for that—”

“Don’t say no just yet, please,” Amina cuts in, reaching for Hermione's hand again. “Think about it, a month or so with people you don’t know, delving into history, all expenses paid. It’s a dream come true I think for many people, and especially for someone like you. We talked about this, remember? Going on a trip together, co-authoring a research project? I’m here for another few days, just give me your response before I leave, okay? I’ll wait for you.”

Hermione nods. Amina gathers her stuff and stands up to leave, not even glancing at the books she’s leaving behind for Hermione to peruse. “Fascinating man, isn’t he?”

She follows Amina’s eyes to the front page of The Prophet, where the looped fireworks continue to explode behind the Manor.

“Yes,” she says quietly. “He is.”

___________________________________

Hermione taps her foot impatiently against the vomit-green carpeted floor and tugs on the skin around her thumb with her index finger. The receptionist at the desk peeks up at her again and Hermione twists herself in the other direction to make herself disappear under the witch’s scrutiny.

She’s been waiting for the last hour and the receptionist’s failed at discreetly stare at her the entire time. Hermione’s in such a bad mood, her stomach rumbling with hunger because of the lunch she'd missed to be here, that she has half the mind to get up and yell at her with some choice words.

She scratches her brows restlessly and squirms in her seat.

“Ms. Granger?”

Hermione snaps her head up to see John’s secretary, Henrietta Greensden. The tall, slim blonde witch taps her own foot impatiently, waiting for her. “Mr. Archibald is ready to see you.”

Hermione swallows her annoyed sigh and snatches her bag. “I’ve been waiting for an hour, Henrietta.”

Henrietta doesn’t look back as she leads her down the glassed hallway. The clicks of her pointed heels echo around Hermione and she finds herself feeling envious of the witch’s elegant height. John’s only two inches taller than Hermione and upon his request, she no longer wears shoes with heels over an inch tall. She’d never owned heels greater than two inches anyway so John’s request luckily didn’t require a complete overhaul of her shoe closet. But she does find herself missing stalking around her own office, feeling powerful in the extra height.

Hermione looks away from Henrietta and just as quickly averts her eyes when she catches a few looks from co-workers through the glass walls of their offices. A man holding a file passes them, nodding at Henrietta and staring intently at Hermione.

“I truly apologize for that, Ms. Granger,” Henrietta says curtly, sounding very much not apologetic. “Mr. Archibald has been very busy this morning, with the campaign now running in full force. As you know, there’s an interview with The Daily Prophet in a couple of weeks we’ve been preparing for.”

Hermione doesn’t respond. She’s now transfixed by Henrietta’s yellow ponytail bobbing gracefully across her shoulders as she walks. She tries to flatten her own curls behind her ear. She knows there’s no use in the attempt, but finds herself still tugging at her hair. It’d rained this morning and the humidity had ruined whatever effort she’d put in to tackle the mess that was what she called her hair. She sighs when a curl springs from behind her ear and back into her face.

Henrietta knocks on the glass door of John’s office. She pauses, turning to look down at Hermione.

Hermione gives an awkward polite smile, shifting on her feet. She feels as though she’s back at Hogwarts and she’s being called into Dumbledore’s office for something stupid she’s done once again with Harry and Ron.

Before Henrietta can return the smile, a low, muffled voice on the other side of the door calls them in.

“Ms. Granger for you, John,” Henrietta says, walking in promptly. Hermione follows in and glances around the room.

The room is occupied by two other women, both of whom are crowding around the glass table that John Archibald stood behind.

They give her a tight smile in acknowledgement and Hermione recognizes one as John’s campaign manager, an older witch prominent in her field, Juliet Janisborn. They've never really talked outside of John's office.

“How are you doing, Ms. Granger?” Juliet asks politely. Everyone in his office calls Hermione by her last name, despite her insisting otherwise and the fact that John is often directly referred to by his first name. It's an unnecessary barrier she feels that prevents her from feeling comfortable around everyone.

“Fine, thank you, Juliet. Busy time for everyone, I assume?”

Juliet opens her mouth to reply but John finally looks up from a file on his desk towards Hermione and cuts her off. “Oh, sweetheart, I didn't know you were coming.”

He closes the file abruptly when Hermione moves closer to him. Hermione clutches her bag and adjusts the straps on her shoulder. “I owled you this morning to let you know. I wanted to discuss something important.”

“It couldn't have waited until our dinner tonight?” John asks warily, taking off his glasses.

Hermione sits down in one of the black suede chairs across his desk, knowing he’s not going to ask her to. “Henrietta owled me this morning saying that you cancelled the dinner.”

John pauses and gives Henrietta a questioning look. Henrietta nods briskly in confirmation.

“Oh, so I did. Well, go on then, I don’t have much time. We need to finish the prep for tomorrow’s appearance at Lucinda and Co. Bookstores.”

Hermione glances around the room at everyone waiting for her, expectantly. “Can we talk privately?”

John lets out a short sigh and waves his hand toward the rest of them. “Sorry ladies, just ten minutes, yeah?”

“We’ll be waiting in the conference room for you John,” Henrietta says, sparing Hermione a passing glance before following the other two women out of the room. She doesn’t miss the irritated looks thrown her way before the door closes shut behind them.

Hermione bites the inside of her lower lip tentatively. She feels slightly childish coming here and demanding time from him. But she’d needed desperately to talk to someone about the expedition and she thought she'd come in earlier in the day when their dinner got cancelled. Her entire day after Amina had left had been thinking about the offer and she could hardly contain herself until their next scheduled time together.

John sits down in his large, leather-bound chair and runs a hand through his mousey brown hair. He’s growing out a mustache much to Hermione’s dismay. She thinks it makes him look a lot older and a duplicate of his father, who she isn’t exactly a fan of. She also hates the way his facial hair feels against her face but John disagreed, stating promptly that those weren't good enough reasons for him not to grow one.

He waves a vague hand at her. “Well go on then, what’s this important thing you need to tell me?”

Hermione hesitates. She’d practiced on her way here, making sure to choose the right words to put into the simplest sentences to convince him about the purpose of the expedition. She always has a set of words catalogued in her mind due to the practice of having to do it often around John.

They’ve been dating on and off for the past two years, having first met at a book signing for Hermione’s book when she still used to hold public signings. The son of the current Minister of International Magical Cooperation, William Archibald, John had spent most of his education in the United States before coming to London, where he’d effectively and swiftly scaled the bureaucratic ladder that was the Ministry of Magic.

Only a few years older than her, she hadn’t known what exactly had drawn her to him, except for maybe that he'd followed her around and continually owled her for days before everyone around her had convinced her to agree. Hermione hadn’t dated anyone after her situation with Ron. She was simply too busy with her posting at Hogwarts as a Potions professor and the books on the side that she'd been writing.

She’d even managed to convince herself that she didn’t need to date. But the more she wanted to explore who she was without the responsibilities and expectations that came with her name, the more the expectations put on her by her friends and society to find someone to date seemed to grow. She loathed the idea that according to wizarding societal rules, Hermione was successful by all means regarding her professional life and as such, she needed to focus now on her personal life which seemed only to entail dating, marriage, and falling in love - in that order, no less. She couldn’t comprehend that she was effectively reduced to her Golden Girl status and redirected to finding someone to love.

All she truly wanted was to be so much more than who she was then and now.

But the desire to be more than the Golden Girl only seemed to weigh her into nothingness when she spent her nights in an empty room. She’d found that the vastness and endlessness that came with being on her own only seemed to work if she never truly felt the emptiness that came with being by herself at all times.

And the truth was, Hermione was utterly and completely alone.

So she’d agreed to John’s persistence, thinking that the natural process of dating required her to accept whoever wanted to give her a chance in the first place. Merlin knew she didn’t have much chance of seeking anyone herself.

They’d dated for a few months before Hermione had asked for a break, feeling overwhelmed by her professional commitments and the fact that her body seemed to be breaking down under it all. She also admitted that the two hadn’t been working in the way that Hermione had assumed dating should have worked. There were times when she’d be with John and she felt a familiar sense of claustrophobia and disconnect with herself that she used to get around Ron.

John had agreed with her decision, being busy with his own professional goals, and she hadn’t seen him in the months where she ended up quitting her posting at Hogwarts and focusing instead on herself. She’d thought maybe she just wasn’t meant for dating and had accepted that going through the entire process was probably not going to happen again.

Love was a carousel she longed to try. The yearning for the experience only strengthened when she thought about her own parents' aching love. She just never seemed to get a turn of her own.

It wasn’t until she’d accepted a position to work on and off for the Ministry as an onsite research specialist, while simultaneously publishing three academic books, that John became a persistent pursuer once again. This time around, he was running for the position of Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic.

“It’s meant to be,” he’d said when he met her outside of her office at the Ministry one day. His eyes glazed over as he looked past her shoulder and at the Ministry building. “You’re Hermione Granger, the Golden Girl, and I’m the youngest wizard ever running for the Senior Undersecretary position.”

It was expected, he'd insisted. And so Hermione, feeling alone once more as she watched her best friends fall in love, had agreed to give it another shot. But now months later, she felt that they had done less of the dating part and more of focusing on John’s campaign. Which would have been fine for Hermione if it hadn’t meant she was dragged into the process as well.

She takes a deep breath and tells him about Amina and the expedition.

When she finishes, John, unsurprisingly, frowns. He crosses his arms across his chest and stares at her with his beady, dark eyes.

“No.”

“Why?” Hermione asks immediately, her heart thumping. She’d prepared herself for this outcome, but hearing the words come out of his mouth only makes it worse.

“I have the interview next week, and then a week later you and I are both sitting down with Rita Skeeter for another article. I’ve had this scheduled for a month now. Or did you forget Hermione?”

She had. It's not a new thing and certainly not personal. Hermione has been forgetting a lot of things recently. “You can do this one without me, John. Amina came to me of all people for this and I think it’s worth the time and effort on my end to help her out on this. This really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“And so is my campaign,” he snaps, voice harsh. He throws his glasses on the desk in front of him. He glares at her challengingly, waiting for her to refute the claim.

Hermione pinches her legs to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Running for a position with nepotism supporting his every move was hardly the same thing as looking for a legendary cave.

“It’s only for a month or so, John,” she protests instead. “I’ll keep in touch with you while I’m away. I can send you letters if you feel like we won’t be able to talk.”

“I don't care about you disappearing for a couple of weeks. I’m worried about the interviews we scheduled for us. It’s not going to look good for me, Hermione. As a future ministry member, there are certain values that I need to uphold, like sticking to my commitments. You of all people should know about responsibilities.”

“We can delay whatever interviews or press you want to do after I come back,” she insists, hating how desperate she sounds to her own ears. She tugs the skin around her thumb again.

She’s suddenly exhausted from trying to convince him, but hearing his refusal only makes her want it more.

She clenches her hands tightly from shaking and tries a different route. She inhales deeply. “I never said anything when you missed the launch of Magical Theory: Revised Text for Junior Levels of Comprehension."

“Of what?”

“My book, John,” she says, slowly. “It launched a few months ago. I sent you a copy, remember? It was the only time I set up a book signing because it was for Year 1 Hogwart students only and you never showed up.”

He narrows his eyes, completely unfazed by his hypocrisy. “So you’ve really thought about this, huh? I only wish you’d talked to me before you set your mind to go.”

“I’m talking to you about it now. You know how much I hate the press and talking to The Prophet. I can't stand Skeeter. I'd only make it worse for you.”

His mustache twitches as he presses both of his hands flat on his desk and leans forward. Hermione automatically leans back in her seat.

“And I’m telling you that I don’t want you to do this cat-and-mouse game that has no end. I’ve never even heard of the f*cking thing. It’s not even real, a waste of time and resources if you ask me. What is real and important to me is my time right now, Hermione. This campaign is important to me.”

“But John—”

“Damn it, Hermione!”

She jolts in her seat, blinking furiously.

He stands up in one quick motion, oblivious to her crouching slightly in her seat. Hermione watches, dazed, as he tries to control the anger that has become familiar to her.

He glares at her and Hermione can only stare back. His mouth is moving but it’s all wrong the way it contorts, as though someone is tugging the corners in slow motion.

Hermione squints but John’s voice becomes muffled, sounding further and further away from her. Her eyes become blurry but then her vision clears and then suddenly the room around her tilts slightly before realigning again. She blinks slowly and loses all control of her facial muscles. John’s still talking but Hermione isn’t listening. She isn’t feeling anything. She looks down at her hands and they’re shaking, the only thing that is moving at a faster speed than everything else around her. Her heart is pounding but her head is light. She thinks maybe she’s watching herself sitting in the room, listening to John talk and talk and talk.

What is he saying?

But then she blinks and all sound and colour rush back around and in her. She inhales sharply.

“...Listen, I don’t have time for this right now. Frankly, it's incredibly unfair that you’d throw something like this in the middle of my work. This talk could definitely have waited until I was free.”

She clears her throat, sitting up straighter. She feels light-headed and clutches the chair arm for support. “I have to send my response to Amina soon. I need to know my answer now.”

John comes around the table, glancing at the ticking clock against the wall. He pulls the robe resting on his chair and fastens the collar. Hermione tries not to flinch when he leans down next to her ear.

He’s not going to do anything, she tells herself. Not in his office. Not here.

“The answer is no,” he whispers and then straightens up. “I need to go now.”

Hermione isn’t aware of her nodding or of the door closing behind her. She doesn’t know how long she’s sitting in the empty room.

All she knows is that the room is shaking and she needs to calm down. It’s only when she looks down at her hands and the unmoving chair that she realizes that she’s the one shaking.

She remembers to take short, quick breaths.

In. Out.

In. Out.

In in in in in.

Out.

And when she finally stops shaking, Hermione takes her bag and stands up. She swallows the lump in her throat and runs one hand against her hair on both sides. Without a backward glance or a word to anyone, she bends her head low and leaves quietly.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

“Hermione, darling, you must hurry up! Your mother will be here any moment!”

“Papa, do you think Mama will like the green streamers or the purple ones?”

“Blue, Hermione,” her father says immediately, coming over to Hermione and showing her how to twirl the two strands of streamers. “Like so, darling.”

“How do you know—”

“It’s her favourite colour,” he replies simply. He goes back into the kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets searching for something. “Make sure you take the strawberry tarts out of the box, Hermione.”

“But you love the strawberry ones.” Hermione looks into the large white pastry box and gingerly picks out all the red tarts.

“And your mother will only eat her favourite blueberry tarts as long as they're not touching the strawberry ones—Aha! I knew I’d put this somewhere here.” Her father brings out a glass vase from the cabinet under the sink and starts to fill it with water. “What am I missing...the flowers!”

“How do you remember everything, Papa?” Hermione asks, her tongue sticking out from the corner of her mouth as she concentrates on organizing the tarts, oblivious to her father rushing around her.

A vase filled with white daffodils props on the table, and she feels herself turn towards her father. He holds her gently by the shoulders and tucks one curl behind her ear. “I remember everything because I love her. And one day, you’ll meet a man who will remember everything you love.”

“Everything?” Hermione breathes, eyes wide.

Her father nods. “Your favourite colour, your favourite flowers—”

“My favourite books?”

“Especially, your favourite books. He’ll know everything about you, my darling, little girl.”

The front door clicks open and her father’s eyes widen. “Oh! That's her!”

Hermione grins and sprints to the front door. “Mum! Happy birth—”

Hermione wakes up, gasping for air. Hot tears stream down her cheeks as she blinks furiously into the darkness.

She turns to her side and clenches a fist against her chest until her dream fades away into nothingness and all she can think of is the stabbing, white pain.

___________________________________

“Blimey, Hermione, your nose is all wrong,” Ron says.

Hermione stares down at the sketch of her, noticing her nose is slightly too big, upturned to the left.

It is wrong.

She sighs, rubbing her tired eyes. “It’s fine.”

She slept a total of three hours last night. John hadn’t reached out to her since their talk and she’d been too exhausted from the entire day to say anything herself.

“That’s gonna be a permanent nose on your statue, Hermione. Are you sure?” Ginny asks from across Hermione, sipping from her glass of Firewhisky. Luna, who sits on the chair’s arm, is busy placing tiny braids in Ginny’s fiery hair.

The two started dating shortly after the war, and Hermione didn’t think there had been a single moment where their love had dissipated at all.

She looks away from the aching gentleness of Luna’s hands and down to the sketches again.

Harry slides his own sketch onto the coffee table beside hers and Ron’s. Her sketch seems to be the only one with the features wrong.

She glances up at Kayla Rooney who sits across from them, her hands wringing together anxiously. The young artist was hired to draw up the sketches for the statues being made to commemorate the seven years since the Hogwarts battle.

Seven years was hardly a typical milestone to celebrate, but it seemed that the Ministry and the entire Wizarding Britain were keen on celebrating every single year until perhaps all supplies and ideas ran low. In the year before, there was a Ministry gala with speeches from Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and it had been a social disaster for her the entire time. She doesn’t mind the celebrations—knows that people needed to move on and celebrate whatever semblance of peace there was now, in whichever form they could. What she definitely minds is being the center of each celebration, forced into speeches and press conferences. The weekend after May 2nd was always spent with the Weaselys at the Burrow, so the least she wanted to do on the day was celebrate the physical end of the war quietly and alone.

“It’s fine,” Hermione repeats, wanting to end the whole thing as quickly as possible. They’d all come together at Harry’s apartment that he shared with his girlfriend Cho Chang. She’d begged Harry to host the evening just so they wouldn’t have to meet at a restaurant as originally planned. All those people at the restaurant ogling the three together was enough for Hermione to never want to leave her own place again.

Rooney lets out an audible, relieved sigh and gathers all the sketches. “Well, that was the final sketch appraisal. I’ll send it to the sculptor this week and we’ll go from there. The statues themselves will be marble and about twenty feet high.”

Hermione cringes internally at the idea of a twenty-foot statue of just her face. There was no going back from that once it was erected outside Hogwarts.

She’d done her best to squash the idea when it was first proposed to the three. There was nothing more embarrassing Hermione could have imagined than having an actual statue outside her school. It ultimately meant that the quiet visits to Minerva McGonagall and Hira Khan, Professor of Charms and a close friend, were going to end as well.

“We’ll do a piece with The Daily Prophet before the reveal on May 2nd. I think Rita Skeeter has been brought on to write it.”

Simultaneous groans erupt in the room.

Rooney continues with the rest of the logistics but Hermione’s mind is caught on the date.

May 2nd.

Usually, there had never been a good enough excuse to avoid the anniversary date and the activities it entailed. But Amina had said that the expedition would take a month or so, even maybe going into the second week of May.

She’s still thinking about the expedition when she realizes that Rooney’s gone and everyone's staring intently at her.

She blinks. “I’m sorry— what?”

“Cho asked if you wanted more Firewhisky, Hermione,” Luna says softly. She’s moved onto charming flowers into the braids. Ginny has her arms around her waist, idly tracing circles on Luna’s back.

“Oh. Sorry, no I’m okay. Only one for me.” Hermione smiles apologetically at Cho. She’s acutely aware of Ginny trying to catch her eyes.

“Desserts then? I’ve just got this new recipe from Parvati! I just need a couple of minutes to whip it together...” Cho’s voice trails from the kitchen, muffled by sounds of pots and pans.

Harry groans quietly and then, with feral eyes, looks at everyone. “I’m cashing in my favour of saving the world. You guys will eat the damn dessert and then compliment.”

Ginny rolls her eyes. “I think it’s time someone tells your girlfriend that she's not really a good cook, Harry.”

“I agree, mate,” Ron puts an empathetic hand on Harry’s arm. “You cannot go on like this.”

Harry shoves the hand away. “I almost died saving your arse, Ronald.”

“That was a fascinating read, Hermione,” Luna says suddenly, looking up through her blonde lashes from Ginny’s lap. “It’s truly incredible what the elves at Hogwarts have done for us.”

“What’s this now?” Harry Accios the Firewhisky bottle and fills his cup again.

“Hermione’s book that she sent out last week.” Luna smiles so earnestly at Hermione that she has to look away immediately. “The Complete and Comprehensive Review of the Role of Hogwarts Elves: Second Wizarding War Edition.”

Awkward silence takes over.

She takes her time to look up from the empty glass in her hands and to her friends. It’s a silence she’s familiar with but one she can never get used to.

Despite making sure that her friends are always the first to receive the books fresh off the press, she never actually expects them to read her works. She knows she doesn’t necessarily write on topics that attract her friends, which is why she also makes sure to never bring the books up in the first place because of the suffocating guilt they project onto her.

As expected, everyone, including Ginny, is avoiding her eyes now.

“I was going to get around to it. It’s just been so busy at work—” Harry starts.

“—You just write so many f*cking books, ‘Mione,” Ron adds. “It’s hard to keep up sometimes—”

“—I’ll start tonight, I promise. I just had that quidditch game last week—”

“Everyone, it’s alright!” Hermione plasters on an indifferent smile. “Believe me, I understand. It’s not like it’s my first book, anyway.”

She can’t stand it. The look that she can only describe as pity for her. She hates it, the way everyone looks at her as though she somehow always gets the short straw in life.

She quickly changes the topic and tells them about the expedition.

It’s the wrong thing to do because there it is— the second look she can’t stand. Concern.

She watches them glance at each other cautiously, trying to communicate something subtly despite her sitting right there. It makes her skin crawl.

It’s Harry who speaks first, of course. “Are you sure it’s the right thing to do, Hermione? It might be too much to handle, yeah? Considering…?”

She almost wants to force him to finish his sentence, but it’d make things even worse to hear him actually say the words.

At first, she’d only told Ginny, Ron, and Harry. She was fine with Luna knowing by extension, but she’d truly lost it at Harry when he’d told Cho. Cho wasn't exactly known for her discretion or subtlety, and so, in a heated argument, Hermione ended up forcing Harry to talk to Cho about not spreading the news to the gossip mill that was her friend circle.

She regrets ever telling her friends this one thing because everything changed for her but nothing changed for them. And she’s also so aware now of how they treat her all the time that she’s always left wondering what's just a pretense or genuine concern on her behalf.

“I think Hermione knows what she can and can’t handle, Harry,” Ginny says drily. She shoots a pointed glare at Ron when he opens his mouth to add something.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea, Hermione,” Luna says perkily. “Did you know that there is a rare species of Erumpent that will be migrating across North Africa at this time? You should really look into it, it’d be a fascinating thing to add to your next book.”

“Thanks, Luna,” Hermione says quietly. She scratches her left thigh. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Lavender and Paravati were telling me that the Malfoy party this weekend was absolutely mad,” Cho cuts in, coming back from the kitchen, holding a pie. Hermione exhales, relieved for the distraction. “Topped off from last week, apparently. Everyone and anyone famous you can think of was there.”

“I don’t want to hear a single f*cking thing about Malfoy. It’s all anyone talks about at work anyway.” Ron runs a frustrated burly hand through his red hair and down his face. “The last thing I want is to hear his f*cking name when I’m trying to relax.”

Hermione watches in surprise as Harry takes out a cigar and lights it with a snap. It’s a new habit of his, she thinks. One that he must have gotten from his new set of friends from Ron’s pub, which he frequents on Thursday nights after work. She’s even more surprised when Ron takes the offered cigar from him.

She has a familiar outer-body feeling that settles in when she realizes there are things she’s missing out on, places she’s not invited to, and conversations she’s not a part of.

“Parvati was saying the entire thing reeks of Malfoy just showing off his money,” Cho continues, oblivious to Ron’s reddening face, and shoves a plate into Hermione’s hands.

She looks down at the red juices oozing out of the charred crust and pokes it with a fork. It’s mulberry. Maybe.

“It’s as if he thinks that he can just buy everyone’s friendship after all we’ve been through because of his kind. What’s worse is that he’s never even there. As if he can’t even bother to show up to his own party.” Cho pauses. “Would be interesting to go there, don’t you think?”

Harry shoots her an affronted look and Cho shrugs. “Come on, Harry. Everyone's been to the Manor, at least once, including the four of you— well, come on, now, don’t look at me like that! I know it was for a completely different reason. But, I am not ashamed to say that I’d like to see how it looks now that it’s gone through renovations. Apparently, there are invitations for guests, not that anyone actually uses them though, of course. Parvati has never even been invited and she’s gone twice now.”

“The f*cking git is taking over my entire life,” Ron grumbles, downing his Firewhisky. She glances at Harry, who’s staring at his own cup with a similar fury that’s often reserved for Malfoy. “Got off too easy from Azkaban, if you ask me.”

“He served his time, Ron. He deserves a second chance at this life like everyone else.”

No one is more surprised about the words that come from Hermione than herself.

Ron looks at her as though she’s talking about Voldemort and not Malfoy. “He deserved the Kiss, Hermione. The Kiss. And even that wouldn’t have been enough for a man like him.”

Deafening silence blankets the room once more.

“How’s the dessert?” Cho asks, smiling and looking expectantly at everyone. The room floods with compliments and agreements and Hermione has to take a deep breath.

She isn’t sure what to say to such claims about Malfoy. She’s heard them before, unapologetically from her friends, but also in whispers from others who’d fought in the war behind Harry. The rampant gossip that spreads about Malfoy and the others who served their time and have tried to rejoin society is absolutely unfair, she knows. But arguing about what Malfoy deserves isn't worth her friendship with Ron or Harry.

She’s always left with a harrowing feeling when Malfoy or any part of the war is brought up around her friends. A crushing ache curls in her chest and she blinks furiously as the voices around her slowly become muffled.

She focuses on Ginny’s empty glass, trying to pull herself out of the sinking feeling. Her heart is pounding so hard she thinks it’ll surely fall out of her ribcage and onto the floor.

But then, like a switch being turned on, the sounds rush back to her, and Hermione exhales.

She’s acutely aware of excusing herself and going into the kitchen. Standing at the counter, she grips onto the ledge.

It’s times like these that Hermione feels the most lost. Most unlike herself.

As though she’s floating untethered in space, without oxygen or sight, and a bone-snapping pressure weaving in her rib cage that makes it hard for her to think or do anything other than slowly drift away into eternal darkness.

She adores her friends, is willing to die for them, and has proven that time and time again.

But it’s difficult now when it feels like everyone has moved on somehow—has found versions of themselves after the war that they were content with.

Harry's fallen naturally into his well-deserved role of Head Auror and Ron successfully opened up his own pub. Ginny’s the head captain of the Appleby Arrows quidditch team and Luna’s the chief editor of the Quibbler, to which Hermione contributed a couple of times.

She knows that whatever it was that her friends had chosen to fill their days with, they were all living. Peacefully, happily.

Hermione isn’t sure what it means to be happy with how she lives her life. What exactly was expected of her, other than what came with her name, she doesn’t know. So she’s settled for being as busy as possible, juggling multiple jobs and tasks a week, so that she never has a single moment to herself to breathe or think.

Above all, she doesn’t want to think. Not about herself, or who she’s with, or what she’s going to do next.

Most of the time she feels as though things are happening to her and not the other way around, and she can’t bear that thought because it’s such a far cry from who she was as a teenage girl. Everything she accomplished during her time at Hogwarts is so insurmountable that Hermione’s convinced she peaked then. Sure, the circ*mstances had forced her to be that person but she knows that she’ll never truly be as driven, as hungry, as she was then.

She’s stuck, frozen in time, and everyone has moved on. And maybe it’s too late because she’s been in this quicksand for some time now but she needs a rope or a hand to be pulled out because she yearns for something, anything to feel those emotions again.

Something like the expedition.

“Alright, Hermione?” Ginny asks from behind her. “You left so quickly.”

Hermione tries to cover her jump by putting away her cup clumsily in the sink. “Yes, sorry, just tired.”

Ginny shoots a glance to the sitting room where everyone is and then hurries to dumb the slice of pie Cho gave her in the bin. “Yeah, I bet. It’s entirely insane, this statue thing.”

Hermione lets out a shaky laugh. “Certified, really.”

“What does John think?”

“He thought it was ridiculous until he realized he could get one too if he played his cards right.”

Ginny leans against the counter and searches Hermione’s face. “I meant the expedition.”

“Oh, right. I asked him—”

“Why do you have to ask him?” Ginny’s brows furrow and she crosses her lean, muscular arms across her chest. “Just tell him and go.”

Hermione scratches her brow and shifts awkwardly under the ginger’s steady faze. “I mean—yes, I’m not asking for permission, obviously. It’s just I know that he has these plans for us—”

Ginny’s eyes widen slightly and she rushes ahead. “No, God, no! Not those kinds of plans! At least, I hope it’s not that. Not that I don’t eventually want to get married! I just don’t think that’s— we’ve just never talked—”

Ginny tugs on Hermione’s arm abruptly. “Hermione, calm down.”

She exhales. “I mean, he has plans for us doing press. For his campaign.”

Ginny frowns. “But you hate doing press.”

Hermione groans impatiently, rubbing a hand down her face. “I know! There’s a lot to it and I don’t expect you to understand, Ginny. It’s just really complicated.”

A slender, red brow rises. Her voice is dry as sandpaper. “Right. Of course. Complicated.”

She feels guilty immediately. She knows Ginny’s intentions are nothing but pure, but she’s also tired of how often she needs to explain her relationship to others around her, especially to those who encouraged her in the first place. It never comes out right and only makes her feel even more confused.

She takes the hand Ginny still has on her arm and holds it between her own. “I’m sorry, really. I just didn’t sleep properly last night, that’s all.”

Ginny softens. “Hermione, I’m worried for you.”

She flinches. “Ginny, please don’t—”

“You hardly talk or see anyone anymore. You only came here today because of this statue thing. I’m worried you’re isolating yourself—”

“I’m not, I promise. I’ve just been busy with my work and John always needs me—”

Ginny’s face twists into disgust. “What do you two even talk about these days other than his needs and wants?”

She shuts her mouth, tight-lipped.

Ginny sighs and squeezes her hand once. “All I’m saying is that we’re your friends, Hermione. If you don’t turn to us, then who do you have left?”

She opens her mouth to say something, but changes her mind last minute. She forces a smile and pulls away, running a hand through her hair.

“It’s been an incredibly long day, Ginny. I think I’m just going to head home now.”

She doesn’t meet Ginny’s concerned eyes as she turns to leave.

There are just too many questions there and Hermione has long come to terms with the fact that she no longer has the answers to everything.

___________________________________

Head low, Hermione ducks through the back door of Brownington Books and smiles up at Barry Brownington.

“How are you doing, Barry?” Hermione asks, following the elderly man inside and through the aisles.

“Splendid, Ms. Granger, all thanks to you,” he replies in his raspy, shaky voice. He shuffles to a table with stacks of Hermione’s books, ready to be signed. “The books you personally signed last week really increased the number of customers coming in. I’m entirely grateful to you.”

Barry’s bookstore, passed through six generations, had recently been struggling with attracting the younger wizarding population.

An avid customer of the bookstore, Hermione was worried that he’d be forced to shut down the store completely. It broke her heart to know she wouldn’t be able to see his familiar, friendly face every Sunday when she picked her books for the week. Hoping her name would finally do some good, she’d offered to sign her own published books as a way to attract a crowd.

When she’d first offered, she didn’t know if it’d even make a difference in his revenue considering her books were dense academic texts. She wasn’t even sure if people cared whether a book was signed by her or what her name was even worth.

However, according to Barry, there's been a slight increase in book sales and it was enough for Hermione to make it a ritual. She’d offered to continue signing as long as he’d allow her to do it during closed hours and only if she'd be able to enter and leave through the back door, undetected.

Hermione shakes her head at him and pulls out her favourite quill. “I told you, if you want me to call you Barry, you must call me Hermione.”

Barry gives her a nervous, loose laugh. “Of course, of course. My apologies, Hermione.”

She gives him another warm smile, eyeing his nervously wringing hands.

Usually, he’d leave her to work, but this time Barry stays close by, shelving and unshelving the same books over and over.

She glances at him occasionally from the corner of her eyes, but eventually, he shuffles away, and she gets lost in the repetitive, numbing process. She decides to add an extra special message with her name as an extra incentive to buy the books.

She’s almost to the end of the stack when she hears a flash behind her.

Her entire body freezes.

Every single hair on her body rises, each muscle fibre goes tense, and that’s when she hears the voices flooding around.

She turns around only to be blinded by another flash.

“Hermione! Hermione! Look here, Hermione!”

She turns back around immediately, hands flying to cover her face, heart beating mercilessly in her temples.

How did they get in how did they get in how did they get in—

“—Granger, what are your thoughts on the Hogwarts battle anniversary—?”

“—Hermione! When will you be seeing Harry Potter—”

Her fight and flight instincts finally sink in and she’s sprinting through book aisles, turning abruptly in another direction when someone blocks her path.

How did they get in?

She needs to run, get out, do something—

She pushes through book aisles clumsily, stumbling to a stop when she sees Barry.

She’s about to beg him for help, but he shakes his head solemnly, and she understands.

“They said it’d help with the business,” he says quietly, his hands clasped together in a plea.

She turns before he can say anything more, eyes pricking with tears, and runs to the back door. She tries to shove through, but the door's locked. She cries out in frustration.

“Hermione, what do you have to say about the uncoupling between you and Mr. John Archibald?”

The question trips her for a second and that’s when they get her.

She squeezes her eyes shut, feeling the cameras and flashes getting closer and closer—

And suddenly she’s back in the war, wands raised, curses being thrown around carelessly and recklessly. Flashes of green for every death curse, flashes of red, white—

Her body shudders, lungs wheeze for air, arms thrash around—

She needs to find Ron — needs to save Harry — where’s Harry?

He’s everything, everything, everything, She needs to protect him—

She falls to the ground, knees crashing against the carpeted floor.

She needs to use her wand but she’s not thinking that cleverly or instinctively. All she can think is that she needs to get out.

So she drops to her knees and hands, somehow mercifully finding a gap between the crowd, and pushes through. Hands claw at her or maybe it’s just her imagination, she isn’t sure—

She manages to get through the gap, jumps to her feet, and sprints to the front door.

Footsteps echo behind her, but somehow she makes it, and then she pushes the door forward with all her weight and stumbles to the street.

The fresh air whips against her face, bringing back her common sense and she Apparates home immediately.

Hermione falls to the ground the moment she lands in her apartment. She dry heaves over the carpet, bile and nausea constricting her throat, and then wraps herself around her knees.

She clutches her chest and weeps.

___________________________________

Hermione calls in sick for work the next day, the first time she’s ever done it, and spends the entire day in bed, trembling. Reminding herself that she’s safe, the war’s over.

Later that night, she tries to sleep but every time she closes her eyes, she sees bright, flashing lights.

She’s restless and the sleeping draught is taking longer than usual to kick in.

Around 3 AM, she pushes away her covers, takes out a quill, and writes a letter.

The next day during lunch at work, a response comes.

Ms. Granger,

I approve and you have been cleared for this trip. Here are the potions and the required schedule you must follow. I hope for your safe return.

She stares at the letter, stunned. It was the last thing standing in the way that might have hindered her from going. But she has the answer now and she lets herself rejoice. She pauses for just a moment to think about John but then proceeds to write her next letter.

Dear Amina Malik,

Thank you for telling me about this incredible opportunity. I’m so humbled that you would like my company on this trip. I’m delighted to inform you that I have made the decision to accompany you. I look forward to your response in confirmation.

Sincerely, Hermione Jean Granger

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Wizarding Morocco

The enlightened way requires a cruelly intimate sense of self that can result in enough discomfort to push the soul away indefinitely. One must embrace the truth that to reach the core of the soul, it is imperative to embrace the pain, the most bizarre, the contradiction.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

Hermione cannot believe that she’s actually done it.

It should have been harder to leave her entire life behind. To say goodbye, though momentary, to her friends and other life obligations. She’d even braced herself for the familiar curling anxiety in her stomach, the staggering trepidation in her chest that she’d developed in the past few years, stopping her from doing anything outside of her established routine.

However, none of it came and Hermione continued onwards with her preparations, not stopping to ruminate why for once.

The Ministry had accommodated her requests, allowing her to complete a few pending research assignments while she was away. When asked if she’d be back in time for the statue unveiling, Hermione had lied and said yes, and they’d believed her anyway. For once, she was grateful for the connotations, the involuntary acceptances, that came with being the "Golden Girl".

She’d owled letters to her friends to let them know she was leaving, preferring not to meet them in person. Ginny and Luna had still ended up apparating to her before she’d left and Hermione was thankful for their lack of any comments or questions of concern as to what she was doing.

John was a harder obstacle to overcome, but she was surprised at how easy it was to leave despite it.

She’d tried to meet him in his office several times to talk to him about her leaving and the one comment the paparazzi had sprung on her about their breakup, but Henrietta would always give some excuse or another for his absence.

Eventually, she waited for him at his office for two hours, one day before her departure. Despite exhaustion stirring in her bones from the trip preparation and last-minute work projects, she stayed up all night completing, she forced herself to stay in the waiting room and ignore the probing eyes of the receptionist.

She had tried to be patient with him, was willing to put the extra effort in to sit down and communicate their needs. But she didn’t know why she had to try so hard to convince him in the first place. She knew it shouldn’t have mattered to her what he thought about her leaving if it meant so much to her to go in the first place. Hermione just didn't know where the line was between nurturing her needs and wants and focusing on their relationship.

Ginny would always scold her when it came to her and John, making a point to highlight the imbalance in the relationship. But Hermione never had enough experience with these things and while she knew a relationship was an equal partnership, it was in her nature to be the one to put in the effort, to go the extra mile when those around seemed to loosen their hold. The sheer desperation with how she clung to the scraps of her relationships with her friends had been a constant throughout her life.

Her tight grip on those in her life, and her unconditional willingness to go above and beyond for them, only seemed to have worsened during and after the war, when she realized just how quickly she could lose those she loved. If she wasn't careful, every one of them was like water slipping through her fingers.

The steps she’d willingly and wholeheartedly taken for Harry’s protection had always been one more than those around her. And she hadn’t once stopped to ask herself why simply because he’d been her first true friend and there hadn’t been a single day where she had loved him less.

It’d also been that way with Ron when they were together. She'd always been the one to give more. She memorized Molly's blackberry pie recipe so she could make it for him after a long day at the pub, watched quidditch games just to spend the extra hour with him. It had always been more, even when he'd never remembered to read her books or would change the topic when she wanted to run a new project through him. When it came to John and she found him giving her the same energy and time as Ron, she presumed that it was conventional and any relationship she’d been in would ultimately mean an imbalance with her carrying most of the weight.

Now, with this new hurdle, she figured she had to at least try, that being in a relationship meant waiting the two hours for him, despite her own tight schedule and drained body.

Yet, the moment she’d seen his impassive face, something washed over her, and she felt the taut thread that was their relationship loosen.

They’ve talked, both of them sticking stubbornly to their own stance and unwilling to reconsider. Had it been any other thing, she would have given in, never even tried this hard for herself. She’d done it before and she would have done it again now if it meant they weren’t arguing anymore and the anxiety that crept across her legs and arms disappeared.

But this trip was different, something inexplicably precious that she felt the need to protect and ensure it came to life.

After an hour of the same circling conversation, she knew nothing she’d say would make him change his mind, so she got up to leave. He glared at her, red-faced and she clenched her thumb in a fist to stop the skin around her nail from bleeding from when she’d scratched it furiously.

She paused at the door, one hand on the knob when he spoke up. “If you go, Hermione, there might not be anything left when you come back.”

She understood what he meant and was surprised when her entire body relaxed, her chest sighing. As though the boulder on her back she’d been climbing up the mountain was lifted off her shoulders. He often made claims of leaving when they fought, taking unspoken breaks from her for a few days before he showed up at her door again. They were taking a break now and for the first time, she cherished the untethered feeling when she left his office and didn’t look back.

He'd ended up not seeing her before she left and Hermione was grateful for that as well.

At Hermione’s request, Amina had sent the entire itinerary with planned dates and scheduled rest stops so she could plan everything ahead. She'd spent her days reading all the Muggle and Wizard books on the Kahif Al-Noor that she could find, writing down her own theories and creating an elaborate reference text. Amina’s jaw had dropped when she’d seen all the things Hermione had planned on bringing with her, but Hermione knew there was no such thing as over-packing when faced with the unknown.

She travelled with Amina through international portkeys and by the time they arrived at their destination, she was exhausted. But the entire process of magical travelling had Hermione feeling as though she was drunk on Amortentia. Having only travelled the Muggle way with her parents before, she felt as though she’d arrived at Hogwarts for the first time all over again.

A new, yet familiar, sense of nervousness hums in her blood, but she welcomes it like the first sprout of spring after a long, cold winter.

They meet the rest of the crew outside the hotel they’re to stay at just outside Marrakech, Amina’s hometown. The group includes nine individuals, including Hermione, of various skills and backgrounds. She's not sure where exactly she fits, but is hopeful she can contribute at least something useful to the expedition. She’s nervous about meeting new people, but the thrill of seeing the polite indifference and casual respectfulness on everyone’s face when Amina introduces her is worth everything she’s left behind for the time being.

She quickly realizes that other than Amina, a regional specialist named Leena Salah, and another woman named Dana Nadim, the majority of the crew consists of men. She feels dazed as she shakes everyone’s hands, trying to memorize the names of the people she’ll be spending the next few weeks with.

Eventually, the crew follows Amina inside to be checked into their rooms, leaving Hermione outside for a moment to herself.

It’s a pleasantly hot afternoon. The wind is humid and although she's aware of how uncontrolled her hair has become during the trip here, she lets the humidity seep into her pores, and melt into her marrow. The sun is at its highest point for noon and she turns her face to it, fluttering her eyes shut, and letting the heat fan across her face. She savours the warmth after weeks without the sun in London.

“It’s going to be a gruelling trek,” someone says behind her.

She opens her eyes and turns to face the voice. It’s the Italian man she was introduced to before, Tony Esposito, a fieldwork expert who worked with Amina on previous expeditions. She thinks maybe he’s in his mid-thirties, like Amina. Other than Hermione, he’s the only non-local that she’s met today who will be joining them on the trip. She’s not sure how much of the war was known in Italy, but he hasn’t shown any recognition of who she is, even though his eyes move across her face as if trying to place her.

“Not quite like the ones you may have faced before,” he continues, his voice thick with an accent. He takes out a cigar and lights it directly with a match.

“Are you worried there are too many women on this trip?” she asks, raising a brow.

“A fewer than I’d like, actually,” he quips, scratching his beard. “But, Amina told me this is your first time on an expedition of such sort. We’re going into territory that one can easily get lost in.”

“Or perhaps find oneself in,” Hermione retorts. The conversation feels like an initiation of sorts and she’s determined to get on the other side. It's as though she's back at Hogwarts, trying to prove herself magical enough to belong. There's no malice in his voice, but her defence mechanisms spark up anyway.

“It can be difficult for first-timers to handle.”

“You’d be surprised to know, Mr. Esposito, that there isn’t much that I can’t handle.”

“You speak as though you’ve seen war, Ms. Granger. Your youth makes me hope that you haven’t, but your eyes tell me otherwise.”

Hermione gives him a small smile and turns, tilting her face back to the sun. “We all have our wars. Not all are visible to others.”

He shakes his head in disbelief, amused eyes searching her face once again.

There’s a moment of pause. “Did you know, Ms. Granger, when explorers were first mapping the world, for unknown places and uncharted territories, they’d write on the maps, “here, there be dragons” .”

She meets his curious eyes with her steady ones. “I’m not afraid of dragons.”

“Strange,” he says quietly, a slow smile tugging on his lips. “That’s the second time I’ve heard that today. Tell me, do you know someone—”

“Hermione!”

She turns to look over Tony’s shoulder and at Amina.

“I can show you to your room,” Amina says, jogging up to her. “You must be exhausted and hungry. Lunch will be served in your room and you can sleep if you’d like.”

She nods goodbye at the wizard, who watches her intently as he takes another drag of the cigar.

“Ms. Granger!” he calls, blowing out a gust of smoke. “For the people I like, it’s Tony.”

Hermione simply nods again, knowing she’s passed the initiation, and follows Amina into the hotel.

“We will be meeting for dinner later today to discuss the logistics and next steps,” Amina explains, leading her down the front lobby. The hotel is crowded with tourists, some checking in, others eagerly chatting away about their plans. “I’ll show you to your room, your luggage is already there. I need to go find someone first, though. Do you remember the benefactor I told you about? He arrived earlier this morning, I just need to talk to him for a few minutes and then I’ll take you to your room.”

“Who’s the benefactor?” Hermione asks absently, engrossed by the intricate designs on the glass ceiling of the hotel. She tries to keep up with Amina’s swift pace as her eyes jump from the ceiling to the ornate pink and red flowers painted across the deep, blue walls. Her fingers brush against the velvet leaves of a large, green Monstera plant.

“Oh well, yes I suppose—just this way, Hermione— I suppose I can tell you now that he’s here, no point in keeping him a secret. I’m not sure if you know him personally, though,” Amina says, walking through glass panel doors and into the courtyard. Towering palm trees curve across the white, looming walls of the yard, billowing against the warm breeze. Amina leads her way down a set of white, stone steps. Hermione lags behind to let an elderly couple pass through first. “Well, I’m not sure there’s anyone who doesn’t know of him. It’s hard to miss someone of Malfoy's status.”

Hermione stumbles, catching herself on the railing. She stares after Amina’s receding back, convinced she’s misheard. Or maybe she’s dreaming, somehow having fallen asleep while walking through the hotel.

“What?” she breathes, unclenching her hands from the railing.

But Amina isn’t listening and Hermione watches, dumbstruck, as she walks towards a man with strikingly familiar blond hair, sitting on a bench in front of a wall of red roses.

Hermione’s legs are leaden as she tries to take another step forward. The man’s lean body is curved over what looks like a black journal when Amina bends down to say something to him. She can physically feel the seconds pass as he nods and then Amina is waving to where Hermione is standing and she’s convinced all air leaves her body.

Malfoy's head snaps up in her direction and she watches as he squints, a pale hand instinctively flying to cover his eyes from the sun blazing above her. She registers the exact moment his eyes collide with hers and they both freeze.

It’s unfair.

That’s the first thought that comes to her mind. It’s unfair for someone to look as good as he does.

She hasn’t seen him in person for years, not since she last saw him outside the Wizengamot after her testimony on his behalf. She' gone without telling Ron and Harry, scared she’d be stopped from going, or worse, that their friendship would end. It was the only time she’d used the privilege that came with her name and requested to be kept anonymous in the trial transcripts.

The only people who knew that she had testified were those in the room and Malfoy. He’d been angry then, glaring at her the entire time she talked. She’d quickly left when she saw him making his way through the crowd at the end, crazed fury clear on his face.

There’s no fury on his face now. Just a cold, blank mask. A veiled armour he’s perfected against the world, preventing others from seeing through any cracks.

He stands up, his body unfurling and the movement causes her eyes to subconsciously drift across his body. He’s wearing black trousers and a black fitted shirt, buttoned closely at the nook of his neck, making his pale skin and hair stand out even more. He’s not wearing his wizarding robes, yet still manages somehow to give off a dark preternatural allure.

The rose backdrop is a stark contrast to how he looks. He’s so rigid, each muscle in his build is tense like a granite statue, but the flowers creep up behind him in all directions, creating a halo of crimson and evergreen, softening his edges.

A devouring black void against a semblance of vitality.

She could disappear in him forever.

And then a crazy, random thought comes to her. She should memorize how he looks in this moment, she thinks, so that she can paint him one day.

Hermione doesn’t even know how to paint.

She swallows hard and licks her dry lips as the two walk over to her. She inhales short, quick breaths, commanding herself to remain calm and collected.

Amina continues to talk to him, but Hermione doesn’t think he’s listening. His silver eyes haven’t shifted away from her once and she’s sure he hasn’t blinked.

Her own eyes follow closely every step he takes towards her. His legs move with the grace of a black feline towards its prey, one hand in his pocket, the other gripping his journal. His white knuckles are the only thing that betrays his carefully set face.

“...Hermione is the last one to arrive,” Amina is saying when they stop in front of her. “I’m not sure if introductions are in order—”

“Malfoy,” Hermione's voice hitches and she clears her throat, heat blooming across her neck. “It’s good to see you.”

God, he’s so much taller now. How has he managed to grow since she’s seen him last? She tilts her head back just to meet his eyes.

His brows furrow slightly as he continues to stare at her, apprehension in his eyes. His eyes drift towards the top of her head, taking in the mess of her hair and his lips tug downwards. She’s never felt this self-conscious before, her hands twitching along her body as she forces herself not to pat down her hair.

“Granger.”

The hair at the nape of her neck rises. She’d forgotten how his voice sounded. Or rather, felt. Like she’d been standing in the cold in the middle of winter and someone runs a block of ice down her spine.

A hauntingly deep voice that melts into the dark shadows cast under his eyes and against his prominent jaw and cheekbones.

“Well, looks like you two do know each other,” Amina says, looking between them eagerly.

Hermione forces her muscles to turn away from Malfoy and towards Amina. “Yes.”

One-word answers are as coherent as she can be right now under his piercing gaze.

“Splendid! Draco, I can catch up with you later to discuss the logistics of the final thing we talked about, is that okay?” Amina asks. Hermione’s taken aback by the casualness in which Amina addresses Malfoy. There’s a sense of familiarity between the two that sparks Hermione’s curiosity.

Malfoy drags his own gaze away from Hermione and gives Amina a short nod.

Hermione's vaguely aware of Amina saying something and taking her arm, moving them away from Malfoy and the courtyard. She stumbles slightly up the steps as she tries to process the encounter with Malfoy and the words being thrown at her.

“He’s your neighbour.”

“What?” Hermione asks, eyes snapping to Amina.

“The room next to yours is his,” Amina clarifies. “I offered a larger one because, as you know, he’s funding the entire thing, but he insisted the smaller room was okay.”

“Oh.”

He’s staying next to her — they’re sharing a wall. It means nothing, really, because the more peculiar fact is that he’s going to be on this trip. With her. It’s such a baffling turn of events that it’s almost comical and Hermione wants to laugh.

Instead, she doesn’t think at all and turns her head over her shoulder to look back.

Malfoy hasn’t moved. Not a single muscle has relaxed.

His eyes are downcast, and it's as though he feels her looking because they lift up at her.

His tall, dark frame becomes smaller, but she can still feel his stare when she turns back to the front and disappears inside.

___________________________________

Despite the adrenaline that came with the shock of seeing Malfoy, Hermione knocks out the moment her body touches the bed, every bone and muscle weary.

She wakes up starving, having missed breakfast because of the travel and lunch. Somehow, despite being neighbours, she luckily misses seeing Malfoy until dinner. She doesn't know Malfoy at all, but she suspects he resolved himself to burrow in his own room so as to miss seeing her, just as she'd done. She’s not sure where they stand and while her curiosity makes her want to delve further into him, her gut tells her to hold off just a little longer. She’s sure he’s shocked just as she is by the change of events, but there’s also a possibility that he’s indifferent enough about her presence that of the two, she’s the only one reeling.

Dinner is served with the entire team out in the courtyard. Hermione sits down beside Amina, taking in the kaleidoscope of colours and the spicy aroma. She hungrily fills up her plates with tajine and zalouk.

They’re staying at a Muggle riad that’s been converted into a hotel and Hermione desperately wants to know how Malfoy is coping without public displays of magic. She wants to ask him why he’s even here on this expedition, willing to work amidst Muggles and live in conditions of the expedition that contradict the comfort of the Manor. But he's busy scorching holes into his plate, so Hermione decides it’s best not to bring it up just yet.

She tries her best to participate in the conversations as she eats, laughing when Tony jokes and answering questions. She gives in quickly and tries to steal glances at Malfoy, who notably sits quietly while others converse around him. Since saying her name, he hasn’t acknowledged her directly and she doesn’t know how to exactly go about this. The only mutual they share is Amina and if it had been anyone else from home, she would have said something as a display of camaraderie. But with Malfoy, she doesn't know where to start or what to say that wouldn't result in him glaring at her.

As the dishes are cleared and atay, a local mint tea, is served around the table, Malfoy takes out his black journal and starts writing in it. It’s rude and so unlike the aristocratic table etiquettes she knows he’s been forced to learn, but he continues to ignore the conversations around him. She watches the intense scratching across the pages and resists reaching over and snatching the journal out of his hands to see exactly what is so important to note down right now.

Despite there being no recognition of who he is, or his past, amongst the group, he hasn’t relaxed once, his shoulders tight, his jaw clenching every few seconds. She knows some, if not all, of the tension is because of her presence at the table, but she can’t figure out if it’s for the same reasons as before the war or because of something entirely new that she’s done in recent years— other than her testimony, of course.

She’s also painfully aware that she’s spending more time thinking about Malfoy and his intentions than he’d ever even spare thinking of her name. She can’t help it though, because it’s Malfoy and he takes up so much of the air in the courtyard without even doing anything.

Her eyes catch his left thumb mindlessly rolling a black ring with a green stone on his forefinger. It’s only when Amina takes out a brown leather-bound journal, that Hermione can look away from his long, pale fingers.

“Is that the journal?” she asks as a way to focus on something else other than counting how many turns he makes with his thumb. The table quiets down at the question. Even Malfoy’s hand, mercifully, pauses.

“A replica,” Amina explains, passing the journal around. There are quiet murmurs as others flip through the pages of the diary. “Obviously, we cannot have the real thing here, but this is as good as it’s going to get. Other than the standard accounts regarding the cave, this journal can be seen as a credible source for finding the Kahif Al-Noor.”

“What’s her story anyway?” Idris, a guide specialized in the region, asks. He lights a cigarette and passes the matches to Tony.

“Safia Al-Jabbar was a young, wealthy Egyptian woman married to a Russian aristocrat,” Hermione says as the journal finally makes its way around to her. She holds it gingerly in her hands, despite it not being real. She can’t wait to delve into it on her own, read the words, and learn more about the witch. “She was a powerful witch of her own accord, coming from a long and ancient line of magic. It’s speculated she's a descendant of Akila Al-Jabbar, another powerful witch who was said to be blessed by Heka, the Egyptian god of magic and medicine.”

She looks up and sees that everyone has turned to face her now.Malfoy decides to burn holes into the side of Hermione’s face instead of the table.

Hermione squirms in her seat, unsettled by the attention.

A breeze causes a curl to fall in her eyes. She pushes it away quickly with her hand and rushes to fill the awkward silence. “She was only eighteen when she wed the Russian. According to the correspondence between her family, it was against her will, as she originally wanted to travel and explore. Lucky for her, the marriage was more for the public, a contract between the two families. And so when her husband would run off with different women, she was able to spend time doing what she loved best, learning history and exploring.”

The table is quiet and she bites the inside of her lower lip. Tony gives her an appreciative smile. “Ah, yes, Amina did mention we had a scholar amongst us.”

Hermione shrugs a shoulder. “I like to read.”

“So what makes her so credible?” Leena asks, taking the offered cigar from Tony. Hermione glances back down at the journal in her hands and reluctantly passes it to the next person.

She looks up and accidentally catches Malfoy’s eyes. He tenses and snaps his eyes down to his own journal. When the diary reaches Malfoy, he immediately passes it to the next person without looking back up.

She frowns when he starts writing again but continues with the story. “With money at her disposal, Safia was able to gather a team, much like this, but larger and exponentially more sophisticated for her time. Other than a single handmaiden, there was no one else from her household who went with her.”

“Safia was a witch, and as so, she was the first to use magic to outline her travels and search for the cave,” Amina adds when the diary gets back to her. “According to records, during the expedition, there was an accident and most of the crew died. She highlights the accident in the diary, but there are also passages of her still mentioning the cave right after, meaning she continued the trek and found the cave. Eventually, she was rescued and did end up going back home to Russia.”

“What happened to her after?” Tony asks.

Hermione fills her empty cup with another round of atay. “Soon after returning from the trip to Kahif Al-Noor, she died in a fire at her estate that took only her life. Her husband wasn’t home then, apparently away on a trip to Greece. The diary was the only thing that remained unscathed. No one really knew of the diary or what happened in the expedition until after she passed. It’s suspected that it’s likely she found the cave. There are references to “noor ” which also translates into “light”. It’s likely she used the term to mean the cave or enlightenment.”

Amina shrugs. “Whether or not she actually drank from the oasis is questionable. There’s no mention of her drinking the water in the diary, but it’s not like we would even know what it means to be enlightened anyway.”

“So we find the cave, drink the water, and find out for ourselves,” Tony suggests and reaches into a pocket in his shirt. He takes out a flask that Hermione suspects is filled with Firewhiskey and raises it before taking a sip.

There’s comfortable silence around the table as they soak in the story. Amina explains the logistics of the first part of the trip and it’s decided that today will be left for rest, and tomorrow, the expedition will begin.

The conversation starts again as glasses are refilled with atay and Muggle alcohol is ordered. At some point, Malfoy and Amina leave the table together, heads bent low, voices hushed.

Sometime later, Hermione feels tired and excuses herself.

She’s thinking about the story and Safia as she makes her way to her room, walks inside the hotel, and turns down a hallway. She would have completely missed the conversation if she hadn’t heard her last name being said by Malfoy.

Hermione freezes when she hears it, taken aback by how viciously he spits out her name.

“She can’t be here, Amina. There’s no need for her to be here,” he says, not even bothering to lower his voice.

Hermione quickly crouches behind a large plant, peering through the leaves. She pauses to think if she should leave but instantly realizes how idiotic the thought is because Malfoy would, clearly, never give her the courtesy of privacy. She leans in closer, straining to hear the rest of the conversation. Besides, they're talking about her. She deserves to know.

“You gave a list of who can’t be here, Draco. You said, no one from Hogwarts, no one from The Daily Prophet, no one with the last name Potter, no one with the last name Weasley, none of your friends, no one from your industries...”

Hermione can’t help but roll her eyes as Amina continues to read off a list.

“I even gave you the final list of everyone involved like you asked, Draco. She was on that list.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” he replies simply. His voice oozes with arrogance and the familiarity of the tone makes her want to throw a leaf at his head.

"I can't just ask her to leave, Draco. I practically begged her to come and it's too late now to turn her around."

"I'm sure you can think of something. Say it was a mistake, not enough resources, anything. But she needs to go."

“Are you going to withdraw the funds if she stays?” Amina asks, dryly.

“What —of course not, that’s ridiculous. The money is yours, Amina.”

“Great, then it's settled,” Amina replies, uncrossing her arms and turning to leave. “Hermione stays.”

Footsteps echo down the hallway and Hermione quickly straightens and turns to take the long way across the hotel to go to her room.

If she’s honest, she’s not surprised. Of course, he’s still a prick who has a problem with her for some bizarre reason that’s rooted in sheer stubbornness and unwillingness to accommodate changes to his own plans. She’d made up her mind after her nap to act civil because, after all, she didn’t truly have a problem with him, not like Ron or Harry. She was even willing to put everything behind and maybe even chat about the weather now and then, strike up a conversation about the cave. Like normal professionals working on a project.

Hermione stands in the middle of her room, hand on her hip, trying to puzzle together the entire evening. She feels very much like a sleuth, and while she’s furious that Malfoy would even dare to have her removed entirely, adrenaline thrums in her veins with this new information.

Based on what Amina said about the benefactor wanting to stay private, Malfoy had ensured no one would know that it was he who was associated with the project as a way to not deter people from the trip. And if he had known she was coming, it meant he was okay with her coming. What doesn't make sense is why he would be okay with her coming at one point, but then completely change his mind when he sees her in person. What was it about her that made him so adamant about her leaving?

Anger builds in her chest and she’s surprised about how deeply she feels about this, considering she hasn’t cared this intensely about something in a long time. What she’s not surprised about is that it’s Malfoy who has brought out this newfound intensity in her. It’s so like him to turn everything around and make it about him and a hysterical laugh gets caught in her throat at the nostalgia of it all.

She turns to face the wall that she’s sharing with him and spends a good ten minutes thinking about how she can make things worse for him, with this barrier between them.

In the end, the sound of a door opening outside drifts through her open balcony and brings her out of her plotting. She pauses and then quickly reaches to switch the light in her room off. She edges closer to the opened door and peers outside.

The balcony looks out across a secluded portion of the courtyard. Music coming from the busier side of the courtyard mingles with the sounds of crickets and the willowing of trees in the night breeze. The silver moon shines brightly into the courtyard and when she looks outside to the left, she inhales sharply as a blond head bobs around in the dark.

Malfoy’s pacing back and forth across his own balcony, his silhouette shrouded in moonlight, which only highlights the luminescence of his hair.

He stops and turns so that his back faces Hermione and runs both of his hands roughly through his hair and down his face. He pauses, palming his face, and exhales loudly into his hands.

He’s agitated, and it’s a rare moment to see him so unnerved from his usual composed self that she can’t help but stare at him from her room.

She smirks to herself because while he’s ruined a perfectly pleasant night for her, she’s obviously had an equal enough effect on him and it’s thrilling to know that Malfoy won’t be sleeping comfortably tonight.

A cool night breeze ruffles Hermione’s hair and Malfoy tenses, his back muscles rippling against the night’s shadows.

She has just enough time to snap back into the darkness of her room when Malfoy whips around in her direction. She doesn’t dare to breathe, biting her lips tightly, and grips the sides of her walls so she doesn’t fall face forward. She waits, painful seconds passing, as Malfoy stands fixated.

But then there’s a series of shuffles and she hears the door to his balcony closing. She exhales and shakes her head in frustration. It's disconcerting to see the effect he has on her.

One day. It’s been less than one day with Malfoy and already Hermione's unravelling. Who does he think he is to determine when she can or cannot stay?

Like hell she’s leaving, she thinks as she goes through her night routine and takes her draughts.

She falls asleep that night, with Malfoy a curse on her lips.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

It is my firm belief that one’s strong emotions, such as lust, anger, despair, and love, are bound by a unifying fundamental impulse. Love can turn to hate as efficiently as anger can turn into lust. All that is required is the precise provocation and circ*mstances to elicit the first response. After all, the love for another requires the same degree of hatred that is felt at the thought of ever being without them.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

Hermione wakes up before dawn fans out across the night, her body no longer throbbing from the ache of yesterday. They’ll be travelling today and she’s determined to get her hands on Safia’s diary and maybe even get some of her own Ministry work, considering they’ll be on the road for hours.

She takes a moment on her balcony to breathe in the early morning air and the whistling of the birds in the courtyard. She soaks in the serenity of the dawn and the exhilarating feeling of being awake while others sleep.

Stretching her arms above her head, she spares a cursory glance towards Malfoy’s room. The balcony door is closed and the lights are off. She chews at the corner of her lips, gazing at the quietness that radiates off his darkened room. But then a dimmed light flickers out from the cracks between the curtains and Hermione slips back inside.

As she showers, she thinks about the residual anger she has about last night's conversation. She doesn’t hate Draco Malfoy, especially not at the level of Harry and Ron, who have a personal vendetta that they can’t seem to bypass regardless of Malfoy’s conviction and the years that have passed since. Harry and Ron have always been under the impression that the Wizengambot trials that followed the end of the war weren’t fair, that the Death Eaters got off too easily, despite the majority of them getting the Kiss.

Hermione herself was angry about a lot of things that happened during the war, the choices she had to make as a child and the things that were indefinitely snatched away from her. But she no longer has the energy or the time to think about what went wrong, or whether the trials were fair. Everything is limited in her life, including the days and the hours spent on individuals who play no significant role.

For her own sanity, she has to believe that the law was fair and that the law was in favour of the victims. She simply can’t afford to be angry with the people who’ve been tried for their actions and suffered the consequences accordingly.

Malfoy included.

She hated him once; a time before, that seems like just yesterday and yet a lifetime away. She can remember the boiling anger she’d feel in her veins when she’d see Malfoy pick on Harry or Ron. She understood then that the fights Malfoy initiated were reflections of school rivalry and juvenile bullying. Rooted in the insecurity that he felt in the shadows of Harry Potter and his best friend Ron Weasley.

But it was his attitude towards her that she didn’t understand — couldn't comprehend how someone could feel the level of hatred that he felt towards her for simply existing. So, she returned his hatred with an equal push of her own. Simmered in the emotion and let it be the foundation for how she viewed everyone who sided with Voldemort.

Until the night at the Manor. Until she saw something that she’s not sure might have even been there, but was enough of a catalyst for her to reevaluate after the war how she viewed the boy she once despised.

So no, she doesn’t hate Malfoy. She just doesn’t know enough about who he is and what his beliefs are now, after the war. All she has on Malfoy is the Prophet's coverage of his whereabouts and gossip from unreliable sources that go to his parties, consume the free drinks and entertainment, and then proceed to talk rubbish the next day.

Despite how badly she wants to pull Malfoy to a corner and ask him what his deal is, she rationalizes that of course, he wouldn’t want her to be here—she herself was shaken when she saw him in the courtyard. In fact, one of the reasons why she even came was because no one would know who she was, and it’s obvious that he was under the same impression.

They’re not friends, and frankly, they don’t have to be to survive the next month or so together. She can treat him in the same manner she would treat a co-worker, who also just so happens to stare at her while perhaps thinking of all the ways she has inconvenienced his life.

By the time Hermione wrangles her hair, which she expects will go back to its uncontrolled, unruly mess the moment she leaves her room, she decides she's going to be the bigger person and lets the conversation go. Which, thankfully, isn’t a novel idea when it comes to Malfoy and is a lot easier for her to accomplish.

She’s in a considerably good mood when she sits down for breakfast, even going as far as passing the water jug to Malfoy when he asks Tony for it. He responds by scowling at her hair before turning away from her entirely, ignoring the water. Hermione pointedly ignores him, passes the jug to someone else, and reaches for an orange.

“We’ll be travelling the majority of time in vehicles,” Amina explains during breakfast, serving atay . Hermione eagerly fills her own cup for the second time around. “Magic works, of course, so keep your wands close. Replacements and wand repair will be difficult based on where we are during the trip. Because of the uncertainty around apparition due to weather turbulence, and some anti-Apparition wards set to establish borders, apparition can be tricky as there is a great risk of splinching. So, we’ll divide into groups and take the vehicles.”

Hermione can’t help but glance at Malfoy to gauge how he feels about this new revelation, but he’s already glaring at her, arms crossed against his chest as if expecting her to do so.

She rolls her eyes, (a reflex that her body apparently has yet to unlearn despite her pledge), and it makes him narrow his eyes further. “What about portkeys?”

“We have a location we’ve pre-designated based on the previous expeditions in case of emergencies,” Amina says. “They’re only one way, so we’ll have to be attentive to that.”

Amina pulls out a map, pushing dishes aside, and unfolds it across from her as everyone simultaneously leans forward.

Hermione is at a weird angle, unable to make out the location names. She reaches toward the map so that she can adjust it to face slightly toward her. Before her fingers can even graze against the edge, Malfoy stops her, placing his own hand tightly on the corner of the map, jaw clenched and eyes fixated on the map. She scowls at him, but swallows her protest and inhales deeply, attempting to look happily unbothered.

Amina points where they are and then explains the trip’s route which will take them mostly through Morocco and into the desert. The closest city that opens up to the desert doesn’t have a landing pad, making flying into it difficult, so they will have to drive to the desert with the local guides in their crew. The route in the desert is uncharted as they will primarily be following Safia’s expedition reports, and so they’ll have to be careful about the trek there.

They finish breakfast and the group breaks out to carry out last-minute things before their departure in the afternoon.

Amina mentions that she needs to visit the Jemma el-Fna, a large marketplace located in Marrakech’s old city, for a quick visit to pick up an artifact for the trip. Hidden behind stalls and restaurants is the wizarding part of the souq where Amina needs to meet an acquaintance.

The souq is a notable portal of business and a passageway for wizards and witches travelling through North Africa and Hermione asks if she can go along with her, hoping to catch a glimpse. Although she wishes she could explore the city more, this might be the only opportunity for her to discover parts of it and maybe get some gifts for her friends back home, as a way to make up for not being there for the statue reveal.

Upon Amina’s agreement, she runs to grab her bag before meeting her outside. It’s when she sees Amina talking to Malfoy outside that she hesitates. She didn’t know he was coming as well.

“Excellent, everyone’s here!” Amina waves her over. “Children, grab onto my arm, if you please.”

There’s a moment of confused fumbling where Malfoy grabs the nook of Amina’s arm at the same time Hermione does. Her hand slaps the top of his and he sends her such an offended look at the contact that Hermione wants to just grip his fingers tighter and crack a few knuckles.

“You’re freezing,” he seethes, which is true because Hermione’s hands are always cold, even when she’s sweltering everywhere else.

“And you’re sweating,” she snaps back, which of course isn’t true because despite wearing all black and it being 30 degrees outside, his hands are pleasantly warm. The kind of warmth that makes her want to wrap his long fingers around hers so she could melt away, one ice chip at a time.

Malfoy takes his other hand, grabs her wrist, and forcefully plies her hand off of his. Hermione hisses, perhaps a little exaggeratedly, at how tightly his fingers dig into her skin. She glares at him as she yanks her arm out of his hold.

“As much as I am fascinated by what is happening here,” Amina interrupts, looking at them with a mixture of amusem*nt and bewilderment, “we have to get going.”

Hermione flushes, embarrassed to be caught in such childish activity with Malfoy, and quickly grips Amina’s wrist. She barely has time to tighten her hold when they apparate away together in a dizzying blur of light.

She stumbles into a hard wall when her feet catch the ground. Her vision clouds with black spots, still swaying from the apparition. For a second, vertigo sweeps over her and she has to reach out a hand against the wall in front of her to find her balance. The mode of transportation has become one of her least favourite ways of travelling in the last few years because of how long it takes for her to regain her sense of self.

Her vision clears and she finds her fist clutching Malfoy’s shirt from behind. In the moment that she takes a breath to upright herself and he moves away from her touch with such speed, as though she has Black Cat Flu, she realizes he’s built like a damn rock.

One solid pillar of stone.

She automatically catalogues the information away in case she’s ever in a fit of rage because of him that requires some serious manhandling. Do not attack Malfoy until hands are secured and protected.

He shoots her an annoyed look, glancing down at her hand momentarily, and then disappears into the crowd. Hermione blinks twice, realizing she’s left behind and hurries after him.

Immediately, she’s faced with a sensory overload, the smells and sounds of the souq bombarding her from every direction. The bustle of souq takes over as flocks of wizards and witches walk down the curling and winding allys, some entering shops, others stopping at stalls to browse. Each moving through the labyrinth with determination and purpose.

Hermione has a moment of panic when she realizes she’s fallen behind, but then she spots a blond head peek out from above the crowd and she scurries through the bodies to get closer. Malfoy looks like he’s about to say something to her when Hermione catches up, but then Amina calls them to hurry and she doesn’t spare him a glance as she falls in step behind her.

The wizarding quarter of Jemma el-Fna reminds her of Diagon Alley, except with more vibrant colours, a larger crowd of people speaking different languages, and an endless array of magical shops promising things she’s never seen before, even back home. She passes shops with outdoor stalls of rainbow-coloured fresh spices for all kinds of potions, and watches in awe as vendors call out to tourists about magical carpets that zoom past her head from one side of the alley to the other. The air is filled with a mouthwatering aroma of spices, atay, and argan oil.

The walls are covered with stacks of pressed dragon leather slippers and intricate woven robes of various fabrics and colours. Straw baskets and bags are being woven magically by phantom hands into intricate and monogrammed patterns. Hermione is so distracted by one shop of magical lanterns that she bumps into Amina when she stops to talk to another vendor. Malfoy lets out a surprised grunt when he walks into Hermione which further pushes her into Amina.

“What the f*ck, Granger?” he growls, jerking back. “Why aren’t you looking where you’re going?”

It’s the most he’s spoken to her in such a long time, that it takes her a moment to realize that he’s actually talking to her. She truly can’t remember the last time he said something to her other than her name. Not including the glaring through which he obviously tries to communicate all his misery about being around her, he hasn’t voluntarily said something first.

When Malfoy’s face twists to give her a look that suggests perhaps she’s finally lost it, Hermione finally regains her thoughts. She opens her mouth to retort back to ask what exactly he was focused on if he didn’t see her stop, but then Amina comes up behind them.

“I’m going to be here for a moment, so you two can look around. Just come back here at the exact hour.”

Before Hermione can protest about being left alone with Malfoy, Amina escapes into a hidden shop. She turns to Malfoy slowly and matches his disdain with her own.

“I need to look for gifts,” she says promptly and starts down the alley before he can oppose her.

They’re in a souq, with hundreds of shops, so really there is no need for them to be together at all. But the way she feels the urgency behind the two holes that burn into the back of her head, she knows he’s close behind. So she ignores him and continues to look around.

She passes a crowd around what looks to be a fortune-teller, donned in a turban and an elaborate emerald gown ruffled with peaco*ck feathers. The witch goes on to talk about revealing lies of lovers and future disasters and Hermione quickens her pace to the next stall when she accidentally catches her eyes.

It’s considerably difficult for Hermione to navigate the crowd, and she finds herself spewing a series of apologies as she bumps into those around her. She can practically feel the fury that radiates off of Malfoy, so much so that when she stumbles the fourth time after being pushed by a crowd into a stall, she expects him to combust there and then in the middle of the souq.

Instead, when she glances at him after straightening herself and quickly putting the things that she’s dropped back, the anger is directed less towards her and more towards the moving crowd. The annoyed, inconvenienced look he sends her way, as she sputters apologies to the vendor, makes up for it though.

For the rest of the walk down the alley, she feels his arm hovering against her left side as if to physically restrain her from walking into the crowds again. She knows it’s more of an unconscious act on his end, and while she wants to tell him that she can most definitely walk on her own, she lets him do it only to convince herself that she’s tired of embarrassing herself in front of him.

She stops at a stall in front of a less-packed souvenir shop near a quiet corner of the alley. She looks back to see if Malfoy is following her but he seems to be engaged in a conversation with a vendor next door, selling herbs and spices.

She can’t help but gape when she realizes that they’re not speaking English. She recognizes a word or two in French only because before coming here, she’d tried brushing up her French from the one summer where her parents had insisted they’d all learn before a trip to Paris.

Malfoy’s fluency in the language isn’t shocking, considering his aristocratic upbringing, but the ease at which the two men are talking, Malfoy nodding earnestly every beat or so and the man laughing when he says something, is. The wizard grasps Malfoy’s hand as if to commemorate some deal.

She’s tempted to stand and listen to their entire conversation, but forces herself to twist away and scan the trinkets on display. Hermione goes around buying little gifts, packets of lavender-flavoured infused atay tea she knows Luna will love, herbs to help with muscle aches for Ginny, and continues to look around the shops for Harry and Ron.

She’s so engrossed by everything around her and the different displays that she doesn’t realize how far she’s travelled until she reaches a stall selling wooden artifacts. They’re thuya wood boxes and Hermione picks up one that’s just larger than her hand. She tries opening it up, but the lid doesn’t budge. The old witch behind the display gives her a toothy grin and motions to try again.

She looks back at the box quizzically. Tries to solve it like an arithmancy problem. She turns it in her hands, trying to feel the edges and the sides, but it doesn’t give. She takes her wand out but the woman stops her.

She says something indecipherable, using her hands to gesture not to use the wand, and sits back to watch.

Hermione understands and goes back to the box. She tries again, pressing the pads of her fingers gently across the sides, trying to find any changes in the texture. There’s a slight depression in the make of the wood at the bottom and she presses it. The lid pops open and a second drawer slides out automatically from the other side.

She looks up at the woman eagerly, grinning.

The woman nods her head, clapping. She leans over, smiling, and whispers as if it’s the greatest secret of the world, “C'est lamagie.”

She holds up a finger to stop Hermione from going anywhere and reaches into a bag behind the display. She brings out a wooden circle the size of a coin on a leather string.

Hermione brushes her thumb across the imprint at the center of the necklace. A sun with seven rays carved out by a crescent moon. She hasn’t bought anything for herself, but something about the necklace calls out to a place deep in her chest. She takes out her coin pouch to pay but the witch shakes her head.

Hermione reaches over to hold the woman’s hands, squeezes once, and puts the money in her palm. “Please.”

The woman nods reluctantly and starts packing the necklace. She takes the bag and says her thanks before turning around to return to the shop where Amina had left her.

Hermione pauses when she realizes she doesn’t know where she turned last and pushes through the crowd to find an empty spot at the side of an alley. She arches to her toes and tries to find a head of white but the crowd is moving too fast, blurring into a single mass of colour.

She groans to herself, knowing Malfoy is going to give her an earful when she finally finds him and pushes off the wall and turns into an alley close by.

It’s the wrong thing to do and she feels it immediately. The heaviness of the Dark Arts shrouds Hermione and alarm bells ring at the familiarity. She quickly turns back to leave but is faced with a brick wall where she enters. She silently curses herself for letting her guard down and takes a deep breath before twisting to face the alley.

It’s quieter from the main part of the souk, exchanges being made in hushed whispers between hunched bodies draped in dark robes, scattered across the alley.

She sticks out like a sore thumb and she can feel the eyes that follow her every movement as she slowly walks down the narrow alley.

There are no signs on the shops, no vendors calling out to her to come and visit their displays. Windows are darkened, making it difficult to peer inside and see what's being sold.It’s clearly not meant for tourists and Hermione can’t figure out if she came across this alley by accident or if it opened up to her purposely. She catches the eyes of an elderly witch and takes a step towards her, hoping she’s as friendly as the one Hermione met before, but the woman grumbles something under her breath and slips inside her shop. The door slams shut behind her.

Hermione sighs, head hanging low.

“You look lost.”

She turns towards the dark, female voice.

There’s a body in a black, corseted dress standing at the entrance of a shop behind her. The woman’s face is hidden in the shadows but Hermione can make out the gold bangles stacked on each wrist. They clang against each other as the witch takes a step forward into the light. She’s young, her bronze skin illuminating, despite the darkness. Her long, raven hair glides around her, like silk, with each movement that she makes toward Hermione.

“Would you like some help?” the witch murmurs. Sultry eyes lined with black kohl gaze at Hermione. “You need only ask.”

Hermione hesitates as the witch walks slowly up to her, her dress swishing around her like water against rocks. “I think I took the wrong turn. I just need to go back to the main souq.”

The witch hums absently as she slowly circles Hermione. She stiffens when the witch’s fingers brush against her shoulder, leaving goosebumps in their shadows.

“But there’s something else, isn’t there?” Her voice is soft behind Hermione. “Something grander in your past that’s clouding your mind, stopping you from opening your eyes to what’s in front of you.”

Hermione wants to roll her eyes, understanding exactly what’s happening. The witch isn’t dressed in her costume as the fortune teller she’d seen in the main souq, but one look at Hermione had her coming out at the opportunity of swindling her. If she wasn’t in such dire need of direction, she wouldn’t even have bothered explaining herself and left.

“I’m not sure I understand,” she says, voice firm but polite. She turns around so that she can face the witch. “I just need to go back. The souq was right there but then the wall—”

“I can help you open your eyes.” The witch clasps a cold hand around Hermione's left wrist and flattens her fingers to gaze into her palm.

“That’s alright, I assure you, there’s really no need to do that.” She tries to gently tug her hand out of her hold but the witch's grip is a vise. Annoyance bubbles in Hermione’s chest and she has to consciously clamp her mouth shut, resisting the urge to utter something rude, reminding herself she’s still very much lost. She glances around, but the alley is now empty.

The witch gazes into Hermione’s palm, her fingers following the lines contemplatively. She hums to herself, eyes flashing as though the nondescript swirls of Hermione’s palms are personally telling her something.

Hermione wants to yank her arm away and tell the witch that there’s no way she’s paying for any of this. She was never one to tolerate divination. Couldn’t get past the flimsiness and insubstantiality behind the magical study. Too much of the method was based on sheer luck and luck couldn’t truly be measured or studied. Her distaste only deepened when Trelawny noted her lack of aptitude for magic, making it the one branch of magic Hermione couldn’t simply learn through books.

“You’re looking for something,” the witch murmurs, a voice low and distant, as if in a trance. This time, knowing the witch can’t see her, Hermione allows herself to roll her eyes. A vague castaway line perfectly suitable for all kinds of tourists. She was at a souq, of course, she was looking for something.

Hermione watches her warily, the witch’s breath tickling the palm of her hand as she looks up, her eyes blown wide and a bottomless pit. Despite her resistance, Hermione finds herself sinking into them.

“What you seek is not what you will find.” Her prescient voice reverberates through Hermione’s bones. “Yet, what was once sought, but lost once more, can be found, if only tried.”

The witch searches her face, and Hermione is unable to turn away, frozen in the reverie of her words, her body is weighed down.

She feels the burning pain before she realizes that the witch is tracing the cursed words on her arm.

“Why do you hide," she whispers to Hermione, her fingers digging deep into the scar. "When your demons are the same?”

Hermione hisses at the stinging under her skin, eyes wide and panic gripping her by the throat. She yanks herself away, clutching her arm to her chest protectively. The witch only studies her. Face blank, eyes contemplative.

Terror bleeds into her veins at the memory and her shoulders tremble as she struggles to breathe. Hermione doesn’t look back as she runs down the alley, away from the direction she originally came from.

It means nothing, nothing, nothing. Empty words, meaningless.

She lets out a cry of relief when she hears the normal, loud bustle of the main souq and runs towards it. There’s an exit between two walls and she gasps when she realizes she’s back to the same location in the souq where she’d first entered the darker alley. She turns to face it but it’s soundlessly sealed shut behind her.

Her heart still pounds against her chest and she’s trying to calm herself from the reminder of her scar when a hand grabs her other arm and whirls her around.

Malfoy is furious.

“What the hell, Malfoy?” Hermione tugs her arm out of his hold. It doesn’t hurt but she’s still taken aback by the witch and her words that it’s a defensive reaction to rub where he grabbed her.

“Where the f*ck have you been?” His eyes draw to her arm where she’s still rubbing it and he immediately takes a step back, flexing the hand he touched her with. “I’ve been looking for you.”

He’s angry, but there’s something else. He’s flustered, she realizes. His hair is pushed roughly away from his face as if he’s been running his hands through it for the past half hour, his chest heaving as hard as his breaths.

She looks at him confused, hoping to mask the relief she feels at seeing him. “Why?”

“Why?” he echos, incredulously, and runs a single hand down his face impatiently. “Do you even know where you are?”

She scowls at him and pushes past him to walk down the alley, making sure to stay close to the edge of the crowd. She’s not sure where she’s going but it must be the right way because he doesn’t correct her. “I’m not an infant, Malfoy. I didn’t ask you to come and find me.”

“You should have at least waited for me or told me that you’d left," he snaps, voice hard, as he follows closely behind. "I was looking for you like a f*cking fool."

“I don’t need to tell you anything, Malfoy.” She turns to him, grateful for the annoyance that replaces the uneasiness that’s left from her encounter with the witch. “I don’t owe you anything.”

He glares at her, eyes jumping from her eyes to her hair and down to her lips. He opens his mouth to say something, but thinks twice and shuts it close. He looks over Hermione’s shoulders.

“Where did you two run off to?” Amina says, coming between them. “We need to get going or we’ll be late.”

She holds out her arm and they both grip it, pointedly far from each other. She apparates them out.

This time, Malfoy steps aside before Hermione can use him as leverage. She loses her balance and stumbles, grasping air. He leaves her there and stalks towards the entrance.

She can feel the blood pounding in her ear. She's unnerved and anger is a familiar feeling she can hold onto to steady herself.

She tried, really. To be the bigger person, was the whole point. Granted, she hardly lasted the full day, but she refuses to put in effort when he clearly isn’t going to give her the same courtesy.

She hears the words come out of her mouth before she can even think to leave it alone or ignore him. Remind herself of the solid pillar of stone.

“What the hell is your problem, Malfoy?” It comes out as a shrill even to her own ears and she’s lucky they’re the only ones outside.

Malfoy stops. She can see his shoulders tense, the pause before he slowly turns around to face her.

He stares at her, waiting. If he’s surprised at her outburst, he doesn’t show it.

“Why wasn’t I on your list?” She doesn’t know why this is the thing she brings up first.

His eyes flash but he straightens himself immediately, shoulders back, spine rigid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know about the list.” She takes a step closer to him and Malfoy schools his face into a blank slate. “You purposely excluded me from your list of who can’t come—and don’t say you didn’t, because you literally included anyone and everyone who may know you. Except me. So you were originally okay with me coming but now you have a problem with me and I want to know why.”

“I know this may come as a shock to you Granger,” he drawls. “But not everyone is thinking about you often enough to have a problem.”

“What are you even—”

“Like I said, shocking. I know how much you love being under the spotlight and being memorialized with f*cking statues, but believe me, you do not have this much of an importance in my life.”

Her jaw drops. “You’re the one who’s always on the front page every weekend with your over-the-top and all-around excessive parties—”

“Stalk me do you, Granger?” He smirks.

“Hardly!” she scoffs, pushing her hair over her shoulder as a way to do something with her hands. “The fact that you know about the statues means you’re the one stalking me. Besides, it’s a little difficult to ignore the obnoxious photos of the Manor—”

“Honestly, if I had known how obsessed you were—”

“It’s so typically narcissistic of you to assume that everyone is just fascinated by you—”

“I can send you a personal invite if it stops you from bombarding my ears with your shrill—"

“Please.”

She clamps down her hand on his arm to stop him from talking and he jolts under her touch with such intensity that she drops it right away. She doesn’t care that she’s practically begging Malfoy. She’s desperate enough to grovel a little if it means she doesn’t have to go back home.

“Don’t take this away from me, Malfoy. I need this.”

There’s finally a pause between them and she exhales, gathering control.

“So the lion has decided to finally come out of the den,” he sneers, looking away from the spot on his arm she’d touched and down at her. “I thought we lost you there, Granger.”

“What are—”

“How do you even know about the list?” He lifts a slender, blond brow. “Were you snooping, Granger?”

Hermione bites the inside of her lip and looks away.

He nods, smirking. “A typical weasel habit — being where they’re not supposed to be.”

“Or a ferret’s.” She gives him a withering glare.

He ignores her. “Of course, those around that family would acquire ill-mannered habits as such. A contagious disease of unsavoury actions, exacerbated, surely, by the sheer size of the family—”

“Leave Ron and his family out of this.” She grits her teeth.

She should leave—drop the topic and gather whatever semblance of her pride is left.

Or, she could point out his hypocrisy considering just how rude he’s been this whole time, but she’s more annoyed that she’s even feeling this flustered and defensive. It’s so juvenile of them but she can’t seem to stop herself from taking the hand he’s giving her. It’s as though they’ve forgotten that they are professional adults and have instead settled back into their teenage habits at Hogwarts.

As if nothing has changed.

“Harry then?" Malfoy crosses his arms and raises a brow. "I remember a particularly broken nose as punishment for listening to things he shouldn't have been listening to.”

“Are you going to punish me then, Malfoy?”

The words escape her before she can even stop herself.

Silence takes over the space between them. But then he takes a step closer, and she’s frozen to where she’s standing.

This close to him, she can smell him. Amber and sandalwood with a sweeter undertone. Vanilla, she thinks.

He tilts his head low so that their eyes are at the same level, through his blond fringe. Hermione swallows hard and his eyes flick to her throat at the movement before snapping back to her face. She watches the corner of his lips tug slightly upwards, amusem*nt dancing in his silver eyes. His head dips even lower and she feels his warm breath against her cheek.

She shivers despite the heat and she knows he knows because there’s a smile in his voice when he speaks quietly. “If you ask nicely, Granger, anything.”

If she’s honest, she has no clue what they’re talking about anymore. Because all she can think of is how close he is to her face, the heat of his breath, the brush of his hair against her temple when he moves back to straighten.

She has to blink furiously to remember what’s happening, where they’re standing.

Malfoy jerks as if he just remembers too, and takes two steps back.

He scowls once at her hair and then, as though nothing has happened at all, he turns around and walks inside.

___________________________________

Hermione wraps everything up in her room and joins the rest of the group outside the hotel for departure.

Malfoy is nowhere in sight and she sighs in relief when Amina assigns her into the Jeep with Leena and two other men, filling the remainder of the seats. Tony asks to join her, but Amina tells him that she needs him to go over the maps and the rest stops with her.

Having buckled all her luggage on top of the Jeep, Hermione waits in the car alone. Amina walks over and sets a plastic bag onto Hermione’s lap through the open window.

She gives Amina a puzzled look and peeks inside. There are a dozen oranges and a familiar diary.

She takes out the replica and looks at Amina with wide eyes. “There are two copies?”

“We were only authorized to have one but I managed to pull some strings for our resident scholar,” Amina explains, grinning. “I know how badly you want to rip into the pages, so this one is yours until the end of the trip.”

Hermione returns the smile, grateful. She’s been meaning to get started on the first few entries. “Thank you, Amina. Really.”

Amina shrugs as everyone quickly clambers into the car. “If there’s anyone who can make sense of the diary, it’s you.”

Amina knocks her hand against the side of the jeep twice and then makes her way to her own vehicle. As the Jeep spurts into action, Hermione notices a blond head walking around another vehicle.

Malfoy pauses at the opened door and his eyes snap up to hers. She holds her breath, remembering the words he whispered in her ear. But the moment is gone and he gets in just as quickly, the door slamming shut.

Why do you hide, when your demons are the same?

Hermione turns back in her seat, facing forward, and gripping her left arm with her right hand until her knuckles turn white.

The driver honks twice to signal movement and then they’re off.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

I have prepared myself for revelations of my soul while I seek enlightenment. Is my soul deserving of this pursuit of light? I do not believe the oasis will be found simply because I seek it. I am not blind to my past and the sins I have committed. Nor do I forget that penance for those sins in this life might not be enough. And such, I must wonder if this path that I have chosen has an end. If I choose the light, will the light choose me?

Am I worthy of noor?

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

“Noor.”

Hermione looks up from Safia’s diary and gazes out through her window. The word is repeated so many times throughout the diary, she can’t help but feel there’s another meaning to it other than the reference to the cave itself. She feels a cramp in her leg and tries to adjust herself, making sure Leena’s head on her shoulder doesn’t drop.

They make a stop three hours into the ride for stretching legs and Hermione follows Leena out of the vehicle, passing the bag with the oranges to Amina to share with the others. They’ve chosen to stop by a large green expanse near a cliff that looks out to a forest below. Most of the crew stand around talking under the shades of the palm trees, but Hermione’s head turns, seeking out a blond head.

Malfoy’s sitting in his Jeep that’s parked a little further away from the rest. He’s in the front passenger seat, the car door opened wide, legs stretched out wide in front of him. His head grazes the top of the door. She twists a little closer and realizes he’s hunched over his journal, a quill working its way across the page. The journal looks thicker than before and Hermione suspects he’s charming pages into it.

He’s not writing, she thinks. The strokes are too small and fixated on a single part of the page, with the journal angled to the side so that it’s lying horizontally across his knee. She watches him rub his thumb against the page, smudging the ink and blowing gently to dry the splotch. His long, pale fingers curve around the quill as he grips it and works again on his strokes. His blond fringe flutters across his forehead and he absentmindedly brushes it away when it falls into his eyes. He jerks his head when it falls right back into his face and Hermione’s hands twitch reflexively as if aching to hold his hair back for him.

His arm defensively covers the page even though no one is nearby and the act alone makes her want to go up to him and take the journal. She even spends a few seconds thinking of using Accio just so she can see what he’s doing. Instead, she turns away to make her way closer to the cliff.

The edge of the cliff is barred off with a tottering metal fence. It’s quieter with just the trees beyond it, the laughter and voices of the group distant behind her. She places a hand against the trunk of a large tree towering beside her and closes her eyes, listening intently to the whispering of the dancing branches and swishing leaves.

“Hermione, my love, you’re going to have to let go now,” her father told her, arms raised towards her where she sat on the branch.

“I can’t,” she whimpered, eyes wide, and tightened her hold on the tree’s trunk. She had her small arms wrapped around the willow tree for the last thirty minutes and despite the cramping of her muscles, she refused to let go. “It’s too far. I’m going to fall and break my neck and then I won’t be able to go with Mum to the museum. I must go to the museum, Dad.”

Her father sighed. “Hermione, if you were brave enough to climb the tree, you must be brave enough to let go.”

Hermione’s voice was quiet. “You won’t drop me?”

He looked at her solemnly. “Never.”

“Promise?”

“Till infinity.”

Hermione took a deep breath, and while making sure not to look away from her father’s face, she nodded once before letting go and falling directly into his sturdy arms.

Hermione jerks her head, blinking rapidly to orient herself before releasing the tree. She pushes unfurled strands away from her face, her gut clenching painfully. She sees a flash of white come up from the corner of her eyes and takes a deep breath to compose herself, eyes fixated on the towering tops of the trees below.

Malfoy approaches the edge, a distance away from where she’s standing, looking out over the cliff. Both of his hands are in his pockets, his journal nowhere in sight.

She stands awkwardly, unsure what to do or say, but feeling the unbearable itch to do something. It’s bizarre not to acknowledge him coming up, especially since he isn’t far enough that she can pretend not to see him. Normally, if it was an acquaintance or a stranger, she’d at least nod her hello, and make small talk about the weather or the view. She can appreciate the usefulness of small talk, having become sufficiently competent at the skill with the years of practice she’s endured whenever she’s cornered in elevators or stopped in hallways. Truthfully, she’d do anything to cover up the deafening silence between her and the other or divert the conversation from anything intimate or rooted in the war and what she’d done.

But the thought of bringing up small talk with Malfoy is not only outlandish but simply out of the question. She’s practically guaranteeing herself a scorned eye roll, or worse, Malfoy’s notable blank look where she’d be forced to contemplate all her life choices and determine where she went wrong to have brought her to that point. She’s not even sure what would be the right thing to say considering what happened at the market and outside the hotel that very morning.

Hello, Malfoy, enjoying the view? Splendid, isn’t it? Mad that we get to experience this, no? Almost makes you want to never go home. Also, can you please clarify the terms and limits of what you meant when you said “anything”?

She shifts on her feet, trying to figure out the correct tactic on how to approach this shared moment of looking over the cliff. But when she turns her head and opens her mouth to make some juvenile remark about how green the trees are, she finds herself unable to form a coherent thought.

She can only see the side of his face but she’s struck by the hard edges and lines that make up his profile. His long aristocratic nose, the way his clenched jaw causes his muscles to tick, and his tightly set mouth. Her eyes flick to the bob of his throat and it’s that moment his eyes snap to her.

She gasps, immediately scolding herself for her lack of subtlety at getting caught ogling him, and turns to face the front. Heat creeps up on her neck and burns her cheeks and she doesn’t dare breathe. Seconds pass, and she feels his eyes jumping across her face but then he shifts, and she thinks maybe he’s not looking anymore. And he might as well be north made into a human because like a compass she finds herself turning her head back towards him. Only, he hasn’t looked away and she’s caught once again, trapped in his own steady gaze.

She feels exposed suddenly, bared to him despite the distance and layers between them. She shivers, remembering how close he was to her just a few hours ago. His face is carefully blank and he stares at her with such indifference and rigidity that she’d think she was looking at a marble statue if it weren’t for the way the breeze brushes his hair away from his face.

She should probably say something to cover up the fact that he’s caught her twice trying to look at him, really anything would be better than this cool intensity between them. What was it about the trees again? She can’t remember a single thing to say, not with the way he’s staring back at her. Waiting for her to say something idiotic.

Someone calls them from behind and Hermione breaks first, dragging her gaze away from Malfoy. She clears her throat, wavering slightly as she moves to meet the rest of the crew packing to leave. There’s a moment of pause but then his footsteps follow after her and Hermione exhales a shaky breath.

__________________________________

They pull over for lunch at a restaurant on the side of a road. They’re well into Wizarding Morocco now and they’re welcomed by floating candles illuminating the restaurant in a warm haze and fairies zooming around, taking orders from witches and wizards. Brooms are stacked against the sides of the entrance door and a poltergeist in a fez hat and apron takes them outside to a table large enough to accommodate them.

Orders are taken and Hermione gives a quick glance at Malfoy, seated across the table, two chairs down. He’s as rigid as ever, spine straight and muscles taut in tension. One hand is clenched in a fist and the other plays with his ring. There’s an ink stain on the pad of his thumb that he's somehow missed. His eyes dart around the courtyard, alert. She wonders what he’s looking for, but he must find whatever is adequate enough that his shoulders loosen some of the tension. Just a fraction, really, that she wouldn’t have been able to pick up on if she wasn’t just staring at him again.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Tony calls out, taking out a cigar. “If you don’t mind indulging me for a moment, I must ask you a question that has been on my mind since I met you yesterday. To fund an expedition of this size without any qualms or limits on how the money can be spent...honestly, it’s quite unheard of. I am fascinated by what it is that you do exactly.” The table quiets down and Hermione is thankful that she finally has a valid excuse to look at him.

Malfoy leans back against his chair, an air of frosty calm wrapped around him, and slides his eyes to Tony. “Work, mostly.”

Hermione twists her mouth, her interest piqued, and watches him closely. Other than the fact that the Malfoy family is rooted in ancestral money, she hardly knows what it is the sole heir does now in his free time. The aftermath of the war hadn’t seemed to create a dent in the family’s wealth, despite the notoriety associated with their name. The Manor parties, filled with socialites and guests from around Wizarding Britain, every Sunday only further emphasized this fact.

She supposed that was the benefit of descending from old money rather than new money; scandals and cultural rifts didn't impact the rollout of the gold and assets when it had never been dependent on societal norms and perceptions in the first place. If Malfoy wanted to spend the rest of his days on a yacht on the coast of the South of France, he very much could with all the inherited money at his disposal.

But he didn’t. Or, at least she didn’t think he did. She’s sure she’d read about it in the Prophet if there were any news of him gallivanting around Europe, even if it was a snarky column noting the audacity of the heir to remain inaccessible despite how much he supposedly owed the society. Perhaps Malfoy knew that too, which could explain the parties.

“How fascinating,” Tony remarks, giving Malfoy an exaggerated earnest look. “What kind of work do you do?”

He’s being nosy, but damn her if she isn’t relieved that someone is asking the questions that she's too much of a coward to do herself. She looks at Malfoy, expectantly.

His face betrays nothing. “Family business.”

His wall is up and it’s clear he’s not going to give anymore. She knows he’s being wary because it’s a fine line between revealing himself and his family and exposing the truth of the war. His name is prominent enough, more than even Hermione’s, that given enough information about the family, you could easily put everything together.

Still, she can never truly help her curiosity and her eyes snap back to Tony. She tries to telepathically encourage him not to give up—to ignore the stony look that promises repercussions and pry a little more. It’s a mistake because Tony catches her eyes and she realizes the exact moment where his interest drifts away from Malfoy and towards her.

“And, you, Ms. Hermione?” Tony asks, grinning and leaning closer from across the table. “You’ll have to excuse my curiosity but considering that other than the two of you, everyone is well acquainted with each other. I do believe it is necessary to get to know our scholar who does not fear dragons. But, tell me, what exactly does being a scholar entail?”

She squirms in her seat, unnerved by everyone’s sudden eyes on her. She’s aware of Malfoy shifting towards her, arms still crossed against his chest. “Mostly just academic work. And sometimes some research or legislation portfolios for the Ministry.”

“Hermione’s an excellent writer,” Amina chimes in, pride oozing from her voice. “She’s written at least a dozen books.”

“Just ten actually,” Hermione quickly corrects and cringes at the admittance, painfully aware that it comes across as faux humility.

“Ah, books!” Tony exclaims, cheerfully, looking at her as if she’s just declared she’s solved world hunger. “That’s wonderful! What kind of books do you dabble in?”

Hermione scratches her temple. While she often finds herself wanting to talk about the topics that interest her or the new revelations she stumbles across during research, she always ends up hating it when the conversation is brought up. They usually follow a conventional process where she tries to explain what she does, followed by answers to polite questions, and ending with her taking in the confused looks and swiftly changing the topic.

“Um,” she starts, voice faltering. All of a sudden anything she’s ever done, the title of all of the books she wrote, escapes her. “Well, they’re either academic texts like Magical Theory: Revised Text for Junior Levels of Comprehension or just research on a topic that I find is particularly lacking in a specific field.”

“She’s currently working on legislation...what was it again, Hermione?” Amina asks, completely oblivious to the panic look Hermione is sending her.

“It’s just a thing I’m doing for a friend.” She hesitates, trying to determine how much information would be considered boring while also not purposely trying to be elusive and come off as rude. “There have been some issues with the land that has been inhabited by the Hinsleweed for centuries and a new parasitic plant, named the Asclepius’s Snapper, that has recently been introduced by the Ministry of Herbology in cahoots with a potion brewery company. So, my friend, Neville Longbottom, reached out and asked if I could draft legislation to ensure that the Hinsleweed are given back their land and all eradication of the introduced plant is conducted immediately before they become extinct.”

“Right...what exactly is a Hinsleweed?” Tony asks, his grin faltering.

Hermione clears her throat, a deep flush blooming across her face. “They’re plants.”

“What do they do?”

“The Hinsleweeds? Well, there isn’t a specific medicinal or another botanical use for the plant. They mostly grow contained to the area they are in and don’t encroach on other species, unlike the Snapper.”

Tony nods slowly. “And the Snapper, what is their use?”

“Well, they were engineered by the Department to have some energy properties. The pus in the leaves can be harvested and brewed in a potion that can allegedly help with providing some medicinal healing powers. However, it’s a little difficult to determine if that is accurate. The experiment to determine if it really worked was biased considering it was directly funded by the Minister of the herbology department and the tested cohort was not large enough to be considered scientifically significant.”

“Oh.” Hermione can practically see Tony try to puzzle and make sense of what she's said. “But they’re plants?”

“Yes, they’re just plants.” She’s achingly aware of the awkward shift around the table as Tony tries to find a way to politely change the topic without being dismissive. She opens her mouth to beat him to it, knowing it’d be better if she does it first when Malfoy speaks up.

“So, you’re arguing a plant that has potential medicinal properties that can help several suffering people should be eradicated simply because it has outgrown a little bit?”

Her eyes snap to him in surprise. He’s looking at her bored but there’s something there behind his eyes, something different than mockery that makes her pause. A challenge of sorts. “Allegedly has medicinal properties and it was implanted in the Hinsleweed territory. Also, I’m not arguing. It’s a proposal.”

“Semantics.” He shrugs, effectively dismissing her, and her eyes narrow into dangerous slits. “Let’s say, the plant does work. Why would you, then, not want a plant that could not only provide multiple job opportunities for witches and wizards for harvesting and brewing the plant, thus providing an additional economic incentive for Wizarding Britain, but also potentially provide a medical cure for patients?”

“Because the land they’re on belongs to the Hinsleweed plant,” she repeats. Maybe it comes out a little haughtier than she intended. “It was purposefully introduced into the Hinsleweed territory, which in itself is a violation. You simply cannot remove a species just because you think another species that was fundamentally made in a test tube has more value.”

She’s right— she knows she is. If anything, she most definitely knows more than Malfoy on the topic. She spent months in preparation, speaking to many naturalist organizations and co-workers of Neville working in conservation organizations. Dedicated volunteer hours to interviewing herbalists just so she could come up with a proposal that presented an accurate reflection of the situation at hand.

But in the back of her mind, she knows it’s more than that. She’s never been disputed about any of her work. Ever. Everything she’s ever worked on never gets a second glance for inaccuracies or discrepancies simply because her name was on the paper. It had nothing to do with her role in the war and everything to do with the fact that Hermione prided herself on ensuring everything was error-free and sufficiently backed up with research. Harry and Ron had quickly learned to never argue or dispute a fact lest they face Hermione’s whirlwind speeches. Much like what was about to happen with Malfoy now if he didn’t catch himself.

“But doesn’t it?” he drawls and her incredulous stare turns into a glare. “Objectively, if we were to put the cost per use side by side for each plant, we can agree that the Snapper has more value economically.”

“Not everything has to be measured according to how much money can be made, Malfoy,” she retorts pointedly. “What the Ministry did is simply wrong. And legal action must be taken before they start suffering.”

“Is that what the plants told you, Granger?” he smirks, and though his tone is borderline teasing, it only sets her off even more not being taken seriously.

“No, Malfoy,” she snaps, frustration bubbling in her chest. She resists clenching her hand in a fist. “Obviously, the plants didn’t tell me that. But it’s everyone’s job to speak out on behalf of all species that have been silenced or are otherwise voiceless.”

He rolls his eyes. “How Gryffindor of you.”

“What’s a Gryffindor?” Tony chirps in, eyes jumping between the two.

“And how typical Malfoy of you to assume that everything must be analyzed in transactions to ensure an optimal monetary gain," Hermione scowls.

“All I’m saying, Granger, is that you might be right, but your justification is weak if it’s solely focused on morality.”

“Weak?” she scoffs, pushing her hair away from her shoulder. She’s so engrossed in making sure her point is made that she not only misses the amused look that passes his face but also the fact Draco Malfoy thought she was right. “I’ll have you know that I’ve done my research and it’s not only immoral, which in itself is sufficient enough to protest the invasion, but it’s also a violation of Subsection 105, Code 2B of the Protected Magical Plant and Botanical Conservation legislation passed in 1989.”

He nods. “That’s great, you should use that—"

“So, really, Malfoy, it is illegal to introduce new species without a thorough investigation and evaluation of all potential harms and adverse consequences of introducing said species—”

“Granger,” he cuts her off, his voice firm enough to finally pause her in the middle of her speech. His mouth twitches. “I’m agreeing with you.”

Her mouth clamps shut mid-sentence.

Oh.

Her face flushes as she slowly looks around the table. While most of the group has broken off into their own conversations, she notes the confused look on Tony’s face as he assesses the tense situation between her and Malfoy. Amina simply grins, her eyes dancing over the rim of her glass, as she takes a sip and waggles her brows.

“Okay, right, you are. Good.” Hermione straightens the fork on the table beside her plate and clears her throat, averting her gaze. “That’s good. I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

It’s only by the graciousness of all the gods above that must have taken pity on her that the food finally arrives and everyone is equally distracted for the remainder of the lunch. She makes it a mission of hers not to look up or say another word, having thoroughly humiliated herself enough for the day. But, in doing so, she misses Malfoy’s eyes that don’t leave her face once.

___________________________________

They travel for the rest of the day, making occasional brief stops to stretch their legs or take breaks as needed. Hermione's spent some time talking to Leena about her time on the road and the previous trips she’s been on. Eventually, the vehicle becomes quiet as everyone drifts into sleep and Hermione moves on from the legislative proposal to the diary. As they pass rolls of green patchy hills and palm trees, the light outside darkens and Hermione resorts to using a dimmed Lumos to continue reading the diary.

They reach the designated camping site after the seventh hour. Hermione gets out of the Jeep, stretching her arms above her head and rotating her neck to fix the crick she got from resting her head against the window. It’s cooler outside during the night and she’s grateful that she brought a shawl and an extra sweater with her.

Hermione helps Amina and Leena place their own tents with an Erecto charm, before going to work on her own. She adds an extension charm to her tent and furnishes it with the necessities, unpacking her bag and placing all her books neatly beside her bed. One by one, she takes out her draughts and places them next to the books, organizing them according to what is most needed for the night.

Living in a tent with two teenage boys for nine months has properly equipped Hermione on how to set up a tent with all the necessary essentials, but she feels a similar pang of being stuck in a closed space nevertheless. It’s different this time, she tries to tell herself, as she transfigures a piece of cloth into a blanket. No more of the panicked rush, constantly looking over her shoulder or the continuous checking of the wards. Still, she finds herself charming the tent to have some more room so she can breathe and cast a protection spell around the area they’ve stopped for the night.

She’s just finished a quick wash when a string of shouts and laughter comes from outside. She’s exhausted by the trip but the smell of food streaming through her tent drives her outside. Pulling on a sweater and grabbing her beaded bag, she makes her way toward the noise.

A fire is made in the center with everyone gathered around in charmed chairs. A bottle of Firewhiskey, along with dinner, is passed around.

Hermione glances up at the night sky and feels the breath knocked out of her.

It’s unlike one she’s ever seen before. White stars glitter across the stark darkness of the night, like hundreds of diamonds shattered into tiny jagged stones and sprinkled haphazardly across a black backdrop. The moon is absent, but the stars radiate enough light for her to see someone at an arm's length. She’s almost tempted to sit down right there and start grouping the brighter stars into constellations as she used to with her father.

“Dozens of expeditions and hours on these roads, but I never get tired of it.” Leena comes up from behind her. She smiles at Hermione, pulling her grey-streaked hair into a bun. “And I hope I never do.”

Hermione nods, eyes wide in awe. “I’ve never seen them like this.”

Even during the Horcrux search when Hermione spent months under the night sky, the stars weren’t this clear.

“Wait till you get to the desert. You’ll never want to go back home after that.” Leena rings her arm through Hermione’s and smiles, squeezing her hand. “Come, let’s have dinner.”

She joins the rest of the group as dinner is passed around. Tony lets out a resounding “Ah, bella!” the moment he sees her, and she tries her best not to cringe at the new nickname. Hermione sits down beside Leena who passes her water and hands her a plate with rice and kebab skewers. Dinner is eaten as conversations erupt around her and Hermione can’t help but glance toward the tent she’d seen Malfoy disappear inside before. She hoped to curl up with a book to end the night inside her tent, while the draughts did their work, but then she catches Amina talking with Malfoy outside his tent, and Hermione decides some cool air while reading might do her good.

She Accios a book out of her bag, keeping an eye on the two while also trying to be subtle. He’s shaking his head, lips pursed, as Amina tugs on his arm. He shakes his head firmly once more, turning to go back into his tent, but then Amina waves a hand over at the fire, saying something that Hermione can’t catch, and Malfoy's eyes wave over the circle before falling directly on her. Hermione snaps her eyes back down to her book and flips a page, not having read a single word. Merlin, how in the world did she ever manage to get anything done with the Time-Turner when her lack of subtlety has become this horrendous?

She hears shuffling and looks up through her lashes to see Malfoy sitting on the other side of the fire. The flickering flames casts dancing shadows across his head, reflecting off his pale hair and creating a golden halo. Amina passes him atay and Hermione can’t help but gape at the obscene amount of sugar he puts in his tea. Her eyes widen in horror as a fourth spoon of sugar plops in.

“I think we should have some entertainment for the night!” Tony exclaims suddenly, taking a swig of the Firewhiskey. He hands it over to Malfoy, who immediately passes it to Amina, scowling.“As no one wants to hear my singing—”

“Because it’s horrific, Tony!” Amina looks at him pointedly. “I’d like to at least see the desert before I’m tortured by your voice.”

Tony waves her off. “Ah, an artist is only worth its penny if it has critics.” He turns eagerly towards Hermione. “How about a story from our storyteller?”

“A story?”

“Something from the book perhaps?”

Hermione looks down at the book in her hands. It’s her mother’s copy of Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton, given to Hermione on her fifteenth birthday.

Hermione was surprised when she unwrapped her present, refusing to accept one of her mother’s most-read books. Each Greek myth was heavily annotated in her mother’s scratchy handwriting from her time as a classical minor student at university. Little messages are scrawled into the margins with extravagant arrows joining little paragraphs and sentences together as though her mother was trying to communicate some kind of revelation within the words. The pages are stained with ambiguous fluids that Hermione thinks, depending on the story, are either tears or spilled tea. The corners are creased where her mother would mark the page they’d leave off on during their nightly read, and the spine cracked to the point it's now difficult to read the title. The state at which her mother left the book before she’d gifted it to Hermione would always appall her and her father.

A simultaneous gasp would escape them whenever her mother would use her book as a coaster for tea, almost always spilling some onto the pages, or forgetting it outside on her wicker chair during a rainstorm.

“A heathen!” her father would proclaim, shaking his head in shock. Yet, Hermione would never miss the subsequent unmistakable loving smile etched on his face and the complete adoration in his eyes toward her mother. Now, Hermione treasures the book with the same level of delicacy and vigilance as she would with her wand. She carries the book wherever she goes, shrinking it so that it’d fit in her pocket or bag, making sure to always tap against the cover to assure herself that she still has it. It’d been there, secured in her bag, while they were searching for the Horcruxes and there when Hagrid carried Harry’s body out. She had one hand clutching Ron’s hand and the other around her bag where her mother’s book was stored, as they listened to Voldemort proclaim victory.

She tightens her grip on the book and looks at Tony. “Which story would you like?”

“Surprise us,” he grins, settling into his chair.

Hermione bites the inside of her cheek and flips to a random page. Hermione clears her throat and begins the story of Daedalus and his son Icarus. The circle quiets and a gust of cool wind blows over the camp. The fire crackles in response and sparks fly. Malfoy’s hand pauses midway to his lips.

The story goes on to describe the events of the sculptor who was imprisoned with his son, Icarus, in the same labyrinth he’d created after he’d betrayed King Minos. Aiming to escape his prison, Daedalus sculpted a set of wings for both him and Icarus through which they could fly out of the labyrinth. The story then transitions to Icarus who flew too close to the sun despite Daedalus’s warnings of the sun’s heat melting the wax on the wings, before eventually plummeting to his death.

Arguments about the moral of the story arise once Hermione finishes as she quietly closes the book and slides it back into her bag.

“Icarus failed to listen to his father and thus fell to his death,” Tony argues, shaking his head at something Leena had said before. “It’s a convoluted way of saying listen to your parents.”

“He fell because he was too confident,” Leena responds, stretching out her legs in the front. “Icarus, a mortal, got too close to the sun, thinking he could be a god. It has nothing to do with youth and everything with greed. Greed does not discriminate by age.”

“It’s a basic human tendency to be divine,” Amina shrugs. “Immortality is the basis of all self-turmoil. Everyone wants to be a god once they get a glimpse into what it means to be one. A taste of the great vitality of the sun caused Icarus to forget what his father had told him.”

Leena nods. “Even wars and crimes against humanity can be seen as an act of greed, a need to be immortalized in violence for all those involved.”

Hermione listens, quietly going over the story in her head and bridging her thoughts into a single coherent idea. It isn’t this simple, she knows. She’s seen war, the greed of man and how it transformed into something so ugly and palpable from his youth and then to his death. Tom Riddle’s greed for immortality was indisputable. And while she also knows many of his servants shared his ideology and wished to be immortalized in the shadows of Voldemort’s promises of victory, she knows there were some followers that supported him for reasons that went beyond the basic human instinct of greed.

She refuses to believe that every follower of Voldemort shared the same devotion towards violence and hatred that was rooted in it. Can’t make herself believe the dire hopelessness behind man’s eventual trajectory toward evil. Especially not when she testified for one sitting in front of her.

“It’s too simple to think that Icarus fell because of his greed,” Hermione interrupts. She clasps her hands together until her knuckles whiten. “We’re forgetting that the tragedy of Icarus started with his father.”

She risks a glance at Malfoy, but the mask is back on and his face is carefully made vacant. Her eyes draw to where his hands fidget with the ring on his finger and it's the only sign she has that there's something behind the mask. She pushes forward, eyes back on her own hands.

“If we’re saying that anyone can be Icarus, then we must also take into consideration the context that he was put in. The story before him pushed him to do what he did. Daedalus had his own faults, his own sins of pushing the boundaries of mortals with his inventions that threw him and his son into the labyrinth.”

“And why does it matter what his father did?”

Hermione’s eyes meet Malfoy, startled by the coldness of his voice. Gone is the casual tone he’d used with her during lunch or the sly lilt around him outside the hotel. The shadows from the fire deepen the bruises under his eyes. His hand pauses in his lap and he stares at her with such intensity, his silver eyes glowing in the light of the fire, that Hermione squirms in her seat.

“Daedalus created the wings for Icarus and then showed him how to use them. They were flying together before Icarus got close to the sun.” Hermione swallows hard, her throat crushingly dry. “Perhaps by warning Icarus to not get close to the sun he planted the temptation of doing exactly that. Perhaps it was Daedalus who sealed his son’s fate.”

Malfoy shakes his head, looking at her with a mix of confusion and incredulity. Suddenly, she can physically feel the weight of the day’s events on her shoulder, realizing it’s the third time today she’s arguing with Malfoy.

Yet, she believes in this strongly enough to make him understand her reasoning— is willing to face his contempt if it means he’d eventually agree. She’d studied Wizarding and Muggle texts both on the psychology of nature versus nurture and the role the two play in a child’s upbringing. Gone even so far as meeting a child psychologist in London before the trial, only so that she could justify that she was right to defend Malfoy. She doesn’t know why it’s even necessary for him to see why she did what she did, but the fury on his face after his trial flashes in her mind and she thinks maybe it’s to convince him as much as herself.

Acutely aware of everyone’s eyes on them and the confined silence surrounding them, Hermione continues. “And Daedalus suffered too. He lost his son.”

Malfoy blinks, his face crumbling for a moment so brief that it transforms back into its cool assessment just as quickly. He raises a challenging brow, mouth tight, and leans forward. The fire is the only thing separating them, the heat seemingly adding to the constricted space between them.“Icarus made his choice and acted on his fatal flaw. He faced his consequences, as he should.”

“He was a child,” she states simply. “A child who made mistakes and suffered for it. It should be enough to end there. Why try to antagonize him?”

“And what? He was a child so that excuses his actions? That excuses what he did, despite knowing it was wrong, knowing that he was ruining his soul beyond repair? "

She shakes her head.“I—”

“He pushed mortal boundaries, did something no man should do and suffered for it."

"But—"

"He deserved his death, Granger. And all the brutality that came with it.”

“Can you truly blame someone for death if the life they took was their own?” He jerks back, inhaling sharply, and Hermione’s voice softens. “What even makes us think that it was greed? Why can’t we excuse it as a child’s mistake that drove him to it?”

“It doesn’t matter why or how it happened. In the end, Icarus got what he wanted. He became a god,” Malfoy replies, his voice bitter. But then he looks up at Hermione from the fire and her breath catches in her chest when his face transforms. She can’t understand the look on him—has never seen him this way.

Broken. It’s so unnatural, so unlike how she’s seen him carry himself in the two days, she’s been with him. It definitely doesn’t go with his image in the wizarding society back home because Draco Malfoy does not break down. Not in the way he’s supposedly broken others. Like he once broke her.

“He got close to the sun and was immortalized for it.” Malfoy’s voice catches and she hears something else. A faint thread loose between firmly set words that resembles acceptance. “And the world will remember him forever only for his sin.”

___________________________________

Hermione stands in her tent, reeling from the conversation. She left soon after the talk, leaving the remainder of the circle to take over. She just needed a moment to herself to breathe, to think. Her mind is filled with thoughts and questions, all whirling and mixing together so rapidly that she needs to physically hold onto something to process it. She feels drunk, overdosing on the drug that is Malfoy after the years of withdrawal she's had from him. The trip has just begun and she worries that the remainder of the days will reflect today—arguing over trivial things, both of them unwilling to find common ground.

The entire conversation rocks everything she knows about Malfoy, which isn’t much considering the years she’s spent not knowing him. He’s always been a puzzle, always forcing Hermione to try and understand who he is. Why he acted the way he did towards her during Hogwarts, what role he played in her life after that night in the Manor. She’s spent hours, sometimes in tears and other times in frustration, trying to force pieces together where they didn’t fit before completely giving up and throwing the box away. This post-war, broken Malfoy makes her want to completely upend the puzzle box and start anew with a completely new set of pieces.

Hermione takes out the book again and flips to the part where Icarus is mentioned. There, at the end of the passage, in her mother’s tangled writing is a tiny inscription. She tried to read it before, ultimately brushing it aside when she couldn't figure out what it was. But it's as though her mother is taking her hand to the page and whispering in her ear: Look, my love. Can’t you see? You must understand.

“Lumos,” Hermione murmurs and brings the wand close to the page. It takes her a few minutes to pull apart and then recombine the separated words into something recognizable. But she understands it immediately, having heard it before from her mother. It’s an excerpt from a poem written by William Carlos Williams on Pieter Bruegel’s painting of the Fall of Icarus.

Her chest hollows and Hermione shivers as she brushes her fingers against the ink, following the curves of the letters.

The words join together and she finds clarity as she reads the poem out loud, her voice a mere whisper in the lone tent, and her mother's phantom hand on her wrist.

"Unsignificantly off the coast, there was a splash quite unnoticed.

This was Icarus drowning."

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

To seek is to tediously pull apart each second, grasping onto loose threads with oiled hands, while also simultaneously being sought.

How does one reach the light? One step at a time.

And I am learning reward is in the delay and change most found with each hand drawn toward the other.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

There’s a noise behind her and Hermione whirls around, half expecting to see Malfoy standing there. She releases a shuddering breath, her heart in her throat when she sees that it’s Amina.

Malfoy would never follow after her, let alone be in her tent.

Amina comes further inside and crosses her arm across her chest. She looks at Hermione accusingly. “We need to talk about Draco.”

“Malfoy?”

“Damn Hermione, you’ve got it all covered in here.” Amina circles around where she stands and gapes in awe. “Hermione, this is an insane, proper tent. You’ve got to show me how you’ve managed to string candles along the seams.”

Hermione shifts back into Amina’s view. “Why do you need to talk to me about Malfoy?”

“Oh right! Yes, Draco.” Amina sits down on Hermione’s bed and looks at her expectantly. “Something is going on between you and him.”

Hermione shrugs indifferently, despite the skipping of her pulse. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please, we all saw what happened back there,” Amina scoffs. She shakes off her shoes and crawls into bed, pulling her feet inside the blanket. “You looked as though you were going to pounce him.”

Hermione gasps, sitting down on the bed beside her. “I did not! We were just having an intellectual conversation about a classical piece of art. Philosophers have done exactly that for hundreds of years. It was a completely normal discourse.”

“Right, of course, that’s exactly what was happening out there.” Amina nods her head, unconvinced. “I’m not talking about just tonight, though, Hermione. There's been something going on ever since you guys met at the hotel. Both of you are so tense around each other.”

Hermione hesitates, looking down at her hands. She tugs on the skin around her thumb and sighs. “There’s just a lot between us. I just know him...from before. From when we were kids. It had been a long time since I’d seen him yesterday.”

“Okay, I understand.” Amina reaches over to clasp Hermione’s hand and squeezes once. “Listen, you don’t have to give me details but will you be alright with him? It’s a little too late to send him back right now, but I can have a talk to him and I can make up an excuse at the next town—”

“No!” Hermione shakes her head adamantly. “God, no! Please, I don’t want him to leave because of me.”

Amina eyes her worriedly. “Are you sure? You’re my priority, Hermione. I asked you to come here and you were generous enough—”

“Amina, I promise. We’ll be alright. I’m sorry things got a little out of hand out there and made things awkward for everyone else. It’s just that the last time I saw him...it wasn’t a good time for any of us. I’m not sure where I stand with him now.” Hermione clears her throat. “What were you looking for at the souq?”

Hermione tucks her own feet into the blanket and the weight of it deepens the exhaustion she feels in her bones from the day. She just wants to lie down beside Amina and go to sleep.

Amina refuses to meet Hermione’s eyes. She pulls her hair to one side at her shoulder and starts braiding it. “I was looking for something.”

Hermione waits for her to continue but when it’s clear she has no intention of explaining, she speaks up slowly. “And what exactly were you looking for, Amina?”

“A stone.” It's the way she says it that makes her pause.

It wouldn’t be the first time that they've collaborated together that Hermione has stumbled on Amina conducting some actionable things. Not that she would ever judge Amina or say anything about it—Hermione has committed some questionable things herself when it was required of her. But she isn’t a child anymore and while she doesn’t really care for the expectations that come with her name, she feels uncomfortably bound to trying to keep up the image of her in society. Everything about Hermione is speculated and pulled apart under a fine glass and her every action and movement spreads like Fiendfyre as it is.

“What did you do, Amina?” Hermione asks, warily.

“Listen, I have on good authority that Safia purchased a particular stone from Egypt when she returned from her expedition.” Amina pauses and Hermione waits patiently. “A stone that may or may not be authorized to leave Egypt without proper logistics and paperwork.”

“You bought an illegal stone from Egypt?”

Amina winces guiltily. “It’s not exactly illegal in this part of the world. It’s just illegal to use it without proper licensing and registering it with an international ministry for trips such as this one.”

“Amina!” Hermione exclaims in disbelief. The trip has just started and Hermione can already imagine a hundred variations of how this can turn out on the front page of the Prophet. “How did you even manage to get it?”

She grins. “I cashed in a favour I was owed.”

“Is there anyone on the face of this Earth who doesn’t owe you?”

“Draco Malfoy,” Amina replies, without hesitance. “I owe him more than he will allow me to.”

Hermione looks at Amina curiously. She’s intrigued by this dynamic of theirs and the ease at which they talk to each other. Maybe she's slightly envious of how Amina is able to move around him so effortlessly, without thinking of the consequences of every word or act around him. “How do you know Malfoy?”

Amina leans back on an elbow and shoots Hermione a knowing smirk. “I met him...I think it was about two years ago? I was working on a restoration project in Greece for an artifact we found and the Ministry refused to fund it once our private funds ran out. I was given a list of some potential benefactors and his name was on there. So I reached out to him and he accepted. And since then we’ve established a professional and respectable relationship where he’s been willing to help out on whichever projects I present to him.”

“That simple, huh?” Hermione deadpans.

Amina barks a laugh. “Ha! Draco and simple? Yeah, I’d have better luck with this cave than ever having a simple anything with Draco.” She shakes her head. “I had to reach out to him for months, his pesky little assistant...what’s her name? Patricia Parkinson—”

“Pansy Parkinson,” Hermione answers reflexively. A strange feeling passes over her at the detached familiarity of the name. Like stumbling across someone in a restaurant you only passed in the school hallway.

“Exactly! That woman, I tell you. She refused to let me get into contact with Draco. Apparently, I had to be vetted which just meant they put me on the back burner while I completed cycles of paperwork for weeks. Later, I found out that she doesn’t even work for him! She’s just adamant on making the lives of everyone who even thinks of contacting Draco Malfoy a living hell.”

That sounded like Pansy. “But you didn’t give up.”

“Of course not,” Amina smirks. “The project was on hold for weeks and I needed the money so that we could continue. Eventually, I was deemed worthy enough for a twenty-minute meeting. At the end of the day, the whole vetting debacle with Ms. Parkinson was pointless. The moment he realized we’d never met before and he had no clue who I was, he didn’t even ask any further questions. Just asked for the sum and anonymity until after the project was done.” Amina clenched Hermione's hand once more. "Hermione, maybe you should ask him about funding for your organization? I know you mentioned that the donation funds were running out, so maybe Draco could help you?"

Hermione started a non-profit organization a year ago focused on providing psychiatric healing for Muggle-born victims and families after the war. She personally knew first-hand the trauma that came with the war and she hoped to provide some sort of assistance for the victims to overcome the hurdle of being targeted to such extremes simply for their identity. When she first started, she expected a large influx of donations for the project. But much to her dismay, she struggled to receive assistance from the Ministry and donations to have the organization up and going. She'd grovelled hard, determined to not use her name to get donations, and reached out to business owners and prominent politicians. But the results were meek and Hermione thought she'd end up shutting it down completely without the funds to pay for the healers. It was shocking to see the same people who celebrated the end of the war being hesitant about donating money for the victims. Enough so, she'd completely lost all vigour and enthusiasm at the zero results, until an anonymous provided a single large sum last year. It was substantial enough to cover all the expenses of running the organization for the year and Hermione wished she could know who to thank because, as it turned out, she needed the funds once again by the end of this year.

Hermione shakes her head at the idea of reaching out to Malfoy. Malfoy is the last person on the planet she wants to approach about asking for donations and she can't fathom any other way the conversation would go other than him ending up feeling guilty and agreeing to donate. Or he could yell at her for assuming he doesn't already donate to other, equally important, organizations. "I'll figure out what to do when I go back. I'm sure the donator will end up giving the funds again...and if not, I'll think of another solution." She pauses, contemplative. "Why did he come on this trip, anyway?”

Amina shrugs. “The only one who knows that answer is Draco. I didn’t require him to come, his funds were already transferred into the bank account for this expedition. I was actually really surprised when he asked for a spot because of the gruelling nature of the trek. Honestly, I didn’t think he could handle it.”

Hermione raises a brow. “But you thought I could handle it.”

“Yeah, because I know you. We’ve gone through some considerable shoddy work environments. But have you seen how nice Draco dresses? That man hasn’t seen a hard day in his life.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.” He’d faced the war. That should have said enough about what he could or could not handle.

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Amina sighs wistfully. “If anything he does paint a pretty picture to look at. I mean, those arms. He looks like he gives really good, life-altering hugs. Once you get past the initial brooding phase of course. If only he was a decade or two older than me. And a woman.” Amina pauses and purses her lips, studying Hermione closely. “Has he always been this good-looking?”

Hermione tries and fails at nonchalance. “Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I haven’t noticed. He’s always looked like this.”

“Which one is it? Has he always been this good looking or you haven’t noticed that he’s been this good-looking?”

“I—I don’t know. I mean—” Hermione sputters, a flush creeping down her neck. “He’s always had girls around him at school so I guess...Yes?” Amina laughs and Hermione throws a pillow at her. “How exactly does the benefactor feel about this stone?”

“Oh, he has no idea,” Amina says quickly, sitting up straighter. “And he cannot know Hermione. His name is on this entire expedition and he’s asked to keep everything very, very legal and proper. It’s not illegal to use it, as long as it’s within the boundaries of this region. But I haven’t registered for it. I’m going to return it once we’re done.”

Hermione’s uncomfortable knowing that it’s happening without Malfoy’s knowledge. If he really is stringent on wanting the expedition to be as legal as possible, she has a few ideas why that might be. But at the same time, she also isn’t going to be the one to bring up the stone and face the wrath and fury of the mighty blond.

“Then why did you take him with you? It’s Malfoy, he’s naturally suspicious of everyone. He’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Maybe, but until we’re really deep into this thing and I know it’s too late for anyone to turn back, I’m hoping he won’t catch on. Honestly, I didn’t even want him to come with me. He asked and I didn’t have a good enough excuse to say no. But then you asked to come too and it made sense. I just needed a distraction around him to keep him preoccupied.”

Hermione rolls her eyes. “Let me get this straight, in a magical souq filled with thousands of different antiques and trinkets and hundreds of people from around the world, you thought that I was a good enough distraction for someone like Malfoy.”

“A natural one, in fact.” She nudges Hermione’s leg with her foot. “He can’t seem to take his eyes off of you.”

Hermione feels her cheeks warm and she has to scratch her leg to distract herself from her face. She thinks back to the heat from his breath mixing with the heat of the afternoon when he enclosed her.

If you ask nicely, Granger, anything.

She knows the real reason why he’s always glaring at her. Her mere presence ignites a fight-or-flight response in him, as he does for her. But the fact that he’s so conspicuous to others makes it all the worse because it’s not like they know their history or his natural tendency to glare at anyone without reason. They’re attracting too much attention and the last thing she wants is questions about something she doesn't even understand.

“What does the stone do?”

Amina gives her a look that promises that there will be many discussions about Malfoy and his unsubtle staring habits and digs into her pocket before tossing an object at Hermione. “You tell me.”

Hermione catches it and looks down at the object. It takes a second to place the stone. She looks back up at Amina. “It's an aggri stone.”

“I’m never going to get used to how you do that.”

“Why do you have this?”

She turns the grey stone in her hand. The aggri stone, or also known as an adder stone, was the size of her palm with a single hole in the middle. Except for a few jagged edges, the stone is velvety smooth. The stone is believed to either be created from the saliva of serpents winding together or from the skull of the serpent it’s named after. The perforation in the stone is made from the burrowing of the serpent’s tongue. Hermione once read that its magical powers are rooted in protection against evil and ailments. The use that Hermione’s most familiar with is the stone’s ability to detect witch traps and magical disguises by looking through the hole in the centre of the stone. Just holding the stone in her hands sends a tingle down her arms.

Amina shrugs, taking back the stone when Hermione hands it over. She stuffs it in her pocket as if it's a rock she picked off the ground. “As I said, Safia bought one when she got back. I think, before she died, she was planning to go back to the cave.”

“You think the stone can relocate the cave because of its detection abilities?”

“No, that’s too simple and too convenient. The stone can only detect magical properties of concealment made by a wizard or witch directly. The cave’s mythical essence is strengthened by the very fact that it was not created by man, magical or otherwise.”

“But if Safia was planning to go back, maybe she left some kind of clue there, a protection or concealment charm for her to find it. And the stone was for that reason,” Hermione suggests, putting together all the pieces she knows about the heiress and the trip in her mind.

“That’s assuming that she’d found the cave in the first place and that she was trying to go back the second time. There’s no way of knowing if she reached the oasis. What does enlightenment even mean? It’s not like we knew how she was before and how she was after the trip, except for the fact that subjectively, to others, she’d lost her mind. There’s no way for us to discern what an enlightened person looks like.”

Hermione bites her lips contemplatively. Safia al-Jabbar had kept just two diaries throughout her life. One on the expedition and the other on her life. Despite being a prominent witch in the Russian society of the time, and her husband’s prolific affairs, she kept mostly to herself, resulting in a scarce and limited amount of information on her. From whatever resources she had managed, including letters between Safia and her younger sister in Egypt that she'd written after the trip, Hermione knew that the original crew had been significantly reduced after the accident in the desert and that Safia had been severely ill and distressed upon her return to Russia.

It was difficult to know whether it was because of a gruelling trek, considering the accommodations were not as advanced as now, or if her state was a result of the early symptoms of the illness that forced her to be bed-rested before ultimately dying in her estate fire. Hermione couldn't put together why then, despite her condition, she was determined to return to the cave. And if she had found the cave the first time, was being sick a sign of enlightenment?

There are too many unanswered questions and missing connections and a restless ache spread over Hermione.

That night as she falls asleep, Hermione reminds herself to go over her notes, Safia’s letters, and the diary once again. She's missing something important and she needs to figure out what it is if they were to find the Kahif Al-Noor.

If it's even real.

___________________________________

They wake up at dawn to leave. Breakfast is eaten and tents are packed up.

Amina waves her towards the Jeep she’ll be riding in for the day and hands over a plastic bag filled with oranges and other fruit for the trip. Hermione pulls the strap of her bag tighter on her shoulders and turns around to make her way towards the car.

She stops abruptly when she sees Malfoy standing beside it. He’s wearing all black again, his hair, wet from a shower, is slicked back away from his face. It’s warm today with a slight breeze and Hermione wonders if all he brought with him were black shirts and trousers. They’re obviously all very high quality, each immaculate piece customized to his built she wagers. She suspects that he has multiple articles of the same shirt and trousers, despite them all being the same colour. The impracticality of wearing such luxurious clothes on an expedition is so typical of Malfoy that she feels her chest warm at the expectedness of Malfoy’s high maintenance wardrobe and particular taste.

He’s talking to the driver and she realizes with great fascination that they’re discussing the car. He turns to face the car so all that she sees is his back. He crosses his arms against his chest, the fabric of his shirt pulling across the arms and the great expanse of his shoulders. Her eyes drift from his shoulders and across his arms and the fabric creases against the ripples of his bicep muscles as Malfoy clasp his hands behind his back.

Her eyes remain on his arms and she can't help but think about what Amina said and wonders if Malfoy is a hugger. She tries to think if she’d ever seen him hug anyone during Hogwarts but all she comes up with are vague, blurred images of him with his friend group. Sometimes, she'd see a careless arm around a girl’s shoulder that often belonged to Pansy. And while there were many, many public displays of physical affection with girls, she doesn't remember if they ever included hugs. Truthfully, she’d just never paid attention to him during Hogwarts when he was carefree, or doing anything but antagonizing her and her friends. The question then was if he was a good hugger.

The best hugs she’d ever gotten were from her father, but she suspects that it had a lot to do with the comfort of a parent’s arm around a child than the logistics that went behind what made a hug good. In theory, Ron was the perfect hugger. Tall and burly, he just looked like he’d give an all-encompassing, bear hug that left the recipient warm and comfortable. In practice, however, there was something lacking for her. He’d always bend down to hug Hermione, the top of her head would only reach his mid-chest. She’d sink into the softness of his chest and his arms would wrap around with her such strength that she’d feel claustrophobic more than anything. She’d always leave his arms feeling out of breath and dizzy. But Ron belonged to a family of huggers so she’d give in to him easily whenever he’d grab her. Touch was how he showed love apparently.

Harry was a terrible hugger. Only because he’d feel awkward at displaying any kind of physical affection. More often than not, Hermione was the one to initiate the hug, dropping her arms immediately when she’d feel him freeze after the first few seconds.

John didn't hug. But she wonders what kind of hugger Malfoy is.

Did he bend down to meet you halfway or does he wrap his arms around your mid-back, squeezing with enough pressure to then lift you up to your toes and slightly above the ground? Never leaving you unbalanced, always secure in his arms. Did he rub your back while he hugged you and was it up and down or in circles? Did his hugs overpower the space to breathe or did he allow you enough room and movement to burrow the side of your face into the crook of his neck or chest? She wonders if he was the type to creep up slowly while you distractedly worked away, coming up from behind so that his arms wrapped around your stomach and chest. Pulling you in closer to him so that the heat of his chest spread against your back as you lined perfectly against the smooth, but firm, plane of his long body.

God, she needs a hug. No— that isn't it.

She needs to be held.

She blinks, pulling herself together when Malfoy tugs on a trouser leg to crouch down beside the tire. He points to parts of the wheel and the driver circles his hands together as if to gesture the movement of the wheel. Malfoy nods his head and she watches him stand back up and go to the front of the truck.

Hermione’s mouth inadvertently fills with saliva and she swallows hard as she watches him listen to the driver’s instructions before lifting the hood of the car. She blinks furiously trying to comprehend the scene unfolding in front of her. Unable to move away from the peculiarity that was Malfoy interested in something so inherently Muggle. But really, she reasons with herself, it’s a perfectly normal curiosity for someone who’s lived the luxurious, self-sufficient, and easily accessible life that Malfoy has lived.

But she also can’t seem to look away or move her legs. Not that she knows where she’d be moving to, considering the fact that she’s utterly transfixed by the image of Malfoy leaning forward into the engine, one arm outstretched upwards, holding on to the hood. A single, blond strand falls down his face. Heat blooms across her chest and she holds her breath when his shirt rises slightly. Her eyes immediately snap to where it continues to move, searching for the little patch of pale, smooth skin—

It’s that precise moment, he sees her standing there, staring at him, and Hermione clamps her jaw shut. The fact that her mouth was left open like a dog, practically drooling, just deepens the heat of her face.

His face instantly turns into a scowl and for a second she thinks he’s still angry from last night but then his eyes snap to her bare legs and she has to mentally remind herself to breathe. She’s wearing Muggle shorts today. She’d originally thought it’d be a good idea considering she was going to spend hours in a cramped car. But the look on Malfoy’s face is making her second guess her choice of wardrobe today and that thought is followed with another where she ruthlessly admonishes herself for giving two damns of what Malfoy thinks of her clothes.

Malfoy purses his lips momentarily, his tongue sliding across the inside of his cheek. But then he looks away and back to the car and she exhales. Her legs gratefully regain all power and she makes her way to the car.

So, they’d be travelling together then.

It’s fine.

She can handle six hours or so on the road with him. She’s gone through a considerably worse travelling experience than this— the notable one, of course, was when she trekked with Ron and Harry looking for Horcruxes with a cursed locket that was determined on unhinging everyone in contact with it.

“Good morning, Malfoy.” She refuses to make eye contact and prays her face isn’t as red as she feels it to be from ogling him. “Looks like we’ll be driving together then.”

“Clearly,” he drawls, moving away from the front of the car to leaning against its side, his arms folded back against his chest. The casual act just further extenuates how tall and lean his body is, drawing her attention to the tightness of the fabric across his chest.

Hermione’s face burns again and averts her gaze. The dirt beneath her feet is particularly interesting today.

He looks at her suspiciously. “What’s the matter with you, Granger?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s the matter with you? ” Her voice comes out as a squeak. She opens up the back door to slide in. “Or rather, are you doing okay? Are you well, Malfoy?”

He gives her a strange look and opens his mouth to retort when someone calls out from behind him. Malfoy turns back to look and annoyance flashes across his face.

“Bella!” Hermione cringes when she sees Tony jogging toward them. She doesn’t have a problem with him, really. Just the nickname he’s so adamant on calling her now because it only seems to streamline more attention her way. Very sour attention from a very specific scowling blond. “Buongiorno, Ms. Hermione. What a beautiful morning!”

“Good morning, Tony.” Hermione gives him a polite smile when he reaches them. She glances at Malfoy who, lo and behold, is scowling. “All set for the trip?”

“Ah yes, just wrapped everything up.” Tony grins, leaning through the window of the opened door. Hermione tugs to close the door, but he steadies it with his hand. Malfoy’s scowl turns into a searing glare when his eyes drop to Tony’s grip. “It’ll be a long one today. We’ll have to make sure we’re all comfortable and sitting with people that’ll keep us company.”

Hermione smiles politely again, glancing at Malfoy. Tony rubs a contemplative hand against his chin. “You’ve got more stories, yes? I can join you on the ride and we can cover another retelling?”

“The car’s full,” Malfoy cuts in, before she can even respond. He pushes Hermione’s door shut and she jumps in her seat, scrambling to pull her feet away from the edge.

The car is very much not full. In fact, she’s the only one currently in it. She looks up to glare at him, but Malfoy’s staring hard at Tony, jaw clenched and mouth straight.

Tony frowns, eyes roving over the empty seats beside Hermione. “Looks like there’s enough room for me. Should I just...”

“They’re all assigned.” Malfoy looks at Tony as though he’s a fly buzzing around him and he’s waiting to slap him dead in his hands. “Unfortunately.”

Tony slowly turns to look at Malfoy, as if just realizing that he’s been standing there the whole time. “Right, not a problem...Mr. Malfoy is it okay if I switch with you—”

“Can’t,” Malfoy immediately replies. He opens the door to his front passenger seat and gets in. “It’s my legs,” he explains through the open door. He looks unconvincingly apologetic as he shrugs a shoulder. “They’re too long for any of the other cars. This is the only one I can sit in.”

Hermione rolls her eyes at the pathetic explanation when he slams his door shut, ending the conversation about seat changes indefinitely. He has long legs, yes, but he was also sitting in a completely different car yesterday for many hours and didn’t have a problem then.

The seating plans aren’t even set in stone. They’re just a way for Amina to organize everyone based on who she needs to talk with regarding trip logistics during the ride. Despite how seemingly determined he is to make sure Tony doesn’t sit in the same car as them, there’s also no need for Malfoy to stay.

Annoyed by Malfoy’s strange behaviour, Hermione shoots an apologetic look at Tony through her opened window. The rest of the crew starts getting into the car, engines starting. “Sorry, Tony. Maybe on the next ride?”

Tony drags his eyes away from Malfoy and returns the smile eagerly. “Yes, of course! I’ll keep you on your promise, Ms. Hermione.”

He winks at her and makes his way to Amina. Hermione turns in her seat, biting her lip contemplatively and drilling holes into the back of Malfoy’s seat. Malfoy’s head touches the ceiling of the car and he’s close enough that she can just reach out and touch his head. Run her fingers through the strands to see if they’re as soft and silky as they look to be.

Yes, she could do that. If somehow she got hit with a bludger and lost her common sense and survival instinct.

She watches the seat creak under Malfoy's weight as he adjusts his legs and knows it’s going to be the longest car ride of her life.

The cars make their way through the dirt and onto the paved path. The other two crew members, Dana and Idris, start talking to each other, and Hermione reaches into her bag and takes out some of the Ministry work she needs to get through.

Hermione crosses her legs and uncrosses them.

She cranks the window shut when her hair starts getting in her face but then stops halfway and reopens it. The knob makes an annoying whirring sound with every turn. She faces forward, eyes fixated on the brown fabric of the seat in front of her.

Hermione sits in her seat, unmoving.

She’s just so aware of him. The car is cramped enough with every seat full and he’s just everywhere.

She feels his presence as though he’s physically pushing into her and she can’t focus. His sandalwood and vanilla undertones fill the car despite everyone’s windows open. If anything, she can smell him more because of the wind.

He’s hardly moving now, the seat awkwardly still, and it makes her feel itchy and restless.

Hermione crosses her legs again, twisting so that she’s facing the window. She whispers an apology when her elbow pokes Dana and sheepishly tucks her feet in the space between the back of Malfoy’s seat and the inside of the car wall. Malfoy’s arm is at his side and the crook of her ankle is close enough to his hand that he can reach back and grab it.

She stares at his hand, waiting for him to do so. His hand simply twitches once and she looks away. Shakes her head in disbelief at herself. She’s losing her mind and it’s just the first hour.

But then the sound of Malfoy rolling the window down makes her look up and she accidentally catches his eyes in his side mirror. His brows crease but he doesn’t look away.

Hermione shifts and quickly looks back to the papers in her hands, her neck and face warming. She tries to concentrate but her eyes flick back to his mirror. He’s still looking and his mouth twitches.

She looks back down and counts two aching minutes before she glances back up at the same time he does. Her face is red and she’s embarrassed at getting caught looking his way. Whatever reason he may have for looking at the mirror makes more sense than the effort she’s putting in to look at it. But she wishes she could crawl into his sinking mind and figure out what game it is that they’re playing right now. If it even is a game or Malfoy just being his infuriating self.

She leans her head back against the seat and narrows her eyes, challenging him. Because when it comes to Malfoy, everything is a game that she’s determined to win.

This time he looks away first and she smiles, feeling especially victorious, despite herself, and goes back to the papers. She’s even able to work through a few pages, undistracted.

A good thirty minutes pass and it’s like holding a sneeze because she’s looking back up again. He’s writing in his journal now and she can see the way the pale fringe falls across his face. She can admit that it’s endearing to find Malfoy pouring over a book with such studious intensity, as she’d sometimes find him doing in potions class. As the only other student who’d manage to excel in potions at Hermione’s level, she’d often glance his way during the classes to see what he was doing. To determine how far he was in brewing a particular potion or see if he was using an ingredient or spell that she wasn’t. He has the same concentrated face as he would then, a small line between his brows, his teeth working away at the corner of his lower lip.

She tries to get back to her work, but the motion from the car, mixed with her reading, makes her slightly nauseous, so she puts it aside and pokes her face outside the window. She breathes a couple of times in and out, letting the nausea roll away.

The wind from everyone’s opened window sends her hair flying everywhere and she resigns to putting her hair up. She’s just gathering it into the ponytail when Malfoy looks back at her through his mirror.

Her hands are still in her hair and he frowns, the line between his brows deepening as he takes in what she’s doing. Grey eyes follow along her arms and up to her hands and unruly hair before meeting her eyes. His eyes flash as if trying to communicate something.

What? she wants to snap. Use your words and just tell me.

He meets her gaze uncompromised and she doesn’t know why she does it, but she pauses for a just beat, before letting go. The hair falls back down, cascading down her shoulders, curls still flying into her eyes. She takes a few strands and tucks them behind her hair.

She can’t understand the look that passes over his face. But Malfoy’s frown seemingly lessens and the line between his brow disappears.

She’s unnerved as he watches her, gaze steady and unflinching, through the mirror.

It feels slightly scandalous, almost voyeuristic, to have the mirror act as some sort of conduit for them to watch each other. Heat spreads from the lower part of her stomach and all the way to her cheeks. She feels dizzy because his eyes feel like hands and she feels as though she’s walking along the edge of a cliff. Malfoy’s lips tug slightly as he takes in her flushed face, smirking as though he’s won this unspeakable round between them. She watches him raise a brow as if to say too f*cking easy.

Suddenly, she’s boldened by this third object between them. She knows that she’d never had the courage, Gryffindor or not, if there wasn't the mirror between them. And it could have even been disguised as an unconscious act, but she does it deliberately and she wants him to know because she needs to win this round.

She can hear her heart pounding in her ears. She doesn’t know what exactly it is that she is doing until her hands start moving and she terribly hopes that she doesn’t look like a fool. She should stop, really, but the sheer adrenaline of making Malfoy lose keeps her going.

Hermione reaches into the bag of fruits and plucks out the first thing her fingers stumble across.

A red strawberry.

She’s gripping the fruit with such ferocity, it’s a miracle it hasn’t squished under the pressure. Hermione brings it to her mouth and her hands shake as she parts her lips slightly, just enough to tug on her lower lip. She holds the lip under her teeth for a second longer and watches as his eyes snap to her mouth. Then, ever so carefully, she wraps her lips around the tip of the fruit and sucks gently.

Malfoy looks like he isn't breathing.

She takes a bite of the strawberry a little too quickly and the fruit disappears completely inside her mouth, stem and all. She reflexively swallows the fruit without properly chewing and it’s a mercy that she doesn’t choke.

But she must look like she knows what she's doing because his own lips part slightly and he blinks twice when she flutters her eyes lazily, her tongue darting out to wipe the juice from her lower lip.

His throat bobs as he swallows hard. He clenches his jaw, a muscle twitching as he does, and draws his eyes painfully away from her mouth and to her eyes. Red creeps out of the collar of his shirt and across his neck.

He looks at her, puzzled. As if he’s never truly seen her before. And he hasn’t—not so purposely like this.

She'd be completely horrified at what she's done if she didn't see the effect on him. Hermione starts to smile, almost jolting in her own seat, as she realizes that Malfoy is flustered.

Because of her.

He looks surprised too, frowning and blinking slowly, and he opens his mouth in protest when the driver says something to him. He snaps his head towards him immediately. Hermione hears the driver repeat the question twice and she knows, rather gleefully, that Malfoy is struggling to pull himself together.

But then her own jaw drops when Malfoy answers and it sinks in that Malfoy is speaking fluently in Arabic. She’s dumbstruck with this new information and her eyes flash rapidly between the two men as they talk.

She leans forward and wipes her hand roughly against her shorts. It’s not perfect Arabic, by any means. He definitely has an accent and she recognizes the spots where he stutters between words. But he knows enough to carry a full conversation and it’s impressive that he can do so. She’s jealous, her chest now bubbling with irritation.

Damn him and his aristocratic privilege.

She can’t believe he’s upped her with another fluent language and the frustration of the whole thing is enough for her to forget the game they were playing. She finds herself wondering what else Malfoy hides behind his stoic expression and if they’re any other languages he’ll spring up randomly at her. Even with his stammering Arabic, she’s left thinking about the way his tongue rolls over the syllables, pronouncing his consonant and word.

Hermione inhales sharply and purses her lips, forcing herself to turn back to her work.

She purposely ignores the conversation when Dana and Idris join in, flipping between Arabic and French so effortlessly with Malfoy that it’s dizzying. She gives up trying to eavesdrop completely.

It’s only when the car erupts in laughter, and she looks up from the book she hasn’t read one line from, that she realizes that Malfoy's made a joke.

And people thought it was funny.

Her eyes snap to the side mirror and she’s seething at not being in on the joke. Despite knowing that they’re not talking about her, she feels as though she’s polyjuiced herself into a cat once again. She wants to almost yell at him about how rude it is to make jokes in another language around someone who doesn’t understand but her mouth shuts firm when he meets her eyes one last time.

He raises a brow, a slow smirk creeping on his lips, as he takes in her agitated state. It’s so clear what the message is.

I win.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

I admitted I was wrong. And that changed everything.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

Hermione was wrong about Malfoy.

She’s starting to realize that she does that often now and it’s strange to be on the side that keeps being proved wrong. And while she's already come to this conclusion several times during this trip, it's the fact that it has become a pattern that unsettles her the most. Like watching the sunrise every morning from the east and still being astonished by the fact that she lives in a world where she can watch the golden orb lift into the sky as though drawn by puppet strings. Knowing is far less bewildering than seeing it happen and she has to remind herself that it's okay to be stunned because of Malfoy.

She knows by now that other than his consistent broodiness and glaring that seems to only be directed at Hermione, there’s nothing usual about Malfoy. And yet there’s nothing unusually abnormal or peculiar about him either. He wakes up at dawn like everyone, keeps to himself most of the time, and writes in his journal as though he’s Beedle the Bard reincarnate.

This time she’s wrong about how Malfoy acts around others. She was convinced that Malfoy was going to remain in his tent for the majority of the day, looking down his nose at everyone who even opened their mouths around him. But while that may be the case in how he acts around her, she no longer holds her breath when someone approaches him.

She understood why he initially avoided everyone— there’s a vulnerability in opening up to someone unknown and though she's found solace in not knowing anyone here, she suspects it only made him feel disadvantaged. His reservation around others and his need to quietly remove himself from large conversations is still there, and she feels achingly understood by it. The instinctive armour that comes up around strangers, her own need to seclude herself near the end of the day to take a breath, or when she randomly closes her eyes throughout the just so she wouldn’t have to see or be stimulated by anything.

But she watches him close enough that she notices the many times others willingly go up to him to discuss something and the handful of rare times he goes to do the same. His entire body transforms when he’s talking to someone. He turns directly to face the other person, his eyes hardly ever leaving their face. His piercing gaze is enough to make anyone squirm, but it just adds to the fact that it feels as though there’s truly no one in the world other than the two conversing. She sees the allure in talking to him, of wanting to provide something to him that becomes significantly theirs. The thought of having anything intimate, a moment or a conversation, with Malfoy is the reason why she wants to go up to him and also why she never actually does.

They’ve been travelling for a few days now. Green rolling hills become rugged snow-capped mountains that then transform into dried plains of argan and olive trees. The other side of the road gives them glimpses of the turquoise, glittering Atlantic Ocean coastline as it disappears between mountains and masses of trees. Indigo skies turn into coral before completely disintegrating into the dark.

Somehow, Hermione finds herself always ending up in the same car as Malfoy, despite the rigid seating assignment Malfoy mentioned to Tony and she suspects that Amina, the sneak, has something to do with it.

In the beginning, they’d rotate where they’d sit in the car but she knows the back is usually too small a space for his long legs so she’d give him the front seat instead. It’s strange being so close to him in such tight quarters but she’s also not complaining about this unspoken ritual they’re establishing with the long drives. She finds she likes the sense of expectant familiarity that comes with sitting in the same car with Malfoy.

Sometimes, they play the Mirror Game where they wait to see who looks away first, other times she resigns to listening to Malfoy interact with the rest of the people in the car as he switches from Arabic to French and occasionally back to English when he deigns to acknowledge her glaring at him. She practices her French with whoever is often sitting beside her, thinking it’d be easier to continue a language she has some background knowledge of. She’s not as good as Malfoy, which pains her enough to keep learning, but she’s starting to pick up the words he rapidly sputters around with the others.

Other times, when he catches her trying to pay attention or leaning in closer to his seat to hear, he enunciates the words better or uses his hands to emphasize some meaning. She doesn’t know if he’s doing it purposely for her but it helps her and she appreciates it nevertheless.

Since they’re always in the same car, there are moments when he’ll talk directly with Hermione. By no means is it a long conversation and never does he instigate it first. But they talk for brief periods, almost always to the point and almost always ending with one of them glaring at the other. She knows that Malfoy only humours her with his words because of the barrier between him that is his seat but she quietly takes whatever he gives her.

Of course, no car ride goes without an argument between the two, making it notably very awkward for the others in the car— leaving them to determine whether they should step in or not. Hermione tries not to be juvenile with the arguments, but it’s as though he purposely chooses to say things that he knows will irk her.

Once they fought over Malfoy’s opened window which he refused to close when Hermione complained about all the dust that was splattering over her from his side. He had said that it was blisteringly hot and she snapped back that perhaps he should sit in the back and see if he likes dirt in his mouth. He hadn't said anything back then and only after her sharp “Malfoy!” had he rolled his eyes dramatically and closed the window.

They fought when Malfoy tried to adjust his seat but ended up “accidentally” pushing it too far back towards her and cramping her legs. She yelled at him to move the seat forward and he in turn explained drily that he didn’t know how to. She retaliated by stretching her legs further into the nook between his seat and the car. She purposely tapped her shoes against the car in an obnoxious pattern and waited. He glared at her through the mirror the entire time and she raised a challenging brow.

When he looked away, jaw clenched, she triumphantly settled back into her seat, legs still outstretched, and turned to her book. She’d been flipping the pages in an exaggerated flourish, loud enough for him to hear, when she felt something slither against her skin. She gasped, her eyes snapping to the pale fingers wrapped around her ankle. She'd been wearing shorts that day, leaving sufficient enough skin under his hand. His own skin was smooth except for the calluses from where he held his wand. Goosebumps scattered across her legs and the hair on her nape rose at the touch.

Her eyes instantly jumped to the mirror where Malfoy responded with an expectant look.

She narrowed her eyes, her heart crashing against her chest as though she’d run a mile, and tried to tug it out of his hold. But he held onto her ankle and pulled it gently back toward him.

She froze entirely and stared at him.

His mouth twitched as he met her gaze and the hold on her ankle tightened briefly before he let go completely. She felt the absence of his touch immediately.

She swallowed hard, pulling both of her legs out of the nook towards her, and turned back to her book.

Her fingers trembled where they fidgeted against the edge of the page.

She hadn’t dared to look back up for the remainder of the ride.

___________________________________

Pure fury courses through Hermione’s blood.

Her hands shake where she holds the legislation in her tight grip and she bites the inside of her lip with enough intensity that she tastes metal. Her eyes follow the red sharp lines across the stark white parchment paper and she flips to the next page only to see more red slashes thrown around in a seemingly haphazard way across random words and sentences.

She made a mistake in giving her draft of the legislation to Malfoy.

What the hell had she been thinking?

No doubt a thoroughly unfortunate lapse in judgment on her part but the truth was that she’d been caught off guard with...whatever it was that had happened in the car between them and for some reason thought it’d be a reasonable idea to ask his opinion on her draft. Maybe she gave it because she wanted to talk to him and thought going to him with the pretense of the legislation would at least get some kind of response back. But she told herself that it was important for her that she got it right for Neville and the last time they’d talked about it, Malfoy seemed to agree with her stance. Theoretically, it seemed like a good idea considering his extensive role in… business? Finance? Money-making?

She had no clue what exactly it was that he did, nevertheless, he was out there running things and since he was apparently still egregiously rich, he was doing a rather good job at it too.

She'd expected remarks about how well it was written, how exponentially brilliant her thoughts were. But of course, she’d been wrong. And while she’s most definitely going to kill Malfoy, she has to yell at him first.

She sweeps her eyes around the encampment looking for Malfoy and finds him right away, his hair a screaming torch. He’s bent over his journal again, fingers working carelessly across the pages. She takes a deep breath to calm down because she’s still a reasonable adult, trained in conflict resolution, and makes her way to him.

She thrusts the legislation down on his journal, perhaps a little violently. “What the hell is this, Malfoy?”

He deliberately pauses. And then ever so slowly, he lifts his head and meets her glare through his blond lashes. He looks utterly bored—as if he’d been waiting for her to stomp over and yell at him and was ultimately disappointed that it happened at all. He exhales loudly and closes his journal before picking up the legislation between his thumb and forefinger.

His eyes lazily rove over the paper. “I suppose this was your attempt at legislation.”

She’s going to kill him and she’s going to use her hands.

“This isn't an attempt, Malfoy. This is the legislation.”

“Then I guess you didn’t need my help in the first place.”

“Really? Is that what this is?” She points to where he scratched out the word illicit. “What was the point of this?”

“I’d probably use a different word.”

She crosses her arms. “Such as?”

“Proscribed.”

“That’s the same thing as illicit.”

“It’s just a suggestion, Granger.” He runs a casual hand through his hair, his ring catching the sun’s gleam. His thumb leaves behind a small smudge of black ink near his left brow. Her fingers twitch and she clasps her hand tightly behind her back.

She drags her gaze back to his eyes. “I asked you to take this seriously.”

Malfoy gives her a blank look. “I did.”

She flips the page. “Here, you just put a single question mark.”

“It was lacking.”

“In what?”

“I can’t do everything for you, Granger.”

“Malfoy!”

“Honestly, it’s too early in the day for you to go full-Granger on me—”

“Full what ?"

Malfoy waves his hand over her as if it means something. “You know—full-Granger. You get this look on your face—” He pauses to give her a wide-eyed look that she suspects is supposed to be a reflection of hers and she immediately scowls, “—every time something doesn’t go your way. Your eyes go all feral and your mouth twitches as you mutter under your breath. And I swear your hair gets more animalistic than it already is.” He pauses as though he’s in deep thought. “You know, I always thought it was quite scary in the Great Hall when you’d go off. It really was the only time I've sympathized with a Weasley.”

There was no such thing as full-Granger.

She can’t even comprehend that Malfoy noticed her enough to have an entire persona established. Sometimes, yes, she went a little excessive. But that was only because she was often surrounded by idiots and Ron and Harry, and for some reason, she’d always put it upon herself to correct them or fix whatever idiotic thing they were rambling incorrectly about. But, she never went feral.

Or did she?

She scoffs, an incredulous look on her face at the mere prospect. “I do not go full-Granger.”

“Everyone knows you do," he replies simply and stretches his legs out further. "It’s a look that promises murder. It’s almost…bizarre.”

“Bizarre,” she repeats flatly.

“In a borderline unhinged way.”

“Alright, we’re done here.” She makes way to take back the legislation but he puts his hand on top of the parchment, stopping her.

“Listen, you wanted my help and I gave it. It’s not my fault that you can’t take constructive criticism.”

Her jaw drops. “I can take critique, Malfoy.”

He rolls his eyes. “When were you ever receptive to anyone telling you that you were wrong?”

“That’s because more often than not, I am right,” she retorts.

“Whenever I think of my time at Hogwarts, every memory has this background shrill noise that took some time for me to recognize, but eventually I realized it was you going off on a sorry soul about whether the correct answer was two, or two and a half turns of a potion.” He tilts his head, ignoring the stunned look on her. His eyes are bright as he dons a pondering look. “What must it be that makes you like this? Is it because you require validation from external resources with such fervidity that the moment someone criticizes you, your self-worth decreases substantially and that makes you so uncomfortable that your only defence is going full-Granger?”

Hermione gapes at him. “How dare—”

“Maybe it’s because you’re an only child and so you have difficulty listening to anything that doesn’t make you feel distinct and unique—”

“I suppose you’d know all about that,” she seethes. Her face is undoubtedly flushed red from anger. “You’re an only child, Malfoy.”

He dismisses her with a wave of his hand and her jaw drops further at the gesture. “I have a penchant for other qualities.”

“Like the endless and tiring dramatics we have to suffer through when you don’t get what you want?”

“Sometimes in my dreams, you’re there in a cloud of darkness like an ominous witch, saying only one thing over and over in my ear until I know I'm mad… I told you so.”

She tilts her head. “But you do dream of me.”

There’s a stiffening silence and the air thickens between them.

He glances at her, slightly startled, and she gives him a look as if to say “well?”

It was meant to be a passing comment on her hand, a rebuttal to his own, but she watches him unravel just a thread and it makes her pause because certainly, he doesn’t actually dream of her. She blinks several times, unsure what to make of this new revelation.

But then he clears his throat and continues, his mask falling swiftly back in place. “I’m not saying your work so far is bad—"

“I know it’s not bad.”

“—but there are some things you could work on that will straighten your piece.”

He leans back against his chair and meets her steady gaze.

Waits for her to counter him.

As if she hadn’t just caught him in a strange moment mere seconds ago. As if the reddening tips of his ears have nothing to do with her— like he’s completely in control of the situation because, after all, he found some faults in her work that she hadn’t.

She knows, really knows, that even asking for his help in the first place meant that she was asking for criticism of her work. And it’s not like she’s never gotten criticism on work before—she welcomed all of Amina’s edits on her books and research papers with open arms. But, for some reason, receiving Malfoy’s edits is putting her on an edge. It might have to do with the initial shock of seeing all the red slashes as if the entire thing needed to be thrown away and done all over again. And that is something Hermione has never had to do with any of her work.

But she can also admit to herself, and really only to herself, that it most likely has to do with the fact that for once Malfoy may be objectively right about something, and she was wrong. And it only matters that much to her because she knows he's intelligent. Academically, they were at the same level in their work, so if he was outdoing her on something it meant he was better, smarter, at something that she wasn’t. And that was worse than being wrong about his personality or whether or not he liked to talk to people.

However, she needs this for Neville.

Hermione clenches her jaw and purses her lips. “Like what?”

“Hmm?”

Of course, he wouldn’t make this easy. “You said there were some things that could make it better. But all you did was slash words and put question marks. So, tell me what you think I should do because I’m starting to suspect you only gave me ambiguous feedback so that I’d be forced to come and ask for your insight on what I did wrong.”

His lips twitch as if to stop himself from smiling, proving her right.

Insufferable prat.

“So, you want me to—”

She gives him a withering look. “Don’t make me ask twice, Malfoy.”

Malfoy studies her for a moment longer and then nods once. "Alright."

He flips the pages to locate a paragraph. Hermione takes a step closer and leans in. She’s immediately bombarded with vanilla and she swallows hard, pushing her hair over her shoulder. It falls right back down, brushing lightly against the page, and she shoves it away again to distract herself from the smell.

There’s a pause between them as she comes closer and Malfoy visibly stiffens, either at their proximity or her incessant battle with her hair. When her hair finally remains over her shoulder and she stops moving, he clears his throat and continues. “Here, you mentioned stopping this one project of expansion but what you’re not taking into consideration is that the demand for the Snapper remains. Do you believe that if you stop this one expansion, they won’t just go to another territory and plant there?”

“Obviously not,” she replies matter-of-factly, looking up at him. His eyes are stubbornly fixed on the page, but this close she can appreciate the shine in his hair under the sunlight. She wonders what shampoo he uses to cause his hair to have such volume but also manages to keep it so controlled. Is it the shampoo that smells like vanilla? “Stopping this won’t stop the entire botanical pharmacy industry. I mentioned a complete termination of all current and future projects. I’m hoping the media on this will deter them enough to stop the project entirely.”

“There won’t be any media on this,” he states. “The media does not care about legislations that are settled out of the public eye. In order to ensure it doesn't occur again, there have to be repercussions that will ultimately increase the cost and decrease profit. Or some kind of incentive to ensure that the project doesn’t just continue to another plant territory.”

“I’m already requiring them to pay for the reparations for the damages caused to the Hinsleweed territory.” She groans under her breath when her hair falls down her shoulder again and steps away entirely. Malfoy exhales. “What other incentive could there be?”

“You could ask for a greenhouse factory large enough to harvest and brew the plant, seeing how the problem isn't with the Snapper, but rather the way it’s being harvested.”

“A greenhouse factory?” Hermione lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Neville had enough difficulty getting a group of four people, including myself, to come together for this. The ministry would not willingly provide the resources to make it happen. I wouldn’t even know... who would even have that much money for an entire factory?”

“I do.”

Her eyes snap to his face, mouth parting in surprise. She’s sure she’s misheard. “You?”

He shrugs, indifference feigning across his face. “I have the money.”

“I know you do.” She shakes her head, not understanding. “But why would you do that?”

“You need help," he says carefully.

“Yeah, right.”

He looks at her strangely, his voice terse. “Why don’t you believe that if you ask me I’d—”

“Just tell me the real reason, Malfoy," she interrupts, impatiently.

“That is sufficient enough of a reason, Granger.” He looks away, tongue poking out in his cheek. He shakes his head once as if in response to something in his head and then looks back at her. “It’s a lucrative business with promising results. I’d want a percentage of the shares of course, as well as a place on the board of the company.”

And suddenly the world was right again. She pauses to contemplate this new proposal. “I...I don't know. I’d need to talk to Neville and create a potential plan..."

“Do what you need to do. But, it would make the legislation stronger.” He eyes her carefully as she nods absently.

He’s right about this and while she can’t fully comprehend his motives, she tries to think of how to approach this with Neville because it could be a helpful thing to consider.

Malfoy continues to explain the different parts where he thought the legislation could be improved and Hermione makes sure to listen carefully and nod along in agreement, occasionally biting her tongue to stop herself from arguing with him, when he suggests something trivial.

“That wasn’t hard, was it?” he says after going through the final point.

“What?”

“Taking criticism,” he explains and lifts a shoulder. There's a different, lighter lilt to his tone now that makes her look up at him. “I’m sure with practice, you’ll be more responsive to critiques of your work going forward.”

“There won’t be any practicing since there won’t be any opportunities for further critique on your part, Malfoy.”

His eyes flash in amusem*nt at her rising anger and he pitches his voice lower. “We’ve got a long way to go together, Granger. So if you feel like you need to let go of some of that repressed—”

“I am not repressed,” she grits out.

“—need to yell at someone, I’ll let you take it out on me. I can understand the need for unwinding.”

He sits back and waits.

He's doing this on purpose, Hermione. Do not go feral.

“If I were you, I’d be careful with that invitation of yours.” She tips her head down to meet his eyes. He only smirks in response. “Whatever I’d do to you, let's just say it won’t be as reversible as before. I’ve learned some delightful spells over the years that I’m just itching to try." Hermione stands up straighter and crosses her arms. "I assure you, I’m not that person you once knew, Malfoy.”

Malfoy’s silver eyes bore into hers and she hesitates, suddenly feeling exposed and disoriented. She tries not to shift awkwardly where she stands, as his gaze dips down slowly from her face to her hair that has fallen to her shoulders again, and then to her neck and shoulders. She's wearing a collared shirt and while there's not much skin exposed, the path his eyes take leaves behind pricks in her skin. She forces her hands to stay folded and not peel off the burning skin that she can't recognize as her own.

Finally, he lifts his eyes back up to hers and it’s all she can do to not shiver against the ice she sees there.

“Trust me, Granger,” he says, quietly. “I can see that.”

It's the way he says it that makes her pulse skip.

A sentence that outright means nothing, yet clearly something to him.

She opens her mouth to reply back because she’s not levelled with him just yet and she needs to say something witty and equally as jarring to him. Anything to shake off this unbalanced feeling and gain the upper hand once more. But all she can think about is how shiny his hair is and that he smells like vanilla and warmth, and like anything with the potential of being home, and she wants to burrow into the comfort of it all.

Her mouth snaps shut as she swallows heavily the pit in her throat. He raises a brow, looking at her in an exaggerated expectant way that makes her want to rub her thumb furiously against his brow to flatten it down.

“You have ink on your face,” she says eventually, snatching back the legislation. But it comes out rather weakly and she turns around before he can smirk irritatingly or say anything further.

She clutches the parchments to her chest, her face flushing with heat that is rooted in something entirely new that she’s too afraid to identify.

___________________________________

Draco Malfoy plays dirty games.

Hermione is currently winning in their Mirror Game which has no significant meaning or end, but she should have known that it wouldn’t have lasted. It’s her fault actually— she should never have let her guard down or let the little victories she’s accumulated over the car rides get to her head. She should have known that Malfoy had a secret card up his sleeve. And it was only time he’d bring it out against her.

It’s late afternoon and they’ve stopped for a lunch break. A couple of tents have been erected across the plain they’ve chosen to rest at. Having finished eating, she makes her way from the area where everyone is eating to another less crowded and quieter tent to get back to Safia’s diary.

Coincidentally, Malfoy is already sitting there. His long legs are stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He's wearing dark trousers and a light-fitted grey shirt. One hand is flipping through his journal and the other is digging into a plate of oranges.

Her oranges.

The ones she asked Amina to stock up for her at a couple of stops before. The ones she’s been looking for all day like a madwoman because all she wanted after a long ride in the blazing heat was a single orange. The same oranges that Hermione asked Malfoy if he’d seen— to which he’d given her an inconvenienced look and said: “No.”

Her blood curdles and she runs her tongue against the front of her teeth, glaring at Malfoy with enough intensity to put hell to shame.

Every single day, he makes it difficult for her. This time, he’s gone too far.

Those are her oranges.

She’s of the mind to go over there, snatch back her oranges, and yell at him for taking something without asking...but no. Not today. She refuses to go full-Granger over oranges and prove whatever point he thinks he made when he told her about it in the first place.

Instead, she purposefully walks to a wicker chair set up across from him. Makes sure to not spare a glance at Malfoy lest he thinks that she specifically came to the tent looking for him. But she feels his eyes on her the moment she enters the tent anyway, following every movement of her body like an asp waiting to strike. The heat of his gaze causes her steps to falter briefly, but she only sets her jaw tighter and lifts her head higher. She tries to sit as discreetly and nonchalantly as possible in the chair, shifts until she’s comfortable, and crosses her legs.

She digs into her beaded bag and takes out the diary, his gaze immovable on her. She pretends not to notice, flips randomly to a page that she’s read before, and settles into reading.

But he’s still staring, if the burning holes in her head mean anything.

She looks up, lets out a brisk and annoyed sigh. Meets his heavy gaze with her own— the diary already disregarded in her lap.

His face is blank except for the obvious challenge in his eyes. He looks down at the oranges once, before shifting back to her and she glares at him because it’s obvious he knows why she’s angry and it only seems to make the amusem*nt on his face grow.

He closes his journal and sets his clasped hands on top of it.

Alright, then.

They’ll level up in this game if that's what he wants. It’s the first time they’re playing with no side mirror or the barrier of a seat between them, so she channels her anger into determination and narrows her eyes at him.

They stare at each other for five seconds, then ten seconds, and then fifteen. Her gaze on him remains unwavering, but then there’s a movement near his hands and she looks down briefly. His fingers brush against the side of an orange and his lips tug upwards.

And that’s when she starts to lose the game.

He doesn’t stray once from her face, unblinking silver eyes fixated on her brown. She tries to keep hers on him, but she’s also acutely aware of how fingers are caressing the fruit on his lap. Maybe she should have known he wouldn’t have let the strawberry incident alone because, with Malfoy, turnabout is always fair play. She clutches the diary with white knuckles, already knowing how this is going to go down.

It’s illegal the way his fingers move.

His fingers, long and pale, twirl the orange around slowly, pushing down across the surface of the fruit as though looking for a pressure point. The orange stops moving in his hand and his right forefinger slides upwards from the bottom of the orange and deep into the dent on the top. She bites the inside of her lip to prevent herself from looking away when heat floods her cheeks.

His finger punctures deep into the hole and slowly he peels the rind off the orange in a single smooth and graceful movement.

Then, two slender fingers pull apart a single slice and Hermione’s breath hitches when she sees the fingers, soaked with juice, bring the slice to his mouth.

With eyes still on her, he parts his lips slightly so that his tongue can dive out to capture the bead of juice dripping down the side of his hand and along the curvatures of the orange. His tongue slides back up the path he left on his skin, before putting the entire slice into his mouth. His jaw clenches and tightens as he devours the orange slowly and purposely, and juice spills out slightly to soak his bottom lip. And Malfoy, damn him, only smirks as his tongue pokes out again and traces the edge of his bottom lip in a slick motion.

God, she must have looked like an idiot with her strawberry if this is how he eats an orange.

Hermione swallows thickly the same time he does and heat slithers along her chest and winds along the length of her neck.

Desperate for some kind of relief, her eyes move away from where they’re fixated on his lips and search his face instead.

And it’s as though the entire orange ordeal has heightened his features because she’s suddenly aware of how his blond fringe falls gently in a perfectly arranged haphazard way against his forehead. She notices the volume in the roots of his hair, left behind from when ran his hands through it— either in frustration or in habit. His blond eyelashes feather gently against his skin with each blink and there’s a voice in the back of her head that writhes in jealousy at just how unfairly long they are. He can open his eyes and the lashes would reach his brows.

There’s a tightening around his eyes that only extenuates the silver in them and while she’s further away to truly notice, she knows the sun provides a slanted golden light that captures the clarity in them. Pure silver except for the scatter of pale grey freckles in them that pop up occasionally. She knows this because she’s seen him before— stared at how sunlight danced in his eyes while he was distracted someplace else and marvelled at the various dimensions of just his eyes.

Her eyes move to his elegantly long nose that slopes to a point so perfect, it makes her want to run her finger down the incline just to feel the way it peaks off. She’s aware of how the darkness under his eyes has faded slightly since she first saw him in the courtyard and she wonders if it means he’s sleeping better now. And while the bruises under his eyes have decreased, the shadows under his prominent cheekbones and jaws have only strengthened.

There’s a faint pink that scatters across the high points of his face, near his cheeks and his nose, where the sun hits him and she thinks it gives him a healthy glow —a far cry from his usual brooding and haunted look he has going on.

Her eyes flick to his lips when they part slightly and she sees how his lips, now cherry red from eating the orange, perfectly arch into a bow in the middle before meeting the fullness everywhere else. The softness of his lips is a sharp contradiction to the edges of his face, but she thinks that it makes sense— that he had to look this way because when one thinks of what perfect architecture looks like, it’s this.

She realizes just how handsome Malfoy is.

And it’s not a newfound realization, just one that’s been renewed. She’s always known that Malfoy was good-looking—was forced to acknowledge this fact whenever she’d see a horde of girls, notably not all from Slytherin, hovering around him in Hogwarts.

She hadn’t formulated the opinion on her own until she heard Lavender whispering conspiratorially with the Patil sisters during dinner in fourth year about what “being an arrogant and rich arsehole” meant for how well he kissed. It was a time around the Yule Ball and the girls had been going around the hall, deciphering which boy they thought was good-looking and whether they were an equally good kisser. She’d wanted to roll her eyes at them and snap that they had bigger things to worry about, like how Harry had almost died during the first task, but for some reason paused and looked over across the Hall to where Malfoy sat with Blaise and Pansy.

The boys during that year were going through a pubescent transition and it seemed as though everyone in her year had decided to grow out their hair— perhaps in a subconscious way to distract the girls from the peculiar changes in the baritone of their voices.And while she’d begged Harry and Ron to let her cut their hair, she looked at Malfoy then and thought no one should go anywhere around him with clippers. His hair was long enough, curling around his ears, that sometimes he'd jerk his head to get it out of his face. She wanted to run her hands through his hair—a startling thought that made her jolt.

Malfoy had leaned in and said something to Pansy with a sly smile and a (now-familiar) raised brow that made Pansy blush and Hermione had to look away, cheeks heated as if Malfoy had whispered something in her ear instead. For the rest of the dinner, she couldn't help but wonder what it'd feel like to have the attention of someone like Malfoy and receive a comment about something other than her blood. He was good-looking, objectively so, but Harry had needed her help with the competition and Ron had been a proper arse to her during the ball, and it was Draco bloody Malfoy, so eventually she forgot what she’d thought about him then and threw herself into what her friends required of her.

She wonders now where he got his features from. She’s only seen Lucius and Narcissa a handful of times and each encounter was worse than the one before. And while her memory of the time she’d been around them may be spoiled, she can appreciate now, perhaps with the war behind, that they were two individuals that balanced each other both in affect and beauty.

Blond eyebrows furrow and Malfoy pauses his work with the oranges as he notices that Hermione is no longer just watching but actually looking at him.

He seems to hesitate—confused, and wavering in the shadows of being perceived.

But then his fingers quickly go back to the orange to pull apart another slice and she has no choice but to look away entirely, blushing. The edge of his lips only tugs higher and she knows that he knows that he’s done more than just win their stupid game this time.

She’s never been more grateful to hear someone call her name from behind and she jumps out of her chair and hurries toward the person before Malfoy can so much as blink at her.

Amina waves her over to a map that she, Tony, and Leena are leaning over. Hermione hears, much to her horror, slow footsteps echoing behind her.

“We’re trying to chart the remainder of the trip,” Amina explains. Hermione goes to stand between her and Leena and peers down on the map. “We started here in Marrakech, made our way past this area, and we’ll be entering our final port just outside of Sahrit. It’s near the Atlas mountains and opens up to the ocean. From there we’ll make our way to and past Ouarzazate which opens the door to the desert, just under a week’s worth of trek due south.”

“What’s in this city?” Hermione asks, pointing to the area on the map Amina had identified as Sahrit. She feels Malfoy’s presence near her before she sees his shadow looming over the map. She forces her eyes to remain on the map.

“It’s a wizarding town. We’ve designated it as the area of return for any emergencies once we’re in the desert since there’s a wizarding hospital there. I need to go there to set up the portkeys and pick up some last-minute materials for our time in the desert. From there we can go back to Agadir as the next major Muggle city if we need to for rendezvous. It’s also the location that was given to everyone for any letters you want to send or receive. Once we get into the desert, due to the gruelling course we’ll be travelling on, it’s going to be difficult to keep in contact with others outside of the area. I’ve been telling everyone to send out their letters when we’re in Sahrit.”

“There was a point in Safia’s diary where she accounts the accident with her crew. Half of the people needed to be portkeyed out. Safia was one of the few who remained behind.” Hermione touches the map, tracing the letters that write out the outline of the desert. “It sounded like a freak accident, some kind of sandstorm that took over their camp. Do we know where it happened?”

Amina sighs and runs a hand through her hair. “No, unfortunately not. Sandstorms are just so common in the desert, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly the location of where they start or end. I’m hoping we won’t face one when we’re out there, but it’s difficult to predict the weather.”

“Sounds like a lot of trouble for a cave that might not even exist,” Tony remarks, lighting a cigar and waving a hand at the map. “Are we sure it even exists?”

“It’s a little late to reevaluate what we’re doing, don’t you think?” Malfoy drawls, voice condescending.

“Isn’t that why we’re all here?” Hermione cuts in quickly, shooting Malfoy a glare for his rudeness. “To look for the cave?”

Tony shrugs and takes out the cigar long enough to blow out smoke. Malfoy’s face scrunches in disgust. “No, not everyone. For some, the journey might be more worthwhile than the goal at the end. Besides, the likelihood of us finding the cave is very low and I’m afraid you ladies might not be able to make it to the end, considering the impending doom.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Leena asks, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms against her chest. Hermione and Amina simultaneously turn towards him and cross their own arms. Malfoy turns too, smirking as if waiting to see how Tony tries to crawl out of this hole.

“You know,” Tony looks uncomfortable and waves his hand again as though to emphasize something that was apparently common knowledge. He looks to Malfoy for help but receives a stony look. “It has been said that the cave cannot be found by man because the nature of man does not make way for enlightenment.”

“Sure, man cannot find the cave because of their atrocious personalities. But, lucky for you, Tony,” Hermione meets Tony’s eyes steadily. “We are not men.”

Leena and Amina laugh and Tony tries to brush it off by giving a shaky laugh. Amina wraps her arm around Tony’s shoulder and they walk off with the map when Dana calls them to prepare for departure.

She’s distracted by thoughts about their conversation until she realizes Malfoy is still standing there with her, staring at her contemplative.

She sighs and turns to him. Standing beside each other this close, she has to tilt her head upwards to meet his eyes. “What, Malfoy? Want to add your own touch of misogyny?”

“You think there’s something more about the sandstorm.”

A statement, not a question. She’s taken aback that he was even able to read her hesitancy.

She nods slowly. “I’ve read the expedition summaries from others who’ve charted their trips like what we’re doing, or what Safia did. In the reports I’ve read, there’s always a statement or something about how they feel like they’re close to finding the cave, and then in the next few entries they mention something that stops them from continuing the trip.”

“Like what?”

She surveys his face, trying to see what the catch is. But Malfoy’s face betrays nothing and she decides to continue cautiously. If anything, she can at least pretend that she’s completely unfrazzled and completely coherent from watching him eat an orange.

“Sometimes there are issues in navigation where the guide follows a map but ends up getting lost and continues in circles, always ending up where they start. Other times there are sandstorms like Safia mentioned in her diary and usually, the sandstorm is bad enough to upturn the entire trip. Either way, if you end up staying in the desert past your supplies, you risk exhaustion or dehydration. Someone always ends up with a mysterious illness. Most of the time, the expeditions just end before they can truly get anywhere in the desert.”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence.”

“Do you think so?” She tugs on the skin around her thumb idly. “How much can we keep attributing whatever happens during these trips to coincidence? If we really believe that everything happened by chance then there's no point believing Safia even found the cave or that anything in her diary is reliable enough to take us to it. How can we follow something that only occurred by chance?”

“So then, we don’t believe it’s a coincidence,” he replies matter-of-factly. Malfoy leans against the table and bites his lower lip in thought. Hermione’s eyes snap to the movement and she blushes remembering what his mouth had been doing with the orange earlier. Luckily, Malfoy for once seems distracted by his train of thought.

“If we are to even believe that a mythical cave that promises enlightenment to its finders exists, then we can go as far as thinking everything that happens on this journey to that cave is not a coincidence. What’s the likelihood that all these people who claimed to be on the right path of finding the cave were faced with some kind of obstacle that prevented them from looking for it? Everything has to mean something.”

His eyes snap to hers and she averts her gaze.

There’s a pause.

“Malfoy, I feel I must give you the courtesy of warning you because I truly will not be repeating myself and I think you might die of shock after what I say.” She lifts her eyes back to him and pauses again for affect. He simply narrows his eyes, waiting for the punchline. “I think you might be right.”

He raises his brows. “That looked like it hurt.”

“I can admit when someone is right about something.”

“Sure, but did you ever think you'd do it to me?” He tries to sound accusing but there’s no bite. A corner of his mouth tugs up again and she realizes she’s never seen him smile genuinely and wholeheartedly. At least never towards her. She suddenly feels the itch to say or do something that might earn her one.

She looks away sheepishly when he catches her staring. “It does fit the whole mythical aspect of the cave to assume that there is some kind of magical power that physically prevents people from looking for it before they even get close.”

He nods solemnly. “So we prepare for an obstacle—anything that will set us off course.”

“You really think we can find it?”

She doesn’t know why she needs to hear his opinion, but it’s suddenly important to her what he thinks. Maybe because they’re finally talking about something that feels important, substantial. And she knows that despite Malfoy not actively taking a part in the journey like Hermione is with Safia’s diary or the rest of the crew with their specific tasks, he’s been watching and listening. And she wants to know what he makes of the whole thing.

He pauses to consider it and the genuineness in his voice throws her off. “If we’re to believe that Safia’s diary and her account of the expedition can lead us to the cave, then if there’s anyone who can find it, it’s you.”

She’s surprised that he’d even admit that out loud. “I don’t know why everyone keeps saying that. I’m going to thoroughly disappoint everyone.”

“You found the Horcruxes, Granger. You can find this.”

She cringes at the memory and looks away toward the cars where everyone is packing up. They’re the only ones left behind and they’ll have to leave the tent that they’re standing under soon. “It was a group effort.”

He snorts. “Those idiots couldn’t figure out a mandrake from a rose if it weren't for you.”

Hermione blushes again and the fact that it keeps happening because of him is as strange and surreal as hearing Malfoy say something to her that resembles a compliment—albeit at the expense of her friends. It’s the most productive conversation they’ve had for a while and they’ve even managed to do it without an argument.

She meets his eyes with a small smile. “That looked like it hurt.”

The lips tug higher and she has to force herself not to reach over and physically pull his mouth upwards to create a full smile.

“Painful, actually.” He places his hand against his chest, near his heart, and takes a step closer. “Definitely won’t be doing that again.”

Hermione looks down at the space between them. She wouldn’t even have to move and she could easily reach out with her arm and touch him.

Her hand twitches and she moves it to scratch her leg instead. She clears her throat. “I just wish I had more time to do some research and look through some more books. We should have used your library. I’ve heard it’s pretty impressive.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

She sighs at his indifference. Oh, to be a wealthy ferret.

She wishes she’d been able to see the famous Malfoy Manor library. It’s a fanciful thought considering that aside from the fact Malfoy would have never invited her in the first place, the rumours she’s heard about the books being spelled against non-purebloods wouldn’t have allowed her to touch any of them. Not to mention, going back to the Manor...

But the thought of all those books at her disposal is enough for her to lose herself in a daydream.

“I’ve heard it has first editions of books that cover everything from charms to ancient runes. Is it as big as everyone says?”

He shrugs. But then something flashes behind his eyes as he takes in her wistful look and he bites the inside of his lips as if to stop himself from smiling. “Yeah, actually, now that I think about its size, I’d say it’s pretty big."

“Yeah, that’s what I said—”

“Huge, actually.”

She nods.“I hope you realize how lucky you are.”

“There's an appreciation for it, yes,” Malfoy drawls, his eyes dancing across her face. “I think I’ve got the biggest library in Wizarding Britain.”

Oh.

Hermione’s lips part, finally understanding what he means. This running joke mixed with the whole orange theatrics—she can hardly believe that they’re at this level now in their working...acquaintance. She’s not surprised that this is how he’s choosing to tease her, just that it’s her he’s even choosing.

“Yeah, thanks. I think I got—”

“In fact, I’ve never gotten complaints about it. Pansy even confirmed it—”

Hermione can’t figure out what’s worse, this imagery or the visualization of the oranges. “Okay, Malfoy—”

“One could even say that the walls are bulging with books.”

Oh, my God.

He smirks when Hermione’s jaw drops and she slaps her hands against her ears. Her face is on absolute fire. “Malfoy—”

“Honestly, I think you’d have to come to see it—”

This.

This is worse.

“Christ, Malfoy!”

And then the strangest and most brilliant thing happens.

Malfoy laughs.

And Hermione can’t help but think it’s better than any smile she’d ever get from him. It’s a low, rasped laugh that seems to come straight from the middle of his stomach and scratches his throat from the newness of occurring at all. The raw effect of his laughter causes goosebumps to scatter across her body and her breath knocks out of her.

When did he laugh last? Because it seems as though his own body, as it quivers, is unsure how to hold it in.

Her mouth drops even lower as she watches, baffled, as he actually bends over, laughing. She’s so startled by the sound that she has to physically step backwards to take it all in.

She did this, she thinks victoriously. She made him laugh.

He straightens up and pretends to wipe a tear from his cheek and Hermione remembers that he’s laughing at her.

She wants to smack the side of his head.

“Somebody should check where the sun is rising from because Malfoy’s actually laughing,” she mutters, sarcastically. But there’s no malice— just her shaking hands. “This is momentous, really. I can’t believe there isn’t anyone here to witness this.”

She scowls when he takes a dramatic inhale to calm himself down.

“Finished?” she asks, crossing her arms when he finally stops.

He opens his mouth to say something to that, but then changes his mind and leans back against the table, all cool and collected. If he's surprised to have laughed, he doesn't show it. And it makes her chest hurt in a weird way to know that the moment already happened and is now gone.

“I think we’ve unlocked a new fetish for you, Granger. Honestly, I’m not surprised libraries get you off. It does go with the whole crazed elderly librarian who sniffs books for pleasure look you’ve got going on.”

She glares at him to retort something back but then he crosses the space between them and she stills. She can’t move, can’t breathe as he tips his head low so that silver collides with her brown through his white fringe. Her gaze dips to his mouth and her stomach constricts painfully.

How do they always end up like this?

“Anytime you need to use my library, Granger, do let me know,” he says, his voice a resonance she feels in her bones. “I can show you all the levels.”

Her heart jolts against her rib cage with such force that she’s brought back to herself and the minimal space between them. She manages to somehow roll her eyes and push his chest back to bring some space between them again so that she can breathe. The shove makes no difference in his stance and she has to force herself to turn so she can walk away.

“We’ll have to wait for hell to freeze over for that, Malfoy,” she throws over her shoulder as casually as she can. A furious heatwave crashes over her face as she walks away, her hands coming to cover her face in hopes of dissipating it.

Yes, she’s completely wrong about Malfoy. And while this time she’s not exactly sure what it is that she's wrong about, she also finds herself okay with it.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

During this perilous journey, I have found myself dreaming and thinking of worlds, unlike the one we’re in now. I dream that everything I ever needed to say to you, I did. And everything I never did say, you understood still. Sometimes the dreams are so real, so tangible that I wake up, half expecting you there, just a mere touch away. But then I see you and everything comes out thoroughly ugly and unpleasant and I worry that you’ll never truly know what I hope to say. So I must resolve with the scraps you give me and hope that beneath my feared words you see what I truly mean to say—that I am yours. All of my ugly and unpleasant, all of it, will always, infinitely, be yours.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

A half-hour before dawn breaks out across the shadowed sky, a man opens his eyes.

Outside, the sun remains shrouded within the comfort of darkness for a few minutes more. The soft songs of birds and rampant hums of insects drift through the cracks of the tent and echo into his ear, reminding him that it’s time to get up.

Inside, the man blinks once into the hollow darkness. There are no dancing shadows against the fabric of his tent as the world is still asleep. He sees immediately what others may require seconds of adjustment to notice—the dark was never a stranger to him and he wades through the haze like a train coming home through the fog.

It is a neat tent with little materials and belongings. He doesn’t require much in terms of comfort, preferring the stark and cold bareness around him. Though, if you ask him, this was not the case once. A single glass of water, still full, rests on a stand beside his bed, along with three books with nondescript titles. His dragonhide boots are neatly stacked at the other end of the bed. A black shirt and trousers, both only similar in colour to the ones he wore yesterday, are pressed and folded neatly on the only chair present in the tent.

The man with moonlight hair and iced eyes will want to close his eyes, perhaps savour the familiarity of the darkness. He sleeps little and yet for the past few days, he has found himself catching brief moments of stillness where he doesn’t dream, doesn’t think. He knows why, of course. The man always knows why.

But for now, he’ll pretend ignorance; the haunted feel no true peace from ricocheting terrors and each moment of silence is stolen to only be taken back.

So, he’ll push back the covers and sit on the edge of the bed, eyes fixated on the ground and pale hands gripping his knees.

He’ll wait and he’ll listen.

And then ten minutes before the hour of the dawn, his head will snap up, like a habit he can’t seem to undo, toward the faint halo of light glowing in a tent across from the one he sits in. He will watch a small shadow stumble out of the bed, one slender hand running through a considerable width of curls and the other reaching for a cup.

Fool, he'll think. You're a fool.

But he’ll wait anyway and he'll hold his breath.

He’ll watch for a minute. Always just for a minute.

And then he’ll look away and get up to start the day.

___________________________________

“Three books by three different authors.”

Hermione digs into the great expanse of her bag, her hand knocking into odd objects before grappling with thin air. She rotates her hand and pats the corner where she keeps her books. She takes one book out and places it into Tony’s awaiting hand and goes back for two more.

Tony eyes the spine of the books and shakes his head in disbelief when he notes the different author names.

“To be fair, that was a little too easy,” Hermione smiles faintly. She puts the books back, making sure to shelve them accordingly inside her bag, and waits for the next instructions.

Tony purses his lips. “A green object, something you can use to kill someone or something with—not your wand, of course—and...a photo without you in it.”

Hermione pauses to contemplate and then goes back to her bag. She takes out a small bag of green seeds she bought from Jemma el-Fna that require a single drop of water to grow into an apple tree the size of her forearm. She digs around for a pen, places it into Tony’s confused hand, and then hesitates.

She has a looped photo of her friends at the Red Shot she’d taken—Ron, Harry, and Ginny sitting on bar stools, smiling with raised goblets of Firewhiskey, after what felt like a century of Hermione’s convincing to get a photo. It’s at least three years old and from a time when all of them had gathered around after Ginny’s successful quidditch game. But she worries that while Tony might not recognize her, he’d recognize Harry and it’s a conversation she doesn’t want to have.

The other photo she has is of her parents at their friend’s birthday party. They’re sitting on a worn-down brown leather couch, her father’s arm wound tightly around her mother’s shoulders and her mother’s legs hung lazily over his thighs. Her father is wearing a birthday hat, angled slightly to the left. They’re both laughing at a joke someone made off-camera, a rosy flush on their cheeks, undoubtedly a result of the drinks in their hands. They look so incredibly young, despite Hermione being thirteen years old at the time.

She stole the photo from the top of the fireplace mantle when she saw them last. It’s her favourite photo of them simply because she was never in it, and so, there’s no ghostly gap in the photo of where she once was.

She looks down at the photo now and brushes her thumb against the smooth, plastic film over her mother’s smiling face. Her throat constricts and pressure builds against the back of her eyes. She doesn’t know why she even keeps it with her when she rarely takes it out to look at it.

She immediately hands it over to Tony. Thankfully, he’s still caught on the pen to notice any change in her behaviour or ask any questions about the photo.

He lifts the pen and looks at her incredulously. “You mean to kill someone with this?”

Hermione clears her throat, her voice uneven. “It’s a pen. A Muggle writing tool like a quill.”

He stares at it. “But how will you kill?”

She shrugs. “A stab to the eye maybe— and then use it to carve the eyeball out of the socket or you can edge it upwards into the brain parenchyma with enough muscle power. Or perhaps a quick jab into the throat, right here,” she gestures to the side of her neck. “A cut to the jugular vein will cause some damage, or you can knick an artery for some heavy loss of blood. Any of those really should be sufficient.”

Hermione takes the pen back. “But, that should be unnecessary because…” she clicks the side of the pen and a thin blade the size of her thumbnail juts out from the other end. “It’s also a knife.”

“I...I don’t know what to say,” Tony gapes, eyes drifting from the pen, up to her face, and then back to the pen. He touches the sharp edge gingerly. “You’re quite unusual, Hermione.”

She laughs, something light replacing the tightness in her stomach. “I’ve heard that before. I hope it’s the good kind of unusual this time.”

Tony gives her a toothy grin and it's addictive enough that she returns it. “When is it ever not? I’ll have to keep you close, I’m afraid. You’ve revealed your hand and this bag might just save my life in the future.” He looks past her shoulder. “Do you think Mr. Malfoy knows what this pen does? I should probably get one of these for myself, in case he decides to get some frenzied ideas and turns his current glaring competition into something more violent.”

Hermione stops smiling. “Has he...has he been watching?”

“I suppose that’s what you would call it.” Tony turns his eyes toward her. “I’d call it his plotting look. I suspect he’s thinking of all the ways he could make my body disappear and make it untraceable to the rest of mankind for the rest of eternity.”

She’s well acquainted with the Look, having often found Harry—and now herself—at the end of it. She calls it his Slytherin Look. She dubbed it back in Hogwarts whenever she’d spot him zone out or whisper conspiratorially with Crabbe or Goyle. She’s of the mind that scheming and coming up with various displays of cunning is a secret curriculum set just for the Slytherin lot. It's also likely that some of Harry's paranoia rubbed off on her and she spends too much time trying to decipher Malfoy's every look.

“Ah yes, I know that face.” She tries to relax but now that she knows Malfoy’s watching, she can’t seem to let go of the tension wiring her nerve ends. She rubs the back of her neck to remove some of the prickly feelings. “I wouldn’t take it personally, though. Most likely he didn’t get his full twelve-hour sleep last night or maybe he took his tea with one sugar rather than his usual four and now his day is decidedly ruined. But he’s harmless, really. Think of him as a small, fluffy animal trying to step up to a...lion or dragon.”

“A fluffy animal?”

“Like a ferret.”

Tony frowns. “I’m sorry?”

“Or a cranky, old man threatening to run after children down the street with his cane when they laugh too loud or disturb his second nap of the day, only for him to then give up halfway because of his brittle bones and eventually return home to eat fruitcake.”

Tony gives an affronted gasp. “Not fruitcake!”

Hermione nods solemnly. “The kind without any alcohol. And lots and lots of raisins.”

Some sort of horrified understanding passes over his face, but then he glances over her shoulder again and it takes all the willpower for her not to turn around as well. “I don’t know. It’s a little unnerving, isn’t it? The way he looks at everyone? Like he wants to either eat you whole or destroy you completely.”

Hermione just hums in agreement, unsure of the difference between the two whenever he’s looked at her. She tucks her knees closer to her chest and wraps her arms around them.

“Does he ever smile?” Tony muses, popping one of the green seeds into his mouth.

“Allegedly.” Hermione doesn’t tell him about seeing him laugh. Weirdly enough, though she knows others might have heard him, it feels like a secret she wants to keep only to herself. She gives Tony the pen and trades it for her bag of seeds, quickly calculating how many seeds are left. “But perhaps you should keep this pen anyway, just in case.”

“Why do you think he’s here?” Tony asks, pocketing the pen and stretching out his leg in front of him. “I asked Amina and I don’t think she really knows either. It’s rather strange to see him just sit in a corner and not do much. And still, somehow find a way to have all the ladies hovering around him.”

He grumbles the last part under his breath and Hermione furrows her brows, trying to decipher if he’s talking about her. She doesn’t hover, that much is sure. Malfoy would hardly let her close enough to even do so.

“I suppose he’s here for the same reason as everyone else.”

“And what’s that?”

“To search for something.”

Tony looks unconvinced, sparing a final look at Malfoy. She wants to ask if he’s still watching, but realizes it doesn’t matter and would probably just invite more questions from Tony.

Tony perks up suddenly, Malfoy and his brooding all but forgotten. “Speaking of fruitcake, have I told you about the time I stumbled across a mad chimaera in Mykonos?”

Hermione shakes her head and lets Tony fall into the depths of his story. She finds herself laughing occasionally and the third time she does, she hears the loud slam of a closed book. The rough push backwards of a chair.

Tony stops talking and Hermione looks over her shoulder only to see Malfoy already walking away.

___________________________________

Hermione folds her arms against the opened car window sill and lowers her chin. She closes her eyes and lets the afternoon warm wind blow her curls away from her face. She hears distant chatter outside the car, a bird chirping further away in a tree, the static buzz of a cricket near the car.

The crew has stopped for a shortstop and the only ones in the car now are Malfoy and Hermione. They haven’t said a single word to each other since they left that morning. If she hadn’t become so comfortable with the silence, she would have thought that he was purposely ignoring her. Or, at least trying to ignore as much as one could in a confined car.

A bead of sweat creeps from the crook of her ear and down her neck. The heat is especially sweltering despite how close they are to the ocean. It makes her slightly dazed and sleepy.

“It’s hot today,” she murmurs softly, turning her head to the side to rest against her forearm. The sun hits her face directly this way and she sees splotchy red spots behind her eyes.

Malfoy doesn’t reply.

She could use her basic cooling charms and she’s pretty certain that Malfoy has figured out a looped cooling charm for himself. It’s the only explanation for why she hasn't seen him sweat yet. The only time she’s seen him feel any sort of distress under the heat waves is when he absently rolls up the sleeves of his shirt before stopping abruptly and rolling them back down. He only wears long sleeves and she suspects it’s the same reason as to why she does the same.

The long sleeves, combined with her heavy, thick hair that never stays tied up or away from her face, result in a stifling mess. But she prefers the heat—looks forward to it even, despite the constant fever in her own body. The burn of the sun against her body, the searing heat crawling in her blood are the only tangible feelings that convince her that things are happening in and around her and she’s still a part of it all.

She opens her eyes and extends a lazy hand out, catching the buttery rays of the sun across her palm. A white dragonfly hovers near her nose before pausing near Malfoy’s window and then fluttering away.

She slides her eyes toward his window and realizes he’s reading a book. His arm is leaning against his window sill, the book balancing in his right hand and forearm. She squints her eyes and tilts her head to read the title through the side mirror.

The Adventures of Trinity Towers and the Petite Pauper by Joanna Jolesticks.

Surprised to see something other than his journal in his hands, she adjusts herself so that her hand lifts her head. “You’re reading a book.”

Malfoy flips a page but doesn’t look up. “Do you require my compliments of your juvenile competency of perception today, Granger? Because if you’re looking for praise to relieve a certain edge-”

“No, Malfoy,” she cuts him off sharply. “It’s best I don’t ask that of you, lest you get a brain aneurysm of saying anything remotely kind again.”

“I would have thought you’d like to see me suffer.” His voice is absent as if he’s still entrenched in the book and only humouring her with a conversation.

“Unfortunately, it would be most unseemly of me to let our benefactor die on a trip that he’s funded,” Hermione retorts. “So please delay any suffering until we’ve finished the trip. And if you can, amidst all the dying and all, ensure that I can see it too.”

He hums in response, still not looking up.

She picks at the corner of her bottom lip and watches him. A faint line appears between his brows as his eyes rove frantically across the page he’s reading. She wonders which part he’s reached in the book.

A minute, then two, of silence passes and she twists in her seat, her arm numbing under the weight of her head. She leans forward slightly to read a sentence or note the page number to figure out if the little tells of his face mean he’s reached the juicy bits in the book.

When she starts to tap her fingers against the top of the car, Malfoy exhales loudly. He closes the book with a loud thump and lifts his eyes to her in the side mirror with an expression that says: go on, then.

She sniffs, half-tempted to leave him hanging as a way to make a point, but feeling the desperate need to talk to someone about something that she enjoys. She’s always found it difficult to find someone who shares a mutual or remote interest in the same things as her. But it’s Malfoy and giving him anything vulnerable means being at risk of an insult or scorn.

She sits uncomfortably, trying to weigh all the consequences and his face shifts into boredom.

“It’s one of my favourite books,” she starts when he makes his way back to his book. And it's as though a dam has broken because she can’t stop the words from flooding out. “The author has another book in the same adventure series called Kyla Kingston and the Colossal Centaur. I’m not sure if you’re there yet in this book—it’s not a spoiler anyway, so don’t worry— but Trinity’s father’s cousin’s aunt is Kyla. So Joanna does this brilliant thing where Kyla is referenced briefly near the end of the book you’re at right now, and that same mention is continued onto the next book. The twist at the end is also incredibly mad.”

He waits for a moment when she finishes, expecting her to start up again. When she gives no show of doing so, he simply shrugs. “I’ve read the book before. I thought it was predictable.”

She gapes. “Predictable? Please! You can’t sit there and honestly tell me you knew all along that the constable she meets at the beginning of the book is the one who orchestrated the death of the nurse.”

His eyes flash. “They were stuck on a f*cking island, Granger. That narrows the entire set of characters to who could have done it anyway. In every chapter, the constable was mentioned at least once. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it was him.”

“I didn’t figure it out.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“I don’t think you believe that,” she scowls, ignoring his last comment. “I think you’re purposely being a contrarian because it gives you some kind of thrill to think that you’re of a singular thought.”

“We’ve already established that you're the one with that flaw, Granger. I’m not surprised that you’re getting annoyed by a different perspective than yours,” he says wryly and leans his head against the back of his seat. Strands of hair flutter into his eyes like a gust of air against a stack of cards and he jerks his head reflexively to clear them. “Seems very in tune with your inability to be flexible—”

She scoffs. “I can be flexible, Malfoy. I have tonnes of practice in flexibility. In fact, you’ll find that I’m very accommodating and can open myself up to a variety of opportunities.”

“Would you say, you’d bend backward at the chance to be flexible?”

Hermione glares at him. “If you have such low opinions about the book, why bother to read it again?”

He shifts in his seat and then shrugs again. “Maybe I’m a masoch*st. After all, I have been subjecting myself to your company on these car rides—”

“Don’t even start to pretend you’re being forced to sit here.” She narrows her eyes accusingly at him. “You’re quite replaceable with Tony, you know. We have wonderful and enlightening conversations. You can easily leave in case you’d like a change of perspective.”

His face immediately twists into a frown.

“She truly is one of my favourite authors,” Hermione sighs. “She’s even releasing the third in the chronicles near Christmas time.”

He gives her a dry look and then turns to his book once more. “Good to know, Granger. I’ll make sure to write it down on my Christmas list for you. Any other requests while we’re at it? September 19 isn’t too far, should I get a birthday gift too?”

“What?”

He slows his voice. “I asked, should I—”

“I know...I know what you said.” She sits up to move into the car. She searches the back of his seat as if she can see the answers there. “I’m just surprised you know when my birthday is.”

Hermione can physically feel whatever’s left of Malfoy’s brain churning.

“It’s hard not to,” he says at last. She notices the annoyance he tries and fails to add to his voice. “I’m sure the whole world knows when your birthday is, especially after the fireworks stunt they did two years ago for you.”

Hermione grimaces at the memory. “Not one of my fondest birthdays, that’s for sure.”

“Don’t tell me, Gryffindor's Golden Girl doesn’t like fireworks.”

“I don’t,” she admits reluctantly. She goes back to looking out the window, her eyes bouncing around over everyone but not seeing anything. “I also particularly don’t like the theatrics of everything. Is it hard to believe that I’d prefer not to have the entire country’s attention for every little thing I do?”

There’s a pause.

His voice is quiet. “No, it’s not.”

“We don’t ask for them, you know,” Hermione continues, picking at a loose thread in her shirt. She pulls and it unravels, ruching the fabric. She’s unsure why she feels the need to explain herself and her friends. Maybe because it’s just one other person in front of her and she finally has the chance to explain herself to someone about how outrageous the whole thing is, even if it’s just Malfoy and his thoughts on the whole thing are unlikely to change. “The fireworks, the constant Prophet coverage, and the stupid celebrations of every little thing in our lives. I know...I know I might sound ungrateful to you, but the truth is we never asked for it and we never purposely did anything for it. I practically travelled across the ocean just to avoid it all.”

Malfoy doesn’t respond. And although she’s not expecting sympathy from him, she waits for him to say something, anything to acknowledge what she’s sharing. Outside, Amina and Leena are laughing. Tony leans forward and jokes about something and they burst into laughter once more.

“Why did you come?” she asks abruptly, remembering Tony’s question from before. She drags her gaze to the side mirror but Malfoy’s eyes are fixated on the windshield before him. “On this trip, I mean.”

“Why did you?” he counters.

She pauses to consider her answer. “I wanted something more.”

“Something more than all the glory of being one of the Golden Trio? Just what was missing from your life back home?”

There’s something below his words, something harsh and tense, that she can’t figure out. Anger? Envy?

“Magic,” she replies instantly and flushes at how childish it sounds. She looks back down at her hands cradled in her lap. The skin around her thumb is effectively peeled away from her worrying. She’s given up on healing the wounds and squeezes a corner until a tiny bead of red pokes out.

“But not in the sense of the magic we have in our lives...but rather the feeling I got when I first saw magic. You probably won’t understand because magic has been there from the day you were born, but when I first saw McGonagall wave her wand in front of my parents—” her voice cracks and she prays Malfoy isn’t actually paying attention because at this point she can’t stop her rambling even if he used Silencio on her, “—I was stunned. But it also just made sense, you know? Like I’d been living my entire life with a missing limb and she didn’t give me a new arm or a leg, but a completely different way of being. An answer to the millions of questions I had on what I needed to do next.

When she showed me with just the wave of her wand, I could physically see all the possibilities for me to be something more, yet so undeniably me. That’s the magic I’ve been looking for. And maybe I could turn to my books again for that feeling like I’ve always been doing but I just felt maybe this time I'd see it again and understand what I’m supposed to be doing now in my life.”

Mortifying silence envelopes the car and Hermione wishes she could just explode into a thousand dust particles and then a hurricane would come and blow her into oblivion and disintegrate all memory of this moment from Malfoy’s head.

She can’t believe she’s just admitted all that to Malfoy. He must be completely laughing in his head at her apparent quarter-life crisis. Who leaves their job and a steady normal life to look for a feeling?

It’s strange and she can’t wrap her mind around why she did it. Hermione hated talking about herself with anyone back home and she expected the same aversion to sharing anything with Malfoy. And yet she opened up to him with enough intensity that suggests that perhaps she was waiting for not the right person, just the right time to speak.

Hermione squeezes her eyes shut and tries to will herself into nonexistence because she really won’t be able to bear a snarky comment from Malfoy on something so delicate. She should leave now, jump off a cliff somewhere, hide in the trunk of another car—

“I didn’t think you’d come,” he says suddenly. The words are rushed as if he tried to get them all out before he could think twice.

Her eyes shoot open. “What?”

“You asked me before about the list.” There’s hesitance in his pause—unsure if he should continue. But then he exhales, his shoulder falling in resignation. “When I first saw your name on the list, I didn’t think you’d come.”

“Why?”

He shrugs, barely a motion but she catches it. “I thought maybe you’d stay for—I’d assumed you wouldn’t want to disrupt the...celebrations and the routine that came with the day.”

“I didn’t think I’d come either, to be honest. Something happened—or rather there was someone—” She shakes her head, deciding not to go down that road. “I just thought maybe I should stay behind. There were enough reasons for me to do so.”

“What changed?”

“A lot of things. I didn’t know if coming here was the right thing to do. But I’ve always had this thing someone once told me in the back of my head. It gets louder whenever I’m scared or unsure what I should do next.” Hermione stops then because this next thing is worth more than anything she’s told him before. She inhales sharply. “She told me once that when you’re afraid, you take the second step. Because if you take the second step, you know then that you can survive anything. So that's what I did. I took the step and came here.”

“Who said that?”

She tries to coax the word into indifference but her voice cracks anyway. “My mum.”

He flicks his eyes at her before looking away.

There's another pause. This once decidedly less mortifying as he considers her reply. Relief seeps into the cracks in her chest.

Hermione scoots closer to the window and leans her head against her hand once more, trying to catch his eye again.

She repeats, softer and quieter than before as if approaching a skittish fawn. “Why did you come?”

The mask is on but the distant look in his eyes makes it seem as though he’s thinking about something. Enough seconds pass that she’s convinced that their allocated conversation for the day has been fulfilled.

But then he meets her eyes in the mirror and they’re empty, hollowed out just like the rest of him. “I didn’t want to see any of them anymore. Didn't want to be there for it.”

She’s walking along the edge of a line between her and Malfoy and she knows she’s about to waver a little too close to crossing it. They don’t talk about personal and vulnerable things and she knows that if she pushes too fast, too close, he’ll shut her off entirely like before.

But she can’t help but prod a little more. She knows nothing about Malfoy and this back-and-forth that they have with the little games means nothing in the grand scheme of things. A facade of a brief truce. She needs something substantial that she can hold onto that proves that they’re moving forward toward something that might resemble amiability or tolerance of one another.

“Then why the parties?” She tries not to waver away from his piercing gaze. “The amount of attention and gossip that circulates around your name every weekend—you can’t escape the public if all you do is entertain it.”

Something flashes across his eyes and she holds her breath, waiting for him to break her down with something harsh and cruel. But it lasts for less than a moment and she thinks she might have imagined it.

“They’re a distraction,” he replies carefully. “I’m never there and the whole thing is left to Pansy or Blaise. It started off as a way for everyone to distract themselves, a place where other...other people like us can come and forget. But over time it’s become this huge, uncontrolled thing. It’s too late to stop it now.”

“It makes sense.” Her words are equally deliberate and slow. “If they’re talking about the parties, then they’re not talking to you or about you specifically.”

She understands the extremes Malfoy takes just to avoid the constant pecking and prodding into his personal life. Wishes she had a similar outlet— an entirely separate and fictional life, through which she could distract everyone from her real one. The media coverage of his parties, as flamboyant and exaggerated as it may be, allows him to live his life away from the spotlight in whatever way he wants.

He stares at her, a strange look passing over his face that she doesn’t understand. She feels the path his gaze takes from her eyes down to her lips and then back to her eyes again. Jumping from one point to another at an excruciatingly slow pace. When she tries to push away her curls from her face and to the back of her ears, his eyes snag at the movement then too.

She’s not sure what he's looking for or what he’s trying to see in her but there seems to be something he’s trying to figure out in his mind. Some sort of answer to a question that supposedly lies in her face.

“You’ve got the whole brooding, extremely rich man with enough money to spare down perfectly,” she says lightly, trying to dissipate some of the tension. “All you need now is a green light and you’re all set.”

Malfoy gives her a blank look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know...like in the book? For all of your deepest and darkest desires. The one eternal dream in your life that you will reach for, yet never attain.” Her mouth parts when his face doesn’t shift and she shakes her head. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

He lets out a short breath, streaked with amusem*nt. “Alright.”

Alright.

She looks away, biting the inside of her lips to stop herself from smiling.

She turns back to him. “Malfoy, I was wondering—”

“Merlin, save me.”

“How are you finding everything?” He raises a confused brow. She hastens to add the next few words, worried that if she doesn’t say it now while they’re still talking, she might not get another chance. “I mean, someone like you, who’s used to a certain...lifestyle. It must be difficult to get used to how...inconvenient everything is without magic.”

She cringes internally at her lack of tact.

He doesn’t answer right away but when he does his voice is low. Laced with ice and the air around her thickens. She knows instantly it was the wrong thing to say.

“So, what you’re saying is that because I’m a Malfoy I can only stand to be around a certain taste of luxury?”

“Well, no,” she clarifies. “It’s just that everything is very Muggle—”

He narrows his eyes. “And because I was once a Death Eater, I’m naturally disgusted by all things Muggle.”

She grimaces at the word he throws so casually at her. Malfoy stares with such intensity, that she has to swallow before continuing. “That’s not what I meant. You’re twisting my words.”

“Did you forget?” he spits, venom traced in every word. “Did you forget I was in Azkaban?”

She hadn’t. Couldn't ever forget.

Two years in Azkaban and five years of probation.

“I mean it’s pretty difficult to forget because you were there at my f*cking trial.” The disgust in his eyes is so familiar and jarring at the same time. “But I guess it can be easy to put it in the back of your mind when everyone is just rushing to kiss the ground you walk. It can be easy to dismiss everyone left behind, sure.”

Hermione is completely unravelling at the way their conversation is turning. This was not how she wanted to approach this topic. She stumbles to rectify her mistake. “Malfoy-”

“You’ll find Granger, that two years in Azkaban without any magic really puts things into perspective. And because you’ve been wondering, I don’t give a sh*t about being around Muggles or living a certain Muggle lifestyle. I did have that foresight when coming here.”

“I know you don’t think that, Malfoy. It came out all wrong and I don’t want you to think that I carry the same perception of everyone back home. I don’t judge you—”

He barks a humourless laugh. “Oh piss off, Granger. You expect me to believe that you’re no longer judging me? That you and your lot have forgotten everything and all of a sudden the slate is clean?”

She frowns at the tone and chooses her words carefully. “I never used to judge you without reason, Malfoy. And I think you could say there was a mutual judgement on both parts.”

He freezes entirely. All air is sucked out of the car.

She should stop now, stop talking altogether if she wants to protect whatever progress they’ve made so far. But her damn mouth can’t stop talking. So, she tries to reorient the conversation.

"All I’m saying is that it’s not fair what they say about you, Malfoy. You don’t deserve any of it—”

“What are you doing?”

His voice slices through the chatter from outside and blood chills. Goosebumps scatter across her body.

“I was just saying that I understand how you must feel and it's not right.”

“Stop. Just stop.”

“You can't just tell me to stop without hearing me out."

“What the f*ck, Granger?” he growls, frustration scratching his throat. “What, you think we can talk a little and that automatically gives you the permission you need to start making assumptions about me?”

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t apologize to me. Do not—I don’t need your f*cking apologies—”

“I know! I know. That’s not what I meant.”

He gets out of the car in one swift motion and she flinches when the door slams shut behind him. She watches him turn away from her, shoulders heaving, hands fisted. He runs a rough hand through his hair.

“I don’t know what’s happening." She follows him out, closing the door behind her gently. Her eyes sweep across the flatland but no one is looking their way. “I don’t understand how it got like this. Just let me try and explain—”

He whirls around to face her. She can see the physical turmoil on his face. His fists clench and unclench. His gaze drops to the ground before snapping towards her.

“Whatever you think you’re doing, don’t,” he says, voice deathly quiet. Hermione can’t look away from the pure rage on his face. “You don’t get to tell me what’s fair and what’s not fair in my life, Granger. It’s not up to you to determine what I deserve. You—you of all people don’t get to do that. Do you understand?”

She does not understand.

Because everything was fine and they were just talking.

And okay, this is how he acted when he felt vulnerable. He lashed out and she knew that already, had seen him to it several times before. But it doesn't make sense because everything was just fineand now it's not and she can't wrap her head around it all.

What she can understand, is the why behind how he’s acting because Malfoy, who arguably went through horrifying things during his time in Azkaban and has to still suffer through the constant public scrutiny of his past and current actions, reserves the right to be defensive and protective over any discourse around it.

But it’s also being blown out of proportion—which is frustrating for Hermione because they’re adults and should be able to work through a disagreement like professionals.

He'd been teasing her just yesterday and now he’s flipped completely and it’s frightening to think that none of it mattered to him while here she was, sharing things that were deeply rooted in her.

And maybe she's feeling a little stubborn because he won't take this away from her, demand things of her when he has no right over what she thinks of him. She's not going to let him pick and choose their interactions.

Hermione shakes her head and takes a step forward. Malfoy stiffens at the movement, warily eyeing the space between them. “Don’t push me away, Malfoy. Just because you’re afraid—”

“f*ck you.”

She glares, anger flushing her cheeks red. “Is that all you’ve got? f*ck you and piss off? They're just words and if you'd remember, you'll know that I've dealt with a lot worse things said to me. You’re not going to just shove me aside because that’s too easy. ”

She waits for him to say something back. Braces herself.

Instead, he stares at her for a moment and then closes the gap between them. He looks down at her and she lifts her chin and meets his eyes evenly.

She tries not to shiver. Give anything away about the chill she’s feeling being this close to him.

He nods absently once, then twice. Comes to a definite conclusion in his head. He runs his tongue against the front of his teeth and then smirks as if he can see right through her. “I pity you.”

Her heart sinks.

“You must be so desperate to be accepted,” he murmurs, eyes rapidly shifting between hers. “So desperate to be liked that you’ll let anyone say anything to you. Do you truly have no self-worth? Are you so pathetic that you’ll justify and defend any perverse and depraved thing someone will say to you?”

Hermione swallows the hard lump in her throat but doesn’t look away.

“I don’t f*cking care what you think,” he continues, tipping his head lower. His breath flutters against her lips. “I don’t care if you’ve read some books and think you’ve got me all figured out. Did you think that if you shared your feelings with me it'd change everything between us? That you could tell me about how sad you are about your life and I’d care? Or tell me stories about your mother—”

“Don't.”

He must have heard something in her voice because he listens.

She sees red, the blood in her ears thumping loudly enough that all she can hear is a drum beating in her head. Maybe she is pathetic because he could have said anything more and she wouldn’t have flinched. But her mother—

“You went too far,” she whispers, blinking furiously to stop the tears that are threatening to flow. She’s stripped bare and she won’t give him this one more thing.

Malfoy’s eyes jump across the face and for a second he pauses, his face falling when she looks away completely.

“Just stay away from me,” he rasps and takes a step back. He opens his mouth as if to say something more, but changes his mind, and turns around. He falters briefly before stalking past Tony and going directly to Amina.

Hermione watches as they talk, her hands trembling so hard she has to clench them in a fist.

She's standing outside and yet there's no air entering her lungs. Her ribs are collapsing and she tries to just breathebut her mouth refuses to open and she can't do anything but stare at Malfoy's back.

In. Out.

In and out, Hermione.

The trees around her start to blur and her throat closes and there's just no air and she could collapse right here and right now and a gust of wind could blow her away and it wouldn't matter because her body still wouldn't listen to her and she'd die of suffocation.

Amina nods slowly at something Malfoy says and glances at Hermione confused.

Then, without looking back, he storms away and gets into another car.

His car door slams shut and Hermione jolts at the sound.

She turns around and inhales sharply.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

For the large sum of my life, I have faced resistance and choices and decisions made for me. I have willingly accepted them, choosing instead to place my secrets, desires, and wishes into this small box that I call my heart. For the truth, that I harbour in the darkness, is who can I tell? Who do I turn to? How do I say that what I seek, above all, above all that this world and its people can offer, is noor?

Noor, noor, noor.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

“What’s the name of this boy who’s made you cry, again?”

“Draco Malfoy,” Hermione sniffed.

Her mother frowned. “I thought his name was Ron.”

“No, that was the other time.”

“I see,” her mother said quietly.

Hermione shook her head in frustration. “I just don’t understand why he said such hurtful things. I didn’t even do anything to him, Mum.”

“Sometimes,” Her mother reached over and wiped the tears on Hermione’s cheek with her thumb, “When someone is hurt, they hurt others. If they don’t know love, they can’t share it with others.”

“I don’t understand.”

Her mother paused. “Do you know how much your Dad and I love you?”

Hermione nodded, a tear streaking down her cheek.

“Do you love us?”

Hermione nodded again.

“Does anyone love Draco?”

Hermione scowled. “He has a mum and dad too.”

“But that doesn’t mean he’s loved, Hermione.”

Hermione tried to think but if she was honest, other than what he said to her or Harry and Ron, she hardly ever thought about him. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“And doesn’t that just break your heart?” her mother said gently, cupping Hermione's face in the softness of her palms. “What could be worse than not knowing if you’re loved?”

Hermione blinks into the darkness.

Her body is anchored to her bed and she can’t seem to move her limbs. Every fibre of her skin is filled with lead and her chest burns as if she’s been holding her breath for hours underwater.

Her eyes have adjusted in the time she’s woken up from her dream and she watches the swirls of the trees dance across the fabric of her tent.

Dawn is somewhere on the horizon and she should probably get up and start her day since she’s already awake, but she just can’t move. There are too many thoughts in her head and too little energy to make sense of them all.

You don’t have to love him, her mother said. But can you be kind?

Hermione had been so young then, but she nodded. She'd do anything her mother asked, even if she hadn’t been able to understand why she had to be kind just to receive kindness in return. Didn’t know why it was Malfoy who was lacking goodness in his life when she was the one who was hurt by him. It made no sense to Hermione why she had to be the one who had to try.

During Hogwarts and the war, it always felt as though she was constantly tripping and falling, frantically picking up pieces thrown into the ring when all she wanted to do was come out on the other side of the door with her friends by her side. She didn’t even have to be happy at the end, she'd decided— if her friends were alive, if Harry was there with her at the end, it was enough of an incentive to try as hard as she had.

What had Malfoy lost during those years? Why was Malfoy deserving of kindness—of love?

And what had hurt him so much that hurting others was more reflexive than opening himself to the kindness that she had tried to give him now?

It hadn’t been easy for her to do so. To give him something of herself when she knew he could easily use it to turn it against her.

And she didn’t want to hear that regardless of them being a world away from all the things that could have normally held them down, the expectations of how they were supposed to act around each other, he still didn’t want anything to do with her. There was a possibility that it had nothing to do with what happened before and everything to do with who she was as a person.

Hermione frowns. She doesn’t want to think about him.

So, she thinks about John and wonders if he misses her. She hasn’t thought of him much during this trip and suddenly the guilt is there, eating away at her ribs. But, she reasons, if she’s thinking about him now that has to mean she’s missing him. Right?

It doesn’t help anyway and the guilt only worsens, so she starts to think about the little inscriptions and scrawls she’s seen in Safia’s diary and wonders if they mean anything. Haphazardly written in the corners of the pages or at the end of certain entries, the writing looks like Arabic, but it’s not in a recognizable script and can’t be compared to the language. She’s already shown it around to others who might recognize it and hasn’t gotten any conclusion of what they might mean from anyone. Amina had just assumed the writing was just a part of Safia doodling and writing out her thoughts. But Hermione can’t help but wonder why no one has inquired about the scripts before and it chillingly reminds her of Snape and his book. She’s back to wishing she had a library or a bookstore, or someone she could bounce off her thoughts about the diary.

There is still one person she has yet to ask of course, but now she’s thinking about him again, so Hermione quickly reorients herself and thinks about Harry and wonders how he’s doing. She hopes he’s not angry about her leaving without saying anything and that he’s gotten his appetite again.

But the truth is, she's not really thinking about anything except using it to disassociate from the one thing her mind really wants to revolve around. So nothing really registers and she’s left with a sunken feeling after all of it.

God, she’s just so tired.

She’s tired to her marrow. Feels the ache of exhaustion in the brittle synapses in her body. Hermione lets out a shaky breath and with great strength turns to her side, clutching her blanket close to her chest.

Can you be kind recklessly, my love?

She squeezes her eyes shut, wincing at the pain that comes with the deep pressure building up behind her eyes.

“I tried, Mum,” she whispers as fatigue pulls her back into sleep. “I really did.”

___________________________________

They arrive in Sahrit at nightfall.

A fluorescent silver crescent peeks out of dusty dark clouds as the cars amble through an unpaved rocky pathway, guiding them between looming mountains.

A cool mountain breeze welcomes them to the small house situated between towering trees where they’ll be staying.

Hermione follows the rest of the crew out of the car, stretching her arms above her head as she turns around where she’s standing. She’s grateful that they’ll briefly be staying at a proper lodge after the days they’ve spent in tents and in cars. While not necessarily tired of seeing the same people every day, she's looking forward to walking through a town with shops and a new set of faces belonging to unbothered people carrying out their daily lives.

Further away between the trees, there’s a deep rumbling and crashing.

Hermione turns toward the sound.

“It’s the ocean,” Amina says, coming up behind her. She points in a direction north of the cottage. “Past the trees, there’s a cliff that outlooks onto a beach. Best to steer away from there since it’s not fenced off. If you want to get down to the beach, it’s less than a five-minute walk down a boardwalk to the east here.”

“Does it always get this loud?”

“Not usually. There’s a storm coming, I think, which makes the ocean a little louder than normal.” Amina searches her face and gently touches Hermione’s elbow. “Hey, is everything alright?”

Hermione’s sure that Amina must have figured out something was off with her and Malfoy, especially since they weren’t travelling together anymore. If the others noticed as well, they haven’t said anything. Either way, she’s determined not to spread her low mood around or give Amina another reason to make Malfoy go home.

“Yes, of course." Hermione smiles, turning towards her car to levitate the luggage off. "Just tired, that’s all.”

Hermione glances to her right when the headlights of a car reflect off of a head of white hair before it disappears inside the cottage.

She swallows thickly. “Are we all staying inside?”

“There are three rooms upstairs each with their own small washroom, plus the sitting room with two sofa beds. The rest of us can stay in tents outside.”

“I can stay outside,” she offers, forcing her gaze away from where Malfoy disappeared inside and to Amina.

“Tony and some of the other men have already requested tents. They stay up late outside anyway, so it works for them,” Amina explains. “Leena’s legs have been hurting from the long rides and wants to stay on the main floor so that she doesn’t have to climb the stairs. I offered to stay with her in the living room since she gets a little scared by herself. So, a room upstairs is yours, if you're up for it.”

Upstairs with Malfoy, it seems.

Hermione nods slowly and follows Amina into the cottage, luggage hovering close behind her head.

“It belonged to my great-aunt,” Amina says, leading her in. “She was Muggle-born from Vancouver, Canada. She lived near the coast, so when she married into my family she had a cottage set up near the ocean.”

They pass a small, white kitchen that’s separated by a blue-tiled wall from the sitting room.

Hermione peers inside, noticing right away what’s off about the cottage.

“Apparently she could never let go of some of her Muggle habits,” Amina flips the switch and the kitchen lights up bright to show a stovetop. “She liked to cook by hand and every summer when my family came to visit, she’d make me and my cousins help her with the vegetables by making us use the knives without any magic. You can imagine all the trouble that caused us.”

Hermione smiles and follows Amina back out. She also has a habit of sometimes falling into a Muggle routine—unconsciously washing dishes or making dinner by hand. Her home is filled with little Muggle trinkets and tools that she just couldn’t let go of, despite John’s dismay. He didn’t understand her need to hold onto that part of her life when she was so deep into the magical society, often saying it was regressive of her to do so. She didn’t know how to explain that brushing her teeth with toothpaste or writing out a manuscript with a pen was how she kept the memories alive.

Amina leads her past the sitting room which opens directly up to a set of wooden stairs. Each step creaks heavily under their weight.

“Are you going to sleep okay with all the noise the staircase will cause?” Hermione asks. She gingerly walks up the steps, afraid the sound will summon someone she doesn't want to particularly see tonight.

“It won’t be a problem. I used to sleep on the floor with my sister and my cousins and the entire room was warded off because we’d make so much noise.”

Upstairs, a dark hallway is lit by a single dimmed light in the middle of the ceiling.

“Dinner will be sent to your room as soon as everyone’s settled down.” Amina points Hermione to the second room near the stairs. “That one is yours. Let me know if you need anything, alright? I should be up for another hour or so.”

Her luggage falls silently beside her and Hermione watches as Amina goes back down. She’s about to open the door to the bedroom when another knob turning at the end of the hallway stops her.

She holds her breath when a familiar blond comes out of the room, ducking his head under the entrance so as not to hit the top.

As if sensing her standing there, Malfoy pauses outside his room. Head bent low, one hand firmly clenching the doorknob.

There’s a moment of tension where it looks like he might go back inside, but instead, he turns his head slowly towards her and the flash of silver in the darkness makes her still.

It was a knee-jerk response to want to go up to him after the fight. To try and figure out how to just fix everything. To apologize first because that’s what she did—she patched things up, sewed the rips back together, glued the cracks as if she was never hurt in the first place.

But he wasn’t John, nor was he Harry or one of her other friends. He'd made it clear she didn’t owe him the energy of ruminating over what she had done or how to make up for it.

And while she had initially sat in her frustration and stubbornness to not give in first, she can't deny there's an absence left behind.

But what’s lost? His silent company?

His conversations where he’s hot and cold?

Or his teasing where it feels as if he’s got the world’s greatest secret and only she can know?

Whatever it is that's missing, she doesn't know how to find it again.

But standing in this hallway, she realizes that indifference is nothing she hasn’t dealt with before. That letting go is easier when there is never anything tangible to hold onto.

So when he meets her eyes, and a strange look passes over his face—some sort of hesitance in the furrow of his brows, in the tension in his stiff shoulders— it’s Hermione who looks away first.

She ducks inside, back against the door and chest heavy.

She waits and listens for the footsteps, but they never come.

__________________________________

They get up early to go into town.

Hermione wakes up late and exhausted, having slept only three hours last night. Every creak of the stairs outside her door drove her insane until she took an additional sleeping draught and passed out. It was only the banging on her door, Amina calling to ask if she wanted to go into town with the rest of them, that had her springing back her blanket and rushing to get ready.

Outside the cottage, she tucks the letter she’d written last night to each of her friends back home— updating them on her progress and the happenings of the trip so far— into her beaded bag.

It’s a cool day, the mountains and trees providing the necessary shade against the blazing sun and it’s a pleasant change from the heat they’ve been having. In the daylight, she’s better able to appreciate the scenery and the ocean-scented air. The trees create long, winding shadows across the dusty ground, letting in glimpses of sunny rays through cracks between branches and leaves.

The ocean waves crashing against the rocks are quieter this morning—the songs of birds and insects taking over the slow slumber of the water.

A car starts for everyone who wants to head out and Hermione pauses at the door, peeking inside to see the driver and Amina in the front and Dana and Leena in the back. “Is this everyone?”

“Draco went earlier this morning with Idris and Tony,” Amina replies, pushing her sunglasses back against her hair. “But, other than that, it’s just us.”

Something heavy sinks into the pit of her stomach as she climbs in beside Leena. Leena reaches into her bag and pulls out an apple that she gratefully takes, thanking her.

It takes around twenty minutes to get into town and the path there is scattered with mountains and trees. Hermione feels the sudden urge to try to memorize every arched tree, knowing she won’t be seeing much of it when they get to the desert. She leans her head against the window, letting the sharp air whip against her skin and her hair away from her face.

The town’s main courtyard is walled off with rising, white stone and the car enters through a large white arch. They park close to the entrance and Hermione follows everyone else on foot into the gates and past the souq. The path is paved with cobblestones of various grey and brown shades, each stone shining with such lustre it’s as though someone scrubbed them clean just that morning.

This portion of the town reminds her of Hogsmeade during the holidays and she feels a burning pang in her chest. She passes a group of two young girls and a boy crowded around a pastry stall.

She’s instantly brought back to some of her fondest memories and the pure, unadulterated happiness she’d feel as she walked through the Hogsmeade village, armed with her friends. If she closes her eyes, she can smell the warm sugary tones of Butterbeer, hear Seamus say something funny that has the whole group laughing, feel the snowflakes dust across her nose during the first snowfall of the season.

The boy says something and the young girls burst into laughter.

Hermione looks away.

Specialty shops and restaurants line the sides of the path and she watches in awe as crowds clamber in and out of low-rising, white-stoned buildings. They pass a restaurant and live music, unlike any she’s ever heard of before, drifts through the opened doors and windows. Cymbals and drums mixed with string music echo through the air and Hermione’s tempted to go inside just to see who’s playing.

Each building has a wooden door painted in a similar dark green hue and wizards and witches gather around, some chatting, others hauling through the crowds with bags filled to the seams with fruits and vegetables. Little pots of water are placed at each door and it’s only when she sees slick and furry cats walk stealthily towards the pots that she realizes it is for the animals.

Leena tugs Hermione’s hand gently when she lags behind and she quickens her pace to catch up. They duck past another white stone arch into a narrow alley. The stoned pathway is replaced with pale red, white, and yellow tiles, designed in patterns resembling flowers. The doors in this alley are all painted in a darker, blue hue. They climb up a pair of concrete steps and Amina finally stops outside of what looks like a post office.

Hermione digs back into her bag and hands Amina her letters and waits outside, sitting on steps away from the bustle of the entrance. The stoned wall in front of her hangs a large, ornate rug in deep red and brown colours. A single wooden sign in what she recognizes as Arabic is at the entrance of a navy-painted door.

There’s a crash of dishes behind Hermione’s head and she jolts at the sound.

A ginger cat jumps down from a vase and lands beside her shoes.

The cat is smaller and a lot less furry than Crookshanks, but her eyes prick with tears anyway as she remembers the feline who’d passed away four years ago.

She runs her fingers through the cat’s fur, causing it to arch its back and straighten its tail. Her heart clenches in a fist and she has to physically put her other palm against her chest to find relief as the cat makes its way between Hermione’s legs before settling near her left foot.

Her nose itches and she bites the inside of her lips to prevent herself from crying. It’s not home that the cat reminds her of, but more of the feeling she used to have when she was around Crookshanks. She runs her fingers behind the cat’s ear and thinks how she never was truly alone when she’d come home to Crookshanks. But it’s the pain she feels being around this cat now that reminds her why she never got another, despite how lonely she feels most of the time. Sometimes the memories were too heavy, too devastating that they couldn't be replaced by newer ones.

She quickly sniffs and wipes the under of her eyes dry when she hears Amina’s voice coming out of the post office. With a final stroke of the cat, she makes her way towards them.

“All the letters should be in there.” Amina hands Hermione a light parcel. She peeks inside to see only a handful of envelopes.

For the second time that day, she feels a pit in her stomach as she takes out the letters and goes through the names. She hands two over to Leena and Amina, her heart thumping loudly with each passing letter not addressed to her. She doesn’t fail to notice there aren’t any with Malfoy on the front either.

For a second, she thinks that maybe everyone has forgotten about her back home, but then, with great relief, the last letter has her name scribbled in the front in Ginny’s recognizable scrawly handwriting. A surge of love for her friend floods her. Hermione hands over the rest to Amina.

They head back to the house and Hermione clutches the letter tightly in both of her hands, eagerly waiting to sit somewhere down calmly and comfortably before digging in.

Despite the rare times she sees her friends now and just how much everyone has changed, she utterly misses them and it’s a sort of yearning she feels in all the places in her body she’s kept them— her bones, her chest, the blood in her veins.

She makes it to the outside of the house before she claws to open the letter. She sits down by herself in one of the chairs near the tents outside, her heart beating with excitement. It’s just one letter and though it's just Ginny who's written to her, she finds herself looking into the envelope for letters from Harry and Ron.

Instead, she finds a parchment crisply folded into a square.

She reads the letter first.

It takes a while for her to read the messy words but her eyes, practiced from when Hermione used to edit Ginny’s Hogwarts essays, eventually are able to comprehend the letter’s contents.

It’s a brief letter, just one side of the parchment, but Ginny manages to inquire after Hermione and talk about her recent quidditch game and how everyone else is doing within the parchment’s bounds. She finishes the letter with her name and a strange "P.S. I just thought you should know."

Puzzled, Hermione carefully sets aside Ginny’s letter and opens the folded parchment.

Frozen in her seat, she stares at the cutout from The Daily Prophet.

There’s a looped black and white photo of John walking into Francesca and Canton, a private Italian restaurant he’d sometimes take Hermione to after a fight or if he needed a particular favour from her. Her eyes glaze over his walking figure and switch over to the woman with pale hair that he has his arm wrapped around. Above the photo, in bold, black letters, it states, “From Golden Girl to Golden Woman, John Archibald Is Living in A Golden World.”

She squints closely at the woman's back, looking for some clue to determine who she is. She can’t recognize the woman— doesn’t really know what it means for her to be a Golden Woman other than that maybe she has golden hair. Ginny only sent her the photo and not the associated article and Hermione knows why. She can just imagine all the obscene things Skeeter would have to say about the situation, about what it means for Hermione despite her not even being in the country. She should have known she wouldn't have been able to escape the tabloids. This should cover the gossip for the next week or so.

Hermione waits. Her mind is blank, the paper trembling slightly in her fingers. She tries to put her thoughts into something coherent and make sense of this entire ordeal.

She’s always treated her feelings and emotions as complicated arithmancy formulas— the only way she can make sense of something so intangible and abstract. She pulls them apart into simplest components, rearranges them into comparable subtypes, and then finally takes a step back to figure out the overarching feeling.

She decides that she’s not shocked.

She’d known they were taking a break when she’d left—John had told her exactly that. There wasn’t going to be anything left of them when she came back home. She’d left home with that thought in mind and was okay with the idea for a reason.

She needed the break from him and his press schedules. To do something for herself for once and at the time it’d meant leaving and then figuring out the consequences of taking a break from John when the time came. That’s how it's always been for Hermione: think about everything, focus on one task at a time, and then deal with the consequences as they come.

And because she’d left for herself, she’d expected John to be equally selfish during their time apart. They were taking a break and that meant there was a door left open for when she returned. Sure, she hadn’t expected him to move on to someone new when he’d mentioned just how busy he was with his schedules and press interviews, but she finds that she'll be okay with it if this is the route he wants to take.

She’s also not heartbroken and it takes her a bit longer to process why.

She’s never felt heartbreak over love and she suspects that because she doesn’t really know how it might feel considering the limited opportunities in her life for it to happen, she might be wrong right now. Even when she'd ended it with Ron, she hadn't felt the devastating feeling everyone claimed after a breakup.

However, she has felt her heartbreak over non-romantic love before. She felt heartbroken when she Obliviated her parents and had to walk away. Felt it when Harry met her and Ron one last time before heading to the Forest that night to see Voldemort. She felt the earth-shattering pain in her chest both of those times. But since she doesn’t feel any of it now, as she thought was supposed to happen, she concludes that perhaps she was never in love with John. And it's not a revelation, that's for sure. She'd been with John with the possibility that one day she'd fall in love with him.

So, why does she feel so empty?

The kind of emptiness that makes her heart feel completely hollow and she has to look down at her chest to see whether she’s been carved out. The kind that isn't really the absence of feeling, but more of heavy nothingness.

She suspects it’s because she’s lost something once again and she is just so sick and tired of losing things in her life. Tired of not feeling shocked by something that others might feel betrayed over because it meant this thing she spent months nurturing was never as precious or worthwhile as she thought it was. She might not have been in love with John, but she’s disappointed that she never got the chance to feel it at all.

What must it be that makes you like this?

She doesn't know. She’d be cold if she could. She’d removed the burden of feeling anything, just so she doesn’t have to feel everything. Especially when she’s breaking apart at the seams. Especially when it takes one article about her to completely unravel.

She’d do anything to give it all away. Be anyone else if she could.

And it’s this new sadness mixed with missing her friends and Crookshanks that causes the silent, hot tears to finally erupt and cascade down her cheeks. Her hands shake and she palms her face with both of her hands to stop them from doing so.

She tries to breathe, but it comes out choppy and choked and she finds herself gasping for air.

It’s only when the front door opens and she hears Tony’s booming laugh that she jolts straight, rapidly wiping her cheeks. She hurries when his voice resounds around her and she mumbles an excuse as she pushes past Tony. She tilts her head low, hoping no one can see her tear-streaked, flushed face.

She rushes up the creaking stairs only to bump into something solid at the top. She thinks maybe it’s the wall, stumbling one step down and barely catching herself with the railing. But then she hears a familiar, rough voice and thinks the day can’t get any worse.

“What the hell, Granger?” Malfoy grunts, flattening himself against the wall, as if to get away as far as possible from her.

She ducks her head even lower, letting the hair cover her face and mumbles an apology. It comes out nasally and muffled, sounding exactly like someone who’s been crying, and she can’t think of another way of humiliating herself in front of Malfoy.

She feels him turn around behind her as she goes into her room.

“Granger—”

Hermione shuts the door.

She scrubs her face, nails clawing at the sensitive skin around her eyes. She reaches into the drawer beside her bed and takes out the sleeping draught.

One sip. Then two. Then three.

She lays back on the bed, her legs dangling off the side so that her shoes touch the wood-panelled floor. Waits for the potion to work.

She picks at the cut around her thumb, her eyes fixated on the ceiling. The corners of her vision start to blur. Faint pain around her skin causes a quiet hiss to escape her lips but her eyes are already too heavy for her to do anything about it.

She falls asleep to the sound of the stairs creaking outside her door.

___________________________________

There’s someone knocking on her door and the first, ridiculous, thought that passes Hermione’s groggy mind is that it’s Malfoy.

For no reason, she always thinks it’s him.

She’s about to yell at him to go away when Leena’s voice filters through.

“Hermione?” Leena asks, her voice muffled through the door. “Darling, are you alright?”

Hermione fumbles to get her tangled body off the bed and sits up, running a weighted hand down her face. Another knock on her door causes her to rush to open the door.

Leena is standing there, holding a tray with covered dishes. The spicy aroma hits her before she can say anything and her stomach grumbles.

Leena smiles at the sound and brings the tray closer. “You missed lunch.”

She smiles gratefully at Leena and opens the door wide to let her inside. “Thank you. I’m starving.”

She waves her wand and slides the single wicker chair in the room close to the bed for Leena. She kicks off her shoes before climbing into the bed.

A comfortable silence takes over the room as Hermione uncovers the dishes, and takes a bite of rice. She can’t help but moan at the flavours exploding in her mouth.

Leena laughs. “My daughter would do the same thing whenever I’d make this for her. I’d always look out for it to know if I'd done a good job with my cooking.”

“It’s delicious, thank you,” Hermione mumbles, reaching for a second bite before she even swallows the one in her mouth. “You have a daughter?”

Leena nods, a wistful look in her eyes. “Her name is Mona. She used to live with me in Cairo, but for the last ten years, she’s been in Sweden with her father. She’s getting married in four months to this very beautiful, very tall man. Her fiance’s a healer at one of the bigger hospitals there, just like my Mona.”

The pride she hears in Leena’s voice makes her throat burn. “You must be excited about the wedding.”

“I won’t be there.” Leena looks down at her hands and sighs. “I...I don’t think she wants me there.”

“Did she invite you?” Hermione asks gently.

Leena’s eyes drift to Hermione’s window. “She did. She sent me a card a year ago when he first proposed. She said she wanted to tell me first so I could prepare myself since I’m always away from home.”

“But you won’t go?”

She shakes her head, her face twists into distraught. “I’m...I'm ashamed. There's really no other word for it. Too much has happened and I never apologized to her. I worry if I see her in person I'll be reminded about how I failed her. It’s selfish, I know. I don’t want to go so I won’t have to deal with the reminder that she’ll never truly forgive me.”

Hermione reaches out to hold the older witch’s hand. “I’m sure that’s not true, Leena.”

“It’s always difficult for women, you know,” Leena continues. “We always have to be the ones to make the difficult choices. First to be a wife, then to be a mother. I always knew there would be times when I’d have to put myself aside for the sake of others. But when the time came, and I was faced with the possibility of never doing the things I loved, I felt like I was going to die. So, I chose my career, and my freedom in travelling the world. I chose the opportunity to explore new places and meet new people over being there for my daughter.”

“You chose to be happy.”

Leena nods. “I chose to be happy. And it’s a guilt I’ll always carry with me, but at least I know there is no one to blame for this burden other than myself. The alternative would have been to live a life where I was miserable and only blamed others for it, and I can't imagine Mona would have been happy then too.” Leena shakes her head fervently as if to snap herself out of it. “But enough of my tired stories, how has your research been going?”

Hermione groans. “I’ve been stuck on this one thing for so long—actually now that I have you, have you read Saifa’s diary?”

“I haven’t, no. I usually don’t dabble into those things since I mostly help with the mapping and data recording of the trek.”

Hermione reaches into the drawer beside her bed where she keeps the diary. “There’s this thing I’ve noticed in her diary and I was wondering if you could have a look and let me know what you think.”

She flips to the recent entry she’d been reading and Leena sits down beside her to peer down to where she points. “After the accident where Safia lost half of her crew, she flips between using the words al-noor and noor. I know al-noor means the light, so all the times she’s used the word, I've assumed she meant the Cave of Light, Kahif Al-Noor. Or light in the context of enlightenment. But the diary entries after the accident occasionally mention the word noor .”

She hands the diary to Leena and flips the pages to one near the end. “From here on, Safia has returned home to Russia from the trip but she exclusively uses the word noor. Not once does she say Kahif Al-Noor or just al-noor.”

Leena contemplates it, reading the entry. “ Sometimes, someone can be named Noor.”

“So you think that maybe she’s referring to someone?”

“Or it might just be how she refers to the cave,” Leena suggests, handing the diary back. “We know what she was looking for was the Kahif Al-Noor, so really, in the end, it all means the same thing.”

“I just feel like we keep missing something and it’s entirely obvious if I can just read between the lines.”

“We’ve been right on track and schedule thus far. If there’s something not right, I’m sure it'll come together for you.”

There it is again. Another person was added to the list of those who think Hermione can figure it all out. An itch starts on her body and she sets aside the journal.

“What is it, darling?” There’s warmth in Leena’s brown eyes and it makes Hermione want to crawl into them and sleep forever.

Hermione shakes her head. “Nothing."

Leena reaches over and pushes back a curl with aching gentleness. “You’re upset about something. I can see it on your face.”

She suspects her face must be puffy and red, her eyes swollen from crying and sleeping. She bites the inside of her lips hard and then shakes her head again. “I think I’m just homesick today.”

Leena’s fingers slide from her temple and down her face to cup Hermione’s chin. “Is it your parents you miss?”

“I do miss them, every day.” She exhales a loose breath. “I miss them so much that sometimes I feel like I’ll spend more years of my life just missing them than the ones I’ve spent with them.”

Hermione’s shoulders tremble and she wipes her cheeks, surprised to find them wet.

She knew of the consequences when she Obliviated her parents; the possibility of them never getting their memories the longer they’d been without them. She just never realized how haunted she'd be by the same memories she’d stolen.

She rubs her knuckles against her thigh and looks up at Leena’s softened face. “But I also miss home and I don’t know what that means.”

“I’ve spent more time on the road than I have been at home and yet the feeling of homesickness never goes away." Leena runs her thumbs under both of Hermione’s eyes. "But, I've learned that the homes we miss are never really about the places we stay. It’s always the memories and the feeling of belonging we attach to the places and its people that we miss the most when we think of home.”

“Does it ever get easy?” Hermione whispers.

Leena holds Hermione’s face delicately in the palms of her hands.

“Sometimes we find new people and make enough new memories that for a moment we forget the yearning we feel every day.”

When Leena runs a loving hand through her curls and makes her way to get up, Hermione stops her with a hand on her wrist.

“If it was the other way around,” Hermione says carefully, “if your daughter had been the one to leave you...would you forgive her?”

Her heart thumps against her rib cage as she watches Leena’s face, feeling as though she’s on the precipice of some sort and it’s only her answer to this question that will determine if she’ll fall.

Leena doesn’t hesitate in her response. Her voice is firm and conclusive. “Of course. She could never do anything that wasn’t worth forgiveness from me.”

Hermione nods. She wants to weep.

Instead, she meets Leena’s eyes. “Then you should go to her wedding, Leena. Because she’s already forgiven you and she just wants to see her mother.”

___________________________________

Hermione spends the rest of her evening in her bedroom, going over some personal and Ministry work. Eventually, night falls and the heaviness in her chest lessens enough that she’s able to join everyone else around the fire outside.

She heads into the washroom to wipe down her face. A sunken face stares back at her in the mirror. A face that belongs to a strange girl.

No, not a girl. She's a woman now. But she can't recognize who this face belongs to, because it surely can't be hers.

Hermione stares at the mirror, her heart racing at the thought that she doesn't know who she's become. Her cheeks are red, her eyes puffy and swollen. Dark shadows rest under her eyes.

Who is this person?

A trembling finger reaches out to touch the glass and she inhales sharply, despite the tightness winding across her ribs.

Her father's eyes, she realizes. She knows the eyes because they belong to her father. The same eyes she'd look into whenever he'd talk to her.

Another sharp inhale.

She recognizes the hair too— layers and layers of brown curls that belong to her mother.

Faint freckles, that reappeared with her time in the sun, scattered across her nose bridge. Those belong to no one but her.

Hermione steps back. Her heart starts to slow down enough until breathing doesn't strain her lungs.

She glamours the tiredness from her face, takes her beaded bag, and leaves the room.

Outside, a cold wind blows across the circle and the fire roars to life, sending explosive orange sparks flying everywhere. The trees sway against the wind and the silver moon and the scattered stars shine bright as a guiding light amongst the darkness.

She snuggles into a chair beside Amina who wraps an extra shawl around Hermione’s shoulders.

Hermione digs into her bag when her hand stumbles upon the necklace she bought from the souq back in Marrakech.

She thumbs the intricate pattern on the wooden pendant. Her forefinger slides to the sides and across the surface, looking for the pull that’d open the necklace. She turns it to its side until she finally finds a little notch that she pushes to the right and the necklace snaps open.

Immediately, the scent of roses overcomes her. She blinks in surprise at the aroma and looks down to see dried rose petals crushed into the carved necklace.

She gently touches the petals and it’s as though she’s back in the hotel courtyard, Malfoy standing tall in all black—

Voices from the door of the house cause her to look up and her eyes lock harshly with Malfoy’s.

He wavers as he gets close to the fire pit—his eyes searching Hermione’s face as though looking for a sign of something.

Hermione averts her own gaze back to the necklace and gently closes the clasp. She hesitates for a moment, but then puts the necklace on, pulling her hair out from the back. It lies warmly against her cool skin.

The smell of roses remains as though she’s doused her entire body with perfume and she scratches her neck to stop herself from looking back at Malfoy.

Her mind tries to keep up with the conversations and she grasps bits of what Tony is saying. He suggests that they do it the “Muggle way” and spin a bottle so that whoever it points to can choose an act to perform for the night’s entertainment. It seems everyone is running out of things to do.

The first spin lands on Leena who, after much coaxing, gives in reciting a poem in Arabic. Leena’s soft voice enunciates each syllable of words unknown to Hermione and though she has no clue what the poem is about, she still feels the longing in the words.

Everyone claps when Leena bashfully sits back down and the bottle is spun once more.

It stops spinning, pointing at Hermione and she cringes internally.

She reaches for her bag. “Should I read another story from my book?”

“How about an original?” Tony asks, grinning.

“Oh, I don’t—”

“Come on, Hermione, we won't bite. Unless you ask, of course!” Tony exclaims, waggling his dark brows at her.

She meets Tony’s challenging eyes and stands up, pulling the shawl tighter around her. “Alright, I’ll see what I can do.”

Hermione shifts where she stands. She risks a look at Malfoy from the corner of her eyes. He sits still, staring deep into the fire. making no move to look her way.

Good, she thinks. The more disinterested he is in her, the better.

But her traitorous breath hitches as she watches the shadows from the fire flash across his face, firelight reflecting off his pale hair. Despite the coolness of the night, he’s sitting in his all-black attire with no added layers for warmth. Smoke twirls into the air, curving around the dancing shadows of the fire.

For the second time during their trip, she’s struck by how handsome he looks. Which is most inconvenient because she does not want to think about how good he looks.

She drags herself away from him and faces the fire as well. She pauses to think for a moment, clears her throat, and then begins.

“A long, long time ago—”

“Here we go,” Tony teases, laughing as he takes a swig from the bottle. Leena shushes him, taking the bottle away from his hands and passing it to Idris.

“—There lived a rich man who proclaimed himself to be a connoisseur of all things fine and beautiful. A critic of few words, and even fewer emotions, he was approached by the villagers for his opinion about what he perceived to be adequate and what he deemed as simply unrefined.

One day, rumours about a great world wonder miraculously appearing thousands of miles away reached the man. It was said that travellers who stumbled upon this shrine would fall to their knees in reverence and sorrow, for it was decreed that they’d never find anything as beautiful and inspiring as the shrine ever in their lives again.”

A cool breeze whispers against Hermione’s temples and she shivers, pulling the shawl tighter. She looks away from the fire and to those gathered around.

She’s taken aback by the keen interest in the story she sees on their faces. Leena nods at her to continue.

“The cynical man did not believe others had the ability to make that judgement. So he decided to go on the quest to proclaim whether the shrine really was as they said. The man travelled for a hundred days, determined not to return until he found the shrine and saw for himself the thing that turned others into endless grief. He travelled through dozens of villages, scaled tall mountains, and sailed through large bodies of water, until one night when finally he reached the mountain behind which the shrine stood.”

Her eyes stop at Malfoy, who hasn’t moved a single muscle or looked up from the fire.

Maybe he feels her looking at him then, because, in her pause, Malfoy slowly lifts his head up and meets her gaze.

The deep intensity in his eyes makes her stumble and she blinks in surprise at the sheer defiance she sees in them. His brows furrow and his lips part slightly, as though he too is taken aback by what he sees in her.

She tries to look away but her body has grown roots into the dirt beneath her, reaching towards him from all directions.

“By now, the man was exhausted to his bones and brimming with anger. He truly did not believe that the time and effort he’d put to see this shrine was worth its declared beauty."

Her voice is quiet and odd, even to her ears. Her heart hammers and Hermione nervously tucks a curl away from her face and behind her ear.

She swallows the thickness in her throat. His eyes drop to her neck and the grey disappears into black.

"So, ready to end the quest and make his judgement, the man scaled the final mountain and looked ahead. There, under the moonlight, stood the world wonder as others claimed.”

She finds that she simply cannot look away from Malfoy. Does not want to look away.

And she wonders if he feels it too. The delicate taut string between them, threatening to snap. If he felt the absence as she had in the days past and how it's all coming back now that they're looking at each other.

“And when the man lay his eyes on the shrine in all its clarity,” Hermione continues, wondering also if he realizes that the way he's looking at her now defies everything he'd told her before. That she sees right through him just as he claimed he saw through her. She lifts her chin and meets his glazed eyes steadily. “He fell to his knees and trembled.”

Silence, except for the light roaring of the wind and the crackles of the fire, takes over the group.

Hermione can't move, isn’t sure if she’s even breathing as she continues to look back at Malfoy. It isn’t until cheers erupt around her, and Malfoy jolts at the sound, looking away, that she’s shaken into movement and collapses back into her chair.

She feels drunk sitting in her chair, vaguely aware of the bottle spinning again and stopping at Tony. She cradles her trembling hands in her lap and doesn’t dare to look up, afraid of what she might see. Of the unspoken thing that's happened.

Until suddenly she's yanked up by her wrist and into Tony.

She gives a surprised laugh as he twirls her, singing in his slurred, booming voice, “That's amore! ”

He spins her in a circle and she can't help the laughter bubbling out of her. He lets go of one of her hands to bring Amina to her feet, who takes her other hand.

Hermione turns around, despite herself, to catch Malfoy's eyes. She stumbles to a stop when she doesn't see him sitting in his spot. She twists and watches his shadow disappear inside the house.

Before she can even think about what’s happened, Amina takes her in her arms once more, and they resume the dance to Tony’s atrocious singing.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

There's a newfound fear in the darkness of my heart. I’m afraid I’ll change because of the light or perhaps the light will change because of me. Yet, I also wonder, what could be more enlightening than to be burnt by the light?

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

The wind picks up around the camp and the fire roars to life. The ocean bellows in reply, waves crashing fiercely against the rocks.

There’s a storm coming now. Hermione can feel it.

Her eyes lift to the night sky above her, panic creeping up her legs. She needs to get inside before she gets caught in it, but the rest of the crew seems clueless about the weather change, distracted by the songs and the drinking. By now, everyone except her, is deliriously drunk, huddling closer to each other to stay warm, slurring jokes and stories about the world. She wishes she could stay, that she didn’t have to care about a storm, or the sounds of the waves crashing, or what it means for her if suddenly there's thunder.

Instead, Hermione gets up slowly, hoping not to attract any attention or cause any disturbances, and excuses herself to go inside the cottage. She should probably take a draught and go to sleep early to miss the beginning of the storm but finds herself wanting to have a cup of tea or something warm.

Moonlight rays through the windows guide her to the kitchen, and her hand fumbles to find the switch, turning the light on.

Hermione shrieks.

She clutches her chest and stumbles backwards.

Malfoy leans against the edge of a counter from across the sink. He gives her a passing glance, unimpressed by her performance, and lifts a glass to his lips.

“Malfoy!” Her heart thrashes against her chest like a bird flapping against a cage. She clasps a trembling hand against her forehead and glares at him. “Why the hell didn’t you say something?”

“I knew it was you,” he replies coolly. His eyes focus on the counter in front of him.

“Well, I didn’t! I nearly had a heart attack."

“I was just standing here, Granger.”

“Right, because it’s completely normal to stand in the dark this late at night,” she snaps. It’s really not a big deal. But her hands are shaking and she needs to say something so she doesn’t flee. “You should have said something.”

Annoyance flashes across his face and she doesn’t know whether it’s because of her tone, or if it’s because she’s practically scolding him. She doubts anyone has ever reprimanded him before.

His voice is terse. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

She clears her scratched throat. She didn't expect him to give in so quickly and ends up standing awkwardly at the entrance of the kitchen.

Hermione stares at him.

It’s clear from the rigidity of his shoulders and the ticking muscle in his jaw that he knows she’s watching him and she can’t help but think of how he looked just an hour before around the fire.

She’s unsure what to do now that the adrenaline is washing down and her heart is beating at a normal rate. Maybe she should turn around and go to sleep as originally planned. It’s been an especially long and exhausting day and she wants it to end already.

But she also refuses to be the first one to give in—somehow feeling emboldened by tonight’s events.

She must have imagined whatever it was between them, though, because when he slowly turns his head towards her, she’s reminded of everything he’d said to her last time they were alone and some of the bravery dims.

Suddenly, she's nervous about being alone with him in the kitchen.

He looks at her wearily. “What, Granger?”

She straightens at his tone. “Are you going to skitter off now that I’m here?”

“I don’t skitter.”

“ Slither away then?”

Malfoy scoffs, unamused. He takes another sip of his drink.

“Are you drinking?” she blurts, eyes falling to the cup that’s filled with what looks like Firewhiskey.

“And if I was?”

“I didn’t know you drank.”

She’s never seen him take any of the offered drinks and presumed he wasn’t much of a drinker. But it’s a stupid comment because she doesn’t know anything about his habits and really she's just trying to fill the crackling silence between them.

“Would it bother you if I drank?” His tone is neutral, eyes lowered to the cup. “If I was an alcoholic? It would fit nicely with the perception of me that’s out there, don’t you think? The unhinged Malfoy heir, finally gone off the rails.”

He sounds off, his voice is distant and detached. He’s not slurring but there’s an edge to him that she can’t place, as though there's a frosted panel in between them. She can see blurry fragments, and even though he’s right there in front of her, she can’t reach him. Can’t put the pieces that make him together.

“I don’t think that.”

She thinks he’s going to yell again or say something about the fool she is but he only shakes his head in disbelief, which is almost worse because she’d rather him talk to her than pretend she’s not worth the conversation. It only drives her to continue.

There’s a moment of pause where she realizes she’s still hovering at the entrance. Hermione quickly moves over to the stove. There’s usually always a pot of atay in the kitchen and when she lifts the pot, it's light.

“It’s not alcohol,” he says from behind her and waves her glass at her when she turns to look at him. “It’s tea.”

“Oh.” Her eyes fall to his hands and then back to his face. “Did you want the rest? There’s a little bit left.”

He jerks his head no and looks out the window facing the trees outside. His face resumes its blankness.

Slowly, she turns back around and scavenges through the cabinets, looking for a cup. She could use her wand, but she needs her hands to do something other than uselessly lay beside her.

The back of her neck prickles and she stiffens.

It’s an odd feeling, standing in the small space of the kitchen, her back facing him. She’s not afraid, of course — just exposed. Like he could do anything and she wouldn’t know. Perhaps come closer so that her back is against his chest, or walk away silently. The anticipation of either of those options makes her shiver.

She finds a glass cup on a top shelf and strains her arms, going on her toes, to reach for it.

She hears a brisk sigh and a shuffle of movement behind her but then she grabs the cup, her fingertips bringing it closer.

She shifts on her feet and pours the remainder of the tea. Smoke drifts slowly out of the pot and the cup warms under her hands. Hermione gingerly puts the empty pot back down and waits, fists resting on either side of her cup.

He’s not leaving, which is something, and while he doesn’t seem enthusiastic about engaging with her, she feels compelled to take hold of the opportunity. She inhales through her nose and turns around, cup in her hand.

She opens her mouth to say something, but he beats her to it. “Are you going to drink that here?”

“Will you be cruel again if I do?”

Malfoy lifts his eyes to her but she doesn’t back down. Meets his cold gaze evenly with her own. His eyes narrow a fraction of a movement—the only show of emotion he’s willing to share. He runs his tongue across his teeth and she can’t figure out if he’s confused or annoyed.

“Why did you leave?” she asks carefully. She leans back against the counter and tries to take a sip of the tea to distract herself from his lips.

He doesn’t reply right away and Hermione knows he’s trying to calculate his next words or determine the purpose of this conversation. “It was late.”

“You left so quickly after my story,” she states, tapping her restless fingers against the glass. “I thought I must have bored everyone.”

“That’s doubtful considering Tony had you covered. He seemed completely elated by you.”

It’s such a throwaway comment that it wouldn't have mattered in any other conversation but it makes her pause.

Because she hears it when he says Tony’s name. A slip in his voice.

The tone she thought he’d use against her tonight. Scathing and contemptuous. It surprises her since she’s never seen him directly talk to Tony and the only time she sees them interact with each other is whenever Hermione is around.

“Don’t, Malfoy,” she warns lightly. “You can’t hate him. He’s not a bad guy.”

“I guess for you, someone’s morality is sufficiently judged based on whether or not he makes you laugh.”

She frowns.

“That’s not...” Her eyes fall to her glass. The steam from the tea curls around the rim of the cup and against her fingers. “I’m no one to judge someone’s morals. He hasn’t done anything wrong to me.”

“Is it enough for someone to be bad or good if they haven’t done anything directly wrong to you?"

His mask is fracturing just enough for her to see that he’s starting to get upset. She wonders what she can say for it to shatter completely.

“It’s enough for me to know depending on whether they atone for the mistakes they make.” She lifts her chin.“Or if they continue without doing so in a determined way to ensure the world sees them as the villain they believe they still are.”

His mouth tightens. “In that case, I guess I can understand why you’d want to be around someone like Tony. By having no guilty conscience to repent for, it’s easier for others to tolerate you. There’s a lot less difficulty in being chosen then, that's for sure.”

“I don’t know him, Malfoy.” Her eyes search for another crack in his stone-cold face. “I wouldn’t purposely choose someone that I know nothing about.”

His throat bobs hard. “And what would it mean for you to choose someone?”

The hesitance in his voice makes her chest hurt. “I’m talking to you right now, aren’t I?”

“You don’t know me either,” he replies, immediately.

“I’d like to.” The tea has turned cold in her hands so she rests the glass cup beside her on the counter. “I’d like to know you, Malfoy.”

He studies her cup and she’s tempted to hold it again and bring it to her lips just so he’d look at her.

“Why?” he breathes.

“Because I see you all the time. It’s only normal to want to know who you’re working and spending all of your days with.”

He nods absently. “So, it’s circ*mstantial.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” She sighs in agitation and roughly pushes a curl away from her face. It’s a strong enough movement to distract him from the cup and his eyes snag at the curl she’s shoved behind her ear. She settles for an honest answer. “I meant I’d like to know you because all I know are things about you that are most likely not even true. I want to know you, Malfoy. Not because I have to.”

He doesn’t say anything to that and Hermione looks down at the ground and wonders why she hates all this space between them. She physically feels it crackle with torrent electricity and simultaneously sucks the life out of her.

It’s just space. Just a distance from one point to another. There was so much of it between them before and so little of it now. But she can’t stand it — this distance despite him being right there.

She rakes her mind, trying to figure out what is so different about him right now. It’s as though he’s purposely made himself unreachable so she doesn’t know if he’s listening to her or thinking about anything she’s said. But it’s only when his eyes momentarily catch hers before falling away again that she figures out what she’s missing. It’s only an educated guess, but she’s able to place the hollowness in him.

“You’re Occluding.”

He straightens immediately, eyes snapping away. His silence is the confirmation that she’s right and she can’t help but be shocked.

She’s only read about the art of Occlumency before when she first found out about Snape’s lessons for Harry and then again briefly during the war when she researched protective measures for Order members.

She’s always been fascinated by the sheer will and magical strength required for the ancient branch of magic, but never seemed to truly grasp the skill, despite her many attempts. Occlumency requires a significant ability to compartmentalize emotions, and while Hermione has the aptitude for other magical skills, prides herself on her stringency and discipline, emotions were always the one thing she never seemed to be able to master. It frustrated her to know that she couldn’t just read the texts as normal and learn how to do it.

She’d given up when she realized she’d get nowhere with her practice without an actual Occluemens to train with. Having lost the two she did know, Snape and Dumbledore, she didn’t think she’d ever witness it again.

She’s sure she hasn’t seen him Occlude like this before on the trip, which would mean that something happened tonight that triggered him to pull up his walls. Later, she’ll go over the fact, in awe and envy, that Malfoy was skilled in one area that she’d tried and failed. Now, she’s simply shocked that he was Occluding against her.

“I can’t believe you’re Occluding. How are you—” She can’t remove the hurt from her voice. “Why are you Occluding, Malfoy?”

“Why does it matter so much to you?”

“I asked you first,” she shoots back.

But of course, he doesn’t reply. She wants to shake him upside down and rattle all the words out of him.

“I’d prefer you without a mask, Malfoy. And I know that might be asking a lot of you because, as you’ve repeatedly mentioned, I don’t know you. But you also don’t need to insult me by Occluding when I talk to you. As if I wouldn’t eventually figure it out.” She can’t look at him, so turns back around to dump the cold atay in the sink and starts to wash the cup aggressively. “I guess it’s too much to ask for you to tolerate my presence without completely shutting yourself off.”

He exhales impatiently through his nose. “Granger.”

She puts the cup back in the cabinet, closes it a little harder than she needs to, and whirls around to face him.

A wave of water pours over her.

The guarded look is temporarily off and she’s so taken aback by the openness in his face from before that whatever it was she was going to snap at him vanishes.

His brows arch questioningly when she doesn’t say anything and it’s a jolt to her bones to see the clarity in his eyes, the grey stark against the black. She finds herself wavering as they pierce into her own.

It leaves her staggering, grasping for her magical pillar to center herself. She tugs at the sleeve of her shirt, stretching it over her hands. “You don’t need to do that with me, you know.”

She licks her dry lips and his eyes dip down to them. Heat blooms in her chest, finding roots and vines.

“Do what?”

“Cover your emotions. Pretend not to care.”

He looks back out the window and emptiness replaces the warmth. He'll look anywhere but at her. “I’m not pretending.”

“So, I’m to believe that you truly don’t feel anything?” she scoffs, unconvinced. “Why would you even feel the need to Occlude if you didn’t feel something?”

He sets his jaw. “It makes you weak.”

“What? Feeling things like a normal person? Talking to me like a normal person?”

“Emotions make you weak,” he repeats.

“How can something that is naturally ingrained into our bodies and minds be a weakness?”

“It’s simplistic and naive to think that as we are right now, we're naturally evolved to the maximum to have all strengths ingrained. It’s part of evolution to recognize the weaknesses and adapt accordingly.”

“Well, I disagree—”

“Of course, you do.”

She glares at him pointedly. “Because, emotions have, from the earliest civilizations, been the one thing that has allowed humans—”

“I’m not human.”

“But magic is still part of evolution, wouldn’t you agree? What determined whether you got magic was just one single trait that evolved because it was beneficial to you. A survival tool. Either way, emotions allow us to respond appropriately to our environment and each other. It’s hard to disagree with something that has held through the test of time. l believe it requires a certain level of strength to open up and let yourself feel the uncomfortable, the ugly.”

“Magic is something I can use. Something I can feel and see it be useful. Is it a strength when you’re manipulated by something that’s not even tangible — weakening yourself by something that doesn’t even have a substantial enough payoff?”

“Manipulated?” she echoes incredulously.

“I’m manipulated by something I don’t even know is true, something I have to believe is occurring in my body and has some merit. It inhibits me from thinking practically. At the same time, my display of...feelings toward whoever, manipulates them to construct their own perception of what might be happening. They’re made to believe I’m projecting something that I, myself, can’t even determine is real.”

“I think that’s an exhausting way to live, Malfoy.”

He lifts a single shoulder. “Which is why they’re a weakness. Anything that doesn’t last shouldn’t be trusted.”

“Nothing lasts forever.”

The muscles in his cheeks tick. “They’re temporary.”

“They’re instinctive. And intuition is evolutionary because trusting your gut feelings allows you to escape conflict and dangerous situations that you might not otherwise be able to figure out how to solve.” She pauses to contemplate. “For example, I feel I should be here right now, talking to you.”

“And that just proves my point because you shouldn’t be here talking to me.”

“I’m not in danger, Malfoy. I can recognize that.”

“Or maybe you’ve just never faced this kind of danger before.”

She considers this, eyes roaming across his face. He looks exhausted, but that’s nothing new. Now that there isn’t a wall, she’s looking through a window. A mirror even if the glamour on her face has disappeared by now.

The space between them is small enough that she could reach him in two small steps.

Malfoy also seems to be thinking the same thing, his shoulders set firm, as he assesses the distance between them. Though he’s leaning against the counter, his head reaches the top of the cabinets and his body stretches out like a lean tree. It’s a small enough kitchen, with room enough for three people at a time. But even with just the two of them, the circulating air and space act as a gravitational force, begging her to take the faltering steps and surrender to the pull.

Is it dangerous for her to be here with him?

Would he hurt her now that they’re alone?

He already has. Already did once. Not physically, but the scars are there from when she had to prove herself that she was enough. She has one on her arm that reminds her every day.

That was then, and she knows there were external factors at play that worked into the vicious cycle, but she wonders if he could still do it now —belittle her even further to the extent where she was left unsure of who she was, where she belonged.

She can understand that for someone like Draco Malfoy, life would have to be constructed in the same rigidity that he upheld himself. Every step, every decision made had to be calculated, meticulously measured to ensure maximum outcomes that worked in his favour.

It’s isolating to be haunted by the consequences of actions before they’re even drawn.

But is it fear, she wonders, that’s made him like this?

Does he feel it too? The frantic ticking of the heart that only seems to grab ahold of your ankle and drag you further into the water when you realize there’s no end, no land to rest, after endless swimming?

Does it torture him to be shrouded in those emotions as it does for her, forcing him to turn into himself?

And while she knows it's the Slytherin in him, she also suspects the war only twisted the knife further, gutting his flesh into the hesitant, yet vigilant man in front of her. She knows that’s what happened to her—that the cage she’s been trapped in only got smaller during the war.

The thought that she shares something more personal, something unseen by others, but felt intimately by both, only compels her further toward Malfoy.

“Well,” she starts, lowering her voice and taking a single step forward. Her shoes are less than an inch away from where his dragon-leather, laced boots rest; close enough that she could raise her arms and the tip of her fingers would brush against his chest. Her hand twitches. Apprehension flashes across his face, eyes studiously watching her move. “Right now, I don’t feel as though something has me by my throat—like I’m pinned down and there’s nowhere to go."

Malfoy leans further back against his counter, drawing into himself.

She takes another step and he stops breathing. "Or like the walls are caving in and I can’t breathe. I feel this right now and I’ll feel this later too. It’s not temporary.”

“You don’t understand,” he rasps. He makes a small, choked sound and looks back at Hermione. “She’d tell me that it’s fleeting, you know. That everything is just a moment’s breath.”

He’s not himself. But the Occlumency walls aren’t up either. He’s gone, somewhere in his mind, imprisoned by memories she doesn’t understand or even has the right to hear.

“She’d tell me that about the pain he gave—or, or during one of Bella’s lessons when she’d see me after—she’d tell me to hold onto myself when I was alone. Everything was just a moment’s breath. Because she knew there was going to be a time that I’d be alone and she wasn’t going to be there. She knew—”

“Malfoy.”

"You don't get it."

Malfoy looks at her, face contorted by something that looks like desperation, and shakes his head roughly as if trying to convince himself more than her.

Hermione tries to imagine him in meetings with Voldemort and the other Death Eaters, training with Bellatrix, walking alone in Hogwarts hallways. She thinks of him on the tower that night with his wand raised toward Dumbledore.

“Malfoy was scared,” Harry had said about that night. “You should have seen him, Hermione. He was terrified.”

“It's a f*cking weakness, Granger. What you believe to be love is only a temporary moment that will slip away like water in your hands. Because none of it stays long enough for it to be real. None of it lasts enough for it to change anything. That's what love does. That’s what it f*cking does. It fools you, manipulates you into thinking something that’s so inherently fleeting can be enduring.”

She softens her voice. “I never said anything about love, Malfoy.”

He freezes.

His face falls apart for a splinter of time and she wants to reach out—

There’s a sudden crack outside. Thunder splits across the night sky and Hermione gasps, eyes snapping to the window.

It shakes her and freezes her all at once and she can’t move. Her throat squeezes and she can’t breathe either. Blood floods through her ears and she can hear her heart thrashing against her temple. She clutches her hands in fists, imprinting tiny crescents against her skin.

Her eyes can’t move away from the window as branches slam against the glass and it sounds like wands splintering—

“Granger.”

A whisper. A rope to pull her out.

She inhales deeply and turns to the voice.

Malfoy searches her face, eyes flitting rapidly across hers, brows furrowed. His hand twitches and she thinks maybe he’ll raise his arm and—

The light goes out.

Hermione jumps, back slamming painfully into the counter behind her. There’s enough light coursing through the window outside that she can make out Malfoy’s figure in front of him. Half of his body is enveloped in the mellow moonlight, giving him a ghostly wan appearance, and the other is cast in the shadows of the dark kitchen.

He’s close enough now that she wouldn’t even have to move towards him to touch him and she doesn’t know who moved closer until her hands blindly reach behind her to grip the edge of the counter and realizes she’s the one who’s been still.

“Lumos,” Malfoy murmurs.

A fluorescent glow floods the kitchen.

He waves his wand between them and pauses briefly over her face. Hermione flinches under the blinding light, hand flying to shield her eyes, and he immediately lowers it.

She has to tilt her head back to look at him, exhaling each shaky breath. His face, all long, sharp edges, tips ever so slightly toward her and his eyes dip to her lips.

She sees the confusion breaking through his guarded face as he tries to determine what to do next, to understand what any of this means. She wishes she knew what he wants to do because she’d do it for him. But her own heart is beating fast for a completely different reason now and Hermione doesn’t dare move because this close to him she’s finally breathing.

He raises his other hand, the one not holding his wand, and it hovers near her bare neck tentatively. Pale fingers radiate in the moonlight and she waits, chest heaving to the rapid beat of her heart.

He hesitates, before looking up at her, a silent question in his eyes. And she finds herself inclining her head in an equally quiet yes.

If he’s surprised at her willingness, she can’t see. Instead, he lowers his hand near her collar bone and the weight of his fingers is feather-light against her skin — she wouldn’t even believe that he’s touching her if she wasn’t watching him do it.

He’s touching her.

He’s just touching her, but she’d still panic if everything in her mind wasn’t grounding her to the spot and saying yes.

There’s an absence of his fingers as he brushes them over the wooden pendant. A crease forms between his brows as he goes over the sun and moon imprint, tracing the indentation as if to memorize it. The necklace has never felt heavier.

Hermione almost gasps when his finger lowers down to her skin once more.

She’s convinced he can see the goosebumps skittering across her skin at the contact, despite the darkness, as his fingers skim gingerly across her exposed collar. She feels everything at once. The calluses on his fingers against the smoothness of her skin. His breath grazing her nose and lips. The way he’s radiating heat that envelopes her because he is so close.

Every touch leaves a shadow of chills behind and her eyes flutter shut briefly, letting the warmth from the closeness of his body seep into her cold skin and marrow.

Drums thunder in her ear and he has to hear how loud her heart is, she thinks, because she’s going insane by the sound. Or maybe it's his heart she’s hearing because when she lifts her eyes to his face, she knows he’s struggling to hold on too. His shoulders tremble ever so slightly as if his body is trying to restrain itself from giving in, and she wants to place her palms to steady them.

Head angled down toward her, his eyes intently following the path of his fingers over his skin. She watches him just as carefully, trying to figure out what he’s thinking. She needs to know how he can be so cruel and harsh at one point, but so gentle at another. How he’s able to touch her as though she’s made of glass and will shatter if he breathes too hard and says he wants nothing to do with her.

Maybe he’s not even thinking. She can see on his face, the tension in his jaw, the slight part of his lips, that he’s lost to what’s happening except for how his fingers move over her skin.

She remembers vaguely there’s a storm outside. There’s a storm and the wind is screaming as the trees slam into the window, and she doesn’t care because his fingers dip delicately into the middle crevice of her neck, stopping there for just a second, before wrapping around the base of her throat.

She swallows hard and the movement of her throat pushes against the light pressure of his palm. He’s not holding her tightly, nor does it hurt, and she finds herself leaning into his hands to convince herself that he’s there at all.

Anything could happen now, she thinks, and she’d let it. He could say anything and she’d believe him.

“And now?” he asks, voice low and strained. It rumbles from somewhere deep in his throat and she feels it reverberate from the tip of his fingers down to her own.

She blinks to process what he’s saying through the haze. “What?”

“How do you feel about me now, Granger?”

His gaze snaps from where his hand is wrapped around her throat and clashes with her eyes.

Grey dissolves into black and it takes her by surprise to see that there’s something there that she just can’t pinpoint. That looking at her makes him like this.

The question is a challenge for Hermione to acknowledge who he is. A way for him to get the upper hand again because somehow, amongst all this, Hermione is the one on top right now.

With his hand around her neck, Malfoy wants to feel like he has control.

She could give him what he needs or she could tell him the truth and watch him unravel more.

Or maybe she’ll be the one to crumble because the truth is that she can finally breathe. She wants to tell him he makes it easy for her to breathe even when she thinks there’s no oxygen in the air. When he’s the one to suck all the air from her lungs.

“Your eyes change,” Hermione says instead. “Did you know that?”

His hand falls to his side and she feels the absence right away.

The coolness is gone, leaving her body weighed down by the claustrophobic heat in the kitchen.

She looks at his fingers, clutched in a tight fist at his side, and flushes deeply when she wants them back on her skin.

“When you’re not doing anything or you’re writing in your stupid journal or you’re talking to someone else, they’re grey. Distant. But they’re just your normal grey.” She presses her palm against her stomach to remove the ache there and lifts her eyes to his blank face. “But then you look at me and they change. Sometimes it’s winter in your eyes, all ice and cold — like the first snowstorm of the season. And when you’re angry at me, they’re like shards of shattered glass. Sharp enough to cut, but somehow I can always see my reflection in them. And then sometimes, it’s like looking at the ripples of the moon in the water and you look at me like...like...”

“Like what?” He looks as though he’s at the edge of a cliff, waiting for her to say it out loud for him so that he can tip over and fall.

Like something more. But what was that more? And how could there be anything more than how it was like this between them now?

She frowns and shakes her head because she’s reached the maximum courage she can muster when it comes to Malfoy. Her cheeks heat when what she's just said sinks in. Pretty words that mean nothing to him.

“I don’t know.”

He stares at her for a moment and then exhales loudly. He runs a hand through his hair, turns around to grip the counter behind him and then whirls back around to face her. He lets out a frustrated sound as though he’s trying to clear her out of his chest. “You—you can’t talk like that, Granger.”

It’s a small mercy that she manages to roll her eyes. “They’re just eyes.”

“You can’t know these things about me,” he grits out.

She only watches him silently for a moment. How could she not know?

“You’re always there, Malfoy.”

He pushes back his blond fringe away from his face with one hand and waves the other hand at her. “I don’t understand why you’re like this—why you say these things to me. No one acts like this around me and you go around thinking you can. You can’t, alright? This doesn't make sense. You should be terrified.”

“I’m a little tired of you telling me what to do, you know.” He’s angry and she doesn’t care. “Or telling me how to feel.”

“Someone needs to tell you because clearly, you have no idea what you're doing."

She bites the inside of her lower lip to restrain herself from smacking her wand against the side of his head. “It’s offensive to assume I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m well aware of my actions, Malfoy. You don’t get to decide things for me.”

“It’s the truth."

She gives a short humourless laugh. “I think I’ll survive this truth. I’ve already seen you at your worst—”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he growls, jutting a finger at her.

She wonders if it was the same one touching her. “Why? What’s even left, Malfoy? What exactly will you do to me?”

“Nothing that wouldn’t be expected of me.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that. She doesn’t believe him either. He doesn’t even look like he believes what he’s saying.

He looks defeated. Or maybe resentful of whatever he’s given up tonight. And maybe it’s because she’s never seen him like this, barely trying to hold himself together, or maybe she wants him back near her again, that she gives him an honest answer.

She brings her shaky fingers to the ghost of his on her throat. Clutches her necklace to remind herself that it happened.

“I am terrified,” she admits slowly. He jerks as though he’s been struck, arms falling limply beside him. She pushes herself off the counter. “I’m terrified that I might say something wrong and you’ll shut yourself off. I’m terrified of sharing something with you only for it to be thrown back at me again. I’m terrified that after all this, if we even manage to get past any of what this is, we’ll go home and there will be nothing to show for it.”

It’s his turn to watch her now. His shoulders are slumped and he opens his mouth to respond, but then there are voices outside of the house, closer to the door. His head turns towards the door before his eyes briefly fall to the floor. His tongue pokes out in his cheek and he lifts his eyes back at her. There’s a finality at whatever conclusion he’s arrived at and she knows they're done.

She doesn’t understand how he shuts himself off so effectively, how he’s able to pretend as though nothing has happened at all. It’s jarring to think about all the training he had to go through to be like this. Detached even from himself. He’s shown more of himself than ever tonight, and somehow he still makes her feel as though she’s the one carved out by him. It’d make her furious and frustrated if she wasn’t so anxious that he was going to leave without saying anything.

“Who said that to you?” she calls out when he moves toward the exit.

He pauses halfway.

“You said she told you it was fleeting. Who said that?”

There’s a moment long enough that she thinks he’ll just leave her standing there, without looking back. But then turns around and there’s just enough pale light illuminating from the window to highlight the hollowness of his face.

He looks as haunted as he sounds. “My mother.”

Her heart breaks because she can try all she wants to imagine him and how he was back then but she’ll never understand.

Ron would burst in anger if he’d heard what she’s thinking now. He’d yell at her that they were all children and they were all scared. That Malfoy wasn’t the one who needed saving and isn’t the one who deserves to be understood now. And Malfoy would agree with him.

But Malfoy had been a terrified child who also needed his mother —and that she can understand. Because she’s all grown up now and everything has changed but the only thing that hasn’t is that she’s still afraid. She’s paralyzed with fear that can only be removed by her mother’s words, her arms.

She wants to also touch him and let him know he’s not alone because she gets this one thing. Instead, she clasps her hands together behind her. “I don’t...I don’t think she meant for you to treat fleeting emotions as a weakness.”

His tone is vicious. “You don’t know any—”

“I know it was love for you that protected Harry that night,” she breathes, words rushing together, desperate to make him hear and understand. She’s really pushing it by bringing this up. It’s sensitive and not her place, but the whole night has left her reeling, grasping loose threads to make sense of what has happened, that she feels it's necessary to let him know what she thinks, even if it’s the last thing they’re going to say to each other. Especially if tomorrow he’s going to go back to pretending she doesn’t exist.

“How can a love that powerful be reduced to a weakness? That kind of love isn’t a moment’s breath.”

“She died,” Malfoy says. There’s no emotion in his words or across his face. Just a stark void where he stands. “She died and it’s all gone.”

The front door opens, laughter barging into the silence. The kitchen light flashes on.

She watches him disappear up the stairs, her body numb where she stands.

Narcissa Malfoy died that night when she chose to proclaim Harry dead and lied to save her son.

While most of that moment has been locked away as a hidden memory that she’s forced into nonexistent, Hermione remembers now. The look of fury that flew across Voldemort’s face when Harry stumbled out of Hagrid’s arm, alive and armed.

It was the love for a son that took another mother’s life because the first killer curse cast by Voldemort then was not against Harry but towards Narcissa. Voldemort hadn't even looked at her when he raised his wand. A swift, merciless end before he cast his next spell at Harry.

Most of the battle was one blurry memory for Hermione, an amalgamation of raw screams and howls that she’s tried to forget. She won’t survive if she doesn’t forget.

But there was that one scream she’d heard then, a harrowing cry that split the ghastly air with its broken pain and brought shivers to spill across Hermione’s body.

She’d forgotten it like she had forgotten much of the death that night.

Everything had moved so quickly after that singular sound— wands raised, Harry charging towards Voldemort, determined and purposeful, and Hermione fighting off everyone around him just so Harry had that last chance—that she’d forgotten who was behind it.

But she remembers it now and she doesn’t think she’ll ever forget again.

It was Malfoy who had roared into the Earth’s sunken ground when Voldemort had cast that curse. Malfoy who had lurched toward his mother, sobbing as he fell to his knees. His distraught and too-thin body curved over the corpse of his mother.

Hermione hadn’t even given him a passing glance when she ran off after Harry. He’d been nothing—the last thing on her mind. She hadn’t cared.

Lucius Malfoy had been injured, missing, and unaware of his wife’s demise. It was through Luna, the only one to approach him from the students and professors, that Hermione would later find out what happened. Luna called his name, not daring to touch him, but simply crouching down beside him.

But Malfoy hadn’t moved at all from where he lay on the ground, clutching his mother’s pale head in a vise grip.

He was there when Voldemort fell and he was there when the Aurors came to handle the last dregs of the Death Eaters.

Unmoving, unspeaking.

Her mother was right because Hermione did have love. In the light there was love. And, she realizes, in the darkness, Malfoy had love too.

But she also tries and fails to determine why, for Malfoy, the impermanence of something like love was embodied by the one definite fact that everything had changed and ended with his mother’s death.

How could a love that strong between a mother and her child end that day?

Where could all that love even go?

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

I suspect the light will be akin to coming up for breath after drowning, or rather, similar to a hand slowly dipping one’s head into the black water. A resurrection of sorts. Or perhaps, a rebirth.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

She can’t sleep.

Tossing and turning to the sounds of waves crashing and rain pattering against the windowpane, she moves up and off her bed and paces around the room. She clutches the roots of her hair and squeezes her eyes shut. She’s warded the room to silence the sounds of the storm, but lightning still flashes brilliantly, creating ominous shadows against the walls. Her conversation with Malfoy and the memories of the war run on a looped reel in her head.

It’s dangerous to take a sleeping draught when she’s this distressed—she'd be placing herself in the hands of disruptive sleep. So instead, she tries Arithmancy and does reverse calculations in her mind, trying to put herself in a stance as she follows runes and patterns over and over in her head.

But 2 AM rolls around and the combination of the storm and the constant replay of the war in her mind, forces her to open the side drawer, unscrew the flask, and down the remainder of the potion. Within seconds, or perhaps it’s hours, Hermione doesn’t know, her body melts into the bed, limbs heavy, and she mercifully falls asleep.

Hermione threw a stinging curse at Harry, his face swelling immediately. Greasy hands grabbed her and Run let out a groan in pain. She tried to tug herself loose, lurching towards Ron’s curled body, shrieking, “Leave him alone!”

She heard the sound of a hand slapping across her cheek before her head snapped to the right.

“Be quiet!” a nauseatingly hot voice growled near her face. The unknown man wrapped his burly hand around her hair and viciously yanked her head back. Tears pricked against her eyes and a burning pain spread across her cheek.

She’d tried so hard. Weeks and weeks in a tent, walking endless distances, trying to figure out where the Horcruxes were. She missed the comfort of the Burrow, longed for the warmth of a home-cooked meal in front of a fireplace, ached for her parents' arms around her.

She wanted her parents. She wanted to go home.

But then the shadowed figures were pulling Harry up close, and she heard a familiar voice—Greyback—saying something about summoning Voldemort, and Hermione’s heart leapt out of its cage.

Greyback.

She couldn’t stop now. She had to do something — had to protect Harry.

Harry was everything, above her, above any pain or exhaustion she felt.

They were still focused on Harry, trying to figure out who it was under the puffiness. “Potter’s Mudblood” was thrown around by the others as they took her in but she fixated on the hands pushing Harry’s fringe back to look at the now-deformed scar. She had one chance—one shot at this because once they began running, it would only confirm their suspicions.

She didn’t think twice.

“Stupefy!” she yelled at Greyback and Harry stumbled back, moving away from the werewolf’s falling, frozen body. There was confusion amongst the others, but she was already throwing another curse, yanking Harry to his feet. Ron clambered towards them, pure shock across his face as he gazed at her.

She only said one thing. “Run.”

And then they were moving, not looking back, feet snapping twigs and leaves under their shoes. Red, white curses shot at them and Hermione tried to shoot counter-curses back, twisting her body around, demanding her feet to continue moving.

Her heart was a drum. Breaths sharp and heavy.

Run run run.

RUN.

She had no plan—nothing other than the solitary thought to protect Harry.

Greyback shifted into a wolf, snapping at Harry’s legs and Hermione threw another curse at the beast. Harry managed to get in front of her, where she could keep her eyes on him, but with his swollen eyes, he couldn’t see.

With horror, she watched as he tripped and she cried out, charging towards him, praying she’d reach him in time—

Hermione jolts upright in her bed, panting for air. She’s blinded in the darkness and panic floods her blood.

Harry.

Where is Harry?

Suddenly, she’s jumping out of her bed, the bedroom door slamming open, and her wand in hand. She sprints down the creaking stairs, stumbling on the last step. She falls to the floor when she loses balance and her knees bark in pain. She’s already up before she can even process what’s happening.

She needs to find Harry.

If Harry falls, Greyback will get him, and then they’ll be taken to Voldemort.

Hermione can’t let that happen. Too much has happened for it to end like this.

She’s unaware of how she gets outside — doesn’t even stop to think about what she’s doing when the cool breeze slaps at her face.

Instantly she’s soaked, rain slamming against her like steady hail. She doesn’t even feel the freezing wetness of her clothes.

She’s barefoot, running down the steps and into the trees.

“Harry!” she calls out. Her voice drowns in the downpour of the rain and the roar of waves.

Her feet carry her through trees. Her hands somehow manage to push away branches that ricochet against her arms.

The trees blur into the blackness of the night as she runs, a flash of white, and then there’s a voice—someone yelling.

Greyback or Scabior.

They’ve found her. They’ll find Harry if she doesn’t get to him first. She can call out for Ron, cry out for his help.

Where the hell is Ron? Why is she alone here?

Granger

She trips at the familiarity of the voice—the way it vibrates in her blood.

Knees crack as she hits the ground once again. Nails dig into the damp dirt as she hauls herself to her elbows, grunting in pain, and back to her feet.

Granger

“Harry,” she whispers, delirious. His name is a mantra. Her purpose.

She barely registers the movement behind her but she doesn’t look back—only forward. She wavers slightly as she tries to find her footing, before starting her run once more.

GRANGER

“Harry!” she calls out in response to her name. It’s Harry who’s calling her, it must be. He’s looking for her so she runs to where she hears the loudest sounds, roars and crashing.

She hardly makes it far before someone yells out behind her.

Immobolus.

Hermione freezes.

Blood, heart, bones all stop in time.

No, no, no, no.

And then she’s falling backwards like a toppled chess piece into the cold, wet mud. She doesn’t feel the crash of her body—perhaps she’s cushioned by the thick mud.

But then she’s being levitated upwards, feet leaving the ground, and she realizes she never hit the ground. She never falls because somehow she’s in the air.

Her head is twisted to the left from when she was looking around for Harry. There’s nothing there except for trees and darkness. Rain falls on her face, getting into her eyes, but she can’t blink it away. She doesn’t know if they're tears from being stuck or from her own vulnerability that mixes into the rain on her cheeks.

She tries to channel her magic to reverse the spell but she’s positively frozen in the air and she wants to scream into the nothingness at how helpless she feels.

And still, despite her entire body being locked, eyes glazed over by darkness, she can’t help but think of Harry. This is all her fault because she made the wrong call. She should have figured out another plan, something other than running blind.

How did this happen? How did it get like this so quickly?

Why is it always so hard for them to do anything?

She can die here, she thinks. There will be nothing now and it's a relief. It’s easier to succumb to the perils of the darkness if it’s already night.

But there’s a flash of white in the corner of her eyes. And then—

Warm, strong hands wrap around her waist. They slide up from her waist to just below the ribcage as if trying to find a grip. The heat from the touch seeps through her clothes and into her cold skin.

She feels herself descend back down and her feet touch the ground once more.

The hands squeeze around her body once— as if to make sure she’s not about to fall backwards— and drop away.

Finite Incantatem.

Air inflates her lungs and she jumps back, whirling around to face her opponent.

“Malfoy,” she breathes.

Her wand falters for a second as she stares in confusion. But anger washes over her as she realizes just what he’s done and she steadies her aim.

“How dare you,” she seethes and takes a step toward him.

She’s unnerved by how exposed she made herself to someone, and her body crackles with adrenaline, preparing her for a fight. Dread is replaced by the electricity coursing through her veins, lighting her nerve endings. She’s all fire, now that the ice is gone.

Malfoy doesn’t even move, simply studies her. His wand is relaxed by his side. The sight of his signature cool indifference only flares her anger more and she takes another step closer.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demands.

“Saving your life, apparently,” he replies, drily. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Hermione blinks and glances around. She’s struck by the sensation of detachment from her environment and tries to orient herself. She can’t figure out why she’s outside at this time but the sounds of waves make her turn around.

She gasps. Her heart sinks.

They’re near the edge of the cliff, looking over the ocean. Waves crash violently against the jagged ends of the cliff.

Close. She was so close to running right off and plummeting into the darkness.

The thought gives an odd sense of clarity that makes her remember what happened. It lasts less than a moment when another thought follows it and her body shakes in horror.

She gulps down the uneasiness in her stomach, placing one palm against her forehead. She would have died because of a dream.

“What were you doing?” Malfoy asks, from behind her. “I called you, but you kept running.”

She shivers against the cold wind, her wet shirt sticking to her skin.

“You called for Potter.” His voice is close, somehow reaching her through the loud noise of the ocean and rain. Soft and traced with something that she knows can’t be concern. It’s odd enough to hear him like this that she’s jarred back to the present.

She spins around and raises her wand. “You had no right.”

His brows rise. “You’re not f*cking serious.”

She’s scared. She almost died because she hadn’t been able to differentiate reality from her nightmare.

But being terrified is not an option for her, especially not in front of Malfoy. Not when she’s already shown how vulnerable she is by needing him to step in. She doesn’t want to admit her foolishness or talk about how Hermione no longer knows what is real and what isn’t.

She deserves this, she thinks. For all the horrible things she’s done in her life. Her parents, the death in the war, the lies, the selfishness. This should happen to her.

She’s a hypocrite for preaching the healing of others when she isn’t getting the help she needs.

But that wasn’t always true. She wanted to get better and her mental health was one of the many things she wanted to heal. Except, she quickly found, her mind was nothing like treating her body— it couldn’t get better with recurrent diagnostic tests or potions. It required patience and the help and guidance of a trained healer. It required her to understand where she hurt and that was the problem.

She couldn’t very well point to her chest, her head, bones, or blood and sayhere is where I hurt; everywhere. There was no open wound, no gushing blood for her to show. She had to talk and explain all the details and that’s where the wall was drawn. Because how was Hermione supposed to talk about her fractured mind? What was she supposed to say about how she detested all the smiling faces and the adoration she got from those around her? How could she say that she was sad and hurt and in grief when she was celebrated for the very source of those emotions?

Somehow, under the requirements of being an Auror, Harry had managed to find a healer that worked for him. He suggested a few names, even recommended his own, but the thought of a healer who knew his story and then heard hers was mortifying. What were her concerns in the light of Harry's trauma? What had she suffered compared to him?

She simply couldn't put it into words that she wished she was anyone else but her. She didn’t want pity and she didn’t want contempt even more. She was ungrateful for things that others wished for but she didn't want to be hated for it.

At one point, she thought maybe she could go to a Muggle healer. A therapist or a psychologist but she was at a loss of what to say to them. She didn’t know how to explain the parts of her life, the ways she was destroyed by a war to a Muggle healer who was completely unaware of it even happening.

She could have changed the words, lied or made up stories about how she felt. Sorrow and grief were universal feelings that did not depend on context. But she also couldn’t live another double life—tip-toeing around her truth and constantly making sure to choose the right words and not slip.

Still, she hadn’t given up. Hermione turned to books like she always did. She went to a Muggle bookstore and found all the self-help books she could find. She picked up the books of women who faced their own wars and came out on the other side, smiling at their bright future filled with possibilities. She read all about “self-discovery” and healing through “self-care” and “self-love”. But it still felt superficial and detached. As if someone was talking at her and highlighting all the parts of her life that were wrong and that she needed to fix through x, y, z.

She tried. But Hermione found that the desire to get better was limited by the desire itself. And eventually, she stopped caring. Eventually, it no longer mattered because she could feign ignorance if she distracted herself with everything else. She had bigger things to focus on. Her body was its own war, so she focused on the wounds that could heal right away with a potion or two. The parts of her body that the healers could objectively see were wrong, and she fixed those.

She filled her life with work and little projects that reminded her that others still needed her and if she did whatever she could for them, she wouldn’t have to worry about what she should do for herself.

All of it, it seemed, was for nothing. The torch in the night she ignored, came back to burn her once more.

She deserves this. But she doesn’t want this—this maddening reality that is anything but real.

But it felt real, didn’t it?

She felt the throat-gripping panic that had convinced her Harry was in danger. She felt Scabior’s sour breath on the back of her neck. It had all been so familiar, so like what had happened then, that her body had reacted as though she was reliving all those memories. And yet, it was just a dream.

She looks up at Malfoy who tilts his head. She can’t stand this quizzical look on him, as if she's a problem meant to be solved.

And she's a hypocrite for that, too.

So, she reaches deep inside for another familiar feeling, a protective cloak around her. Anger is normal with Malfoy, something she can work with, and it swarms all her senses as she puts her devastation to the back of her mind. She’s irrationally livid by his audacity to stun her.

He takes a step closer to her, wet blond hair whipping in the cold air. His black, long-sleeved shirt is soaked to his skin, clinging to the smooth planes of his body.

She raises her wand again. Ignores the slight tremble in her hand. “Do not come closer, Malfoy.”

He stares at her for a second and lets out a humourless laugh, shaking his head. Disbelief stark across his face. “You’re actually serious. I f*cking saved your life, Granger.”

She lifts her chin. “I didn’t ask you to.”

“Yeah well, it was kind of hard not to do it, accessory to the fact and all. And also, Death Eater, it wouldn’t have looked good for me,” he retorts, crossing his arms against his chest.

Her eyes fall to the muscles she’s able to make out despite the dark rippling across his shirt. There’s a lightness to him that she can’t understand. As though he’s dropped a load only for her to pick it up. Was their last discussion so far ago that he’s changed completely?

“So, it was circ*mstantial,” she says.

His eyes flash. “You weren't...you. Running through the forest, this late, in this storm, with no shoes—you were going to jump off the cliff if I hadn’t stopped you.”

She doesn’t say anything and looks away from his arms to focus on the shaking trees behind him.

She runs her palm down her face. “I’m losing my mind.”

“You’re not,” Malfoy says firmly, making her glance at him. “You’re not losing your mind.”

“What I don’t need from you right now, Malfoy, is pity.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not pitying you—”

“You said—”

He shakes his head again. “I shouldn’t have said it. I don’t pity you. Pity I could handle—” He waves a hand between them, “—than whatever this is.”

She doesn’t understand. She also doesn’t care to understand.

“Were you...” He wavers. His voice is hesitant when he tries again. “Were you trying to jump?”

“Don’t be daft,” she snaps. She lowers her wand and stalks past him.

“Daft?” he sputters. “I’m being daft? You almost died, Granger.”

She shifts her head to hide the wince.

“It’s ridiculous, you know, to not appreciate when someone saves your life. The least I could get is a thank you, Malfoy.”

“f*ck you, Malfoy.”

The words come out of her before she even thinks of them. She faces him, shocked and ready to apologize. But he lets out a short, brisk laugh and it shuts her immediately.

She scowls. “I’m glad someone finds this funny.”

“Reckon there’s an award for saving the Golden Girl?”

“I should push you off the cliff.”

He shrugs. “You could try.”

Her heart leaps at the idea and she gauges the distance between him and the cliff's edge. She taps her wand against her thigh and contemplates.

His sneer flickers, eyes widening slightly as she calculates.

She raises her wand and he straightens, lips quirked up.

There’s a deep rumble behind her and Hermione’s head snaps in its direction. Her pulse quickens yet everything around her slows down, weighing her body to where she’s standing. She looks at the grey storm cloud far away and she can’t shake the feeling that she’s stepped outside of her body. One singular cloud and she can’t look away, sinking into the ground until she disappears forever.

“Granger.”

Malfoy shifts into her view, forcing her to look away from the hazy cloud and at him.

It’s stopped raining, she realizes. A dense layer of humidity is left in the wake of the storm.

Malfoy’s brows furrow as he searches her face. “Why were you running?”

She hesitates. “It was just a nightmare.”

“Has it happened before?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you take a Dreamless Draught?”

She shakes her head. “I can’t.”

He rolls his eyes in an insufferable way. “There are no points for suffering, Granger. No one is grading you on how resilient you can be.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She glares at him but it’s weak and she sighs, resigned. “It’s the only way I can see them.”

“Who?”

She pauses and he waits expectantly. She isn’t sure how much to share with him, how vulnerable she wants to be considering how he’s acted before. She could use his own words on him and tell him to stay away and he might listen since none of this matters to him. But she’s also tired and after their last conversation, she feels disoriented. She also knows something compels him to her, making him pretend to care about what she has to say.

She replies as evenly as she can, “My parents.”

He stiffens. “You dream about them?”

“Yes.”

“Do you dream about the war?”

“Sometimes.”

“And the nightmares are about Potter?”

He practically spits Harry’s name.

“Not always,” she whispers.

Malfoy nods and then starts circling her. She doesn’t move, doesn’t twist her head to watch him prowl. “Does Potter have nightmares where he calls out for you?”

She falters, unsure about this new direction. “I...I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He has his own issues that he’s dealing with.”

“So he’s still got you wrapped around his finger. It’d be just like him to make everything about him still.”

Her eyes snap to his face. “What?”

“Or is it that you’ve wrapped yourself around Potter once again? Your typical need to succumb to his every need—”

“You don’t know anything about us. Anything about Harry—”

“Don’t I?” He lets out a short laugh, anger twisting his face. “That man has been there from the beginning of my f*cking life, Granger. Before I could even formulate my own opinions or figure out who I was, I knew of Harry Potter. My own father mentioned his name more than I’ve ever heard him say mine. He’s been there from the first day of Hogwarts to the very last, somehow managing to crawl into my f*cking life like a leech. Considering how things have ended up, I think I can say I have a pretty good idea of how Potter manages to have the entire world falling to his feet.”

“The things he sacrificed were nothing compared to what everyone had to give up!” she says incredulously. “He deserves everything, all of it and more.”

This is ridiculous. She shouldn't even entertain this conversation.

“Everyone gave up something, Granger. You would know about that, wouldn't you? And yet, you think you don’t deserve the same recognition that he does.”

“I don’t care about any of it,” she responds. She grips her wand until her knuckles turn white. “I don’t need the constant reminder that I did something that anyone would have done.”

“Except not everyone did.” Malfoy stops in front of her. “Not everyone gave up everything as you did."

"He didn't have a choice."

"Fine, Potter didn’t have a choice. His role in the war, his purpose for everything, was all he knew from the beginning. But you did have a choice. You should have left the country, disappeared, but instead, you chose to stay. To give up more than anyone should have asked of you.”

If Hermione didn't know better, she'd think that Malfoy is backing her, trying to make her see his twisted truth of what she deserves. She knows better and she knows enough of this Malfoy. Even though she can understand where it might be rooted, she refuses to be a part of his need to belittle Harry. She won't ever do that to him.

“I'm not going to let you stand there and trivialize what everyone else has done, Malfoy. People gave up their lives for us, their future, so that we could have one. Lupin, Tonks, Fred.” His mother, she wants to say, but her voice cracks. A ball grows larger in her throat and she shakes her head vehemently to clear it. “I can’t accept any of it, the reminders, the awards—nothing. None of it matters, especially when others didn’t survive the war.”

He looks at her, drained. “Nobody survived the war, Granger.”

The air is thick and he takes another step toward her, closing the heavy space between them. His eyes are hard, boring into her own.

“How can you stand there," he says quietly, "And say you don’t deserve the same things as him and still testify for f*cking Death Eaters that should have been given the Kiss?”

Heavy breaths shake her shoulders. “Don't.”

But he ignores her, lowering his head further so that they’re face to face. “What would the families of Lavender Brown, Colin Creevy, or Johnathan Creswell think if they found out that Hermione Granger didn’t think Draco Malfoy deserved all the hate people gave him?”

“Stop it, Malfoy,” she pleads. She can’t have this right now. Not like this.

“Do you think the families of Alice Tolipan or Nigel Wolpert would rejoice if they heard what you thought? Would they still celebrate you?”

Hermione gapes at him. “Malfoy—”

“What would Weasley say when he finds out his best friend thinks a Death Eater should be redeemed?”

She shoves him.

He doesn’t move a single inch and she stares at him, stunned at what she’s done. Her eyes fall to her hands and then to the ground as she tries to collect herself.

He’s right. They would hate her if they found out about the things she kept to herself. Ron, Harry, no one would understand a single thing or care to even begin to comprehend why it matters to her. She already knows this— has already brutalized herself with the guilt of her actions and beliefs.

But at this moment, all she feels is fury at Malfoy for reminding her just how much she’s failed all those who she loves—that she doesn’t deserve any of the goodness they show her. She swallows heavily and wraps her arms around her body trembling with anger.

“Go on,” he murmurs, coaxing her to look at him. “Show me what you can do.”

She doesn’t need to be told twice.

She inhales sharply and shoves him. Again, there’s no give as she slams her palms against his rigid body. He’s one solid pillar of stone. She suspects her hands are hurting more than he is.

“Why won’t you move?” she exclaims and tries again. His muscles tense under her hands with each shove but he doesn't stumble a single step back. She pushes him—

Malfoy grabs her wrists and holds her fists against his chest. She pants and looks up at him. She tries to pull away but his firm grasp doesn’t allow her to.

A bead of water falls from his wet hair and down his nose.

“There are faster and easier ways to do this, Granger,” he says wryly. He nods at her wand resting uselessly on the ground.

He lets go and she staggers back before whipping her wand toward him.

She shoots a Stupefy, but he dodges it immediately, throwing a protective charm around him.

“Expelliarmus!”

He counters it and she charges forward and throws a jinx.

“Levicorpus!”

She knows Malfoy is a talented wizard, apt in battle, but she still groans in frustration as he counters every charm or jinx she throws his way. Her frustration grows when she realizes he’s not sending any spells her way, only putting up shields.

“Fight back!” she yells, swiping her wet hair away from her face. “Damn it, Malfoy! Fight back!”

She throws a stinging hex. It barely grazes his leg but the surprised look he shoots her shows he wasn’t expecting her to do so.

An approving smirk creeps across his mouth. He taps his wand against his other palm. “Alright, Granger. Now we’re—”

She sends a tripping jinx and he stumbles back. She watches with great satisfaction as he falls flat on his back into the mud.

“Locomotor Mortis.” His legs tie together.

He raises his head, eyes bright with amusem*nt as she walks over to him. “I have to say, this is less than ideal.”

Hermione steps over his body so that her legs are on either side of him. She goes down on one knee, balancing herself by placing a hand in the mud on the other side of him. “I’ve warned you, Malfoy. Do not tempt me. But you just don't listen, do you? ”

Malfoy rolls his eyes, dismissing her words without a passing thought. “All things considering, I’m not afraid of you, Granger.”

She pushes the tip of her wand against his throat. His eyes don’t leave her face once and she feels him stiffen as she leans toward him. “It’s oh so tempting, ferret boy. One move and you’d be roaming this earth with your tail between your legs.”

“You know what I think?” he asks, his voice matching the low in hers.

She presses her wand deeper. “What?”

Malfoy doesn’t so much as falter the smirk on his face. Instead, he inclines his head further, tipping it closer so that the wand digs into his skin. Hermione’s eyes flick to his throat, captivated by the way it bobs as he speaks.

“I think you spend too much time thinking about things that go between my legs.”

She scoffs and grips his chin. “You’re an infant.”

He only laughs and it jolts her—the way his jaw muscles clench under her hand, how his chest shakes, letting some of the tension melt away. That’s the second time, she thinks. A proper, pure laugh. And it’s just as astonishing as hearing it the first time. Her eyes lower down to his mouth and he stops.

Her eyes snag at the mud coating her hand that’s gripping his face. She stares at it intently, her heart beating fast in her ears. Her muddy thumb brushes against the edge of his lower lip and she hesitates. Malfoy’s chest is heaving heavily and she feels his muscles contracting and relaxing beneath her. She doesn’t look anywhere other than his lips, afraid that if she looks into his grey, she’ll lose whatever it is that’s guiding her now.

She exhales, her breath fanning across his face and he shivers. The involuntary reaction makes her bold. Slowly, as though driven by an external force, she lifts her hand. She expects it to tremble, but it’s as steady and confident as the first time Hermione ever raised a wand. She can feel him watching her as she brings her hand down near his forehead and then ever so slowly, slides it to his cheek, and then to his jaw. The movement leaves a streak of mud in its trail and she hesitates for less than a second before sliding her thumb across his lips. They’re soft as rose petals and it takes all the will in her to not touch them again.

She lifts her eyes then. He returns her gaze with such intensity that she finds herself dipping her head lower. Her eyes fall back down to his parted lips, the mud already drying. But it's there, he's undeniably covered in mud.

And now? she wants to ask. What do you think about me now, Malfoy?

He exhales as she inhales, or maybe it's the opposite, but she feels his warm breath against her face anyway and it snaps her back to reality.

She blinks, realizing that she’s practically lying on top of Malfoy and jerks back. He watches her silently, his steady eyes fixated on her as she stumbles to stand.

Hermione mumbles a reversal spell over him and turns around, a hand on her throat to steady the thumping there. Malfoy shuffles behind her as he gets up. She walks away, shaking the hand she touched his face with.

“Where are you going?”

“If you can always walk away, Malfoy, so can I.” She doesn’t look back as she vanishes into the troughs of trees.

She doesn’t know where she’s going, just that she needs to get away from him and his questions. Dawn is a thread away from the blanket of night and there’s enough light to make out the trees. She winces when she steps on a stone and realizes, with annoyance, that she’s still barefooted.

There are footsteps behind her, predictably, but she doesn’t bother slowing down. She wonders briefly what Malfoy was doing this late at night, alone outside in the rain, but her curiosity isn’t enough this time for her to ask him.

She pushes the wet curls plastered against her temple roughly away, mud squishing under her bare feet. Her knees feel bruised and mud has snuck into her nailbeds. She’s not sure what exactly she’s looking for, but somehow she manages to cross the boardwalk leading to the beach.

Hermione pauses when her feet stumble onto the beach, her breath sweeping out of her chest as her toes sink into the sand. The wind whips across her face, wisping against her lashes, and she shivers. The tide crashes against the edge of the ocean, waves roaring as they snap across the jagged rocks.

She feels dazed, unable to breathe— finds herself gulping for air, despite it being everywhere around her and in her. It’s all one tone of grey, the sand beneath her feet, the ocean-spanning into the horizon, the storm clouds melting away as the sun slowly dares to peek out.

She’s never seen the ocean, she realizes.

And the sheer vastness— the endlessness—terrifies her and she wants to turn away, go back inside because it’s too much. Everything is too much and she can’t handle it.

“We should go in.”

“What?”

She’s not really paying attention, her eyes are narrowed on each wave that crashes against the shore. She feels herself being pulled in as her feet, then her ankles, start to drown into the plunging ground.

Malfoy comes up from behind her and to her side. “It looks nice to swim, don’t you think?”

She doesn’t turn her head to look at him. She’s up to her knees now, into the water, into the sand, disappearing into the darkness. “It’s freezing.”

“Are you afraid?” His voice is low, taunting. When she doesn’t answer he turns to face her. “Don’t tell me you can’t swim.”

“I’m not going in,” she says firmly.

“Perfect opportunity to wash off, in my opinion.”

It’s an insane idea.

“You’re insane.”

“Certified by now, unfortunately, seeing it’s a guaranteed side effect of being around you for too long. Although, I’m sure there are some antidotes to fix that. Perhaps I’ll do the world a favour and spend some of my expendable funds on figuring out one. A worthwhile investment, if you ask me.”

She eyes him suspiciously. “What’s the matter with you? Why are you so adamant all of a sudden?”

He doesn’t answer her questions and she thinks maybe he doesn’t have one anyway. Perhaps it’s all momentary, the spell of the night, the high of realizing that Hermione Granger is a madwoman, and he wants to humour her for the time being. To push her to see just how far she can go until she shatters.

“You wanted space, Malfoy. You wanted distance.”

He jerks his head and mutters under his breath, too low for her to fully hear, “Too far.”

She watches him warily as he moves to stand in front of her.

“We could keep our shirts on,” he offers, quietly. It’s a ridiculous notion considering she would never take her shirt off in front of Malfoy anyway, but she understands what he means.

He keeps her gaze as he takes a step back, then two, before turning around completely and walking toward the water. He stops near the shore to tug at the laces of his boot and takes them off, one at a time. He places his socks into the boots and aligns them neatly beside each other.

He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t falter as he gets in, stopping until the water is up to his waist, and turns back to her, silently waiting. His arms wade in the water, creating ripples that ebb and flow towards her, beckoning for her to come in.

And maybe it’s the combination of it already being a bizarre night, or maybe it's seeing Malfoy in the water as if he belongs there— the ocean behind him— because she finds herself moving toward him. She convinces herself that it doesn’t mean anything. She’s already on auto-pilot, it won’t matter if she gives in this once.

It's just water. It's just Malfoy.

She doesn’t stop to think when she reaches the tide and moves in until she’s standing beside him, the water lapping up to her shoulders. It’s not cold, surprisingly. Warm enough that she’s not shivering just yet.

She lets out a shaky breath. He catches her eyes for a moment before ducking into the water. She watches his dark shadow blend into the dark cast, not noticing when a hand wraps around her ankle. She has two seconds to realize what’s happening and to hold her breath before she’s pulled down.

Underwater, she turns around rapidly to find him. Though it’s clear to see in front of her, the black water is nothing but limitless and dark beneath her feet. There’s a moment of frantic ticking in her heart when she can’t find him, but then Malfoy swims in front of her, his white hair glowing as they wave in the water. The dried mud has melted away from his face, leaving his skin smooth and paler than usual. She tries to glare at him but she’s transfixed at how the first light of dawn slants into the water to create a blurry halo around him. She can’t do anything but watch him come closer.

He hovers, watching her carefully before lifting his eyes around her.

Bubbles rise to the surface as he reaches over and his fingers wrap around a strand of Hermione’s curls. It’s too soft, too gentle the way he brushes her hair between his fingers and she has to pull away to the surface.

There’s a moment’s pause and then he breaks through as well.

Malfoy runs both of his hands down his face and then up and back across his head, raking his white fringe out of his face.

She stands awkwardly, unknowing what to do now that he’s gotten her into the water. She ends up staring at him, taking in the droplets on his eyelashes and the way a streak of water drips down his cheek and jaw, before disappearing into the collar of his shirt.

Her eyes drift even lower, catching the way his wet shirt sticks against his lean and languid body. He might as well not be wearing his shirt considering she can practically see the exact definition of his body— all the rough edges and lines and the way his skin smooths over the muscle. She finds herself wondering if still plays Quidditch—surely, his body has to come from him working for it.

Malfoy makes a sound at the back of his throat, redirecting her eyes back to his face and she realizes he’s been staring back at her. He raises a brow at her.

She’s suddenly aware of all the places her own shirt is sticking to her body and the horrifying fact that she didn’t wear a bra to sleep. She’s tempted to cover her chest with her arms but his eyes never drop any lower than her face and she suspects the movement will only draw more attention.

She flushes and turns her back to him. She cups a hand through the water and watches it slip between her fingers.

Clearing her throat, she says, “I’ve never been to the ocean before. Have you?”

“Yes.” She feels his voice more than she hears it. The water ripples behind her as he comes closer.

“Right, of course. I’m sure with all the family holidays, you’ve seen more than just the ocean. I’ve never been to the ocean, though.” She’s stammering, repeating words, saying nonsensical sentences. She scratches her forehead to distract herself from how close he feels behind her.

“Not that it’s any different from the sea, which I have seen, mind you. Fleur and Bill’s cottage is at the coast of the Celtic Sea—a beautiful home, really.” Her heart clenches painfully at her last memories of the cottage. “But, at the end of the day, water is just water. Eventually, you realize, it doesn’t matter what the size of something is when it all feels the same.”

“I can think of a few things where size does matter, Granger,” he drawls.

Heat blooms across her face. “Did you know that less than five percent of the world’s oceans have been discovered? How mad is that? To realize that magic, in all its capabilities and natural advancement, still hasn’t found a way to explore what else is in the ocean. What do you think is in the remaining ninety-five percent?”

“Fish.”

His shoulder touches hers briefly as he wades in front of her. Hermione quickly turns in another direction, looking out into the horizon where light is breaking through the storm clouds.

He gives her a strange look but she pushes on, unable to stop herself. “I guess eventually, even for explorers, the mystery behind what they discover fades away. You start looking for something else, become hungry for new discoveries, go find a new planet and start from the beginning just for the sake of novelty and the vanity of being the first. Did you know that the first wizard, William Wardmen, to ever go into an ocean expedition was actually not a man? It was his wife, Elizabeth Wardmen, who used Polyjuice to become her husband because there were societal restrictions that prevented witches from joining the crew.”

“Why do you know so much useless information, Granger? It’s a miracle you haven’t suffered a stroke from the sheer force of using your head.”

She scowls. “It’s a miracle you haven’t suffered a stroke from the sheer weight of your head, Malfoy, considering how self-absorbed you are.”

“You can’t just use my words to insult me.”

“I can and I think I was rather effective. Especially since I'm positive whatever’s left of your brain contains only thoughts about your stupid shiny hair. A practically fluorescent mirror ball.”

“Shiny hair?”

“Or how tall you are—always towering over everyone like a bloody tree—”

“What’s a mirror ball?”

“Crouching under doors, looking at yourself in mirrors, as if it’s some kind of sport—”

“It sounds like you’re the one who’s been looking, Granger.”

“Always writing in that bloody journal of yours like a starved writer with an overdue rent—”

“You’re talking too much.” Malfoy glides in front of her. “Why are you talking so much?”

“You make me nervous,” she admits, catching her breath.

He bites the inside of his lip. “Really.”

“But like a normal amount of nervousness,” she hurriedly explains. “Like how someone would be nervous around a mosquito. Like I have to prepare myself in case you bite me.”

“Bite you?”

“I mean, of course, you’re not going to bite me. But I have to be careful anyway. You know, because you might.”

He hums. “Alright, Granger.”

She glares at him for a moment before lowering her eyes to the water. The ripples with her movement combine with the ones around Malfoy. She hovers her palm above the water. “You know their names.”

She doesn’t need to clarify but in his hesitance, she's sure he knows what she means. His voice is terse. “Yes.”

She looks up. “You know all of them?”

He nods once and shifts, gaze averted.

She wants to ask why but the tension in his face is replaced with curiosity and he opens his mouth before she can, “Where do you go?”

“What?”

“You get this look sometimes like you’re far away. Like you’re here but you’re not really. You’re somewhere there. Where do you go then?”

She blinks, stunned.

He must notice the shock on her face because he lifts a passive shoulder as if he hasn’t just tilted everything. “You’ve always been there, Granger.”

She shivers at the tone in his voice.

Malfoy comes closer. “Are you cold?”

“No,” she breathes.

“I could help you. With Occlumency.”

“Why?”

He looks down to the water. “I went too far.”

It’s not an apology, not even close. She’s also not sure exactly which of his actions he’s referring to considering everything that's happened. But her pulse quickens at the idea that she might finally learn the damned thing, and she’s not surprised that it’s enough for her to accept this olive branch from him. She needs this more than he thinks she does. She won't be trapped by her mind and while it won't solve everything, it's a start. Besides, if she gets lucky she might even be able to do it better than him.

“Who taught you?”

His eyes avoid her as they lift to the trees behind her. “My aunt.”

Bellatrix.

Hermione knew from Harry that Bellatrix was a skilled Occlumens and Legilimens, having learnt directly from Voldemort. She remembers the things Malfoy told her in the kitchen and she shudders at the thought of being trained by someone as ruthless and unforgiving as her. What kind of stain did that leave behind? There are too many questions in her mind that she wants to address but his closed-off face suggests he won’t answer any of them.

She tries anyway. "Was it difficult for you to learn?"

"Nothing's difficult for me, Granger."

She rolls her eyes. “Are you going to teach me how she taught you?”

“No,” he says sharply and Hermione flinches. He adds carefully, “You wouldn’t want that.”

She definitely doesn’t want it or anything more that is a remnant of her.

“Right, no. Of course.”

Malfoy clears his throat. “How much do you know about Occlumency?”

Hermione tries to recollect the passages she's read. “I know there are two parts to it. First, finding a center and then, second, using the center to store away the information of the mind. I’ve just never gotten the chance to practice or see if what I was doing was right.”

“Close your eyes.”

She starts. “What, now? You want to start now?”

“I thought you’d be eager to jump in.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re afraid.”

“Am not!” she replies hotly. She pushes her limp hair over her shoulder. “I just don’t think I can do it right now. It’s not the right...environment. I feel like I need to be somewhere warm and comfortable, have some tea with me. Preferably in front of a fireplace. A blanket would be nice too.”

“Hufflepuff.”

She gasps, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t you dare.”

“You really think you’re going to go about life warm and comfortable, with some Early Grey nearby, whenever you need to Occlude?”

She scowls and he gives her a pointed look. He's right, not that she’d let him know. “Fine. This should be perfectly okay. Freezing to death shouldn’t interfere with the process.”

Malfoy ignores her. “Obviously, we won’t be able to cover everything, and you won’t require my assistance anyway once you get the basics. I could help you to see if your wall is proactive and strong, but most of the practice is on your own once you get the basics.”

She nods slowly, suddenly feeling anxious and exposed. “Right, okay.”

He takes another step closer. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want me to.”

He’s asking her to be vulnerable. To let her guard down and let him in and it's a terrifying thought. Talking about things close to her is nothing like letting her mental walls down around him. Her mind, however, fractured, is the one thing she relies on.

It’s strange and she’d never think they’d end up like this. But it’s something. He’s offering her something to protect herself with. Didn’t she want this? For them to trust each other?

“No, I do.” And because she doesn’t sound as confident as she’d like, she closes her eyes before she can think twice and stop herself.

“What are you feeling right now?” He’s right in front of her. She can feel the heat radiating off his body.

“Nervous.”

“And?”

“Anxious.”

“They're the same things, Granger.”

“Then move back a little,” she suggests and is surprised when he does.

“Now?”

She shakes her head once, getting frustrated at her own inability. “Still anxious.”

“Don’t focus too much on the emotion. It’s important for identification but after that, all of the steps follow a similar trajectory.”

“It’s kind of hard not to when it’s completely taking over me.”

“I know. That’s the whole point of Occlumency, using a shield to protect yourself from unstable emotions. But if you focus on the negative emotions, you’ll cage yourself within them. You need to direct your attention to something else, another stimulus around you and focus on that.”

She nods slowly, trying to follow along.

“Good. What do you hear?”

“You.”

His voice is traced with amusem*nt. “And?”

“The wind. But it’s choppy. ”

“Okay, what else?”

“The ocean. It’s—” She shudders and takes a deep breath. “It’s loud.”

“Focus on that.”

"It's too much. It...makes me think of other things."

"You're safe, Granger."

Her breath hitches. She wants to forget about Occluding and ask him what he means. Instead, she shakes her head. “I don’t think I can.”

“Try. It can be terrifying, but you can try and change it to something that can clear your mind. It won’t happen right away. Occlumency takes a lot of practice and discipline—”

“I am disciplined.”

“You are,” he agrees, and she raises her brows at that. Almost opens her eyes to see for herself whether he's joking or serious. “But, it takes time and mental effort. It becomes exhausting to force yourself to turn inwards. It’s not easy but you can start with one thing first.”

She pauses, considering. “Okay. I’ll focus on the ocean.”

“Focus on the sound, feel it surround you. Then, take a deep breath in through your mouth and then exhale through your nose.”

She opens her eyes and looks at him deadpan. “I know how to breathe, Malfoy.”

Both of his hands rise and hover near her face as if to hold her head and force her to listen, as she'd do with Ron, but he lowers them immediately. He gives her an exaggerated annoyed look instead.

“Granger.”

She twists her mouth, stopping herself from smiling at how seriously he’s taking this. “Fine. Breathing.”

“Focus on the sound of the waves, the way they get louder as it comes closer and then quieter. Then follow the same pattern with your breathing.”

She does what he says, trying to hone in on the sound. It’s difficult and she wants to give up entirely and go inside. She’s struck again by the oddity of learning something academic and skilled from Malfoy. In Hogwarts, while he’d always compete with Harry on everything, academics were where Malfoy competed with her. They were rivals in everything and it's strange enough that he’s now, an ocean away, teaching her the one thing she’d never been able to do.

She wonders if he realizes this and wonders what shifted from their last conversation in the kitchen. He’d seemed desperate then, trying to convince her of something that she still doesn’t know. What had changed between then and now, she wonders. What has he resigned himself to?

“You’re thinking too much.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Shut it off, Granger. None of it is important right now.”

Telling Hermione to stop thinking is the same as telling her to stop breathing. She contemplates telling him that her conversation with herself about him is very much important considering he’s in her space right now, but she exhales and straightens herself, jumping back into the breathing and the ocean.

It takes her a few minutes, and while she keeps finding herself circling back to Malfoy and the fact that she’s standing in an ocean with him, she manages a good minute where all she does is breathe and listen.

She ends up in a meditating trance so that when he speaks up again, she doesn’t startle. Instead, his low voice seems to be a reverberation in her chest, an echo travelling through time and distance into her blood and bones.

“How are you feeling?”

“Far,” she whispers.

“Okay, keep breathing. The second part requires you to conjure up an image of some kind for the storage of your emotions, memories, and thoughts. Try a box. ”

Hermione tries to visualize a box, opening the lid, and peering inside. But she feels the constriction in her throat, the tightness of the space clenching her stomach.

“Too small,” she gasps.

“Okay, okay, something else.” His echo disappears as he pauses to think. “Try a house.”

Hermione frowns, conjuring up a house.

At first, it’s too small—she’s barely able to crouch through the door. But she steadies her breath and opens the front door—thinks of how tall Malfoy is—and makes it a little higher than that. She walks into the corridor of the house, her footsteps echoing around her, and gently closes the door behind her. Her breathing eases with each step inside.

She nods in confirmation and he must see the tension in her body dissipating because he continues. “Now, add rooms to your house. Each room can be designated for something you value in your life, something you want to protect, and anything else that you’d want to store away.”

She waits in the corridor, closing her eyes and then reopening them as doors appear around her.

She goes to the first one.

When she opens it, she finds herself in the middle of a room with her friends. Harry sits beside Ron, laughing at something Ginny has said, who sits across from them on a couch. Her fingers run through Luna’s hair who sits at her knees on the ground. Ginny says something that is indecipherable to Hermione and it creates a pang in her heart.

It’s a familiar memory, one she recognizes from a night at Ginny’s apartment. However, other than her friends, the room itself is white and empty.

She’s unsure what she needs to do with this memory of them or what the next step is now that she has them in a room.

She turns to Harry who says something and everyone laughs once more. Walking closer to him, Hermione lowers her face to his eye level. He talks right through her, gesturing with his hand about something and nodding at Ron.

He looks as young as he did during the war, but without all the strains of that time. His black hair flops against his skin, covering his scar— just how he likes to keep it. His skin is youthful and glowing, not yet hollowed out by stress and grief. His glasses are whole and unscratched. His eyes are bright, twinkling with sheer peace. She wonders why she’s thought of him from the war despite the memory only being three or four years old.

Seeing him like this— a fragment of the war yet somehow laughing— shakes her. She wants to wrap her arms around him, grip him tightly to her chest, and convince herself that it’s possible. He can be like this, regardless of what the war has taken from them. He is like this.

She raises a heavy hand and cups his cheek, taken aback when she meets solid skin.

It’s a memory, but it’s everything she’d hoped for him during the war, and it feels so real.

Harry continues to laugh but then, as though he too can feel her hand, he leans into her cupped palm and green eyes lift to meet hers.

Hermione gasps, eyes wide. She freezes as he reaches to place his own hand over hers. He'd never let her touch like this. It’s a tender gesture and she wants to weep.

“You’re in my head,” she rasps. “It’s not real.”

“Of course, I’m in your head, Hermione,” Harry says softly. “But why should that mean that it’s not real?”

Hermione makes a choked sound.

Somewhere, far away, Malfoy whispers, “I think we should stop now. That’s enough practice.”

She doesn’t listen. She creates another door in the same room she’s in right now, deciding Harry needs a separate room. She opens the door and peaks inside. Harry pops up in the middle of the room and smiles at her.

“Granger, open up your eyes.”

She’s too far, or he’s too far. His echoing voice even further away.

“Granger,” his tone is firm, and the echo transitions to something stronger and closer. But she’s too busy walking through her house, closing doors and opening others, labelling them all. “You have to come back.”

Her eyes flutter rapidly under her closed lids. She reaches for the knob when a bucket of water pours down on her.

Hermione gasps, eyes whipping open. She sputters as Malfoy slams his arm against the water, sending another wave towards her.

“Malfoy!” She shields herself with her arms. “Stop!"

He pauses for less than a second and then sends another tide and she exclaims, wiping her face, "I’m fine! Malfoy!”

“Just for good measure,” he replies simply.

She pushes back her wet hair from her face. “That was unnecessary.”

He studies her with furrowed brows. “You can’t go too deep at once. It requires practice and patience and even then it’s not advisable to do it during your first run. If you go too deep into yourself, it’s difficult to come back out.”

Hermione exhales a long breath. She thinks of Harry and while it's still a memory, it doesn't linger. She feels the memory still but it doesn't stay. Her chest feels lighter and she looks up at Malfoy.

“Thank you, Malfoy.”

He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even acknowledge it. He doesn’t ask her what she was thinking of or what memories she chose and she doesn’t think she’d tell him anyway.

Instead, they stand in front of each other, unspeaking.

It feels as though things have shifted. Or maybe nothing has changed, except for a restoration of balance between them.

“We should go back,” he says eventually.

She doesn’t trust herself to speak so she nods. She can’t move either so he’s the first to step back and make his way to the shore.

“Malfoy,” she calls. He stops halfway and turns to look at her over his shoulder. “I didn’t want to die.”

It’s the truth. It’s always been the truth. One she’s fought for before, during, and after the war.

His face is neutral, but she notes something briefly pass across his eyes. And then he nods once before turning back around.

She watches him for a little longer, as he gets out, water dripping from his sharp angles to put his boots back on. Only when his receding back disappears into the trees does she follow him out of the water, feet stepping into the prints of his.

Dawn has broken out across the sky, letting sunbeams through the clouds that reflect off the water like glistening spilled oil. The waves are still loud but amongst the chaos, Hermione can make out the cacophony of birds waking up.

Everything around them continues, untouched and undisturbed.

The worst of the storm is over.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

It happens as strange and mystical as this: one day you wake up and everything you have been running from disappears.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

Time stretches out and oscillates into itself like the tracing of a shell. Regardless of where Hermione puts her finger, she can follow the engraved swirls and choose where to stop and when to continue.

She can go all the way to the beginning, the small space where the shell curves into itself, and she can find herself as a child once more. Time had no meaning then. It was infinite, all-consuming. Uncomplicated.

If she moves forward, she’ll find herself at Hogwarts. And time becomes quicksand—the speed of it pacing as quickly as each beat of her frantic heart. And if she’s brave enough she can try to push the veil aside and take a peek into who she is a year or two from now. Who she is tomorrow.

She might see a hazy version of herself. A rough outline of her body waiting for all the colours to be drawn in. The lack of control over who she may become makes her nervous and maybe that’s why she’s stuck in the past. There’s comfort in the frightening memories, she realizes. The ghosts of her past haunt her present. Or maybe, she’s the ghost, living in the now. But at least she can look back and see where she went wrong rather than decipher what may go wrong.

So many decisions were made in a single passing moment and almost none of them changed her life. But then, she finds herself stumbling across certain periods where each moment is extended to its limit, her fingers grazing along the edge of the shell, and a single decision changes everything. And suddenly, time becomes an overstretched rubber band. Pulled to its maximum length, taut and ready to spring back to this moment. This moment, right now, as Hermione stands outside of the cottage, eyes closed, and face tilted towards the sky.

She didn’t sleep much after last night. Barely managed to get in half an hour.

Leena stopped Hermione after breakfast, pulling her aside in the hallway. She’d written a letter to her daughter and was going to send it today. She wanted to meet Mona before the wedding, spend some time with her so that she could explain. Leena didn’t know exactly what needed to be said or what the right words were. She just knew she was going to ask for forgiveness first. She’d make sure to not push aside all the grief Mona must have felt; her daughter deserved an apology.

Leena could hardly keep her emotions in, tears cascading down her cheek, as she stumbled over words that had been hidden inside her for too long. She showed Hermione the letter and explained that it was thanks to her she’d even written it. And then Hermione was pulled into a hug, Leena’s arms wrapping around her back and holding her tight to her chest, and it took everything in her to not fall apart.

This is what it felt like, she reminded herself. This is what it felt like to hug Mum.

Hermione opens her eyes as the fingers of a wind graze her cheek. It’s a cool morning—the air relieved of its humidity after last night’s storm. The sun is out and the cracks of daylight seep through the treetops, creating rays of honeyed warmth. She looks up and watches the trees sigh and heave towards each other.

Crown shyness.

That’s what her father had told her about the trees. The strange way they create an intricate web that allows them to get close enough to the other trees but never enough to fully touch. To avoid getting hurt, he said. They get close, but never enough to collide. Over time, some trees will even learn the way the other trees grow and they'll change themselves to avoid damaging the others.

Her eyes drop to her trembling hands. She watches the slight shake of her fingers, of her palms, and realizes they’re never steady anymore. It seems her hands second-guess everything now.

And then there’s that fact that everything she is—everything she knows to be true—doesn’t belong to her. She’s made of the words written or spoken by others and she’d give anything to hear those words again. She’d give herself up if it meant she too could write a letter telling her parents that she wanted to hear them speak once more.

Hermione struggles to keep herself together, so she bypasses the buzzing in her body, and turns in the direction of the cliff. She closes her eyes again and concentrates, honing on the one sound she needs to hear. And there, just in the near distance, she hears the ocean humming like a slumbering beast.

Come closer, it begs. Come and see.

Regardless of what she might think, this present moment in time is stained by all the ones before and she’s indefinitely stuck. She needs to wash it all away if she ever wants to move forward.

Hermione shivers. The hair on the nape of her neck rises. She opens her eyes, looking into the trees— at the path that she ran last night. It had been so close.

Her mind races and she blinks once when she makes her decision. It’s different now. It has to be different. And then without thinking, she takes a step forward, and then another, before she falls into a run.

She knows where she’s going, her legs carrying her down the familiar woven path between the trees.

Faster, the trees whisper in her ear. She pushes away the branches and increases her speed. Faster.

She’s gasping for air, lungs burning as they constrict in her ribs under the pressure. Her muscles strain against the sudden movements after years without use. Her shoes splash into the mud, making her lose her balance as she slips and slides.

Run, Hermione.

She stumbles at Harry’s voice but quickly regains balance and rights herself. Her eyes are set forward and the forest blurs into green in her periphery. Her chest heaves as she forces air into her lungs—blood gushing furiously behind her eyes.

Run, my love, her mother whispers.

Hermione’s eyes swell with tears. A cry simmers in her chest and she wants to fall to the ground. Her hair whips against her face, sticking to her wet lips and obstructing her view of where she’s going. But still, she doesn’t stop.

The waves crash louder, and she propels herself towards the sound, the edge of the cliff coming closer in view. Hermione doesn’t know what she’s trying to do but she’s not thinking about anything except for the singular thought to just keep going.

It’s a sudden end—the cliff curves into nothingness. Her stomach drops and she has one second to think maybe she won’t make it. There’s no one here to stop her now. Maybe she won’t be able to stop herself in time and this will be where it ends. But she only increases her speed, her heart jumping in her throat like a panicked rabbit.

Run, Granger.

It’s this final voice that shakes her. Gives her the strength to continue.

Adrenaline pumping in her body, she sprints.

And then finally, she cries out and skids to a stop a mere distance away from the end. Fragments of stones from under her feet roll over the jagged edge.

Hermione falls to her knees at the sudden impact—hands falling in front of her to stop her face from hitting the ground.

She grunts at the pain, head dipped low, gasping for air. Empty silence takes over her mind, despite her pulse throbbing in her temple. She remains in this position for several moments until her vision clears and the bile in her mouth disappears. And then, she lifts her head and looks up over the edge and into the water.

Her entire body shakes.

She swallows the rock in her throat and pushes herself to her feet, wavering slightly against the protest of her legs.

The wind is harsher here. Cold and unforgiving.

Hermione wipes the stinging tears on her cheeks and gently pushes the curls away from her face. She closes her eyes once more and forces herself to focus on the waves. They vibrate in her bones, each wave a drum that only makes the blood in her veins run faster, flooding into her heart with such intensity that she thinks maybe it’ll explode.

She clenches into herself. Her bones turn rigid and locked. She tries to breathe in and out as Malfoy told her, but it’s too much at once. Overstimulation with the run, her standing on the edge, and the ocean that is still very much an enemy.

Her eyes move rapidly behind her closed lids and she forces her lungs to inhale and exhale, despite her mind instructing her to flee.

It doesn’t work and she cries out in frustration. She grabs a rock lying beside her feet and whirls it across over the edge. It shoots outwards and arcs down before disappearing into the water. She bites her lips until she tastes metal. When did she become so helpless? So inept to do anything substantial?

She can’t do it.

Maybe it was a one-off, something she can only do with someone there to monitor. But she refuses to go to Malfoy and ask him to take her through the process once more. She doesn’t need him. She doesn’t want to need or be trapped by anyone.

Shut it off, Granger.

And that’s the problem, she realizes—she’s still thinking too much. She closes her eyes again and takes a deep breath, letting the waves envelop her but focusing on Malfoy’s voice. While she won’t go to him for help, in the privacy of her mind, she’ll let him in.

Breathe in through your mouth and exhale through your nose. Focus on my voice.

She does. Lets the memory of his voice reverberate throughout her body until she finally feels her body letting go of some of its tension. Her shoulders relax and the heaviness of her chest slowly dissipates. The roar of the ocean simmers down to a soft hum she'd heard when she’d placed her ear against her mother’s chest as a child. Rising and falling to the tune of comfort.

She manages to control her breath and falls into the feeling of emptiness before conjuring her house.

Hermione stands outside and looks up at the home which is a replica of her childhood home. The same two wicker chairs on the porch, where her mother would sit every afternoon reading a book, and where her father would sit with a newspaper in his hands. There’s the pot of white daffodils hanging from the railing that Hermione helped her mother plant. The same willow tree in front of the house that she’d see through her window and would eventually climb once she got over her fear of falling.

Looking up at her childhood home creates a hollow pit in her stomach and she bites her tongue to not let the image, or herself, crumble.

Her knowledge of Occlumency was that of protection, of warding oneself from the other. But what if the only one you wanted to protect your mind, your memories, were from yourself?

Hermione knows she can change the house. It’s her mind and her decision on how she wants to approach this. But she doesn’t want to forget the emotions behind her memories. She sees it as a vital sign that she is, in fact, living. What she truly wants is to have a sense of control over them. Each memory and its associated emotion is neatly organized, like the crisp folding of a dragonfly’s wings, so that she’s no longer driven to the edge of a cliff because of her blinding fear. She can use it to organize her thoughts and memories, a way to gain clarity. A way to keep all the precious moments somewhere safe to visit when she's ready.

Something like the neat thud of a book pushed onto a shelf, only for it to be picked up again. Or the flip of a light switch that she could easily turn back on.

Not an ending; just a meeting in the middle.

The willow tree stands still across her bedroom window. Later, there will be a swing attached to one of the branches and Hermione will spend her days reading under its canopy. For now, it stands alone. Which is how she knows that the house is from a time before Hogwarts, before magic.

She turns the doorknob and steps inside.

“Hermione? Are you looking for me? I’m right here, my love.”

Hermione freezes. She immediately recognizes the memory.

It’s winter. She’s nine years old. She’d spent an entire afternoon outside in the snow. Hermione had been calling for her mother when she entered the house—slightly panicked because she couldn’t feel her fingers after an hour of making a snowman. She’d been fine of course, but back then, Hermione would turn to her mother for every little thing that made her afraid.

Now, Hermione follows her mother’s voice to the living room. She knows what is behind the door but her breath still leaves her when she sees her mother curled in an armchair across their fireplace.

Her mother looks up from a familiar Greek mythology book and smiles. “Were you looking for me?”

A strangled sound leaves Hermione. It’s just a memory, but like the one with Harry, it feels so unbelievably real.

“Is everything alright, Hermione?”

Hermione spins to the voice. Her father comes up from behind her, holding a blanket. He goes over to her mother and gently places it around her shoulders. Her mother gives him a tender smile as he takes a seat on the chair’s armrest.

They both turn toward her, expectantly.

She opens her mouth but nothing comes out. She doesn’t know what to say.

She doesn’t know what to do.

The image of them together is so eerily familiar that it leaves her gutted.

She’ll never get to see them in person, she knows this is true. But she’s dreamt of all the things she could say to them if she did by some miracle get to see them.

She wants to explain why she Obliviated them. Why it was necessary because at that moment during the war, when Moody told her what could happen to them, she saw no other way. She wants to tell them everything about the books she’s published and the work she does. Her memories with her friends. All the things she’s afraid of. She wants to tell them that people were getting better after the war, somehow Harry was getting better, and that meant maybe one day, she too could get better.

She also wants to tell them how against all odds, she met Malfoy again and he’s so stubborn and infuriating just as she once told them. But there’s also something there in him and she’s trying just as her mother wanted her to. She thinks her mother would be proud of that.

She wants to say so many things but at this moment everything suddenly becomes so meaningless. None of it matters except for this one thing she must do first.

She takes heavy steps toward them. The room is cold, despite the crackling fire, and it reminds her that despite it feeling all too real, it’s still in her head. They could vanish if she opens her eyes and this exact image of them would disappear.

The smile never leaves their face as she slowly crouches down beside her mother’s legs. She could say so many things but when she opens her mouth all that comes out is, “I’m sorry.”

It’s what she wants to say to them the most. She’s sorry because she took something away from them that she had no right to. Because she’d do it again and again if it meant they were safe. And maybe for that, she doesn’t deserve their forgiveness, but she needs to say it anyway.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” Hermione croaks again. If this is the only way she’ll see them, she needs to say it so that they know. “Please. I’m so sorry.”

Her mother angles her head and looks down at Hermione, puzzled. “Hermione, it’ll be alright.”

She can’t meet her mother’s eyes, so she looks away and shakes her head vehemently. Nothing about this is alright and it’s all too much for her to handle. It’s too much for anyone to handle and she can’t imagine how any of this will be okay again.

Soft, warm hands cup her face and Hermione breaks into a sob.

Her face is tilted up and through the tears, Hermione looks into the gentle eyes she realized she’d forgotten. She’d forgotten how her mother looked at her.

“It’ll be alright, my love.” Her mother puts a curl behind Hermione’s ear. “You must know. Everything will be okay.”

How much had she craved to hear these words?

Her throat closes and tears flood her eyes. She’s breathing heavily, as though she can’t get in enough air for her to say what she needs to.

Her words crumble together and she rasps, “I miss you so much. I miss you every single day.”

“We know, Hermione.” Her father moves to stand behind her. He places a strong hand over her head and the weight of it, the sheer presence of it, breaks her heart. “We’re right here. We never left.”

And it’s those words that she’s been aching to hear that make her finally fall apart. With her father’s hand still over her head, Hermione grips her mother close and sinks her head into her lap.

Her body shakes and trembles as she weeps, repeating over and over, I’ll never forget you. I’ll never forget you.I’ll never forget you.

___________________________________

When Hermione finally closes the door behind which her parents sit with a firm click, she opens her eyes.

Standing at the edge of the cliff looking over the ocean, she touches her cheeks, expecting tears, but they're dry. She exhales a calm breath. Hermione looks over to the horizon where the ocean meets the sky.

She thinks maybe she forgot how to live when she realized there wasn’t anyone watching her do so. But she realizes she is still here even when there's no memory of her. She is still their daughter even when they believe they have none. She lives and she remembers and she tells herself she is not betraying their memory because doing one was the same as doing the other.

A sound below directs her attention away from the ocean. Malfoy walks over to the shore, stark footprints in the sand following his steps. He stands there for a moment, looking so small at this distance, but just as steady as she’s always known him. She watches him run a hand through his hair. It’s a private moment, but she doesn’t look away or turn around.

There’s a gust of wind and he stiffens, one hand still in his hair, before turning to look over his shoulder as if expecting someone to be standing there. She notes the exact moment his eyes lift to where she stands.

He raises a hand to cover his eyes from the sun that shines down brightly above her. She wonders how she might look to him, standing at the cliff he stopped her from falling. His face is blank and while he squints against the sun, he doesn’t look away from where he stands in the water. They watch each other—their silence only amplitude by the roar of the ocean.

Maybe Malfoy also understands how time is as infinite as it is limited. That living like this right now means they'll have to remember, the good with the awful. And maybe as long as they’re alive, they’ll have their memories with the possibility to create some new ones that won’t hurt. And then eventually, they won’t feel like this anymore. Grief was, after all, just the imprint in the sand left behind by love and time the water that wiped away its trace. And this grief that sticks to the palms of their hands, the tissues of their heart—it won't be there one day.

It’s only when Hermione looks away to face the water once more that Malfoy turns as well.

She breathes in and tries to memorize this moment in time.

The wisps of the wind blow curls into her eyes. Water claws its way toward Malfoy's feet before sliding back away. A house of sand dissolves into the tide.

Further into the ocean, a hawk circles and circles and never lands.

___________________________________

Hermione sneezes.

“According to my mother’s recipe, the key to the perfect tea is to not use your wand. It must be done with your hands otherwise you won’t be able to control the ingredients and the exact measurements. Are you listening, Hermione?”

“I’m sick, Amina,” Hermione moans and sneezes again. On top of the lack of sleep and a night out in the storm, she overexerted herself with Occlumency. She should have known that overdoing her mind would result in her getting sick and now every inch of her body was screaming in exhaustion and pain. There was a pending headache throbbing in the back of her head.

“Here, take this. It's the last one.”

Hermione looks at the orange in her hand and unwillingly blushes.

“Now, the second keyis to have fresh mint. Not something powdered or from the shop. It must be plucked directly from the plant before you make the tea, otherwise, the taste and aroma will not be the same. Now, Hermione, first, you must cut the mint leaves and then ground them.”

Hermione scoots closer where she sits on the counter and watches Amina take out a kitchen knife.

“You have to slice them very thin,” Amina explains. “And then ground the leaves and boil them with water and let it steep. My mother used to say that the strength of the tea leaves was directly related to how much your partner loved you. And you know what they say, a loving partner is the same as a life filled with riches.”

She’s never heard anyone say that.

“Really,” Hermione mumbles, chewing an orange slice. “How strong was your mother’s tea?”

Amina gives a short laugh. “Not very. But, don’t worry, when you make this tea, I have a good feeling it’ll be bitter.”

“Why would bitter mean good?”

“I...don’t know. Maybe John likes bitter tea?”

“He doesn’t drink tea.”

Amina doesn’t notice the change in Hermione’s voice. “Well, that’s good then! It won’t matter if it’s bitter or not if he doesn’t drink it. Or...actually, now I’m confused. I’m not sure what the protocol is when your partner doesn’t like tea—Draco! I’m making tea, would you like some?”

Malfoy pauses in the hallway, just outside the kitchen entrance. His eyes fall on Hermione before shifting to Amina. “Now?”

“Well, not now. I’m making it so you can wait here for the first glass. If you pay attention, you might learn something to woo a girl with.”

Her stomach twists and lurches when he steps into the kitchen. She watches him from the corner of her eyes as he leans against the counter from across where Hermione sits. They’re back in the same position as last night, except there’s daylight and the room feels almost cosmic now that he’s here.

“I have other things in my armoury that work. I think I’ll be okay,” Malfoy says wryly.

“I really hope you’re not talking about your charm,” Hermione quips. She’s not sure what prompted her to speak to him but she doesn’t look away when Malfoy’s eyes snap to her.

Malfoy co*cks his head. “You think I’m charming?”

She frowns. “No, that’s not—”

“My mother used to say whoever got the first sip of the tea would live to see a hundred years' worth of gold,” Amina interrupts. She digs through the cupboards.

“Perhaps Granger should get the first sip then,” Malfoy tells Amina. “You know, because I’m already so rich.”

Hermione glowers at him. “Perhaps not, Malfoy. My tea will be bitter enough.”

“Okay,” he replies, looking at her strangely. “Whatever that means.”

“After the tea has steeped, you have to stir once clockwise and then twice in the opposite direction,” Amina continues. “And to pour, you can bring it up high and pour directly into a glass. How’s John, anyway, Hermione?”

Hermione stops breaking apart the orange. “What do you mean?”

“Well, didn’t he write to you? You got a letter, no? I thought it must be him.”

“Right, sure. He wrote to me.” She glances at Malfoy who gazes at her steadily. She immediately looks back at Amina and schools her face. “He’s doing fine.”

“We’re talking about John Archibald, Draco,” Amina explains as though he might care. “He’s running in the upcoming election. Do you know him?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Look how high I’m bringing the pot—of course, the first time you try it this way, it pours everywhere, but into the glass. With practice, however, it gets better. John must be so busy with the election coming up soon, Hermione.”

Sweet, oblivious Amina. Hermione doesn’t want to have this conversation. But, she also isn’t going to bring up her breakup with John in front of Malfoy. She tries to catch Amina’s eyes, who remains very much invested in making the perfect tea, and Hermione resorts to keeping the conversation short.

“Yes, he’s very busy.”

Malfoy stares at Hermione with a dark, disapproving look. She narrows her eyes at him in response and pops an orange slice in her mouth. His assessing gaze dips to her mouth briefly as she chews before meeting her eyes once more.

“I can only imagine the toll it must take on you. Always away for business, never enough time for you. My father was a city minister for three years and my mother absolutely hated it. They were always arguing about how he was so involved with politics but didn’t give two sh*ts about his family.” Amina stops to think. “My mother really should have taken her tea seriously.”

“What do you do after with the tea?” Hermione asks, trying to reorient Amina.

“Well, it’s done now. You let it steep and then add however many sugars you want.” Amina’s words trail as she looks at Hermione, eyes widening slightly, before slowly turning to Malfoy. “Draco. Now that I have you here, I was wondering about something...”

“Yes, Amina,” Malfoy responds wearily. Hermione suspects Amina lured Malfoy in with tea for this conversation. Malfoy’s face confirms he’s thinking the same thing.

Amina scratches her neck and shrugs casually. “Considering we’re already behind on schedule because of the storm and we’re predicted to have another heavy rainfall tonight, we’ll most likely be leaving tomorrow night.”

Malfoy simply crosses his arms against his chest. He looks at Amina with the patience of someone waiting for a child to confess they’ve set the house on fire. Hermione watches the two of them with fascination.

“Well you know, everyone is feeling so down,” Amina says, gesturing at Hermione who looks at her confused at being singled out. “I’m thinking we'll do a night out in the town tonight to get the spirits all up and running again. Wouldn’t that be fun? Nothing too over the top, mind you. We’ll just eat dinner, dance. And get drunk.”

“I probably shouldn’t be hearing about all the ways you’ll be spending the money I’m giving,” Malfoy drawls.

Amina scowls. “The Queen's reign is over Draco. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Of course, but it’s not really the Queen’s money, is it?”

Amina pouts. “Please let us go get drunk one last time, Draco, before we inevitably wither away in the inferno that is the desert. You just need to agree for logistics’ sake.”

Malfoy rolls his eyes, giving in a lot easier than Hermione thinks he would, and Amina grins. “I’ll tell the others! Here, this should help with congestion.” Amina places a glass of steaming tea in Hermione’s hand. “Also, Hermione, you’re coming!”

She calls after Amina as she leaves the kitchen, “I’m sick, Amina!” Hermione slowly turns toward Malfoy and repeats pathetically, “I’m sick.”

He stares at her for a long moment. “Alright.”

Her eyes drop to her hands. She has the orange in her left and the tea in her right, both facing upward as though she’s giving him an offering of sorts.

She feels the need to say something now that he isn’t leaving first. But she’s unsure how to approach any topic after their whole night together. There’s a level of hesitancy that comes with every shift in a relationship and she’s just not sure how to be around him when in her mind things have changed drastically between them.

Relationship. She wants to laugh at that. They’re not even friends, but it feels different. It feels like something that doesn't need to be defined by a label just yet. He saved her and now that she’s gotten over the initial humiliation of him seeing her vulnerable, she’s grateful enough for that and for him teaching her Occlumency. It doesn’t matter to her if he hasn’t reached the same level with her just yet. Things can be like this right now and it’s okay.

Hermione also wants to ask what he was doing outside, but then that’d open him up to ask what she was doing on the cliff. Maybe she should tell him about her progress so far if only to confirm the fact that she’s learning Occlumency at a faster rate than when he’d probably done it.

She lifts her eyes back to Malfoy, but whatever she’s about to say disappears as she catches him already watching.

All he ever does is stare and make judgements about her in his mind. And she knows it's judgement when he looks at her. She can see it in his eyes, the way they focus on her hair or clothes. She is of the mind to tell him that his manners are outrageous and it’s completely hypocritical of him to just yap on about how she judges him when he goes ahead and stares at her. She’ll tell him eventually, but not right now, because she’s sick. Obviously not because of the way he’s looking at her and how it’s making her nervous again.

She carefully places the tea on the counter beside her. “I should probably—”

“Why him?”

Hermione stops making her way off the counter. “What?”

“Why Josh?”

“John,” she corrects. “His name is John. You know who he is.”

He gives her a blank look.

“His father is the Minister of International Magical Cooperation, William Archibald.”

Malfoy blinks. His face gives no recollection of what she’s talking about.

“They’re a very prominent family,” she sniffs, hating how she sounds. She’s never cared about John’s family or their prominent role in society. If anything, she’s shied away from it all—the attention, the constant need to be careful of what she says around them. She’s only met John’s parents less than a handful of times and each encounter was more brutal and stifling than the one before.

But she doesn’t believe for one second Malfoy doesn’t know who John or his father is. The Archibald family were in the UK for business before the war until they finally settled once William became a minister. They at least run in the same social circle where Malfoy did whatever work he claimed to do.

“He’s from New York,” she adds when he doesn’t acknowledge what she’s saying.

“That’s unfortunate.”

She glares at him. She doesn’t know why she feels the sudden need to defend John against Malfoy. But it’s as though she needs to explain John if only to explain herself.

“Don’t mock him, Malfoy. He’s a Wampus.”

“That’s really not helping.”

“It’s a legitimate and well-respected house in Ilvermorny.”

He looks bored. “Alright, Granger.”

“You just don’t understand anything different from you.”

“The only good thing to ever come out of America was Witney Haven.”

“Witney Haven?” Hermione looks at him surprised. “The singer?”

The witch is at least sixty years old now. She’d stopped singing twenty years ago, but she’d been popular in her time and the public’s admiration for her continued for several years after she retired. Even Hermione, who’s pretty clueless about the Wizarding entertainment scene, knew about her because Ron used to keep a newspaper clipping of her from when she visited London. Fred and George had snuck out to see a private singing event for the Ministry.

He shrugs, unbothered by her evident shock. “She was good at what she did.”

Hermione simply needs to know more. “Which of her songs do you like? Also, how old were you when you first started liking her, because that changes a lot of things.”

Malfoy ignores her. “Why him, Granger?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

Malfoy plays with the ring on his finger, his thumb brushing over the emerald stone. His eyes don’t leave her face. “I just want to know what it’ll take to get the Golden Girl.”

“Trust me, Malfoy,” she remarks, “That’s not something you’ll ever need to worry about.”

He stretches his legs out and leans back, looking relaxed and unconcerned with her response.

His nonchalance annoys her even though he’s only seemingly agreeing with her. And she’s fine with it because she’s well aware of her reasons as to why Malfoy would be the last man on Earth she’d ever be with, but his indifference leaves her wondering what his reasons are. She’s well acquainted with at least half of them, as he’s practically made it his life-long mission for her to know, but a little ball of indignation makes her want to know the rest. She’s curious to know if the reasons are the same as before and if there are some new additions to his list. She pauses to consider his response and it seems to be a terrible situation sure to leave her feeling miserable, so for once, she drops it.

Hermione traces the blue and white patterns of the counter, dipping into the grooves between each tile. “He asked me and I said yes.”

“He asked you,” Malfoy echoes slowly. “Do you say yes to any bloke who asks you?”

She scoffs at the unimpressed look he shoots at her and flips her hair over her shoulder. “Despite what people might think, there isn’t a line of potential men waiting for me. There was just John and he was persistent.”

“So are dogs. Maybe you just need a pet.”

Hermione exhales. “Right. I’m leaving—”

“I’m sure he’ll be waiting at your doorstep the minute you go back home, his tail wagging and mouth drooling—”

“We’re actually not together right now,” Hermione cuts in sharply. “So, you can stop trying to make me feel bad about being with him.”

Silence stretches out between them.

Hermione refuses to look at him but she can feel his gaze on her nevertheless.

She hates this; she doesn’t even know why she’s brought it up. She loathed talking about John with her friends as it is. But somehow, and almost always against her will, she ends up sharing things about herself with Malfoy that she knows he doesn’t care about and she feels forced to come up with a better explanation.

“Why?” Malfoy asks finally. There’s not a hint of genuine curiosity in his voice—he could be talking about why the sky is blue for all the lack of actual concern that’s on his face.

She’s unsure how she still feels about the whole situation with John and she’s of the mind to ignore it all until she returns home. Talking about him with Malfoy makes her feel as if she’s betraying something and that’s even more confusing.

Hermione gives him a flat look, hoping to mask the painful twist of her heart. “You can’t seriously expect me to tell you.”

He doesn’t disagree but he sets his jaw and looks at her evenly. “He’s an idiot, Granger.”

“He’s really not,” Hermione retorts, rolling her eyes. “And you don’t need to say that because he’s very intelligent and successful.”

His voice is short and annoyed. “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”

Hermione shakes her head in disbelief. “You hate everyone you meet. You say you don’t know anything about him and yet you go around making assumptions based on nothing—”

“I don’t want to know him. I’ll be the happiest man in this f*cked world if I never meet him. Just don’t defend him, Granger. Not to me.”

He says it like it should mean something to her—like he’s someone who matters when it comes to these things.

Hermione shakes her head again, unconvinced. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you have...someone?” She cringes internally. Hermione twirls the tea, watching the mint leaves dance around in the hot liquid.

“Someone for what?”

“Malfoy.”

“Sometimes.” Malfoy looks amused.

“But you don’t believe in love,” she says slowly. Carefully. “So what are you looking for from these women?”

“Other than sex you mean? Nothing,” he admits.

She glances at him. “Except you don’t need someone for what you can do yourself, do you?”

Malfoy’s mouth twitches. His eyes bore into her to perhaps make her feel embarrassed but for once she doesn’t squirm or blush. He runs his tongue across his teeth and says, “No, I guess I don’t.”

“So then?” she pushes.

“I'm f*cking them, Granger. There's nothing more.”

Her cheeks finally turn into flames and Hermione looks away. He can be so crude sometimes, she’s left not knowing how to respond.

She hasn’t read anything specific in the papers about the women he’s with. And it's not like Malfoy makes it easy for anyone to know what he is doing either. He's hardly ever seen in public, but sometimes there'll be a rare mention of a woman or a name she doesn't recognize associated with his. She doesn’t doubt that Malfoy has his share of lovers—or rather, considering she doubts there’s a single ounce of romantic emotion in his body he'll spare anyone, women he brings to his bed.

Either way, regardless of what people might think of him and his role in the war, Malfoy was always going to be an eligible bachelor. His money and inheritance status hadn’t changed because of the war and as a result, neither did the women he attracted.

Even when he was in school she knew about the rumours that circulated him about courting women when he’d come of age. There were expectations for him. He had responsibilities as the Malfoy heir and a member of the Pureblood aristocracy to find someone who was of the same status as him. There was nothing there about marrying for love, but love never mattered when it came to upholding the Pureblood name. She’d think it was sad if she didn’t know his thoughts on love now.

However, whatever point she was trying to make about this now leaves her feeling worse than when they were talking about John.

“You must have them waiting in queue for you, though,” she says quietly. “Tall. Young. And beautiful.”

“Not always tall, no.”

Hermione just hums.

She can imagine the women now. She thinks of them in beautiful dresses hand-crafted somewhere in Italy just for their bodies. Stunning, frosted jewelry dripping on their long, delicate necks—the kind of jewelry that had to be stored away in guarded vaults at the end of the day. They’d match Malfoy in money and personality. Women who would sway on his arms like vines in the Hanging Gardens. Never to outshine him, of course. They were simply there to highlight the everlasting green that was Malfoy.

She thinks about these women and it makes her feel lonely.

“Are you jealous, Granger?” Malfoy’s voice is traced with something low that makes her look up at him.

She gives him an incredulous look. “What—no!” He pushes himself away from the counter and takes a step toward her. “Why—why would you even think that?”

“You sound jealous.”

“I’m not,” she says firmly. “If anything, I’m jealous they’re free of you when I’m stuck with you here.”

She inhales sharply when he comes closer. His hand grips the counter beside her as he leans in, shifting so he settles in between her knees that somehow widen on their own to accommodate him.

Her legs burn where they touch him, making roots and branches of fever in her body. He must have taken a shower recently because all she can smell is the vanilla and sandalwood and she wants to close her eyes in the warmth he’s radiating. She hopes she doesn’t sneeze.

“You don’t have to be jealous, Granger,” he murmurs, angling his head lower to catch her eyes when she starts to look away. There’s a brush of his skin against her hand, but she can’t move away from his face to see what he’s doing. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Later, she'll think of how they always end up being like this—in each other’s space, breathing in while the other breaths out. Once, he was nowhere, and now he’s everywhere and she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to him being this close to her. Can’t ever get over the strangeness of them being together anywhere. And she'll wonder how he always finds ways to touch her and why it feels so different from the other times she’s been touched by a man—touched by John.

Now, she blinks furiously to divert her attention away from the freckled shades of grey in his eyes.

He straightens, meets her eyes once more, and steps back. He smirks when he takes in how disoriented she is. Her hand feels empty and it’s only when he leaves and she’s brought back to where she sits alone in the kitchen that she looks down to find her orange gone.

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

I’ll look for you and you’ll be there and that is how I will know my dreams have come true.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

“Are you sure you can’t come?”

Hermione pulls the shawl closer around her shoulders and shivers against the wind. “I wish I could, but I really am sick, Amina. I’ll probably just head upstairs to sleep.”

Amina gives Hermione a sad smile and opens the door to the car to slip inside. “I left some leftovers from lunch since you’re missing out. There’s hot tea for you in the kitchen. Let me know if you need anything?”

“Please don’t worry about me. I want you to have fun. I’ll be okay alone.”

Amina frowns. “You’re not alone. You have Draco.”

It doesn’t click right away. She’s more aware of the sounds of the cars revving around her than what Amina’s just said.

“What?” Hermione breathes. “Amina, wait—why?”

“Feel better!” Amina calls out of her window as the cars, one by one, reverse out. “We’ll be home late!”

Hermione reflexively takes a step forward, in a last-minute attempt to flee with them, but the cars flash away into the darkness. Slowly, she turns around and faces the cottage. There’s nothing theoretically wrong with being alone with Malfoy in a house. She’s been alone with him before. But the kitchen was one thing and being in an entirely empty house with him feels fundamental and vast.

Inside, sounds are coming out of the kitchen and she pauses in the hallway, right across from the stairs. There’s a split second where she waits in the shadows and convinces herself that she doesn’t need tea and that sleep really is the best option for her. But there's a frustrated sigh and she finds herself edging toward the kitchen to see what he’s doing. She had a plan for tonight that distinctly did not involve Malfoy. But she also refuses to be cowered into her room just because Malfoy’s intruded on her plans—or at least, that’s what she tells herself.

He’s rummaging through the cupboard, opening the ones above the sink and letting them slam shut when he moves on. He doesn’t hear her come up and she hesitates at the entrance.

She clutches onto her shawl for support and is about to say something to let him know she’s there when she sneezes instead. There’s a sudden crash as Malfoy drops a glass that shatters in the sink.

“f*ck,” he mutters. White knuckles grip the sink.

“Oh God, sorry!” Hermione rushes to the sink. “Are you okay?”

She almost grabs his hands to check for injuries, but Malfoy steps away immediately. She doesn’t see any blood, so she turns to the sink instead. “I was going to let you know I was there...”

She mumbles a Reparo, feeling Malfoy’s eyes on her, and sets the fixed glass to the side. He goes right back to scavenging through the cupboards when she faces him.

“Were you looking for something?”

“Ten points to Gryffindor.”

Hermione studies him. He’s decidedly in a worse mood from when she last saw him.

His entire body coils up with tension or apprehension as she remains in the kitchen. He must know she’s not leaving because he turns to the other side of the kitchen to go through the cupboards there as if to avoid her looking at him.

She’s really not hungry but for some reason, she can’t seem to leave. She thinks that maybe it’s the oddity of seeing him disoriented in a kitchen, completely unaware and useless like a blind hippogriff, and she can convince herself she just wants to see him unravel more, but she also can’t ignore the seed of rapport she feels. Malfoy missed lunch and seeing how he was now going to miss dinner as well, she decides to spare him the misery of breaking a sweat over putting together something to eat.

She asks in a tone she hopes sounds casual, “I was going to heat dinner for myself, would you like some?”

“Whatever you want, Granger.”

Hermione turns to the counter, feeling purposeful. She finds the covered dishes and peaks inside to see some lentil soup. She lights a small fire on the stovetop to start the reheating, carefully adjusting the heat of the burners. She goes for a ladle when Malfoy comes from behind, his arm reaching out toward the same cupboard as her. She holds her breath as the front of his body brushes against her back. Goosebumps scatter across the nape of her neck and she freezes, her hand still stretched out.

He seems to pause as well, letting her go first, so she reaches into the cupboard and takes out the ladle.

There’s significantly enough room for him to go around her but he remains exactly behind her, warming her back. She angles her head down and toward him, so she can watch him move around her. His height allows him to reach over her head without touching her directly and she holds her breath as he straightens and takes out what looks like a jar of sugar.

The whole ordeal lasts less than a minute but the entanglement of his body around hers seems to drag on forever. The trace of his body still a shadow on her when he moves to stand beside her.

She clears her throat and edges close to the stove to stir the soup and prepare the bowls. “It’s supposed to rain again tonight. Amina said it shouldn’t be as bad as last night so I hope it doesn’t ruin their night out. But we’re leaving tomorrow night now because of it, which I mean, you already know because Amina told both of us…”

Her words trail off as Malfoy starts to pour the mint tea. She really shouldn’t, but her mouth still opens and the words come out anyway, “Amina said you have to stir once clockwise and then twice—”

“It’s just f*cking tea, Granger,” he snaps impatiently. “Hot water and leaves. There’s no specific way to do it.”

“Right, but—” She stops talking suddenly as she watches, in complete horror, Malfoy put three heaping spoons of sugar into the tea. When he goes for the fourth, she can’t help the gasp that escapes her.

The spoon clatters beside the tea. “What now?”

“It’s just...how are your teeth, Malfoy?”

He looks at her as though it’s her hair that’s talking to him.

“I’ve just noticed that you take a lot of sugar,” she explains, gesturing toward the sugar jar he’s determined to inhale. “Do you have a dentist on retainer or...?”

“A what?”

“Well, a dentist is someone who can look at your teeth. My Mum and Dad are dentists so you can imagine the sugar restrictions in our home. Actually, we had sugar and sweets at home, but it was most definitely not fun when I had to hear the lectures on dental hygiene. Enough so, that over time I stopped liking sweets in general. And then Dad would watch me every night until I was nine years old to make sure I brushed my teeth properly whenever I had sweets before bed. I really think you should look into it because Malfoy, the obscene amount of sugar you consume—”

“No one’s going around looking into my mouth, Granger,” Malfoy cuts her off when it seems that she might not be able to herself. He swirls the spoon in the tea, the metal clanking against the glass. “We have other things—like magic. You should look into it. I've heard it can be very beneficial for our survival. Evolutionary, even.”

She scratches her temple. “Sure, okay. That’s fine as long as you’re keeping up with your mouth health.”

He doesn’t answer and Hermione goes back to the soup. She turns off the stove and pours the soup evenly into the bowls. She gets a sudden thought that maybe when Malfoy said whatever you want, he meant he didn’t want dinner and if she wanted some she could. She panics for a moment wondering how to finish two bowls of soup that she had no intention of eating in the first place, but then he reaches over, awkwardly over her shoulder and carefully around her arm so as to not touch her again, and takes one of the bowls. He turns around, swipes the tea off the counter, and leaves before she can say anything.

Hermione returns to the other bowl and realizes that she’s having dinner with Malfoy now.

She finds him sprawled around a small wooden dining table on the other side of the wall that separates the kitchen from the sitting room. His elbows are off the tabletop, his back stiff and straight as a board. She slowly sets the bowl across from her and curls into a chair. He eats silently and Hermione forces herself to take a bite.

There are unlit candles on the table and she must be truly unwell because she has to mentally tell herself it’s ridiculous to want to light them. She doesn’t think Malfoy would appreciate the ambience she wants to create.

Hermione tries to keep her eyes down on her soup because it seems as though he isn’t going to acknowledge her, but she can’t help stealing glances every few seconds. She wouldn’t even know he was there by the complete lack of sound he’s making—which, when she thinks about it, is humanly impossible when one is eating—if she didn’t watch him dip the spoon into the soup and bring it to his lips. When he frowns and takes a breath as if to look up at her, she quickly takes a bite and casts her gaze around the room. The table opens up to the sitting area with a large maroon-patterned rug and a pair of brown leather sofas. There are quite a few green plants in clay ceramics littered in every corner of the room and Leena and Amina’s luggage neatly stacked against the wall on one side.

A glass door opens to the back porch, but it’s too dark outside for her to see what’s happening in the back garden. It hasn’t started raining and though she knows there can be a storm, she finds she’s not anxious about it just yet. Maybe she feels a bit more prepared for it now.

She studies the white curtains, squinting at the engraved details. It’s incredible craftsmanship and she wonders where she can get something made like this for her flat.

It’s truly unbearable for her to sit in this room with him like this. And she really can’t eat anymore, so she sits back in her chair and bites her lips nervously. Her fingers tap against her thigh.

She adjusts the spoon lying beside her bowl and shifts in her seat. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticks and she feels the doomed sound in her heart as though it’s counting down every second of her remaining life.

When she can’t take it anymore, she quickly looks over at Malfoy and jolts when she finds him already staring at her. His arms are crossed against his chest and he’s leaning back against his chair, looking relaxed and composed like a caged panther that’s about to attack. His mouth is set tight but something like amusem*nt traces along the lines around his eyes that makes her think he’s enjoying her having a borderline nervous breakdown. She frowns and sets her jaw as she stares back.

They haven't played this game in a long time and she’s a little rusty, but she meets his eyes steadily despite the fluttering in her chest. He seems to have gotten some of his calm composure back now that he’s eaten and she makes a mental note to tell him later that for all the ferality he points out in her, he can be very childish and dramatic sometimes. For now, she tries not to look away and feigns boredom as his forefinger trails along the rim of his now-empty glass.

He just stares and stares and she swallows against the growing tightness in her throat and five minutes of this passes until she pushes her chair back. It screeches obnoxiously and she stands up, clutching the table. Malfoy’s brows raise in anticipation and, somehow, he relaxes even more—as if waiting for the next installment she’s planned for this evening.

“Right,” she clears her throat and presses her palm against a crease in the tablecloth. “I need something to drink.”

There’s a flash of surprise across his face, but she’s already waving her wand around the room.

As suspected, Tony’s stash of Firewhiskey whips out from somewhere in the house. She waves two glasses from the kitchen.

Hermione fills them one by one and sets them down on the table with a secure thud. And then she looks at Malfoy. “Let’s talk.”

Malfoy blinks slowly. “Talk.”

“Yes. It’s what friends do.”

“We’re not friends.”

“Fine,” she says through gritted teeth. “We’ll pretend that we’re friends.”

“Pretend.”

“Are you going to repeat everything I say?”

“You’re sick. Maybe you should just go to sleep.”

“I’m sick, Malfoy, not incapacitated.”

His mouth twitches and he gestures with his hand for her to go on. She’s winging it as it comes, but she nods to convince herself that this is happening, and then goes over and gives him the other drink. He stares at it with mild distaste and doesn’t make a move to touch it.

“We’ll just pretend that we’re different people,” she explains. “Well, it’s more like I’m still me and you’re still you, but without all the noise from before. And we’ll talk. Like how normal people talk during dinner.”

“And why do you need to drink to talk to me?”

“Should I Occlude, then?”

He narrows his eyes at the jab. “I don’t talk.”

“I’m sure with practice, you'll be able to get a hang of it,” she shoots back, echoing his own words. “Or would you rather we just sit in silence?”

“I’d rather leave.”

She looks at him pointedly, half expecting him to get up and walk away. If she’s honest, she isn’t sure why he hasn’t already left. Or why he stayed back at all. He returns her gaze, his face stubborn. But then to her surprise, he sighs begrudgingly and runs a hand through his hair.

“Fine.”

She reaches for her glass and stares at the drink. The weight of just how bad this idea is starting to dawn on her. She figured that Malfoy’s more than willing to give parts of himself away under the right context, but there’s a very high chance that at the end of all this, she’ll be more depleted than him since she’s an incredibly lightweight.

“I’m warning you though,” Hermione gazes into the reflection peering back at her in the bronze liquid, “I’m weird when I’m drunk.”

“Granger, I’m really not asking you to drink—”

She swallows half of the amount she poured at once. Tony must have mixed something else with the Firewhiskey because a shudder runs through her body at the unexpected taste. She tries not to gag as it burns the insides of her throat, but she ends up hacking a cough anyway.

Hermione brushes her mouth with the back of her fingers and sets the glass down. She pulls her hair roughly together at the top of her head, jabs her wand through it, and then refills the glass.

She lifts her eyes to Malfoy. The look on his face suggests he was not expecting any of those series of actions from her.

“Alright, let’s talk.”

___________________________________

They end up in the sitting room. Both of them recline awkwardly across opposite sofas. Hermione clutches her drink against her chest, already feeling lighter after her first sip. Malfoy sits with his legs stretched out and his arm resting at the back of his sofa.

They haven’t talked for ten minutes. And it’s almost worse than the silence at the dining table.

Hermione clears her throat again. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

Malfoy purses his lips as he considers and then asks after a moment, “Can we talk about anything?”

Hermione nods. “Yes. Like friends.”

“Pretend friends.”

“Fine, yes,” she says, exasperated. “We'll talk like pretend friends.”

“So, this pet of yours—”

“We are not talking about John.”

He shrugs. “Fine, then we won’t talk about the women in my life.”

Her face contorts at the absurd suggestion. “Good, because I don’t want to know anything about them. But let’s make it clear—we’re not talking about our love lives. Oh, wait, my love life and whatever it is that you’re doing with the women in your life.”

“Again, I’m f*cking them." Malfoy gives her an annoyed look. "Not torturing them.”

“And I don’t see the difference, but I'm glad we’re on the same page now.” Hermione sits back, crosses her legs at the ankles, and takes a sip of her drink.

His eyes narrow dangerously. “Actually, I do have a question for you. Exactly how do you unwind after having Gryffindor's self-righteous stick up your ass all day?”

She glares at him. “What?”

“How do you release some of the edge after a long day?”

Puzzled with where he’s going with this, she replies, “I don’t know. Sometimes I like to take a long bath or drink some tea. Or I’ll take a book and—”

“I’m asking how you get off, Granger.”

Hermione’s mouth drops. “I am not going to tell you that! Why—why is this the first thing you want to know about me?”

Malfoy smirks and leans forward. “Do you prefer the personal touch or have you dabbled into outsourcing to tools?”

Her face burns and she shakes her head, flustered. “I am not having this conversation with you, Malfoy!”

Malfoy looks confused, his eyes taunting her. “Why? I thought we were friends.”

“Except, I don’t even talk about these things with my friends.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised you have any friends at all.”

“At least I didn’t have to buy my friends. They chose—”

“Listen, I know your only friends are cats and ancient books, so I think I can grasp the sheer thrill you must get when I, or any human person for that matter, says something to you. But please, there is no need to drool over conversing with me—”

“That’s funny because, to me, it looks like you’re the one who drools whenever I open up to you.”

Malfoy smirks.

“I—that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

He just nods.

“Okay, here's a rule,” she says firmly, feeling desperate to regain some control. “We’re not talking about anything remotely bordering on that subject. I’m not going to tell you so don’t even bother, Malfoy.”

“Right, so you’re still a prude—” Hermione opens her mouth to argue, but Malfoy stops her with a raise of his hand, “—that wasn’t a question, Granger.”

Hermione bites her tongue to stop from yelling. His smug eyes dance across her face as though he’s uncovered some dark secret about her and she wants to hex him senseless. It takes her amoment to collect herself but she manages to give him a polite smile.

“What’s your favourite colour, Malfoy?”

“Why?”

“It’s just a simple question,” she says through clenched teeth. “Friends know each other’s favourite colours.”

“What’s Potter's favourite colour?”

“Green.”

He looks surprised but then immediately asks, “What’s Weasely’s favourite colour?”

“Red. That’s why his bar is called Red Shot.”

“There’s something to be said about simpleton that transcends stupidity,” he drawls.

She glares at him. “What’s your favourite colour then?”

He hesitates before mumbling his reply, “Green.”

And she truly wants to laugh at that, but he looks pained enough at the idea of having anything similar with Harry that she moves on to the next question. Chooses to spare him for the second time this night. “Why do you know so many languages?”

“How many questions are you going to ask me, Granger?”

“Five,” she says solemnly, raising her hand to emphasize the number. “Well?”

“I don’t know,” he responds. “I always had a tutor for every language I learned.”

“Oh yes, of course, a tutor,” she says mockingly. “Because knowing more than three languages and having a tutor for everything in life is so common.”

"It..." He changes his mind and looks away.

"Go on," she prompts.

“It's just the way things were. I had a tutor for most of my childhood and a governess up until I was five years old. After that Mother was there.” Malfoy clears his throat. “But everything was always structured and there were things I needed to learn and know if I wanted to be a...”

“A what?”

He meets her eyes. “A Malfoy. If I wanted to be a Malfoy, I needed to know the things every Malfoy before me had to learn to survive.”

“Survive what?”

“The world—the way things were in society? I don’t know and it didn’t matter what I had to prepare for. I needed to know how to use the money to make more money because I was going to inherit it all one day. Father wanted me to know quidditch because once during a dinner someone boasted about how his son was being scouted early for teams. He got me a coach and the fastest brooms in the world. It was by luck that I liked quidditch, otherwise, I would have had to suffer through all the quidditch lessons as I did with everything else. I remember being nine years old and learning how to hold a glass according to the type of drink in it and how to carry a conversation with people twice my age. All of that meant having a tutor and learning the different languages.”

His brows crease as he twirls the drink in his hand. Hermione’s so entranced with what he's saying that she holds her breath and commands her fuzzy brain to pay attention. She’s worried any sound from her might break his train of thought and she’ll lose everything that he’s about to say.

“But there were other...lessons too.” She shivers at the way his voice becomes heavy when he says the word. He sets his jaw. “For an hour every week, Father would teach me other things—things that tutors could never consciously do themselves. Sometimes Mother would want to sit in and see, but he’d forbid her from interrupting—saying that if I wanted to be a man in the new world that was coming I had to learn how to be one."

He hesitates and the room is oddly quiet when he stops talking. Hermione wants to reach over and do something but she's stuck where she sits.

"Father didn’t allow me to have any friends until I arrived at Hogwarts because he thought it’d interrupt the lessons or who I had to be. He knew...things before others did. And because of that, he was always suspicious of others. Worried that everyone was plotting to take things away from us, he ensured there were no friends who could make their way into the Manor.”

Hermione tries to imagine Malfoy as a child, too young to be alone in a house with no friends to turn to and surrounded by people much older than him.

Lessons.He was always being taught something, wasn’t he?

She thinks of having someone like Lucius as a father and her stomach twists painfully. The earliest memory Hermione has of Lucius Malfoy was from Flourish and Blotts. She’d felt brave in that shop, somehow finding herself standing up to him as he spoke down to Harry. But then he’d directed his attention to her and everything in her wanted to become smaller even as she met his steady gaze.

Draco’s told me all about you.

She can never forget the disdain in his eyes as he looked down at her. It was the first time she’d witnessed first-hand the contempt for who she was. As though the things Malfoy had told him about her and his own perception of Muggles finally clicked and he was ultimately unsatisfied with being proven correct with his assessment. What would it be like to have a father like that? To have someone who was supposed to be a pillar of support to look down on you as something that needed to be mended—something that could always be better?

“What did you do when you were alone?” Hermione asks quietly, trying to blink away the memory.

Malfoy’s haunted eyes snap to hers. He looks surprised for a moment as if forgetting that she's sitting there or that he’s said anything in the first place. His face becomes carefully blank as he sets the glass back down on the table.

“I wasn’t alone. I had Mother. She brought me books and because she liked to travel, she’d take me to places and different cities around Europe where I could practice the languages I learned. There was never a time when I was alone.”

“I bet you’ve been to France at least four times,” she says lightly.

Malfoy doesn’t respond for a long moment and Hermione sits up straight.

“Malfoy,” she starts slowly. “How many times have you been to France?”

“I go every month, Granger. Sometimes several times.”

Hermione’s speechless. She stares at him, wide-eyed. It’s one of those things that isn’t surprising because it’s quite obvious when you look at Malfoy that he does extraordinary things multiple times that ordinary people might not get to. But to Hermione, anything that Malfoy does in his life is astonishing. He’s like a continuously changing animal— transforming from a manticore to something rare right before her eyes.

“What?” Malfoy shifts, looking, for once, uncomfortable under her gaze. “I have business there. You know some French. Haven’t you been?”

She shakes her head and looks down at her glass. It’s empty now.

“No. I mean I was supposed to, that's why I know a little bit. But that was the summer before the first year and Professor McGonagall came and things undoubtedly did not go as planned. Mum promised she’d take me to Europe as a graduation present. She said she wanted to take me to Greece and Rome. She wanted to show me all the places she went when she was in university, so we could understand the stories better.”

She feels the ache like a heavy stone in her chest, taking up all the space for air. Hermione reaches for the Firewhiskey and refills her glass. She takes a sip, letting the alcohol burn her stomach. Her tongue feels loose and her mind is less clear and she’s grateful for the haze in her eyes that clouds the tears.

“You can still go with them, Granger,” he states, watching her intently as she sets the empty glass to the side and reaches for the bottle. “France isn’t going anywhere.”

“Well, it’s a little hard to convince someone to go to Paris if they don’t know who you are.”

The line between his brows deepens. “What—”

“I Obliviated them.”

Malfoy freezes.

There. It was out in the world, open for all to know. He knows her darkest secret and it’s his problem now. He could do whatever he wanted with this new information and she’ll let him. Waits for him, even, to wield this new weapon and she exhales and braces herself because it’ll probably hurt. She wants it to hurt.

“Why?”

She doesn’t understand the trepidation in his voice. It confuses her already muddled mind.

“Because of the war,” she explains, flippantly. “Because it wasn’t safe and Moody thought it was best to Obliviate them of all memories of me, in case the Death Eaters decided to kidnap them for ransom. Or to just kill them because that's what they were doing to us. Moody said they’d do it if I didn’t. So I did. They’re gone now. All safe and sound from this horrible world.”

She glances at Malfoy. He’s pale, stiff as a tree, and breathing hard as he stares at her. It makes her frown. She doesn’t understand this either. Earlier, he’d been going off about all the things she’d sacrificed for the war. What was he referring to? What did he think she’d given up to deserve the same things as Harry if not this?

“I didn’t know.”

He looks almost sick and she softens. She eases back against the sofa, her feet hanging over the armrest.

“You weren’t supposed to, Malfoy.”

Hermione gazes at the ceiling, squinting to focus on the carved pattern. She clicks the heels of her feet together so she can magically transport herself home. “You don’t have to worry, though. I Occluded today. I saw them in the house, you know. Mum told me everything will be okay.”

Her mouth is parched. Her throat is so tight, her voice cracks. She drinks straight from the bottle.

Hermione blinks and a tear slides down her temple and disappears into her hair.

“Before everything...before all this, every time I was scared or anxious, my Mum would make me close my eyes and tell me to think of what I wanted the most in my life. She’d ask me to dream carelessly. And I’d close my eyes and think of what my world could be like tomorrow or years from now.”

Hermione’s eyes flutter close. She thinks and she remembers. The dream is the same, though there are some changes now.

“I’ll go to university. I didn’t know which one at the time, but Mum went to Cambridge so I’d probably go there as well. I think...I think it’d be nice to sit in the same classes she did. I’d take a minor in Greek studies or something else about stories. And for the rest of the time, I’d learn about nothing important. Maybe linguistics or art history. You can’t save the world with art history. And when I’m done learning and learning, there will be a house. A home. Somewhere in the mountains, surrounded by very tall and very green trees.”

Hermione opens her eyes. Her chest caves in but the words keep coming out. She doesn’t think Malfoy is listening—hopes he’s disappeared somewhere. Finally left her like he always wants to.

“In this house, there are windows across all the walls. I’ll keep them open so the air can come in and I can breathe. There are books everywhere, of course. All my favourites, the ones I collected from my travels around the world, and some new ones that I’ve never heard of. And I’ll spend all my days and nights just reading. I’ll be alone but I’ll never get lonely because there will always be something new to read.

Outside this house, there’s a garden filled with flowers and somewhere through the trees, there’s an ocean where I can swim. I think I’d like to have the ocean now. Or a sea, because it really is all the same. And there’s no one to ask me questions or take my photos when I don’t want them to. No one to break my heart. The house will be a home and everything will finally be easy.”

Palpable silence fills the room. She can’t even hear the clock anymore. Can’t feel her hands wrapped around the bottle. She bites her tongue to confirm she isn’t dead.

“What kind of flowers?”

Hermione startles at the sound. The gravel in Malfoy’s voice clashes through the stillness of the room. She glances over at him.

His face is vacant and she watches him closely, looking for hints of an insult, before answering, “White daffodils. They were Mum’s favourite.”

“Why is it a dream?” he asks mildly.

She rolls her eyes and says as though it’s so obvious, “It’ll never happen, Malfoy. I can’t just leave everything and go to university. Or what, I fake my death and go live in the mountains? Like someone who doesn’t need to do things to live? I have a job and friends and people that need me.” She exhales at the reality of her own words and brings the bottle to her lips. “No. They’ll never leave me alone.”

She’s not sorry that she’s said all that out loud for Malfoy to hear. It’s just a dream. She already knows it won’t come true, and so there’s nothing left for him to hurt her with.

She pauses before drinking and grunts loudly as she pulls herself into a sitting position. Her body is positively tangled amongst the cushions and she struggles for a good minute before she can remove her legs off the armrest.

“What’s your dream, Malfoy?”

Malfoy scowls. “My dream?”

She nods, waving impatiently with her hand at him to keep up with her. “Yes, your dream! I mean you can afford to do anything and you’ve probably already done everything in the whole world. But what’s the one thing you want to do that you haven’t been able to do yet? Go on, don’t look at me like that. Tell me. I’ve practically told you my whole life story here, you’ve got to give me this one.”

Malfoy looks at her as though she’s a child asking for a bedtime story. But when Hermione makes no show of changing the topic and gives him a sullen look, he scratches his temple and mutters, “I want to see cows.”

She’s sure she’s misheard. “You want to see what?”

Malfoy gives her the most inconvenienced look. “Cows, Granger. f*cking cows.”

He wants to see cows.

“You’ve never seen cows?” She didn’t expect those words from that mouth. “Just go and see them.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll just go to the farm for no bloody reason and see some cows,” he snaps as if it’s a ridiculous idea. As if he couldn’t just buy cows like he probably did with all the things he wanted in his life.

“They’re practically everywhere, Malfoy.”

He gives her a hostile glare. She truly cannot comprehend it, despite not being able to remember the last time she saw cows herself. But then the thought of Malfoy standing in front of a large cow on a farm conjures in her mind, and it really is the most bizarre image that she can’t help the laugh that bubbles in her chest.

And then suddenly she’s laughing outright. A hysterical laugh that seems to get louder and louder and scattered with hiccups whenever she looks over at him.

Malfoy looks stricken as she doubles over. She clutches her chest and clamps a palm against her mouth to stop because she doesn’t want to make fun of his dream. It’s a dream. All of them are precious. But suddenly she’s thinking of Malfoy on a tractor, chewing on a piece of straw, and she’s laughing once more.

“Okay,” Malfoy says at last when she gives no way of shutting up. He gets up and comes over to where she sits. “I think it’s time for you to go to bed.”

That dampens the laughter immediately.

“But we were just talking, Malfoy.” It comes out as a moan.

He looks at the bottle in her hand with disgust and pulls it easily out of her hand. “How much of this did you drink?”

“Honestly?” Her mind draws blank but her face feigns deep contemplation. “I think in total...maybe two glasses? And half of the bottle.”

“f*cking hell,” he mutters.

“How much did you drink?”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh,” Hermione frowns. “Well, that didn’t go as planned.”

Malfoy looks amused. “Were you trying to get me drunk?”

“I was just trying to get you to talk to me.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Granger. You need to sleep now.” He gestures at her to get up and she heaves a sigh before standing.

The room slants to the left but a hand on her arm straightens her before she topples over. The hand is gone when she looks up at Malfoy, craning her head back to get a solid view. The silver in his eyes pierces harshly so she flinches from the brightness and looks up at his hair instead. It falls gently across his forehead, curling near his ears. Looking perfect as usual.

“You have nice hair,” she says gravely. She blinks several times to focus. “Really nice and shiny.”

And because she is definitely drunk now, she raises two heavy hands near his head. They hover there, unsure. Malfoy gives her a strange look, waiting for her to get on with it, but she’s just as confused as him.

She manages to finally string words together and say, “May I?”

He looks like he might decline, but he inhales sharply and inclines his head lower to meet her hands.

His hair is as soft as it looks. It feels like silk feathers and endless riches and she never wants to stop touching him. She could spend the rest of her life running her fingers through his hair, she thinks. And that would be easy too.

He's rigid at first—but she watches the muscles in his shoulders, his back, slowly lose some of their tension the longer her hands are in his hair.

She’s gentle with how she runs her hands, starting from his forehead and going to the top of his head. She concentrates hard and is meticulous with her method.

It's like petting a cat. Or a cow.

But then she gets adventurous, and her fingers go deeper and rake through the roots of his hair. Her nails graze his scalp, and she thinks maybe Malfoy shudders. It’s a fascinating reaction and she wants to do it again. She brushes the fringe out of his eyes with one hand, holding it to the side of his head with her palm, and studiously touches the little strands near his right ear with her other hand.

“What kind of shampoo do you use, Malfoy?”

His head is dipped low to accommodate her so when he speaks, his voice is deep and far away. “I don’t know. I got it from Polly.”

Her hands halt at the name, making Malfoy glance up at her through his blond lashes. “Who?”

His lips quirk up. “Careful, Granger. You’ve got your jealous eyes again.”

She tries to give him one of his withering glares, but it’s weak. “I’m not jealous. Poor Poppy.”

“It’s Polly.”

The name leaves a bad taste in Hermione’s mouth. “Whatever.”

Malfoy smirks knowingly. “You are weird when you’re drunk.”

She tugs his hair in retribution, tilting his head up.

Malfoy’s eyes widen at the movement, snapping to meet hers. Captivated by the control she has, Hermione tugs at his head again—this time to the side.

Malfoy silently watches her as he lets her. She bites her lips to consider this new revelation and his gaze snags at the movement. Everything about her right now is slow, but her pulse quickens in a messy way and she feels dazed.

Hermione drops her hands. His head chases them for a mere second before he catches himself and jerks back.

“You always smell really good too,” she says. There’s no filter on her and she has a single sober thought where she hopes she forgets all of this tomorrow.

The lines around his eyes crinkle. “Alright, Granger.”

“Like cookies and sugar,” she continues because it’s important he knows. “You smell so good sometimes I think I could eat you.”

Malfoy’s lips part.

“You smell like home,” she corrects. And that’s the right answer. “Dad used to make cookies for Mum on Sundays. And the Burrow always smells like pies and desserts because Molly chronically can’t stop baking. What do I smell like?”

“Roses,” he replies immediately—as if he’s thought about this before.

“Oh.” For some reason, she blushes. “Well, we’re friends now, so you have to give me that shampoo, Malfoy.”

“We’re not friends, Granger.”

Her heart drops. “Oh.”

Malfoy leans closer, eyes fixed on her. He whispers as if he’s about to tell her a secret and she finds herself leaning in as well, wanting to be in on it, “If we were to be anything, Granger, it wouldn’t be friends.”

“Oh,” she whispers back. If she was less drunk maybe she could figure out the meaning behind the words. Maybe she could say something other than a stupid oh.

But right now she doesn’t know what else to say, so she turns around and fumbles clumsily on her way to the stairs.

Something heavy drapes around her shoulders and she looks down to find her shawl.

She glances at Malfoy who silently takes a step back, his right hand pressed against his chest. It’s a gesture that makes her feel like there’s something she needs to say, something she needs to know.

Hermione takes many breaks as she climbs the stairs, stopping to sit on the steps and sulk. Malfoy doesn’t do anything to make the process easy. He remains far away down the stairs, unmoving.

It isn’t until several embarrassingly long minutes later that she finally makes it up the creaking stairs and remembers.

Hermione turns around, eyes falling on Malfoy who’s still standing at the bottom of the stairs, hands tucked into the pockets of his dark pants. “Did I win, Malfoy?”

There’s a long, pensive moment where all he does is watch her. But then he nods, eyes tight, and replies as though there could be no other answer, “Yes, Granger. You win.”

___________________________________

Upstairs, a woman with cupped hands of water.

Downstairs, a man waiting by the stairs. His eyes linger on the shadows cast beneath the door until the switch of the light. And then they fall to his hands as if to look for the evidence of the evening there, before lifting to the now-empty sitting room. He’ll clean up soon but for now, he just stands and looks and looks.

In the room, little traces of what has gone by remain—half-empty glasses, finished bowls of soup, pushed-back chairs.

Somewhere in the house, the ticking of a clock.

And out the window and through the darkness of the night, the beginning of rainfall.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

The desert knows. The desert remembers. And amongst the dead, grows a desert rose.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

Hermione stares at Malfoy.

Her head is heavy from a hangover that is threatening to pierce behind her eyes, but that still wouldn't be the reason why she can’t comprehend what she’s seeing.

He isn’t supposed to be sleeping here.

Amina found Hermione on the top of the staircase as she crept out of Malfoy's room, gingerly shutting the door behind her. That image of Amina would have been shocking if Hermione hadn't been transfixed by the striking white of Malfoy's hair from where she stood on the steps. Apparently, Malfoy had asked to switch sleeping spots for the night. Just to make sure, he told her last night. Of what, he hadn’t clarified.

The first break of dawn filters through the back doors, creating slants of blue rays that radiate off his hair to create shadows along his body. She woke up intending to go for a swim in the hopes of drawing the impending headache away, but for that, she needs to stop staring.

He isn't supposed to be sleeping here.

Hermione isn't sure why she's so caught up on this one fact.

But it’s unnerving to see him unguarded, even though the way his body coils with strained tension gives the impression he’s moments away from jerking awake. He seems to defy all laws of gravity by the way his body seamlessly curves across the sofa that is much too small for him. His chest slowly rises and falls with each breath that hitches and struggles to escape his body. And Hermione simply can’t look away.

She doesn’t know what it is—what she can pinpoint that prevents her from moving from where she stands now beside the sofa he sleeps on. Her eyes linger on his face, taking in the slight line between his brows, the tight set of his lips, the gentle fall of his hair across his forehead. The muscles in his cheeks twitch slightly, as though he’s flinching from something in his sleep and it’s cruel, she knows, but she watches his eyes move rapidly behind closed lids, and she can’t help but feel relieved. Because Hermione hasn't had a restful night of sleep in years and it seems that maybe, Malfoy hasn't either and she's not alone in this. She's not alone.

Reluctantly, her eyes travel away from his face. His left hand holds his journal against the flat plane of his stomach in a grip so tight, she can’t help but wonder who he thinks will steal it away from him.

She puts her hands behind her back to stop herself from taking it.

His right arm dangles off the sofa, the sleeve of his white shirt rolled up to his forearm. His skin is so pale, so translucent, like the wings of a dragonfly. She hopes he’s brought sunscreen because his porcelain skin won’t survive in the desert sun otherwise. She can make up the green veins that travel under his skin, carving roads and valleys from his arm and down to his palm, and Hermione edges toward him to get a closer look.

She shouldn’t. She really should not touch him because though Amina told her of noise concealment around the room, Hermione knows there’s no way he won’t wake up the moment she touches his skin. Malfoy is too riled, unconscious or not, to not attack her if she does.

So instead her eyes follow the maps under his skin down his forearm and to his wrist where the vein forks off into his hands. She’s entirely fascinated by the small mole nestled in the corner where his wrist connects with the joint of his thumb.

Goosebumps suddenly scatter across his forearm and Hermione looks up to find Malfoy awake. Watching her.

She watches him back, acutely aware of how insane she must look to him—standing over his body and head bent over his hand like some sort of summoner.

Silence stirs between them like a cloak that is neither comfortable nor heavy, and when it looks like he won’t say anything first, she chooses to speak up about the thing she’s most embarrassed about.

“I don’t remember anything." It comes out rushed and unconvincing, even to her ears, but Hermione doesn't care if it's a cheap copout. There is simply no way she is acknowledging the foolishness of her behaviour or the fact she truly cannot handle her liquor. “From last night,” she clarifies when his face gives no way of understanding.

Malfoy blinks slowly, eyes lidded and dark as though they're still weighed down by sleep.

“I don’t remember anything, either,” he responds, at last, his voice rasping against his throat. The warm timbre in the husky undertone makes her want to crawl onto the sofa with him even though her stomach twists painfully at his words. “Must have drunk too much.”

"Oh." Hermione frowns, not understanding. “But, you said you didn’t drink at all.”

She regrets it the moment his lips curve into his typical, all-knowing smirk.

“Huh. Weird how memory works.” Malfoy adjusts himself on the sofa, turning slightly to face the cushion and shifting his right arm over his eyes. “Don’t worry, though. The night’s a haze anyway and I most definitely do not remember you saying you want to eat me.”

At that, her jaw drops and her face burns. Her legs finally, finally, regain movement and she leaves, palms covering her face and vowing never to touch a drop of alcohol ever again.

___________________________________

Hermione saw her first thestral before she ever directly saw death. It was the month after she’d Obliviated her parents when Hermione stumbled across the creature behind a safe house. She wasn't sure what exactly it was at first, having never seen one outside of pictures and only ever ridden them in their invisible form.

The winged reptilian-like horse was an ominous image to behold, but perhaps the more grievous concern for Hermione was the singular question why?

She panicked trying to understand who she'd lost—whose death she’d seen but hadn't fully acknowledged or understood. Death was still a novelty for her at that point of the war and the complete lack of answer as to how she could see the creature only spiralled her further into complete chaos as she reentered the safe house.

Lupin found her, trembling and clutching to the staircase, her knees threatening to buckle under her weight. He had to practically drag her to a closed corridor to calm her down and between broken sobs, she managed to tell him what she’d seen. Lupin—the ever-anchor to the children of the Order and the unfortunate recipient of most nervous breakdowns—only held her and listened patiently. It wasn’t until Hermione blurted what she’d done with her parents that he finally spoke up.

“Perhaps,” he said gently, holding Hermione firmly by her shoulders, “being forgotten while alive is to witness a death of its own accord.”

The likely answer, he reasoned later, was that perhaps during the transport of Harry from the Dursleys, she'd seen the death of Hedwig or Moody. But Hermione had already taken his previous words to heart. Felt every word until she stopped weeping for who she could have lost and instead for what she had lost.

A death of its own accord.

To be erased from the world, to lose all marks of what she had left behind, simply because she was forgotten.

The months following that incident, and then the end of the war, left her feeling hollow, completely carved out until she was a vessel that could hold no one. Especially not herself. There was no weight to her body. Hermione simply walked without any footsteps.

But she is right here. She lives, standing in a frigid ocean, far away from home, but present nevertheless. No one sees her in the water and no one witnesses her take in shaky breaths because of the cold against her skin. The shadows her body casts into the water are noted by no one except for her. And yet, if no one sees her being here, except for herself, it is enough for her anyway. If the only reflection she sees in the mirror is herself—that is enough too.

Moments, Hermione realizes, are short but memories are oh so long and while she might be forgotten at one point, it is enough if she is the only one who remembers what once happened and will happen now.

Hermione dips her hand into the water and watches as the water creates boundless ripples. The change to the order of the water, a minuscule yet significant disorder, fills her up once more until she is a vessel refilled. Then with a deep breath, Hermione lowers herself beneath the surface and into the darkness of the water, thinking nothing other than her truth: I am here.

___________________________________

They stop talking the moment she enters inside.

Idris and Malfoy, both standing on the staircase, watch her waddle in wet clothes, into the house and the front corridor.

Without glancing up at them, she trudges her way to the stairs, the squeaking of every movement echoing in the quietness of the room. She hadn't bothered with a drying spell, preferring instead to let the cold seep into her skin after an hour of Occluding.

“Everything okay, Hermione?” Idris asks hesitantly, moving down the stairs to make room for her on the steps. She’s aware she looks rather frightful than how she feels, her fingers pruned and wrinkly and her lips tinted pale blue from staying in the water longer than she should have.

Hermione nods, pushing a limp strand of hair away from her face. She walks up to the level just below where Malfoy stands and looks at him warily when he shifts, a movement so slight that it’d seem unintentional if she wasn't always paying close attention to him, to block her path. Her stomach flips when she smells vanilla.

Idris mentions leaving soon as he heads out the door and Malfoy nods his way absently, his eyes not straying away from her.

She needs to tilt her head back slightly to maintain eye contact as he remains on a step up, still in her way. “Are you going into town?”

“Why are you wet, Granger?”

“I want to come as well."

He studies her for a moment longer before stepping down to her level, forcing Hermione to push back against the wall to allow him to do so.

“What were you doing?” he asks, going down another step. The warmth from his skin radiates against her frigid skin as his body just barely grazes the side of hers. She thinks maybe the slight touch between the lengths of their bodies lingers longer than it needs to as he moves or maybe time always stretches to such an extent that she feels every second and every touch between them. Either way, she ends up holding her breath at the slight sensation, her eyes fluttering.

“Clearly, I was in the water.” She tries to sound sardonic but her voice comes out quiet and shaky as a shiver runs through her body.She gets a strange sense of deja vu, standing a little higher up on the stairs, even though he’s still taller than her.

Pathetic, pathetic, she scolds herself, when her pulse quickens.

“I need some things from town.”

“Write down what you need and I’ll get it for you.”

Hermione shoots him an annoyed look and digs into her beaded bag for a pen and a paper, knowing he won’t be able to get all the things for her unless she comes along. She writes down the two things she needs and hands the slip over to him.

A look of puzzlement flashes across Malfoy’s face as he glances at the paper and then back at her. “What is that?”

“It’s just two words, Malfoy,” she sniffs, raising her nose at him. She pretends not to remember the several times Harry mentioned how her script can resemble owl scratches. “Oranges and books. My writing isn’t bad.”

“It’s horrendous.” He reaches for the pen in her hand and eyes it suspiciously, turning it around to assess the tip. “I meant this.”

“Oh.” It’s always jarring to remember the differences between the magical world and Muggles. “It’s a pen. Muggles use it to write things down, much like a quill. Here, like this.” She takes the pen back and writes on her palm to show him. Then, she twists the side of the pen and a little blade pops out from the other side. “But, this one can also be used as a knife, so be careful.”

She waits for a snide remark, but he’s less surprised by her carrying knives around with her and more confused by the peculiar workings of the pen. She turns it around for him to take, but Malfoy ignores her and reaches for her hand instead, jerking her toward him so he can bring her palm close to his face to assess the ink she’s left behind. The sudden movement makes her jump and she needs to grab onto the rail so she doesn't collide with him.

Hermione watches, completely still, as he brushes his thumb over the ink with a level of gentleness she’d never expect from him. A faint line forms between his brows. His mouth twists in concentration and when his warm breath fans across her skin she shivers for a reason other than being cold. She savours the heat from his hand, which practically engulfs hers in the tight hold he has her in, allowing it to travel down her wrist, up her arm, across her chest, and to the rest of her body. His hand is warm and strong in a way she’s never known before and his fingers splayed across the back of her hand brush against her skin in an entirely different way that causes goosebumps to form across her arm.

She’d never truly known until now, she realizes, just how cold she’s been. Or how hands were meant to hold each other just like this and the word safe means the way she feels right now.

“You’re always so cold,” Malfoy murmurs as if he too can understand what she’s thinking. He’s no longer just looking at the ink, his thumb tracing the lines in her palm to find the answers there. His jaw clenches with such intensity that it looks almost painful but then he drops her hand as if scalded by the frost. His right hand, which has just been holding hers, slides across his chest and to his neck and she stares at it—feeling disoriented and wondering how things can look so different when they're gone. He doesn’t glance at her as he takes the pen still in her other hand, pockets it, and turns to make his way down the remaining steps. “We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

She’s left standing on the staircase, hands clasped together in a fist like a prayer.

It takes her a few minutes to understand what he’s said before she jolts back and hurries up to her room to get ready, knowing he won’t wait for her.

___________________________________

Halfway to town, Idris pulls to the side of the road. He stops the car and jumps out of the car. Hermione, who’s sitting in the front, watches in confusion as Malfoy steps out as well and switches position with Idris, to get behind the wheel.

“Is everything okay?” she asks, twisting to glance at Idris.

“The key is already in,” Idris explains to Malfoy. He moves closer to the front to shift in the space between Hermione and Malfoy. “Change the gear to drive and very slowly edge your foot down to accelerate.”

Hermione gapes at Malfoy. “What are you doing?”

“I am driving, Granger,” he bristles, tone caustic.

“You don’t know how to drive.”

“Which is why I’m practicing.”

“I’d rather not die, Malfoy.”

“Then be quiet and let me drive,” he snaps.

Hermione scowls, sitting back in her seat to face the front. Under Idris’s instructions, Malfoy manages to very gently turn the wheel and steer the car back onto the road. She watches him from the corner of her eyes for a fault but he remains fixated on the road, teeth studiously biting the corner of his lips. His eyes flick between the rearview mirror and the road in the front as Idris guides him on how to slowly ease the car around a curve. She, unwillingly, admits to herself that it’s endearing to watch him do something so Muggle and completely new and out of his element.

But when Malfoy accelerates a little too quickly and then jerks the car to a slower pace, she can’t help but grip the side of the car dramatically and whirls to him to say, “You’re putting too much pressure on the accelerator.”

“Got it, Granger.”

“Your foot doesn’t need to press down completely once you’re on the road. It’s best to remain at a steady speed.”

“Granger, I swear, if you don’t just let me drive—”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need your damn help! I have Idris telling me already what to do and I don’t need your f*cking input on top of it. If you want to help, be quiet and—”

“Dad used to say that when driving, you must assume everyone on the road is blind—”

“There’s no one here!”

Idris interjects, pointing at the road, “Careful, Draco, the roads are a little slippery still from the rain.”

Malfoy speeds up, eyes snapping toward her in a challenge. She glares at him, her heart thumping at such a frantic pace that she worries she might have a heart attack.

“Malfoy, slow down.”

He raises a single suggestive brow and Hermione holds her breath when he doesn’t turn his head back to the road. She’s not scared, she realizes. The anticipation of pushing just to the edge is exhilarating and that’s just it—it's a wild sensation, accelerating out of control with him, but it's nothing like fear and it's almost worse this way because it's liberation with no end.

“You really can’t help but try to control everything, can you?”

“Keep your eyes on the road,” she says breathlessly. Adrenaline makes her nauseous and she holds onto the door.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather just watch you.”

“Malfoy.”

“Scared, Granger?”

“You’re mad!”

“You look tense.”

“If I die, Malfoy, I will haunt you.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Granger.”

It comes out quiet and traced with meaning she’s too flustered to understand but Malfoy lingers on her face for just a mere second more before turning to the front. A layer of stillness envelopes him and she’s left staring, unsettled by what’s passed.

“Draco, just make sure to steer clear of the pothole,” Idris says.

She tears her eyes away from the side of Malfoy’s face and to the road ahead just long enough to say, “Malfoy—watch out!”

Malfoy jerks the car to the left and Hermione quickly reaches for the wheel out of sheer instinct, turning it back to the right.

“f*cking let go, Granger!”

Hermione drops her hands right away but the car only swerves to the opposite side, skidding over mud as Malfoy tries to steer clear of the pothole. Out of control, Idris yells at Malfoy to press down on the brake, but the sudden movement causes it to veer off the road instead.

Hermione lurches toward the dashboard, eyes squeezing shut, and Malfoy lets go of the wheel completely. Both of his arms fly across her body to stop her as the car falls into a ditch.

Hermione clutches his hands against her stomach, wide-eyed, and gasping for air.

Shocked, she slowly turns to Malfoy. She manages through heavy pants, “Are you okay?”

His eyes narrow dangerously as he yanks his hands off her body. “What did you do?”

Hermione’s jaw drops.“What did I do? What did you do? Why did you let go of the wheel?”

“You were going to slam against the f*cking window if I hadn’t stopped you!”

“I’m wearing a seat belt!” she exclaims, tugging on the belt strapped against her chest that is sure to leave a bruise behind.

His eyes drop to the belt as if just seeing it for the first time. He stares at it accusingly and runs a hand through his hair in frustration.

Idris pops in between them. “Is everyone okay?”

Malfoy jumps out of the car instead of replying and Hermione follows after him with shaky legs. Hermione moves to stand beside Malfoy, Idris falling close behind, as he glares at the car as if to question its audacity of driving them into the ditch. They look at the car in dismay. There’s no smoke or any shattered parts but it looks incredibly stuck in the mud.

“This may be a problem,” Idris says finally.

Hermione immediately starts digging into her bag, going elbow-deep as her hands bump into objects she’s organized. “Maybe I’ve got something to help us. A rope, perhaps? What do you think we need?”

“A Time-Turner would help,” Malfoy suggests dryly. “So I can go back and f*cking stop myself from ever coming on this trip.”

“You’re not being helpful,” she snaps, looking up to glare at him.

“We wouldn’t even be in this place if it wasn’t for your damn need to be the saviour at all times,” he hisses.

“If it wasn’t for your need to prove that you can do everything by yourself at all times—”

“I was driving just fine before your f*cking Gryffindor tendencies kicked in—”

“You’re the one who can’t allow someone to help you! I tried to get us back on the road!”

"What is the point of even being this stubborn? What the hell does it even prove?"

"I could say the same thing about you too, Malfoy!"

“I think we should try to take it out, but I’ll need Tony and the other car,” Idris interrupts, hands on his hips as he walks around to assess the damage. “It doesn’t look like a fire hazard, but we should stay away from it, just to make sure. Can either of you send a Patronus?”

Hermione doesn’t respond. She hasn’t been able to cast a proper Patronus in years, with several failed attempts, and she’s sure as hell not going to try and fail in front of Malfoy right now. Though, she does glance at him curiously when he doesn’t speak up either.

Idris scratches his temple, eyes shifting awkwardly between the two and the clear tension emanating. “The apparition walls are further down near town. I can head over there and Apparate to get Tony to help take the car out. It shouldn’t take long so you guys can stay here in case someone drives by.”

“We’ll come with you,” Malfoy says instantly.

“I’m not that skilled at Side-Along apparition,” Idris replies. He looks at Hermione with clear apprehension that states his patience is running rather thin the longer he stays with the both of them.

“Fine. Granger stays and I’ll come—”

“We’ll both stay,” Hermione cuts in, ignoring the sharp look Malfoy throws her way. “You can go ahead, Idris. We’ll wait for you.”

Malfoy glowers at her but doesn’t argue as Idris leaves. He turns away swiftly, watching Idris walk away down the road. Anger practically radiates off of him like a hot furnace and he remains with his arms crossed, eyes fixated at a point in the distance, as if his mere stance can will someone to remove him from this misery, for several minutes. When he makes no move to face her, she turns back to the damage, growing equally as frustrated.

“You know,” she starts, toeing the stones beneath her shoes, “if we try to determine what happened, I’m sure an objective perspective would note that this is hardly my fault. I merely tried to help the situation—”

“Never in my dreams,” he grumbles. "Never in my wildest f*cking dreams."

Hermione almost gives herself a headache at her eye roll. "This isn’t exactly the time of my life either, Malfoy. I have things I need to get done before we leave and now because of you, I doubt I’ll be able to do any of it. I think I’m more inconvenienced by this—where are you going? Malfoy!”

“You have things to do, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I really think we should stay here!” she calls after him as he walks down the direction in which Idris left. “Idris told us to stay and I think we should wait for him to come. Malfoy !”

He doesn’t even turn to look at her. “Are you coming or what, Granger?”

Hermione glances at the car, unsure, and then back at Malfoy. It takes her less than a second to make the decision and she’s off, running after him.

His long legs make it difficult for her to catch up to him and five minutes pass of him not slowing down for her that she has to speak up, “Would you slow down?”

“Just hurry up.”

“I’m trying,” she grits out. She imagines the ground cracking open and Malfoy sinking into the quicksand, begging for her help.

“Not enough, obviously.”

Hermione glares at his back, hoping he can feel the intensity of her scorn. “You’re not exactly making this easy, you know. What if something comes and grabs me and takes me into the trees? You wouldn’t even know if I died, let alone do something to stop it.”

“Keep up with your incessant heavy breathing and I’ll know you’re alive.”

“I do not breathe heavily,” she says hotly.

“Besides, I highly doubt you’d die, Granger,” he continues, oblivious to the immense effort she’s putting to even hear him clearly. “I’ve come to realize that the universe has a personal score it needs to settle with me these days and it’s very keen on making sure I am tormented at every step of this damned trip.”

“Right, because your constant presence has been just a delight for me.”

“It truly never ends and I suspect I’ll be stuck with your face in my head even after I return home.”

“At least I’m memorable.”

“Yeah, like a nightmare.”

Hermione stops walking. Holds her breath.

One second, then two, and—Malfoy whirls around, eyes searching.

The look dissolves immediately when he realizes what he’s done. He glares at her, either annoyed at himself for falling for it or at her for making him fall for it, and she can’t help but smirk as she passes him.

Tormented indeed.

___________________________________

They walk on separate sides of the road.

A warm breeze rattles through the treetops surrounding the dirt road and Hermione raises her hand to catch the fractured sunbeams with her fingers.

“You know how when we were children, if we were ever upset about something, we would just scream in the middle of a market or just sit down and throw a tantrum simply because we could?”

Malfoy doesn’t reply right away and she stares at him until he spares an inconvenienced glance her way. “We don’t need to talk, Granger.”

“I’m not going to walk in silence.”

“Well, don’t confuse this look of utter boredom as any interest in what you’re going to say.”

“It’s kind of hard to differentiate between your looks because you only have one stoic face,” Hermione fires back, and then pauses to twist her face into a semblance of his.

Malfoy stares at her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to replicate the look you always have going on.”

“You look ridiculous.”

“Yes, I’m glad you agree.” Her smirk turns into a frown when he continues walking. “Malfoy, you promised.”

He exhales an insufferable long breath, lifts his eyes to the sky as if to demand why, and then looks back at her. “Go on.”

“I remember once when I was five,” Hermione continues, transfiguring a wooden branch into a walking stick, “And I dropped an ice cream cone that Mum got for me and I was so incredibly upset because I’d waited all day at school for it. I sat down beside the cone on the ground and cried and cried so loud that people stopped to just stare at me and Mum had to get another cone.”

“I’m having a hard time picturing perfect Granger screaming or crying about anything. Did you go home and write an apology letter to everyone who heard you?"

Hermione ignores him. “It was different when I was a child. I didn’t have to be proper because no one expected me to be, which of course, was the case for all children. And kind of the point of it too right? We were children and that's all that was expected of us. We could do preposterous and rightfully lunatic things and get away with it because we didn't know better. But I don’t even think it was to get something in return or to have something done for us. I think sometimes that moment of complete release is more satisfying because you’re just letting go without care of what anyone would say to you.”

“You can still let go, Granger.”

“Well, sure, I can go into my room and cry, but it’s not as cathartic as just screaming in the middle of a crowd, is it? I can’t do that.”

Malfoy stops and faces her. “Why not?”

Hermione gives him a pointed look. “I’m sure your natural need to throw tantrums is very much alive, but unfortunately there are rules of civility that the rest of us have to follow. I can’t just scream at someone because they skipped a line, or when I’m being followed around for photos.”

Malfoy crosses the distance between them. “You’re saying you could do that as a child, but you were still a child when you were doing things children should never have to do.”

Hermione shakes her head. “That was a special circ*mstance. The war made everyone do things they never should have done."

“And now?” he counters, evenly. “Isn’t the aftermath of the war or being a war hero a special circ*mstance? You should be allowed to do things and get away with it, Granger.”

“I suspect you wouldn’t say the same thing about Harry or Ron.”

Malfoy’s face twists in distaste. “I doubt they’re thinking of being proper and respectful in public or even considering other people’s sensitivities. One word to Weasel and the barbarism in him wouldn’t even hesitate to try to defend his so-called honour.”

“It’s not the same,” she says flatly.

“Fine. Do it now, then.”

“Do what?”

He waves a hand at her, impatiently. “Go on. If you can’t do it back at home because of what others might say, do it now. There’s no one here to judge if you’re being proper and civil."

"I don't understand what you want me to do."

"I want to hear you scream, Granger.”

She stares at him, incredulously. “You want me to scream? Right now?”

“Yes, Granger. Scream.” His voice is strained as if he’s resisting calling her out on losing all functions of her brain. “What, are you afraid of disturbing the birds? Worried they might judge you for screaming in the middle of nowhere? What the hell are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid...I just…” She trails off, unsure what it is that’s even stopping her.

“Why do you hesitate?” he asks lowly. He edges closer to her and she takes an instinctive step back. His eyes jump across her face and something like anger flashes behind them as he says, “f*cking hell, what did they do to you?”

The space between them gets smaller even when she takes another step back.

“You were f*cking frightening, Granger,” he says quietly, disbelief stark across his face. “The look you’d get in your eyes when you wanted something, or the way you stood up for f*cking house elves? It was downright terrifying to see you get things done with such intensity because it seemed as if nothing could get in your way. It’s there now when you want to say something to me but when it’s about you and what you want to do...you just give up. You want to let go and you have this one moment to do so, Granger.” He dips his head lower to meet her eyes. “What are you going to do?”

Hermione stares back, eyes wide, lips parted. She didn’t think he’d thought of her that way— it never occurred to her that he’d have any opinion of her other than his natural disdain. She swallows the thickness in her throat, feeling restless under his expectant gaze. She doesn’t think he’s going to let go of this easily, they're not leaving until something comes out of her.

It’s insane. Rightfully insane but a small voice in the back of her head urges her forward to do it.

She looks nervously away from him, around at the trees, at the empty road. She nods slowly, more to convince herself, and Malfoy moves back to give her space. She palms her face because if she can’t see him then he can’t see her and the embarrassment is not as physical.

The key is to not think, she tells herself. It doesn't have to be a certain pitch or intensity. No right way to do it other than to just open your mouth and—

Hermione screams.

The sound gets stuck halfway in her throat and comes out resembling a strangled cry.

She peeks through her fingers.

Malfoy stares back at her, looking baffled and unsure about what’s just happened. He blinks slowly. “What the f*ck was that?”

“You said to scream! That was me screaming!”

“You’re bloody terrible at this, you know,” he retorts, shaking his head in disappointment. “Really, it’s the fault of all the men you’ve f*cked because if this is how you’re screaming, I can only sympathize with you—”

“Don’t be a pig, Malfoy,” she snaps. “If you’re not happy with it, just tell me how to do it—”

“There aren’t any instructions on how to do it! Just f*cking scream and let go—”

Hermione lets go.

Body clenching and eyes squinting shut, Hermione lets go of a heart-clenching sound that stems from the pit of her stomach and travels a furious path up her throat. It leaves her heaving and her throat burning but she’s less aware of the pain and more of the need to do it again. It’s like something dormant and twisted in her chest is unleashed because she barely has time to take another breath before she’s screaming once more.

She’s barely aware of Malfoy in the back saying, Louder.

Somewhere, a flock of birds set off, startled by the sound as she screams and screams. As she releases the forced slumber, the anger of what’s happened, the grief of what’s lost. The extinguished fire and the never-ending cold that takes up her life.

When she’s done, Hermione looks up, breathing heavily and throat aching.

“Let’s go,” is all he says when he meets her eyes. Short and brisk. And she’d scowl at the indifference in his voice if she didn’t catch the brief moment of satisfaction in his eyes when he starts walking again.

Hermione runs her tongue across her dry lips, eyes falling to the ground before fixing on his back. A slow grin etches across her lips and she needs a moment to just feel the sheer exuberance in her chest, before inhaling a deep breath and going to where Malfoy waits for her.

___________________________________

“If today was the last day of the universe, what would you change?”

Malfoy gives her an exaggerated stricken look. “My last day and I have to spend it with you?”

He halts when Hermione stops to pick up a small, gray stone on the ground. She brushes the dirt off the smooth edge and raises it to suspect it under the sunlight. She frowns at the dullness and chucks it into the trees, resuming her walk as Malfoy follows. “I’d be spending it with you too, you know.”

“Why would today be the last day?”

Hermione shrugs. “I don’t know, anything can happen, really. Maybe the world will explode out of nowhere.”

“If the world exploded without warning, there wouldn’t be any time to do anything, would there?”

“But there’s been research done that gives us an idea, in advance, as to how it might happen. While some think that the end of the world will be a complete cycle where we follow a second meteor strike, I think it’s more likely that we die because of heat death.”

“Heat death?”

“Technically, the entire universe has been expanding through the years into disorder and the majority of the stars in the universe have already been produced such that only a remaining portion is left to be created, simply because the universe is speeding towards the end. In fact, the light we see from stars takes billions of years to travel through space for us to see. So, I suppose, when we see stars, what we’re really seeing is a version of the past and of creation that has already occurred and is being limited further in creation. But eventually, the expansion of the universe will be so large that all the energy of all the galaxies and stars will go out and there will be nothing but death and darkness. And cold. It’ll be cold at the end of the world.”

A moment of silence passes and then, “f*cking hell, Granger, I asked a question, not an entire thesis on astronomy—”

“Well, you asked!” Hermione huffs, indignantly, “How am I not supposed to answer a question—”

“Unbelievable, f*cking citations and an entire table of contents—”

“Why would you ask if you didn’t want to know!”

“How do you have any friends? You must be such a riot—”

“I’m done! I'm done talking to you, Malfoy!”

“If you’re going to cry about it, finish what—”

“As if I’d waste actual tears on you!”

“Just finish your damn essay, Granger.”

Hermione snaps her mouth shut and glares at him.

Malfoy’s lips twitch. “Anything can happen at any time, Granger. The trees could burst into flames, or the air can turn into poison—"

"Or the ice caps could melt and creatures and bacteria that have been inhibited for years can spread around the world as diseases and we'd drown."

"The point is that none of it would be under our control because, the moment it'd happen, it'd be far too late for us to stop it. Then there's the fact that the world wouldn’t even need to go into darkness for me to die in the next second.”

Hermione nods, reluctantly. She knows this, is rational enough to have already considered all this. “But doesn’t it make you anxious to think there are only limited things we can do at this moment in time and such limited time to do it still?”

Malfoy kicks a stone and Hermione watches it fly across the path. “What do you need to do on the last day that you can’t do any other day?”

“If today was the last day of the universe, I’d want to tell everyone I cared about that I loved them, but I couldn’t do it because I’m here with you."

"If I told you I loved you and then we died in the next minute it wouldn't matter because we would be dead, Granger."

"Fine, but I'm talking about how things would change if we knew today was the last day. If I knew today was the last day, I’d feel this immense pressure to do everything right and make sure that it’s stretched to its maximum possibilities.”

“But that’s just the thing, Granger. The days are limited and the truth is that there will never be enough time to do it all. Even if you knew when you were going to die, it would be impossible physically for you to do anything more than what you can do on a normal day. There is no reality in which you’ll ever get to do what you want to which is why you need to prioritize the things you can focus on and live a life fulfilling those. If you spend all day today worrying whether you'll die, or if you’ll get to do any of the things you want to do before you die, seventy years from now when you’re on your deathbed, you’ll look back and all you’ll have are years of nothing substantial."

“I don’t know, I just...” she frowns, trying to find the best words to articulate what she means. “I guess, I’ve always wondered about the destruction of reality as we know it. Whether it’s a singular event that takes out the whole universe or just me, I’ve had this feeling that time is running out. I’ve always thought I’d die young.”

Malfoy looks at her sharply then and she stumbles to a halt when she realizes he's stopped walking. “Since when?”

“During the war, didn’t you ever think that each day was going to be your last?”

“No,” he replies carefully. “That was the point of it all.”

Hermione looks down at her hands, at the tortured skin around her nails. “There was a moment when Harry believed he had to die to destroy Voldemort. He had to go into the Forest and I would have gone with him if he’d let me. But I knew he was a Horcrux before he did and I also knew I was going to ask to go with him before I actually did. I think the whole time while I was fighting, I thought there would be a time where to win would mean to die. Winning the war was never about winning it for me.”

Hermione glances at Malfoy and flushes, feeling deeply embarrassed when he stares back at her with a strange, dark look on his face. “f*cking Gryffindors,” he mutters under his breath and then raises his voice, laced with anger, to say, “We might not die today, Granger, but you will die by thinking yourself into a heart attack or a brain hemorrhage.”

“I’m being serious, Malfoy.”

“So am I. You need to stop stressing about things that are not in your control. Nothing I ever say to you about letting go would matter if you hang onto this. You've got to be okay with what you have right now. This is it. There’s nothing more.”

It’s just a moment’s breath.

“And you? Are you okay with what you have right now?”

Malfoy locks his eyes with her, gaze unwavering. “I wouldn’t change anything, Granger.”

“I'm just afraid it'll all be taken away,” she whispers.

“I know,” he says after a moment.

___________________________________

The town is busier than the last time she’d been here, but it feels good to hear the bustle of the crowds and the music flowing through the windows. A welcome change from the predictable steadiness of being near the ocean.

Hermione glances at Malfoy as they weave through the crowds. He looks apprehensive, eyes darting around as he makes sure to steer away from large groups but still remain close to her. She isn’t sure what it is that Malfoy needs to get done but Hermione needs to get to a bookshop Amina told her to visit. Hermione mentioned earlier in the morning wanting to get some books for research on the scripts written in Safia’s diary and Amina noted there was a bookshop with some dated research books that might be helpful.

When it becomes clear they aren't going to get anywhere without help, Hermione ducks into a flower shop to ask for directions. The merchant in the front is an older man, who smiles at them with a toothy grin when they enter.

“Marhaba! Come in! Come in! What can I do for you today?”

“Hello,” Hermione hands him the slip with the name Amina scribbled down. “We’re looking to get to this bookshop.”

“Ah, yes, Hakim can be difficult to find,” the man replies, squinting at the writing. “I’m not sure if he’s still at the shop at this time of the day. But you won’t be able to find it if it's your first time going. My grandson can take you there.”

“Thank you, we’d appreciate that.”

“What brings you to Sahrit?” he asks, handing the slip back.

“We’re just passing through,” Malfoy cuts in at the same time Hermione says, “We’re looking for Kahif Al-Noor.”

The merchant freezes, all blood leaving his face. Hermione ignores the glare Malfoy sends her. It was agreed with the group to not share what they were doing in the desert to make sure they’re given the privacy to do what they needed to and not be deterred by other groups. Amina had warned them that people might either stop looking or follow close behind to maybe lay claim before they do. But too many people are relying on Hermione, who’s still clueless enough about the diary and its content, that she figures any information could be helpful.

“Do you know of it?” Hermione asks, studying the man carefully.

"No, no. We don’t talk about that place here." The merchant shakes his head, eyes shifting between them with unease. "Too much death. Too many people coming but never leaving.”

Hermione frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing, nothing. We don’t talk about that here,” he repeats and shakes his head as if to clear his mind of the thoughts. He grins suddenly, reaching under the counter, and bringing out a rose for Hermione. “How about a rose for a desert rose?”

Hermione hesitates, still stuck on the merchant’s odd reaction about the cave. She wants to ask more questions, needs more answers. She glances at Malfoy who looks as puzzled as her but sends her a look that says to not push it. Hermione reluctantly turns to the older man and takes the rose with a smile. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

“Please, keep it as a gift," the merchant says solemnly when Hermione reaches into her bag to pay. "And as a promise that you will come back again."

Come back safe and alive from the desert again, are his unspoken words.

Hermione thanks him again and gingerly places the rose inside her bag, her mind nervously rolling around the ominous unsaid message.

"Ameen!” the merchant calls over his shoulder. A young boy comes out of the back door. The man tells him something in Arabic and the boy nods, grinning at Hermione. “Ameen will take you to Hakim,” the merchant tells them.

Hermione thanks him again and follows the boy across the shop. She glances over her shoulder just in time to see the man gesture Malfoy to come closer. She pauses near the front door, turning to watch the two interact.

The man asks Malfoy something in Arabic, nodding his head in Hermione's direction. Malfoy's eyes flick briefly toward Hermione, pausing temporarily on her, before looking away entirely, the tips of his ears turning red. He responds but all she can manage to hear him say is "hayati."

The merchant shakes his head again, an ominous frown carving into his face as he leans into Malfoy and whispers something too low for Hermione to make out but makes Malfoy clench his hands in a fist.

The second Malfoy steps outside, Hermione asks, “What did he say?”

Malfoy shrugs, averting his gaze from her. “Nothing important.”

"Malfoy."

"Just drop it, Granger."

She studies his face—his ticked jaw and tight-set lips. Something's not right and she needs to know. “Tell me. Please.”

He exhales sharply, still avoiding looking at her. “He said to be careful of the lights.”

“The lights?" Hermione turns to look over her shoulder at the shop. "What lights, Malfoy?”

There hasn’t been any mention of lights by Amina or the others, and the diary lacked any note of lights. Or maybe there have been referrals to some sources of light and Hermione has paid attention because she thought it to be irrelevant to the cave itself. But the tension in his shoulders indicates that Malfoy’s still hiding something, and she has a feeling it’s what the merchant said about her specifically. She opens her mouth to inquire more, when the young boy, Ameen, takes her hand and gestures to her to hurry.

The bookshop is an obscure building nestled in the corner of an alley. Green vines slither up the sides of the gray-stoned building, the leaves obstructing any view of a sign. Shuttered windows make it difficult to see if there’s anyone inside and for a second she thinks maybe the store is closed down entirely. Malfoy tries the front door which thankfully opens after a bit of resistance. The ding of a bell announces their entrance into the dimly lit store and the smells of rich spices mixed with wood immediately flood her senses. Golden, warm hues from dripping candles light the corners of the shop to illuminate the quiet fluttering of opened books.

There’s no one else in the dark shop, nor can she find a shopkeeper. So, Hermione strolls between the narrow aisles, gravitating to the books like a natural calling. She’s not sure what she’s looking for and the Arabic script on some books makes it even more difficult to ascertain the contents, but she’s hoping something similar to the script in the diary will stand out to her.

Hermione turns over her shoulder to ask Malfoy to translate the title of one particular book when she notices Malfoy flip through a book she’d just put back onto the shelf. She pauses, considering. She takes out a book on a higher shelf to browse the title on the front cover, puts it back, and then brushes her finger on the spine of another. She moves down the aisle and watches from the corner of her eye as Malfoy takes both of the books off to inspect, only to put them back after a brief look. Hermione slides her fingers across the spines of the books as she walks down the aisle. Malfoy follows the path with his own. She turns back around, biting back a small smile.

“May I help you with something?”

Hermione startles at the deep voice, looking up into the darkness at the end of the aisle. A tall man, wearing black robes, steps into the candlelight. The dim light glints off the gold surface of a single hoop in the man’s ear. Sharp, dark eyes drift between them.

Hermione feels Malfoy step close behind her.

“My name is Hakim,” the man says, his tongue rolling over the syllables like water over smooth rocks. “This is my shop.”

“We were looking for some books for research,” Hermione explains, digging into her bag for Safia’s diary. “In particular, we're trying to find any information on this. Do you recognize this script?”

Hakim walks closer to Hermione, robes flowing like silk behind him. This close, he towers over both Hermione and Malfoy. He waves his wand and a bead of light hovers over the page Hermione angles toward him.

Hakim stiffens beside her. “Where did you get this from?”

“It’s borrowed.”

“You’re looking for the cave,” he states, stepping back after barely glancing at the diary. “Kahif Al-Noor.”

“Do you recognize the script?” Malfoy repeats, firmly.

An eerie sense of stillness radiates from Hakim as his dark eyes narrow on Malfoy before focusing on Hermione. “I do.”

Hermione nods, feeling hopeful for once on getting some kind of lead. “We would appreciate any texts or information regarding these scripts. Anything at all would be helpful. Maybe a second glance will help—”

“I will not go any near to that book you hold,” Hakim says, taking a step back. “Death is but a mercy and any perversion of the sacred texts is a blasphemy sure to bring ill. You search for the cave, but you are not prepared for what it might cost. Many lives have been taken in pursuit of this very myth. ”

“We’re not asking you about the cave,” Malfoy snaps, impatient. "Either tell us what you know about the script or give us the books we need."

"What he's trying to say," Hermione quickly cuts in, shooting a glare at Malfoy that he ignores, "Is that we're looking for information specifically on the script right now. If you have any separate information on the cave, we'd appreciate it."

“Ah, but the scripts in that diary and the cave you search for are one and the same, are they not? You are not the first to come here in hopes of the light. Over the years, travellers from all around the world come through this town, asking us questions, and thinking they can find the cave. You are no different than the ones before and I suspect you will not be the last. I can answer your questions and I can lead you to the texts that I have, but are you ready to give up what the cave will require of you?”

Stiffening silence, except for the nearby crackling of the candles, fills the space between the three.

“What do you know?” Hermione asks, her heart beating at a familiar rhythm she hasn’t felt in a long time.

This is why she’d come on this trip— this feeling of anticipation in the search for something more, something with inexplicable, yet overwhelming, meaning. While the mixture of what the flower merchant said and the clear hesitance in Hakim’s face may deter others, Hermione only leans into it as a sign that she’s close to figuring it all out.

Hakim shakes his head and Hermione catches a spark of disapproval in his eyes. “I will show you what I have.”

He turns in a swift motion, disappearing into another aisle.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Malfoy asks before Hermione can follow after Hakim.

"Does anyone?"

He doesn't waver. Doesn't bother to lower his voice. "Granger, that's two people already."

"I knew this would happen," Hermione tells him, in a hushed whisper. "I've done enough research to know that the cave is almost near impossible to find and still came despite the records of people getting hurt. The question then is why did you?"

He looks like he's on the verge of saying something— finally giving her his explanation. But instead, he chooses to remain quiet and stare at her, as if he's disappointed she hasn't already figured it out.

Hermione fixes Malfoy a hard look before following after Hakim. Hakim is swallowed into the darkness but Hermione catches the shift of his robes, descending a steep staircase. The golden hues of the burning candles are transitioned into a shade of indigo in the dark stairwell.

“Easy,” Malfoy murmurs, catching her by the elbow when she stumbles down a particularly steep step. Hermione grasps hold of the cold, stone wall to orient herself, mumbling a quick sorry. Hakim doesn't bother to look back as he leads them deeper and deeper beneath the shop and Hermione thinks he might be taking them to the older archives.

The stairs open into a tight chamber, lit once more with hovering candles. Hakim mumbles under his breath a spell, placing his hand over an invisible wall that shudders under his touch and a second later, he steps through the wards, Hermione and Malfoy following after him. She has a strange feeling of stepping into a tomb, the room cold despite the many candles. Hakim waves his wand across a wall, beckoning floating books off the shelves and onto a large, cluttered table. He lights a single candle on the table, shuffles through the stack, and takes out a large, leather-bound book. He opens the book carefully, the pages creaking softly, and Hermione leans in to watch him flip through the pages.

“I have done some research in my time on the contents of the Library of Alexandria," Hakim says, squinting at the contents of a page before turning to the next. "Though, perhaps, the truth is that the level of such content cannot be measured by lifetimes.”

“I thought the Library was erased of all accessible texts,” Malfoy says.

Hakim pauses through his search to look at Malfoy. “Knowledge cannot be destroyed. However, seeing how knowledge is power, it can be attained and mutated to benefit a certain perspective. Many of the ancient archives are stored and scattered across the world by whichever ruler or guardian deems it under their right to do so. It was through my scholarship in Eygpt that I was able to acquire several of the texts in this shop. During my years of studies, I was introduced to a text that mentioned the acquisition of magical abilities distinct to the Egyptian deities through descendants. The script in that diary of yours resembles the runes found in a reading that is connected to the Pyramid Texts.”

“Pyramid Texts?” Hermione frowns at the familiarity of the word. “You mean the funerary texts dated to the Old Kingdom?”

“Indeed.” Hakim nods, his eyes flashing. “Are you a scholar, as well?”

“Of sorts,” Hermione responds, feeling the burn of Malfoy’s eyes on her.

“The Pyramid Texts are renowned for harbouring ancient, mystic energy. The manipulation of any of the rituals cannot be conducted by mere mortals. I suppose it would require one to be blessed directly by a deity or be a descendant of one to have enough power.” Hakim shuts the books and takes another of the stack. He flips the book open and points to a page with a list of names that Hermione recognizes as belonging to Egyptian deities.

“Heka,” Hermione whispers, reaching over to point out the name.

Hakim swiftly swipes the book out of her touch. “You recognize the name?”

“Heka was the Egyptian god of medicine and magic,” Malfoy replies, looking at Hermione. “You said that Safia was the descendant of a witch blessed by Heka.”

“He was known to be associated with the energy of speech and the power that is found in the word. It was thought that runes associated with the Pyramid Text were combined into a separate dense and comprehensive text.”

“Like a spellbook?” Hermione asks.

“Much like a spellbook. The Pyramid Texts consist primarily of rituals, spells, and instructional recitations that are connected to the ultimate transformation of the deceased into an Akh, the collective spirit of the human soul that must undergo the final judgment after death.”

“Do you have the books?”

“There is no price to the Pyramid Texts,” Hakim tells Hermione, looking aghast at the suggestion. He turns back to the shelves, bringing down several more books. “I do, however, have books on the Pyramid Texts. And perhaps a book on the basics of the runes in your diary. You will have to put the information together yourself to decipher the different meanings.”

“We’ll take them,” Hermione says, looking for her coin bag.

“I know you say you’re aware of the consequences of looking for this cave and I do not feign ignorance regarding the burden that you carry,” Hakim says, nodding to the diary in Hermione’s hands as he brings over the books to Hermione. “The ones who have come before you have asked questions about the cave, but never about this specifically. It's been years since the last group to have looked for the cave and I see it as my duty, from one student to another, to warn you that there are far worse things in the desert than wild dragons. You will lose something precious and it need not be your life.”

Hermione stares at the tall man, into his grave eyes that try to communicate more than what he’s saying. “What do you know about the lights?”

Hakim gives a short, breathless laugh. No mirth lines his eyes. “You’ve talked to the townsmen, I see. And yet...you still come looking for more?”

“We were...warned of the lights.” Hermione glances at Malfoy. She can’t make out his expression, his face dimmed in the shadows, but the rigidity of the shoulders tells her he’s thinking of what the merchant said as well. She needs to take him aside and ask him what else the man told him.

“They are deemed by some as a bad omen. Many have seen the lights in the sky in the desert before a storm or an accident. It has been rumoured for nearly a hundred years that Death is imminent after the sighting of one.”

"Have you seen them yourself?"

"There was a time in my life where they were not there and then a time where they were."

Hermione stares at him, trying to decipher just how old the man is when he doesn't look a day over fifty.

The man gives her a little smile when he sees her trying to put it all together. "Knowledge is life, would you not agree?"

“The owner of this diary," Hermione says, "Did not mention the lights in the skies at all or any warnings regarding them when looking for the cave."

Hakim pauses from across the table to meet her eyes. “Have there not been enough warnings that Death is near?” She can physically feel Malfoy’s eye roll. “But the desert is known to be transcendental as it is. A few lights in the sky before a sand storm that routinely ravages its lands is the least of the concerns of those who choose to remain there."

“We’ll keep it in mind, thank you."

Hakim hesitates, looking as though he might say something more, but changes his mind to start preparing the purchase instead. Hermione digs for the coins when Malfoy drops the money before her on the table.

“I can pay for this," she tells him.

“I’ve been paying for everything, Granger,” Malfoy drawls.

Hermione contemplates arguing with him, but gives in when she realizes that he's right. She thinks, instead, while the purchase is made and Hakim packs the books. So many extra variables have been added and she wonders why none of the things they’ve discovered today have ever been noted before, either by Amina, Safia, or in any of the expedition records. Perhaps they need to ask for more information around town but the reaction of the merchant might be the general opinion of all the people. Besides, Amina had made it clear not to spread the word they were looking for the cave, which would mean that Hermione needs to go back to the records with perhaps a new set of eyes.

Hakim passes her the package and Hermione reaches over for the books, muttering a distracted thanks.

“What did his demons say to you?”

Hermione’s eyes snap to Hakim. Glazed dark eyes, rimmed with a strange shade of gold stare back at her.

The air stills and the hair at her nape rises at the swift change in the atmosphere. Heart thumping against her chest, her forearm suddenly starts to itch with a burning ache.

Why do you hide when your demons are the same?

Sure, she's misheard, Hermione tries to take a step back, but is stopped by the firm hold on the books. She tugs again but Hakim doesn’t let go. Instead, he continues looking back at her, expectantly and unblinking, with an expressionless face, waiting for her reply. She’s unable to move, bones clenched in a vise, breaths stuck in her throat.

“Granger.”

Hermione jumps, turning her head in Malfoy's direction. He takes a step toward her, brows furrowed. “He asked if there was anything else you wanted.”

She turns back to Hakim, wide-eyed. Gone are the gold-rimmed eyes, the blank expression. Instead, he raises a single brow, eyes studying her face.

“No, sorry. " She clears her throat. "There’s nothing else. Thank you for your help.”

Hermione takes the books, stuffs them in her bag, and hurries out of the chamber.

Outside, Malfoy doesn’t wait to ask, “What happened?”

Hermione shakes her head, hand gripping her left forearm at the familiar unsettling feeling. Malfoy’s eyes narrow at the hold before lifting back up to her, a question in his eyes, and Hermione drops her hand immediately.

“Granger.” His voice is deep, drawing out her name slowly in warning that makes her glance at him.

Hermione sighs, scratching her arm unconsciously once more, unsure even what she's heard or saw enough to tell him—

The air erupts in an explosion and the ground shakes with sudden force. Malfoy throws an arm over Hermione, bringing her close but her head lifts just in time to see a large beast soar across the sky, wings spanning wide to obstruct the sun. Hermione shoves Malfoy away, whirling around to face him.

“Dragons.”

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

The world will condemn us for the choices we will make. But for you, I will happily drink this nectar and be damned.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

Footsteps thunder as Hermione runs, eyes fixated on the dragon flying ahead. Her heart thumps in her ribcage like the panicked fluttering of a bird. Close behind, Malfoy follows. The fact that he hasn’t called after her to stop or even question what she’s doing has her wondering, in the back of her mind, how far she can go with him without resistance. Not that she knows what she's doing either—running after a dragon that she very well cannot catch up with.

All she knows is that there are dragons here and she needs to know why.

Together, they weave through the streets, further away from the town and the crowds there, and out into the outskirts. The paths are narrowed here and Hermione has to change the direction several times when they stumble into a dead end. At one point, she loses track of the dragon and she pauses, unsure where to go and questioning for a second why she’s chasing after the creatures in the first place. But then the ground trembles and the air explodes once more as another dragon, this one smaller, soars above.

And then she’s running once more, blindly through the alleys, ducking past opened doors and fruit-filled carts.

The dragon leads them out into an open field. Hermione and Malfoy skid to a stop where five dragons rest further near an encampment.

“What is this?” Hermione wheezes, crouching to her knees as she struggles to catch her breath.

“It looks like a sanctuary,” Malfoy says, coming from behind her and pointing at the sign near one of the larger tents. A single bead of sweat on his temple is the only note of discomfort on his face from the run. “The North African Dragon Sanctuary,” he translates, squinting at the scrawled Arabic.

They draw closer to the edge of the base where a group of wizards surround a smaller dragon that Hermione recognizes as the second they spotted in the air. A man mounts off the dragon, landing with a thud on the ground, scattering dust. He takes off his hood and runs his hands through his red, shoulder-length hair. For a second, Hermione panics, thinking it’s Charlie. Her mind whirs into motion, trying to come up with some kind of explanation. But when he turns around fully, she realizes it’s someone else, and she tries not to focus on the immense relief she feels.

The rider walks over, nodding at them in greeting. When he gets closer, he shouts, “Did the dragons draw you out?”

“We were in town and saw them,” Hermione explains, straightening. She can't believe there are actual, living, dragons here. Wizards in light robes buzz around the encampment, shouting around orders as they work around the beasts. Malfoy hesitates, choosing to hover behind, while Hermione gets closer to watch the scene unfold with the dragon the man just dismounted.

“They often do bring the stragglers out! The rest of the town is used to the dragons flying through, however! But we almost always have some unexpected travellers coming in to see what is happening!”

The beast lets out a deep snort, snout digging into its wing, as three younger wizards come with ropes. Two of the wizards wave their wands around the dragon's wings to gently rope him in, while the other brings out a pail of what looks like raw meat. When the two with the ropes tug to get the dragon to move, it resists with a dramatic expression indicating that it’s not moving until another piece of meat is thrown its way. Two pieces of meat vanquish until the dragon finally deems to follow them.

“My name is Zaim Nefrit!” the rider yells, turning back around to Hermione and Malfoy. He catches Malfoy’s grimace and he gives him a sheepish smile, lowering his voice significantly to say, “Sorry! I always forget that things are a lot quiet on the ground. A bad habit of mine. What brings you to Sahrit?

“We’re passing through to get to the desert,” Malfoy answers, reaching out to shake Zaim’s hand. “What do you do with the dragons?”

“This batch of dragons was brought in this morning from the Algerian borders,” Zaim explains. He motions at Malfoy and Hermione to follow him closer to the dragons. “We’re hoping to rehabilitate the dragons before sending them off into the desert again in a few days.”

“What happened to them?” Hermione asks, eyeing two of the larger slouched dragons. Both of them shiver and huddle closer together, despite the warm temperature. Their tails curve around their large bodies, wounding them into smaller sizes. The dragons blink slowly in their direction, their dull eyes lidded with disinterest, before turning away with heavy heads. Even from afar, and with her limited experience with dragons, she can gauge there is something off with their behaviour.

“Victims of Spanish poaching, unfortunately,” Zaim says grimly. “The male Saharan Fireback has been, in recent years, targeted for their husks and then left behind for the dead. The husks, when ground to a pulp, leave behind a liquid of addictive properties. These dragons here are the mates of the ones who have died. We found them in Algeria, where the sister sanctuary of the N.A.D.S exists to rehabilitate the dragons there. Once they’re deemed able to fly once more, we bring them to a region closest to where they are naturally found. This group of dragons that we’ve brought in originate from the Moroccan region of the Sahara desert.”

Her heart aches as she looks into the mercurial dark pools of a dragon that grunts her way and then shifts to hide her snout under a wing as if taken aback by the sounds leaving its massive body.

"They just look so hopeless,” Hermione whispers.

Zaim nods, eyeing the dragons. “They mate for life such that when one partner dies, the other falls into a level of despair where they simply cannot fly. The sadness at the death of the mate they feel can be terminal—leaving them unable to eat, move, or do anything else vital to their life. Eventually, their bodies may atrophy to a point where rehabilitation is no longer an option. It’s been the mission of the N.A.D.S to bring the female dragons back to a steady, sentient state. We teach them how to fly, how to feel the wind again, so they may have hope to live—even if they cannot do so without their mates. In the end, that’s all we can ask of them.”

“How many have you rehabilitated?” Malfoy asks. Hermione’s eyes flick over the two disconsolate dragons until they snag to one a little further away from the rest.

“Less than a dozen, sadly. And just a fraction of the ones we've taken in over the years originate from Morocco. The five we brought with us yesterday were thought to be ready after sixteen months of rehabilitation, but as you can see, these two right here have fallen back into the dejection that we found them in. On the other hand, the dragon you saw me come in on, Arya, is ready to be sent out tomorrow. I could just feel the shift in her on today’s flight.”

Malfoy asks another question as Hermione finds herself drifting to the third dragon that’s caught her eye. This dragon, much smaller than the ones she’s seen thus far, watches Hermione come closer—dark, beady eyes following her every hesitant move. She blinks lazily, but the sharpness that the other two dragons lack sparks brightly when Hermione takes a step toward her.

“Hello,” Hermione murmurs softly.

The dragon tilts her head quizzically at Hermione’s voice, blowing a soft huff through her nose. This close, Hermione can admire the dragon’s black hide— soft leather, despite the worn-in creases, with splatters of pale gray that give the illusion of a midnight sky. Muted orange scales, varied in different shades and marred by scars, scatter across its back—giving an ode to its name. Hermione steps closer once more, knowing perhaps she’s pushing the boundary but feeling an inclination nevertheless. She raises a slow hand, pausing halfway when the dragon’s forked tail thumps once loudly. Her pulse quickens and a chill like an ice cube drips down her back.

Yet, her hand doesn’t back down.

“My name is Hermione,” she whispers, trying to slow her shaky breath to not make any extra noises or movements that could scare her. The dragon blinks and brings its head close toward her hand. Near enough that if she goes on her toes, the tip of Hermione’s fingers can touch the end of the snout. Acutely, she’s aware of footsteps coming and stopping behind her.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione says thickly, stomach twisting painfully when she remembers what Zaim told her about mates being left behind. “For what you’ve lost.”

Perhaps the dragon understood what she’s said, or perhaps she simply hears the genuine sorrow in Hermione’s voice for the unadulterated greed in a world that doesn’t seem to learn, because it lets out a single painful and guttural sound resonating from the pit of its stomach. And then with another huff, and without a moment for Hermione to spare or understand what’s happening, the dragon lowers her grand head under Hermione’s extended hand.

There’s a sharp gasp behind her, but Hermione doesn’t dare move. She doesn’t even breathe. She’s utterly transfixed by the surprising warmth radiating beneath the dragon’s thick hide and the steady weight of the snout cupped in her hands. When the dragon doesn’t make any other moves, Hermione exhales.

“Brilliant,” Zaim breathes in awe, coming up to stand beside Hermione. “Absolutely brilliant.”

“What’s her name?”

“Layla. For the very night she is,” he replies. “I must say how rare it is for her to trust you like this. In fact, all of these dragons are distrustful enough towards most humans that only a select few are ever allowed to take them on a flight. Layla has allowed only one other person to touch her and that is me. And believe me, it was not after a few minutes either.”

Hermione slides her hand from underneath the snout to rest on the pointed ridges lining the top. Layla closes her eyes. “She’s beautiful.”

Hermione glances around, searching for Malfoy. When she doesn’t find him beside her, she looks over her shoulder. Malfoy stands further behind, far away from the dragon’s reach, palming his wand. His gaze is fixed on Hermione’s hand, eyes narrowed on the dragon as if suspecting its next move.

“Malfoy,” she calls. She takes in his tense frame. His eyes reluctantly move away from the dragon. “Don’t you want to come and see her?”

He shakes his head vehemently. “I’m fine right here. Actually, I think we should leave, Granger. You wanted oranges, right? We should go before the markets close.”

“Malfoy,” Hermione chides, lightly. “You can’t be afraid of dragons. That’s cosmically not allowed.”

“I’m not afraid.” He shoots her a glare which is interrupted by a jolt, a slight tremor in his shoulders that Hermione catches right away when Layla grunts under Hermione’s hand. His eyes widen a mere fraction and his grip on his wand tightens.

Hermione bites the inside of her cheeks to stop herself from laughing. “I promise she won’t hurt you.” She glances at Zaim. “Layla won’t hurt him, will she?”

“It’s hard to know,” Zaim says, contemplatively, catching Hermione’s teasing glint. “She’s quite taken by you, so perhaps if you stay close by to just make sure, Layla may not attack. In my experience, there have been only a handful of attacks against men. But of course, if you’re near, he should be quite alright.”

Hermione hums in agreement. “I think I can manage to sort something out if anything happens. This isn’t my first time, you know. With a dragon. In my humble opinion, dragons and I have a special connection quite dated. How many times have you been acquainted with a dragon, Malfoy?”

“For f*ck’s sake,” Malfoy grumbles, stalking over. He glares at her again but he wavers ever so slightly when he steps beside Hermione that there’s no malice behind it. Layla growls, eyes narrowing at Malfoy with clear distrust. Immediately, Malfoy jerks back, darting a look toward Hermione that says: see?!

“Like this.” Hermione reaches for his hand when she knows he won’t make the move himself. His eyes fall to their joined fingers, lingering there for a moment, before flicking back up to her. When he realizes what she’s planning to do, he tries to let go immediately, but Hermione holds on, gripping his fingers tightly between hers.

“Granger, what—”

“Trust me,” she whispers. Low enough just for him to hear.

He stares and stares and she hopes he can see the weight of the words that she is trying to communicate. See that she doesn’t take this lightly—this request, that is perhaps harder for him to accept than anything else she might ever ask of him. She thinks maybe he’s stopped breathing, if the complete rigidity of his body means anything, or maybe he’s just preparing to push her aside any second, damn his trust and the dragon, and flee. But she keeps his gaze and waits for him to make the decision, lessening her grip on him in case he wants to let go completely. A few seconds pass and then Malfoy swallows audibly and dips his head. A slight incline of his head meant just for her to see. He exhales a short breath and she physically feels some of the initial panic in him dissipate.

He stops resisting.

Hermione shifts her hand, letting go of his fingers so that her palm rests on the back of his hand. She squeezes his hand once to ready him and then guides their hands together toward Layla’s snout. A deep snarl escapes the dragon's mouth and Malfoy stiffens under her hand. Hermione pauses midway again, both of their arms extended, and waits.

Layla doesn’t shift away from Malfoy—her liquid eyes narrowed down further into slits.

But the growl turns into a low rumble when Hermione’s other hand gingerly comes up to touch her on the other side.

“His name is Draco.”

Malfoy’s eyes snap to lock with Hermione's with such speed she feels them sear into the side of her face. But she doesn’t look away from Layla. The great beast turns her head in Hermione’s direction.

His name feels strange on her tongue—unfamiliar syllables tripping and staggering, in an unsure rhythm, before escaping her lips. Unfamiliar out loud now, she thinks, but never before in her mind.

“He won’t hurt you.”

And it’s the easiest thing for her to say.

Layla’s eyes widen into their original, animated orbs. She grunts and, slowly, lowers her head under Malfoy’s hand. Hermione casts a side-long glance at Malfoy who looks like he might be sick, but with great resolve chooses, instead, to let go of a loose breath.

“Alright, Malfoy?” she whispers after several seconds when it seems Layla might not snap at him.

He nods, a brisk jerk of his head as if he’s afraid any sharp movements may scare the dragon.

Hermione eases Malfoy’s hand down the peak of Layla’s snout and gently withdraws her hand to give him control.

“Has she gone on her flight for today?” Hermione asks Zaim. She can’t help the smile when Malfoy takes a hesitant step closer and Layla’s tail comes around to curl against his legs.

“We’ll be taking her soon. Tomorrow is her last flight and, the day after, we will release her into the wild.”

Even though they’re supposed to be leaving tonight anyway, Hermione’s chest feels heavy at the short time they’ve been allowed with the dragons.

“Oh. I see.” Hermione runs her hand down Layla’s long neck and without looking at Malfoy, she says, “Should we leave, Malfoy? Amina and the rest must be looking for us.”

Malfoy doesn’t reply, though she feels him watching her. When he does speak, it’s to Zaim. They interact in Arabic for several moments where Hermione tries to follow along, eyes jumping between the two from where she stands beside Layla. Zaim laughs and Malfoy repeats what sounds like a question in a firmer voice. She sees the shift in his stance, head angled, hands casually placed in his pockets as he talks. He looks irresistible—at ease or in character, as though he’s donned a comfortable, familiar robe, and he knows exactly what to say or do to get his way.

“What is it?” Hermione walks over to them, her hand still resting on Layla. “Malfoy, English. ”

“Your friend here is asking what it’ll take for me to allow you to go on Layla’s flight,” Zaim explains, amusem*nt lining his eyes. Hermione glances at Malfoy, puzzled, but he refuses to look at her. “I ensured that there was no need to offer sums. If you’d like, you may go on the trip. He then asked if it was safe and I had to assure him thrice that it is. Layla knows the way and will be able to bring you back."

Hermione gasps, her heart leaping at the idea. “But will that be okay for her?”

“I don’t see any issues. The Saharan Fireback has an excellent memory and great tracking skills. After memorizing yesterday’s flight, she will be able to bring you around and then back right here. Judging from her current state with you, I can say with certainty there should be no problems with the flight.”

Her answer is an immediate yes. She turns to Malfoy with a question in her eyes.

His brows rise, taken aback. “f*ck. No.”

“Malfoy—”

“Granger, no f*cking way.”

“Malfoy, you have to come! It’ll be so easy! And fun!”

“You can’t even ride a broom! How do you expect riding a dragon will be easy?”

He’s right. Hermione is terrified of riding brooms, which is one reason why she’s not keen on quidditch. It’s not surprising that Malfoy knows this—she’d embarrassed herself well enough during the flying lessons at Hogwarts that her natural aversion became quite obvious to everyone.

But this is different. She feels it in her bones with the same level of certainty that she knows she won’t do it without him.

“I have experience with dragons before,” she sniffs. “It’s nothing like a broom—”

“Yes, it’s f*cking alive and can very much rear you off at any point—”

“Layla wouldn't do that,” Zaim interjects helpfully.

“See, Layla wouldn't do that! Malfoy! I want you to come. What are you so scared of—”

“I’m not falling for that, Granger.”

“Fine. But don’t you like riding brooms? I thought you loved quidditch!”

“Again—there’s a lot more control with brooms that there isn’t with dragons. You can go and I’ll stay here—”

“Okay, then we both won’t go.”

“Don’t be stubborn,” he says, exasperated. “This has nothing to do with me. Just go—”

"It won't be the same!"

"Same? How do you know—"

“This is it, Malfoy,” she interrupts, looking at him evenly. “You said that right? There’s nothing more. Nothing less. This is all we have. I won’t do it without you.”

Malfoy looks as though he regrets ever saying anything to her. His tongue pokes out in his cheek but she keeps eye contact, challenging him to defy his own words. Unspoken words bounce between them as Hermione narrows her eyes and Malfoy lifts his chin.

Zaim hesitantly watches the two. “Should I count two or just the one for the ride?”

Hermione waits. Malfoy sets his jaw.

Then with a curse under his breath, he says, “Two.”

___________________________________

“Just make sure to hold on to the straps at all times,” Zaim explains as Hermione hoists herself onto the saddle. Malfoy follows right behind her, swinging his leg to the other side and edging far from where she sits. “She’ll bring you right back. It shouldn’t take too long.”

“Any other tips?” Hermione asks, pulling her hair together at the nape of her neck. She secures her bag and double-checks it's knotted tight. Her heart hasn’t returned to its regular beat since the saddle was brought out and her stomach lurches and jumps as adrenaline swarms her veins.

Zaim grins. “Don’t fall.”

Layla takes a few steps forward, her tail shaking as she tries to stabilize herself on her hind legs. The movements make them unsteady and Hermione has to grip the leather straps to regain balance.

Malfoy’s voice is tense as he speaks through clenched teeth. “This is mad, Granger.”

“I know.” Her arms shake under the intensity of her hold and she can’t imagine the grip required once they’re in the air. “I know.”

“Ready?” Zaim calls, falling far behind other wizards to get out of the way.

“How many times have you been on a dragon?” Malfoy asks, his voice closer now.

In the next exhale, wings fold open, spanning wide on either side. Layla bucks slightly and lets out a low bellow.

“Once,” Hermione breathes.

“What?” he exclaims. “Once? Granger, what the f*ck—”

Layla shoots into the sky.

Hermione immediately slides back on the saddle, her thighs clenching uselessly, and into Malfoy’s chest. He grunts at the impact and she tries to apologize but her words are stolen by the wind. His arms reflexively wrap around her waist and she thinks maybe he’s shouting something but Layla lets out a loud cry that makes her bones rattle and then his words disappear too.

As Layla continues to ascend into the sky, Hermione dares a peek down below. She makes out Zaim and the other dragons and when Layla increases speed, Hermione gains a greater scope of the entire town surrounded by terrains of trees. Crowds they pass become tiny like ant colonies until they too become too difficult to see.

“If I die, Granger,” Malfoy grits out in her ear.

“I’m dying with you, Malfoy,” she finishes, shouting over the wind. She’s unsure whether she’s managed to say it loud enough. “Just hold on, okay?”

Malfoy must have heard her because his arms tighten around her shoulders. His hands wind around her arms to grip the leather straps in her hands, and Hermione locks her body against the steady, firm plane of his.

Without a warning, Layla changes her upright course. The world slants and tilts as she curves against the wind and drops.

Hermione’s stomach plummets as they fall down, down, down.

The world becomes a blur, trees and rocks disintegrating into a singular colour as they hurtle into darkness. She tries to lean into the movement but the speed at which Layla flies prevents her body from doing anything other than tremble. Someone’s shrieking or maybe it’s just the wind thrashing in her ear—either way, there are no thoughts in Hermione’s head other than I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die.

When it looks like Layla isn’t going to turn away from the jagged rocks, Malfoy uselessly yanks on the straps to get her to swerve away from apparent death. But there’s little give in the straps and Hermione squeezes her eyes shut, a scream lodged in her throat, as Malfoy curses loudly.

Right when she thinks the end is coming, in a swift motion, Layla rotates and slants upwards, wings booming, until finally, she soars in a single plane. The speed mercifully lowers and Hermione can finally let out the breath she’s been holding.

The town disappears behind and Layla soars over treetops, scattering flocks of birds that rise and fly beside them before dispersing away. Malfoy’s arms remain tight, clutching her stomach for dear life, but she doesn’t mind. She’s too struck, too in awe by what she sees. Hermione leans to the side, peering down right as they pass over two cars. A figure too small to decipher waves at them.

And soon, the trees vanish too and they’re arching over snow-peaked mountain tops.

The air is cooler here, the sun blinding, and when Hermione exhales, she sees her breath in front of her. Layla tilts between the labyrinth of neighbouring snow peaks and her tucked legs brush against patches of snow, leaving behind fragments of frost.

Malfoy is a heavyweight behind her, the only confirmation she has he’s doing okay. She hopes his eyes are open because when the mountains and jagged rocks open to an indigo ocean, Hermione loses all breath. The world stops for her even when Layla drops once more. Up in the front, the ocean meets the neverending sky. Down below, the water stirs with the draft from Layla’s wings, the serrated roar of water mingling with the screeches of the wind.

They sail close to the surface and Layla’s claws withdraw to grasp hold of the water. She hovers just close enough so that if they wanted to touch the water too, they could. Malfoy must realize this because he lets go of Hermione with one arm, keeping his other arm securely around her body, and reaches out to the water soaring beneath them. His fingers graze across the surface and droplets rush along his arm, staining his shirt. He risks a glance at her and if she wasn’t already so astonished by everything, the look in his eyes and the bright grin that slowly etches on his face would have been enough to leave her speechless.

When Layla rights herself, Malfoy moves back behind her. Rather than curling himself around her once more, he reaches for her hands and slowly stretches out her arms. She gasps, yanking him back to her, but he resists and waits. She turns her head over her shoulder, lifting her eyes to meet his.

Trust me, he mouths. Or maybe he yells it.

Trust me.

Trust Malfoy.

It’s not as difficult a decision for her as he might expect it to be. Hermione nods.

Malfoy keeps her gaze as he, slowly, muscle by muscle, stretches both of their arms out. Their arms slightly waver against the strong, rapid wind currents. His hands travel from her wrist to rest behind hers, their fingers intertwined. Her hands, already in a firm hold in his, only tighten further to a near-painful grip and she doesn’t care about this either. Malfoy's eyes dip to her lips before lifting to her eyes. Heart in her throat and chest heaving with each rapid breath she inhales, Hermione stares at him for a second more before turning back to the front.

Together, as one, the three of them lift and fall as they soar and Hermione could cry at the strange feeling unfurling in her chest and blooming across her body, leaving welcomed shivers and goosebumps in its wake. She thinks of how this might be for Layla—learning to fly again, an inclination as natural as breathing or sleeping, after a devastating loss as losing your mate. Learning to live once more when you’ve lost all reason to. And Hermione understands —she gets it to her core and it’s the realization of it all that could make her weep.

Instead, when Layla lets out another victory cry, Hermione tips her head back and does the same.

___________________________________

When Layla lands back at the sanctuary, Hermione and Malfoy remain on the dragon, unable to move. Unwilling to move. They sit in the aftermath, quiet and struggling to grapple with what's just happened.

Finally, as Zaim and the other wizards rush forward, Malfoy shifts to remove his arms from around Hermione and jumps off.

“I…” Malfoy shakes his head in disbelief and tries again. “I…that was…”

Hermione, feeling dazed and disoriented, watches complete awe take over his eyes.

“I know,” she whispers, meeting his eyes.

Malfoy studies her and a faint line forms between his brows. He looks like he might try to say something more, but instead, exhales and lifts his arms toward her to help her off.

Hermione wants to say something more as well. Feels the need to commemorate what they've both just experienced, but nausea suddenly builds in her chest and bile burns the back of her throat. A familiar feeling she’d often get from Apparitions churns her stomach. Layla had spun them before landing and Hermione’s brain had ended up rattling against her skull and she knows she’s going to suffer for it now.

Far away, she thinks maybe Amina is calling them—but even that could be a hallucination in her mind. Palms sweaty, and a mouth full of saliva, Hermione twists away from Malfoy and jumps to his side rather than his waiting arms. She feels the blood drain from her face and raises weak hands to wipe the curls away from her face.

Malfoy frowns. “Granger.”

“There you guys are!” Amina calls, her footsteps clanging against Hermione’s skull like a hammer. “We’ve been waiting for you! Imagine our surprise when I saw you and Hermione on a freaking dragon.”

“Amina…” Hermione groans and turns, just in time, away from the two to vomit.

“f*cking hell,” Malfoy mutters. Warm hands slide across her clammy neck as she retches and her eyes close at the comforting sensation. She feels the length of hair, that's undoubtedly come undone from the flight, pulled away from her skin as she bends over again.

Amina toes away from the mess and crouches beside her. “Nice to meet you too,” she teases.

Hermione waves her wand and the sick vanishes. Amina waves a bottle in front of her and she gratefully chugs it.

“We should probably go home,” Malfoy says from near the back of her neck. Amina helps her up and Malfoy lets go of her hair, stepping back.

“Wait, the oranges,” Hermione moans, grimacing at the sour taste left behind in her mouth.

“I’ll buy you a damn orchard, Granger,” Malfoy says, impatiently. “You need to go home.”

Too exhausted to argue, Hermione gives Layla a parting glance and lets Amina take her into the waiting car. At home, she stumbles into her room and dizzyingly collapses into her bed. Hours later, she’s woken by Amina and together they pack her things. Her mind, now much clearer than before, stalls as she watches the organized chaos of everyone packing tents and loading pieces of luggage. Dusk is creeping through the light of the day and the wind is as cool as the night they first arrived here. There’s a growing lump in her throat as Hermione realizes how much this place has nestled into her heart. Though they were here for mere days, the vastness of each moment has changed her exponentially.

It has to end, she thinks, gazing down the path in the trees that leads to the cliff. All of this will eventually have to end.

Once the last bit of the luggage is stored, Hermione follows Leena into the car. She’s about to shut the door when Amina cuts in, placing a bag on her lap.

Hermione peers in and gasps, hands digging into the dozen bright oranges glaring back at her. She looks up at Amina with a grin, a thank you on her lips, but Amina shakes her head.

“Not me,” she tells her and Hermione frowns, not understanding. Amina gives her a gentle, knowing smile before leaving.

It takes a few seconds for her mind to catch up but then her head is buzzing with questions.

Why, she wants to ask. Why, why, why?

It’s incomprehensible, but nothing that has been happening between her and Malfoy makes any sense or has any explicable reason behind it. Her mind can whir out questions and perhaps only half of them would have answers—even less than Malfoy can give her directly.

Stunned, she’s unable to say or do anything but turn back in her seat and hold the oranges in her lap as though they might hold the secrets to divine fortunes. When the cars, one by one, draw out and into the forest, the trees rustle with branches waving, the ocean hums farewell in a familiar hymn, and Hermione pulls apart an orange slice.

The ride to the desert is long and takes up most of the night. The growing darkness of the night outside makes it difficult to make out the change of scenery as they pull out of Sahrit. They decide not to take a break and Hermione falls asleep for most of the drive, her head on Leena’s shoulder.

By one in the morning, they are well into the desert and the crew pulls aside to camp for the night. In the dark, it is difficult to make out much of the desert except for the looming shadows of sand dunes, though the moon shines enough light that they can make out the figures in front of them. A chill encompasses the camp and the fire is burnt temporarily for warmth as everyone prepares to settle in for the remainder of the night. Exhausted and eyes heavy with sleep, Hermione robotically helps the others set up their tents. When it’s her turn, she is so utterly drained that Amina and Leena take over for her. After an hour, the fire has dimmed down and voices turn into hushed murmurs.

With nothing left to help with, Hermione turns to enter her tent when Leena comes up from behind, taking her by her shoulders.

“Look up,” she whispers.

Hermione does and she gasps at what she sees.

The entire blackness of the night sky is saturated with specks of crystal stars that stretch into infinity. Undiluted, winking and gleaming stars hang in the sky, between the pale quarter moon, like guiding lanterns. Wide awake now, she doesn't know where to look, or what to fixate on.

Immediately, Hermione finds herself searching around the encampment. Malfoy's eyes fall from the sky and lock with hers the moment she finds him. The fire between them roars as a cool breeze weaves through the tents—casting dancing shadows across his face. His frigid eyes are ablaze in the fire and Malfoy doesn't look away either.

Hermione’s heart sings and grows roots and vines and she can't help but smile at him. She catches the exact moment that his face shatters into a look of complete dismay. With parted lips, and straightened shoulders, his eyes widen as though he's been struck and he blinks several times as tries and fails to make sense of what he sees. Hermione’s smile grows as she lifts her eyes back to the sky above.

She thinks of how one day the moon will eventually drift away into oblivion, and fires and hurricanes will ravage the world and at the end of the world, Hermione will be far away from Malfoy, frozen to her soul. She thinks also how seventy years from now when Hermione lies in her bed, old and lost for memories, forgotten as others once were forgotten, it'll be okay. Everything will be okay because she’ll have this one moment.

This moment, amongst all the other lost and found moments, with Malfoy.

Here, miles away from home, a full heart under a canopy of stars.

___________________________________

It’s like walking through a familiar door and stepping onto a completely different planet.

Hermione had thought she had seen everything by now—the ocean, the dragons, and the mountains nestled between forests.

Nothing would have prepared her for the desert.

Sand dunes the size of mountains ebb and flow in the desert’s dry breeze as the midday sun, a blazing, golden orb, rests amongst clear skies. But even under the simplicity of the windblown land, Hermione can feel the murmurs of life.

Life that once was and might just be found again, if they're on the right track.

The crew gathers around in the tent to chart the rest of the course and to come up with a plan now that there are just under two weeks left on this trip.

Hermione spent the entire morning in her tent, pouring over Safia’s diary. As suspected, there were no mentions of any lights in the sky in the diary. Hermione tells the group what they learned from both Hakim and the books they bought from the bookshop. She plans to dig into them today and try to decode the runes in Safia’s diary. She also tells Amina about the lights in the sky they were warned of and Amina shrugs.

“I’ve heard of them,” she says, rolling out a crease in the map. “My great-aunt used to tell us stories about the desert. The lights have come up very briefly, but I’ve never thought of them as anything other than just that. I don’t even think my great-aunt had any personal opinions except that it was talked about in the town and she reiterated the words she heard.”

“The two we met in the town spoke of it as if there was something more,” Hermione says. “Something we should be afraid of.”

“There are many things to be afraid of now that we’re in the desert,” Amina replies, sighing. “We’ll look out for them, but I don’t think they’re anything more than a myth.”

“The Cave is a myth and here we are blindly running after it. Why should the lights be treated any differently?” Malfoy counters evenly.

Hermione looks up at the sound of his voice, taken aback as usual whenever he speaks. He hasn’t said a single word to her today or even glanced her way. She thought that maybe they'd have some things to talk about after the dragon ride, or at least act cordial enough that there was potential for a conversation on anything. If it was before, she’d spend the entire morning trying to understand what it was that might have created the distance between them. But she’s aware now that whatever his reason is, it won’t last and even if it does stretch out further between them, it’d never be enough of a reason for her. Or at least that's what she tells herself.

Hermione narrows her eyes at him, knowing that he’s well aware of the direction of her gaze when he clenches his jaw.

Amina runs a hand through her raven hair. “Because we’re following Safia’s expedition records and according to what Hermione said, Safia didn’t see any lights. We treat the lights as important but not a deterrent. I’m not sure what exactly we’ll be looking for, anyway. Flashes? Rings? We must remain focused on the routes that we’ve been following thus far to make sure we're not off track. I'm afraid to say we don't have any room for errors if we want to make it back home on time.”

Everyone gathered murmurs in agreement before dispersing.

Amina takes the first book from the stack, turns it to glance at the spine for the title, and hands it to Hermione. It’s the book on the basics of the runes shown in Safia’s diary, The Spellman's Lexicon on the Basics of Ancient Egyptian Runes. The other books in the stack are extra information on the Cave and the Pyramid Texts.

“This is kind of exciting, no? Kind of like old times.” Amina gapes as Hermione takes out two more from her bag. “There are nine books here, Hermione!”

Hermione frowns, eyeing the collection. “It’s not enough, is it?”

“We’ll never get this done if it’s just the two of us.” Amina's eyes skim across the encampment before settling on a figure on the other side of the tent. “Draco! Draco, come here please!”

Hermione glances up from the book in her hand just as Malfoy pauses writing in his journal. Very reluctantly, he rises from where he sits and makes his way over to them.

“Doing anything important?” Amina asks, innocently.

Malfoy scratches his temple. Very much still avoiding looking at Hermione. “Not really, but I was about—”

Amina slams one of the books into his hands. “Perfect! Be a darling and help Hermione, will you? We have nine books to get through and very limited time as it is.”

He hesitates but when Amina adds another book to the one in his hands, he stiffly sits down across the table from Hermione.

She watches him flip the book open to a random page. His lips thin and the furrow between his brows deepen but he doesn’t look up at her. She runs her tongue across the front of her teeth and returns to her book. Amina settles beside her, reaching for a book on the Pyramid Texts.

Hermione scans the page she’s on without registering anything. Her mind for once is preoccupied with something other than reading. She glances up from the book toward Malfoy. His brows flatten and though he looks like he’s in deep contemplation, she’s well aware he isn’t. Even with his head bent low over the book, Hermione can see that his eyes remain somewhere in the middle of the page. The same page he's been "reading" for the past five minutes. He exhales through his nose so loudly—an impatient sound that resembles something of a protest against what he’s being forced to do— that Amina glances up. Her eyes jump from Malfoy to Hermione, before ultimately returning to her book when no one says anything.

Hermione sets the book in her hands aside and reaches for Safia’s diary instead. She looks at the contents for exactly ten seconds, before directing her eyes back to Malfoy. Despite trying to convince herself that she's beyond trying to figure Malfoy out, her mind keeps drifting back to him. The redirection of her mind is as instinctive as reaching for a cup of water and not something she can help, regardless of what she tells herself. The truth is, they keep going through substantial moments, moments that have altered her irrevocably, without discussing it afterward. They move on, pretending as though nothing has happened, and Hermione is itching to sit him down and pick his brain.

She then wonders why he won’t look at her and why his mood changes like the seasons—expected due to their cyclical nature but astonishing still when the first leaf of autumn falls or the first bud of spring blooms. Eyes coasting over his face, she wonders if he’d let her cut his hair because the locks near his ears are curling differently from when she’d last inspected them and she’s of the mind that she’d be quite good with clippers once she’s read about haircutting in depth. She wonders also if he thinks about her hair because his entire face is so familiar to her now that it’s almost unsettling that she can mirror his expressions or imagine the exact webs of his blond lashes behind closed eyes.

Malfoy runs his palm down the page he’s supposedly reading and glances sharply up at Hermione.

He narrows his eyes accusingly as if to say: What?

Hermione’s eyes widen innocently.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, she replies.

Malfoy sets his jaw. Stop staring at me.

Hermione smirks in response and crosses her arms in defiance—books all but forgotten now. You first.

He glares at her then for exactly five seconds, before rolling his eyes dramatically as if he can’t bother entertaining Hermione’s whims today, and returns to his book. She’d take his apparent anger and frustration seriously if she wasn’t watching the blush of pale pink spreading across his neck. Hermione grins stupidly, as if she’s won something in these passing moments, and is about to go back to the diary when she catches Amina staring at her.

Amina’s brows rise, eyes bouncing from Hermione to Malfoy and back to Hermione, before widening into a very pointed and suggestive look.

When Amina grins as if to say I know what’s happening and I approve!Hermione's triumphant smile falls and she ducks her head just in time to hide the flush now staining her cheeks.

By the time Amina leaves after being called and Malfoy immediately jumps right after her, midday has turned into the afternoon, and Hermione still hasn't looked up.

___________________________________

Later that night, when the fire has turned sparks, and the crew has returned to their beds, Hermione stands outside of Malfoy’s tent.

Arms full of books, she shifts from feet to feet, staring at the gray fabric of the tent, and trying to think of a reasonable way to get his attention. He’d turned into his tent right after dinner and she’d think he’s sleeping if a dimmed light wasn’t peeking through the seams. She could call his name but she’d have to be loud enough for him to hear and that'd definitely wake the others. Though she’s come to Malfoy for a perfectly rational reason of getting his help on something she’s read, Hermione is not too keen on what others might think of her entering his tent this late at night.

Maybe she can tap her wand against the tent and it’ll create enough of a ripple in the fabric that could alert him that someone was outside. Or maybe if she lit her wand, the florescent orb of light will be bright enough—

The tent opens and Malfoy steps into the coolness of the night. His eyes drop momentarily to the books before lifting to Hermione's face. He crosses his arms and waits expectantly. There’s not a flicker of surprise on his face.

“I wanted to ask you something,” she says, shifting now uncomfortably under his piercing gaze. “About something I read.”

“Alright.” Short. But not exactly dismissive.

“It’s kind of a long question and requires us to go through the books.”

“I’m listening, Granger.”

Hermione awkwardly readjusts the heavy books, her arms growing numb under the weight. His eyes fall back to the books and he sighs before opening the tent. He keeps the curtain aside for her and she ducks under his arm to step inside.

It’s not what she was expecting. Or rather, she didn’t know what to expect, because Hermione never thought she’d ever be in his tent, but the starkness is strange enough that something is missing from her perception of Malfoy. She thought there’d be a lot more green, at least. His gray bed, tightly made except for a single crease where he might have been sitting before, is pushed against one side of the tent. Other than a single chair on the other side of the tent and a stand beside his bed, there’s not much else in terms of furniture. His luggage sits beside his bed and other than two books—both of which she’s recognized him reading before—on his nightstand, it doesn’t look like he’s unpacked yet. Another far cry from Hermione’s tent.

Malfoy follows her inside, the tent sealing shut behind them. He curves around her and makes his way to the bed where he swipes the book resting on it before she can read the title.

He stands there, unspeaking, watching her looking around unabashedly.

It’s neat. Which, yes, of course, she realizes, makes sense when she considers how polished he keeps himself at all times. The fact that it’s neater, much neater than her tent is thankfully something he’ll never get to see himself.

It’s dark too. The only light in the entire tent is a single candle lit beside his books. There’s just so much unused space in the tent that she’s aching to add something more—a comforter, a rug, or a string of candles so they can at least look at each other properly without squinting. It smells like everything she’s come to associate with him but the honeyed warmth in the scents are contrasted by the perceived coldness of the room.

It must reveal something about him, as personal belongings often do about their owner. But everything presented is so clinical and bare that all she can ascertain is that Malfoy is not much for leaving a mark.

She glances behind her and sees the shadows of the other tents. Her tent, right across from his, stands further away behind the fire pit. She whirls back around to glare at him accusingly.

“You saw me standing outside for ten whole minutes.” It’s not a question.

He smirks, and something inside her loosens at the sight. “I’m a man of opportunity, Granger.”

She rolls her eyes. The air suddenly stills and then becomes awkward as they stare at each other.

Malfoy clears his throat. “Your question.”

“Right, my question.” She looks pointedly away from the bed. “Where should I…”

Malfoy removes the candles and books and transfigures the stand into a table. He doubles the chair and arranges everything for them far away from the bed.

Hermione sets the books down, settles into the chair, and brings the candle close. “It’s not really a question but rather a statement.”

It takes a few uncertain moments before Malfoy sits down as well. “A statement.”

“That I hope can open a discussion because, well, as you know, we’re running out of time,” she rambles, taking out Safia’s diary and digging into her bag. “It’s imperative that I try to figure this out because I just know it has something to do with the Cave. Though maybe it’s all just in my head since it’s not exactly the forefront of the diary’s contents-”

“Granger,” he interrupts. His voice, for once, is gentle and not impatient. “What’s the statement?”

“I solved the runes.”

His brows rise at that. Hermione flips to the page where the scripts were first found in the diary and flattens it. She takes out the Lexicon, along with her notes that she’d scribbled all day in the tent, and displays them all out on the table. Malfoy leans in, tilting a parchment in his direction for a closer look. Both of them ignore the jolt that passes between them when his fingers brush against hers.

“Well, not all of the runes,” she corrects. “But I did spend all day organizing the different scripts she has in her diary into comprehensible runes by comparing them to the basics found in the Lexicon. They resemble a lot like the hieroglyphics found in the Pyramid Texts except many are combined for words or commands.”

“Commands?”

Hermione nods. She shows Malfoy the list that she’s created. One parchment contains each rune and its associated command while the other parchment lists all of the runes she pulled together from the diary. The runes are broken down into their very basic derivatives, resembling something akin to the Anglo-Saxon alphabet.

“Ascend. Bind. Transform. Asunder. All these commands, and others, are associated with a single rune while some of the others can be combined to form ritual incantations. But I think we would require the spellbook that Hakim mentioned to organize the runes into the rituals. I suspect any ill-organized spell would be catastrophic considering we’re talking about funerary texts.”

“You think she used the runes for the Cave?”

“Why else would she have them in her diary?” Hermione muses. “The first script doesn’t start until after the disaster that her crew faced. According to our best estimate, she’d continued the expedition and found the Cave regardless of her missing group. I’m thinking she might have used some of these runes as a way to secure the location. Or perhaps help her with tracking the Cave once more since it’s suspected she wanted to return.”

“This is what you did today?” Malfoy asks, eyes snapping between the notes and the book she’d used.

Hermione frowns. “It's not a lot, I know. There are more runes I need to put together, let alone the fact that basic commands are too juvenile to be considered helpful. She likely used spells for whatever work that she did with the Cave but because we don’t have the book, I might miss something.”

“This is mad,” he says quietly. The low tenor in his voice reverberates in the quietness of the tent. He lifts his eyes to meet hers. “The fact that you did this all today is downright mad. And you’re mad for thinking it’s not enough.”

“Oh.” Her voice lowers to a hush. It’s a compliment. Maybe. Hermione scratches her leg uncomfortably, unsure what to say. “Okay.”

“I can help with the rest of the translation,” Malfoy offers neutrally.

Hermione shakes her head. “I can finish the translations—that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m more concerned about how to activate the runes.”

“What do you mean?”

“There must be a way to activate them, no? The Ancient Runes we’ve studied don’t rely on an external source other than the inherent root of magic.” Hermione takes out her wand and a rope from her bag and severs it in half. Then, she uses her wand to spell out the rune for the command EMBED over the rope but as predicted, nothing happens. “I don’t think these runes use magic as an activation but I’ve read the books and there’s no specific mention of any other requirement. I was thinking it might be helpful if you read the books and try to figure out what I missed.”

“You think I can pick something out that you missed?”

Perhaps Malfoy’s off guard at night or maybe because they’re sitting in his tent, he’s more transparent in the environment. Either way, his expressions are far more readable and less strained behind a mask because there’s a clear sense of disbelief in his tone that she wouldn’t otherwise be privy to. She thinks maybe he's surprised that Hermione would expect him to find something of note if she hasn't already. She’s not sure how to deal with this either.

Hermione pushes the books toward him. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

Malfoy thumbs the sides of the books distractedly, the brush of pages the only sound in the tent beside the flickering of the candle between them. Malfoy raises his other hand to rake through his hair, a nervous tick of his she's realized, and his eyes fixate on a point on the table. The candle flames turn his steel eyes into ashes. For the second time that night, the air switches to something of unease or discomfort at what to do next and it’s not an unfamiliar feeling between them—just something Hermione no longer wants to welcome. He avoids looking at her again and she suspects she should leave on her own volition now that she’s done what she’d come to do rather than suffer through having him tell her to do so.

She wills herself to get up but she’s rooted to her seat. Something is missing and she's just not ready to end the night. Her eyes roam across the plain tent, settling on nothing, before resting on his form once more.

“Earlier today,” she starts carefully, and immediately regrets her decision to stay when Malfoy's eyes snap to hers as if remembering she's still there, “when we were talking about the lights you said something about blindly following a myth…what did you mean?”

"I think it's a myth."

"Right. What exactly does that mean?"

“Are you asking if I believe the Cave to be a myth because it does not exist or a myth because of its supposed abilities?”

“Both,” she states after a second of contemplation.

“I think the Cave exists but what it claims is a myth.” She doesn’t like his answer and the look on his face says that he wasn’t expecting her to. “What I think shouldn’t change what you believe to be true, Granger.”

Hermione’s mouth twists. “So you don’t believe in enlightenment?”

“I believe in polarities. Life means there is death and the presence of heat suggests the absence of it. The abilities of magic are negated by the lack thereof. If there is darkness then there must also be light. I just don’t know if I believe in this concept of a higher power of light that can be received simply by a sip of water. What would enlightenment even look like?”

“I suppose the effects of the water would vary between each person who would drink it. According to my research, it is most similar to the awakening of one’s soul. A form of ultimate happiness that isn’t a result of material things or the fulfillment of transitory goals like money or power. But rather it is a sense of peace of who and what you are at that moment in time and the acknowledgement of that being enough.”

“That sounds a lot like the Trelawny sh*t you hate.”

“Well, no not really. I don’t believe in studying or relying on things that can’t be measured directly. Things like reading tea leaves to see into the future are a lot more preposterous when we consider that the future changes based on our current actions and beliefs. I might be predicted to have come on this trip but something that I might prioritize more than what I’m looking for on this trip could have come up and completely changed the course.” Hermione pauses to consider further. "I suppose, I believe we make our own luck through our actions and the choices we make. The Cave and its effects, however, are something real and substantial. Through a deliberate act of drinking the water, we see a clear consequence which is enlightenment. I just think that it’d be nice to rise above our pasts and the actions of our ego and transcend into an individual that is connected to the universe beyond worldly opinions and beliefs."

Malfoy looks as if he’s resisting rolling his eyes at her. “What a lovely sentiment, Granger. Those are all fancy words that don’t mean anything substantial in terms of who you might become when you’ve seen the “light”. Nothing about “rising” or “awakening” is objective and physical enough to be considered anything other than philosophical bullsh*t.”

Hermione scowls. “You would think that but it’s not necessarily a difficult concept to grasp, Malfoy. Maslow, a Muggle philosopher, believes there is a ladder of needs that one must climb to reach self-actualization which is the ultimate state that everyone, whether you acknowledge it outright or not, is striving for. Muggles and magical beings are motivated by their need to continue to strive for the next “greater thing.” Once you’ve met the basic needs of food, sleep, and shelter, you move on to seeking safety. After that, you look for love and feelings of belonging. Once these stages are met, the next thing to look for is self-esteem—the perception of worth you have of yourself and the worth others attach to you. Only when all these stages are met can you reach self-actualization and seek things that give you fulfillment in life. Maybe the Cave bypasses all these stages of the ladder and goes straight to self-actualization.”

“What if the fulfillment that I seek in life is gaining power?”

Hermione blinks, taken aback. “Power?”

Malfoy shrugs. “What if the greatest joy in life that I seek is power? Assuming the Cave is all-knowing, will I be given power, even if I might use it to distinguish the light in others?”

“Are you seriously looking for power, Malfoy?”

For some reason, the question leaves a sour taste in her mouth. She's spent so much time wondering why he was even searching for the Cave that she’d never considered what he wanted from the Cave or what he was going to do after.

“Would it be so strange if I was, Granger? Would it not be expected of me?”

Hermione stares at him, surprised by the sudden turn in the conversation. He gazes back at her with a sense of complete ease—his body is relaxed, shoulders light, and his hands resting firmly on the table on the books in front of him. But there’s a daring gleam in his eyes that seems to challenge her, waits for her to slip or make a mistake.

“I don’t think the purpose of this trip is to drink from the Cave,” Hermione says, diplomatically. “It’s going to be changed into a historical site, protected under international jurisdiction.”

He looks disappointed by her answer. “And how would you control a site like the Kahif Al-Noor that has been historically sought by travellers worldwide without power?”

“In this case, power would be used for something good. Control and safety of everyone who would like to visit, as well as, fair accessibility for all.”

“But you can’t let anyone, like myself, drink from it because there would be no control over what I could do from what I gained? Because if I wanted power then it would be for something evil?”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” she says, feeling exasperated at her lack of control over the conversation. “What you gain from the Cave will be motivated by your individual needs. I don’t know your personal goals and as such, there is a level of insecurity and lack of management in that. But through a selected means of leadership agreed democratically by all, we can control the site for everyone with a strict level of authority and ensure equality between those who would want to visit.”

“Equality. Leadership. Authority. All words of affirmation you Gryffindors sing to go to sleep.”

“Power changes depending on whose hand it is in.”

“'Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely',” Malfoy recites, much to Hermione’s surprise. He's not supposed to know Muggle philosophy. “All those who seek power are seeking it for their own needs and requirements. It does not matter if you are of noble intentions or seek power through cunning means. Everyone who wishes to have control over things and people will have to do things that are not necessarily considered good while others will have to do things that may be seen as evil despite their intentions.”

Hermione glares at him. “What do you want me to say, Malfoy? That I think you’re evil? That you don’t deserve to drink from the Cave because of what you believe about yourself?”

His eyes narrow dangerously. “It’s not just what I believe about myself, is it? It’s the common perception of the entire world about those who fought on the other side. If there is good, then there is evil. That’s what was determined by the end of the war, wasn’t it? Everyone collectively sat down and wrote off all those who fought as good or evil. As either deserving a chance at life like yourself or getting years spent in Azkaban like the others.”

Like him.

Hermione’s pulse quickens at the sheer anger in his voice even though she knows it’s not only directed at her. “And you think it’s as basic as that? That there are no shades in between or that we don’t have the conscious ability to transition from one polarity to the other?”

“Like I said, Granger, there is either darkness or there is light.”

“And what of evil? Is evil something you are or something you do?"

There's a spark of recognition at the words he's also not supposed to know.

"You tell me, Granger. What did they tell you in the light?"

"It's not all or nothing, Malfoy. Things can change."

“How can a room filled with darkness change physically and molecularly into light?”

She doesn’t understand what he wants to hear from her or what conclusions he wants her to draw about him or herself. Maybe he wants to trap her into admitting that her opinion of him is the collective opinion of others. That he deserved to rot in Azkaban because he was so inherently evil and dangerous that he needed to be locked away from public sight. And perhaps the end goal of that is to make Hermione feel ashamed of her beliefs and her sense of self-righteousness. But she also knows it’s not as vindictive as that. She can sense it in the way he’s leaned in closer and the way his hands have turned into white-knuckled fists that, in this exact moment, whether he consciously knows it or not, he needs her. He needs her to defy the beliefs the world may have of him, even if it's a lie.

“I can bring in a candle. Now there is light in the room of darkness.”

“But that is introducing something completely new that at its core, in its chemical composition, is different from the darkness itself,” Malfoy counters.

“But life is not about walking in complete blindness of the dark or the blinding brightness of the light,” she says. “Whether we want it or not, everything and everyone is influenced by each other. I can live a life in the light but someone can take the light source away and put me in the dark. Or I can add light into my life of darkness so that there is sight. There is a clearer way, a path that I can follow, now that I can see. I think...sometimes we learn to live a life of familiarity and comfort in the dark because it’s frightening to turn on the light and see all the monsters hiding in the corners. But the choice to bring in a candle, of whatever size, is still there as long as we live and as long as the darkness remains.”

Palpable seconds of stiffening silence pass between them. And the mask that he’s cast aside at the start of their evening together gives Hermione access to all the emotions in his eyes. Malfoy struggles between stubbornness and frustration and it looks like he might say something cruel or harsh but there is a brief flash of hope that ultimately settles into resignation.

“If only everyone lived in your idealistic world of peace and light, Granger." He smirks bitterly because this is easier for him to do than ever admitting out loud what he feels. "But I guess, it's a lot easier to think this way if you're given an Order of Merlin for it.”

Hermione flinches so physically at his words that Malfoy’s smirk falters.

It's not the worst thing he’s ever said to her but it still hurts enough that a lump grows in her throat, making it difficult for her to breathe. She shouldn’t be this surprised but somewhere in the stupid workings of her head, she thought maybe now that he’d seen her, he'd realize that nothing in her life was just easy. To even have hope was one of the most difficult things Hermione can do. To discredit her beliefs and her way of thinking as a means of gaining materialistic things is less painful than him pretending the things that have happened between them so far on the trip are meaningless. She wants him to value their shared sacred moments, moments that are undeniably sacred to her, rather than continue to perpetuate the false and fickle opinions and perceptions they’ve been forced to believe.

Silently, Hermione starts packing and mindlessly throws everything into her bag. Her chest constricts and she’s tempted to rub her hand against it to ease the discomfort but she also refuses to sit in his tent any longer. She's aware that he's watching her as she moves around the table and she hopes, foolishly, that he might say something, anything, to clot the new wound he’s cut. When it's clear that he won't say anything she makes way to leave.

“Granger.”

Hermione stops with her back to him. She doesn't move.

A sound, something low and in between an impatient sigh or a frustrated growl, escapes him.

“Granger, look at me.”

Hermione shuts her eyes and clenches her teeth. She wants to yell at him for having the nerve to command her still and she contemplates leaving him like this to make a point that she's completely depleted by him. Instead, she sighs and turns to face him.

His expression is unreadable. Half of his face is shrouded in the darkness.

“Nothing's changed,” he says plainly.

Disappointment replaces some of the hurt in her chest. She stares and stares at him, waiting for him to explain what he means or take back his words from before.

“You say that and I think it’s your greatest lie yet,” she says finally. “I’ve seen you, Malfoy. And that just terrifiesyou, doesn't it?"

There’s a flash of angry silver in the darkness as Malfoy leans forward into the light. Maybe she should be terrified of the look in his eyes, but her own frustration gains weight at the moment. Hermione turns back around and steps into the night.

___________________________________

Later in bed, Hermione lays wide awake, much to her annoyance, despite her potions and thinks about Malfoy.

She doesn’t want to think about Malfoy and if there was a potion that could wipe out any thoughts or memories of him, she would take it greedily. She’s angry and upset and she wants to remain this way until Malfoy feels uncomfortable and misses her absence and comes to her to make amends. For once, she wants someone to come to her. But of course, what she wants will never happen and she’s left ruminating about something he said in the heat of their argument.

Others will have to do things that may be seen as evil despite their intentions.

She doesn’t think he noticed what he said to her— and she knows if he was less flustered and less keen on making Hermione slip, he never would have said it in the first place— but the words are a clear reference to his Wizengamot trials. She knows this because she was there, listening to every word said. Every day for nine days of his trial, until the tenth day that was specially arranged on her request for a private testimony.

Intent.

That’s what it all came down to because at the end of the day, the evidence showed Malfoy, despite his apparent allegiance to Voldemort, despite the mark on his arm, had never killed anyone. Several runs of defence and battle spells were imprinted in his wand and thus were not disputed. Other dangerous spells that the Ministry had never seen before and were suspected to be created by Voldemort were also found in his wand. There was no doubt that Malfoy had fought hard in the war and through his hands, he had hurt many in unthinkable and unconscientious ways. But not once did he utter an Unforgivable. Not once did he use the Killing Curse.

If Hermione hadn’t already resolved to testify on his behalf, this knowledge alone would have convinced her. Because Hermione had seen almost every Order member kill someone. Harry, Ron, Lupin. The names were endless and could have included hers as well if she'd ever found herself in the position to do so. There were people who she would have killed for, eyes open and unflinching. They killed and killed and killed and each murder was justified in the eye of the court, the mind of the world, because of their intention behind the act. The means justified the end simply because it was easier to convince everyone they had to do it for the greater good. They had to kill when the other side was thinking of genocide and mass executions.

Because can’t you see?

They’ll kill us first if we don’t kill them.

Don’t you just see the hatred on their face? That’s what will kill us. Their hate. And maybe they were to suffer for the rest of their lives for the perversion of their souls with every utterance of the curse but not one person on their side was tried for a war crime.

When it came to Malfoy, Azkaban was definite but the question of how long was debated. Apparently, there was a correct number of years for practicing Dark magic and for aligning oneself with Voldemort and the entire Wizengamot was hell-bent on figuring it out. They argued viciously, tore his name apart ruthlessly, crushed him and his decisions and choices until they were nothing. Until he was nothing. And Malfoy was made a witness to it all.

He was a child, said a witch sitting beside the Minister of Magic. The time should be reduced!

More children were fighting against Voldemort than there were fighting with him, argued another member of the Wizengamot. What of those children? At least fifteen years in Azkaban.

Ten years, countered a wizard.

Life, said another.

The Kiss, whispered a voice, and the entire chamber was silenced.

In the shadows, Hermione gasped. In the center of the room, Malfoy, who had not uttered a single word or even exhaled a breath too loud, just blinked.

What was it about him, Hermione wondered, that made them so angry? Was it his name? Was this the one chance for the wizarding world to finally get back at the remaining heir for the lives that were lived without the consequences of the Malfoys before?

It was brutal and Hermione didn't understand why.

He raised the wand, Harry testified finally. I saw him raise the wand. But he didn’t kill Dumbledore. Severus Snape did.

And therein lay the dilemma. Would he have killed Dumbledore if Snape hadn’t stepped in? Would Malfoy have eventually cast the Killing Curse if given enough time in the war, if given enough reason to? Did it matter that he was coerced as a child by guardians who were supposed to protect and save him? Did it matter what thoughts were thrashing Malfoy’s mind when he raised the wand? Were fears and hesitance sufficient enough in the court of law to back the claim that Malfoy didn’t want to kill Dumbledore—that he did not have a state of mind to kill? Did anyone care at all what he had to see or suffer? The answer, however, was that Malfoy could kill and so he was a killer.

Perhaps it was Harry’s testimony of what happened in the Tower and the night at the Malfoy Manor that ultimately removed the Kiss from the table. And maybe it was Hermione’s recall of that same night and what she believed she saw Malfoy do for her specifically that reduced the length of his sentence.

Either way, Hermione realizes, Malfoy is right.

Nothing's changed.

Malfoy went to Azkaban and his name was buried deep, deep under the dirt.

Nothing changed because the world simply did not care for his intentions or the reasons why he did what he had to do. They hated him with an intensity that would have put the Death Eaters to shame. He was cursed for the very lack of choices he had.

In the end, not a single thing changed at all.

The wand was raised and Malfoy’s life was damned forever.

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

There is a story out there for all of us and in these stories, we are lost and found once more. There’s comfort in knowing that there’s a version of us somewhere and thus we are not insignificant. We were known once and will be known again one day too.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

An entire day is wasted because Hermione simply refuses to be the first to give in.

However, a problem arises when Hermione realizes she needs Malfoy because of her own foolish actions. She should never have gone to him in the first place regarding the runes and their translations. She should also never have given half the books on said runes and translations because now she has questions and because of her stubbornness, she’s unable to get her answers. On top of that, Amina, busy as ever dealing with the logistics and new problems that arise every day with the expedition, is unable to help Hermione with the readings.

Thus, Hermione is left alone reading and rereading the same book. Technically, this would have been a blessing, except she needs someone to bounce ideas off and, because of her aforementioned foolishness the only other person who’d have any idea what she’d be talking about, without her going on many tangents and wasting even more time, is Malfoy.

But, Hermione has to make a point.

The point being: Hermione Granger does not need anyone to find answers to difficult questions and will not tolerate any more disrespectful actions made toward her by a particular blond. The point, of course, would require a very pointed aversion to Malfoy during the day.

It would have been an excellent and productive goal of the day, except there are very limited opportunities as there aren’t many places to avoid for Hermione to make her point. Initially, she thought she’d stay inside her tent for breakfast and avoid seeing anyone at all.

But then she heard laughter from outside and Hermione got the familiar nervous panic clenching her throat. She feared she was missing out on a valuable joke or a quirky anecdote and if she didn’t go there right now everyone would have bonded without her; and for the rest of the trip she would be the outsider and she’d end up spending hours grappling with loose threads, trying to make up for what she missed. It was mad thinking, she knew. She wasn’t an outsider and no one, other than Malfoy, had treated her with any malice so far that would even suggest any ideas or plans of ostracizing her.

Still, Hermione sighed, took her book, and trudged outside.

She was the last one for breakfast and she had the mind to join the others, but then she saw Malfoy reading the Lexicon, and a burst of anger filled her at the sight of the book. It was her book, regardless of the fact he paid for it. She'd given it to him and he dared to sit there and read with such leisure as if things weren't at stake. As if time wasn't running out. He looked up when Amina called her name and for a brief moment, their eyes clashed.

But Hermione had a point to make, so she took her plate of food, made an excuse of needing to review something in the diary, and had breakfast in her tent.

The second time, during lunch, Hermione chose to sit beside Tony and Amina.

A book in her hand, she mindlessly ate the rice pilaf, while trying to multitask between listening to Tony’s rendition of the course so far and reading up on the funerary texts. When Malfoy came over to ask Amina a question, Hermione once again packed everything, while very pointedly avoiding Malfoy, and left. His slight frown was the only sign he’d even noticed.

She’d been trying to make a point, but she feared that each time she walked away, she’d been the one to look rude in the eyes of others. Even worse, by mid-afternoon, Hermione started to forget the reason behind why she was even trying to make a point. She’d been angry at Malfoy’s tendency to ruin every intimate moment between them with his careless words. The anger turned into annoyance directed more at herself than Malfoy.

What was the point of expecting a different outcome when Malfoy, time and time again, showed who he was? She knew, the moment she saw him in that garden in Marrakech, what to expect from him on this trip. Dormant and unresolved anger that took the form of impudence and resistance against change. In the end, it really was her fault for having expectations. That was the crux when it came to Hermione. Hermione always thought she was closer to people than they were to her, and as such the expectations increased immensely. It only took one moment and suddenly she thought she was friends with people who merely saw her as a co-worker, an acquaintance, a friend of a friend. Someone you were forced to see every day on a trip.

She thinks maybe the exaggerated misunderstandings of her relationships started in Hogwarts, before the war.

She’d been so desperate to make friends in this unknown world she’d be thrust into, that she’d let anyone say cruel things to her as long as they were at least thinking about her. Because if she was the boring know-it-all, annoying stuck-up, the Mudblood, then at least she was relevant. At least she had a role to play. Someone could have given her an extra quill during class and suddenly Hermione was telling them about the book she’d recently read or the one time she broke a bone in primary school. She’d allow any opinions of her, no matter how hurtful, as long as she didn’t mould into the curtains, fall in between the crevices of her bed, disappear into the walls. It only got worse after the war. Hermione started to realize that all those cultivated friendships that had such gravity in life were slowly losing some of the same substance in the eyes of the others involved. Friends that became family were branching out into this new world that they’d fought so hard for to revel in the unknown possibilities in new people.

“The entire Wizarding Britain knows you,” Harry said, in a rare moment where Hermione opened up about how she’d been feeling. “Just think of them as your friends. You won’t feel alone then.”

Hermione just smiled.

She hadn’t known how to tell him that she wasn’t alone—she was just lonely. And the feeling didn't change regardless of whether she was in a room filled with a hundred people calling her name, or a room with just one person who didn't even recognize her face. She still felt a sense of great desperation to dig her fingers into whatever was left in her life until she bled and bled and bled. Because if she bled then maybe what she felt was real.

She didn’t want a new set of friends or grand crowds of strangers who thought of her in a way that was so far, so out of reach, like a formless ship on the horizon, from who she actually was.She wanted her friends and what her life used to be like before everyone moved on. She’s alive, yes. But she’s also been collecting dust like a relic from a world past only to be polished and exhibited when everyone else thought the time was right.

And that’s what happened with Malfoy, she realizes.

She'd always been curious about him.

Wondered what kind of man the boy she once knew had become. The perception she had of him was stuck somewhere in time where the others had left her behind and there was comfort in being frozen there with him. The glimpses she got of him in the newspaper were nothing compared to the real thing and she wanted to open him like a favourite book of hers and read each word, each question mark, and put them together all over again into sentences and paragraphs until she memorized every page. He laughed and suddenly, in the back of her mind, it meant something more. Suddenly, there was someone from before that could be more now.

However, at the end of the day, it was all in her head. It was herfault for attaching meanings to moments that, ultimately, were just that for Malfoy. Fleeting, empty moments meant to be replaced by more transient moments.

By dinner, Hermione is so agitated with herself that she tells Amina she isn’t hungry and turns in early for bed. She tries hard to ignore the laughter while she reads and, after an hour, mercifully, the voices turn into murmurs and whispers, until finally, another hour later, the only sounds outside are those of the desert at night.

The claustrophobic quiet of her tent weighs down on her chest like an anvil and she closes her eyes to remove some of the pressure. Seconds of trying to just breathe pass until Hermione pulls her legs out of the blanket and sits on the edge of her bed, just staring at the far side of her tent. She’s feeling antsy. Needs to move or get out after sitting in her tent for two hours. Without a thought more, she pulls on her boots and grabs the books she’d been reading off the bed. With a candle in her hand and a shawl around her shoulders, she unzips the tent, and steps outside.

It’s a calm, windless night.

The air here is different from that near the ocean. There’s an eerie stillness that creates an illusion of no life for miles—the tranquillity is only cut by sounds of crickets and katydids and the occasional hoot of a desert owl nearby. It’ll take some getting used to for Hermione. She misses the crisp wind in her hair at the cliff and the never-ending roar of the ocean.

The canopy where most of the work happens during the day is set on the east side of the encampment, far enough that any sounds from her won’t disturb the others and close enough she can make out any movements. Hermione settles in one of the chairs and sets the candle to the side. She's in her pyjamas so she waves around the canopy to warm it. She digs out her sugar-quill and is well into her reading within five minutes when footsteps make her look up.

Her body locks in a moment of fight-or-flight and her eyes dart around the shadows looking for a place to vanish into. But all she sees is open darkness and she curses herself for thinking it was a good idea to come out in the first place. Not that she’d known he'd be awake. The way he’s still dressed in his day clothes makes it seem as if he hadn’t even tried to get ready for bed.

She’s about to start swiftly packing in a last-minute attempt to escape when Malfoy steps into the canopy and says in a tone that suggests he’s already bored of the conversation, “You’ve been avoiding me.”

Her stomach flips. Hermione lifts her nose. “Bold of you to assume you have enough relevance for me to do anything to you.”

His eyes are ashes in the dark. “I have a statement.”

Her gaze falls and she distracts her hands from his words by stacking and restacking her books. If she doesn’t look at his eyes then she won’t forget that she’s supposed to make a point.

“That’s unfortunate. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow or, preferably, never.”

“I found a mistake in your translation.”

Her eyes snap to him before she can stop herself. “Impossible.”

“I thought we talked about your lack of perceptiveness to mistakes, Granger.”

Hermione rolls her eyes. “Yes, Malfoy, I remember. I’m very flawed, etcetera, etcetera.”

“It truly is fascinating how fast you learn.”

She glares at him as he pulls a chair out and sits down, uninvited. “What do you want, Malfoy? I’m about to go to bed.”

“You’ve only been here for less than five minutes.”

And he’d only know that if he’d been counting the minutes.

Hermione narrows her eyes but doesn’t say anything. When it’s clear she’s waiting for him to hurry up, Malfoy says, “Your translation for ENTER and ACCESS are wrong.”

“They mean the same thing.”

“Yes, but you translated them under one rune. I think they should be grouped under intentions, such as goodwill."

Hermione frowns. “What does “goodwill” have to do with anything?”

He reaches for the parchment under her hands, seeming very careful to not touch her skin as he orients it toward him. He picks up the sugar quill and stares at it, a strange look passing over his eyes for quick seconds, before turning back to the parchment.

“I’ve seen something similar to it before,” he starts, writing down the rune Hermione labelled as ENTER/ACCESS from memory. It has the shape of a crescent moon with a single perpendicular line through the middle. “In some ancient runes translations, the basic commands are often grouped according to the verb rather than the underlying intention. However, during my studying of linguistics, I did an emphasis on ancient languages and it was said—”

“When did you do linguistics?”

Malfoy pauses, eyes flicking her way. “Last year.”

“Where?” she presses. The only linguistics she’s ever studied was the book she'd gotten on Linguistics of Spellcasting during her very brief stint at teaching. It was for a side paper she was writing on the technicalities and specifics of spellcasting. The actual study of languages and etymology, other than that of Ancient Runes, was never a part of the Hogwarts curriculum so any interest in linguistics would have to be of one’s own volition.

“There was a course,” he says blandly.

“What’s it called?”

Malfoy exhales a controlled breath. “Theoretical and Applied Linguistics.”

Hermione’s unable to recall the name. “Was it being taught somewhere? I didn’t know there were extra classes on the linguistics of ancient languages. Was it a Ministry-led lecture?”

“What the hell does that matter, Granger?” Malfoy asks, through gritted teeth. He looks like he’s losing some of his restraint. There’s a change in his tone that makes it seem that he wants her to drop it. It only makes her charge forward.

“I’m just wondering if there are lectures on linguistics, maybe I could join them too. Obviously, if there is a mistake in my translation, it’d be helpful to know why—”

“I’m telling you why right now.”

“I’m well acquainted with the lectures being taught by the Ministry and Hogwarts but I’ve never—”

“There are other ways I could have learned linguistics. There are universities—”

“Yes but, you said you attended a course and all I’m asking is which one—wait, universities?”

“—and courses being taught that you don’t know. You don’t know every f*cking course in the world—”

“Universities,” she echoes in disbelief. “Muggle universities, you mean?”

Malfoy’s mouth clamps shut and he glares at her. Even in the dark, Hermione can make out the tip of his ears turning deep red and it’s the answer to her question he won’t give her.

Muggle universities.

Draco Malfoy attended a Muggle lecture at a Muggle university.

And learned linguistics.

So many. Hermione has so many questions that she has to ask, but she clears all of them from her head because she can’t know his answer. Any explanation won’t be enough for her, she reminds herself, and she and Malfoy are not friends who can talk about these types of things.

She clears her throat. “What was the mistake again?”

His brows rise in surprise. He hesitates as if waiting for her to ask her real question. When she looks back at him neutrally, he reluctantly turns back to the parchment.

“Some commands are translated, not according to the verb, but rather according to their intent. Giving access to someone by creating an entrance may require stating the intent. For example—” Hermione leans in as Malfoy redraws the single rune and splits it into two components before rearranging it so that the crescent moon is angled to the left but the line remains parallel. “—the angling of any of the runes to the left would show that an intention is required for activation.” He angles another rune for UNION to the left. “Union would also require intention, whether it be malice or goodwill. Malice would bar any commands.”

Hermione purses her lips in thought. “How would the exact intent be measured?”

Malfoy sets the quill down. “I suppose it would be similar to when casting a spell. The incantation relies heavily on the aim, much like an arrow. There are…certain spells that have to be specifically intended by the caster.”

“You’re talking about the Dark Arts.”

Malfoy nods.

Dark magic required a certain precedent of a damaged soul to be cast while also furthering the damage once cast. A caster had to mean each cast Unforgivable and yet, Hermione also knows that not all dark magic had to have a necessary damaging effect. A dark spell used for merciful means or done with the correct intention, such as when Snape killed Dumbledore, did not have the same soul-damaging effect.

“It all comes down to once again the activation of the rune,” Hermione sighs, idly twisting a curl near her shoulder. Her hair has seemingly grown more in the last two weeks on the trip than in the past year. “Our intention is measured directly through our wand and thus our magic, but we’ve already established that these runes are not activated in this way.”

She glances at Malfoy when he remains silent and finds him fixated on her fingers wrapped around the hair strand. His expression is unreadable but the intensity of his gaze freezes her. She immediately lets go of the curl, and his eyes, crystal gray, snap to her face. She has to breathe in once, twice, before she can fully exhale the lodged breath. When she swallows the dryness in her mouth, Malfoy’s eyes dip to the stretch of her throat peeking out from under her shawl. His lips part at the same time as hers and—

Her point. Somewhere in the unknown distance in the back of her mind, she has a point.

With great strength and stiff limbs, Hermione starts flipping the scattered books shut. The slam of the covers echoes painfully between the night sounds but she continues with her loud moves and loud sounds, pretending she can’t feel him still watching her.

When she starts to take her parchment back from under his hand, he stops her by tugging it back his way.

“Granger.”

She hates the way he says her name. As if her name is the only answer to an ultimatum.

She should hate him too, she thinks. Everything would be so much easier if she at least hated him.

Hermione lets go of the parchment completely, still avoiding looking at him. “We’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.”

She grabs her books and is about to leave when she’s stopped.

Hermione’s wide eyes drop to Malfoy’s hand around her wrist before lifting to his face.

He stares blankly at his hold. “I’m trying, Granger.”

She can’t look away from his face. Can’t feel anything other than the warmth enveloping her skin under his fingers. Somehow she's able to control her voice. “To do what?”

“What you want.” His thumb brushes against the delicate skin of her wrist with a feather-light weight that makes her think she’s imagined it. He lets go and his eyes drop to the hand he'd been holding her wrist with a look of complete dismay before turning it into a clenched fist.

Don't ask. Don't ask. Don't ask.

Don't ask and nothing will change.

“And what do I want, Malfoy?”

She sounds breathless. As if she's been holding her breath for a hundred years and his answer will be her command to exhale.

“You want something real. A friend,” he replies, stiff with discomfort. “But I can’t give you that. I can't give you anything you want. I don’t know how to be your friend, Granger. I don’t know how to do any of this.”

Her lips are parched and her breathing is painful. “I don’t think that’s true, Malfoy."

“I don’t know how, Granger,” he cuts, shaking his head firmly. “You have to believe that. It’s all pretend. That’s all.”

Pretend because it’ll never be real. Pretend because nothing was ever real. Hermione’s lungs shrivel and her stomach drops as if she’s fallen twenty stories. He’s telling her he can’t do it and she has to believe him. No explanations. No expectations.

“Okay. That’s okay.” She swallows the lie until it melds into her blood and bones and becomes as true as the air in her chest. “I believe you.”

Malfoy closes his eyes and sets his jaw painfully. Hermione studies him and the way his entire body goes rigid—as if trying to lock Malfoy into himself to prevent him from doing anything he'd regret. Thinking that he wants to be alone, she makes move to leave once again.

“My father gave me two rare Imperial Gold Breasted bird eggs five months before my thirteenth birthday.”

Hermione halts at his voice.

Malfoy’s head dips low and his gaze falls to his clasped hands on the table. “A single Imperial Gold Breasted egg costs 45,000 galleons and a single gold feather of a fully grown bird is priced up to 1,000 galleons. A single feather. I heard of them when my mother took me to Italy with the Zabini family. An exclusive breeder was brought to the Zabini Chateau and it was mentioned offhandedly that the Imperial eggs had just gotten off the market for some prince. And the second I heard those words I knew I had to have it.

All I knew was I needed the damn eggs and I didn’t care what had to be done to get them. It was an obsessive craze. It was all I could think about. The f*cking birds. I spent months after that trip convincing my father to get them for my birthday, knowing it was near impossible. I was a child with a stubborn demand and he fulfilled it. The birds must have cost him an even higher price but he did what I asked because that's what Father did. I knew even when I first asked him that he'd do it. And maybe that’s why I thought of it as his love and he saw it as an opportunity for a lesson.”

Malfoy’s voice is bitter but laced with something different, something she hasn’t seen in him yet. Hermione’s frozen—heart in her throat, her pulse rocketing. She knows where this is going and how it’s going to end. She wants to tell him it’s okay, she doesn’t have to know if it’ll cost him. Even though she knows that’s the whole point of this. He’s trying to tell her why and he wants it to cost him. Wants to give a part away in a poisonous exchange so she can understand why he can't.

“I spent three f*cking months taking care of those eggs and two months taking care of them when they hatched. Day and night all I thought about was the birds and all the extra expenses that needed to be taken, I took them from my vault. Sometimes Blaise and Pansy would come to see but they were never allowed to touch them. They were my birds, I'd say. I'd raised them and they were so dependent on me that all I could think was mine, mine, mine. Father must have known how I felt about them because the night before my birthday, once Mother had gone to bed, he took me to a separate room. He sat me down, put his wand aside, and gave me a speech on patience.

He said a new world was coming but we needed to be patient for it. He said I needed to know real pain because people would try to take everything we knew from us and I needed to want it bad enough to never allow it to happen. I needed to be ready to fight for it all. And I said yes to every command like I always did because he was my father. He was my father and he was always right. That was my truth too—Father was always right. But then he brought the birds in and I knew right away that this wasn't just a speech that I could blindly agree to. He took one of the birds out and told me to snap its head."

Hermione clamps her palm against her mouth to stop the gasp.

"They were so fragile, a single wrong move of the finger would have easily snapped their spines. But I couldn’t do it. I cried and begged him uselessly to let them be. He could take my inheritance, I told him. I'd never ask for another thing in my life, I said. But I couldn't do what he asked of me. He was so disappointed by my begging that he had to physically leave the room. He said he’d come tomorrow and if they weren’t dead, he'd take matters into his own hands and their death wouldn't be as generous as the one he'd offered. I sat there for the rest of the night, shaking so hard I had to sit on the floor. In the end, I took the cage outside, let them both go, and lied to Father. He must have known the truth though, because a day later, Father told me the birds were domesticated so that they could never survive in the wild. In the end, they died anyway.”

Malfoy swallows heavily and looks up at Hermione, brows drawn in tight. Lets her see the raw and broken pain in his red-rimmed eyes that would have anyone falling to their knees.

“That's what I did, Granger," Malfoy croaks. "I begged for those birds only to kill them. I take things that should never be mine and I ruin them until there’s no going back. That is what I learned and that is where I come from. That is who I am.”

“That’s not who you are,” Hermione says, her voice firm and sure despite the trembling of her body.

He looks at her incredulously. “Are you not listening to me?”

“I am listening. It wasn’t your fault—”

“How can you even say that? I f*cking killed those birds! They died and they would have died regardless of who killed them and it still would have been all my fault! I did that—”

“Why did you let the birds go?”

“What?”

“You let both of the birds go, Malfoy. He said one bird but you let both of the birds go. Why?”

“I...I don’t know.” He blinks away the million questions in his eyes. “That—that doesn’t even matter.”

“It does.” Hermione crouches to her knees, her voice a plea. “It does. You have all these false perceptions—” He’s already shaking his head at that but she pushes forward, “—And you've convinced yourself to be something far worse than the truth of who you are!"

"Don't you get it? The truth is I killed my birds!"

"The truth is you were a child and you were given a choice that was no choice at all! You were afraid and you loved your father and you loved those birds—"

"And look at what my love does," Malfoy says hoarsely. "My love kills, Granger."

Hermione inhales sharply at that, loss for words. He screws his eyes shut, pain filling his features again—a rare glimpse of his truth that is so defeated, so unlike how Malfoy carries himself around her, that Hermione doesn't hesitate to reach for his hand. But Malfoy jerks when he feels her get close, making Hermione pause halfway, hand still drawn toward him. His reaction remains severe and tense so she ends up dropping her hand to her side.

"Your love gave them life," she says finally, straightening to her full height. She exhales a quivering breath. "Their life, however short, was filled with a love they might never have gotten to feel if it wasn't for you. You're right. They would have died anyway—" Malfoy flinches, "—But for a moment they were truly alive, Malfoy. They experienced a love so powerful, so freeing, that for a brief moment, it was worthwhile to live. Your love made them live. I only wish you could see that too."

When she leaves and Malfoy’s dazed form dissolves into the darkness, Hermione wipes the wetness from her cheeks and realizes she's forgotten what the point of it all was.

__________________________________

“Leena?”

“Yes, habibi.”

“Do you remember the poem you recited the first night we arrived in Sahrit?”

Leena’s hands were still in Hermione’s hair. “Yes, I remember.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it. What was it about?”

“It was a story on love.”

“Love?”

Leena continues the plait she’d been braiding. “I may be biased, but I do believe Arabic is perhaps the richest language in the world. Some even call it the “mother of languages” because of how many words of other languages stem from Arabic. It is said a single word may have three different meanings, seven ways to pronounce it, and twelve various interpretations. The poem I read is a story of two lovers, or rather all lovers, and the perplexity of love.”

“Will you tell it again for me?”

“The poem only briefly touches on some of the stages all lovers find themselves to suffer,” Leena says, smiling. She reaches for her wand and waves it once to dim the candles. Another wave and a wisp of pale light stream out the tip of the wind to form two figures across the mirror's plane. “We start at the beginning of love. Al-hawa. Attraction is made of three core letters that also make up the word "wind". Suggesting that this first step of love is both transient and unstable. If there is no initial attraction, lovers, who are not yet lovers, can revert back into strangers as swift as the kiss of a breeze against your temple.”

The familiar lyrical lilt of Amina's voice is hypnotizing, leaving Hermione paralyzed in a trance. The two figures in the mirror turn into a gust of wind before transfiguring into a rose.

“Al-alaqa is the attachment of this brief attraction to one’s heart so that it is no longer unsteady like the wind. Much like a garment caught on a thorn, it requires a conscious detachment for it to no longer exist. Al-kalaf, or infatuation, is the physical form in which love exists. Its roots are shared with another word that means difficulty or distress. Love now is something we feel in our chest, in our hands, our face. It exists as something corporeal we can point out. Al-ishq and Al-Sha’af are perhaps the highest states of pleasure in love. While Al-Ishq is the blinding of the heart of one lover to the other where pleasure can be experienced without restrictions, Al-sha’af refers to the pleasurable burning that is akin to heat that is felt when wax touches the skin. It is an inferno that is welcomed. Needed, even. Pleasure can only be appreciated in pain.”

As Leena speaks, the two figures mould into each other, arms weaving around necks and faces melting as they become dripping candles. Hermione doesn’t dare blink, too afraid she’ll miss Leena’s words or the scene in front of her.

“When these four stages have been met, love takes a twisted turn as all fated things do. Al-shaagaf is the first step to the calamitous love that overwhelms. It is the covering of a heart like a disease, mutating first and then metastasizing to other organs as a superficial layer of destruction. The disease that starts from the outside digs its way into the heart as Al-jawa, an all-consuming state of grief unlike any other.”

The figures meld into one and a small spark of light forms in the chest.

“When the hearts become enslaved with each other, Al-taym, it transforms once more but this time into a malady, Al-tabal. It is an obsessive pursuit of the heart to overwhelm the beloved. There is but one goal and that is to destroy.”

Hermione gasps as the spark weaves throughout the body—starting from the chest and entwining with the limbs before each frayed edge blazes into an all-consuming fire.

“At this point, the end of love is imminent. It enters a state of complete chaos and disorder. Al-tadleeh. A chain of events where each bewilderment leads to a stumble in the dark. There is no clear path, no obvious passage where there is some ease to find.”

“What’s the last state?” Hermione asks. The figure divides into two once more—each facing the other.

“ Al-huyum. Insanity—an irrevocable end of the mind. The word has roots shared withAl-hawa—where we first started. Even the utterance of Al-huyum ends with the closure of the lips. In the end, neither reason remained, nor madness. When the beloved perished, it was only love that remained.”

Hermione watches as the figures lean forward, foreheads touching, and fall to their knees. A second later, they disappear in a swirl of smoke.

“Does love have to be this?” Hermione breathes, meeting Leena’s eyes in the mirror. “Can we not choose?”

Leena finishes the plait and ties the end with a string. “There is no choice in love, Hermione.”

Hermione isn’t satisfied with that answer. She shakes her head, the plait swinging from shoulder to shoulder. “So that’s it? To love another is to be violently destroyed? How will I know what kind of love I will get?”

Leena places her hands on either side of Hermione’s head and leans her cheek to the side of her temple. Her voice is gentle. A mother speaking to a child.

“Mektoub, my love. Whatever is written for you, that is what you will find.”

__________________________________

Hermione steps out of her tent, her hands patting the braid to ensure it’s secure. The temperature today had risen overnight, a pleasant beat of heat that wasn’t yet sweltering but could be if the relentless sun made of its mind. Hermione isn't much for braids—she'd always get tired halfway, arms aching, and would end up resorting to piling the weight of her hair on top of her head. But Leena had seen her struggling to control her hair and offered to braid in a plait. Her hands are still worrying with the stubborn curls that are already bouncing out of the plait when the tent across hers opens.

Hermione stops.

Malfoy steps out, head ducking under the tent, fingers buttoning the sleeves around his wrists. Immediately, his eyes skim across the encampment before settling on Hermione. His eyes lift to her hair, a slight furrow between his brows. She can't decipher the change in his expression but she drops her hands anyway, feeling self-conscious. Her gaze, wide-eyed, remains on him.

He looks different.

Gone are the exquisitely tailored dark shirts and dark pants. He’s wearing linen. The real kind. Or at least, that’s what Hermione thinks the fabric is. It could be a fabric especially made for him somewhere in Cape Verde for all she knows. But, the more striking look is not the change in fabric, but rather the colours he’s donned instead. A shirt the colour of whipped cream, the top button left opened, and light brown slacks. His dragon-hide boots remain the same. Hermione always thought Malfoy transformed in the dark. All hard lines, Malfoy disappears into the tall shadows of the night, becoming the darkness itself with the stealth of a midnight thief. Maybe there is familiarity in the dark for him that is nothing more than the fact he is both within and without in the dark. He was both the looming shadow and the one who emitted them.

In the light, however, he is all soft edges. Accessible. Welcoming, if you ignore the chronic apathetic look on his face. He looks lighter; younger. As if he’s shed a layer of his skin, left behind a trunk of his old self, and has stepped into a new timeline. Very rarely has Hermione ever seen Malfoy directly in the sun, but with the afternoon sun bright above, it’s almost painful looking at him.

Still, with parted lips, she meets his eyes and stares. Some of the leaden sensation that was present between them yesterday is gone. Breakfast was normal; Malfoy sat in his corner with his journal, working away as he did, and when she’d entered, he’d looked up and Hermione hadn’t felt the need to flee. When he looked away, it also hadn’t felt dismissive. Things, seemingly, are at a standstill and that’s all she can ask of him.

He takes a step forward in her direction when a sudden roar of engines grows from behind. Their heads snap in the same direction simultaneously. When Hermione moves to see what is happening, Malfoy is fast at her heels.

The sound brings out others from their tents. Amina pokes her head from the canopy and comes to stand beside Hermione. Together, they watch a whirlwind of dust materialize as a series of trucks ramble their way.

“Oi vey,” Tony says, his face twisted with displease. “People.”

Hermione shields her eyes from the collecting duct with her hands once the trucks get close enough to stop a few meters away from the edge of their site. The door of the first truck opens and a young, beautiful, woman with tanned skin and dark hair jumps out.

“Remember what I said everyone,” Amina mutters under her breath, fixing everyone a stern look. "We're just travellers."

She turns back around to face the strangers, plasters a large smile, and makes her way to the gathered trucks. Hermione follows.

“Merhaba!” Amina calls. The doors of the other trucks open and slam shut as others amble out, stretching limbs and chatting amongst themselves in a language Hermione suspects is Spanish.

“Hello!” The woman with the dark hair smiles, removing some of the dust from her shirt. There’s a distinct lilt to her accent that makes her voice sound like honey and holiday summers. “Sorry to intrude on you people like this. But it was a prayer come true to see you all here. We had to stop over.”

“My name is Amina Malik.” Amina shakes hands with the woman before gesturing at Hermione and the others with a vague wave of her hands without introductions. “What can we help you with?”

“My name is Carmina Silva,” the woman replies. Her eyes jump around the encampment, catching on Hermione. Her eyes widen, though briefly, in recognition and Hermione's hands turn sweaty. She takes a small step back to uselessly obscure herself behind Amina’s shoulder. The woman reluctantly pulls her gaze away and turns back to Amina. “We’re from the sub-department of the Spanish Department of Magical Cooperation focused primarily on cultural and social anthropology.” She pauses to take out a tag from under her shirt that includes the identification and credentials. Amina steps closer to look. “We’ve spent the last three months in Morocco and the last five days completely lost in the desert.”

Amina’s brows rise to her hairline. “Five days?”

Carmina nods solemnly. “At least that’s what we’ve calculated. We’ve been just south for the past few months and have been trying to make our way to our next destination, which was supposed to be a few miles north. We were to stay for another month before we trek to Sahrit and then make our way home to Spain. But we’ve lost some significant time. Can you tell us where we are?”

“Just four days out of Sahrit,” Amina says and motions Tony over. “We’re meaning to make our way south for another six days. Tony here can help you out with the correct coordinates and regain some direction back north. If you’d like you can join us for the night. I can only imagine how tired everyone is.”

“That’d be splendid!” Carmina smiles gratefully. She turns to some of her men with rapid instructions. They dispatch some equipment and leave with Tony. “What brings you to the desert?”

“Just passing through,” Amian replies. “We were just about to have lunch and can set some for you and your group—”

Amina’s words are cut off by a sharp gasp from Carmina. Carmina blinks several times and takes a staggering step forward. “Is that...Is that DracoMalfoy?”

Hermione jumps back just in time as Carmina squeals and hurdles forward to leap into Malfoy’s arms. Hermione catches a momentary surprise look on Malfoy’s face that quickly dissipates as he secures his arms around her.

“Dónde has estado, gilipollas?” Carmina wraps her arms around Malfoy’s neck—her tall legs allowing them eye contact without her tilting her head back.

Eyes fixated on the scene unfurling, Hermione’s stomach twists when Malfoy leans toward Carmina, lips close enough to brush the curve of her ear. He says something too low for Hermione to hear but has Carmina throwing her head back and hooting a melodious laugh.

“What the hell is going on?” Tony whispers to Hermione.

“I have no idea,” she mutters back.

Carmina teasingly slaps Malfoy’s arm before letting go of him and turning back to everyone’s stunned faces. She grins so wide, her entire face lights up. “I apologize for being so rude. It's just that...I haven’t seen this man in almost—what? Ten years, right Draco?”

Malfoy rubs his knuckles against his cheek and nods briskly in confirmation. He's deliberately not looking in Hermione's direction.

“Well,” Amina claps her hands together. “Looks like there’s a story to tell over lunch! Shall we?”

________________________________

“And here I was with a broken knee and yet it was Draco who kept crying and crying. “There’s blood everywhere,” he yelled but when I looked down his skin was as clean as a whistle. It was just a twisted ankle!” Laughter ensues and Carmina wipes a tear from the corner of her eye as she cackles. “I could barely walk but by the way he was shouting about the pain in his ankle as if a bone was jutting out, I had to carry Draco back home!”

The tips of Malfoy’s ears turn red when everyone laughs again.

“Well, that is not the gentleman we know!” Amina exclaims teasingly. “Draco! How could you? The poor girl.”

“Carmina didn’t carry me.”

“It sure felt like it! I was half your size back then and still, I had to drag you across the field. You kept telling me your foot hurt as if someone chopped it off. When we went back to my home, my governess there was so furious she banned us from ever climbing the tree again.”

“It’s hard to think of Malfoy expressing any kind of emotion,” Hermione says nonchalantly. Malfoy’s eyes snap to her. “He’s always so serious. I thought surely he must have been the same when he was younger.”

“I can’t speak to how he is now but it was all very theatrical being his friend. He had, what you might say, very strong French feelings.”

“Malfoy and dramatic? I would have never guessed.” Malfoy’s eyes narrow at her and Hermione smirks. His lips twitch as if repressing a smile. “You must tell us more, Carmina.”

“Every summer the Malfoy family would come to our house in Madrid and spend a week,” Carmina continues, her voice turning conspiratorial as she leans toward Hermione. “I had no siblings and most summers were spent alone since my friends would head out of the country during the holidays. When I heard someone my age was coming, I was beyond thrilled. I had so many plans as to what to do and where to take Draco so that it’d be the best summer ever for us. But the very first day I met him, I knew right away that summer at our home wasn’t going to be the “The Grand Summer of Carmina Silva.” But rather, that summer and every summer after that would belong to Draco Malfoy.”

“She is exaggerating,” Malfoy cuts in.

Carmina ignores him. “He said one thing: Hola. And everyone was charmed! Who would have thought the boy with the white hair and a continual pout knew Spanish, albeit the one word?”

“I knew more than one word,” Malfoy says, hotly.

“Eventually, yes! Every summer your Spanish improved but all Narcissa had to say that first day was that Draco had been practicing his Spanish the moment he learned he was coming over and suddenly everyone was in love with him. From my mother who ordered all the house elves to only make Draco’s favourites to my father who took up every chance to show his antique collections, all I heard the entire week was Draco this and Draco that. When our governess yelled at us for our injuries...whose injury did she look at first? Draco's.”

Hermione gasps, nodding emphatically at Carmina and then shakes her head disappointingly at Malfoy.

Malfoy rolls his eyes.

“But I must admit, it really was irresistible the way he walked around as if he owned the place. Even at the age of ten, I knew there was something about Draco Malfoy.”

Malfoy shakes his head. “I was a fool.”

“A fool, indeed,” Carmina says affectionately. “The last summer Draco spent with us, he was there for just four days rather than the usual seven. Narcissa had dropped him off and had left since there was some immediate work that needed both Lucius and her but required Draco to stay with us. My mother accidentally told Draco of a local boy who’d been bullying me at school. I had these two enormous front teeth that made me look like some kind of rodent or another.”

When she steals a glance at Malfoy, she catches him already looking at her. Her skin pricks under his gaze and by the darkened look in his eyes, she knows they’re remembering the same thing.

Hermione looks away first.

“Not thinking of it much, I pointed the boy out when we went out for ice cream. Draco did not hesitate. He handed me his cone and then stalked over to him so purposefully that I was terrified. Not for Draco, even though Draco was just fifteen at the time and the boy was at least two years older, but for the boy himself. No words were spoken as Draco dropped his wand and used his fists to start hitting the boy. When I ran over to stop him, he took the ice creams from my hands and used them to hit the boy too! Other than a nosebleed, Draco was unscathed but the boy, whew! It was a mercy we could leave before any authorities were called. So yes, Draco, a fool you were! Always thinking you're responsible for more than you are.”

A noticeable silence fills the air as Malfoy and Carmina gaze at each other.

Hermione wants to get up and leave but instead, she’s rooted to where she sits, a plate of uneaten lunch in her hands. As some fall into separate conversations and others leave to prepare the tents, Carmina and Malfoy remain. Heads bent toward each other and conversations hushed to soft murmurs, the two look as if they’ve fallen into some time in the past. The smile Carmina gives Malfoy makes Hermione’s chest ache and the look that’s shared between them makes her feel like she’s peeking into a private moment. She’s barely aware of Tony sitting down beside her and telling her about his month in South Africa with an escaped Ashwinder.

Most of Hermione’s memories are divided by a thread of time either before or after the war. It turns out the people from each frame are all interconnected and so Hermione's left with tarnished memories of others that hurt like a new wound every time she meets or thinks of them. Hermione doesn’t know the last time she’s talked about Hogwarts or the specific details of the war with Harry and the others. If it were to ever be brought up, it was either under the pretense of the celebrations for the end of the war or regarding simmering anger at people like Malfoy. Hermione herself is apprehensive of bringing attention to old memories even though she wasn't always like this. At first, the urge to know everything was so strong and overwhelming, that all Hermione ever wanted to do was walk into the streets and take someone by the shoulders and ask: Did you see what I saw? Did you feel it too?

Soon after, it seemed as if there was a silent consensus amongst everyone that the paroxysms of their lives were to be avoided for the sake of sanity and new beginnings. And so, Hermione grew to think that perhaps lives could be lived without recounting memories. If she suffered the recollections, let them be only in her head.

Now, as she watches Carmina laugh and Malfoy's body relax inch by inch under the stretch of the sound, Hermione sees that maybe there is a life in between to be lived. That despite the heartache that arises when opening a book of shared memories, there was a chance amongst the pages where grief could transform into something almost tender and good. Something worth saying out loud.

When Carmina dips her head to hide her tears, Malfoy suddenly takes her hand and helps her to stand. He leads her into his tent, without a backward glance. Hermione blinks several times as the tent seals shut behind them. With excruciating resistance, Hermione pulls her attention to Tony. Seconds become minutes as Hermione sits numbed, not hearing anything. Fifteen minutes later, Hermione quietly apologizes and excuses herself.

________________________________

After breakfast, the next morning, Carmina and her group prepare to leave. Hermione lingers behind the rush, thinking it best to not interfere with the last-minute consultations and hurried conversations between the two units. She’s been avoiding people and would have succeeded with everyone so distracted if Carmina hadn’t spotted her through the crowd.

“You’re a difficult witch to find,” she says, coming over to where Hermione stands under the shade of a canopy.

Hermione smiles. "An unfortunate consequence of hiding."

Carmina studies her with amusem*nt that changes to disbelief when she shakes her head. “You know, I’ve always thought of what I’d say when I met someone from the Golden Trio.”

Maybe it’s exhaustion or maybe it’s relief but for once, Hermione doesn’t bother with pretending. “And what would you say?”

Carmina shrugs. “What can one even say to a war hero? You must have heard it all by now.”

“It never hurts to hear it again.”

Carmina laughs and Hermione's smile grows at the sound. She feels a twinge of pride for having garnered a laugh from the witch.

Carmina's laughter fades and her face turns sombre. “My family left Europe way before there was even any mention of the war. As a result of that, I was never really involved in any of what happened. But still, I kept up with every piece of news out of fear for some of the loved ones we left behind.”

“You mean Malfoy.”

Carmina nods. “Draco, yes. Narcissa, as well. Lucius Malfoy was never someone I was acquainted with, though Draco never did stop talking about him. Yet, I cared deeply for the family, as one would care for their own. When I last saw Draco, I didn’t know it’d be the last time. I never even got to say a proper goodbye when Draco left. I stayed sleeping thinking there were still days left to his stay. That there'd at least be more summers.” Carmina meets Hermione’s eyes, a hidden depth of sadness stark in her light eyes. “He was just a boy. And now he’s a man and it’s all so strange to not know how it happened.”

“He’s still the same person underneath it all,” Hermione tells her gently.

“And what a feat that is,” Carmina sighs. "It's a feeling like no other seeing someone you thought you'd never see again after so many years—that too so far away from home."

"I can only imagine," Hermione says softly. "Though, it must have been nice to catch up and talk about all the things you've missed."

"It was," Carmina agrees. "He wasn't always this secretive, but I did manage to squeeze some things out about his life now. I always used to think that to determine whether something had any value in Draco's life all you had to see was if he talked about it or not." Her name is called from one of her men and she twists directly to face Hermione. “I wish I’d met you when there was more time for us to talk. I bet you have some wonderful and interesting stories to tell, Hermione Granger.”

“I'm afraid I'd just disappoint you.” Hermione laughs, scratching her temple. “After a while, they all start sounding the same.”

“Oh, I do doubt it! Someone like you cannot be just ordinary. But I should admit, it does feel like I already know you.” Hermione frowns, not understanding. Carmina pulls her in for a hug, a smile in her voice. “He just couldn’t stop talking about you.”

When Carmina leaves, a knowing look on her face as she waves over her shoulder at Hermione and climbs into her truck, Hermione scans the gathered crowd but realizes he isn't there. One by one, the trucks roll out and disappear in another whirlwind of dust.

Eventually, the encampment returns to its usual chatter, but Hermione remains under the canopy, stunned and at a complete loss of words.

________________________________

“What’s wrong with you?” Malfoy’s voice sounds more like a drawl than a question. He eyes Hermione with a frown.

“Nothing,” Hermione mutters and flips the page of the book she’s been reading.

It’s an early night and they’re supposed to be figuring out the activation for the runes but it’s been an hour already and there have been no significant discoveries. Other than stolen glances between them and quiet flutterings of books, nothing of note has even happened. Hermione’s almost tempted to switch Malfoy out with Amina just so that there’d be some progress but by the sounds of the laughter coming from the tents, it looks like everyone is still up and she doesn’t want to ruin her night. She doesn’t know how she even ended up with Malfoy again, pouring over books, when the last time they talked to each other directly was a day and a half ago. Not that she minds spending the remainder of the night with Malfoy searching for answers—it’s a lot more bearable to sit with him this close if they’re focused on figuring out the diary and the runes.

“You’re being weirder than usual.”

Of course, Hermione is being weird. She doesn’t know how to be anything around Malfoy without over-analyzing everything. Turning her mind off so she wouldn't have to think about him is akin to entering a vegetative state.

“And I suppose you’re well acquainted with the spectrum."

“What did you say to Carmina?”

Hermione looks up. “What did you say to Carmina?”

Malfoy scowls. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m simply repeating your question.”

“Except you said it like there’s some double meaning behind it.”

“There’s no double meaning behind it, Malfoy. It’s a query asking for more information and so it should be assumed there is no specific set of knowledge already present behind the one asking.”

“Then why did you repeat my question without answering it?”

“Because I also want to know what Carmina said to you.”

“Or maybe you’re avoiding my question entirely because you know something I don’t know. And in an attempt to divert my attention away from this fact, you’re trying to confuse me by pretending you don’t know that I know you know.”

Hermione rolls her eyes before returning to her book. “Or maybe you think you know what I know and what I’m pretending to not know even though I know what I don’t know and I’m just asking a question so that I can know—”

“What are you going on about?”

“I’m just asking what you know!”

“I’m not going to tell you what I know without you first answering what you know and—”

“That hardly feels fair!”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s fair, Granger. Just answer my question and tell me what you know!”

“What am I even supposed to know? I don’t understand your question—”

“I asked what did Carmina tell—”

“And I said—wait! Malfoy, I think I found something!” Hermione pulls the candle closer to the page. “There's a passage here talking about life and the transition of the spirit. From the four that unify the shell of the cosmos, four unify the vessel of the soul. And so, the duality of life is contingent on the disposition and the equilibrium of these quarters. The temperament of the power is not bound by the laws of life that it manipulates. Death and the transition of the soul are mere results of the tool used. As with all life, payment must be made. Thus, the nature of this strength is such that only from its existence can the production of the vitality of power be found once more. From life, it is born and in the absence of life, it is without. Power is at its might with this one syllable.”

Hermione pauses to think. “When I first read this passage I bypassed it, thinking it wasn’t relevant to runes in Safia’s diary since it primarily focused on the transformation of one’s spirit into Akh. But the power discussed here may be that of the ancient runes and its required form of activation. The four that unify the cosmos…those have to be earth, air, fire, water. But the four that unify the vessel…”

“Blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile,” Malfoy finishes.

Hermione purses her lips. “You’re talking about the four humors. That’s dated to Hippocrates who said the interactions between the four bodily fluids and the environment was a way to examine the human temperament. We’re talking about the funerary texts that have origins in the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Hundred of years before Hippocrates or other Greek philosophers.”

“Ancient Egyptian medicine was both innovative and exemplary in its most basic form and thus inspired the development of other branches of Muggle medicine such as Greek medicine,” Malfoy quotes from memory. He runs a hand through his hair, averting his eyes to focus somewhere far in the night.

Hermione nods slowly at the familiar words. “It is true... In my studies, I have read that Hippocrates and other Greek philosophers would at times study at the temple of Amenhotep. There was a hypothesis that humorism might even have some origin in Ancient Egyptian or the Golden Age of Moor.”

“Death and the transition of the soul are mere results of the tool used. That must be a referral to what Hakim said the funerary texts were used for. The tool here is the runes.”

Hermione shakes her head. “I still think that the actual ancient funerary texts are likely not linked to the four humors because the timeline is off. It is far more likely that Hippocrate's branch of medicine was influenced by the texts of the Old Kingdom than the other way around. But the spellbook that derived from the funerary texts many years later…could be connected.” Hermione turns back to the book. “If we take that into consideration, then one of the four humors can be suspected to be an activation for the rune.”

A familiar face of concentration twists Malfoy's face. “An imbalance of the humors is thought to lead to disease and a change in the disposition of one’s mood. Along with the body, one’s current environment is also said to have an effect. In that way, blood is hot and like air and the balance of it leads to a sanguine temperament. Phlegm made one phlegmatic and was connected to water. Black bile was related to earth and caused melancholy whereas yellow bile was related to fire and caused a choleric temperament.”

Hermione chews the inside of her lower lip, deep in thought. “From life it is born and in the absence of life it is without…”

Malfoy taps his finger against the wooden table. “Power is at its might with this one syllable…”

They lock eyes, catching the exact moment it finally adds up for the other, and simultaneously say, “Blood!”

Of course.

It seems so obvious now—the runes require blood to be activated. A lot of ancient incantations and powerful spells required a payment that'd often require blood. Many ancient rituals done for the binding or transformation of the soul would also require blood magic due to its pure nature of power. Moreover, blood, with its larger supply than the other bodily fluid, would also be a lot easier to convey intention for some of the other commands.

They continue to look at each other, their eyes sharp and bright.

Hermione grins, her heart hammering with adrenaline; Malfoy’s smirk falls and he swallows audibly.

Immediately, Hermione springs into action. She takes out the rope that she’d severed from her bag and carefully lays the two pieces on the table. She glances briefly at Malfoy and stands up. “Shall we try it out?”

Malfoy has just enough time to open his mouth in protest, jumping to his feet before Hermione slices her palm with her wand, a hiss escaping her lips.

He stares at her, slightly wide-eyed, as Hermione dips the finger of her non-injured hand into the trickling blood. She grimaces as she applies a deeper pressure into the wound to gather more blood enough to spell out a rune. Then she turns to the severed pieces and writes with the blood the rune EMBED across the ropes.

She takes a hesitant step backwards, her injured hand clutched against her chest.

They watch the rope, dripping in Hermione’s blood, with palpable anticipation. Lengthy, wary seconds pass where Hermione thinks maybe they’ve got it wrong and she’s about to say exactly that to Malfoy when, right before her eyes, her smeared blood starts to tremble. Hermione gasps as the blood separates into minuscule particles. Goosebumps spill across her body and her skin pricks with unease. Much like the times before when Hermione used blood magic, the air calms to a preternatural state. A clear trepidation, or warning, in the atmosphere of what they've done and is about to happen. But unlike before, it’s as though the entire world around them is still.

The insects, the faraway laughter, the stars. The universe.

Just stops.

And holds its breath.

Maybe this was a mistake, Hermione thinks, as her eyes jump nervously around her. Unease flutters across her chest at the thought. They were warned and maybe they've just opened Pandora's box to something that they won't be able to control. It’s not exactly the dark magic she's felt before but there is undeniable power within these runes. A power descended and blessed from a god.

But then the rune she spelled out across the rope melts into a puddle of bright red liquid before disappearing completely—as if swallowed by the ropes themselves. Each separated piece of rope starts to quiver. And then slithering to cross the distance to reach its twin, the frayed edges of the ropes meld with each other to become one.

Hermione and Malfoy stare and stare at the newly formed rope. It's a strange feeling to finally see something substantial happen on this trip—to know that perhaps they're on the right track. The visceral silence between them is thick with awe and disbelief. But the stinging pain of her wound snaps the tension and she’s just healed the cut when something in the back of Hermione’s mind stumbles and then clicks.

Eyes not straying from her palm, Hermione whispers, “You read my book.”

Malfoy doesn’t respond. It’s neither a confirmation nor a denial and Hermione won’t have it.

She turns to him sharply and the muscles in Malfoy’s jaw strain and tense under her piercing gaze. “You said, “Ancient Egyptian medicine was both innovative and exemplary in its most basic form and thus inspired the development of other branches of Muggle medicine, such as Greek medicine.” That is word for word from my book.”

“Do people not read your book, Granger?” he says sarcastically, eyes still fixated on the rope. “Do I get a special autograph as your first reader?”

Hermione doesn’t even blink at his taunts. “You know that’s not what I mean, Malfoy.”

Malfoy exhales a weary and inconvenienced breath. He lifts his eyes to her and says blankly, “It’s just a book.”

Except it’s not just a book. It’s a dense, six-hundred-page book focused on the history of Muggle medicine and magical healing, aimed at bridging the gap between the wizarding world and its non-magical counterpart. It was a passion project published four years ago that first rose when she stumbled across a book stating many of the first Muggle physicians had magical abilities that allowed them to see medicine that went beyond the human body. It had taken Hermione an entire year of research that she’d done at off times in the day—working whenever she’d get a chance because she had other, funded Ministry projects as well. Needless to say, the niche of the book was unpopular and it had poor sales. Which never was a problem for Hermione since she had never expected anyone to read it in the first place. And while the knowledge Malfoy had read her book alone is shocking, what’s even more astonishing is that he’d quoted an insignificant line inserted somewhere near the end.

Thus, Hermione makes two conclusions in her head. First, Malfoy had read her entire book. Second, he had it memorized.

And to do that he had either gone through the book many, many times or had read it with deep focus the first time. Both of these options are so unthinkable that if Malfoy hadn't quoted the book to her face, she’d never in a million years have thought it possible. Her turning into a phoenix was more likely than him even holding a book of hers in his hands.

Or so she thought.

She doesn’t bother asking why—knows he wouldn’t answer anyway. Instead, she asks, “How many of my books have you read?”

“How many do you have?” Malfoy counters casually.

Hermione’s gapes at his indifference. He’s lying. All of this has to be a lie because this, what this all means, is real. His reading all of her books means something even if she never had any expectations. Malfoy watches silently her with a frown as Hermione takes two dazed steps away from the table and stumbles around.

“Granger.”

“Just give me a minute.”

"I think—"

"I need—"

“—There's something—listen to me, Granger—”

“—a minute—”

“There’s something on your f*cking shoulder,” he snaps aggressively, words rushing together in a single breath. The tone makes her stop and twist her head to the back of her shoulder. She makes out a small dark form the size of her palm under her scapula.

“What…”

She squints in the dark and waves her wand over her back for light. She makes out a tail that ends in a pincher—

Hermione lets out a shriek. Her arms fly and slap haphazardly against her shoulder as she repeatedly yells, “Get it off me!”

“Granger—stop—”

“Getitoffme, getitoffme, getitoffme!”

“I will! I will—”

“Malfoy! Do something !”

Her scream turns into a whimper when Malfoy takes her arm with a steady hand. But then she’s crying out again when she feels what must be claws against the skin of her neck.

She tugs away from Malfoy, twisting and turning in every direction. Repulsion causes bile to flood her mouth. “Kill it! Malfoy, kill it!”

“Give me your wand, Granger!”

“Use your own damn wand!” she screams back. She's jumping up and down, spine bending forwards and backwards in all malformations. Her hands are still flying, in the hopes whatever it is would just fall off.

“If you’d stop f*cking moving maybe I can charm it—"

“Are you out of your mind ?” Her voice is shrill and scratchy, burning her throat as it leaves her body. She’s on the verge of hyperventilating at the sheer panic she’s feeling. Her mind is stuck on it being a scorpion by the look of its tail but in this desert, it could be anything else poisonous and all she can think is: Not like this, not like this, not like this.

“Just kill it, damn it! Before it kills me ”

“I can’t kill—Granger, throw me your f*cking wand!”

“—Malfoy—”

“—Stop moving—the spell will—”

In the corner of her eye, something falls to the ground with a thud. She jumps back to see what it is and when she recognizes the tail, she casts her wand in its direction before it can scramble away. A jet of light bursts out, stunning the creature. She’s panting so hard that each breath is a wheeze but she doesn’t waste a second before she stomps her foot on the creature.

Malfoy’s voice is an echo in a faraway land. “It’s dead, Granger."

Faintly, she’s aware of Tony and Amina jogging over, asking if everything is okay. Dark liquid shoots out from underneath her shoe and there’s a loud squish that undeniably sounds like the flattening of the body, but still, she blindly stomps her foot with a rage she’s never felt before.

“Granger, stop it. ”

Hermione whirls around. “What the hell Malfoy? What was that ?”

But Malfoy's already turning away, his hand pulling at the roots of his hair. The clear dismissal in the move makes some unhinged part of the bubble in her chest, threatening to explode.

Shaking her head, Hermione grabs hold of his arm. “No! No, you’re not going to walk away! You always walk away and I’m not going to let you—”

Malfoy stiffens under her touch and firmly clasps his hand over hers to remove it. “Let it go, Granger.”

She doesn’t care others are watching. “No! Screw you, Malfoy! You always decide but I deserve to know—”

“It has nothing to do with you!” he growls.

Hermione glares at him. Blood is rushing like a torrent river in her ear that throws all sense out of the door. She told herself no explanations and it doesn't make sense, she knows it doesn't make sense, but for a second she thought she was going to die.

“Nothing to do with me? I asked you to help me and you just stood there!”

“I would have figured it out if you’d just listened to me!”

“None of that matters! I asked you to kill it and you couldn't even do that! What is it, huh? What, when it comes to me, you suddenly have a conscience to not kill? Suddenly you have a soul and can’t kill—”

She realizes too late what she’s saying. Her words skid to a stop, leaving behind smoke and a bitter taste in her mouth. She regrets it instantly.

“Finish that sentence, Granger,” he says with a deadly calm. His quiet words slice through the air with a veracity that makes her freeze. “Go on. Say what you were going to say.”

Hermione seals her lips. She didn’t mean it, she wants to say. Of course, she didn't mean it—but that doesn’t even matter because she said it anyway. They’re both breathing heavily, staring at each other with an intensity that is sure to have one of them, if not both, fall off a precipice.

“What is that?” Amina speaks up finally.

Hermione looks away from Malfoy, though the blaze of his gaze remains on her. She takes in Amina's bewildered expression.

"What?" Hermione whispers, her brain muddled and disoriented.

“Are those…'' Tony trails off, his eyes fixed somewhere in the night sky.

Hermione turns in the direction they’re both staring.

Malfoy curses.

Amina gasps.

Voices near the tents grow louder as others huddle together, faces lifted toward the same southern point in the sky.

There, amongst the scattered stars, are dancing swirls of fluorescent orbs so transient, a single blink and they’d disappear.

Hermione stares and stares until she’s convinced they’re not hallucinations. Her body numbs as the realization of what she’s seeing dawns on her.

Lights, just as they were warned.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

Beware, lost lovers of the land, this madness has no cure. For the night is long, desert wide, and the heart weak.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

The air does not turn poisonous.

The stars do not fall out of the sky.

The earth does not crack open.

Hermione’s face remains lifted toward the lights, heart pounding as she waits and waits but nothing happens. She grabs the necklace around her neck to anchor herself, tracing the pad of her thumb across the wooden imprint—a sun, carved out by a crescent moon. And she watches for something, anything, to happen.

But the desert remains as dark and the night as quiet as before.

Things remain unchanged.

They’re alive, it seems.

At least for now.

The others must have come to a similar conclusion because the panicked chatter dissipates into puzzled murmurs as they go back into their tent. Shuffled footsteps behind Hermione turn distant and voices belonging to Tony and Amina fade and yet, Hermione still finds herself unable to move. The night sky stretches the longer she stares at the fluorescent lights but when she next blinks they disappear until her next blink. The adrenaline rushing through her body slowly dissolves into exhaustion, leaving her limbs heavy.

Why isn’t anything happening?

Because nothing was supposed to happen. Because it’s a myth and so is the Cave they’re searching and thus the entire expedition will be a futile attempt and they’ll all end up empty-handed with nothing to show for their efforts.

Hermione sighs. Misery is a welcomed companion now that Death has decided to spare them for another day.

A soft wisp of warm air caresses the shell of her ear, fanning across the tendrils of her curls at her temple.

“It wasn’t poisonous,” Malfoy murmurs, voice soft as rich velvet. “But for the record, Granger?”

Hermione stills.

“I wouldn't have let you die.”

Hermione shivers at the sheer conviction. It takes several moments for her to fully realize the depth of the words and when she whirls around, an apology on her tongue, Malfoy’s already gone.

________________________________

When a whole day passes and nothing apocalyptic happens, the myth behind the lights is concluded to be just that—a myth.

“We keep an eye on the lights, but it’s clear they are no threat. For now, we keep moving as expected,” Amina tells the group. The others nod in agreement, feeling subdued enough to prepare the continued trek south.

South, in the direction of the lights.

South, where Carmina and her crew had spent five days lost.

“It seemed more of a malfunction of their tracking than anything else,” Amina explains when Hermione takes her aside after dinner and brings Carmina up. “I had Tony sit down with their charter and they both decided it was more likely to be an error with their compass that kept leading them in a circle until they saw us.”

“That still doesn’t change the fact that previous expedition records have groups getting lost for several days. In fact, a loss of direction is the least of our concerns regarding what we might get into on the trek, Amina,” Hermione points out, unease pricking her skin when she glances briskly at the orbs in the sky.

They’ve been less stark tonight, winking in and out every time she looks up. But it’s no denying their presence looms over them like some token of impending catastrophe. She’d been feeling a panicked sort of claustrophobia the entire day as she counted down the hours to nightfall. Since yesterday, Hermione had been hoping the lights were some trick of the eye, a mirage of sorts, but the second the sun sunk into the horizon and darkness took over, the lights were back.

“There can be logical reasons behind anything strange,” Hermione continues. “But I think it’s a mistake to pretend everything is normal as before. They mean something, I know they do.”

“What would you have me do then, Hermione?” Amina asks. Exhaustion stains every syllable and Hermione can physically see the toll the trek is taking on her friend’s face. “I can’t instill fear and start hysteria into the crew over some lights. That would do no one any good, would it? Believe me, Hermione, I’m taking what you’re saying seriously. I appreciate your concern and I do not take your words lightly. I would never have brought you on this trip if that was the case; but we have limited days as it is and I want to get to this Cave so we can all go home. I want this very badly—there is just too much at stake for us not to find the Cave. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Hermione nods hesitantly. She does understand Amina’s concerns and some part of her agrees not to scare the others into believing something that might not even be true. And she also is quite aware of her natural tendency to believe everything has a double meaning while also magnifying fears for minor consequences. Her inclinations and feelings regarding major things causing untimely death have never been wrong before. Especially never during the war where threats existed at every corner. Some of the agitations may dissipate at Amina’s words but she remains still on the edge. Hermione is not yet ready to give up on her own beliefs.

Perhaps realizing Hermione needs a redirection, Amina takes her hands gently and asks, “You said you had something to tell me. What is it?”

Hermione carefully puts aside a map jutting out from under a pillow and pulls Amina’s blanket over her feet. Amina’s tent is in a chronic state of clutter at all points of the day and it is always likely you’re either stepping or sitting on something important.

“We solved some of the runes in the diary.”

“We?”

“Malfoy and I,” Hermione clarifies.

Her tongue feels tingly at the mention of his name and she scratches at the unhealed wound around her thumb to divert the sensation.

Hermione hasn’t seen him today, and this is fine because the entire day was spent travelling, so she didn’t see much of anyone. Still, there is something unresolved that is eating away at Hermione’s skin and it might have to do with the fact that he hadn’t come out of his tent for dinner. She needs to eventually make up her mind on what to do next regarding her very necessary and expectant apology.

Amina grins.“Oh, that’s brilliant, Hermione! That’s great news. What did you figure out?”

Hermione explains the various runes and shows Amina the different translations. She also tells her about the blood payment required for activating the runes.

Amina purses her lips when Hermione finishes. “Blood magic. I didn’t realize we were doing dark magic.”

“It’s not exactly dark magic,” Hermione says slowly. “Or rather, it’s not the dark magic we have used—or learned about. I think the difference is that blood magic used here is the inherent source of magic, whereas blood magic as the dark magic we know it to be, is a branch of regular magic.”

Amina twists her mouth. “Regular magic?”

“White magic— the counterpart to dark magic. Either way, there is an inherent source of magic that runs in our veins when we use our magic through our wands. No payment is required for the basic spells and incantations. However, the activation through the use of blood is required not for any dark means, but rather, as a direct and physical link between the magic in our bodies and the magic within the runes themselves. Besides, if it helps, I didn’t feel a fracture in my soul as I did when I used dark magic.”

Amina’s eyes widen at Hermione’s last words and it looks like she has a million questions on her tongue. But as Amina often did with any mention of Hermione’s involvement in the war, she ignores all of them.

“Isn’t it strange,” she asks instead, “to think that we would never have realized they were runes if you hadn’t inquired about them further?”

It isn’t strange. Hermione had only been following an inclination she had about the scripts in the diary. She had a feeling they were important and that’s what they turned out to be. The fact only further emphasizes the importance of taking Hermione’s feelings about the lights seriously.

“Do you think it has something to do with the cave?”

Hermione nods. “It’s likely. We know Safia wanted to go back to the cave based on the letters she sent to her family. Perhaps she had placed some runes or spells to protect the location of the cave or to help her track it once she was back in the desert. We wouldn’t know what runes would be needed, if any, to access the cave until we find it.”

“All the more reason to find it as soon as possible,” Amina sighs. “To be honest, I do hope that’s the last of what you’ll find. I’m kind of tired of surprises now. The only thing I want to be shocked about now is how stupidly easy it was to find the cave.” She sits back and eyes Hermione curiously. A second later, she runs her tongue across the surface of her front teeth and says nonchalantly, “What’s going on between you and Draco, anyway?”

Hermione pauses the gathering of her notes. “What do you mean?”

Amina gets up and walks behind Hermione to take a bowl of grapes from across her tent. She pops one in her mouth. “Things seemed off between you two yesterday night. Well, things have been off and on almost throughout the whole trip so far, but something was particularly off yesterday when you guys were yelling.”

Hermione looks over her shoulder at her and frowns. “What do you mean?”

Amina shrugs, coming back around to sit on the bed. “I don’t know what it is, but whenever something happens between you too it’s very…what’s the right word? Causal? If you two are off then it’s like some kind of ripple effect and everyone is off.”

“What do you—”

“Hermione.” Amina sits up straight, raising a hand as if to stop Hermione’s train of panic thinking. “It’s nothing bad, nor is it as physical and obvious as I’m making it to be. I’m just wondering where I need to jump in and mediate. I did bring you two down here and I feel responsible for everyone and everything that goes on here anyway.”

Hermione’s hands fall to her lap. She chooses her words carefully. “There was something…”

“A fight?”

“A misunderstanding,” she corrects and then adds lamely, “I thought the scorpion was poisonous.”

“The Saharan Horned Scorpion?” Amina asks and Hermione nods. “Draco and I found one a couple of days ago near Tony’s tent. Unlike the double-forked tail scorpion, a single-forked scorpion is not venomous and those are the ones you’ll find the most near our campsites. I should have told everyone to be aware, but I think they’re attracted by the fires we’ve been setting up. They’re harmless.”

“Yes, I know that now,” Hermione grumbles, annoyance at herself and her careless words sparking again. Not to mention, she hadn’t been able to sleep the entire night because of the guilt eating away at her skin for having killed an innocent creature. Time and time again Malfoy is being proved right about Hermione’s feral tendencies. “Malfoy told me. After I yelled at him, that is.”

Amina hums absently and reaches for another grape. “Maybe if you guys had sex things would be a lot better.”

Her neck snaps in Amina’s direction with such vigour, that her head spins. “What?”

“You guys always have this visceral tension between you two that seems like you’ve just had sex or are about to have sex.”

“Amina!” Hermione gasps, mortified by the way the conversation has turned.

Hermione cannot comprehend the words she’s hearing. There’s a single question mark floating inside her brain.

Amina shrugs again, hands rising and flattening to her shoulders defensively. “What? You guys are always fighting—that’s practically foreplay for Draco.”

“If we’re arguing, it is because of serious things! I’ve never thought—”

“All I’m saying is that a little desert foray would do you good, darling.”

She stutters as she scrambles to put words together, “You can’t say things like that…I have John back home—”

“I know you two aren't together anymore, Hermione,” Amina says matter-of-factly.

Hermione looks startled and is about to refute the claim when Amina gives her a stern look as if to say, don’t even try to lie to me, Hermione Granger!

“I’m not going to have sex with Malfoy.”

Words she never thought she’d ever utter or think. The sentence sounds twisted and mutated but she feels the traitorous heat spreading across her chest and up to her cheeks at the mere thought.

“Does he know that? Because the way his body changes whenever you’re there is obvious to everyone but you.”

Hermione ignores the skip of her pulse at the words. “What are you talking about?”

And in a tone so casual, as if the words have no weight in the grand scheme of things, Amina says, “His body just exhales. Like he’s been holding his breath for a hundred years and you’re his first sigh.”

“That’s his fight or flight response,” Hermione insists immediately. She tries and fails to sound convincing. “He gets it around everyone. He’s chronically always getting ready to attack.”

“Yeah, attack you to bed.”

Hermione palms her face. “I can’t believe we’re having this discussion!”

“I just don’t get how his hair is always so perfect and hasn’t turned into a mess in this weather,” Amina mutters, returning to the bowl in her lap. She digs around the stems before finding a plump grape. “Maybe it’s some kind of looped transfiguration spell?”

“It’s the shampoo.” Hermione picks at the skin around her thumb once more and lets out a breathless hiss when a bead of blood pops from the corner of the nail. “Don’t worry, though. I’m going to steal it.”

“What?”

“Did you know he takes four spoons of sugar in his tea? It’s completely preposterous.”

Amina gives her a funny look. “Hermione.”

“Also,” Hermione continues as nonchalantly as possible, “do you know someone named Polly because I have never heard—”

“Hermione.”

Hermione finally looks up.

“You know when you have really good news you need to tell someone but it’s not just anyone? Because there’s only just one person in the entire world who is important enough to know? And you know how your eyes look around the room, searching for that one person? That’s what Draco does. He enters the room and immediately looks around the room for you.” Amina reaches over and folds Hermione’s hand in her palms. “You do the same, Hermione.”

Hermione exhales a quivering breath.

“Would it be so bad?” Amina asks, gently. “To want something more and have it be with Draco?”

“I don’t want anything more. I’m perfectly fine being acquaintances.”

“Acquaintances?” Amina barks a laugh. “You guys aren’t acquaintances—”

“We are —”

“How many sugars do I take in my tea, Hermione?”

Colour bleeds across Hermione’s face. "There are steps, Amina. Strangers to friends to—"

"Not everything can be organized into labels and categories. Some things just are."

Hermione shakes her head vehemently. “We can’t—Malfoy doesn’t see me like that, Amina. Believe me…It’s not what you’re thinking. We have a history and it’s too complicated to fully explain but many, many horrible things have happened and I’m trying to make sense of it all but I think Malfoy is struggling right now to do the same. And he needs space and that is what I have to give him—”

“Hermione, breathe.”

“Besides, it’d be too complicated to start anything this late. Things between me and John—”

Amina’s face contorts as if she's just eaten something sour. “Where did John even come from? You really think he’s mourning you?”

“I’d hope so!” Hermione immediately lowers her voice. “We were together for two years, Amina. And we’re on a break right now and I don’t know what will happen when I go home so I can’t be doing things recklessly. He’s there. I have to think of him.”

“But Draco is here now.” Amina tugs on Hermione’s hands when Hermione starts shaking her head. “I’m not saying anything other than what I see directly, Hermione. You deserve to take chances with bad odds and do things that are nonsensical in the long run but make sense only at the moment. You deserve to make mistakes and do things without thinking.”

Hermione stares at Amina, wide-eyed. Her chest hammers as she tries to understand but her mind is whirling into a sandstorm as she forces her brain to work and to remember that there are reasons.

There’s nothing between them, Hermione tells herself, not even a seed that can sprout into something frail before ultimately scattering into the wind. And she can’t even entertain a thought because it’d be just like her to spiral into panic-thinking that would lead to expectations of how things should play and all that would ultimately be her demise. Malfoy had made it crystal clear that nothing he’d ever give her would be real enough to have any substantial enough meaning and she needs to understand that. Respect it for the sake of the remainder of the trip. Because Hermione knows, has already accepted, that having lived fleeting, immaterial moments, if Malfoy gave her anything transient, she’d take it anyway.

Besides, regardless of what Hermione feels, there is truth to Malfoy’s claims. How can anything significant even happen in the few days that have passed to erase all the years from before? She thinks she knows who he is but all those perceptions are based only on her own thoughts and experiences of him. If he claims he hasn’t changed, then who is she to deny his truths? What’s worse, what if his prejudiced beliefs about her hadn’t changed after all this time? Hermione doesn’t know if she can handle him thinking she is still lesser than him. She might claim to have grown past the concerns of others, but deep in her heart, the bruises are still there and still too real.

And none of these questions even begin to address the aftermath of something, friendship or other, even happening. Would he think it to be a mistake? Would she regret it instantly? How would she even begin to deal with Harry and Ron?

Oh, God. Ron.

No, Malfoy is right. It’s impossible. The theoretical probability of anything even happening is less than nil. She’d soon Polyjuice herself back into a cat than entertain these thoughts any longer.

Hermione sets her jaw. “It can’t happen, Amina. He doesn’t want anything to do with me and I don’t want…I don’t want it either.”

“But, Hermione—”

“Please,” Hermione pleads, her voice desperate. She shifts her hands to grab onto Amina’s and squeezes it tightly. “If you say it, I’ll believe it, Amina. And I can’t afford to do that anymore. I can’t afford to even hope, especially when he told me he doesn’t want anything.”

Amina’s lips thin as she studies Hermione’s face. She sighs in resignation. “Okay. Okay, I understand. I won’t say anything about it anymore.”

Hermione gives her a sad smile. Rather than the knot in her stomach loosening, it only seems to twist further. “Thank you.”

Hermione closes her eyes and tries to clear her mind as the tent fills with silence for a few moments.

But then Amina speaks up with clear trepidation, “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this…”

Hermione opens her eyes and glances at her. “What is it?”

Amina’s tongue pokes out in her cheek as she scans her tent before settling on Hermione. “I heard the better half of your argument last night. It sounded like you were upset because he couldn’t kill the scorpion but there was a reason behind why he couldn’t.”

Hermione shakes her head. “Malfoy’s already told me he didn’t kill it because it wasn’t poisonous.”

“Perhaps, but the reason why he couldn’t do it... is because he physically can not.”

Hermione frowns. “I don’t understand.”

Amina sighs. “In order to travel internationally and for the safety of others around the world, a Citizen IX on probation must find a guardian who is also going on the trip to ensure his return home. I had to take an Unbreakable Vow just so Draco could come with us on this trip.”

Hermione blinks. “Citizen IX?”

“I’m not sure what the criteria are behind the identifications, but I do know that there are ten stages regarding the levels of citizens. Citizen X is considered to be an imminent danger to society at large and consists only of those who are locked away in Azkaban for life. I suspect many of the ex-Death Eaters would fit in that category.” She locks her eyes with Hermione. “Draco is a Citizen IX.”

Malfoy, who had spent two years in Azkaban and served his time to the last second, was considered to be one of the second most dangerous individuals in Wizarding Britain. Malfoy, who had never even killed anyone, was an apparent danger to the entire world.

What was Hermione missing from her perception of Malfoy? Why couldn’t she see the same deadly man that the others saw?

It's ridiculous. There's no other way to describe the label.

Fearing the answer, Hermione hesitantly asks, “What does that have to do with what happened that night?”

“He can’t cast any defensive spells, Hermione,” Amina states simply. “He can’t even go beyond the borders I had to explicitly coordinate for the Ministry. One wrong step or any other of the violations as stated in his papers and Draco could be spending time in Azkaban.”

Hermione thinks back to the night in Sahrit when Malfoy had stunned her.

Immobulus.

That was the spell he’d used. Rather than Stupefy, a duelling spell, Malfoy used a generic freezing spell, rarely used in battle.

“Fight back!” she yelled. But he hadn’t used any spells against her that night other than protective charms or wards. Not even a stinging jinx. Not even a water hex. She could have seriously injured him in her rage and ignorance but he still hadn’t done anything to hurt her back.

Guilt is a stone in her stomach—growing and growing until she’s convinced she’s entirely made of stone. Until it becomes a pendulum hanging from her neck, pulling her entire body into the sand below.

God, how could she have been soblind?

Hermione pauses. “You took the Unbreakable Vow for Malfoy?”

Amina shrugs as if her action hadn’t put her life at risk for a Citizen IX. “I trust him, Hermione. And I know you do too.”

“I didn’t know,” Hermione breathes.

“You weren’t supposed to,” Amina says softly. “Though he did say that everyone on this trip should know in case there was any danger on the expedition and they needed his help. But I was the one who suggested keeping it low. Only because I didn't want something so personal about Malfoy to be talked around or any further questions to be asked for more information. It’s his truth.”

“So why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I saw him raise his wand when I ran over and I saw the betrayal on your face when you thought he purposely didn’t try to help you,” Amina explains. “Because he would have killed for you even if he hadn’t known the scorpion wasn’t venomous. Because all this, Hermione, means something. Even when you two convince yourselves it doesn’t.”

________________________________

“Do you want to know a little secret on how to know which one is the Big Dipper and which one is the Little Dipper, darling?” Her father whispered, pulling her close and pointing to the stars scattered across the sky.

Hermione followed the movement of his finger, eyes wide. “How?”

“The Big Dipper is larger than the Little Dipper,” her father laughed, squeezing her tightly. Hermione couldn’t help but giggle—

Hermione jumps back, eyes falling away from the night sky to the tent in front of her as the curtain lifts. Tea spills down the side of the cups as she quickly straightens herself.

Immediately, Malfoy’s eyes drift down Hermione's body, leaving goosebumps in its wake, and for a moment she’s stuck in his gaze. His eyes linger on the shorts she’s wearing, even more so on her bare legs before lifting his gaze to her face. It is a rare warm night and Hermione had thought of putting on her pyjamas to go to sleep when she changed her mind and pushed aside the blanket to make tea instead. Maybe she should have changed.

Hermione shifts uncomfortably with his attention on her. His face is blank and unreadable and his mercurial eyes lack their usual depth but she doesn’t miss the tightening around his eyes. He’s irritated that his night has been interrupted or he’s irritated that his night has been interrupted by Hermione. She thought she’d have at least a few more minutes of standing outside to think before he came out. There was also a small part of her that hoped that he was asleep so she wouldn't have to go through with her plan for the night at all. Either way, the second he meets her eyes, her planned speech fades into smoke.

Hermione clears her throat and lifts a cup of tea at him. “I made you some tea.”

He looks at the cup as if she’s offering him a mandrake instead. If he’s surprised at all by the gesture, he doesn’t show it. He doesn't even make a move to take it out of her hand.

“It’s not poison,” she says, teasingly. Hoping to diffuse some of the tension. “Just a cup of tea with four spoons of sugar. But then again what’s the difference between the two, right?

Malfoy looks past her shoulder at some distance far behind.

Feeling she’s losing his attention and her arm still stretched out, Hermione blurts in a single breath, “I’m sorry.” Malfoy’s eyes snap to her face and she continues in another breath, “I didn’t know.”

“Amina told you.” His words are plain and expressionless. She can’t decipher anything that he’s feeling, nor does she know if he’s offended that she knows.

Hermione nods slowly. “I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t ask…Well, I didn’t even know anything about it. I promise you if I had known, I would never have said anything. Amina just thought I should know—”

“You had the right to know, Granger,” he says through clenched teeth. His voice is terse as if the words cost him something painful to admit. “Everyone should know how useless I am.”

“I don’t think you’re useless, Malfoy.”

Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Yes, I am quite aware how you think everyone you meet is special.”

She ignores the jab, feeling more anxious now that she’s remembering what she’d planned to say to him in the first place. Words spill out of her mouth of their own volition. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I was rude and I said some things I regret now but either way the explanation behind why you couldn’t do it is none of my business. I shouldn’t have assumed anything nor should I have expected an explanation for your actions. But just so you know, I think it’s ridiculous that they would strip you of defensive spells when travelling. There are dangerous and unknown things in the world and you need to protect yourself—”

“Clearly, it’s not me who needs protecting, Granger,” Malfoy drawls. His voice is crisp as a mountain breeze and the wicked undertone of his words makes her shiver despite the warmth.

“I don’t think you’re going to hurt me, Malfoy.”

Malfoy studies her face and she schools it so that he can see the sincerity on her face. Several seconds later, he shakes his head in disbelief but doesn’t say anything. Hermione lifts the cup higher. The steam from the tea swirls and dances between them.

Boldened by the fact Malfoy hasn’t already left, she continues, “I thought maybe we could have some tea together…and talk.”

Malfoy looks unconvinced. “Talk?”

The familiar exchange settles somewhere deep in her stomach, creating an ache there that flushes across her body. Her arm starts to hurt and a nervous tick echoes in her ear the longer she stands in front of him. Maybe he wants her to leave now that she’s apologized.

She should probably leave now.

“Yes, we can talk. Or not talk. It doesn’t matter, really. It doesn’t have to mean anything, either. Whatever you want, I’m okay with it. I just thought maybe we could just sit down and—”

Malfoy cuts her off by taking the cup from her hand. Then, without a word, he turns around and ducks back into his tent. The curtain falls close behind him.

Hermione blinks several times at the tent.

Stunned, her mouth parts and closes as the seconds pass—unable to string together any semblance of thought. With the realization that perhaps he’s not coming back out, she slowly turns around to face the encampment. In the middle of the circled tents, the fire has simmered down to just sparks. Transfigured to last just another half hour, it’ll soon turn into ashes. However, the moon, now just larger than a waning quarter, and the constellations of stars provide enough illumination to light the area.

She’s not ready to go back to her tent just yet—going back would mean pretending to sleep and her mind, plagued with thoughts, will prevent her from doing just that. The flush in her skin now snuffed, Hermione quickly mumbles Muffliato for those sleeping and shuffles her way to the chairs scattered around the firepit. She drops herself into one of the chairs and kicks her shoes off. She draws her feet onto the chair and tightly wraps her arms around her legs. The cup rests idly on one of her knees.

Though her eyes remain on the sparks in the firepit, her mind wanders to the very clear and very obviously still present flickering orbs in the night sky. She’d read through the expedition records of other treks again today and hadn’t found any specific records regarding the lights and their connections with the caves. She did however see a very brief mention of lights seen fifty years ago before a sandstorm. The entire trek was over after the storm, with all members returning home, several of them injured. When she’d first gone over the expedition records for that particular group, she’d only perused it briefly. She hadn’t seen the relevance of the expedition if it hadn’t even finished. But it’s clear to her now that every change in direction, sight, or weather is relevant to finding the Cave.

The chair beside her creaks and Hermione turns just in time to see a flash of white and then Malfoy lowering himself down into the chair. The cup rests in his hand and his gaze remains averted.

She gapes unabashedly at him. It’s clear he is aware of where her eyes are because he runs a haphazard hand through his hair and sets his jaw. Moments of silence, split only by the sounds of the desert and the crackling sparks of the fire, weave between the two. When Malfoy doesn’t speak first, Hermione returns to face the front.

She finally lifts her eyes to the lights and ignores the tick, tick, tick bubbling beneath the surface of her skin at the sight.

She glances at him from the corner of her eyes. “What do you think of the lights?”

Malfoy lifts his face to the sky, eyes narrowing at the orbs. “There’s not much to think about them. We’re not dead.”

“For now,” she corrects. “We’re not dead for now.”

“I don’t see the world ending, Granger. Nor do I see any locusts or frogs falling from the sky. The water hasn’t turned into blood and our skin hasn't erupted in boils. I think it’s fair to say that we’re not going to die any time soon.”

She gives him a curious look. “You’re not supposed to know the plagues, by the way. You’re not supposed to know any references to Muggle religions or literature.”

“Is it bad, if I do?” He doesn’t look at her when he says it but she doesn’t miss the hesitance in his voice. As if her answer is the only answer he cares about and he wants it to be the same as his.

“No,” she says softly—choosing to go with her immediate honest answer. “It really isn’t. Though I do wonder how, or why, you managed to get your hands on Muggle books. And the Bible for that matter.”

“The library at the Manor has Muggle texts.”

The Manor. Malfoy seemed only to ever refer to his home as the Manor.

Hermione frowns when she registers what he’s said. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s an extensive source of information on the magical world and its non-magical counterpart. During Voldemort’s brief infiltration of the Ministry, there was a ministry-wide order to remove all Muggle texts and literature from Wizarding Britain and the books from Hogwarts. It didn’t matter at the time that the Muggle counterpart of Britain, and the whole world really, still contained untouched Muggle books and literature that were still accessible to anyone who dared to defy Voldemort's orders. It was assumed that once collected, they would be destroyed in front of a public audience. I suppose Voldemort had tried to make a statement about what he deemed to be knowledge and what he considered to be waste. But until then, Father was instructed to keep all the books at the Manor. Mother was the one who put them in the library. The Manor’s library has always had a large expanse of knowledge available, even though some of the information was restricted to…descendants of non-magical beings.”

He pauses as if to choose his next words carefully.

“I’d hope your side realized that the war never was about Muggles or blood statuses, Granger. It went beyond all that.”

Hermione’s skin turns cold at the words that only seem to support what she had realized early on in the war. She tightens her fingers around the teacup to savour the warmth. “I did eventually figure that out, yes. The others in the Order were…less inclined to share similar beliefs. Not that I could blame them. The rhetoric that was passed around by Voldemort made it hard at times even for me to not believe it. But I guess I’ll never get over all the time wasted on the war and the sheer hatred that spread blindly because no one else, regardless of which side they were on, realized the same thing.”

Hermione glances back up at the lights. Their damning presence dawns on her like a palpable pressure and she shivers when she realizes it’s similar to how she felt when she saw the Dark Mark in the sky. She wonders if it’s the same for Malfoy.

“You’re scared, aren’t you? About the lights?”

“I’m scared that I’m missing something,” she says truthfully. “I’m scared that because of my inability to find the answer, we’ll be in serious trouble when it’s too late to do anything about it.”

“It’s not your job to have the answer to everything, Granger.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t stop others from expecting me to have them anyway. Or maybe the expectations of others are so imprinted in me I can’t differentiate between their voices and my own.” Hermione shakes her head. “How do you do it?”

Malfoy turns his head to her. “Do what?”

“How does nothing affect you?”

“Things do affect me, Granger.”

Hermione tugs at the frayed seams of her red socks. “You’re never scared, though. I’m terrified of what the lights could mean or the demons that hide in the corners of my room. I’m afraid that this trip will mean nothing and that if I walk too far away from this place right here, I’ll become the darkness itself. But you...you just continue every day unafraid.” She lifts her head to glance at him. “When was the last time you were scared of something? And I’m talking about the type of fear you feel in your bones.”

Malfoy inhales slowly through his nose and twists his lips. “I was always scared when I was a child.”

“Everyone was.”

“I used to think the Manor was haunted.”

Hermione’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “Really? How?”

Malfoy shrugs. “With ghosts I suppose. Though I never did see a ghost—or at least not like the ones that roamed around Hogwarts. It was more of a…feeling. Like something was always standing in the same room as me. Watching me.”

“When did that start?”

“I want to say always because that’s how it felt. It felt as if my entire life was spent thinking something was always there, watching me sleep or eat or move around the Manor. Sometimes when I was in bed, there was this pressure weighing down on me, like some kind of heavy cloak. I could never open my eyes though. Perhaps it was fear forcing them to shut so I wouldn't see whatever was hiding in my room. But it followed me everywhere. Sometimes, I’d hear a voice.”

The air chills. Hermione rubs a hand down her legs to gather some warmth across her skin, smoothing down the goosebumps. “What kind of voice?”

“I don’t know,” he says quietly. His eyes, though distant, fixate on the tea as if the memory itself is reflected there. “I remember being eight years old and hearing someone call my name. I’d fallen asleep while reading in my room when I heard it. It was like a whisper in my ear, only it was less something I heard and more what I felt. I felt its voice under my skin, waking me up. And when I did, it was completely dark in my room. But I felt it beckoning me, so I followed it out of my room and down the hallway. When I reached the top of the staircase, it was so dark that I couldn’t see where the first step was. I stumbled down the stairs until Mother found me. Apparently, I was hysterically crying, though to me it felt like no sound left my body at all. For two weeks after that incident, I’d lock myself in the closet and sleep there so I couldn’t leave.”

Malfoy exhales a short breath.

“I was always terrified, Granger. The ghosts I couldn’t see eventually became the ones that I could. The voice that asked me to follow started belonging to bodies that demanded the same.”

“So what did you do?” Hermione asks. “About the ghosts?”

“Nothing,” he replies after a moment. Hermione follows Malfoy’s lifted gaze back to the sky. A ring of light disappears with a gleam before appearing back once more. “The ghosts are still there. I just grew up.”

Weariness tears at his skin, leaving behind bruises under his eyes and a haunted frown etched against his lips. Hermione can’t help but think of him alone in the Manor and all the lessons he learned and the too-real ghosts he faced. The boiling frustration of it all makes her want to scream at the wretched world that would strip him of his magic. Because despite what happened during the war, Hermione’s childhood was ultimately secure and a source of comfort. She has tender memories, regardless of how painful to recall, that she can point to as evidence. Malfoy’s childhood, on the other hand, was filled with horrors that he seems to have accepted without any reluctance. There’s never any anger directed to anyone other than himself when he speaks of what he faced. As if a child of just eight should have known better than to believe in ghosts. As if a thirteen-year-old should have known he couldn’t have precious things in his life.

A life so strange and unlike her own, Hermione cannot fathom how there are any similarities between them now. How she can feel his pain as if it's her own.

Later that night, when Malfoy returns to his tent, Hermione will crawl into her bed, blow out the candles, and Occlude.

She’ll walk through the corridors of her glass house, checking and rechecking every doorknob to ensure they’re locked. Somewhere far, there will be an ocean humming and behind each door is a room filled with her memories. When she’s done going through her routine, Hermione will create another room. This one is empty not for its lack but rather for its possibilities. She’ll keep it for Malfoy.

It’ll be strange at first to fill the room with memories that she has of him. Some of them are old and hurtful, others are new and pleasant. At first, she’ll feel like an intruder or an imposter as she walks around the room, peering into something sinful and tempting. But eventually, the memories will rush together all at once and she’ll spend moments, (minutes or hours—she doesn’t know), to sort them. An entire wall will be dedicated to a bookshelf and each book will contain every day at Hogwarts she shared with him. She’ll paint the walls green and grow vines of ivy and flowers with petals for every touch and whisper exchanged between them.

And when Hermione is finally done for the night with this room that now belongs to Malfoy, she’ll leave the door open.

________________________________

“Wait, wait, wait! Let me get this straight—Draco Malfoy was turned into an actual, living ferret ?”

Amina whirls to Malfoy for a confirmation but he’s too busy glaring at Hermione. His silence however is validation enough and Tony and Amina both burst into cackles.

“Oh, indeed! He was doing some brilliant tricks as well, just jumping up and down like a clever pet!” Hermione continues, a grin carved wide on her face. “Twitchy little ferret, weren’t you, Malfoy?”

Malfoy just narrows his eyes further.

Amina lurches forward, another laugh shaking her body. “And this was a professor who transfigured him?”

“Well, it was someone else who disguised himself as a professor, but we didn’t know that then.” Hermione pauses to feign deep contemplation. “Malfoy did make an adorable ferret. Quite fluffy. It was completely impossible to determine whether it was a real ferret or a student. It did however seem he had the mindset of an animal the way he was just skittering around.”

Malfoy bristles. “And I suppose you would know quite a lot about turning into an animal, wouldn't you Granger? Maybe I should tell them about your memorable incident with cats. Wouldn’t that just be quite hilarious, Granger?”

“What happened with cats?” Tony manages to ask between his wheezing.

“Nothing,” Hermione instantly says through clenched teeth. She glares at Malfoy in a warning, when he gives her a smug look. Hermione turns to Tony and shrugs. “I had a cat named Crookshanks. He was extremely mischievous and would always be getting me in trouble.”

That seems to be enough of an explanation for Tony and soon they’re back to laughing at Malfoy.

The second Amina and Tony are out of earshot, Malfoy turns to Hermione and says, “The way you keep bringing up the ferret incidence, I’m starting to believe you have some sort of perverted fetish. Is there something you would like to share, Granger? I assure you this is a safe space to talk about your feelings and other…concerns .”

“Interesting point, Malfoy, to which I would say, not happening. Don’t try to turn one of my life's greatest pleasures I've witnessed into something twisted,” Hermione retorts. She leans back and props her legs onto the arm of the chair he’s sitting in. Malfoy scowls at her as she crosses her feet at the ankles. “It was an utmost joy watching your weak attempt at attacking Harry backfire at you.”

“Weak as your current attempt to divert my attention from the real question on hand. I do wish to know what it must have been like to be a cat, Granger,” Malfoy says with a smirk, gingerly grabbing her legs by the ankles and shifting them onto the table in front of her. “Tell me, where exactly did the fur stop?”

Hermione’s face twists with disgust. “Wouldn’t you just like to know, you git.”

Malfoy laughs then and Hermione’s eyes flutter close at the sound. Though he only ever seems to laugh when there aren’t others to witness it, she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to it. She hopes to never get used to it. Hopes even that there will be many, many more instances of him laughing, however short or mirthless, where each time the sound leaves his body is as stunning as the first time.

She tilts her head back to catch some of the afternoon rays on her face. Red stars dance behind her closed lids and heat immediately seeps into her skin. The sun is as cruel in the desert as the wind is near the ocean. She thought she’d become a muddled mess of sweat but her body, already near freezing, only warms to a regular temperature the longer she bathes in the sunlight.

There’s a hitch in Malfoy's breath that’d make her open her eyes if she wasn’t too busy melting into her chair.

“You should be careful with how long you stay in the sun, Granger,” Malfoy says after a few minutes.

A warm breeze fans across her face, lifting the curls around her temple and causing tiny sand particles to graze against her cheek.

“And why is that?”

She can physically feel him trying to conjure up a reason.

“You’ve already got so many freckles,” he answers simply. “You said too much of the sun is dangerous, right?”

Hermione hums, a lazy smile drawing across her lips. Her words are drunkenly looped syllables. “It feels nice, though.”

“You’ll burn.”

Hermione can’t help but laugh at that, recalling the small burn at the back of his neck Malfoy had been nursing—complaining to Hermione about—for the past two days. She opens her mouth to respond with, “Some of us brought sunscreen, Malfoy!” but when her eyes swing open, all words escape her.

His gaze on her is dark but it’s the strange look in his eyes that halts her.

Depthless and dilated liquid pools of silver. Focused on her alone. The heat she’d been basking in turns searing.

“What?” he asks roughly when she stops laughing.

“What?” she echoes, her mind still stuck on how he’slookingat her.

He’s turning impatient at the bewildered look on her face. “You were going to say something, what was it?”

Hermione shakes her head. “I…nothing. I wasn’t going to say—”

“Alright for a photo?” Dana asks, popping her head in between their chairs. She blocks the sun and the momentary release from the heat clears the fog from Hermione’s brain.

Malfoy immediately scowls. “I’d rather not.”

Dana had been recording the trek through photos of the groups to document the memories so far. It would be combined to make an album for the International Wizarding Preservation Society after the unveiling of the Cave as a historical site.

“Sure, Dana,” Hermione smiles, pulling her legs off the table. “How would you like us?”

Dana purses her lips, eyeing the area surrounding them. “I haven’t gotten one of you two just yet. I think a standing photo would be perfect. The lighting is just right in this direction.”

Hermione shoots Malfoy another warning look when he opens his mouth to protest. His scowl deepens but he hoists himself off the chair, following to where Dana directs Hermione to stand. He wavers slightly, his steps heavy with trepidation when Dana tells him to stand to Hermione’s side.

“A little closer,” Dana says, raising the camera.

Hermione takes a small step to his side. The length of Malfoy’s body just barely grazes against the side of hers, but Malfoy stiffens anyway.

“Draco, just relax a little, okay?” Dana calls, squinting through the camera. “And Hermione, another step closer would be great. The sun is blocking your face.”

Hermione inhales a deep breath, keeps the smile plastered on her face, and shuffles half an inch closer until she’s directly in alignment with Malfoy.

Heat immediately diffuses from his body and radiates through Hermione’s clothes and into her skin. She barely comes to his shoulder and yet it doesn’t feel as if he’s towering over her. Somehow the midway curve of his bicep matches perfectly with the soft turn of her shoulder. The fabric of her sleeves fan across the sleeve of his. Her knuckles brush against his wrist and when his fingers flex just barely it is like her fingers are his reflection in the mirror and do the same. Only, the simultaneous flex and relaxation of their hands cause a temporary intertwining of the tips of their fingers, and it’s a moment so brief, that they could have withdrawn their fingers and it would have been forgotten as a mere accident.

However, they linger like this, both resisting and giving in at the same time with the touch, and pretending not to notice.

Their eyes remain fixated on Dana.

Dana sighs, dropping the camera away from her face. “Oh come on now, you two! You look as if you’re about to flee any second. Put your arm around Hermione, will you Draco? So at least it won’t look like you’re hating every second of this.”

Malfoy makes an impatient sound at the back of his throat. “For fu—”

Hermione pulls her hand away from where it rests beside his and wraps her arm around his waist before he can even finish the sentence. Malfoy’s already rigid body turns into marble as his head snaps to Hermione.

Eyes still on Dana, and thinking the sudden change is a clear aversion to her touch, Hermione mutters under her breath, “I’m sorry.”

Somewhere in the distance, Dana is yelling, “Perfect!”

And it’s like a switch turning off because muscle by muscle, Malfoy loses some of its tension. She feels him relax beside her and reflexively her hold around him tightens.

When the camera flashes, Hermione is smiling and Malfoy is still looking at her.

________________________________

“Malfoy?”

“Yes, Granger.”

“Can you listen to this and tell me what’s off?”

When he doesn’t oppose, Hermione clears her throat. Though they’ve spelled to hide their voices, she finds her whispering anyway. “I was asked today by Mother to imagine a moment of astonishment that leaves me speechless. I closed my eyes and thought of such, except, I found the longer I thought, the more words spilled out of my lips like dripping golden coins. For I thought of you and I thought of a moment with your arms around me. I thought of us holding each other without feeling despair and without it being called a sin. Is it possible? To feel so full only to be carved out again? ”

Hermione glances up at Malfoy. His lidded eyes are lit by the fire cast in front of them, causing the ashes to turn into a blazing gray. Something unspools in her chest.

“Is there more?” he asks quietly, his voice equally as hushed and soft as hers.

Hermione turns back to Safia’s diary in her hand, pulls the shawl tighter around her neck and flips to another entry. “I woke in the middle of the night with a furious ache to see you again. I seized, grappling empty air, thinking you were there beside me. When your absence was found, I realized this must be love. Love is to be shaken to the core. Love is to sleep, only to be awakened once more. Love is fire on fire, leaving behind nothing but ashes and destruction.”

Hermione doesn’t look up when she finishes. Instead, she holds her breath and brushes her fingers across the inked words in the diary.

“Anything else?” Malfoy’s voice turns rougher and hoarse, like gravel. Deep and equally as biting as the desert breeze at night. The hair at her nape rises as the sound reverberates inside her bones.

Hermione nods—a small jerk of her head. “In the darkest of hours, I only pray the world will get to feel the same love we feel. How lucky we are to feel this joy that is unlike any other, and this peace, known only in death but felt now still. For this was fated. And this is meant to be.”

Hermione stops and exhales a breath before looking up at Malfoy again. He’s not looking at her anymore; his eyes are lowered to the roaring fire in front of him. She takes the seconds he realizes she’s stopped talking to watch him instead. The stubborn set of his jaw, the swirling shadows cast on his cheeks by the fire, the familiar hollows of his face she only wishes to run her fingers along.

Hermione swallows the cloth in her mouth and banishes the thoughts from her head. “Did you notice something?”

Malfoy blinks several times, pulling his gaze away from the fire and to Hermione. His eyes are depthless still, but sharper than before. “What do you mean?”

“Who do you think she’s talking about?”

He scratches the back of his neck with a distracted face. “Her husband?”

Hermione shakes her head. “Do you remember the first night when I told everyone about Safia and her husband?”

“You said their marriage was of convenience.”

Hermione hadn’t actually thought he’d been listening. The angry flash across his face then convinced her he’d been too busy lamenting all the life choices that had brought him to sit across her at that table.

“And that’s the issue. I don’t believe she’s writing about her husband. Count Andrei Petrov was fifteen years older than Safia and it was clear to both the Russian and Egyptian high society the marriage between Safia and Andrei was only that of convenience. To help strengthen the trading alliance between the countries. He detested her and she had a difficult time adjusting to the Russian societal rules. Moreover, Andrei was infamous for his affairs and the fact he was hardly ever home.”

“So you’re thinking the entries are about someone else? You think she was having an affair?”

Hermione hesitates to rush to such quick and fast conclusions. “This diary was used during her expedition. When she wasn’t writing about the Cave, she was writing about love or this one “lover.” I’m thinking it is possible she might be having an affair that continued during the expedition and even after she came home. The diary entries after her return are bizarre and difficult to decipher without context regarding the Cave, but there is still a clear referral to a “you”. It has to be the same person throughout the diary, who is not her husband.”

Malfoy seems to consider this. “Do you think the person came with her on the expedition?”

“It’s possible,” Hermione sighs. The desert breeze sweeps through the encampment, lifting sand off the ground that gets caught in Hermione’s unruly hair. Hermione piles her hair together on top of her head and jams her wand through it to get the weight off her skin. “But we have all the names of those who attended, other than her handmaiden who is unnamed, and those who passed during the storm of their expedition. Before coming, I cross-referenced all of the names in the reports to see if there was any correspondence with the people in the group before or after the expedition but didn’t come up with anything specific. It looks like they were assembled for the sake of the trip and dispatched by the end. It is possible whoever she was having an affair with remained behind in Russia.”

“Who do you think it could be?”

“Someone non-prominent or someone of a lower status makes more sense because of the lack of coverage in societal newspapers or letters. If she was having an affair, I am convinced it would have been mentioned somewhere in the letters that talked about her. And I went through everything on her during the day before I left home so I know I would have picked something up.” Hermione idly picks at the corners of the diary. “Maybe the affair exists or maybe it doesn’t. And if it exists, maybe it has nothing to do with the expedition. But either way, the diary entries about love are so overwhelming and filled with yearning, it is hard to believe someone Safia merely tolerated for the sake of her country is the one behind it all.”

“All writings on love are the same,” Malfoy drawls, his voice carefully curated to sound indifferent. “It might be a mistake to think the words on love mean differently and could be referring to someone else simply because of how they’re written. Poetry can be deceiving, Granger. It doesn’t necessarily mean the one who loved did it lovingly.”

Hermione scoffs. “I’m not surprised about your cynicism but you act as if you’ve never read a single romantic novel in your life—and don’t even pretend that you haven’t, Malfoy! I refuse to believe you haven’t read a classic Jane Austen or even a Nizami Ganjavi when you’re out here quoting the Old Testament, as if I wouldn’t notice.”

Malfoy doesn’t bother refuting but he does roll his eyes so hard they disappear into his skull for a second. “They all sound the same, Granger. There are only so many ways you can write “I love you” without it becoming a copyright issue.”

Hermione draws her legs close and leans her chin on her knee. Somehow they’ve ended up on the ground, sitting on top of a blanket near a fire. Chairs have been discarded for the pillows Amina left behind after dinner. It’s colder tonight and Malfoy told Hermione the only way he was going to sit outside was if they started the fire again. She agreed and Malfoy, perhaps unknowingly, set them down with their backs facing the southern night sky, mercifully out of sight of the omnipresent orbs.

“I don’t believe you, Malfoy,” Hermione says absently. She draws out a hand to catch some of the escaping smoke. It laps lazily through the gaps of her fingers. “I believe one day you will find someone worth telling love stories to.”

If Malfoy was going to refute the claim with one of his “I don’t believe in love” phrases, he doesn’t get the chance. There’s a loud smack! as he slaps his hand against his neck, leaving a splotchy red handprint behind when he withdraws it. He inspects his hand with another one of his withering glares.

“Bloody vampires,” he mutters with distaste, eyes darting around him.

It’s Hermione’s turn to roll her eyes.“They’re just mosquitoes. Believe me when I say, Malfoy, they are more afraid of you than you are of them.”

And it’s the fourth time she’s had to say that to him tonight. Tony warned everyone that the region they’ve settled down for the night was especially crowded with mosquitos. After the first time Malfoy complained about getting bitten during dinner, Hermione ended up giving him her repellent with the aim of quieting him down for the remainder of the night. She knew if she didn’t cease his dramatics while there were still hours left to the day, they’d never hear the end of them. Malfoy eyed the bottle with such suspicion she was tempted to snatch it back from. It was only after a second mosquito bite did he put the lotion on.

“That’s doubtful,” he grits out, scratching his arm. “f*cking leeches! Why the f*ck won’t they leave me alone?” He flicks his distrustful eyes and roves them over Hermione as if she’s hiding something beneath her shawl. “They’re leaving you perfectly alone, aren’t they?”

One look at the complete look of dismay and betrayal on Malfoy’s face has laughter bubbling in her chest and ripping out of her body.

“It’s not funny, Granger.” Malfoy glares as Hermione clutches onto her stomach mid-laugh. “They can spread diseases.”

Her breaths come out as gasps, as she exclaims, “And you wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t told you!”

Malfoy opens his mouth to fire back but quickly skids his body to the left to avoid a mosquito buzzing near his nose. Her laughter cuts off with a yelp when Malfoy slaps his hands together in front of Hermione’s face with another sharp smack!

It has Hermione wheezing again, falling backwards and down onto the blanket. She clamps her hand against her mouth to swallow some of the laughter.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, her eyes watering. “I just find it hilarious that the world needed to be protected against you but here you are, unable to handle mosquitos!”

“They wouldn’t be a problem if I could use the damn spells,” he grumbles, eyes falling to his palms to look for the squashed mosquitoes there.

Hermione’s laughter fades on her tongue as her eyes fixate on the night sky above. As always, she’s left speechless at the millions of stars left for her to witness. At home, whenever Hermione would look at the night sky, she’d always find herself trying to organize the very few stars that she could see into the constellations her father showed her. It was harder when there were so few of them in the first place but she finds it easier now to focus on each of the individual stars.

“After second year, I started having nightmares about the Basilisk.”

Her exhaled breath fans across her lips before mingling with the smoke from the fire. Malfoy watches her silently and the awareness of his gaze is like a finger tracing down her spine.

Hermione digs her hands to the blanket on either side of her, grappling a fistful of the sand underneath. “Sometimes it was the Basilisk chasing me in the Hogwarts corridors and other times it was wrapping its body around my neck. I would wake up in the middle of the night with my entire body locked as though I was Petrified again. I would feel so small, so helpless. I couldn’t sleep most of the time and nor could I tell Mum or Dad what exactly had happened because I knew they would never let me go back to Hogwarts. Dad found me once in the middle of the night like this. He may not have known why I was having the nightmares, but he always did manage to know what to do. He placed dozens of glow-in-the-dark stars and the planets on the ceiling of my bedroom.”

Hermione’s eyes remain open, unblinking, as she organizes each and every star to those of her bedroom ceiling. Her voice sounds distant as if it’s being consumed by the universe above before ricocheting back to her ears.

“Dad told me that every time I was scared, I needed only to look up and see the constellations that made our home. It didn’t solve the nightmares of course, but it did help to look up at the stars when I’d wake up with a petrified body. How could I feel so small and so alone in the dark when I was within the universe and the universe was within me too? “The stars listen,” Dad would say even though I knew it wasn’t possible.” Hermione quickly wipes the wetness from underneath her eyes before glancing at Malfoy. His eyes turn dark and a faint line forms between his brows when she blinks and another tear falls and disappears into her hair. When Hermione can’t stand the heat in his gaze anymore, she turns to the stars once more. “But it makes so much sense now, doesn’t it? How could the stars not listen when they recognize one of their own?”

Lost in the chaos of her thoughts and memories, she’s not aware of Malfoy heaving a sigh before laying down beside her until his arm brushes slightly against hers.

It’s then she’s aware of everything, as she often is when they touch. An explosion of sensations across a void that existed before. Her nerves synapse and fire away as she takes in the minimal distance between their bodies, the space crackling with electrifying energy, and the fact she could just reach out if she dared—if she was brave enough— and touch his skin. She’s aware of the air heavy with heat from both the fire and Malfoy beside her, and when Hermione takes a deep breath in, she smells the smoked earthiness of the burning wood mixed with vanilla. It’s too much all at once and it’s not nearly enough either.

How does one become a moment?

How can she register the smells and sounds permanently in her brain so she’ll never forget them? Because this is a memory she wants and needs to remember. A memory she’ll suffer happily in a drunken stupor for the rest of her life.

But Hermione doesn’t touch him nor does she say anything more. They remain quiet like this, side by side. They’re hardly even breathing by the sounds of it, but perhaps their exhales and inhales are so intertwined they are one and the same. If she closes her eyes, she’ll know he is still there as one knows their lungs are breathing in air. It’s a strange, but welcomed, feeling to be like this with Malfoy. It won’t last, she knows. But before she'd feel embarrassed for having shared something personal with him, and now, Hermione finds that she doesn’t care anymore. Silence, if it feels like this, is okay too.

“Mother used to tell me about True North,” Malfoy says at last, voice traced with its usual shadows whenever he talks about his life. “Do you know what a True North is?”

She does.

Hermione shakes her head.

“A single point in the universe that would lead you home,” he says. His voice is akin to walking through a lucid dream. “A compass in your life that reminds you of who you are and why you stay.”

Hermione scans the sky. “How do we know what our True North is?”

“You choose your True North. As one would choose their home.”

“Can it be anything?”

“Yes.”

“What’s yours?” she asks, as if his answer opens the door to the universe.

“The moon,” he replies, as if her knowing is the key.

Hermione’s eyes wander to the moon, further away and nestled amongst the scattered stars there. She squints to focus on its shape. She raises her hand in its direction and holds the moon in between her thumb and forefinger as if she can pluck it right out of the night sky.

“Look,” she gasps, identifying the constellation burrowed near the moon. Hermione points out each of the northern stars—the graceful head, the long and winding serpentine-like tail that makes up Draco.

Hermione can’t help but smile. Her words are a soft murmur like the first break of sunlight peeking through mountains. “There you are.”

Beats of silence lasting only mere seconds pass until Malfoy raises his hand as well. His left hand falters for only half a breath before arching around her wrist and wrapping over hers. It’s familiar in a way she does not understand—their hands meant only to be held like this.

Hermione forgets to breathe. Her blood forgets to pump through her body. She’s numb except for where he touches her and every part of her skin under his is an inferno, a blaze so heated she can’t comprehend how she’s not ashes yet. Pale tendons and veins of his hand are stark in the moonlight and the green emerald of Malfoy’s ring winks at Hermione as he slowly guides her away fromDraco to the stars that are further north but as clear as ever still.

Past Ursa Major and past Canes Venatici and the Lynx, Malfoy takes her hand away from bordering constellations and stars that have no names. He stops finally near a familiar cluster of nine stars. Her eyes widen as he dips their combined hands, with a gentleness she’s only prayed for, to the stars that make up the tail of the constellation before gradually outlining the greater body.

Leo.

When he’s done, he doesn’t let go and neither does she. Her heart pounds and hammers against her ribcage so loudly, she’s convinced he can hear it. Convinced if she doesn’t do something, her heart will fall out. Hermione stares and stares at the constellation, waiting for the stars to give the answer to her question that springs and dies on her tongue.

The mighty lion is only a few stars away from the all-consuming dragon. Two celestial bodies stuck in the boundless orbit that makes the universe.

And this must be gravity.

Because with hands both outstretched toward stars that are real enough to grasp, real enough to twinkle and wave-like beckoning hands, Hermione and Malfoy turn their heads to face each other

and

fall.

A gap opens in the universe, enough to accommodate just the two of them and seals shut behind them like a vacuum.

A boy and a girl floating and falling and never landing.

Jets of light shoot through opened crevices of their chests, each a tether to their own souls, expanding far across the overlapping worlds. Threads made of explosive stars, spooling and unspooling, excruciatingly stitched and unstitched, an infinite number of individual filaments all bound together to make the tapestry that is the graveyard of dead stars and lives unlived.

Worlds close and universes open.

An explosion of nebulae—consisting of nothing but a vast and an infinite stretch of time and space— and curtains of falling stars parted only to see the two figures fall. Leaving behind nothing but blinding light and dust.

In the beginning,

there was light.

But first, a collision between two twin flames of equal flare. And then, Earth scorches into a firestorm, crumbling and crumbling and crumbling, before a wave of frost and winter arrives. When all melts into the oceans, finally, finally,a seed sprouts. There must be death before life, you see. For this is death and this is rebirth.

The stars look different today.

Together they fall away from the vengeful sun, away from the blood moon, away from a greedy home. Lips part and a howl is cried out loud—Is this the end? — and swallowed whole until there is nothing but silence. Not even a water droplet, not even a sigh. And time becomes seconds that become hours that become forever. A single rotation around the sun becomes a lifetime becomes just a second.

They are here now, were here once, and will be here again.

Is there any life out there?

Of course, there is. Can’t you hear them?

Two hearts bound together in flesh and blood into a single beat. A single pulse becomes a simultaneous pump in and a pump out of life.

Ba. Dum.

Ba. Dum. Ba.

Dum.

Look, look,look.

Two stars, binary, a boy and a girl, hurtling and stumbling, through a screeching rip in the great unknown.

For this was fated.

Down, down, down.

Two hands, imprinted with secrets to the world, drawn to each other in the darkness across the void.

And this is meant to be.

Hermione blinks.

Malfoy inhales sharply.

In a single, fluid move, he removes his scathed hand around Hermione’s and stands.

He staggers back a step, dazed and disoriented, and stares at Hermione, eyes wide and dilated.

Hermione watches him silently, her back coiling and uncoiling, vertebrae by vertebrae, as she moves to sit up. Her hands, numb and heavy, fall to her sides.

His lips part as trembling breaths escape him and he blinks several times as if each rapid movement can help him make sense of what’s happening.

His eyes ask, What are you doing to me?

Nothing you haven’t done to me, is her reply.

Malfoy roughly swipes his fringe out of his face and looks away to the fire. He doesn’t like what he sees there, clear by the tension on his shoulders. Coming to some conclusion, Malfoy turns away from the heat to grab his belongings off the blanket. He takes a careful step around the blanket, as if to touch the cloth is to touch Hermione, and walks to his tent.

His faltering steps, a sound indicating that he is leaving and this is about to end, bring back her voice.

“Maybe I should come with you into your tent and make sure it’s safe,” she says, in a desperate and pathetic attempt to hold on. She tries to sound teasing but it comes out quiet and slurred.

Because of the mosquitos, she should add but doesn’t. It’s not why she spoke up in the first place anyway.

Malfoy’s steps pause behind her, a little too quickly and a little too sure—almost as if had been waiting for someone to speak up and is relieved it’s her.

Hermione holds her breath, her bones clicking in anticipation.

There’s a sudden pressure against her head, and Hermione gasps as Malfoy wraps his hand, the same one he’d used to touch her just seconds before, around her hair. She does not resist nor does she speak out as he tugs her head back gently. The single move arches her neck so the entire length of her throat is stretched.

His face comes into view and when she swallows deeply at the heat she sees there, his eyes dip to the shift before lifting to meet hers.

The previous panicked flash in his eyes is replaced by the cool and liquid darkness that she knows so well. A look she craves and aches like a gnawing and crawling hunger in the pit of her stomach.

“You can’t even handle eye contact, Granger, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he murmurs, silver eyes drifting away from her eyes to her lips, to her nose, and back to her eyes again. He leans his head closer to her face so that every breath, every word is felt across her buzzing lips.“But I’m warning you, if you say that again, I will take you.”

Hermione swiftly rights herself before she can stumble backwards, when he finally lets go of her. With a flick of his wrist, Malfoy drops something heavy that falls with a thud beside her. She spins around, stunned and eyes searching, to find Malfoy disappearing into the shadows of his tent.

When she looks down at her wand resting beside her thigh, Hermione tries to gulp fistfuls of wavering breaths of air so that she can just breathe. One unsteady hand settles on her chest to calm the trembling there and the other rises to touch her curls that have tumbled down to her shoulder like a fallen house of cards.

________________________________

Hermione feels every second of every moment in her body as though she is the keeper of the final countdown. The beat of her heart turns to a quiet, incessant tick, tick, tick echoing deep into the vessels of her brain and her eyes blink to its rapid rhythm. The blood in her body turns into sludge thick enough to drown in as she watches, with excruciating deliberation, the red under her skin turns blue.

Tick, tick, tick.

Safia’s diary in one hand and her wand in the other, she wanders around the encampment restless and aimless. She braces herself, shooting skittish glances across the desert and to the sky where the damning lights remain.

“I think we took a wrong turn,” Amina says, frowning at the map in her hands. She glances briefly at the looming sand dunes further in the southern distance. “Those mountains aren’t supposed to be here.”

And all Hermione hears is: Time is running out, time is running out, time is running out.

“Has anyone seen my journal?” Malfoy asks, looking vexed. He’d tried several Accios but they’d entered a region last night in the desert that caused magic to be splotchy through random times of the day. The desert is ferocious at midday, sweeping across the tents and lifting and stirring clouds of sand off the ground. Amina taught them how to wrap scarves around their heads to protect their faces and eyes from the dust so when Malfoy looks at Hermione and repeats his question, his piercing silver eyes are the only thing she could discern between the pieces of cloth.

She shakes her head when all she really wants to say is: It’s happening, it’s happening, it’s happening.

Words mean nothing when there’s not enough time to mean them so she remains silent and continues her frantic pacing. She’d laugh at the ridiculousness of it all if she didn’t want to sob as badly as she did.

Tick, tick, tick.

“You’re okay,” Malfoy says when he catches her walking back and forth, nervously biting the skin around her thumbnail, in front of his tent. She doesn’t know how she ended up there nor does she know what to do now that he’s found her. He watches her carefully as she struggles to explain and when it’s clear she cannot, he says slowly, as if speaking to a frightened child, “Nothing is going to happen, Granger.”

Of course, if there was anyone paying attention to her having a mental breakdown, it’d be him.

He means the lights. He means them following the steps of Death who has walked these paths before and left behind the proof. There’s a price to find the Cave, everyone knows, and their time to pay is coming. Or maybe it’s not, Malfoy’s telling her.

This time, she nods and ducks into her tent without another word because it’s not just the impending doom she’s worrying about. The distressed pulsations of her body are a direct consequence of the limited days left in the trip. Eventually, they’ll find the Cave and then she, like the others, will have to go their separate ways. Some will cross the borders into another adventure and some will return to their individual homes. Hermione and Malfoy will go back to Britain, though not to the same home, and she’ll need to assimilate back to her life, her work, her friends, John. Things that have fundamentally changed will revert to how they used to be. These memories will also be swept under the rug into nonexistence and words they’ve shared will be reused for other sentences.

Everything is so temporary yet so horribly ingrained in every fibre that makes up her.

And she cannot stand it.

It’s as though she is a traveller merely passing through life and not just this earth and she doesn’t know how things can be so irrevocable for her and so transient for others. What does this mean for her if she is no longer capable of splitting time into periods of befores and afters? How will she manage at all to go home and pretend to not have seen or felt the things she did?

How does anyone just move forward and not look back?

As always, whenever Hermione feels untethered, she turns to her mother.

Hermione settles into a chair and pulls her feet under her. The heat is especially blistering this afternoon, causing a thin film of sweat to coat Hermione’s skin. Still, for the sake of momentary sanity, Hermione tells herself the sudden change in weather is a consequence of the desert’s whims and is completely independent of what is being sought.

The wind has calmed and the sand has settled, allowing a clear and unobstructed view just in time for sunset in the east. An eruption of brilliant colour bleeds across the sky. Like paints, varied in vivid hues of reds and oranges, smeared by an artist’s thumb in a fit of rage. Whirls and swirls, resembling the waves of sand dunes, that stretch to each pole. The sun, a flaming medallion, hovers just above the horizon where sand meets sky waiting, just like Hermione, for its time to come so that it may sink into oblivion.

She had expected a barren land when she first arrived but has learned just how ignorant that thought was.

Dry and ancient, the desert is both ambiguous and familiar to Hermione. Often, she’ll place the palm of her hand down onto the sand to find a steady thrum under her fingers beating to the chorus of the desert. It sings a familiar tune of a dormant life hiding beneath the sand and begging to be resumed once more. The song is always there, constant and palpitating like the heart of the earth. She might leave but the desert will remain as unchanged as the beginning of time. And it is the comfort in this promise that Hermione seeks now as she sits down and pulls out her mother’s book.

She rereads the first story she shared on this trip, the fall of Icarus, before continuing on to other tales. Her mother’s writing guides her through.

The questions the stories all seem to ask are the same: What makes up this life?

And the only reply is: Time; however little of it is left.

She reads of Sisyphus, a king who cheated death twice only to be condemned by Zeus to a maddening cycle of rolling a boulder up a hill for eternity, or until his death. She then reads the tragedy of Orpheus and his lover Eurydice, and finds herself grappling with the tale. The two had found each other against the odds of life only to be separated by Eurydice’s untimely death.

It was a bite from a snake that did it.

Doing the only thing he knew best, Orpheus played enchanting and heartbreaking music on his lyre, begging the god of the Underworld to give him his wife back, so they may have some more time on earth. Moved by the music, Eurydice was returned to Orpheus on the one condition that while they remained within the confines of the darkness, Orpheus must lead Eurydice out of the Underworld without a single backward glance toward her—lest his look lead her to her eternal damnation.

The path to the world above was heavy and difficult and yet Orpheus led her through without once looking back at his lover. It was only when he saw the barest of light, a semblance of the life above, did he glance over his shoulder, arms raised for an embrace and a smile on his face. But before a breath could be shared between the two, Eurydice was pulled back into the abyss.

Hermione pauses when she reaches the end of the story and her eyes jump to her mother’s familiar script near the last sentence of the passage.

A single question—same as the one in Hermione’s head—Why?

Why did Orpheus turn back when they were so close to the life he begged for?

Why didn’t he wait until they were both out of the darkness to embrace her?

Why look back at all?

Uncomfortable with the string of questions that she does not have answers to, Hermione sets her mother’s book on her lap and looks up just in time to see the sunset. The tip of the sun, as if lowered by puppet strings, melts like liquid gold into the horizon. Minutes, if not seconds, are left until the sand devours it whole to bring out the shroud of the night.

Her eyes would fixate on the heavenly display of the ignited sky if she wasn’t distracted instead by the figure standing in front of it. Further away from the usual chaos of dinner preparation with his back to the campsite, the man stands directly facing the sun with his hands in his pocket. Engulfed in the shadows of the sun, it’d be difficult for another to decipher who it may be, but she recognized him immediately.

Hermione knows it to be Malfoy because of the mere fact that it is Malfoy.

She realizes she does not need to know the colour of his clothes or his hair—it is enough to see a shadow and recognize he is the one who cast it.

It helps that Hermione looks for him everywhere and in everything.

He hardly ever goes anywhere far and most of the time he’s right there across the firepit, where her eyes can meet his. Still, she actively seeks him out in the things around her, even if he does not utter a single word that day. Her looking has nothing to do with the physicality of Malfoy. Nor does it matter if he looks for her too. It is enough to know he is there, walking and living just like her. In a way, she looks for the prints he’s left behind as proof that she’s not imagining him.

She finds him in the irritating splotches of ink left behind on her books, or a rare white bird that soars across the desert sky. She looks for him in a bowl of oranges and thinks of the way his long, slender fingers peel back the rind, pale juice dripping down his thumb. She searches for things that remind her of him, anything that sparks a story that she hopes to tell, a joke or a memory that can be talked about later, even if it means bickering or fighting.

Hermione looks up at the stars and all she sees is him.

Now, she tightens her hold on her mother’s book and clutches it to her chest.

It is a cruel way to live, she thinks, to question each and everything that happened with a why. To ask was to assume there was something or someone to blame—somewhere they could point to as the source of all the devastation. It was even more unforgiving to assume there was a moment in life where a different action or thought could have spared everyone the misery that followed. That if they had done something else, then maybe the end wouldn’t have been the end they found.

Icarus should have listened to his father. Sisyphus should never have wanted more. Orpheus should not have looked back.

If you do not look back, you will not be dragged into the past.

Yet, weren’t lovers haunted by the fear that one day they’ll look over their shoulder and their beloved won’t be there? And didn’t that fear just feed into the permanent cycle of looking back, with hearts in throats, to make sure they still were?

To love was to fear the end of the love, regardless of the promises made that it’d last. Because everything ended, and love was hardly as powerful as the poets made it seem to be.

But Hermione thinks there is more to it. That maybe Orpheus looked because the memory of all that brought him to Eurydice again was worth more than their lives from before. That he knew there was no going back because things, they, had changed too much, too drastically for it to ever be the same again. Maybe all his efforts to get Eurydice meant nothing to Orpheus if he could not see her for one last time.

Maybe the memory of a thing was better than the reality of it being.

Or maybe the truth was when Icarus fell, he felt relief. And Sisyphus woke up every morning determined and not despaired. And maybe when Orpheus turned, he knew what he was doing and so did Eurydice and they both weren’t afraid.

Maybe when he looked back, she met his eyes and smiled too.

________________________________

Hermione digs through the cluttered luggage in the truck for her pen. She could have sworn she had two extra pens than the ones she had given away, but for the last hour, she’s torn through her tent and has come up with nothing. She could ask Malfoy back for her pen, but the fact she needs a pen is less important than the fact she can’t find it. It is of utmost importance that she finds the pen even if it’s the last thing she does today.

Tick, tick, tick.

She pats her hands under the back middle seat and pulls out a bag. Something falls out of the bag and onto the ground beside Hermione’s foot. With a groan she picks up the item, recognizing it immediately as Amina’s aggri stone. Hermione turns it in her hand, unable to help the eye roll at Amina’s carelessness for something as valuable as the stone she’d jumped several, illegal, hoops to get. Hermione gently places it in her beaded bag, intent on returning it to Amina with a strict speech on safekeeping. She purposely buries a thought on her own inability to safely keep her pens and resumes her patting under the seats.

Her hand brushes the edge of what feels like a book crammed in the nook between the two front seats. A spark of anger forms in her chest at the thought of Malfoy’s being negligent with her books. She’ll have to make sure he gets an earful too. Hermione grabs the book and pulls it out to inspect which one he’s left behind—

Except, it’s not her book.

It’s Malfoy’s journal. The one he’s been searching for all day.

Having only seen the journal in Malfoy’s presence, she finds herself deeply engrossed by its features now that she has it alone. The spine is completely tattered and some of the papers are thick with water damage. Somewhere in the middle a tab, of what looks like parchment, sticks out.

It’s heavy in her hands, as though she’s holding some of the world’s deepest secrets. It feels wrong to even hold it, let alone consider its contents.

What could even be in it?

By the way he’d been searching for it all day without seeming too distressed or frustrated, Hermione’s unsure of the range of things he’d even bother writing down.

Stop.

Stop it, Hermione.

Don’t think and you won’t be tempted.

Gingerly, Hermione tries to find a place to stuff the diary that is easy for Malfoy to find but not too obvious that he’d wonder how he could have missed it in the first place. She leans across the car when something flutters out of the journal and falls softly onto the ground. Quickly, before anyone can notice, she grabs the parchment off the ground and turns her back to the campsite.

Except, it’s not just a parchment either.

It’s a photo. Of Narcissa and Draco Malfoy.

Hermione stares, finding herself unable to look away from the image. She can’t figure out which is worse: her getting caught holding Malfoy’s journal or her getting caught holding this photo. The photo is black and white, with obvious marks of wear and tear at the corners from frequent handling. There’s a single horizontal crease from when it was folded in half. But other than that, the image itself is vivid.

In the center is Malfoy standing in black robes, that are obviously pristine and expensive, with a large, toothy grin across his face. If her recollection of him at that age matches correctly to his age in the photo, he is either twelve or thirteen. Hair parted and slicked back, Malfoy lacks the typical sneer that Hermione had grown to learn and instead has an essence of youthfulness she hasn’t seen in him for ages.

Narcissa, looking as poised and sophisticated as always, stands gracefully behind him. Her chin rests on Malfoy’s head and there’s a soft smile on her delicate lips. Her arms run straight down his shoulders and Malfoy clutches onto her hands in a way a child would hold their mother’s in a crowded room. Though, Hermione has a feeling that was how Malfoy always held onto his mother—as if he feared being parted from her if he loosened his grip at all.

Hermione flips the photo and looks at the back. At the bottom, in what Hermione suspects can only be Narcissa’s elegant writing, is a quote she recognizes immediately.

L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.

Heart aching, Hermione slowly turns the photo back again to the image.

Malfoy may have gotten his silver hair and eyes from Lucius Malfoy, but he is his mother's child in everything else.

They look so at ease. So carefree and unlike how she’d always seen the Malfoys carry themselves in public. It is a rare peek into how Malfoy used to be with his mother behind all the noise. Of how Narcissa used to be with her son when she was away from societal pressures and scrutiny. It’s a beautiful photo and she can understand why Malfoy would keep it with him at all times. The relaxed and uninhibited air of the photo is not composed enough for it to be a portrait hung in the Manor or displayed across the Prophet. It is meant only to be kept close to one’s person, taken out only in privacy for an intimate moment of reminiscence.

A moment unlike this one.

Hermione swiftly flips to a random page in the journal to stick the photo in, hoping Malfoy wouldn’t notice the misplacement. She is about to close the diary once and for all when her eyes snag on a single word.

Or rather, a name.

Her name.

Hermione’s heart constricts and then sinks. She blinks several times to make sure she’s seeing right and yet her name remains.

Granger.

Malfoy writes about her. Of course, he writes about her. She’d write about him too considering how often he gets on her nerves, but that’s not why she’s shocked. It’s how many times he’s mentioned her that has her staggering. Just across the two pages she has opened, the mention of her switches between “Granger'' and “G” six times.

She flips the page and gasps. Nestled between two entries is a sketch of the mountains. She flips to another and in the corner of the second page is a rough drawing is a cliff, eerily similar to the one in Sahrit. Hermione brushes her fingers against rough splashes of ink. She didn't know Malfoy could draw, let alone the fact that he could draw well. Really well. She's entranced by his sketch of the ocean when her eye catches another "G" and she remembers that he's talking about her while drawing.

Hermione thought that at least there would be some kind of locking spell to prevent someone from looking in, but it’s as if Malfoy didn’t even bother because he knew no one would even dare invade his privacy.

And so, she shouldn’t—she reallyshouldn't.

She should stop while she’s still ahead.

But it'd be futile anyway because her curiosity gets the best of her. A second later, Hermione is flipping through the pages scanning for her name. She skips all the entries that don’t mention her, some semblance of her mind wanting to reserve some of Malfoy’s privacy. She barely even registers the sentences in which she is mentioned, only grazing through them briefly before moving on to the next.

—So f*cking frustrating talking to G—

—Granger doesn't understand—

—Granger thinks she knows, but gods—

—She will be the end of me—

And then there is one entry that makes her halt. It follows a passage where Malfoy lists possible solutions to Neville’s legislation Hermione had been working on. He directly references the legislation several times and she’d be astounded by that alone if she didn’t read what he’d written next.

Mother,

I think you would like her.

Yours, Draco

The her doesn’t have to be Hermione. He could be talking about anyone, she tells herself. Malfoy is more likely talking about some random witch he met in the souq than Hermione. Even though the date stamped is the day they rode the dragons together, it still does not necessarily mean her.

But put everything together—it is something Hermione cannot ignore.

Malfoy said whatever was happening between them, it didn’t mean anything. And she believed him.

He said it wasn’t real and she believed that too.

But here are his words and her name and it is so tangible and so undeniable that Hermione’s entire body shakes in confusion and disbelief. This is where she falters and holds. She thought it was just her—that she was the only one who looked. Yet, here it is, as clear as day, that it’s not just her.

Every word and every touch that has passed between them means something because Malfoy has been looking too.

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

Touch me once and I’m yours. Give me your word and you’re mine for eternity.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

Hermione places the journal down onto the car seat with cold fingers and takes two numbed steps backwards. She turns around and faces the encampment.

She needs to find him.

She needs to find him and they need to talk. She doesn’t care what he’s going to say—all she knows is that they will not be leaving until they discuss what’s going on. She’ll chain him to his tent if she has to.

Hermione scans the site.

Where is he?

There is general chaos across the encampment that she doesn’t register completely as she searches through the bodies working around. She doesn’t find him right away and makes her way to his tent instead. She waits several minutes while calling his name before she decides to poke her head into the tent—really hoping he's alone and fully clothed. But his tent is empty. And bare, as always. Feeling antsy, Hermione turns back to the encampment and looks around for him but spots another familiar head instead.

Hermione rushes after Amina as she steps inside Leena's tent, carefully swerving around the people busy working. “Where is Malfoy?”

Amina doesn’t look up from the trunks of equipment she's helping Leena pack. “Hermione, do you mind holding the other side of the trunk? We need to take it outside."

Hermione grabs the trunk and helps bring it outside. She glances around the site once more and spots Dana unloading her luggage while others manually put down their tents.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“Magic isn’t working well in this area.” Amina and Hermione set the trunk outside carefully with the other stacked luggage and the two make their way back inside the tent. “We’re packing up before dinner so we can move further somewhere the magic doesn’t keep coming in and out. It’s so frustrating since it was working an hour ago and now we have to manually take down all the tents.”

Hermione glances at the shadowed looming mountains on the south side of the desert. The expanding darkness of the night makes it difficult to ascertain their distance but for some reason, it feels as if they've come travelled to a closer distance since the last time she saw them.

“I thought we were going to turn back around because of the mountains. You said we might have taken the wrong direction.”

“Tracking is not working,” Amina explains. “We need magic back if we’re going to figure out what to do.”

Unease makes Hermione pause. “Where’s Malfoy?”

There are shouts outside that interrupt her from answering and Amina steps outside to see the frenzy. Hermione follows after her and finds half of Dana's tent collapsed.

“Damn these tents,” Amina grumbles, winding a rope around her arm and making her way to help them out. “Where would we be without magic, eh?”

“Amina—”

“Do you need help with your tent, Hermione? I can help you out right after I’m done—”

Hermione shakes her head, feeling flustered. “No, I don’t need—where did Malfoy go? I can’t find him.”

Dana frowns when they get closer. She wipes her arm across her forehead. “I didn’t sign up for this, Amina. Where are all the beautiful men you promised for the manual work?”

Amina laughs. “Believe me, Dana. I ask myself that question every—”

Something inside Hermione snaps. She grabs Amina’s hand and pulls her so she can face her. Her voice comes out harsher than she means to. “Where is Draco, Amina? I need to speak to him.”

Amina halts in confusion. She blinks before answering, “I sent him with Idris to scout for another place for us to stay the night. Idris said that if move further east we might be able to find an area with functioning magic.”

She lets go. Her bones unlock. “When did they leave?”

“An hour ago.”

Hermione forces herself to breathe. "Magic isn't working at all?"

"New spells can't be cast right now but it looks like all the magic from before is still working."

Hermione just nods, her mind already distracted.

“Is everything, okay? With Draco?” Amina asks quietly, studying Hermione closely. “You look—”

“Yes, sorry—everything is okay.” Hermione steps away. “I just needed to speak to him but it can wait.”

“Are you sure you don’t need my help?” Amina calls after her but Hermione is already walking away.

She steps into her tent and stands stiffly in the middle. The growing noise mutes when her curtain falls back in place and her transfigured candles light up weakly with her presence.

Still, it's not nearly enough to see clearly.

“Lumos,” she whispers.

Her wand lights up for a few seconds but flickers and disappears.

She sighs, feeling exhausted. Although they’d just arrived this morning, Hermione unpacked everything as was her routine. Without magic, it’ll take longer to put everything back and the idea of lifting a single limb is too much to bear.

This is fine, she tells herself. Everything is just fine.

Hermione walks to her bed to start packing the pillows and blankets there. She drags her trunk to the side of her bed and opens it. She places her wand on her side drawer and starts packing. The movements are mindless as she works, but her mind is both blank and roaring with noise. Now that he isn’t here, and she can’t talk to him anymore, she feels lost. And irritated with herself.

What was she even thinking—looking for him without having a set plan in mind? Talking to Malfoy was not a blind approach. Words needed to be thought out and explicitly arranged into the correct sentences that articulated what she needed to say, without causing an uproar in emotions—her emotions, in particular.

She hadn’t thought of what exactly it was that she needed to say to him or what had to be done when she found him. All she knew was that she needed to talk to Malfoy. About what, she wasn’t sure. Or rather she knew what she wanted to say but didn’t know how exactly to bring it up.

She can’t bring up his journal—there’s simply no coming back from reading something private of his. She doesn’t think Malfoy would care much about her appreciation of his sketches. Thus, she’ll need to approach the topic in some other way.

What exactly does she even need to say to him?

What does she want him to admit? And does Hermione even know what she wants?

She can’t go up to him and ask what he’s feeling if she isn’t sure what her own desires and needs are.

Hermione sighs and plops herself onto her bed. She puts her head in her hands and closes her eyes.

What does she want from Malfoy?

She doesn’t know.

But there is something between them. Something that has changed from before that she cannot ignore. They’ll have to go home soon and the thought of pretending she never met Malfoy is frankly unbearable. She won’t be able to do it and it's an affirmation that needs no convincing. And perhaps, Malfoy feels something similar and this is something they can talk about. Or at least acknowledge. Eventually, they can come to a conclusion on the next steps and move on together.

That sounds like a plan.

Something rolls off her side drawer with a rattle and falls to the ground. Hermione cants her head in her hands and looks at her wand lying beside her trunk. She reaches down to pick it up and places it back on the table. It slides back down over the edge and onto the ground.

Wand in hand, she stares at the drawer with a frown. A few seconds pass and then there—a quiver so brief in the carved wood, she would have missed it completely if the wand hadn’t fallen.

The clench of her brows deepens as she rests a palm on the table, and feels the change in the steady thrum of the desert’s heart to a quickened pace. She withdraws her hand from the table but the pulse remains beneath her feet, growing within the layers of the ground before echoing in her own heart.

Something is not right.

She can feel it in her bones—the tilt in the stilled balance of the air.

The thought makes her stand, wand in hand, and step out of her tent. The chatter is just as clear, just as disorganized and oblivious as before to the slow tick, tick, tick, under Hermione’s skin.

A cold, harsh breeze blows through the encampment and Hermione shields her eyes from the dust as sand scraps against her face. When it settles, she turns to the southern sky. Dusk is replaced by the final cover of darkness and she searches for the forsaken lights but freezes instead at what she sees.

The lights are not there.

She stares and stares, waiting for them to reappear but no matter how many times she blinks, how many seconds are past just like this for Hermione, the scene remains unchanged. Where she thought she would feel relief, she feels dread instead. The chorus of something is not right only grows in her mind.

She squints into the distance—trying to understand what exactly is unfurling in front of her eyes. The curved sand dunes that emerged further away seem to have grown larger and wider to cut off a significant portion of the night sky. Neither the stars nor the lights are visible. She slides her gaze to either side of the dunes and notices the stars reappear and that’s when the panic sets in. That’s when the realization of exactly what she's seeing floods Hermione’s veins.

She feels all blood drain from her body, leaving her cold and numb. Turning away from the sight with her head ducked low, Hermione releases a single breath before walking to where she last saw Amina. Amina steps out of Leena’s tent right on time and frowns at the speed with which Hermione makes her way to her.

“Hermione, what—”

“Those are not mountains,” Hermione gasps in Amina’s ear.

Amina stiffens, pulling away to look at Hermione’s face. “What are you talking about?”

Hermione turns Amina by her shoulders to the southern sky. Another breath of wind sweeps through the site, lifting and scattering dust, but Hermione doesn’t dare close her eyes. Gone still are the lights and the stars. It's real.

“It’s a storm,” Hermione breathes, heart in throat, as she watches the gathering darkness grow, wiping out the stars. “A sandstorm heading towards us.”

Amina pales as she pulls her wide-eyed gaze away and to Hermione.

“A sandstorm,” she repeats, a look of utter dismay on her face. “Are you sure?”

The evidence is clear on the horizon, but she knows Amina needs something more.

Hermione's lips are parched, her throat is dry. She croaks, “It’s getting bigger. We need to secure the tents and take cover.”

Amina nods slowly at the words and scans the encampment with empty eyes. Out of the nine tents, only four remain upright. Other than that, all the heavy equipment, their maps and records, and the trunks just lying around...everything needs to be taken to a safe space before it undoubtedly gets destroyed by the storm.

Hermione takes in the stark disbelief on Amina’s face and grips tightly before shaking her once by her shoulders.

“Amina,” Hermione snaps sharply. Amina jumps under her fingers, some of the fog disappearing from her eyes. “We need to move now. ”

And it's like a curtain being lifted because Amina nods and steps away. A single inhaled breath is all she needs before she turns to face the others.

“Everyone, stop!” she calls out, voice clear across the noise. Hands stop their tasks, heads turn in confusion. “A storm is coming! Everyone secure the tents and take cover now!” Hushed murmurs take over the chatter but no one moves. “Now!” Amina yells, hands clapping. The sharp noise slices through the haze and then everyone is moving.

Hermione peels her eyes away from the storm and startles when she realizes Amina is already moving away. She rushes after her. “Amina! Amina, we have to warn Malfoy and Idris!”

“They’ll know themselves, Hermione,” Amina replies, grabbing onto the chairs around the firepit.

“You didn’t know,” Hermione points out, “how could they? We need to send a Patronus or go after them, Amina. We can’t just leave them out there unaware of what's happening!”

Amina pauses to put a chair back down. She waves her wand. “Expecto Patronum.”

A wisp of silvery glow spreads out of her wand and a crack of relief at the magic opens in Hermione’s chest. But then the light's sucked back into the wand and Hermione’s heart sinks.

Amina meets her eyes with clear sadness. “We’ll have to wait for them, Hermione. There is nothing we can do right now.”

Amina touches Hermione’s arm with a final squeeze and walks away with the chair, leaving her rooted to where she stands. Her eyes fall to the ground where the sand particles quiver and tremble with the ground before lifting to the scene unfolding around her. The folded tents are dragged into the remaining upright tents being secured with ropes. Tony runs to Amina, whispering something in her ear that only seems to worsen the concern on her face. Amina's desolate eyes flick across the tents to briefly settle on Hermione. She tries to convey the conclusion she's come to without words and Hermione understands immediately.

She knows with resounding certainty that it's not enough.

Nothing they will do without magic will be enough.

Dazed, Hermione walks to the edge of the campsite and grips her wand in a clenched fist before raising her hands skyward.

Her hands shake but she pushes her shoulders back. Tries to control the fear in her voice.

“Fianto Duri. Imperturbabilis. Protego Maxima,” she murmurs.

Spells drip off her tongue with an ease of familiarity. Again, a sliver of magic swirls out of her wand. Hermione watches the reflection of the spell creep out toward the skyline. But a second later, it disappears.

She doesn’t falter.

“Fianto Duri. Imperturbabilis. Protego Maxima.”

Someone steps up beside her and Hermione turns her head for a brief moment to see Leena raising her wand and repeating Hermione’s incantations. Hermione turns back around and straightens her arms. With their combined magic, a brief shield appears, expanding to both sides. But then there’s a crack and the shield crumbles entirely.

“It’s the air. It’s not allowing the magic to stick,” Leena says quietly. She glances at Hermione. “Perhaps the area is too large? Maybe we should just focus on the tents alone.”

Hermione simply nods, not trusting herself to speak with the panic contracting her throat.

“It's moving slowly for a storm,” Leena says after a few seconds when neither of them moves.

“Have you seen something like this before?” Hermione manages to ask.

Leena’s lips twist in thought. “I’ve faced storms before.”

She slides a side-long glance. “But have you ever seen one like this?”

It's several moments where it looks like Leena might not answer—does not want to answer for fear that what she'll say might seal their fate of what's to happen.

But then, at last, her response comes: “No.”

The word falls deep in Hermione’s stomach, growing and festering there like an old wound.

Still, there's hope in her words when Hermione asks, “But will we be okay, Leena?”

“We’ve prepared for this,” Leena replies instead of answering, not meeting Hermione’s eyes. There’s a surety in her response that Hermione isn’t sure who it’s directed to. “We were aware of previous cases of storms and so we ensured equipment to secure the tents.”

“Will they work without magic?”

Leena hesitates. “We will be okay, Hermione.”

And Hermione would have believed her— would have pretended to not notice the faltering look on her face—if Leena hadn't cast her gaze back to the night sky and whispered something under her breath that sounded too much like a prayer. If she hadn't heard the notes of pleas that felt like the final nail in the coffin.

Leena makes move toward one of the tents but turns back when Hermione stays, her eyes now fixated east.

“Hermione?”

“They should have been back by now,” Hermione whispers. “Why aren’t they back?”

She swallows the stone in her throat and turns her gaze to the trucks.

Leena comes up beside her. “What?”

“Where are the keys to the trucks?” Hermione asks, looking back east.

Leena starts shaking her head. “Hermione, no. They will come, believe me. They will know what is happening and they will come."

"They don't know Leena—"

"My darling, there is nothing you can do.”

“They don’t know!” Hermione repeats urgently, voice rising. “No one would have known if I hadn’t pointed it out.”

“You can’t—”

“I’m going to go, whether you want me to or not, Leena,” she grits out. Leena’s eyes widen at the look on Hermione's face. “But, it’ll be faster if you help me.”

She hesitates for a mere second—searching Hermione’s face for a way to stop her—before sighing. “They’re in Tony’s tent. We’re placing all the chairs there—”

Hermione is already running.

She spots Tony dragging a chair into a tent further north of the campsite and increases her speed to reach it before him.

She enters, feeling blind and disoriented, swirling around trying to look for keys. The tent, smaller than Hermione’s, is cluttered with chairs and equipment. Tony’s furniture is pushed to one side to allow some room for the growing pile inside the tent and Hermione clambers her way through the mess to get to the drawers. She yanks them open haphazardly, the items clanking loudly around, and starts digging through his things. When the last drawer is checked, she moves to his bags, pausing for just a second, before scrummaging through its contents. She lets out an angry growl when she can't find the keys.

There’s a shuffle behind her and then, “Hermione?”

Hermione whirls around, hand deep in Tony’s bag.

Tony stands at the entrance of his tent, a frown on his lips as his eyes drop to his bag in her hands before lifting to her face. He asks, slowly, “What are you doing, Hermione?”

Hermione drops the bag. “I need the key to one of the trucks.”

Confusion flashes across his face. He carefully sets the chair down and straightens to his full height. “And where are you going?”

Hermione lifts her chin. “I need to go get Idris. And Draco.”

“They will come themselves,” he replies immediately, taking a step forward. There’s a jingle with the move and Hermione’s eyes lock with the keys swinging on a ring at his hip. “You cannot go after them.”

“They don’t know about the storm,” she tells him simply.

“They will find out.”

“It’ll be too late.”

She doesn’t even want to think about what will happen if it’s too late.

“Then you will hurt yourself as well.”

Hermione takes a step forward—her restraint wavering. She says through clenched teeth, “I’ll take my chances. I need the key, Tony.”

“I’m not going to—” He stops talking when Hermione points her wand at him. Betrayal fills his eyes, but it vanishes right away. “The magic isn’t working.”

“Accio keys,” Hermione says steadily.

Tony’s hand instantly drops to the ring at his hip, but it doesn't move.

The spell doesn’t work.

She wants to scream but instead, she lowers her wand. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

Tony eyes her warily but exhales with relief when she tucks her wand into her pocket.

He reaches for the chair again, a sad, knowing smile on his lips. “It is best this way, Hermione. I know you are worried but we will wait for them to come. They will be here, you will see.”

Hermione nods, returning his smile. She walks to the entrance of the tent, passing him. “Are there more chairs?”

“Yes, just two more—”

Hermione yanks the ring off his belt.

Tony grunts in surprise, stumbling back by the sudden force and just catching himself with the chair.

“I’m sorry—I’m really sorry,” Hermione breathes, clutching the keys to her chest. “But I can’t leave him there.”

She spins and runs out of the tent.

Tony calls after her but she’s already sprinting toward one of the trucks, not looking back. The wind has picked up and sand blows harshly against her face but still, Hermione doesn’t stop until she gets to one of the trucks. She pulls open the doors and jumps into the seat, slamming it shut behind her. Her heart pounds with such intensity, she cannot breathe or even see clearly. Her hands shaking, Hermione drops the key under the wheel. She lets out a cry, patting her hand blindly under the seat. When she stumbles into a jagged edge, she quickly picks them up and juts a random key into the ignition.

Her cry becomes a sob when it turns out to be the wrong one.

“Hermione!” Amina pounds her fist on the window.

Hermione jolts, her entire body on an edge. Without a single glance at Amina, Hermione quickly locks the doors and tries another key. It gets stuck halfway and she goes through two more rounds when finally, she manages to get the correct key in and starts the car.

“Hermione, please! It’s too dangerous!”

Amina slams her fist one last time as Hermione pulls the gear and presses her foot down on the accelerator. It’s too quick and the car sprints forward uncontrolled and passes Amina. When the car swerves in a circle, Hermione tries to reorient the wheels. But she ends up switching her foot to the brake pedal a little too quickly and slams into the wheel.

Silence, despite the noise outside, fills the car.

Hermione pushes herself off, her chest throbbing painfully, and rests her forehead against the wheel. She closes her eyes and tries to catch her breath. She doesn’t know what she's doing. She has no clue how to drive a car. She’s only driven a car once and that too for just a half-hour before her father got too spooked by her driving.

She'll hurt herself before she gets to them.

It doesn’t matter, she tells herself, clenching the wheel with white knuckles. You have to move east. You have to find him.

Hermione inhales a trembling breath through her nose and sits up straight.

She looks through the crooked rearview mirror and sees nothing but darkness. Amina's silhouette has disappeared.

Swallowing through the cold stone in her throat, Hermione fixes the angle of the mirror and looks straight ahead but again all she sees is darkness.

With frigid fingers, Hermione pulls on her seat belt and fumbles with the knobs until she finds one that turns the headlights on. Without second-guessing herself, she pushes down on the accelerator and increases the speed slowly. When it looks like she has the truck under control she slams her feet down and drives east.

Wind howling, the sand scatters across the windshields, barring her vision. Hermione blindly pushes and pulls on random car controls and activates the wind wipers. She manages some control of the direction but the sand is too slippery under the wheels and the wind is picking up, causing the car to skid and forcing Hermione to yank the wheel in the opposite direction every time.

Panic bubbles into hysteria and she needs to bite her tongue to ground herself.

East. She needs to drive east.

The roar in her ears thrashes when she realizes they could be anywhere but east by now. Perhaps they’re already back at the campsite and all this will be for nothing and then she’ll be the one who ends up dead in the middle of the desert when no one comes to look for her. The thought of dying alone makes her bones rattle and her stomach lurch. She doesn’t want to die, but she also cannot leave Malfoy behind. Cannot even entertain the thought of him being alone. Hermione keeps driving, refusing to stop in case they're still out there.

The intensity of the wind blinds her for a second but then two rings of light appear somewhere amongst the dust and Hermione gasps, relief breaking through her chest. Hermione swerves in the direction of the lights and slams down on the brake when she sees Idris.

Idris jumps out of his truck but her eyes are already searching for Malfoy.

Hermione slams the door behind her and shouts over the wind, “Where is Draco?”

“I don’t know!” Idris yells back, yanking his scarf down his face. “Our truck got stuck in the sand and he got out to push it. But when it started and I got out to look for him, I lost him!”

Hermione stares at him incredulously. “What do you mean you lost him? Where did he go?”

Idris shakes his head gravely. “I don’t know! He was behind the truck but when I came out, he disappeared into the dark! I’ve been trying to look for him!”

Hermione runs a shaking hand across her face to push back her hair. “Okay—we will find him—it’s okay! There’s a storm coming so we need to hurry but he’s out there and—”

“My truck is running out of fuel,” Idris cuts in, eyes wide. He locks his anxious gaze with Hermione and the familiar look—a look Hermione had known so well during the war—makes her pause.

For the second time, she's able to understand without the words being said.

He can’t stay here and help her because the thought of dying is too severe for him to help someone else. And the idea of admitting it out loud is too shameful.

He can’t do it but she has to be the one to let him go.

Hermione licks her dry lips. Sand particles grate across her tongue. “Okay…I understand. You need to go back to the site and I will look for him.”

Relief surges in his eyes. Idris opens his mouth to say something—a thank you or a feeble attempt to convince her to go with him—but Hermione is already turning around.

“Wait!”

Hermione stops. Idris comes in front of her and takes the scarf off to wrap it around Hermione’s neck. “Take this, please.”

Hermione nods and runs back to her truck without another word. She closes her eyes when Idris drives past her and takes a second to take another breath before turning the key into the ignition.

There is just a small area of space in front of her illuminated by the headlights but the darkness of the night, mixed with the blowing sand, makes it difficult for her to see where she's driving.

Her entire body shakes with fear and her teeth chatter as she whispers, “Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?”

It’s harder looking for a body in the night compared to an entire truck and the horrifying thought that she might never find Malfoy briefly flashes across her mind but she banishes it away immediately.

He is alive and he is fine.

He has to be fine. And he has to be alive.

Because if he isn’t any of those things then Hermione won’t be able to handle it. If anything happens, she’ll—

A shadowed figure jumps across the truck and Hermione slams against the brakes. The seat belt around her whips brutally across her chest but Hermione is already snapping out of its confines and jumping out of the truck.

There’s a shock of white and it’s enough of a confirmation for Hermione to lurch herself toward the figure.

Malfoy trips back at the force. “Granger?" He tries to pull himself away but Hermione tightens her hold around him. "Granger, what the f*ck?”

“Oh God,” she cries into his neck, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the pressure building behind them. “I thought I wasn’t going to find you! I thought—”

“What the hell are you doing here, Granger?” Malfoy struggles out of her grip, pulling his arms out of her hold to squeeze her face within the palms of his hands. She doesn’t know whether it's his hands that are shaking against her face or if he’s the one shaking her head. She blinks when sand flies against her face. “Why are you here?”

Hermione stares into his pale, sand-stained face, his wide eyes. Sees the fear that he’s trying to pretend isn’t there. “I came for you!”

“I didn’t need you!” he yells, anger piercing his eyes. The viciousness of his words is soothed only by the fact he’s wrapping the scarf around Hermione’s neck to cover her head and the lower part of her face. His own scarf has been whipped back from the wind and hangs loosely around his neck.

“I had to tell you—it’s not mountains, it’s—”

“A storm, I know!” he growls. “Why the f*ck did you come then, if you knew how dangerous it was? Why would you risk—”

Hermione pulls away. “We have to go. Idris has already gone back—”

“—coming looking for us when you know a storm—”

Hermione whirls around to run. “We have to leave now, Malfoy!”

“So utterly stupid—”

His words are cut off when Hermione slams the door close. When he jumps into the passenger seat, he opens his mouth to continue but stops, following Hermione’s gaze out of the windshield. The storm that had looked so far, is less than a mile away now from where they’re sitting. In the darkness, it merely looks like a shroud being pulled over the stars, winking them out one by one. Hermione squints and realizes there is a gust of wind arriving first, pulling the sand close behind. And the way they’ll be driving across the width of the storm as it arrives...they’ll be drowned in the sand in minutes.

“Maybe we should just stay inside the car,” she says quietly, a quiver in her voice. The wind bellows outside, pushing and shoving against the truck. “We could wait it out here.”

“It’s too strong. It’ll tip us over or cover us in sand—we have to go now.” He uses his scarf to wipe off the sand on his face, his hair. He releases a short breath, the only sign of his hesitancy. “Ready?”

Hermione can’t look at him. Can't show the fear stark across her face to him. Instead, she starts the truck and doesn’t think twice before slamming her foot on the accelerator pedal. The car roars as it speeds down across the sand. Nausea builds up at the back of her throat at the sheer fear twisting her stomach but Hermione doesn’t remove her foot.

“Just keep your eyes ahead,” Malfoy says. He also turns his head away from the storm arriving on his side. “Don’t look anywhere else.”

Hermione jerks her head in a nod. Her chest heaves with each heavy breath she pants. Her arms start to ache and burn with the sheer pressure of trying to control the car against the shrieking wind. She tries to remain fixated on the road ahead but from the corner of her eyes, she can spot the dizzying whirlwind.

“Malfoy…” she breathes shakily.

“It’s okay,” he replies quietly. “Just look ahead. You’re doing good, Granger.”

She lets out a yelp when a gust of sand shoves against Malfoy’s side of the car and she’s pushed into her window.

“You have to go faster!” Malfoy shouts over the roar, yanking her back towards him to straighten her.

“I’m trying!” Hermione flattens her foot and a red bead of light pops out near the rev control. Hermione flicks her eyes to the caution sign beeping in the corner before increasing the speed again. She darts her gaze to the front once more.

Don't look and you'll be okay.

Don't look, don't look, don't look.

Somewhere in the distance in the sky, she sees a swirled curve of what looks like a shield. The light from the glowing orb casts enough brightness for her to see the pointed tips of tents.

“It’s working!” Hermione exclaims. Relief is as palpable as coming up for air. “The magic is working again!”

But the contrast of the light ahead causes the darkness in the corner of her eyes to grow and Hermione shifts her head—

“Don’t Granger!”

Hermione glances at the storm and gasps. The wheel wavers and falters, skidding the car to the left before Hermione controls it to the right. She cries out when another gust of wind bangs into them, tipping the truck onto its side wheels. She pulls the wheel to the left and the truck slams back onto the ground. Hermione and Malfoy slam in their seats with such force that Hermione's brain rattles in its skull and tastes blood.

It takes a second to reorient herself and then she's maneuvering the truck once more toward the growing shield. But the mixture of the acceleration with the wind forces the truck to lurch to the side once more—

Malfoy tries to help pull the wheel back but, it’s futile because the entire truck is lifted off the ground momentarily and Hermione is yelling, crying out loud—has one thought through the roar in her head: I don’t want to die.

Their shouts are swallowed whole by the chaotic wind as the truck flips. Acutely, Hermione is aware of hands grabbing her but she feels her entire body upend when they finally land into darkness.

All breath is knocked out of her.

The roar in her brain is replaced with silence.

She thinks this must be death.

She can't feel anything, which she supposes is the nice thing about death. And it's so quiet except for—

“Granger!”

There's an incessant ringing in her ears. Her eyes flutter close and white spots scatter across her vision.

“Granger! Come on!”

Hermione frowns at the voice and looks up. Malfoy peers down at her, arm stretched out through his opened door. She can’t see much of his face other than his eyes through the scarf around his head. The world is slanted wrong and when she glances around, she realizes the truck is turned to its side. They've fallen into a sand dune.

And they're not dead.

Somehow, they're not dead.

She coughs and a spurt of dust forms in front of her face. She blinks through the haze and lifts her eyes to Malfoy once more.

Night billows behind him and still she can make out his silver eyes. There's an urgency in them mixed with what can only be fear. Fear for her, it seems.

“Come on, Granger! We have to go!”

She nods slowly, unstrapping herself from the seat. Her limbs hurt but she doesn't think she's bleeding. And that too is a miracle. Hermione stretches her arm toward his, her muscles protesting at the movement. Malfoy wraps his hand around hers and pulls her up through the opened door. There’s a bruise forming somewhere on her left side that makes her wince as she crawls out of the truck.

The second she steps out, he waves his wand around them.

“Protego Maxima!”

Nothing happens at first, of course. Sand slashes against their bodies like a hundred knives and Hermione's knees buckle.

Malfoy tries again and there is just a flicker.

“Protego Maxima!” he yells, and finally, finally, a small shield forms around their bodies.

The sand slams into the shield and falls to the ground without touching them. The screaming wind remains but also doesn't touch their skin.

Malfoy grips the sides of her face again. The disbelief in his eyes over the fact that the spell worked matches the surprise in hers. Although the ringing is gone from her ear, she isn’t sure if he’s shouting or whispering when he says, “Are you all right?”

His voice is scratchy and pulls against his throat when he speaks. When she doesn't answer right away he tugs on her head. She nods in response.

“Are you okay?” she asks hoarsely. The wind whips brutally around the shield. It might be able to stop the sand from touching them but the strength of the wind with the still weak magic is enough to slam against the shield with a force that transfers to them. She doesn’t even think he’s heard her over the noise, but Malfoy’s grip tightens around her face as she sways when the shield pushes into them.

The sudden jerk of her body brings back the flood of emotions before the crash and Hermione’s breath kicks in as hysteria edges around her vision again. Malfoy calls her name but all she can think is that they almost died and will probably die now anyway. She gasps for breath, wheezing through the bruises. Panic constricts her ribs and shrivels her lungs and she just cannot breathe.

It's too similar to the war—this feeling she'll die any second. The wind shrieks like the screams of the dying and she can hear wands breaking, bones breaking, her mind breaking. She can't do it again, she won't be able to survive this time—

“You need to Occlude, Granger," Malfoy says as she closes her eyes to succumb to the perils. "Look at me, Granger!"

Hermione looks at him.

"Can you Occlude?” She tries to shift her head to see how far the storm is, but Malfoy yanks her back to face him. “Don’t look. Just keep your eyes on me."

Hermione nods, but doesn't say anything.

"I need you to Occlude, okay?”

Hermione stares and stares at him, forcing her brain to string together the words he’s saying. He wants her to Occlude. The hollow tension in his own eyes makes her wonder if he’s already Occluding. But the idea of thinking of an ocean is so far-fetched that she’s already shaking her head.

“Please,” he says, eyes digging into hers and making her still. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him say that word like that before. “I need you to try.”

Hermione closes her eyes. Tries to calm her raging heart and focus on his touch around her face. He stumbles into her slightly, pushing her back against the truck when the wind slams into him but still his grip remains steady. She brings up the house, walks down the hallways and the staircase. The cries of the wind transform into the hum of the ocean. Down, down, down the hallway, the stairs, the hallway, then the stairs. She keeps walking until finally, she’s so far within the crevices of the glasshouse that every sound around her becomes a distant echo in a faraway land. Hermione opens her eyes and Malfoy must have seen something in them because he lets go of his hold around her head and grasps her hand instead.

And then they’re running.

They’re sprinting—blindly in the darkness of the night.

At first, it’s like running with a new limb. They stagger and stumble against the wind and the sand under their feet, slowing and dragging each other as the shield flickers. But then they find a rhythm that works and the thundering of their steps aligns with each other.

Hermione isn’t aware of anything except Malfoy’s hand in hers and that they’re running somewhere. She doesn’t know where they’re going either. Just trusts Malfoy enough to know he’s leading them somewhere that has to be safe. Knows enough that somewhere on her left there is a storm. Somewhere in front of her, there are tents. And the strength in her hand belongs to him.

When she trips it’s like missing a step and never touching the ground because Malfoy has her up by the waist again, his hand still never leaving hers. It feels like her fingers are breaking in the clutch he has her in, but the pain too is detached from her actual body—floating with the other sensations that belong to the Hermione still in her house.

Hermione walks and walks around her house, listening to the ocean far away. She tests the doorknobs to make sure they're secure and goes down, down, down the hallways.

There’s a brief awareness where she recognizes the shadows of what looks like trucks and she realizes they’ve made it to the encampment site. Hermione squints through the sand and notices some of the upright tents further down.

Malfoy’s about to drag her into one of the tents that are still upright when Hermione raises her other hand around her neck to clutch onto her necklace for stability.

She freezes when her hand finds empty skin.

Her glass house shatters into pieces and Hermione gasps, all sounds and sensations coming back to her at once.

“No!" Hermione cries. She yanks her hand out of its vise and spins to the darkness. "No, no, no!”

“Granger!”

But Hermione is already stepping away from him, eyes jumping across the sand. Tears well up in her eyes when she finds nothing.

“Whatare you doing?” Malfoy growls in her ear, turning her around.

“My necklace!" she gasps. "I have to find my necklace!”

Incredulity twists his face. “f*ck your necklace, Granger!”

“No!” She tries to pull away from him, but he tugs her back, vicious anger in his eyes. Now that she isn’t Occluding, all her panic seeps back into her veins and the singular thought that she needs to find the necklace floods her brain. Maybe she went too far deep into her mind because mania threatens to break through her resolve now that she's out.

“Get in the damn tent, Granger!”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t realize.

She can’t leave the necklace behind—it’s all she has of him.

“You go in the tent!”

Her arm twists painfully in its socket as she pulls against his grip, and struggles to turn back around. She digs her feet into the sand but ends up slamming into his chest when he takes one step forward.

Malfoy brings his face close to hers and for a moment she feels fear for a reason other than the storm. “If you don’t go right now, Granger, I swear on my f*cking life, I’ll drag you by your hair! Get in the damn—”

Tears fall down her cheek and Malfoy’s glare narrows to the water filling the rims of her eyes. His face only twists further into angry angles. She’s not thinking rationally. She’s perhaps not thinking at all, other than a singular thought about her necklace. Desperation clings to her bones as she tries to convey to him the importance of the necklace.

“You don’t understand —”

“I don’t care! f*cking get in now! ”

Their shield seizes against the sand but Hermione drags herself in the direction opposite to the one he’s determined to take her in. “No! Please —”

She cries out in surprise when Malfoy swipes her off her feet, and hurtles her over his shoulder. He turns around just as she tries to push herself off. Her shoes slam against his chest in the attempt to jump off and he grunts, but doesn't let go. His fingers clench into her thighs as his arm tightens further around her waist.

“Malfoy, I need to find—”

Malfoy rips apart the curtain of the tent and dumps her in the center. He’s not gentle with how he handles her and she finds herself not caring, or even noticing. She’s too distraught to think of how he’s feeling at the moment. Hermione stumbles back briefly before stepping toward him.

“My necklace—”

“I’ll find your damn necklace, Granger,” he snarls, glaring at her. “Stay here.”

Like hell she’ll stay here with him back outside.

She opens her mouth to argue, but before she can say another word, Malfoy’s gone. The curtain glows as a seal is placed around it.

Hermione stares at the spot he left behind, stunned.

She swipes the wetness from her cheek and swallows the dryness in her throat. Inch by inch the anxiety dissipates from her body. Now that the hysteria is slowly being sucked out, every part of her feels like lead, weighing her down. She turns around slowly to scan the tent and immediately recognizes who it belongs to.

All of Malfoy’s belongings are pushed haphazardly to the side to make room for equipment that is stacked around the tent. She wonders why this tent was left without people and a sinking, terrifying thought enters her mind that perhaps not everyone was able to enter the tents. She hopes with all her heart that the other remaining tents are full. Guilt gnaws at her stomach and she turns back to the curtain.

She splays her fingers against her throat as horrification grows in her chest.

What has she done?

How could she have let him go for a damn necklace that will mean nothing if he never came back?

Hermione tries to breathe through a new set of anxiety. She watches the curtain for his return but the seconds turn painfully into minutes and Hermione thinks she’ll die if he doesn’t come back right now.

This is all her fault. Everything is entirely her fault and if he gets hurt because of her— she’ll never forgive herself.

Every breath is laboured through her broken lungs and she clutches to her side, the bruise that is there and closes her heavy-lidded eyes. She’ll combust any second into sand and dust with the excruciating force of every breath she’s trying to inhale. Hermione’s about to fall to the ground just so she has something to lie on when the curtain finally parts.

Hermione gasps as Malfoy steps in, ducking his head through the tent. She almost bursts into tears at the sight of him and takes a step to get close, to touch him and make sure he's okay.

“Malfoy! Are you okay—”

Malfoy drops the necklace onto the ground in front of her. It falls with a hollow thud between them. Hermione waits for relief at the sight but instead, the guilt only seems to grow. His eyes remain on the necklace for just seconds before lifting his gaze to Hermione.

Though she can’t see anything else on his face, the look in his eyes, the razor-sharp slits of his eyes, is enough to know that he is furious. She can't even take a step toward him, let alone touch him like this.

Hermione takes one shaky breath to say, “I’m sorry about the necklace. I—”

“I don’t give a f*ck about your necklace,” Malfoy interrupts. His voice is traced with the quiet rage of an impending storm. “What thehell were you thinking?”

Hermione wishes there was something she could do to make him lose the rigidity of his stance. It’s as if he’s purposely standing far away so she can't come close.

“What?”

His eyes narrow. “What the hell were you thinking coming after us?”

Hermione blinks in confusion. “There…there was a storm and—and you and Idris were taking too long to come back.”

Malfoy takes a step and Hermione’s eyes drop to the closing distance between them. “If there was a storm why did you come?”

“I had to warn you and Idris.”

“And they sent you to warn us?”

Hermione shakes her head. “No. I was told not to go.”

“Why?”

Her heart is still pounding and she doesn’t know what answers he’s looking for but the longer she stands in front of him, the more she feels out of control. “Because it was too dangerous.”

Malfoy nods as if he was expecting that answer. “Did you not stop once to think that we could have figured it out on our own?”

“I couldn’t risk it,” she breathes.

Malfoy cants his head, a move so predatory that Hermione freezes like a deer in headlights.

“Why?” he repeats.

“You could have gotten hurt.”

“Me or Idris?”

“Both of you.”

“Why didn’t you go back when you found Idris?”

Hermione frowns at the question. “I couldn’t leave you there, Malfoy.”

Malfoy stares at her and every part of Hermione’s body stiffens in the awareness of his gaze. The wind rustles outside— the only sound in the seconds that pass in the tent.

He lets out a short, humourless laugh. Shakes his head as he flicks his gaze at the things around him, lifts his eyes to the top of the tent as if to find answers there, before settling on her once more.

“You are so f*cking stupid,” he says plainly.

Hermione's lips part. “What?”

The sound of his voice rises. “What the f*ck is your damn problem? What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t understand—”

“No one told you to act like a f*cking saviour!” he yells. “No one told you to come after us!”

Hermione’s confusion dissolves into indignation. “I wasn’t acting like a saviour—”

“You were! You f*cking were! You didn’t stop once to think what could have happened if you hadn’t found us!”

“I wouldn’t have gone back without you and Idris! You two needed the help—I was fine!”

Malfoy growls impatiently, “You and your f*cking Gryffindor tendencies to save everyone even when you’re not wanted—”

“Malfoy!”

Malfoy juts a finger at her. “It was dangerous and you were alone! You would have f*cking died in that storm because no one would have come looking for you, Granger! I didn’t know you were coming so I couldn’t have come for—”

“I didn’t need to be saved, Malfoy!” she retorts, glaring at his finger and then at him. She can’t believe hisaudacityto flip this around on her. “I was trying to helpyou—”

“Nobody needed your damn help—”

“You certainly did!” she snaps, ignoring the sting of his words. She didn’t expect him to be thankful, but she also didn’t want him to be this angry at her for coming after him. What had he expected? For her to stay back and pretend everything was okay, even though he was out there? For her to pray for his safe return? She was falling apart at the seams the longer she stayed behind at the encampment.

“You were alone and Idris was going to leave you behind! Even if you two knew it was a storm, in the end, it did not matter because you were alone!”

“Why the f*ck does that matter if I was left behind? That still doesn’t mean you had to come after me! You should have left with Idris when you found him!”

Hermione cannot believe the words she’s hearing. The ridiculous notion that he’d expect her to leave him behind. There was no way she would have left him.“I wasn’t going to leave you to die, Malfoy!”

“My life is not worth yours, Granger!”

Silence follows his words like a shadow made of cold and darkness.

Malfoy glares at her as Hermione stares back, clenching her jaw and anger brimming to the surface under her skin.

“You need to save yourself first,” he says, panting harshly. “You say you want to live—that you don’t want to die. But the minute someone else’s life is in danger, you ignore everything and put yourself in the middle. As if you don’t matter. Save yourself first because you cannot die, Granger. Do you understand?”

Hermione inches toward him, shaking her head. She doesn’t understand. She’ll never get this because she’ll never just leave him behind. It’s not something she’ll ever do to him and the sooner he gets this, the better it will be for both of them.

She raises her chin at him and musters her voice as evenly as possible to say, “No.”

“No?” he spits. He’s close enough now that she could stretch her arm and graze the tips of her fingers against his chest. His cold, grey eyes blaze with a murderous glare. “What do you mean no?”

“I don’t understand,” she clarifies, feeling reckless enough to spite him. “I don’t understand a single thing you’re saying because I’m not ever going to leave you behind.”

Malfoy steps into her, forcing her to take a step backwards until the back of her knees stumble into a piece of furniture behind her. “Why?” he asks, breathlessly. His eyes bore into hers. “Why can’t you leave me, Granger?”

“Because you’re always horrible and miserable,” she replies, her answer nonsensical. “And you think no one will come for you, but I will! I don’t care what you want or what you think will happen! It’s my life and if I want to come after you, I will! I will get to choose when I want to die and how I will die—”

“You’re so f*cking infuriating!” he snarls. “That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“And you’re an annoying and ungrateful arsehole! I saved your life and you can’t even say a single thank you, Granger?”

“f*ck you, Granger,” he whispers and Hermione clamps her mouth shut. Not because of his words but because of the burning intensity in his eyes that sears into her. They’re both breathing so hard, chests heaving, lungs expanding, as they exhale and inhale together.

“Yeah,” Hermione says, swallowing hard at the sight of his eyes darkening. “You too, Malfoy.”

And she doesn’t know how it happens.

Who steps in first and closes the distance between them or who pulls the scarf off their face first. But she inhales half a breath, less than a second, and his lips are on hers.

Her gasp is breathed in by him and it’s so soft at first—this brush of their lips together—that she isn’t even sure it’s happening at all. Is convinced that she’s hallucinating the featherlight feel of his lips against hers. But it’s just another second when the kiss transforms completely and the gentleness is replaced by something more desperate and demanding.

One of Malfoy’s hands travels to her back to wrap around her and pull her against him, while his other hand goes to the side of her neck. His entire body lines the length of hers, surrounding her completely in every way, as his fingers grip the skin of her neck, splaying across the nape of her neck and into her hair. Her head spins and she’d sway from the lightness but Malfoy only tightens his hold, steadying her against him. She parts her lips to sigh a breath but Malfoy captures the short burst of air and Hermione's eyes flutter behind their closed lids.

She thinks she’ll fall apart because this isn’t real and the desperate plea for it to be real makes it hard for her to think about anything. Her heart hammers against her ribs, her pulse roaring in her ears, and it’s only when Malfoy takes her lower lip between his that she realizes that this is happening.

This is happening.

This had to happen.

Hermione runs her fingers up his chest and curls them into the fabric around his neck. His scarf falls off his head because of her. Her own scarf follows to the ground and it’s so freeing to have some of the layers between them off, so exhilarating to feel the cool air against her skin, that Hermione pulls Malfoy and kisses him back. His breath becomes sharper, quicker, as he returns the kiss with fervour. Her lips part even further and her gasp is swallowed whole once again when his tongue touches hers. There’s a jolt between them at the sudden, charged contact and the kiss becomes desperate and rushed. She feels every part of her skin touching him light on fire—spreading to her lungs, her heart, her stomach. Heat blooms there, creating a pit of ache so demanding that Hermione clings to this hair to find relief.

His hair is as soft as she remembers despite the grains of sand dusting his roots. She can’t help but rake her nails across his scalp, clutching his hair strands in a way that is sure to be painful, and arches her body against his to get closer to him. Malfoy makes a noise that sounds like a moan at the sensation of her hands in his hair and lowers his head further to allow easier access for her fingers.

He must have felt the difference in the kiss too because the arm around her back drifts lower down the notches of her spine and wraps around the curve of her waist. He edges closer until they’ve completely meshed together and rolls his hip to pin her against the back of the furniture still stuck behind her. Her own legs move to accommodate his knee that he pushes between her.

He kisses her as if clinging to his life. As if any second he’s about to topple over the edge of a cliff and fall to his death and that this kiss—this moment— is the only thing that will save him. Maybe that's exactly what's happening. He could have died and then they reached a point where they both could have died. And the fact they're both still here is so consuming that they need to be this close to each other, sharing breaths, to feel alive.

She’s never felt him this flustered, this unravelled. She wonders what he’s thinking because her mind is a chaos of noise and an overwhelming surge of synapses pulsating, and she cannot believe this is happening.

She cannot believe that he’s letting this happen.

Hermione was so completely astray before this moment. So lost and just now found because all the questions she had before are answered in this one moment.

She thinks she is drowning. That this is what it must feel like to lose all breath and fall into the abyss of the underwater—to become nothing and everything in a single breath as her lungs fill with liquid and her heart pumps ferociously to give her life. But it’s such a welcomed sensation that when Malfoy’s heated tongue darts cleverly against the inside of her lips, she curls her own around his, grazing the tips of his front teeth.

Malfoy makes a noise at the back of his throat that she feels vibrate in her mouth. She doesn’t even have a moment to gasp when suddenly he’s lifting her off the ground.

Reflexively, her legs wrap around his waist, her thighs clenching to hold on as she straddles him.

She doesn’t know what to do next. What the right move is. Because it’s all moving so fast and it’s so desperate, this hold that they have on each other, she doesn’t think they can ever stop. She’s never been kissed this wholly and truly before, nor did she ever think a kiss could ever feel this way again. There’s a hunger in his touch— like he hasn’t eaten for a hundred years or a thirst that is only found in the desert, and he sinks into her as if she can quench his need. It's too much at once and it’s not nearly enough either. She wants to get closer, deeper into him, and to never let go but she knows they’ll have to separate soon and come up for air because they’re both so far gone into each other that any second they'll lose all oxygen and fall to the floor.

Hermione lets go of her grip around his hair and runs her fingers down his neck—ghosting it across his tense shoulders before travelling further down his arm. She's never touched him like this before. Malfoy's always been the one to find reasons and excuses to find contact but Hermione has never had the chance to do the same and it's fascinating to be this close. To get this opportunity.

His muscles ripple under her touch and before she knows it, they’re moving together. He turns them, his feet moving sure and confident before her back is touching something soft. Touching his mattress.

There's a surprise in knowing she's on his bed but that too disappears as the shock of the fact that he's following her down to it takes over. His body remains attached to hers the entire time and she has less than a second to inhale before his lips her on hers again.

Her legs are still around his and he shifts so that the arm that was around her waist is removed from behind her back and to the front. Both of his hands hold the sides of her head before running into the curls at her temple and roaming into her hair. His nails cause a pleasurable tingle across her scalp that makes her eyes roll and when she shifts her body to get even closer, Malfoy’s body rocks in a mirrored response. Her surprised gasp is devoured by his mouth when she feels a hardness at her lower body.

A sigh forms in Hermione’s chest at the sensation and Malfoy lets go of her head to whisper his long fingers down the side of her body. When she twists her hips against his, rocking against the plane of his body—the hardness growing at the core of her stomach—Malfoy’s fingers constrict and pinch into her skin. But it’s the wrong part of her body because the pressure of his hand over the bruise that formed from the crash makes her cry out at the discomfort. It’s not painful and she hadn’t meant to be that loud or sudden with the sound but Malfoy, more aware than she thought him to be, freezes entirely.

The tent becomes frost— the air lowers to a chill that leaves her too-warm body shivering.

And then he’s moving away in one quick, fluid motion and Hermione is trying to bring him back to her, trying to rectify the mistake.

Malfoy stumbles back a step, out of reach of her hands. Without the scarf, she can make out his dishevelled hair that her fingers are responsible for, the red flush on his cheeks that she knows is reflected on her face too.

She must also look like a complete mess, disoriented and in disarray—not because of what’s happened but how it ended. Her lips feel bruised and she pushes herself up on the bed.

His eyes are wild and panicked. "Did I hurt—"

"No! No, you didn't," she quickly says, her voice a rasp. His head hangs and he exhales a breath. “Draco—”

Malfoy’s head snaps up. His eyes, lidded and glazed before, are sharp and clear now. In an instant, he wipes the panicked shock and confusion from his face. "Don’t.”

Hermione flinches at the harsh undertone that is such a contrast to what they’d been doing before. “Draco—”

“f*ck,” he whispers, unable to completely wash away his emotions. Malfoy’s throat bobs as he runs a rough hand through his hair. Darts his eyes once at her before looking away completely. “f*ck.”

Hermione’s breath hitches as she takes in the look of regret on his face.

“It’s okay—”

Malfoy shakes his head and turns around. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

Hermione inhales sharply. “Draco, it’s okay—” But he’s already walking away to the entrance of the tent. Hermione runs after him, the desperation of want replacing with the anguished need for him to stay. They can’t stop like this now and she won’t let him just brush aside what’s happened.

“Wait! Wait, where—where are you going? It’s too dangerous—”

“I can’t stay here—”

“Draco—”

Malfoy whirls to face her, agony a fire in his eyes. “Stop saying my name.”

Hermione's lips seal. Blood rushes like a torrent river in her ear and she needs a moment to inhale a breath before she tries again. “We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Stop saying that! What just happened—”

“Was a mistake.”

Raw hurt squeezes Hermione’s heart. Malfoy sets his jaw and looks away.

“So you’re going to deny it,” she says, hating herself for the quiver in her breath she can’t control. “You’re going to deny everything. Us.”

His own voice is weak as he says, “There is no us.”

She turns shaking hands into fists at her side. “I don’t believe you, Malfoy. I don’t believe you and I think you’re lying. What are you so afraid of?”

“You think this is all so simple—”

Malfoy shakes his head and backs away. The space between them feels like a fissure in the ground, growing and growing the further he walks away. Threatening to take Hermione into it if she doesn’t do something to fix all of this.

“Then explain it to me. I’m right here and I’m listening—”

"I can't be what you want!"

"I'm not asking for anything!" she cries desperately. "Why do we need to label anything—"

"Because you do need labels! You need to define this as something!"

"I don't—"

"You have this image of me—this—this perception that I've changed and I haven't. I'm still the same Draco Malfoy as before and you're still—"

Hermione shakes her head. "None of that matters to me! None of what happened before matters because all I care about is right now!"

"And I'm telling you that you cannot do that! Because you'll realize that you were wrong about me and you'll go home and see that I am still the same person and you'll hate yourself for all this—"

"I won't! I just want—"

"What do you want, Granger?"

Hermione opens her mouth to answer but her mind is still grappling with what’s happening she can’t figure out what to say.

“I lied, you know,” he says quietly when she says nothing. “I told you I came here because I saw your name on the list and thought you wouldn’t come.” Malfoy meets her eyes and asks, “Would you have come? If you had seen my name on the list—or if Amina told you I was coming? Would you have come if you had known I was going to be here?”

Hermione pauses, not knowing what to say once again.

But in the hesitation is her answer. She doesn’t know.

She was yearning for change but she was so incredibly scared that maybe she would have changed her mind if she saw his name. The point was to escape the people behind and he was more of her past than anyone else and perhaps that meant staying behind for her. That meant never coming so she would never have to see him. Because somewhere in the back of her mind, no matter how much she's convinced herself, there was still hesitation and fear at being around him and what he once stood for.

She's still afraid now of what it would mean for her if anyone found out that she had been with him on this trip.

What Harry or Ron or the others would think if they ever found out that she had kissed Draco Malfoy.

Hermione's face crumbles, and she wants to sob in frustration because he's right. Because she doesn't know what to say to make him believe what she feels.

Malfoy nods, a bitter look of acceptance on his face. “But I saw your name on the list and I hoped you would.”

She stills. Stops breathing.

“And now I wish you never did because this —” he says, waving a hand between them, “—this is worse than spending the rest of my life wondering what if.”

She breaks. Tears fill her eyes as he parts the curtain to the tent. There’s a storm outside but all Hermione can see, hear, is him. “Malfoy, please.”

It's her final attempt to hold on, to dig her fingers into him and make him stay. She knows if he leaves, there's no turning back.

“f*ck—don’t you get it?” he asks, his voice a plea as he inhales a shaky breath.

Sheer anguish pierces the silver of his eyes.

“You’re the sun, Granger," he says. "And I’ve already fallen.”

When he finally disappears into the darkness of the night, Hermione falls to her knees and stares numbly at the broken necklace and the scattered dried rose petals on the ground.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

Who better can understand loss than the desert? To hold your breath and feel the absence of life; of what once existed.

If I knew better, would I still be here? I would like to think a wiser version of myself would find a way to be with you.

They say there is no end to this madness but if I reach the edge just enough, will it make me sane?

Come, I’ll tell you a story of lovers.

Two souls on a pilgrimage.

Something new, something old.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

When the sand settles and dawn breaks through, Hermione steps out to face the reckoning of the storm.

It’s worse than she expected.

The trucks, not including the one Malfoy and Hermione left behind somewhere in the desert, were swallowed whole into the sand. Three tents containing expensive equipment and tools were destroyed overnight when one of the shields around the tents crumbled completely. One of those tents contained all the emergency portkeys to Sahrit.

And of the nine in the crew, four are injured.

Dana and Tony were hurt when putting up the shield and Idris on his way back to the encampment. Luckily, the injuries are not too severe. And even luckier, perhaps, was the fact that Amina had three backup portkeys on her person during the storm. But the portkeys are only good for two individuals at a time and it is clear some of them will have to remain behind.

Last night, Tony, who was injured most of the crew, was portkeyed out with the help of Leena. Dana left with Idris, as they had milder injuries and didn’t require an uninjured guide. The last individual, one of the hired drivers, was waiting to be portkeyed out when Hermione met with Amina, pale-faced and wide-eyed.

Amina explains the situation of the limited portkeys. “I don’t know how to ask—”

“I’ll stay behind,” Hermione says immediately. “Of course, I’ll stay. You should go with him and oversee what is happening with the rest at the hospital.”

Amina sighs and closes her eyes briefly. Exhaustion pulls at her limbs. “I hate putting you in this position, Hermione. Asking you this….this was not what I wanted for you and I don’t know how to apologize—”

Hermione reaches over for Amina’s hands. “What happened was completely unexpected, Amina. You couldn’t have known something like this would have happened.”

“But you knew,” Amina insists. “You knew something was wrong, and I didn’t listen, and now I have four injured crew members and a cancelled expedition.”

A cancelled expedition.

The expedition is over. It's finally over.

“I’m sorry,” Amina continues. “I’m sorry for bringing you here and promising you something that I couldn’t give you.”

Hermione lets go of her hand, suddenly feeling anxious at the finality of it all. “Maybe it’s not the end. We can still figure something out. It’s not completely over—”

Amina shakes her head solemnly. “All our equipment is destroyed and our resources are finished. I don't even have any extra days to request for those who have commitments. The funds have been stretched enough and I cannot ask for more money—not when I don't have a substantial enough reason to. Whatever I have left will be used for those injured and bringing everyone home.”

Hermione scratches her arms, finding it difficult to digest what she's hearing. “Amina, if you just give me some time, I’m sure I can figure something out. We’re so close, I know we are. All this can’t be for nothing.”

Amina brings her close. “Hermione, it’s okay. You can stop worrying about this now because I simply cannot ask you to spend any more time on something futile. I’ve already sent a Patronus to anyone nearby and the second I am in Sahrit, I’m going to send a message to have someone come pick you, Draco, and—”

Hermione blinks. “Draco?”

Hermione hasn’t forgotten a single thing that occurred between them last night, but hearing his name out loud is an alarming realization that he’s real to others as well.

Amina nods. “He’s staying back. Considering he isn’t needed anymore, I offered him the chance to go with Tony instead of Leena, but he refused. The fact that he hasn’t bitten my head off with the way everything has gone—”

“He wouldn’t say anything to you anyway,” Hermione says absently. She’s tempted to look around the site for him but there’s a greater force holding her still. “How long do you think it’ll take for someone to come?”

“Less than two days. I was told that the signal would go out immediately in case of a rescue and I’m hoping there is someone nearby who can receive the message. Your tent is up, so that is good. You still have your things but I do need to warn you that it’s cluttered with things—Hermione?” Amina gasps, pointing at her nose. “Hermione, you’re bleeding!”

Hermione frowns. She feels something wet and warm drip down her nose and when she swipes her fingers, they come back stained deep-red. Hermione ducks her head, away from Amina’s arms, and quickly uses her sleeve to catch the blood, her other hand coming to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“Did you get hurt last night?” Amina asks, turning Hermione toward her. “When did it happen?”

“I’m fine,” Hermione mumbles. She wipes at her nose again, withdrawing to see her fingers come clean. “See, it’s gone. All clear.”

Amina isn’t convinced. “Hermione, you should go to the hospital. You should go now—”

Hermione pulls away. “I’m fine. Trust me, this used to happen all the time. It’s completely normal. I get them all the time.”

It’s not exactly a lie. She did used to get nosebleeds. She hasn’t gotten one in at least three years but Hermione isn’t concerned when she has other things on her mind.

Hermione forces a smile when Amina frowns. “You’re the one who has to go. They’re waiting for you over there.”

“I don’t know, maybe—”

Hermione pulls her in for a hug. “I’ll see you in two days and we’ll figure out everything then.”

It takes some more reassurances from Hermione but eventually, she convinces Amina to leave. Matthew, one of the drivers who’s staying behind with them, gives Hermione a short wave before disappearing into his tent.

And then she’s left alone outside.

She scans what remains of the encampment, eyes jumping around the tents that survived the storm, before settling on the ground before her. Where once stood the canopy where they ate, the firepit where they all sang and told stories around, there is just sand now.

Sand and the desert.

The same desert as before, as the one now, and the one that will remain when she leaves.

There’s an eerie silence left behind from the storm, a preternatural tinge to the air as the sun rises amidst the tiger-striped sky. The familiar reprise in the air reminds her of the aftermath of the war and she feels hollow, like an empty vessel, as she stands in the middle of the encampment.

What now?

That had been the question then and the question now. What to do now that it’s all over? Now that all the time, effort, and blood, have been spent—what is next?

She glances at the tent, Malfoy’s tent, that she’d spent the night in, before looking over at a tent that she somehow knows he’s in now. She stares and stares and waits—for what, she doesn’t know. A sound maybe. Something solid from before that she can hold onto. But not a single sound from a katydid or an owl is heard. No shuffles of feet, no rustles of a parted curtain. Not even a whisper of wind, not even a sigh.

At least magic is working consistently again.

Hermione’s eyes drop to her hands and the blood staining them. This sight is also too much like the aftermath of the war, making her chest constrict. She clenches her fingers into a fist and without lifting her eyes, she turns and makes her way to her tent.

________________________________

Two days.

Hermione won’t last two days.

She simply cannot do it.

She barely lasted a full hour before she started pacing her tent. It’s a complete mess and there’s barely any room for her to walk around but she cannot sit down. If she sits she will never get up and she needs to move and think so that she’s at least doing something. Or maybe she needs to stop thinking because there’s eternal chaos in her mind that is making it difficult for her to breathe.

She knew it was going to end. She knew the day would come when the expedition was over and she’d have to go home but she prepared for an end that made sense. A conclusion that was fitting.

But this finish is unbearable. To end when nothing has been achieved, nothing even substantial has happened, is too much for Hermione to comprehend. She needs closure, something real in her hands because she simply cannot go back home after a month with nothing.

She has nothing right now to prove that she should have come or that to leave was worth it.

What's worse than all this is the disappointment she feels in herself. So many people had relied on her to solve this and she'd ended up doing nothing useful.

"There’s truly no one else I can think of that can help us on this."

Hermione throws her wand on the bed and closes her eyes. She tries to take a breath but it gets caught in her throat and she’s walking again. She had a purpose when she came here. Amina had needed her specifically and Hermione hadn’t been able to complete the one thing that was asked of her.

When things needed to be done, she was needed. Who is she if she can’t do what people ask of her?

After years of being useless, for once she was needed to be used and she only ended up being disappointing.

"You found the Horcruxes, Granger. You can find this."

Hermione’s hands turn clammy and she clutches her stomach, wrapping her arms tightly around her waist to stop the building nausea. She drops to her knees and places her forehead against the edge of her bed, gripping the mattress.

Come on, Hermione.

In through your nose, out through your mouth. In and then out.

She’s going to be sick at the thought that she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t solve the diary, couldn't find the Cave, couldn’t make something with Malfoy. She’ll let everyone down, and it’s harrowing to think about it because saw the potential of what could have happened. They were so close to finding the Cave and all she needed was some more time to put it all together and then find it. She kissed Malfoy and for the precious seconds his lips were on hers she was happy and saw something that could come alive.

And then just like that, it all ended. Gone as if never had happened. As if it never should have happened.

But it’s not really the end, is it? She doesn’t have the tracking equipment or access to the trucks, but that’s fine because the lights are the key, she knows it just like she knew about the diary, the scripts, the runes. She has two days and Safia’s diary. It’ll be harder on foot but she can do it.

Follow the lights, travel south, find the Cave.

She can do it on her own, she realizes with startling clarity.

She doesn’t need Amina or Malfoy. Malfoy can actually sod off for all she cares. If she never sees him again, that will be perfectly fine. He can spend the rest of his life lying to himself and pretending Hermione never existed and the kiss didn't happen because she has other, far more important things to worry about.

Hermione takes a deep breath and rises on shaky legs. Some of the dread melts away from her stomach. She licks her dry lips and takes her wand in her hand, which is much steadier than before.

She needs to prepare and write a note before leaving as discreetly as possible. The tent she’ll have to leave behind, because there’s no way she can move all the stuff in her tent to another tent without others noticing. It’s a good thing she packed an extra tent, though less impressive and much smaller, with her before coming. It’ll have to do. One could not be picky when on a quest.

Now that she has a plan, it’s easier for her to breathe. Anxiety is still a pit in her throat, but the longer she stays in her tent, collecting her things, her head gets clearer.

Matthew comes in with breakfast and then with lunch and Hermione doesn’t eat any of it. Instead, she takes the trays and thanks him. He tells her he’ll be in his tent until dinner and Hermione assures him she’ll be fine alone. When he’s gone, she rolls the food into a cloth and packs it in her beaded bag. She waits for the sun to set and the moment dusk arrives, she moves. After securing her mother’s book, the diary, and her wand, Hermione places a note on her bed for Matthew and leaves her tent without a backward glance.

It’s just as quiet outside as it was at dawn. The sand slides and crunches under her feet as she steps out and quickly Hermione whispers a silencing charm. Purposefully, she turns to the tents with the food. She takes her portions and places them carefully with the others in her bag. She closes her eyes and goes through her mental list to make sure she has everything before turning around.

Hermione jumps, a scream lodged in her throat as she stumbles back and into a chair behind her.

Malfoy’s blank face stares back at her.

The shadows under his eyes are darker and somehow the straight edges of his cheeks have sunk deeper. He looks at her with guarded eyes and she immediately recognizes his Occlumency.

His voice is monotone. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” is her immediate answer. Her eyes remain fixated above his lips.

“You’re leaving.”

She doesn’t know how he knows, especially since she doesn’t have any of her trunks with her. She also doesn’t know how to explain what she's thinking to him. He won’t understand and there’s nothing she can say that will make sense to anyone else. Her reasons are hers alone and she’s aware the moment she tries to justify, she’ll look like a madwoman to him.

Hermione takes a deep breath. “I can’t explain it—”

“I’m going with you.”

“No.”

His eyes flare for a brief moment as he holds onto his restraint. “It’s not a f*cking question, Granger.”

Hermione sets her jaw stubbornly. “You can’t.”

She doesn’t want him to come. Not like this—so cold and distant. Shut down because his Occlumency walls are so high.

He takes a measured step further into the tent. “What’s your plan?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know you were going to leave?”

“I didn’t think you’d care.”

It comes out sharper than she intended and it makes him pause. His eyes study her face, only to momentarily drop to her lips. Hermione stills and the tent becomes warmer than before. She wants to cover her mouth with her hand.

Malfoy runs his tongue across his teeth. “Either I come with you or I’m telling Matthew and we’ll chain you to your bed.”

The air simmers with his threat, the tension strong and visceral.

Hermione glares at him. “This has nothing to do with you, Malfoy.”

“I don’t care.”

She grits her teeth. This was not part of her plan. In fact, her plan required Malfoy to stay as far, far away from her as possible. She couldn’t do this with him less than a meter away from her.

“I only have one tent.”

“What tent are you taking?”

“I have a backup.”

He nods once. “Good, we’ll share it.”

Hermione gapes at him. “I’m not sharing my tent with you.”

“Then we’ll move the things in my tent and pack it up.”

“You’re going to slow me down.”

“If you manage not to trip over your own feet we’ll see who slows down who.”

Hermione’s glare turns heated. She wants to snap at him, yell at him for pushing her away. Scream that it might be easy for him to pull up his Occlumency walls around her and not care but she can't do the same with him. It’ll be harder for her to ignore him when she should be reserving her energy for the Cave.

“You’re not coming,” she repeats.

But he’s already turning around and stepping out of the tent. She doesn't hesitate before following him out. Malfoy ducks back into his tent. She spends a few panicked seconds thinking to make a run for it without him but he’s back out before she can even tell her legs to move.

With a wave of his wand, Malfoy has the things in his tent hovering above his head and into another tent. She stands to the side, glaring at him the entire time, and not lifting a single hand to help him. Sinking resignation overwhelms her the entire time as he packs. He's coming and it doesn't look like she has much of a choice about it.

When he steps out with a bag on his back and looks at her expectantly, she turns without a word and starts walking in the direction of the lights.

She doesn’t spare him a single glance the entire time, and if she wasn't so bloody aware of him at all times, she wouldn't even realize he’s walking behind her. Her eyes remain fixated on the sky ahead and she lasts only an hour of walking until her feet start to ache and the lack of food gets to her. Her goal was to walk till midnight, but the moment darkness starts to crawl from every side of her, her muscles burn with fatigue and sleep.

She feels him watching her as she takes out her tent from her bag. The entire time she has her back to him and while they don’t utter a single word to each other, his mere presence weighs down on her. If he needs help, she doesn’t ask. If he has a problem with her deciding when to walk or stop, he doesn’t say.

Or at least, she doesn’t give him the chance to.

She steps into the tent and lets the curtain fall behind her silently. Inside, she takes out her dinner, eats a single roll of bread, applies a salve on the bruise near her ribs, and crawls into her bed. With Safia's diary discarded on her lap, Hermione stares at her hands.

She doesn’t know how he does it. How he cannot care and pretend to be so unbothered.

The entire walk she wanted to turn around and throw her bag at him if only to get some kind of reaction out of him. But the fact that he could walk without talking made her do the same in a stubborn attempt to prove she didn’t care that he didn’t care about what happened between them.

And now in her tent all alone, every decision that has passed in the last twenty-four hours feels wrong. Wrong because he'd taken something so genuinely freeing and twisted it into something so ugly. Her feelings, however convoluted, about Malfoy, were separate from what happened with the kiss. The kiss happened and then she thought she’d deal with her feelings together with him. And now they were in separate tents and she was left alone to handle the mistake.

A mistake—that’s what he had called it.

It surely hadn’t felt like a mistake when they had been kissing.

Hermione has been kissed enough times for her to know which kiss is breathtaking and which kiss makes her claustrophobic. With that in mind, she knows it was a good kiss. The taste of his lips, the jolt of his tongue, and his deep sigh that she felt in her own lungs—all of it felt incredibly right. It felt…it felt like a tiny spark had grown in her stomach, warming every nerve and vessel in her body until she was at the edge of an explosion. She wanted it to never end, to feel his fingers drift from her hair and intertwine around her body. And the way he’d been kissing her back, it also hadn't felt as though Malfoy had been repulsed by it either.

Was it wrong to be wanted, she wonders, to let go for a moment and feel nothing, no pain or hesitance, except for pleasure?

She doesn't know.

She doesn't know if it is wrong to want someone’s hands on her, even if those hands belonged to Malfoy. And she doesn't know if it's immoral to be wanted back, just as feverishly and wretchedly as she does now.

Although, for Hermione, there's always been this inherent need to be desired for who she was, whether it be her name, skills, or blood. But, she tells herself now that desire is a completely normal human reaction and to feel it is to be a part of something universal. She wants to be needed and maybe it should be a shock that it’s Malfoy that she’s extending that need to now, but it’s really and truly not. Perhaps he could have been any other man on this trip and she would have eventually developed this same desperation but she knows that’s not the case.

It’s like this only because it is him.

It never would have happened with anyone else. Malfoy is more than the boy she once knew and that change in her perception happened long before they ended up spending an entire month together.

He's always been the flame she’s drawn to, even when he’d been the one to clip her wings.

And while she’s internally cringing at her pathetic desperation, she also can’t hide from her truth—the kiss wasn't a mistake for her.

Hermione sighs and turns to lay on her side, pulling her legs close to her chest. She’s always tended to overthink but even this is too much for her.

It was just a kiss.

It happened—and now it's over.

The candle flame beside her bed flickers and dances in the darkness.

She won’t be able to sleep tonight, and she only hopes that Malfoy can’t either.

________________________________

She wakes up at dawn, feeling determined to cover a substantial distance today. She has a compass and a map in her bag and the plan is to travel through the majority of the afternoon since they lost a whole day yesterday. Travelling under the desert sun isn’t ideal but she needs to make up for the lost time since Matthew's probably sent out a Patronus to Amina about their disappearance by now. She's quite aware she’s making things difficult for everyone involved but Hermione’s sure all will be forgiven when she finally finds the Cave.

She eats breakfast in her tent and the second she steps out with her bag and a shawl around her shoulders, Malfoy follows her out of his tent.

She stares at him, waiting for him to say something. When he doesn't, she lifts her nose and says, “We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”

She hasn't spoken out loud in a while and her voice comes out hoarse. She’s tempted to clear her throat, except she thinks it might come out as a sign of hesitancy or doubt and she’s set on coming off as confident in her plan.

“Alright.”

She wonders briefly if he spent the night talking to himself because his voice comes out clear and smooth as river water. She frowns when he doesn’t say anything more to refute her statement, or inquire about her plan. She waits several more seconds to give him a chance so she can snap back at him, but he just continues to watch her steadily. Eventually, his gaze starts to make her skin crawl and she sniffs before walking away.

Trekking across dunes that stir and sway would have been near impossible on foot and so Hermione is grateful for travelling through a wadi instead. It's surrounded by mountains that are sure to hide the Cave somewhere.

The sun on the other hand makes walking on flat and solid land difficult. She tries to take small gulps of water to make sure it never runs out so that she can transfigure more but soon a thin film of sweat coats her skin, adding to her weight. She wraps the scarf around her face, has made sure to wear thin clothes covering the entirety of her body and slathers on sunscreen wherever her skin is exposed. Still, she feels the heat as if it's scorching her from the inside.

It doesn’t help she’s stuck with a man equivalent to a rock and in constant competition with the sun to see who can glare harder. There's a barrier across his lips but she feels his eyes searing into her shoulders as she walks ahead of him and she just wants him to say something so she doesn’t grow mad inside her head.

Hermione wipes the back of her hand across her forehead and down her jaw and turns back to Safia’s diary in her hand. She’s using the compass as a bookmark as she rereads the last few entries, glancing every once in a while around her. The final entries in the diary after the accident talk about the Cave but there’s a sense of urgency and decomposition in Safia's words that Hermione can’t decipher.

She was likely agitated by the loss of her crew members but where once there was consistency and coherency in her entries, these final entries seem rushed or an afterthought. The last few diaries replace all mention of Kahif Al-Noor with just Noor and even though Leena told her it might not mean anything, Hermione isn’t convinced. There’s a hidden meaning behind why Safia changed the words so late in her entries, especially after the accident.

Hermione is still thinking about the entries when she decides to rest for lunch along the edge of the wadi. She settles onto a rock along a mountain wall and takes out her water bottle and her container of rice. Malfoy sits further down along the wall and takes out an orange.

She turns back to the diary the moment she spots the fruit but still ends up looking at him after a few minutes. His head is pressed back against the wall and his eyes are closed.

He doesn’t look exhausted but there’s a pale red hue to his face that makes her think that he might be more tired than he’s letting on. She feels a twinge of guilt as she watches a rare breeze sweep through the valley, causing a rogue lock of hair to fall across his forehead. She wishes to go up to him, give him water even though he’s holding a bottle, or maybe stand in front of the sun to cast a shadow across his face so he can cool down, but the idea that he might flinch from her keeps her rooted to where she sits. The guilt transforms into something warmer that overwhelms her as she watches him sigh a long breath—his shoulders rising and falling with the exhale.

It’s not fair for someone to be this unattainably beautiful. To have a face that is only sharp lines, but still accentuates the softness of his lashes, the curve of his cheeks, or the delicate bow of his lips. She touched that hair, those lips, that cheek intimately, in a way she never thought she would.

Hermione’s hand goes to the necklace around her neck as she thinks back to the first time she’d seen Malfoy. A month ago in a courtyard in Marrakech, standing against the backdrop of roses. It seems as if it's been a lifetime since, longer even than the time that existed between that moment and the last time she saw him at the Trials.

A devouring black void against a semblance of vitality.

And now he’s here, wearing light linen, his hair swept back with enviable volume despite the heat, in the middle of a vast and empty graveyard.

At least he’s beautiful andan utter prat, Hermione thinks. At least she can still count on Nature and her way of balance.

She jumps in surprise when his eyes open and slide to her. He doesn’t bother lifting his head but Hermione feels the heaviness of his cool, assessing gaze anyway. His brows clench slightly and he stares at her in a way that suggests he knows what she’s been thinking. She scowls at him in response and he rolls his eyes in a familiar way that irks her. It makes her angry how he can be casual whenever he wants to, and Hermione stands abruptly.

He gives her a weird look as she shoots him a glare, snatching her things and stuffing them in her bag. She walks fifteen paces before she hears him exhale and get up to follow her.

________________________________

Someone, I tell you, will remember us, even in another time.

Hermione frowns as she reads this single line of poetry that composes the last three entries of the diary. It’s not exactly surprising to quote Sappho, especially since the poet was a known witch. And it’s also not surprising that Safia knows of Sappho considering many of her poems were once cataloged in the Library of Alexandria and made accessible to a greater audience. It’s just jarring to find a line that is known both in the Muggle world and the magical universe in a diary dated almost a hundred years ago. It’s an even stranger occurrence to recognize these same words written by a witch who walked the path that Hermione travels now.

Hermione looks up from the dairy and to the valley towering on her left before shifting her gaze to the sand on her right.

She imagines Safia taking out a book from a grand library and spending her nights and days, pouring over the poems and devouring the words of love as her husband spends those same nights and days with other women. She thinks of herself now going over the words Safia herself has written on love, reading and rereading the sentences and trying to find meaning in her life and her death. Love plays a greater role than she knows how or why but still, Hermione feels a sort of kinship with the witch, understanding perhaps the unquenchable need to be remembered.

She exhales a long breath and shifts her bag to her other shoulder when her arm starts to ache.

God, were the days always this long?

It’s only May—why hasn’t the sun set yet?

It feels like she’s been travelling for years when it’s only been a handful of hours and all she can feel in her bones is exhaustion. There's nothing to see except for brown and more shades of brown. Hermione wants some green, some plants or flowers, an endless ocean. Some sort of life before she falls to the ground and becomes dust in the heat.

She wonders how she’ll feel when she finally sees the Cave.

Perhaps she is the man in her story, travelling through villages and mountains for a shrine, except this time she’ll end up disappointed by the lack of reverence in what she finds. Maybe she too will fall to her knees and tremble except not from awe but complete depletion.

I’m going to lose my mind, she thinks. Anyone walking here would lose their mind if they weren’t careful.

Is this how the Cave chooses who can find it? Were only those mentally capable, physically strong deserving of the light?

She tries to concentrate on Malfoy’s footsteps behind her, letting each thump, thump, thump of his feet guide her forward but it feels as though she’s walking through quicksand in the middle of an inferno. She squints up into the high sun, her eyes fluttering close as an incessant buzz echoes in her ear.

Was it always this hot? Is this just another test?

Her skin burns in the blazing rays.

An odd feeling consumes her. As though she’s standing at the edge of land and air, waiting for someone to push her over. Half of her body is floating and the other tethered to the ground.

“That sun that is strong, the gods that are wise, the loving heart, ” she breathes, the words dripping from her lips like hot wax on a lit candle. A blistering fog fills her mind and her tongue feels swollen and scratchy. “Deeds and knowledge and beauty and joy, but before all else was desire.”

There’s a loud thud behind her that makes her eyes open, bringing her back from the reverie. She blinks several times to orient herself, white spots flashing across her sight, before turning around slowly.

Malfoy’s bag is dumped on the ground in front of him.

She looks at him, confused. “What?”

“We’re stopping.”

She shakes her head, still feeling slightly dazed by the sun. “We can’t stop. The Cave—”

“f*ck the Cave, Granger. You look like you’re going to pass out any second. You’re talking to yourself like some kind of—”

She glares at him, despite the truth in his words. “I’m fine.”

He glares back. “You’re not fine. We’re going to stop until dusk and then we’ll start the trek again.”

She crosses her arms at his demanding voice. “You don’t get to make the decisions as to when we’re travelling and when we’re staying. This is my quest and I choose when—”

“Quest?” he says incredulously.

She walks over to him, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten by the venomous shot of anger rushing in her blood. “This is important to me, Malfoy. People are counting on me and the Cave will be a historic discovery—”

He rolls his eyes. “Oh yes, Granger, they’ll write songs about you.”

“Too much has happened for me to not find the Cave. And I’m not going to let you get in the way.”

“Do you even have a damn plan or are you just blindly walking in one direction?” he cuts in sharply. “Do you know what you’re doing or are we just walking to our death?”

“Obviously, I have a plan! I’m not like you—doing things without thinking and then regretting them the second later!”

“What does that—”

“I’m following the lights just like what we were doing before!”

“No, we weren’t following the lights. We were walking south and the lights just happened to be in the same direction.”

Hermione narrows her eyes. “I’m not wrong about this.”

“What if you are?”

It shouldn’t hurt this much to hear him question her, especially since she's been waiting for him to do so. She straightens her shoulders. “If you can’t handle the sun then you shouldn’t have come, Malfoy. I told you this had nothing to do with you and I told you were going to slow me down and that’s exactly what’s happening!”

“What will be the point of all this sh*t if you die from dehydration?” he hisses, lowering his head to meet her eyes. “Just own up to the fact that you clearly can’t take two more steps and get over it. You won’t die if you claim defeat—”

Hermione doesn’t step back even when the space between them closes. “If you need to stop, then clearly you’re the one who’s defeated. I am perfectly—”

“You’re pale and you look like you’re going to be sick any second—”

“I am the one who makes the decisions around here, not you! We need to find the Cave and if we stop now we’re going to be behind schedule and Amina is sending people that will be here soon—”

“—and drop dead any second if you don’t just stop and listen to me. Is that what you want? To die in the middle of nowhere?”

“I don’t know. I’m indifferent.”

His voice hardens. “Be serious, Granger.”

Hermione lets out a dry and hollow laugh. “Oh so now you care? Now you get to decide that you care about me right after pushing me away and pretending I don’t exist all day?”

He shakes his head. “What?”

“It’s always you who decides for me, isn’t it?” she says, suddenly feeling the need to hurt him so something can melt away the coldness in his eyes. “Damn who gets hurt and damn the consequences because whatever Draco Malfoy wants, that’s what happens, right?”

“What are you talking about?” he says through clenched teeth, daring her to say it.

She opens her mouth to shoot back the words that have been stuck on the tip of her tongue since their kiss but instead finds her brain turning blank by the sheer presence of him in her space.

He’s so close to her now that he’s blocking the direct ray of the sun, casting a shadow across her face. It's a transient moment of coolness and she wants to close her eyes to bask in the absence of the heat but she’s paralyzed by the familiarity of this closeness. His eyes bore into hers and there’s a frown etched in his brows and when she blinks slowly he does the same. Maybe she’s already lost her mind because she feels as though either he’s moved closer to her face or she’s stepped up to close the gap between their faces.

You haven’t said two words to me all day, she wants to say to him. I think I’m going crazy and I have no one here except you and you won’t even say anything to me. Why haven’t you spoken to me?

Instead, she stares at him, her mouth closing and opening like a fish out of water as the words struggle to come out. There’s a tightness in her chest that makes her want to cry but she just looks back at him, wide-eyed and praying the tears don’t come. He’s angry or confused, she can’t figure it out, but at least he’s looking at her directly now. At least he’s standing close to her now.

He waits for her to say whatever it is that she wants to say but when the words still don’t form, his face twists into a strange expression. He studies her carefully and his palm snaps up to clamp across her forehead.

She stumbles back at the force but then he flips to the back of his hand and pauses as if looking for something. She realizes, in surprise, that he’s checking her temperature.

She scoffs and pushes his hand off, feeling bone-deep tired again. “Don't.”

Malfoy sighs in a way that suggests he’s tired of her dramatic stubbornness. “Granger—”

“Just so you know,” Hermione says blandly before he can finish his sentence. She turns around and dumps the diary and her bag unceremoniously onto the ground. “I won’t let you have it.”

He doesn’t answer for a moment. “What?”

She faces him. “I don’t know why you’ve decided to come with me but whatever it is that you’re thinking about the Cave—forget it. I’m not going to let you take what’s in there, and I won’t let you use the Cave for whatever it is that you want. I’ll fight you for it, Malfoy, but the light will remain.”

Excruciating seconds pass where he tries to understand what she’s referring to but she catches the exact moment when it clicks for him. The look he gives her of disgust mixed with something that can only be hurt isn’t as satisfactory as she hoped.

“Right. That’s exactly why I came with you, Granger,” he says quietly, slowly drawing out each word to emphasize the ridiculousness of what she’s just implied. Her stomach falls when he steps further away from her, a chasm growing between them. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll make sure you get all the glory.”

When he turns his back to her, she finds herself too tired to argue and does the same to him.

_________________________________

Maybe she is wrong and all this really is for nothing.

Maybe Safia Al-Jabar was a madwoman just like Hermione Granger, or perhaps Safia lost her mind in the desert just like Hermione eventually will.

Hermione folds her feet under her and stares at the fire Malfoy had drawn up earlier. Her body can no longer handle physical exertion and the entire ordeal of walking today has her feeling miserable and second-guessing every decision she’s made in her life. They ended up walking again for another few hours once dusk settled and Malfoy hadn’t said a single word to her the entire time. When they stopped to rest for the remainder of the night, he disappeared into his tent and didn’t come out.

She brushes her thumb against the beads of her bag, lost in thought.

She supposes she should apologize to Malfoy for yelling at him and accusing him even though she knows he’s not going to do what she insinuated. But she's just too tired to do anything about it.

If she’s honest, she doesn’t know why he came with her. Especially everything he told her after the kiss. Why he's following her when he regrets coming on the trip in the first place. Maybe he’d only come to witness the derailment of Hermione Granger and is disappointed by the result. Perhaps she should tell him to not lose hope in the potential of the trip just yet because she’s almost past the point of no return.

Hermione lifts her eyes to the lights in the sky. She might be hallucinating but they do look closer than before.

She wonders if this is how Harry felt when Dumbledore died and left him mere scraps to figure out how to kill Voldemort. The mixture of incredulity and confusion that she’s feeling now is definitely the same as when Scrimgeour handed her The Tales of Beedle the Bard. She'd stared at the title with such bewilderment she was convinced Scrimgeour had made a mistake with the will.

A book—that’s what Dumbledore had left for her.

A damn children’s book that she had scoured through like a crazed fanatic, feeling each hour spent without answers from it sinking into her chest like a hammer against a nail. The thought of Dumbledore has a dormant rage toward the late wizard simmering under her skin and Hermione grips her fingers into the fabric of her bag. Her feelings on Dumbledore aren’t explosive nor scandalous. They start and end with her disappointment in him. There is lingering resentment that she associates with many of the older Order members and while nothing was ever easy during the war, it seemed as though Dumbledore had been particularly determined to make things difficult for everyone, especially the children. And yet, here she is now in a damn desert doing the same damn thing againwith a diary and words that might be outright meaningless.

What was this horrible need for her to find the answers? Why did she always have to be the one who solved the puzzles? Why couldn’t she just calm down and give up like sane people did when things got difficult rather than see everything as a challenge to prove herself?

Maybe Malfoy is right about her having a complex because it certainly isn't normal for anyone to voluntarily find themselves in this position.

The idea of Malfoy being correct about anything fills her with an abrupt sense of fury and Hermione lets out a cry and throws her bag across the sand with a swift arc of her arm.

It falls with a thud and with newfound energy, Hermione leaps to her feet and marches over to where it lays on the ground. With a grunt, she kicks the bag again and it flies once more before skidding to a stop. She winces at the loud clatter resonating from inside the bag. She considers for a moment to leave the bag in a spurt of I don’t care of the consequences, take that Dumbledore! —but it lasts less than a second and she's guiltily walking to her bag and dusting the sand off the beads. Something falls with another crash with the movement of her hand and she digs into the bag to see what it is.

She blinks once, then twice, at the aggri stone in her hand.

It sits heavy in her palm.

Right. She’d forgotten she’d placed the stone in her bag. Hermione cringes at her mistake of not returning it and quickly mutters an apology to Amina, hoping she hasn’t driven herself to the brink of insanity looking for it. She’s about to carefully put it back somewhere secure in her bag when she halts. Remembers something she once discussed with Amina.

There’s a tingle in her arm stretching from the stone and spreading across her chest as she brings the hole in the center of the stone to her eye. And then slowly, almost afraid of what she might see, she lifts her hands and her face to the lights and looks.

Hermione gasps.

Her arms fall to her side in disbelief but she’s lifting them back up just as quickly to confirm what she sees.

She was right.

God, I was right.

Because looking through the stone, Hermione finally sees exactly what the lights are. Each gleaming and winking flash of light is the rebound of stars and moonlight and their electromagnetic radiations off of what looks like some kind of magical charm or spell.

Amina suggested the Cave couldn’t have a surrounding charm because it's a natural entity and not a byproduct of someone’s spell. And because the stone can only detect magical properties and concealment spells made by wizards and witches directly, it’s able to show Hermione the kind of magic left behind by someone who was once here. Someone like Safia Al-Jabar, who trekked across the desert, found the Cave and placed a charm around it so that when she returned she could find it easily once again.

Hermione would never believe it if she wasn’t seeing it right before her eyes.

The stone trembles in her quivering hands as she realizes that it’s not over yet. Her heart stutters with pure glee and she’s crying now because it just feels so damn good to finally have an answer. She spins around and spots Malfoy standing outside his tent, his expression as unreadable as always.

She runs to him and just stops herself from flinging her arms around him.

“The lights are for the Cave,” she breathes, not even bothering to wipe the tears from her face. Elation rolls off her in crashing waves. She stretches out the stone toward him. “Safia left a spell or something around the Cave and the lights are reflecting off it. Look.”

Malfoy hesitantly takes the stone from her hand, eyes her for a few seconds as if to determine her level of sanity, before ultimately lifting the stone to the sky. He doesn’t make a sound of astonishment but by the change in his stance, the stiffening of his shoulders and the jerk of his head, she knows he sees the same thing as her.

“It has to be the Cave,” she whispers, unable to remove the giddiness from her voice. “We’re so close.”

Malfoy slowly withdraws the stone away from his face. He studies the lights for a few seconds before looking at her. She finds herself on the edge, waiting for what he’s going to say.

“You were right, Granger.”

His face might be stoic and his voice quiet and equally blank, but she sees everything in his eyes that he doesn’t say to her.

And it's all she wanted from him.

Hermione grins and Malfoy blinks. Her hands twitch by her side, wanting to grip the fabric of his shirt just so she can rest her forehead against his chest and breathe. But instead, her smile falters before disappearing completely when he doesn’t look away and he lifts his eyes away from her lips when her breath hitches.

His jaw hardens before handing over the stone. Her fingers brush against his when she takes it and her blood rages with electricity.

Her lips part to say something—perhaps apologize for her words from before—but he’s gone before she can even inhale a breath.

________________________________

She wakes up to a rustle.

Hermione frowns at the sound, blinking into the darkness. She lifts her head slightly off the chair and it takes a few seconds to orient herself and determine why she’s outside. When her hand falls to the diary in her lap she realizes she must have fallen asleep after going back to the diary and staring at the lights all night. The fire has dimmed down to just sparks but she feels warm. Hermione glances at the heated blanket around her body that she knows she didn’t bring out with her.

There’s another shuffle—a deep vibration.

She instinctively looks over at Malfoy’s tent sitting behind her chair. When she doesn't see him, she looks back to the front.

Hermione freezes.

There, across from where she sits, is a large Erumpent digging its horn into the ground.

She doesn’t know how she could have missed it in the first place. It’s dark but the illumination of the full moon is casting enough light for her to see every hidden shadowed corner of the wadi.

She’s never seen one before in person but this one looks slightly smaller than what her copy of the Fantastic Beasts mentioned. The beast makes a low grunt that resonates across the sand, up her chair, and into her body and fear flares in her chest. She holds her breath so as to not make a single sound. It was her turn to make the protection spells across their campsite, but she’d obviously fallen asleep before she could because it trudged a few steps into the bounds of her tent.

"A rare species of Erumpent will be migrating across North Africa at this time."

Not good, not good, not good.

Her hands turn sweaty and she darts her eyes across the campsite to see if there are any more. When she doesn’t find a second, she calculates the distance between where she sits now and her tent across from her. It’s too far and there’s no way she’ll make it without garnering attention. Most spells don’t work against the Erumpent’s thick hide, so she can’t even try to fight it off in case of an attack.

Hermione whispers a silencing charm around her and makes achingly slow movements off her chair. The Erumpent is seemingly busy with a rock and she takes the opportunity to stand and walk around to the back of her chair. Eyes still fixated on the beast, Hermione takes short steps backwards until her back hits the canvas of Malfoy’s tent.

Her hand grapples blindly behind her as she parts the tent and sinks into it without a second thought. She whirls around, heart pounding. Grateful for her silenced footsteps, Hermione runs to where Malfoy lies in his bed.

She pauses when she reaches the side of his bed, her hand outstretched halfway to his body.

He has an arm thrown across his eyes and the other across his stomach. His chest rises and falls with every hitched breath in the same constricted pattern she’d seen in him before. She’s tempted to leave and let him sleep because he very clearly does not get enough. But then there’s a louder growl outside that’s responded with a second sound that can only belong to another Erumpent and Hermione removes the silencing charm around her and taps Malfoy’s shoulder.

“Malfoy—”

In the space between the breath she takes to say his name and the next exhale, Hermione’s wrist is pulled and she’s thrown onto her back on the bed. She cries out in surprise as Malfoy pushes himself over her, his arm coming up to either side of her face, his hands cradling her head.

“What?” he breathes, his voice hoarse and deep from sleep. The confusion in his eyes is immediately replaced with sharp intent as he takes her in before sweeping his gaze across his tent as if looking for an intruder. “What is it?”

Her breath is caught in her throat and her chest heaves with the shock of being flipped underneath him. His entire torso is lined with hers, his hips pinning hers, pressing into her heavily and radiating warmth across her body. His body is frozen into a frantic edge and she’s almost afraid to say something lest he breaks. Her pulse hammers intensely and she fears Malfoy can hear it but then when he shifts closer she thinks perhaps it’s his heart that she’s hearing instead.

It takes her many seconds before she can find her voice. She manages somehow to untangle her arm from under him and touch his cheek. His skin is cold. “Draco.”

Malfoy flinches but doesn’t move off her. “What happened?”

She swallows through the dryness in her throat. “There are Erumpents outside.”

His face contorts into absolute confusion as he tries to comprehend what she’s saying. But then he’s quickly moving away from her and Hermione is shivering in his absence. She lies for another second on his bed, staring at the ceiling of his tent before slowly sitting up, and begging her heart to stop.

Malfoy runs a rough hand through his hair and then slides it down his face. He glances at her briefly and everything about this moment is too similar and she knows he’s remembering the same thing.

He takes a staggering step back and turns around and Hermione breathes in two quick bursts of air before quietly following behind him.

As suspected, there are two of the beasts now. The shorter one she saw before is nothing compared to the size of the larger Erumpent that has now accompanied it. The slight glow surrounding the glands of the larger beast makes her think it’s a female with her calf. They’ve moved slightly further away from their campsite but are still close enough to charge at them in one quick move. Erumpents are not one to attack without provocation but she’s read that any attack from them can be fatal regardless. Hermione assumes the mother would attack them without hesitance if she felt they were any danger to her calf.

“Should we move?” Hermione whispers, looking at Malfoy from the corner of her eyes.

There’s not a hint of the fear Hermione is feeling on his face. His eyes are bright and his lips part as he watches the animals. His transfixation stills Hermione and she’s almost distracted by the look of complete wonderment on his face. The larger Erumpent of the two, the mother, nuzzles into her calf and lets out a low growl that sounds like a sigh. It’s a soft and tender moment that Hermione can appreciate through her fear. She wishes there was a shield around them so she can at least walk closer to examine the mother and her child.

“Malfoy,” she starts but he snatches her hand and squeezes it tightly to stop her from saying anything more. His face is turned toward the Erumpent, enraptured still by the sight in front of him, and when she opens her mouth again, he briskly shakes his head.

“Wait,” he says under his breath.

Hermione forces herself to look away from their clasped hands. Forces herself to not focus on the strength within his grip. She turns back to the animals even though all she can feel is him all around her. The calf stomps a few more steps in a direction away from the site. And it looks like its mother is about to follow when she suddenly stiffens and whips her head toward them.

Hermione’s blood stops.

She has to bite her lips close so that she doesn’t gasp out loud and Malfoy squeezes her hand again. The female stares at them, her horn glowing in the darkness.

What was it about dogs that her father once told her? Stop and avoid contact when one charges at you. She’s never been partial to dogs, having once been bitten by a small pup as a child, but even then she doesn’t think Erumpents are equivalent to dogs. Still, Hermione tries to avoid eye contact, choosing instead to stare at the sky above. Her body is a rubberband about to snap but she tries anyway to radiate I come with peace! energy toward the mother through her face.

She’s not sure if Malfoy’s even breathing by the complete lack of movement or sound coming from his side, nor does she know how long they stand like this until finally the mother Erumpent lets out a loud snort and turns her head away to follow after her calf.

Hermione counts the seconds that turn into minutes of her standing beside Malfoy. She waits for another Erumpent to jump out from behind her tent but when the last footsteps of the beasts vanish she concludes that perhaps that was the last of the animals she’s going to encounter tonight.

She releases a breath and turns her head to Malfoy. She finds his head lowered and his eyes on their intertwined hands. Her pulse quickens for a completely different reason now and when he brushes his thumb, a touch that is so feather-light she’s sure she’s imagining it, against her skin, she shudders involuntarily. He immediately lets go of her at the reaction and steps back.

She wishes his actions weren't so sharp and quick.

“I should probably do the protection spells now,” she says finally, feeling hollow now that the adrenaline is gone, “in case there are more of them.”

Malfoy clears his throat and averts his gaze. “Right."

Somehow her feet move and she takes out her wand to start the spells. When he remains outside the entire time she says her incantations, she pretends not to notice.

________________________________

Malfoy had chosen a stop near the end of the wadi to rest for the remainder of the day.

Hermione was planning to retire into her tent until she lifted her eyes and saw the sun being lowered into the horizon, creating an eruption of golds and reds across the sky. She had the sudden urge to see it, thinking perhaps it might be one of the last few she might get to witness in this part of the world. She knew Malfoy was watching her as she struggled to climb one of the larger rocks. As usual, he didn't ask what she was doing or if she needed help. Her hand scraped against the jagged edges but she didn’t stop until she crawled to the top, heaving and panting after the mild exertion.

What she saw took her breath away.

The sun, a pot of liquid gold, melts into the horizon as half of it is drowned in a flaming red hue, leaving behind a sky that looks as though it's on fire. The desert, an endless and merciless land, stretching in every direction, for once lit up like by a symphony of colours of vibrant pinks, oranges, and reds. She was so wrong to think it was just one dull shade of brown because the dunes glitter and glow like a trunk of gold jewelry. The entire desert is alive it seems, determined perhaps to give her final encore to remind her that despite everything that has happened, it was worth it.

Hermione feels exponentially lighter now that she knows she’s not leading the two of them to their death for a Cave that doesn’t even exist. It’s a strange feeling, this sense of anticipation that is mixed with peace. She’s been so tightly bound with trepidation and fear since she first saw the lights that she welcomes whatever it is that she’s feeling now even though she’s aware it might be fleeting.

The distressed tick, tick, tickunder her skin is still there, of course. Except now it’s slowed down to a snail pace, slugging her blood in her veins, and leaving her in a drunken stupor. If she squeezes her eyes shut real tight, sometimes she doesn’t even feel it. She realizes it has nothing to do with finding the Cave or being anxious about an upcoming storm or impending doom.

The countdown is there not for what can happen but for what will: the inevitable end to things as they are. It’s been there perhaps from the beginning, before the trip, the war.

She doesn’t think it’ll ever go away.

But, in this very temporary moment, she can pretend it does not exist.

Hermione's skin has a thick layer of sweat and her clothes haven’t been washed in two days. Her hair is a frizzy mess resembling a wild animal that refuses to remain bound together and there is sand between her toes regardless of how many times she’s tried to clear it out. She’s tired and her skin feels tight and dry because of the hours spent in the sun. But her face is lifted toward the setting sun and there is a coolness in her heart. She feels a sense of freedom, despite everything.

She’ll be okay, she thinks with a smile. She might even be good.

________________________________

“Why do I have to like your friends? Why do you care so much if I give a f*ck or not about Weasely or Potter? They’re not a part of my life and I’d rather not spend any second of it trying to understand their life issues just because everyone else falls to their feet.”

“I’m just asking what your problem is! Every time I mention them you get annoyed and whenever you talk about them it’s only so you can insult them!”

They’re arguing again. Or at least Hermione thinks this is an argument.

She’s not entirely sure what’s happening between them because even though she can see some of his self-control melting away the longer he talks to her, Malfoy’s voice hasn't risen once. She’s also not sure what they were talking about and how it came down to Harry and Ron but either way, Malfoy isn’t leaving and she’s not going to give up now either out of sheer spite.

“Rather than focusing on me, maybe you should try and figure out why you get so bloody triggered anytime someone says something about Potter or—”

“They’re my friends, you can’t honestly expect me to just sit around and hear you say complete rubbish that isn’t even true! You’re holding onto these stubborn perceptions that are so dated and it’s so frustrating—”

“It’s only frustrating because you think you understand me and now you’re disappointed because you’re realizing how wrong you are for doing so.”

The fire crackles between them. The full moon shines brightly above his head.

“And why is me understanding you a bad thing?”

Annoyance pinches his gaze. “Because you expect something from me in return now. You think you’ve solved this great mystery of Draco Malfoy and now you want compensation from me. Some sort of validation by me confirming what you think about me just so you can feel self-righteous and better than everyone.”

“That’s not what I meant, Malfoy! You’re assuming based on nothing substantial—”

“And how does that feel? How does it feel to have someone make assumptions about you?”

Hermione glares at him. “Oh please, as if I don’t know how it feels to be judged!”

“The difference here Granger,” Malfoy says quietly, “is that you were judged for something the whole world knew was untrue. But what you think about me…whatever you think of me, the whole world will disagree with you.”

Hermione shakes her head. “I don’t believe that’s true. I believe you’ve changed, your perceptions of others have changed—even if you can’t admit it to yourself. I just don’t know why you’re so adamant on still judging Ron and his family but I believe if you just get past—”

“Spare me the sanctimonious bullsh*t, Granger,” Malfoy scoffs. “Whatever reasons I have against Weasley and his—”

“Do not finish that sentence,” Hermione warns.

“—pathetic excuse of— ”

“Fine, you know what I really think, Malfoy?” she cuts in, her words strangled and harsh. She steps toward him as rage boils her blood. “I think you're just upset that despite everything you learned, despite what you were taught about Ron and Harry, you realized there were more things in common between you and them than there were differences. You spent your whole life following your family’s traditions and your father's orders and despite it, you were just miserable that a blood-traitor family was more of a family than yours. And you resort to words and insults like a coward because it kills you to see that a pureblood family could be friends with a Mudblood and still be happier and more loved than you could ever be!”

She heaves a breath when she finishes, blinking rapidly in shock at her own words and the anger leached from her body. Deafening silence fills the fissure between them and when she takes another step towards him, Malfoy takes an immediate step back.

He stares at her with dark, empty eyes and she just wishes he’d yell at her because it’s agonizing to see the flood of emotions across his eyes he trying to mask and control.

“You’re right,” he says finally. His voice cracks and Hermione’s heart sinks at the sound.

“I shouldn't have—”

“But words were all I knew,” he continues. “I didn’t learn to just hate you or Potter or Weasley, I learned how to weaponize words.”

Malfoy bites the inside of his lower lips as he struggles and the pained expression on his face is so unbelievably raw, she’s left not knowing what to say.

“I…" he stops and tries again, "The things my father would say about them…about you were nothing compared to the things I heard him say to me. He never raised a hand to hurt me but what he would say to me—I was nothing if I couldn’t prove myself to him. Everything I ever did or said was for him. I believed whatever he said because I loved him and he was my father so that meant he loved me too."

Hermione clasps her hands against her chest as she feels the quiet darkness in him unravelling and looping around his words. Wishes she could touch him and give him some semblance of comfort.

“He would say that Muggle-borns were dirt and the worst of our society and I believed him. He hated the Weasleys and so I did too. He said I had to protect Mother, protect both of them, so that is what I did. He said I was a failure when I couldn’t kill Dumbledore, and I believed it. He said I was nothing and I learned that words were more powerful than anything my wand could do. But the things I did—or, or the things I said…it was always for him and Mother. And I can understand that might not make sense to you, that my traditions might not make sense, but it was my entire f*cking life. And you might hate my father for all he did but in the end, Granger, he was my father. So I will live with my sins and I will accept my cowardice for the orders I followed. I had choices and I made all the wrong ones, I know that. Believe me, I know that.”

With his words, everything just falls into place. Draco Malfoy has never been this real or this familiar to her.

And all of it makes her want to laugh. A continuous, hysterical manic laugh starts in her throat and dissolves on her tongue at the cruel, horrible world the two of them have found themselves in.

He thinks he’s the only one with sins, poor decisions, regretful choices. He thinks he’s responsible for everything that happened that night at the Tower and then again at the Manor.

He lives his life looking down at his hands, wondering what he could do, if there was even anything to be done, about the blood on them. And why wouldn’t he, if that’s all he’s been told?

She wants to tell him there was nothing he could have done that would have changed the cards they were dealt. Their own parents couldn’t have protected them, how could they, as children, have protected others? Protect themselves?

The decisions made during the war were not a singular choice made by a solitary person. It was a culmination of years and individual moments made by others before their time. It’s always been one step forward, a hundred steps back. Their decisions were a single drop of water into the ocean of the decisions made by others around them. They had done nothing wrong except for perhaps fooling themselves into thinking they had any say, any role, in how those events would have played out.

They were merely pieces in a game set by people who bowed out whenever they chose to. And perhaps they had contributed to those decisions with mistakes of their own, but they were just children. Children who had the right to make mistakes and then have the consequences of those mistakes rectified by the adults around them.

And Hermione understands all this. She learned and came to this conclusion long ago for her sanity but Malfoy’s stuck because he sees himself as nothing but what he did and who he did it for. And perhaps somewhere he lost himself and became who he so desperately wanted to love.

She doesn't know how to make him see what she sees but she feels the overwhelming need to try anyhow.

Hermione controls her breath and says steadily, “You’re not your father, Malfoy.”

He inhales a sharp breath, his eyes snap to her. He’s shaking his head and he’s falling to his knees and Hermione’s heart is breaking because she’s never seen him look so defeated, so torn apart that she’s afraid nothing will ever make him whole again.

“And that wasn’t love.”

“It—it was my life.” He’s shaking his head, his eyes wide and glassy like a terrified child. "It was my entire life."

She nods. "Okay."

“You don’t understand,” he grits out. “You don’t get it. He loved me, okay?” he says, sounding as if he’s trying to convince himself than her. “It was all I had, Granger. It had to be love.”

“I’m sorry,” she says hoarsely because no one has ever said it to him. “I’m so sorry.”

It’s not enough. Not enough for this boy who grew up too quickly in a war that wasn’t his. Who is too scared to even come close to her now, too afraid of what he thinks he might do to her, because of what he once did. Who confuses hurt for love because it’s all he’s known.

She steps up to him where he sits in the sand. The moon behind him casts a fluorescent glow against his pale skin, making his light hair even whiter and the silver stark against his red-rimmed eyes. His skin is still ghostly despite hours in the sun. The bruises under his eyes, the veins on his eyelids, translucent as paper. He looks up at her with haunted eyes like he’s on the verge of shattering, his face twisted with sheer misery, begging her to do something.

Love is tender, she wants to tell him. Love is patient and kind. But even though words are all he has, she knows it won’t be enough this time.

“Let me show you.” Hermione’s entire body is shaking but somehow when she reaches a hand toward him it’s calm and sure. She waits for him to back away or object, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t look away from her face, doesn’t even blink. And when she takes his hand, he doesn’t flinch.

“This doesn’t hurt,” she tells him. She can’t understand how her voice is coming out as even as it is when inside she is chaos. There is a storm in her blood, a torrent river rushing in her ears.

She holds his hand between her two hands and then gingerly places a palm down onto his. Her hand, though smaller, lines comfortably with his. The pads of her fingers brush along the calluses of his and if he wants, he can fold them across hers and they would fit together perfectly as well. They've held hands by now, but jarring every single time anyway. His wide eyes drop to their hands and he stares and stares as if trying to see how it’s even possible.

He shifts and she thinks he’s going to snatch his hand away but he grabs her wrist with his other hand and grips the edge of her sleeve.

He looks up at her and waits.

Hermione doesn't need to think—she nods.

In a single move, he pulls the sleeve back to expose her forearm. Somehow his face becomes even paler.

She can’t help the surprised sound that leaves her but she tries not to move when he delicately brushes his fingers across her jagged scar with an aching gentleness she’s come to know from him. Her breaths come out short and trembling when he traces the letters. The scar, regardless of how many potions she's tried, remains as red as the day it was carved into her skin. And while she has every line that makes up every letter memorized, she’s never looked this closely at her scar the way he is looking at it right now.

It’s a part of her body that she does not outright despise but also doesn’t display for all to see. It’s not a battle scar for Hermione or a reminder of what she’s faced and overcame. It is something she does not wish to have admired or manipulated into something that she needs as a way to prove to herself that she’s lived through difficult things. It exists simply because it happened to her. But somehow, the word which she knows is inherently ugly is transformed into something tender just because of his touch.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she whispers into the dark.

Malfoy slowly lets go of her arm and she makes her way to bring her sleeve back down when his hands, strong and firm, come to rest on her hips.

“And if I touched you here?” he asks, his voice is a soft sound like the first kiss of snow on skin. His silver eyes, mercurial planets floating in space, are dilated and hooded as he looks up at her. The despair from before is replaced with a hunger she's never seen before.

“You can,” she breathes. Hermione feels as if she's caught in a tide, dragging her underwater by her feet, until she's panting for air, heaving for a single breath, only to continue further into the water out of her own will because if this drowning, she never wants to come up for air again.

Malfoy's long, pale neck is stretched and elongated as he tilts his head further back to meet her gaze. She sees the shift of his throat when he gulps, the quickened pulse that surely matches hers.

Keeping his eyes locked on hers, Malfoy raises his hands up and up the sides of her body. Her shirt follows with his hold, lifting just briefly to expose the bare skin underneath. His hands keep moving her, past her hips, her waist, before stopping at her ribs, just below her breasts.

She shivers when his breath fans across her skin. Her hands are shaking at her side as he lowers his head, eyes still not moving away from her face.

"You can," she says again.

His lips stop millimetres away from her skin and she thinks she'll die any second. There’s a question in his silence as he watches her, a sort of hesitance that makes her think that perhaps he’s thinking of the repercussions of what might happen. But Hermione has been lost and alone for so long, and she needs this just as much as him. She'll give him this because it's all she can give to make him see and she’ll take anything he gives her back, even if it comes with conditions.

“No one would have to know,” she says and her soul breaks in half. He blinks, a small frown forming between his brows, studying her. The pause is long and the silence still but he lowers his lips to her skin and she arches at the softness. Malfoy rests his forehead against her stomach and sets fire to her body. His anguished hands cling to her and Hermione’s eyes well up with tears.

What was the point of the war, she wonders, if sons and daughters were left belonging to no one? Who did they fight for if a moment of surrender costs so much? If all that remained of those who survived were hollowed skeletons trying desperately to live and love again?

She wants to clutch onto his head, wrap her arms around his shoulders, and sink into him just as he has into her. But she knows she’s done the most she physically can for him tonight. It's up to him now to do with what she's given.

Stepping out of his hold feels like the hardest thing she’s ever done but somehow she’s able to pull herself away. He feels the change in her and immediately, easily his hands fall off her. He silently watches her move back and Hermione angles her head to the other side to hide the tears.

When she leaves, he doesn’t stop her.

________________________________

This is how you break a home.

You start first by building it.

The walls are ancient but noble, constructed of years of finery and unshakeable traditions. The floors are made of everlasting values and beliefs, transcending generations and generations. It is a labyrinth, filled with turns and curves of power and supremacy. It is easy to get lost in this place.

Here is a garden, here is a kitchen, here are the bedrooms, here are the locked doors—don’t open them.

There is a god in this house—the ones before you have made sure of it. He is found in the mirrors, the mahogany table, the silenced voices of the portraits.

Say,

My Lord, forgive me.

My Lord, let me prove myself.

My Lord, I will do anything.

Then, you bring her in.

A daffodil amongst weeds and thorns.

And you love her.

Gods, you love her.

She is better than you, braver than you, and purer in ways you never will be. You would die for her, and that is the truth. But where you would expect to be weakened for this, you only find strength and will. She makes this house, with its empty bones, into a home.

And she gives you a son and you promise yourself that you will love him just as hard. So you try and try but there’s something wrong with him or perhaps with you because none of it is working right. The hallways are filled with his laughter and your heart crumbles. The walls are stained with the prints of his small hands and your bones splinter. He wraps his arms around you and you want to scream. If the love you felt for her made you strong, then why is this love making you so weak?

What you don’t realize is the problem was never your love. You loved him in the only way you knew how but never in the way he needed. And this is the first crack in your home.

Greater than the love for your wife and your son is your fear. Your fear of becoming no one, of falling behind, of losing everything when the storm comes.

Because a storm is coming— you feel it in the whispers of the wind, the quiet shudders of your windows, the creaking of the floorboards. The rumours have been there before your time, found in the crevices of this home, in the attic, the cellar passed down and down this dynasty of a poisonous bloodline.

How you survive the storm will be your legacy.

And so you must prepare your son and reap the consequences of your blasphemy.

You tell him you love him. You give him everything and more. But why can’t he see? He needs to do better, be better because the storm will leave no survivors if they are not ready.

Why can’t he see this house won’t make it if he doesn’t prepare? The foundations are malignant, filled with disease and hemorrhaged blood, standing on shaky ground that is sure to sink and swallow them whole if he doesn’t just grow up and be the man he must be.

Maybe he is weak. Maybe he needs to be reminded that he is loved. So you tell him again that you love him but you can’t help it, you also tell him he is just not enough. In turn, he learns that love is not enough.

But he is bigger than you and bigger than what will happen. Maybe one day he will leave this home while you slowly decay and become bones and then dust and then nothing and he will grow and become something more than these desolate walls, even if he’s the only one to witness it. Even if it kills him.

But for now, you break a home by letting the fear of the storm in; for fear is the heart of this house.

Because when the storm comes and leaves, all that will be left are ghosts and shattered doors.

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

Someone, I tell you, will remember us, even in another time.

-Safia Al-Jabar, 1915

The day is hot and the sun is high.

Hermione walks ahead of Malfoy, head buzzing with noise, and eyes darting around the desert.

It was a quiet morning and then an even quieter walk. She’s trying not to focus on what happened last night but every few minutes her mind keeps wandering to him and his lips on her skin.

He’s silent. Hasn’t spoken a single word to her today. Hardly even looked at her except for when she said, “We should be able to find the Cave today.”

“Alright,” was his response before he looked away.

Alright.

Nothing is alright, she wanted to tell him. Things are very much not alright.

But instead, Hermione turned and walked.

Since then, she hasn’t stopped or looked at him.

He’s there though, behind her.

She knows he is—can hear his quiet footsteps in the sand. But she wishes he’d at least walk beside her so he didn’t feel so far. She tried slowing her steps to see what would happen but the distance remained the same. She quickened her steps and he followed—the space between them again not shortening. It’s as if he’s purposefully trying to stay as far as physically as possible without slowing them both down.

Hermione sighs and lowers the scarf down her mouth to take a sip of her water. She glances around the desert again and frowns.

They left the wadi at dawn and she was expecting there to be more mountains but it only opened to a plain, dune-less, land. The further they walk away from the wadi, the more worried she gets because they’re supposed to find the cave today but all she’s seeing is…nothing.

Perhaps they just need to walk past dusk today and into the night.

Hermione slows her pace just enough to dip her chin and quickly glance over her shoulder.

Malfoy’s face is half-covered by his scarf but she catches his eyes immediately and startles when he just looks back at her. Hermione abruptly turns back to the front, her heart skipping a beat.

“Idiot,” she mutters, shaking her head at her juvenile reaction. They’ve been playing the staring game for an entire month and now she can’t even look at him in his eyes. All that hard work for nothing. “You really are a complete idiot, Hermione.”

She wipes the bead of sweat off her brows and squints her eyes at the waving large, dark object nestled within the sand ahead.

It’s a cave.

Hermione blinks.

It’s gone.

Instead, there’s a distant bending of sunbeam rays that makes it look, as though there was something there—a mirage. Hermione’s stomach churns uncomfortably at the thought of having to deal with mirages now. It’s most inconvenient to have to second guess every single thing she sees and she hopes the next cave she sees is not just a trick of the eye.

She’s surprised to have not been found by Amina or the rescuers yet. It’s been three days since they’ve left the encampment which would mean people are out looking for them. She’s relying on Amina knowing her enough to have guessed her disappearance would mean she’s gone looking for the Cave. The fact that no one has found them just yet would mean Hermione and Malfoy have travelled too far or the rescuers faced some sort of obstacle looking for them. Hermione hopes that’s not the case; she doesn’t know what exactly she needs to do once she’s found the Cave to then be found herself.

Hermione purses her lips in thought. Maybe she should have discussed that with Malfoy before moving them further away from the original meeting place.

She can do it now, she realizes. They need to have a solid plan on how to get back home after the Cave and now as good as any time because they can stop for lunch and then talk while eating. If they’re eating then she won’t have to look at him directly.

“Yes, a plan.” Hermione rolls her eyes. “That’s exactly why you want to talk to him.”

There is the problem that if she stops and asks him what he thinks, then she’ll just be admitting she didn’t have a full plan when she decided to leave in the first place. And she really does not want to get into an argument with him.

It might delay their stay in the desert but it’s probably best not to bring it up just yet.

“But don’t you want to go home ?” Hermione asks herself, incredulously. She’s slightly affronted by her own lack of urge to go home. She’s felt more desperate to look for Cave for the sake of finding the Cave rather than to finish the expedition and go back.

Home.

They are people waiting for her, her friends, and commitments like her Ministry work and her project with Neville.

Right, of course, she wants to go home.

Like a normal person, she’s ready to go home.

Hermione takes a deep breath and is about to turn back to Malfoy when she shakes her head, facing forward once more. It’s not the right time. His eyes just stared at her, quite intensely actually, and she's not a hundred percent sure, but he had that look that suggested he might be unwilling to engage in any discourse with her just yet.

She’ll just walk for another twenty minutes and then stop and ask him.

Twenty minutes is a logical and even amount of time. There’s a practical feeling to the number.

Hermione’s nose scrunches, scowling at her ridiculousness.

It’s just Malfoy. He should be afraid to talk to her and not the other way around.

“Sod it,” she grumbles.

She stops halfway between her next step and is about to turn around when suddenly the muscles in her body seize.

Her lungs constrict and she cries out in pain, hands instantly going to her throat as she chokes. She thinks maybe it's her necklace but the gripping sensations are occurring inside her throat, pulling the muscles inward.

Her skin burnsand her organs turn into agonizing flames and she’s still choking, crying out as the nerve endings of her brain get electrocuted.

She gasps for air, stumbling and lurching forward blindly as her vision deteriorates. She can’t see anything except for darkness and red spots. She falls to her knees and her hands clench onto the slippery sand for purchase. She feels like she is dying and she doesn’t even have the breath to call out for Malfoy when suddenly her lungs expand with air.

Her entire body loosens just as quickly as it squeezed into itself. She heaves dry air, coughing and clutching her chest, shaking with the passing of the pain.

“Malfoy,” she manages finally as she slowly pushes herself off the sand on unsteady legs. She has to blink several times to get her full vision back and she turns around, saying his name once more—

He’s gone.

He was right there and now he’s not.

Her voice is hoarse and her throat aches brutally as she stands stunned and says, “Malfoy?”

Panic flares in her chest, her momentary pain completely forgotten. She whirls around where she stands but it’s an empty land with nowhere for him to disappear into.

“Malfoy!”

It’s not possible, she saw him just minutes ago and he was following her and now—

“Malfoy!” she cries out again, as if her voice can bring him back.

Hermione runs forward and her head smacks into something solid. She falls backwards into the sand, her forehead throbbing. She groans, rubbing her palm to soothe the pain. It takes a few seconds for her to catch her breath and she lifts her head, expecting to see a wall but seeing instead the same empty land as before. Her mind whirls past the pulsating pain, trying to comprehend what’s just happened.

She stands again, a new dull pain growing at the side of her head. Carefully, she raises her hands in front of her and takes the step forward again. Her hands immediately touch something firm.

It is a wall. An invisible wall.

She touches it again and she feels a small vibration reflected back to her.

It’s not completely solid and unmalleable.

She starts patting it, trying to see where it ends. It goes straight into the sand and reaches higher than her hands can go. When she starts moving to the left, it doesn’t seem to end. She keeps walking and walking but it continues further and further down. When she moves to the right, it’s the same.

When she turns around in the southern direction they were walking, she only sees the same plain land as before. She walks carefully with her outstretched hands in front of her but she doesn’t meet the other side of the wall.

Which would mean it’s either a single wall spanning from east to west or somewhere it curves and continues around to make a larger circle.

She stops moving altogether. Her heart is pounding rapidly against her cage and she bites her lip before turning back around to where Malfoy once stood.

She closes her eyes and tries to breathe so she can think calmly.

Other than her rabid pulse, she can’t hear anything. Not the whistling of the wind before or the scattering of the sand.

It has to be some kind of protective charm that she’s found herself enclosed in and she realizes with startling clarity that this was the protective charm the lights were reflecting off.

It’s the Cave. Somewhere here.

She’ll waste all her energy trying to figure out where the wall starts and ends, but she knows Malfoy must be on the other side.

She takes out her wand and tries a series of unlocking and disillusionment spells but none of them work as suspected. This is no ordinary spell and removing the wall would require using Safia’s runes. It’s meant to isolate someone, drive them mad without any escape.

There must be an easier way. If only she could see it and Malfoy.

She blinks when she remembers and quickly Accios the aggri stone. She brings it to her eyes and—

She can see the wall.

It’s almost translucent except she can see the change in the air current where the spell is, resembling something like a heatwave. She turns to her right and gasps when she spots Malfoy. He's further away, his hands are also patting the wall as if to figure out where it might end.

He’s holding onto the wall with one hand and the other grips his wand. She can’t hear the spells he’s saying but she sees the moment where he throws the wand at the ground and shouts in frustration, perhaps realizing the same thing as her about the runes.

She runs to him.

His scarf hangs around his neck, his hair wild as if he’s just run a hand through it. He’s pale, a look of frantic anger in his eyes, as he stoops to pick up the wand again. Hermione slams her hand against the wall where his other hand remains and Malfoy freezes.

His head whips to the wall.

She slams her hand again. She feels the wall vibrate slightly under her skin and holds her breath.

His eyes jump across the wall in disbelief before settling on his hand. He looks back at the wall and he sees right through her but the relief that he can feel her nevertheless melts the terror shaking her.

Malfoy pulls back his hand and bangs it against the wall and Hermione feels the force of it travel through the wall and down her arm.

She pounds her fist to assure him she’s still there before flattening her hand over his. His eyes widen and she can physically see some of the tension leave his body.

His shoulders fall as he releases a breath and leans his forehead against the wall, closing his eyes. Hermione does the same, looking up as his lips part to murmur something.

“It’s alright,” she whispers back to him, even though he can’t hear. “We’re going to be alright.”

They remain like this for just a few seconds but it feels like ages before they simultaneously lift their heads again.

She pushes her shoulders back and licks her dry lips.

They need to use the runes. She hopes he still has them memorized and knows what’s required to activate them. They’ll have to both do it in case the wall has two layers and is meant to separate groups of people on either side. It is something Safia would do to hide the Cave.

But Malfoy nods once to himself, as if he can hear her thoughts, and steps back.

Hermione takes out her wand. “Diffindo.”

Her palm slices open and she hisses at the pain. Bright red blood, like jewelled rubies, seeps out of the wound and she cups her hand to make sure she doesn’t waste it.

She looks up just in time to see Malfoy glance at his wand and point it into his bag. She frowns, unsure what he’s doing, and gets anxious that might not know what needs to be done. But then she sees the pen she gave him and she understands.

He can’t use defensive spells; which means he can’t use the Severing charm.

His brows furrow as he twists the end of the pen, trying to replicate what she’d once shown him, before a small blade pops out. He doesn’t even hesitate to bring it to his hand and she winces when he slices it across his palm.

He steps up back to the wall, using his uninjured hand to locate it. Once found, he brings the other hand to it as well. Immediately, blood pours over the wall.

She tries balancing the aggri stone in her hand while also slamming her bloodied hand against the wall again to let him know she’s there. But it proves difficult and she uses it one last time to see where his hand remains before putting it in her bag.

Then she bangs her hand against the wall, her blood smearing across it and splattering across her clothes, and waits. She feels him right away.

She can’t see him, but her eyes bore into the wall anyway, trying to locate his face.

To open something was not the same as to break something. They spent one of the nights going over the runes and their meanings and she hopes he comes to the same conclusion that they would probably need to spell out ASUNDER for the wall to fall.

She gets a hysterical thought that they might have missed some runes that might contain the one needed now, but she banishes it immediately away from her head.

He’s bleeding on the other side, she reminds herself. There is no time to waste.

Her entire palm is wet with her blood and she squeezes her hand once to gather more before writing the rune onto the wall.

Once she’s done, she stands with her palm flat. She feels slightly lightheaded as the blood leaks between her fingers, down the back of her hand, and into her sleeve. But she doesn’t move, waiting for Malfoy to finish with his side and for the activation.

She worries at her lip when nothing happens.

“Come on,” she breathes, feeling jittery as her pulse speeds up. “Come on, come on.”

Her entire body is twitching as if she’s about to have another seizure. She reaches for her aggri stone to see what’s happening on the other side when she feels it.

A slight tingle of magic under her skin. Her eyes narrow when the blood under her hand starts to quiver and pool together.

The quiet air takes a preternatural turn and she wants to step away from the shaking wall but Hermione forces herself to be still.

The trembling force speeds up until her own body is shaking merely by contact. Her teeth chatter and she feels her hand about to slip but Hermione grits her teeth and holds on.

However, she can’t help the whimper when the very ground beneath her feet also starts to shake. Her eyes flit around the wall and the ground nervously as the sand is lifted and starts to swirl around Hermione’s body.

Her eyes snap to the sky as dark, thunder clouds accumulate.

“Hold on,” she says, even though Malfoy still can’t hear her.

The wall starts to crack and splinter in every direction and she inhales one breath before it shatters beneath her hand.

She gasps when she sees Malfoy. There’s a flood of relief on his face when he meets her eyes and both of their arms simultaneously reach out to each other just when the ground opens under them.

Their fingers barely graze and then they fall.

“No!” she shouts but her voice is devoured completely. If Malfoy says something, she can’t hear it.

She can’t even see him.

Her body flings through the crevice that has opened up in the earth, falling and falling. She swings her head to the left, her arm still stretched out but she sees nothing except for an endless sky.

She squeezes her eyes shut, her cry stuck in her throat, and it feels like forever before she drops onto the sand.

Her body breaks. Or at least that's what it feels like. Her breath is knocked out of her and for a moment she’s swallowed whole by the darkness again.

She feels nothing, hears nothing except—

“Granger!”

The voice is distant and distorted. As if she’s standing on a cliff and it’s somewhere below, hiding between the trough of trees.

Hermione groans but the low sound comes out strangled as she tries to lift her face off the sand. A metallic, tang overwhelms her senses, exploding across her taste buds. She feels something wet and warm oozing down the back of her throat and she almost chokes when she inhales a breath.

“f*ck, no, no, no.” Footsteps echo like a drill in her head and Hermione squeezes her eyes shut to make the pain go away. “No—please. ”

She feels hands on her shoulders, pulling her off the sand and turning her. “Granger.”

It’s a strange way to say her name, she thinks faintly.

She flinches when she tries to open her eyes, the sun in her way. But then there’s a shadow and hands dusting the sand off her cheeks and when she tries to look again, she sees Malfoy.

He’s holding her neck in one hand, his hand splaying across her throat and steadying her face within his grasp by her jaw.

“Alright?” he whispers, hoarsely. There’s sand all over his face, covering his brows, his cheeks, his lips and she’s tempted to reach up and wipe them. His breath hitches and his forehead wrinkles but his silver eyes sink into hers, waiting for her to say something.

“Alright,” she responds, her voice gurgling past the liquid in her mouth.

Her eyes are in the direct line of his throat and there’s a shift there she sees when he swallows deeply and sighs. She wants to lower her head into the hollow of his neck, close her eyes, and sleep.

She tries to inhale another breath but it gets stuck somewhere in the back of her mouth and she coughs loudly, her lungs burning and rib cage aching. A spurt of blood escapes her mouth, dripping past her lips and down her chin. Malfoy immediately lurches her over and she coughs again, her abdomen protesting in pain, and spits out the blood in her mouth.

Hermione winces at the red staining the sand in front of her. She lifts a numb hand to wipe her mouth with her scarf. Malfoy’s arm is firm across her chest, holding her in place as she coughs once more. She releases a long, trembling breath, clutching onto his arm for support when she’s done.

His other hand comes around her with a bottle of water. It’s tinged with his blood from his injured hand, but she hardly notices as she takes it, both of her hands now filled with blood as well.

She’s about to take a sip when her eyes lift to the mountain in front of her.

Immediately, Hermione is pulling away from Malfoy’s arm, rising to her feet.

“Granger, slow—”

“Malfoy, look!”

Malfoy grunts as he slowly stands, and she feels him come up behind her, his shoulder lightly brushing against hers.

“It’s the Cave,” she whispers, awe-struck. “Kahif Al-Noor.”

The moment she says the words out loud, the air turns still, as if taken aback by her willingness to speak them. The mountain, surrounded by others, looms over them, standing tall and peaking into the sky above. Yet despite its great height, there’s no shadow where it stands. There’s an eerie feel to it, it’s black, jagged stone completely consuming the sunlight to somehow reflect darkness. Goosebumps spill over her skin and the hair at her nape rises as she scans the sight in front of her.

Hermione glances over at Malfoy to ask whether he feels the change in the atmosphere as well. But his face is twisted with pain and her eyes drop to the way he's holding his injured hand to his chest.

Hermione turns to him, worried. “What happened? Is it the cut?”

He shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

He tries to lower his arm as if to show her, and though he doesn’t make a sound, his entire face grimaces.

Hermione frowns, studying his arm carefully. His hand is still wounded, but it’s his shoulder that is at an odd angle. She lightly touches his bicep and the sensitive muscles jerk under her touch.

She glares at him for lying to her. “You’re not fine. You’ve broken something.”

Malfoy sets his jaw. His eyes are grim, but exhaustion is evident in every hollow of his face. There are splatters of blood staining his cheek, the front of his shirt.

“I landed on my shoulder,” he says, at last. His voice is terse, as if falling on his shoulder was some kind of failure on his part. “But it’s fine.”

She reaches for his hand. “Well let me heal your hand then, you’re bleeding for no reason.”

He pulls away. “We’ll need the blood to enter—”

“We don’t need blood from both of us,” she tells him sternly. “We’ll use my blood instead.”

He opens his mouth to argue but Hermione already has his hand in hers, pointing her wand at the wound. Both of their hands are stained red, their dark nails crusted with dried blood. At this point, she doesn’t even know who the blood belongs to.

She carefully picks off some of the sand particles and whispers, “Episkey. ”

The wound slowly seams together, skin melding across the cut, before leaving a scar behind. Hermione brushes her thumb across the thin line. She takes the scarf around his neck to wrap his arm in a sling and Malfoy flinches just once when she ties the knot at the shoulder. His gaze remains on her the entire time.

She slowly lets go of the cloth at the back of his neck and looks over his shoulder.

“That’s where we were coming from,” she says, taking in the familiar strip of land they crossed. She raises her gaze to the sky. “When I fell, it was as though I was falling through a hole in the sky.”

“That’s what it felt for me too,” Malfoy says. “But we’ve ended up exactly where we were standing before, so it must have been Safia’s protective charm to stop anyone from seeing the Cave.”

“I think there was a barrier,” Hermione adds, shivering at the remembrance of the seizing pain she felt. “I must have activated the wall when I crossed it.”

Hermione faces the Cave. Trepidation mixes with adrenaline. Her body is still shaking, from the fall, the blood loss, but anticipation rushes through her. An entire month looking for the Cave and they finally reached it.

She swallows through her parched throat. “Ready?”

Malfoy nods, eyeing the mountain with the same hesitance. They gather their things from the sand that left their person during the fall and make their way to what looks like the entrance to the main mountain.

At the threshold, she makes way to spell the rune for ENTER when Malfoy grips her other hand, bringing her attention to him.

“Remember your intention,” he says.

“Right, of course.” Hermione nods, remembering what they discussed. She turns back to the stone. “Goodwill.”

He doesn’t let go of her as she squeezes her hand in a fist to draw out more blood.

Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, Hermione tries to conjure up a feeling akin to goodwill. She thinks of creating the Cave as an accessible historical site for all to come and see. She tries to communicate benevolent intentions, reminding herself that she will not drink from the Cave and will leave it untouched. She’s not sure if any of these promises are sufficient enough to portray good intentions so she ends up also thinking back to why she fought in the war, the moment right before she Obliviated her parents, and the day she approached the Ministry to ask for her private testimony.

Hermione reopens her eyes and writes the rune across the cold stone.

It’s faster this time. The blood quickly spreads and then disappears as if soaked by the mountain. The mountain rumbles in response, a deep groan from somewhere within, and pebbles and sand stir at the threshold. The stone shakes under her hand and she finally lets go when it starts to part to the side. The movement causes some sand to fall from the sides.

Malfoy pulls her slightly back and away from the falling stones, until there's an opening large enough to create a mouth within the mountain.

Hermione stares into the dark cavern. The inky darkness stares back.

Unease flutters across her chest, and for a second, she’s tempted to turn around and walk away. It’s just a feeling, yet it’s visceral in how it grips her bones. For all her ideas on enlightenment, there’s a stain to this darkness that she doubts any light can remove.

But Malfoy squeezes her hand once, as if sensing her thoughts, and Hermione steps in without another.

Hermione waves her wand across the cavern. “Lumos.”

Malfoy lets go of her hand and follows with his own wand. The wandlight illuminates the inside of the cave, but the darkness within seems to expand further away from where they stand, depthless. Hermione flicks her eyes above and sees no end to the mountain there either.

Her ears strain to listen for the oasis, a rush of water or even just droplets, but the silence is deafening. The air is thick with an aged, earthy smell; like stacks of old, water-damaged books layered with dust and mites. Her nose itches the further she walks.

Hermione rolls her shoulders, trying to remove some of the discomfort out of her body. Her muscles burn and she’s sure she’s splotched with bruises and cuts. It hadn’t been a very long fall but she knows there’s probably some damage that she hasn’t looked at. Still, the pain in her body from the fall wouldn’t be the only thing making her nervous. It’s as though every fibre in her body is on an edge, warning her to listen, to pay attention. She rubs the chills on her arm.

Their echoing footsteps are the only sounds for twenty paces, until something whips past Hermione’s head, brushing against her hair. Hermione shrieks and ducks her head. She flings her wand to see what it is when another dark object flies in front of her nose.

Hermione stumbles back, screaming. Her back slams into a rock behind her, a jagged edge piercing against her skin. Her screeches bounce off the rocks and then suddenly there’s an entire wave of flying bodies above their heads. A storm of wings flap around her.

“f*ck—Granger! Stop!”

Hermione can’t stop howling as she falls to the ground. She squeezes her eyes shut and covers her face with her arms, her throat burning with the high-pitched sound leaving her body.

“Stop!” Malfoy comes in front of her, on his haunches. “It’s just bats!”

She stops screaming at the sound of his voice but remains curled into herself. Malfoy tries to pull her arms away from her face, but she resists, yanking herself back. His hand comes up to the side of her face, his fingers disappearing into her hair, and he tilts her head up.

Hermione gives in this time, letting him bring her face close to his. Her body shakes frantically to the beat of her pounding heart and she’s gasping for air, blinking rapidly into his confused face.

“It’s just bats,” he repeats quietly. “They’re gone.”

“Bats?” she croaks.

“We’re in a cave, Granger, there are bound to be bats and other things in here.”

Hermione forces herself to inhale a fistful of air. “I’m sorry. I—I don’t know why I reacted like that. I’m sorry—I’m okay.”

She makes her way to stand but he refuses to let go of her. His eyes jump across her face, searching her. “What is it? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” she says, feeling an overwhelming amount of emotions. Her throat bobs and she tries again. “I might just be spooked, but I just feel like…I just feel like something is off. I can’t explain it but there’s something wrong here.”

Malfoy’s lips twist as he considers her. “We haven’t even found the oasis yet.”

“I know—but don’t you feel it? It’s in the air, all around us. I just never thought it’d be like this.”

“But we never knew what it was going to be like anyway,” he says gently. “It’s supposed to be a myth—we know nothing about it.”

“I thought at least there would be some light. A lot of light, actually,” she says. “Something clear and obvious to mark that this is a place of enlightenment.”

“We’ll walk a little more, alright? We can go to the end and see what’s there. But if you don’t want to do this, we can go back out and just wait for the others. They’re sure to be right behind us.”

Hermione isn’t even sure about that anymore. What if the wall was back up? How were they going to be found if they physically could not see them?

Malfoy must see the newfound panic on her face because he says firmly, “They’ll find us, Granger. I know they will. But you might also be jittery because of your blood loss. Fix your wound so you’re not bleeding and if we need to use the runes again, we can make another cut.”

Hermione nods, numbly. Her wound isn’t bleeding anymore anyway but she heals it still. When Malfoy steps away to give her space she takes another breath to calm herself. He gives her his hand and she takes it, averting her gaze.

He watches her carefully but she turns away, feeling embarrassed about her sudden outburst. They continue the walk, with Malfoy taking the lead. She remains on guard in case more bats, or other creatures, are waiting to attack them.

Malfoy leads them down a path that ends up dividing into two.

“Which one?” he asks her.

“Right,” she replies, for no particular reason.

He doesn’t object. They walk two steps before they end up in front of a blocked path.

Hermione points her wand at it but Malfoy pushes it down. “It’s part of the mountain,” he explains, gesturing to where it curves and joins the greater wall in a single panel of stone. “There’s nothing behind there and if you try to break it, the entire mountain might come down on us.”

Hermione doesn’t say anything. She turns and takes him out and down the other path. They walk around five paces before it splits into two once more.

Hermione walks down the left this time and finds it to open up. They walk for less than a minute when the space to walk side by side becomes enough space to walk just behind each other.

She tries not to worry about the claustrophobia, but finds herself asking, “How do we know this is the right path?”

“We don’t.” Malfoy’s voice is not as sure as she hopes. “But we'll just keep going.”

The path becomes rockier as well, uneven and slippery. Hermione brings the light to the ground to see whether it’s water, but sees only rocks. She falters when the light snags on dark droplets staining some of the rocks. She brings the wand to the edge of the path and up the wall to her left. There’s a smear of something dark there as well, resembling the tone of the droplets. She brings her face closer, making sure not to touch the stone, and squints to decipher the shape.

A small creature skitters over it before she realizes what it resembles.

Three fingers sliding across the stone.

“What is it?” Malfoy asks, his voice close behind her. She points to it and Malfoy turns to where they walked from. He waves his wand down the wall and there, another smear of something dark.

Hermione follows him back down the path. He stops to look at another stain and freezes. Hermione quickly comes up beside him, bringing her wand closer.

The temperature plummets.

It’s a handprint made of—

“It’s blood,” Malfoy says roughly, scratching at the stain. “Dried blood.”

“Do you think it’s Safia’s?”

Malfoy pauses. “The fingers are facing toward the cave’s entrance. If it is hers, then she might have been bleeding from wherever she came from down there, and held onto the wall for support.”

“So at least we know we’re going the right path.”

“But why was she bleeding?” he asks, eyes narrowing at another smear.

“She might have made some more protection spells,” Hermione replies. Her lips twist in thought and then she sucks in a breath. She whirls back to the narrow path and starts running.

“Granger! Wait!” Malfoy calls after her. He hurries up behind her. “Slow down!”

“The oasis has to be right across there!”

Her run slows down when the tunnel not only gets even tighter, forcing Hermione to fold her arms across her chest, but also turns into a slope. There are bloodstains, hand prints and droplets, down the entire stone wall and she tries not to focus on the growing amount. She stumbles down a particularly slippery spot and Hermione immediately grabs onto the wall to straighten herself. But her hand catches on something sharp and when she snatches it back, she slices her finger.

Hermione hisses, bringing her hand close for examination. It’s not a deep cut and she’s about to heal it, fearful of catching an infection, when the path finally opens up to a larger cavern.

Hermione stops walking altogether.

It’s a circular chamber, made entirely of stacked stones. The larger stones are piled on top of each other haphazardly as though the chamber used to be much larger before the crumbling of the mountain caused stones to fall and make it smaller. There’s room enough for just two of Malfoy’s arm span. The air is thicker here, not for humidity but with something dryer and denser. Like a thick shroud pulled over the stones and anyone who enters, making it difficult to breathe.

For all the things the chamber is, there is one stark thing it is not.

“It’s not here,” Hermione whispers. She blinks once, then twice as if it might just be another mirage and the oasis might spring up before her. It does not.

There is no waterfall, no river, not even a slight drizzle of water down the side of the stones.

“Why is it not here?” she asks, stepping to the center. She casts a Lumos Maxima and darts her eyes around the chamber, searching and searching but still, it’s just stones.

“I don’t understand,” she says, in disbelief. She glances up at Malfoy. “Maybe we came down the wrong path?”

“There are no other paths. We’ve already checked them out,” Malfoy replies. His voice is quiet, tinged with fatigue. “This is it.”

“This can’t be it,” Hermione says, harshly. “We followed the diary and the diary was looking for the Cave. Safia was here—her runes led us here! She talked about the Cave when she went back to Russia, and then she got an aggri stone so she could come back here! Why did she want to come back here when there’s no oasis?”

She’s breathing heavily, staring at Malfoy wide-eyed and desperate. Malfoy just looks back at her, his lips pressed and his face unreadable, but she catches the clear resignation in his eyes and it is the answer to her question.

Hermione looks away, unable to even bear it. She brings the heels of her hands to her eyes and tries to calm the storm under her skin. A moment later, she walks over to the stones, patting her hand across the rough, bumpy edges. Looks for a lever, some kind of give to the rocks, anything, that might lead them to the real oasis.

“Granger.”

Hysteria starts bubbling under her skin and there’s a roar in her ears, but she brings forth her wand and starts reciting revealing and unlocking spells over the stones.

“Granger.”

“There has to be something,” she mutters, eyes trained on the rocks. “This can’t be it.”

“Granger!” Hermione spins to him, the demand in his voice controlling. He’s standing on the other side of the chamber. “I found something.”

Hermione runs over. Malfoy points out the little symbols painted into the stones with blood. “I’ve seen this before but it’s not the command runes we’ve been using.”

“Oh,” she says, her mind going blank for half a second before snapping into place. “Oh.”

The runes spread out across half the wall in a single line and continue on the other side of the chamber’s entrance. It’s clearly sprawled out in Safia’s blood and hope seeps back into her veins when she recognizes the writing as well. Hermione Accios all of her books that she’d gotten from Sahrit and her notes. Malfoy takes half of them out of her arms and both of them start flipping.

Hermione’s fingers shake as she goes through her notes, eyes flicking between the symbols and the papers in her hands. She’s too flustered and her eyes are just glazing over her writing, barely registering anything. She lets out an impatient growl when she’s forced to start from the top again.

“This part is about some sort of burial,” Malfoy says, absently. His finger is stopped somewhere in a textbook and his eyes are on the runes in front of him. He frowns and flips to the next page.

Burial.

Hermione slowly turns on her heels. Her eyes drop to the ground and she taps her wand against her leg, lost in thought.

“Revelio,” she says, pointing directly at the ground.

Nothing.

“Defodio!”

Not even a stir of the sand.

“I don’t think the spells are going to work.” Malfoy scratches his arm. “This part right here is about some sort of binding and I think she specifically added some runes to prevent normal magic from working.”

Hermione drops to all fours and starts digging through the sand with her hands.

Malfoy’s boots come up beside her. “Let me—”

“Finish the translation and then help me,” she says. Her hands touch the underlying layer of rock right away. Hermione immediately moves to the next patch on the ground.

She groans when her fingers catch stone once more. “Where is all this sand even coming from?”

“From somewhere up there,” Malfoy answers, nodding up at the ceiling of the chamber. The light from their wands is unable to reach the hiding darkness there. “I think there used to be a sand dune here once—before the winds carved it all away to reveal the mountains underneath.”

She scoots over and starts to dig once more but stops when her hand touches something solid. Smooth, unlike the rocks she’d been stumbling across. She dusts some of the sand off and sees a brown curved object.

“Granger, I think this is a direct passage from the funerary texts…”

Hermione moves lower on the object, swiping the sand away to see what it is. Her mouth twitches when the object has a hollow circle carved into it.

“Something about…binding of the soul to a confined space…Granger?”

Hermione’s pulse slows down to a snail's pace, her hands even slower when she removes another layer of sand. Malfoy’s calling her name, but his voice is somewhere far in the back of her mind, garbled.

Acutely, she’s aware of him coming up beside her, his hand on her shoulder.

Hermione hears every pump of her heart in her ear. Her vision deteriorates as she stares at the skull in front of her.

“f*ck,” Malfoy whispers beside her and Hermione’s lips part.

Her senses return to her all at once, a flood of air in her lungs, and Hermione is gasping, falling back, and crawling away from the corpse. Bile swarms the back of her mouth, her stomach roils with nausea. She blindly clutches onto the wall behind her to help her stand on unsteady legs. She turns and rests her forehead against the cool stone, trying to control her breath without getting sick all over it.

She’s convulsing so hard, her insides are vibrating. But then the ground underneath her starts moving as well, a familiar feeling from the wall outside that she stills for a second. Hermione lifts her head just enough to see what’s happening. The wall under her hands shudders and Hermione turns to Malfoy, a new terror seizing her.

“What’s happening?” she asks breathlessly.

Malfoy’s pacing back and forth down the chamber, eyes flicking around the walls, searching for an answer. He jerks back from the corpse as a ferocious wind suddenly sweeps around the chamber, raising the remainder of the sand off the skeleton.

She yelps when a pebble hits her arm and lowers her head just in time as a handful of sand falls from above.

“sh*t, sh*t, sh*t.” Malfoy’s arm comes up around her head to shield her and he pulls Hermione away from the sifting sand. He casts a sideways glance at her. “Did we activate any runes?”

The cave rumbles back in deep tunes and Hermione freezes. Her gaze falls to her hand and the wound she hadn’t managed to heal, before sliding to the wall she’d been clutching onto a few seconds ago. There’s a small smear of fresh liquid across one of the runes. It doesn’t nearly seem enough compared to the amounts they’ve been using to activate the others, but it pools together and lifts off the wall anyway.

Her voice is as cold as the frost in her body. “My blood is on the wall.”

The air crackles with electricity like lightning in reply to her words. Something powerful and dark simmers between them, mixing with their exhales and the wind.

Malfoy stiffens beside her. For a second he doesn’t say anything.

“We need to leave now.”

But Hermione’s already paralyzed, eyes now transfixed on the skeleton suspended in the air. A whirlwind of sand and pale wisps surround the skeleton, gathering more sand and wind, growing larger and larger.

Something shadowed slithers across Hermione’s body, hissing dark words in her mind.

I am here.

Hermione blinks at the voice. There is a lyrical lilt to the sound, the syllables low-pitched, and inviting. Like a tender caress across her cheek. Hermione shivers.

I am still here.

The wind howls and rages about but the voice is clear and strong as if it’s coming directly from her mouth.

Help me.

Hermione takes a dazed step forward at the anguished plea.

Malfoy yanks her back, somehow oblivious to the voice. “Run, Granger! Now!”

His strong touch clears the fog in her mind and Hermione jolts, peeling her gaze away from the withered corpse. He’s pulling her away from the center of the chamber where the wind has intensified, and pushes her in front of him and toward the entrance. They’ve just managed to move up the slope and back into the tunnel when a gigantic stone falls and lands with a damning thud. Malfoy and Hermione pause, their heads over their shoulders and eyes on the boulder that now takes place over where they stood.

The force of it shakes the mountain and stones cascade down the walls of the narrowed path in response. Hermione gulps the terror and quickly turns back again to the front. She doesn’t need to be told twice and she’s running once more.

Hermione isn’t sure how she’s alive when her heart is hammering this brutally against her ribcage. Her wand shakes in her hand but she tries to keep it steady in front of her to light the path as they move. Bats flutter and screech above her, flying between their bodies and disappearing into the darkness ahead. Hermione ducks her head under an arm but doesn’t waver.

They make it past the second forked path when something heavy falls behind her.

Malfoy lets out a loud, sudden grunt and her heart leaps to her throat.

No, no, no.

She’s about to call out for him and turn around, her chest shaking with dread at what she might see when she feels his hand on her shoulder.

Strong and alive.

“Keep going!” he yells and Hermione almost bursts into tears as she does.

They run past the first forked path and here the tunnel widens. Relief at the extra space grips her bones and she cries out when she sees the mouth of the cave. Daylight welcomes them and Hermione pushes her feet to move harder, faster, when suddenly another large rock falls and blocks their path ahead.

Hermione skids to a stop, her wand already raised. “Reducto!”

The stone fractures and explodes into smaller shards. A small crevice is left behind and Hermione is about to move through it when the walls cave in on either side to block the path.

Hermione casts a Ruducio and the stones shrink. But just as before, the mountain grumbles in response and sheds another layer of rocks from above.

She lifts her wand a third time but Malfoy stops her. "The rocks are not going to end, we need to just get around it.”

She slams her hands against the stones in frustration and Malfoy heaves his good shoulder against the new wall in an attempt to clear it. But the rocks are heavy and burrowed deep within the entrance, not even moving a millimetre in response to his muscles. Hermione peers up and sees there’s just enough room for one person to crawl through.

Malfoy must be thinking the same thing because, immediately, his hands are at her waist. “I’ll lift you up.”

Hermione’s shaking her head, looking at his broken shoulder. Something must have knocked him into a wall or he must have sliced himself against a rock sometime during the run because his sleeve is ripped at the shoulder and she can see his blue-mottled skin swollen and bleeding.

She swallows the fear she feels at the sight. “Your shoulder isn’t good. You go first.”

Malfoy’s about to argue when a glass-shattering screech silences the mountain.

They both stop moving, breathing.

The piercing sound, like nails on a chalkboard, fires her nerves, forcing her to bring her hands to cover her ears. Malfoy does the same, his face turning white. The booming wail lasts a mere two heartbeats but it’s unmistakenly not human, or even animalistic.

Something unearthly has been awakened.

Malfoy doesn’t waste a single second.

He starts his climb over the rock, grunting and wincing in pain when he has to use his wounded shoulder to help him up. His boot slips and Hermione is there, helping him up. Her wandlight flickers once and then twice. If her skin wasn’t already covered with chills, the careening temperature would have stilled her. Her breaths come out quick and twisted as shadows from the corner of her eyes snake along the ground.

A gust of wind hums against her back, raising the hair on her temple like an exhaled sigh. Hermione’s eyes flutter close out of the sheer need to avoid seeing what’s coming up from behind her.

“Malfoy?” she chokes out.

“Here.” Hermione forces herself to open her eyes. His face peeks out of the small space, his arm stretched out to her. His hand waves in front of her. “Grab my hand.”

Wand between her teeth, she steps onto a rock while grabbing onto the wall on one side. She shifts up another rock, one foot on a stone and the other on the wall beside her. She reaches up for his hand but falters when a dark tendril glides between her fingers. Cold sweat breaks across Hermione’s throat as something shifts near her cheek.

Her teeth puncture into her wand as she jets her jaw. She’s about to clasp her hand into Malfoy’s when her vision sways and a voice whispers in her ear.

Take me with you, it moans, brimming with raw desolation and sorrow. I am alone.

The words leave her staggering.

Hermione’s fingers skim against Malfoy’s nails and she catches bare air as she misses a step.

Her legs buckle beneath her, and she feels her body falling back into the inky darkness—

Malfoy grabs her hand.

Hermione gasps and looks up into his silver eyes, brilliantly stark despite the shadows between them.

“I've got you,” he says. The muscles in his jaw clench and the tendons in his neck strain as he pulls her up. The strength in his hand doesn’t loosen, nor does he look away from her face. “Come on, Granger.”

Hermione sinks her feet into the rocks and wheezes against the pain in her abdomen as she summons enough energy to pull herself up to the hole. Malfoy lets go of her hand when she crawls through and jumps down onto the ground. He raises his good arm to catch her by her ribs when she leaps as well.

They don’t even have a second to exhale when he takes her by the hand and starts running again. The walls are trembling now with great force and the ground with equal intensity. They’ve just managed to reach the entrance when the earth underneath them gives way. Hermione whips her head over her shoulder to see the growing cracks in the ground behind, breaking apart and opening into the world underneath. Every step off the ground they take out of the mountain breaks apart. The entire mountain is falling apart into the fissures.

They make it out of the mountain and into the sand outside.

Malfoy slips and falls as the sand beneath their feet ebbs and flows like a gushing river. Their joined hands pull Hermione to the ground right behind him. Malfoy, it seems, is on solid ground—the sand less slippery underneath him as he remains upright and a lot steadier than Hermione. She’s about to follow him over to his side when something ruptures behind her and the sand pours from underneath her knees like an overturned bucket. She’s forced to let go of him when it becomes too overwhelming and she feels herself slide backwards.

Malfoy snaps his head back to her. His arm is instantly back up, reaching toward her once more.

His eyes lock with hers and something quick flashes across them. He opens his mouth and says something, but Hermione can’t hear it through the wails of the wind and the crumbling bellows of the mountain behind her. Malfoy’s brows furrow and his lips move again but she still doesn’t understand what he’s telling her. She inhales a sharp breath and lifts a burning hand. She manages to grab him right when something cracks in the ground between them.

Hermione watches with complete horror as the sand starts to part like a waterfall into the growing cleft. Her heart is pounding so unbelievably fast and yet, through it all, there is startling clarity in her mind, a resigned certainty in her stomach.

It is easy to do this for him. She'll always do it for him even when he expects no one to.

She meets Malfoy’s eyes that are still fixed on her—as if she is more important than what is happening, what is about to happen any second. It takes him less than a second to understand the look on her face and his face distorts into angry slashes.

He’s shouting at her, but Hermione can’t find the energy to try and listen anymore. She opens her mouth to say what she’s been begging herself to come to terms with this entire time, but the words don’t come out, clamping in her chest and dissolving on her tongue.

So she lets go of his hand instead.

Hoping that he’ll understand the silent words like he always does.

His mouth carves into a frantic No! and he’s immediately clawing across the sand, reaching across the fissure for her. But Hermione feels the sand tides already pulling her back and her throat closes and tears fill her eyes—

A roar erupts across the sky.

Hermione whips her head up at the familiar sound and stills completely as a magnificent midnight beast she knows too well soars above them, obscuring the high sun.

Layla.

The world cracks open and Hermione falls.

She squeezes her eyes shut as her stomach lurches and her heart sinks. Gravity pulls her by her feet, bringing her lower and lower into the underworld. Her hair whips in the air around her, billowing in her face and she waits and waits for the end to come but then something grips her along her waist and Hermione opens her eyes just in time to see claws around her body.

She cries out in shock, her brain stumbling and tripping to realize Layla is holding her. Her insides rattle against her body cavity as Layla flies up into the air, wings flapping and spanning wide on either end. She holds onto the claw and looks down and her breath catches when she sees Malfoy still in the sand.

“Back!” she yells at the dragon, pulling at her hide, her legs to get her attention. She’s not even sure she can be heard over the noise. “We need to get Draco!”

But it seems Layla already knows because she hovers for less than a second and then dives down to where he is. Wind slams into Hermione’s face, getting into her eyes and cutting her cheeks, but Hermione doesn’t blink once.

Malfoy struggles to get up onto his knee when the crack that was between them starts to drag him back now too. She clenches onto Layla with white knuckles and she’s tempted to close her eyes—if only so she doesn't see him disappear forever. But Layla lets out a single roar before swooping down and grabbing him with her other claw.

The beast's body obscures her view of Malfoy on the other side but she forces herself to believe he’s holding on tight and is okay. Layla turns and springs up into the sky, her wings flapping to increase her speed.

Hermione looks down at the harrowing image of the collapsing mountains and the rapids of sand dunes melting into the cracks of the earth. Her gaze goes to the eye of the storm, the cave they had just barely managed to escape and the pale, translucent wisps that intermingle with the swirling wind. She stares and stares as Layla takes them further away until she realizes what she sees is, in fact, real.

Because through the storm and its destruction, Hermione watches the ghastly pale thread grow larger and larger, melding together to form what can only be a face. An unrecognizable female face. Its soft features are contrasted only by the haunting look in the woman’s eyes. The mouth widens into a suffering wail, becoming a hollow shell that widens and widens before ultimately swallowing everything, the sand and mountains and the storm, whole.

________________________________

Layla takes them somewhere north, away from the Cave, and Hermione immediately recognizes the wadi they travelled through. Relief consumes her at the thought that she might be taking them even more north, perhaps bumping into Amina and the other rescuers, but Layla seemingly slows down instead.

“Wait!” she shouts as Layla descends past the boulders and a mountain ledge. “Wait, no! Not here!”

Layla reaches the wadi wall, skimming across the ground briefly to drop Malfoy and Hermione in the shadows. Hermione falls to her knees and pushes herself right back up, swaying with dizziness, and waving her hands in the air.

“Wait! Please!”

But Layla is already back in the air, flying away. Hermione watches in despair as the dragon disappears into the clouds and her arms fall to her side. Exhaustion replaces the panic and she closes her eyes in defeat.

“Granger,” Malfoy rasps and Hermione gasps at the wheeze in his breath. She spins and runs back to him. His head is lolled to the side and he’s about to fall onto his wounded shoulder but Hermione quickly catches him by his torso.

“I’m here,” she says, breathing heavily and carefully righting him back against the wall. “I’m here, Malfoy.”

Malfoy groans, his words drowning in his mouth, and Hermione digs into her bag to take out her water. Her shaking fingers make it difficult for her to open the cap but somehow she manages. Gently she parts Malfoy’s mouth and brings the bottle to his lips.

“Drink this,” she whispers.

Malfoy moves away slightly, his eyes lidded. “You first.”

“I have more.” She brings it back to his lips. “Please, you have to drink some water.”

He gives in immediately and Hermione eases the fluid slowly into his lips and past his teeth as he eagerly sips. She eyes his pale face worriedly. His skin is pasty and clammy and his hair clings against his forehead from sweat and blood. He’s lost all colour from under his eyes and his slight tan. There is a cut on his temple but her concern is directed more to his shoulder which seems to be pulsating and oozing more blood.

“I’m going to try and heal you, okay?”

He doesn’t reply and Hermione doesn’t give him the chance to. She gingerly folds back the wet fabric from his bloodied arm and looks at the slices across his skin. She bites the inside of her mouth to stop herself from making any sounds so he doesn't get scared. He needs immediate medical attention. He needs a hospital and a healer.

“I won’t be able to fix the break,” she says quietly, wincing when he shudders under her touch. She lifts her fingers away and waits for him to catch his breath. “But I can heal the cuts.”

Hermione goes back into her bag and takes out her container of stew. “I think you might need to first eat a little bit for some energy.”

He listens without a protest when she feeds him a couple of spoons. She sees him grimace as he swallows so she puts it aside and takes out her small healing kit from her beaded bag. She opens it to inspect its contents. There aren’t too many things in it, but Hermione stored the essential potions and salves after learning the importance of a kit during the Horcrux search.

She uses the disinfectant potion to first clean her hands and then applies it directly to the wound.

Malfoy jerks, his head snapping back against the wall.

“Sorry!” Hermione pulls away, guilt gnawing at her. “I’m so sorry! I should have told you it’d sting!”

He groans and Hermione waits for the pain to pass. She dips a cloth into the disinfectant and gingerly presses across the cut. She slides it lower and Malfoy twitches again, a strangled sound at the back of his throat.

Hermione’s heart shudders and she pales. “Oh, God! Malfoy, I’m so sorry! I really am trying—”

Her words trail off when Malfoy’s lips twitch. Hermione’s eyes narrow and she just about stops herself from slapping his other shoulder.

“You’re horrible!” she snaps, though his smile does unknot some of the tension in her body. “An utter prat, Malfoy!”

“It’s funny,” he croaks, his lips lifting at the corners.

She wants to cry because she cannot fathom how he has the mental capacity to joke. To try and make her laugh. She is just not worth his energy.

“It’s really not,” she whispers back and his smile falls at the quiver in her voice. He doesn’t say anything more and she silently goes back to his shoulder.

She works carefully and meticulously, still whispering quick apologies every time he makes a noise subconsciously at the pain. She expects his eyes to be closed when she glances up at him to see how he’s handling the pain, but finds his heavy gaze on her. Hermione meets his hooded eyes for a few moments, takes in the forbearance in them, and looks away. She adds a numbing salve for the pain and takes the scarf around her neck to replace the stained sling.

She scoots back when she’s done.

Malfoy takes a breath to say something but ends up lurching to his side. Hermione rights him again and moves to sit beside him on the wall. Slowly, she eases him onto his back and places his head on her lap.

“They’ll be here soon,” she tells him, because she needs to hear it too.

She wipes back his sweaty hair from his forehead.

“I know,” he says, because he needs to say it too.

Hermione looks up and scans the empty desert in front of them. Pressure builds up at the back of her eyes when she sees nothing, hears nothing. She doesn’t know how they’ll ever be found and fear clenches her body like a vise.

What has she done? Oh, God, what—

“Tell me a story,” Malfoy says quietly.

Her heart breaks. “I cannot.”

“Granger,” he says, voice cracking. “Look at me.”

Hermione brings her gaze to him, unable to not give in to the rattle in his breaths. She wiped the sand and blood off his face when she was cleaning his wound. She was hoping it would reveal his true health underneath, but it only further accentuates the toll of his injuries. If she pretends hard enough now, she can see some of the cherry red return in his blue lips.

A tear falls down her still blood-stained cheeks.

Malfoy's brows furrow. “Why are you crying?”

“Because this is all my fault,” she breathes, a lump in her throat that makes it hard for her to breathe. “I should never have left and I should never—I really am stupid and—”

“You’re many things, Granger,” Malfoy cuts in firmly. “But you are not stupid.”

Hermione’s lips tremble. “I should never have allowed you to come with me.”

“That was never up to you,” he sighs, closing his eyes.

Hermione brings her hand off his forehead and to the side of his face. She shakes him lightly.

“Keep your eyes open for me, okay?”

He doesn’t open them. “Okay.”

"Draco?" Desperation cleaves through exhaustion. “Draco, please.”

His throat bobs and Hermione waits, holding her breath, as he pulls them back open.

She leans her head close, her hair a curtain around his, and says with her lips between his brows, “Stay with me, Draco.”

His eyes are hollow as he stares back at her. His blink is too languid and his inhale of a breath is too shallow—but he parts his lips anyway and says, “As you wish, Granger.”

________________________________

Hermione doesn’t know how long they stay like this in the shadows of the wadi—Malfoy in her lap and her head pressed back against the wall. She tried healing the remainder of her own wounds but fatigue was too great and Hermione gave up before she could even complete half of them. The pain in her abdomen made it too hard for her to shift her legs when they numbed under Malfoy’s weight.

Malfoy’s eyes have been closed for far too long but her hand remains on his chest feeling the slow rise and fall. It's the only sign she has that he's alive.

Her own body has slowed down significantly, her arms lead and heavy and her breathing tortured as she coughs. But she tries casting several coloured flares of light into the sky to bring attention to whoever might be out there to their location. Eventually, that too stops when it becomes clear the flares dissolve in the sunlight too quickly for anyone to notice.

Hermione stares at the sand, blinking slowly as she watches it shift with the desert breeze, dancing here and there in the air. She wonders…

It’s too much of an effort to even wonder.

White spots scatter across her vision, blurring at the edges of her eyes, and she realizes she’s falling into the depth of darkness. Hermione fights to keep consciousness and digs her nails into Malfoy’s chest to bring her back out.

She parts her lips and they rip and crackle with dryness.

“Once,” she says hoarsely and jerks straight when her head starts to fall to the side. “Once, there was a girl…and there was a boy.”

She lifts her eyes directly to the sun, squinting but not looking away. Hoping the pain will be enough to shock her back into alertness. She lasts two seconds in the direct light before she cringes away from the sun.

“Are you listening, Draco?” she wheezes, flattening her palm over his heart. “There was a girl…and there was…”

Her words leave her when she hears something rumbling low and far away. Her eyes immediately start darting across the dunes. She sees nothing and she begins to think she’s hallucinating when the drones of engines grow louder. Suddenly she’s awake.

Her breath hitches as she watches four trucks drive into sight.

“Draco, they’re here." Hermione shakes Malfoy’s chest. He doesn’t make a sound.

She freezes.

Hermione brings her finger to his neck and feels the faint pulse. She exhales and scrambles for her wand and casts a few more of the flares. She watches them rise into the sky before flicking her eyes back to the trucks. She shoots a few more and watches eagerly for the trucks to turn off route and into their direction.

“What?” she breathes as they continue to drive away. Not a single truck shifting towards them. “Where are you going?”

Horror takes over her again but somehow she’s able to muster a little bit more energy and resolve.

“I’ll be right back, I promise,” she says, looking back down at Malfoy’s blank face. She grunts as she slides him gently off her legs. “I’ll bring them back for you, alright?”

She cries out when she pushes to her numbed knees, needles and spikes bursting across her skin, and stumbles forward. Her hands fall into the sand, stopping her before her face smacks right into the ground. Her eyes water because of the blinding pain but she tightens her grip on her wand and crawls forward. She has no energy to stand.

“Come back,” Hermione croaks, bringing her hand up to her ribcage when it barks in pain. “We’re here! Come back!”

She tries another few lights but she knows there’s only one spell that will bring the rescuers back around. Except, she hasn’t been able to cast one in years and the truth of it is enough for her to not even try.

But she promised Malfoy.

And that’s the greater truth.

Hermione takes a deep painful breath and raises her wand. “Expecto Patronum.”

A sliver of light swirls out of her wand, shifting slightly in the air before being sucked back in, as expected.

Frustration builds up, making her want to throw her wand but she closes her eyes instead. She thinks of her parents, the unconditional love in her mother's eyes and the continuous awe in her father’s eyes whenever he looked at Hermione.

“Expecto Patronum.”

It comes out weak and wrong even to her own ears. The tendril of magic grows out of the wand and then disappears into the air.

She’s attempted the spell many times before when trying to communicate with others, often always thinking about her parents and her friends. Each time it was unsuccessful and Hermione realizes perhaps she needs a new set of memories to rely on.

Hermione's eyes fall shut once more.

She thinks of the past month, the nights spent laughing and joking around the campsite, dancing with Tony to his horrible singing, holding Leena’s motherly, comforting hands. She thinks of the wind in her hair when she stood on the cliff, the freedom she felt when riding Layla for the first time, and every sunset and sunrise she got to witness.

“Expecto Patronum.”

The translucent wisp is stronger this time, spreading out of her wand and across from her. It comes together and almost becomes something corporeal before dissolving.

Hermione doesn’t give up. She tries once more.

She goes with the memories her heart knows are strong.

She thinks of Draco Malfoy.

Not from her childhood, but from the moments of the last month where she’s grown to know him as clearly as she might know herself.

She thinks of them together in the ocean that one night and him teaching her how to Occlude, the pride in her chest when he laughed at something she said, his hand in hers. She thinks of the oranges he got for her and the dragon again, but this time he is right behind her, his arms around her waist, secure and firm as always. She thinks of the nights spent under the stars, just them and the never-ending constellations, and the stories he told her about his childhood, the beautiful and the ugly.

And then lastly she thinks of their kiss. The undeniable taste and smell of him.

Because whatever happened after was not nearly enough to remove the pure and unadulterated joy she felt when his lips were on hers.

When she opens her eyes, she takes a breath. Her voice is loud and clear. “Expecto Patronum!”

The mist pours out the end of Hermione’s wand, transforming instantly into a white dove, hovering in front of her expectantly.

Hermione blinks in confusion at the change in the Patronus, but quickly reorients herself as the seconds tick away.

“We’re here. Come back. Save us,” she tells the bird, her tongue scratchy. A moment later, the dove flies away and Hermione exhales, sinking into the sand.

She leans over her knees and wraps her arms around them, rocking herself back and forth to remove some of the building nausea.

“I’ll bring them back for you, Draco,” she rasps, her body begging her to give in. “I promise.”

And then there’s a roar of the engines again and Hermione looks up.

She bursts into tears.

The trucks have turned around, her silver dove leading them back to her. Her hand claws into the sand as she uses the ground to help her stand on weak legs.

She doesn’t know where she gets the ability or will, but she takes a single step forward and then breaks into a run. The trucks make it to her faster than she’s able to run to them.

One of the trucks stops in front of her while the others follow her Patronus over her shoulder. The door opens and Hermione chokes on a sob when Carmina jumps out.

“Hermione!” Carmina gasps, eyes wide and jumping across her body.

“Draco!” Hermione yells. “You have to get Draco!”

Arms come around her but Hermione pulls away. “No! He’s still there—you have to get Draco first!”

Shock flashes across Carmina's face as she hands Hermione to another witch. “Okay, we’ll get him—”

“Please, he’s still there!”

“We’ll get him, Hermione.”

She’s still weeping, begging for Draco first, when something hard and cold is pushed into her hand.

“Close your eyes, Hermione,” someone says in her ear.

And Hermione does—at last giving in to the darkness that pulls her under.

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

Hermione’s eyes flutter open.

She immediately flinches from the bright lights.

Hermione pauses and closes her eyes again. Tries to remember what happened, where she might be now.

But there’s a pulsating throb at the back of her head that’s making it difficult for her to think of anything.

“Hermione?”

A whisper.

She recognizes the voice.

With excruciating slowness, Hermione tilts her head toward the sound.

“Can you hear me?”

Hermione tries opening her eyes once more. There’s a blurry figure near her head. She blinks until her vision clears and looks into Amina’s big, round eyes.

Amina smiles.

It’s a beautiful smile.

“Hey,” Amina says, coming closer. “How are you doing?”

Hermione parts her parched lips. She tries to swallow through her rough throat. When she makes a sound, it comes out wrong.

The smile vanishes. “What’s that, darling?”

Hermione tries again. “Water.”

“Oh! Yes, water!” Amina moves away out of sight. “They did say to give you water when you wake up! I’ve just been sitting here, waiting for you, and I can’t believe I forgot the one thing they told me to make sure to do…”

Hermione blinks, barely registering the words as she scans her eyes across the white room. Amina comes back, lifting Hermione carefully off the bed into a sitting position. She fixes the pillows behind her, fluffing them so they're comfortable, even though Hermione doesn't even notice.

“We’re going to do this slowly, okay? They said not too fast because your broken rib is still healing and your stomach…” Hermione isn’t listening as Amina brings a water cup to Hermione’s lips. Her eyes close as the delicious cool liquid passes her teeth and across her swollen tongue. “Hermione, darling, you need to slow down.”

Hermione’s hand comes up to keep the cup to her lips when Amina moves to take it away, gulping and almost choking on the water. Only when it’s drained past the dregs does she let go.

Amina sets the cup aside and runs a hand through her curls. “Do you need more? Shall I call the healer?”

Hermione's mind is already elsewhere. “Where’s—”

“In another room,” Amina says gently.

“Is he—”

“Yes, he’s fine. I haven’t seen him today but the nurses have told me he’s sleeping.”

Her heart feels as if it's mended and then broken apart. Hermione swallows again, the movement easier now that she’s not dying of thirst. She starts to remember bits and pieces of what happened.

“Amina, the Cave—”

Amina’s hand stills in her hair. “I know, Hermione. We were wrong about it being the Kahif-Al Noor.”

Which would mean she’s already spoken to Malfoy. Which would then mean he’s able to speak in the first place and it's a relief more potent than the first sip of water. She shakes her head. “I’m so sorry.”

Amina frowns. “Whatever for? Hermione, you found what the diary was leading us to. It just never ended up being what we thought but you still found what Safia Al-Jabar left behind.”

“I shouldn’t have left.”

“Yes, well, I want to say the same but I know you too well, Hermione. If I really wanted to make sure you didn't leave, I should have taken you with me—somehow or some way.” Amina pauses and then sighs, her eyes softening as she studies Hermione. “I am upset, however, by the fact you have aged me by a hundred years. I have grey hair now, Hermione! Days were spent searching for you two and I had practically everyone in the desert out there looking for a man with blond hair and a girl with curly hair. We’re lucky Carmina had picked up a signal for rescue and found you two.”

Hermione opens her mouth to apologize once more and to thank her for everything, but exhaustion starts seeping into her veins. Her eyes become heavy and lidded. Amina must see her struggling to remain awake because she leans over and kisses her forehead.

“Sleep. We will talk about your return back home when you wake up.”

Amina steps away and Hermione tries to ask when she can see Malfoy, but she’s pulled back into the pits of darkness before she can even take another breath.

________________________________

“You gave everyone a fright, habibi.”

Hermione parts her lips and takes a sip of the soup. Leena takes the spoon back and dips it into the steaming bowl in her hands.

“All blue and bloody,” Leena continues absently, almost to herself. “For a while, we thought you might not even wake up.”

“Where is everyone?” Hermione croaks, opening her mouth once more when Leena brings the spoon back to her lips.

“Amina is at the hotel, getting your room ready,” Leena responds. “Everyone else has left and only Tony remains.”

“You’re here.”

Leena smiles. “Yes, I am here. I stayed to see you. I had to make sure you were going to wake up and eat some of my food that you love so much.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Tonight,” she replies. “I am going home to Egypt to get my things and then I am off to see my daughter.”

Hermione smiles at that. “I'm happy for you. I'm very, very happy for you, Amina. And when will I see you again?”

Leena holds Hermione’s hand and brings it to her lips, in a warm, motherly gesture. “Whenever you need me, you will write to me, my love. I will come and see you the very next day.”

Hermione nods, her eyes welling with tears. “Leena, have you seen Draco yet?”

Leena carefully sets her hand back down onto the bed. “No, I have not. Amina has seen him, however. She said he is recovering well.”

“Oh.” Hermione's eyes flick to the window outside. A tree dances in the wind. Its bright, green leaves wave at her, beckoning her, or perhaps welcoming her back. Green like a forest of blooming plants and trees, like freshly cut grass outside her home, like life. The sight alone is enough to make her cry.

Leena gets up, saying something about finding a healer.

“Leena,” Hermione calls, her eyes moving away from the tree. Leena stops in the doorway. “What's today's date?”

“May seventh,” she answers and then leaves.

________________________________

Hermione exhales a frustrated sigh at her incredibly slow pace and wobbles two more inches down the hallway. It’s not at all because of her wounds, which have healed significantly over the three days she has been in the hospital. It is primarily because of the ridiculous shoes and robes the staff have given Hermione to wear. Though, it is also not exactly the fault of the nurses. Her shoes are actually socks without any sort of grip, exponentially slowing her down as she tries not to slip and fall and break her skull, and the robe is also a bathrobe, not meant to be worn outside of her room.

She’s ill-prepared for this walk because she’s not supposed to be on a walk in the first place.

She’s supposed to be in her room, sleeping. And healing.

But she’s healed enough and she’s slept enough, and she knows she'll lose her mind if she remains a second longer in the room. She needs to move and right now, she really needs to see Malfoy.

She groans impatiently when her flimsy robe starts to untie once again and she’s just done the knot when she hears her name called from behind.

“Ah, Hermione! ” Tony calls, walking down the hallway with his arms stretched out wide and a huge smile on his face. He envelopes her in a hug immediately. “I have been looking for you!”

For all the supposed healing, Hermione still hisses when his arm wraps a little too tightly around her waist.

“Oh, I am sorry!” Tony immediately releases her. “I forget you are still healing!”

Hermione shakes her head, gripping her robe in her fist so as to not expose herself. “I’m doing a lot better. Well, getting there. Just the last few screws and then I’m off.”

Tony nods, looking unconvinced. “Are you looking to go to your room? Because you have passed it. I can help you to go around—”

“No, no. I’m actually going to go see Draco,” she says, nodding down the end of the hallway where Amina mentioned he’s staying. “Have you seen him yet? Is he doing okay?”

Tony twists his lips. “I have not, no. But I am sure he is doing well.”

“Oh,” Hermione says, frowning. And then remembering Tony had also been injured, she adds, “How are you feeling?”

Tony grins. “I am doing very good!” He twirls around to give her a look. “Healthy like I never had a concussion in the first place. I am told I am good to go back home this afternoon. When are you returning back?”

“I’m not too sure. I need just a couple more tests and then I can go stay at the hotel room Amina has gotten for me in case I want to stay for a bit longer.”

“And will you be staying?”

Hermione glances back down the hallway. “Yes…I think I’ll stay for a few more days.”

Tony nods, his smile turning solemn. “Well then, I suppose this is goodbye. It is sad we could not end the trip with celebrations but I am lucky to have spent this much time with you anyway. I have to say I would like to see you again, Hermione. I am hoping they will take good care of our Golden Girl when she goes back home so I can.”

Hermione stiffens and then shakes her head to comprehend what he’s just said. “I…you’ve known who…?”

Tony gingerly brings her close and reaches over to leave a peck on her cheek. “Everyone knows who you are, Hermione Granger.”

He steps back then, tipping his hat to her and turns on his heel, leaving her stunned in the hallway.

Everyone knows.

God, she was such an oblivious idiot—she'd spent so much time worrying if the others knew her and all this time they had. And nothing had changed.

It takes her several seconds to remember what she was doing and Hermione slowly turns back around, gripping onto the wall for support. She lifts her eyes and stares at the white door at the end of the darkened hallway. There’s a single flickering ceiling light, doing little to illuminate the path. Other than her, there’s no one else here and Hermione wonders if anyone has gone to see Malfoy at all other than the staff and Amina.

She inhales a deep breath and takes a step forward—

“Hello!”

Hermione turns and looks over her shoulder at the angry-looking nurse waving her hand.

“Where are you going, miss?” the nurse asks, stalking over.

“Just down the hallway,” Hermione starts, stumbling back when the nurse grabs her arm and frowns at the tag around her wrist.

“Room 104,” she sighs and gives Hermione a stern look. “You are going in the wrong direction, miss. Your room is in the back, all the way on the other side—”

Hermione tries to take her arm back. “No, you don’t understand. I need to go down this hallway—”

“No, no, no,” the witch tsks, dragging Hermione back down the hallway. “This is the wrong way, you must go the other way. I will help you—”

“I don’t need your help,” Hermione protests, and gently yanks her arm back out of the nurse’s hold. The witch stops with her hands on her hips, giving Hermione a frustrated look. “I need to go see my friend in Room 501. He’s down there, in that room.”

The nurse follows Hermione’s finger. She starts shaking her head again, taking Hermione’s outstretched hand and pulling her back in the opposite direction. “Oh no, miss, you must rest.”

“But—”

She makes an impatient sound. “First him and now you? You two just keep going back and forth like this is some party, going from one room to another. Too much trouble—”

Hermione frowns, looking at the nurse’s tired face. “What do you mean?”

“He keeps coming to your room,” the nurse explains, exasperated. “He got into a fight with the other nurse and we told him not now, she is sleeping—she must rest, like you. But no, he keeps saying he will not go back until he sees you. And I tell him not to speak too loudly because this is a hospital and other people need to sleep as well and he said—”

Hermione lets herself be dragged back now, blinking rapidly as she tries to string the rapid spurt of words together. “Wait—Draco came to see me?”

“Draco? The man with the white hair?” Hermione nods. “Yes—that is what I am telling you! He keeps coming but you are always sleeping. And now he is sleeping and you are coming and it is too much—”

Hermione looks over her shoulder at the receding door. She licks her dry lips. “Next time, if he comes, you must wake me up, okay?”

The nurse rolls her eyes, exaggeratedly nodding her head, as one would at a child asking if Father Christmas is real. “Yes, miss, I will wake you up. But you go now, okay?”

Hermione stops resisting and lets herself be guided back to her room, unable to help the smile on her face. The nurse gives her a strange look when the smile grows wider. But Hermione doesn’t care how she must look.

It does not matter because he came to see her.

Malfoy came to see her and then kept coming for her.

________________________________

Hermione has watched Malfoy sleep two times now.

And that’s two times more than she thought she ever would.

This time, she’s able to notice all the differences as if she knows what is inherently him and what is not.

There’s the same rogue lock of hair that always seems to fall across his brows in a purposefully, careless manner. Other than that, however, everything else about him right now is nothing like the times before. His lips, gratefully back to their soft red tone, are no longer pressed tight. His eyes don’t rapidly move behind his closed lids, as though he might be having a nightmare and can’t make himself wake out of it. His breathing is deep and heavy, likely because of the sedative nature of the potions he’s been given. Luckily, it’s not interrupted with sudden hitches, like the air might be strangled somewhere in his throat. He’s still hauntingly pale, but it’s no longer ghastly like the last time she'd seen him. His entire face is relaxed and it makes him look infinitely younger. She doesn’t think she can ever forget seeing him so shattered and bloodied, but this change in him is welcomed and she is grateful for it.

He seems at peace.

And Hermione is grateful for that too.

She’s not supposed to be here again.

Her nurse had specifically told her not to move from her room since she was due for a checkup before being discharged in an hour. But an hour was more than enough time for Hermione to come and see Malfoy. She hoped he was awake but the moment she stepped to his door, she found herself wishing he wasn’t. She needed time still, to process everything that happened so far—the things they had said to each other in the past month, the panicked desperation in his eyes when she’d let go of his hand, the way her heart hadn’t even second-guessed it before she did.

Hermione glances around his room. Though the same in architecture, it is starkly different than hers. She’s been in the hospital for just three days and yet her entire room has been filled with flowers and littered with Amina’s things, who apparently moved in to accompany her during the day. Malfoy’s room on the other hand was dark when Hermione walked in. She’d drawn the curtains to the side and brought it in one of the flower vases just so it wasn’t all just one shade of grey. Even though she knows Amina has come down to check up on him, it seems as though she never stayed for too long. Hermione had to drag a chair from an empty room down the hallway just so she could sit beside him for the remainder of the hour.

Hermione looks back at Malfoy. Her eyes slide down his face and to his right arm, sticking out of his blanket. She stares at the pale hand, his spiderweb veins, and thinks of the time she held it between hers.

This doesn’t hurt.

He’s in the depths of sleep, oblivious to her presence, and Hermione knows he won’t wake up any time soon because of the potions. He might not even realize that she was ever here and she’s okay with that possibility, too.

He came to see her, and that is enough.

Eyes fixated on his hand, Hermione gingerly places hers into the palm of his.

It fits just like before.

Nothing happens at first and she’s about to withdraw when his fingers twitch and his hand folds over hers.

Hermione gasps, her gaze snapping to Malfoy’s face. His eyes are still closed, his face still blank, his breathing unchanged. He’s still sleeping.

Her heart shivers and Hermione looks back at their joined hands, squeezing it once before letting go. She glances at the clock and realizes her time is almost over.

Carefully, she unwinds herself out of her chair, pulls the blanket over his arm so he doesn't get cold, and leaves.

________________________________

This moment is a little too familiar for Hermione’s liking—her standing outside of Malfoy’s door for ten minutes, shifting from one foot to another, asking herself why in the world she thought it was a good idea to come to his private quarters in the first place.

She should have just given up when she entered his empty room at the hospital, walked back to her hotel room in the riad Amina had booked, and packed her things for her trip back home tomorrow. And she would have done exactly that if Amina hadn’t caught her in the hallway as she returned from his room.

She had taken one look at Hermione’s face and said, “He was discharged this morning.”

“Oh,” Hermione replied. It seemed to be the only thing she could think of to say about him. “Right. That’s good—I’m glad he’s out now.”

She turned around, wondering how Amina always knew when she was thinking of him when Amina stopped her by her hand.

“Room 7,” she said, giving Hermione her familiar, knowing smile. “That’s his room number.”

Hermione hadn’t even thanked her when she turned around and hurried out of the hospital and back to the riad they were sharing.

Now, she’s left thinking why she was in such a hurry if she was just going to waste her time staring at his wooden door.

“You’re leaving tomorrow,” she says under her breath. “Just knock and then run if he doesn’t open it.”

Hermione glances once down the empty hallway and back to the door. She takes a quick breath and then knocks her fist in a single brisk movement of her wrist. It’s not nearly a good enough of a knock, not loud or clean, and can easily be mistaken for the creaking of a wall. But she finds herself screwing her eyes and holding her breath anyway. There’s silence on the other side for half a heartbeat and Hermione backs away, ready to make a run for it—

“Come in.”

Oh.

She freezes. Stares at the door with wide eyes as if it’s the one who’s spoken to her. But it’s undoubtedly Malfoy’s deep voice on the other side calling out.

“You can come in.”

It comes out sharper, impatient.

Hermione scratches her cheek, takes two bursts of air, turns the knob, and steps in.

She doesn’t see him at first.

The windows are open on either side of the room and panels of white curtains softly ripple in the warm breeze.

Ebbing and flowing like delicate white feathers in the wind.

The curtains let out a sigh and float back to the window.

And then Hermione sees him.

Standing beside a wooden chest, holding a book in his hand. Hair combed back with his fingers. Wearing a plain linen white full-sleeve shirt and light trousers, resembling too much like a Greek marble statue like the first time she saw him. Still, the carved pillar that her eyes instantly go to.

She knows she’s staring, but she truly cannot stop. He’s standing, gracefully upright, with not a single bruise or wound on his face or body.

He looks healthy, unbelievably alive, and when he looks up at Hermione when she enters, she forgets everything.

Words, thoughts, feelings. All escape her.

He remains silent and aloof, however. Not bothering to fully turn towards her or even say a word of greeting or inquiry considering it’s been days since they’ve last spoken. Considering both of them were on the brink of consciousness when they last looked at each other directly like this.

She’d think him uncaring of how she is if she didn’t watch his eyes travel from her hair to her shoes, scanning her body for what she can only guess to be the remains of her injuries.

Hermione shifts again under his assessing gaze, feeling itchy for the tension to break somehow.

“You’re looking well,” she blurts and then cringes immediately at how shrill it comes out. She quickly puts a curl behind her ear to divert the outburst. “Better than before, I mean.”

Malfoy’s stoic face remains unchanged. However, he does place the book, which she recognizes as his journal, onto the dresser top.

“Better than death you mean?”

She gives him a small smile and then looks away, feeling embarrassed to even do so while he’s still staring. “Yes, I’m glad you’re not dead, Malfoy.”

Her throat bobs and she throws her gaze around the room, jumping across the things, not settling on anything.

The room is similar to hers, filled with carved, wooden furniture; a four-poster bed in the center of the room with white bedsheets and white nets tied back, side drawers on either side of the bed, and a patterned red and black Moroccan rug. There’s a map of Morocco hanging above the dresser and a vase of roses beside his bed, transfigured into a fresh bouquet every morning. Hermione has one just like it in her room.

He has a white settee pushed at the end of the bed and Hermione points at it.

“Oh, I don’t have that in my room. Lucky you.” Malfoy drags his gaze to the settee and frowns as if just realizing its presence in the room. And because he doesn’t reply to that, she hastily adds, “My room is right above yours, actually. Second floor, Room 14.”

It feels strangely intimate to share that with him. She’s not sure what he’ll do with that information since she’s certain he was never planning on seeing her before she leaves for home. Her stomach lurches when she realizes he has none of his belongings scattered around and her eyes snag on his locked trunks, neatly stacked beside the settee.

She asks hesitantly, “Are you leaving today?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Malfoy replies, leaning his hip against the drawer. He grips the edge—his knuckles turning white.

Hermione nods, ignoring the relief that melts away the bubbling disappointment. “Me too. I’m leaving with Amina. I still have to pack though. I’m incredibly behind which I want to say is surprising but if I’m being honest, I’ve been completely soaking in the days of just lying around in my room. I truly cannot be bothered to put all the books away or my clothes—which, now that I remember, I have to wash first before I put them away.

If he’s taken aback by her momentary burst of babbling, he doesn’t show. She hardly thinks he’s blinked once by the way he’s looking at her.

“Alright, Granger.”

God, this is absolutely painful. Bone-crushing, almost being sucked into the darkness by a corpse, and then almost dying by slipping through the cracks of the earth, kind of painful.

She’s still standing at the entrance of the room, the door just shut halfway behind her. The only other sound than her voice is the tittering of the birds outside his window, the rustle of the curtains in the wind, the flickering of candles that flared on once dusk passed outside. There’s restless energy surging through her and she needs to pace around the room to blow some of it off, but instead, she remains still.

Hermione chews the inside of her lower lip. He’s hardly giving her anything to work with either and she’s starting to worry she’s running out of things to say to him. Was it always this brutal to talk to him?

No, it’s not brutal to talk to him. It’s scary in the most fascinating way to speak with Malfoy. A feeling akin to perhaps opening a book in another language—reading and rereading each word, staggering and stumbling at every sentence, but still somehow reaching the final page and feeling proud of what you've accomplished at the end.

She can’t figure out if he’s tired or upset at her about something and she keeps going through the events of their days together, trying to figure out where she might have misstepped or he might have withdrawn completely. It’s agonizing to see him this far from her, barely out of her arm’s reach when just yesterday she was sitting beside his hospital bed, holding onto his hand.

She wants to know if he remembers the moment in the wadi—his head in her lap, her hands in his hair, holding onto each other in a desperate need to make it to the other side. She wants to know if he thinks about it too. How it felt to see the other so broken and hurt and feel the pain more than their own. To take a breath and wish to give it to them— if only so they can last a little longer.

“Strange to go home,” she says quietly, looking out his window. “To leave everything behind and continue with our lives as if we didn’t just spend the days in the desert looking for something that does not even exist. I keep thinking I need to read Safia’s diary because I’m missing something important. Like there are clues within her entries that I might have ignored or thought not to be important. I keep thinking how I could have been so wrong about the cave.”

“You weren’t wrong.” His voice is startlingly rough and it pulls her gaze away from the window to him. “You found the cave Safia left behind. You followed the damn diary, figured out the f*cking runes, and knew about the lights. You did everything to bring us to the cave. It just never was the Kahif Al-Noor. ”

“I spoke to Amina about it,” Hermione says, remembering her discussion last night. “About Safia’s runes inside the mountain and the…corpse. We think maybe after the storm that injured their crew, Safia was separated from the group with one other person. It could have been a stranger, but likely someone from their crew.”

Malfoy nods slowly. “That would make sense considering what we saw. She could have travelled across the desert with whoever it was and found the nearest mountain for shelter.”

“And you said the runes she left behind were a part of the funerary text. For the binding of the soul,” Hermione adds, pursing her lips in thought. “I’m thinking this other person was hurt and Safia must have known there wasn’t a chance they might make it by the time they were found or she managed somehow to get help.”

“So she must have bound their soul to the chamber so that it wouldn’t pass on,” Malfoy finishes her thought.

Chills scatter across her arms and she rubs the goosebumps on her arms away. “She must have been really desperate to have done something like that. While the runes we were using aren’t necessarily dark magic, I would think any alternation of one’s soul would require a level of darkness. Perhaps a payment other than blood to ensure its vitality. She must have truly cared for this person to have risked the price of it.”

“Who do you think it was?”

She’s been thinking about that very question but to no avail.

“I don’t know. Amina said she would look into the detailed accounts of Safia's return and the letters of her acquaintances again. I told her to reconfirm those who survived the storm and those who made it back to their homes. If we’re still thinking that she might have been having an affair with someone on that expedition, perhaps it was them. I’ll have to go back to the expedition records as well and cross-reference the names mentioned in her private letters.”

“Maybe you should take a break from all this. You’ll have other things to worry about when you go home. People waiting to get their bit of your brain.”

Hermione meets his eyes, thinking there’s something off in his tone. She looks away when she finds him staring at the ground.

“Right. I probably should stop obsessing over all of it at some point.”

Several moments of silence pass between them.

Hermione picks at the skin around her thumb, waiting for something to happen, and not sure what exactly she wants to happen. When Malfoy makes no move to ask her any more questions, she clears her throat and forces a nonchalant smile. He looks up at the sound, frowning as she takes a few steps back, stumbling into the door behind her.

“So," she starts, taking a deep breath, "I guess this is it then. I should probably leave you to…whatever it is that you were doing and go and pack my things.” Hermione blindly reaches for the doorknob and turns before he can look at the emotions on her face. It pains her to say, “I’ll see you, Malfoy.”

“Wait." Hermione stills, her hand on the knob. Her heart hammers as the seconds pass. “Close the door.”

Hermione blinks and then slowly shifts the knob and shuts the door close. It locks automatically, the click resonating in her bones.

She turns around to face him.

Malfoy’s eyes are grim, the expression on his face unreadable.

The muscles in his jaw clench. “Why are you really here, Granger?”

There’s thunder in her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe. She doesn’t know what he wants to hear or what the right answer is, feeling perhaps whatever next she might say will dictate how the night will go.

She ends up going with an honest response.

“I just wanted to see you,” she breathes.

Malfoy’s brows furrow, his eyes rapidly jumping across her face to search for something there.

She presses her palm against her chest, over her heart. Makes sure it hasn’t fallen to the ground by the sheer way it’s pounding against her ribcage.

Says, with a tremble in her chin, “I’m really, really glad you’re okay, Malfoy.”

Malfoy’s hand falls off the dresser.

It happens all so quickly then.

Without warning, without a chance to even blink, Malfoy strides across the room, grabs Hermione’s face between the palm of his hands, and kisses her.

Hermione gasps into his mouth, taken aback by the sudden contact. Her mind is tripping and stumbling to make sense of what’s just happened.

He’s walking both of them back, back, back into the door, his hips pinning her against it. His lips are hard against hers, the push rough and firm as their teeth collide and their noses bump messily. Her body is rigid for a heartbeat, completely in shock at the unexpected touch. But then her brain starts whirring into motion, sends a loud message to her body to move, and Hermione immediately softens. Loses the tension in her shoulders, snakes her hands up his muscled arms, across his shoulders, and locks them behind his neck to pull him even closer to her.

Malfoy must sense her yielding to him because he angles his head so that their noses aren’t still bumping into each other and the kiss changes from a collision to something that is in control, yet equally as powerful as before.

All Hermione can think is oh.

Oh, she missed this.

Oh, she desperately needs this.

Oh, she wants this to never end.

Her mouth parts farther, giving him more room for his lips and then his warm tongue is there, twirling around hers and the heat in her rushing blood makes Hermione lightheaded. She returns the prod, pressing back into his mouth, letting her own tongue skim the edge of his teeth and line his lower lip. He returns with fervour—his tongue flicking across hers, tasting every bit of lips and her teeth. Hermione unlocks her hands behind his neck to run her fingers through the soft, short strands of the back of his head, before gripping them as tightly as he’s still holding her face.

He takes her breath and then gives her his own.

It's unlike the kiss before and Hermione cannot understand how that's possible. How his lips can be even more spellbound, still capable of doing new things.

The kiss slows down a beat as Malfoy sucks on her tongue with an unhurried drag, circling the tip of his tongue around hers, and slides his hands away from her cheeks and down her neck, his thumb firmly holding onto her jaw on either side. But the urgency in Hermione’s blood is too overwhelming, too demanding for it to all wind down this soon. She’s a complete storm, thunder and lightning in her veins, the torrent ocean a drum in her ears. She’s too much at once for it to all slow down, so when he lets out a shaky breath that she inhales in a momentary reprise, Hermione takes his lower lip between her teeth and pulls on it gently to let him know just that.

Malfoy immediately lets out a low growl from the back of his throat—a sound that she feels thrum down her mouth and chest, spreading the heat lower and lower away from her heart and to the pit of her stomach.

One hand remains splayed across her neck and jaw while the other slides down the side of her breasts, past her ribcage, and down to her waist. He wraps his arm firmly across her waist, pulls her in closer so that the entire length of both of their bodies is aligned, and spins her away from the door.

She lets out a surprised sound when his arm around her waist tightens and pulls her body up and her toes off the ground. Instantly, her legs straddle him, crossing at the ankles at his back, and he’s walking them together again. The hand around her neck skims the skin of her cheek once more before his fingers rake through her hair, graze along her scalp in a move that sends pleasurable tingles down her back, and moves to rest at the back of her head.

Her mind is too busy trying to kiss him back to figure out where exactly he’s taking them but then he’s bending her backwards gently, his hand at the back of her head guiding her, and she gasps when her back touches his mattress. Her brain flashes back to the last time they were in this position and the way he recoiled from her and Hermione finds herself now slowing down. As if her body is preparing itself for his flinch, his quick withdrawal, and the look of regret. But the thought vanishes when he doesn't move away and his kiss turns hungry. She feels a hardness against her stomach when he leans closer.

She doesn’t know how they’re both alive by the way they’re panting for air but still refusing to part their mouths. His tongue strokes her eagerly and she chases the flicks deeper into his mouth and a newfound ache is blooming across her lower body. The arm around her waist unwraps so he can rest his hand at her hip, while the other removes itself from behind her head to travel down the side of her face, her throat, and lower to the side of her breast. His thumb brushes against her nipple and Hermione arches, her back lifting off the bed.

There’s a heartbeat of pause in the return of Malfoy’s kiss and he brushes his thumb again, eliciting the same response as before. She realizes what he’s doing and Hermione can’t help herself, feeling the need to show him his equal need, and rocks her hip just slightly against his abdomen. Malfoy groans against her mouth. She feels an unbidden thrill at the response which is quickly taken over by an eruption of shivers when the hand on her hip somehow sinks under the hem of her shirt and moves up to splay across the skin of her waist.

The inviting warmth of his hands soothes the biting coolness of her skin and she lets go of his hair to move her own hands down the rippling muscles of his shoulders and biceps. They tense under her touch and she inhales sharply against his mouth when his hand and its errant thumb slide higher to cup her breast. It’s a completely different sensation than the gentle brushes and when his hand squeezes gently, her heart stops for a moment.

She’s dizzy from the building pressure in her chest at the complete lack of oxygen in her lungs and it’s only when Malfoy’s lips let go does she inhale a fistful of air. Her chest heaves as she pants for breaths and his lips turn exploratory, kissing the corner of her mouth, in the space under her chin, following the line of her jaw as it leads up to space where it meets the nook of her ear. His hair tickles the skin of her cheek as he kisses her earlobe right before biting it. Hermione inhales at the sting, her eyes fluttering close, just as he sucks on it to soothe the light pain.

She doesn’t think she’s nearly doing enough to him but she can only grip onto the curves of his arm as his kisses continue back down the path, rougher and sloppier now, and his other hand joins the one under her shirt.

She feels the rough pads of his fingers, the calluses from using a wand against her skin, and it's oddly comforting. She concentrates on the familiarity of how he completely and overwhelmingly envelopes her with his body, the places where her soft curves match with the hard planes of his. The way he radiates warmth makes her want to cocoon within the cradle of his arms and rest her forehead in the hollow of his throat.

But his touch on her bare skin, though feverish, is not nearly enough to quench the ache that is growing and growing in her lower abdomen. So Hermione rocks her hips against his once again and the hardness just nudges at her core. Malfoy’s fingers dig into her waist in response to her movement and his lips are back on hers to retaliate.

It is still not enough.

Fearing the ache will never go away if something isn’t done, she feels perhaps she has to take the next step before it all ends and crumbles into dust. She was never good with using own hands for pleasure and she knows only Malfoy can give her relief now that he's started it. Hermione’s hands slide down his arms and to his wrists. She crosses her hands and stops short at the hem of her shirt before pulling it up in one quick motion to her chest.

Malfoy, sensing what she is trying to do, backs off just enough to give her room, his hands and his lips leaving her momentarily, where she can sit up and pull her shirt off completely. She yanks it over her head, her hair very unattractively getting stuck briefly, and carefully puts it aside on the bed. And that's how far her confidence goes.

She finds herself holding her breath when Malfoy’s dark gaze falls on her body.

Her hands are shaking and her brain goes blank as his eyes linger on her breasts before moving down to her stomach. She thinks maybe he’s not completely in control either because his breaths are coming out laboured and harsh and his shoulders have a slight quiver to them. But his hands remain to his side and she realizes that since he was the one to initiate the kiss, she might need to keep going to show that she wants this as well for thisto continue. She squeezes her hands once in a fist before slowly reaching back to unbuckle her black bra. Gingerly, she slides the straps off her shoulder one at a time and then that’s off too.

Malfoy’s eyes snap to hers, surprised by her action. She feels slightly ridiculous now that she’s the one with the fewer layers and can’t for the life of her understand how she’s managed it. She doesn’t know where the idea came from but it is rare for Hermione to present herself like this. She’s suddenly aware of everything, the darkness outside, the floating white curtains flying in the warm breeze, her hammering heart, his ragged breaths. She’s painfully aware that she’s sitting in Draco Malfoy’s room, on the edge of his bed, half-naked while he stands over her and just stares.

And they haven’t uttered a single word to each other since the first kiss.

It’s too much conscious awareness at once and she thinks she’ll explode from the realization of it all.

He pulls his eyes away and down to her bare chest and Hermione starts to cover them.

She’s never been one to be subconscious of her body in terms of how it might look compared to others. She supposes one would need to look at their body enough to establish that level of self-esteem but Hermione has made it a point to hardly ever look at herself in the mirror. There’s no desire for her to look in the first place, especially considering every man she’s ever been with has told her about her every flaw. She no longer needs to look to know where they are.

She knows she’s covered in scars from the war, slight and large, that outshine the freckles and is aware of where the dimples and the stretch marks start and end on her skin. Her body, much like her mind, is fractured from both the inside and the outside and she’s given up trying to heal or fix it. It is merely a vessel for her that most of the time does not work and she’s past caring about it.

But sitting here in front of Malfoy she remembers all the young and beautiful women he’s “just f*cking” and Hermione can’t help but feel very ordinary.

There's also the thought that they were just kissing before and in the transient break, she's taken this to another level. She feels slightly embarrassed that he might not have even been thinking this far—that the kiss might just have been a spur of a moment.

His hand comes up though, as if seeing the shift in her emotions, and stops her arms midway. His eyes, hot and heavy, bore into hers, and he shakes his head faintly. It’s too much to be the recipient of this raw desire and Hermione blushes, her cheeks turning into flames, as she realizes that she might not meet the standards of the other women, but Malfoy very clearly wants this too. And to prove it, Malfoy leans in and kisses her.

No tongue, no clash of teeth, no words to tell her she’s beautiful or stupid to hide herself in front of him.

A simple kiss—his lips against hers.

And then it’s done because he moves back again. In a swift, fluid move, Malfoy reaches for the back of his neck and pulls his shirt off. Chucks it to the side of his room.

Hermione’s eyes right away fall to his bare torso. Her eyes widen and she gasps loudly as she looks past the ripped muscles and goes straight to the angry slashes across his body. Malfoy jerks in surprise at her reaction, unknowing what she’s looking at, and his left arm whips behind him.

“Oh my God,” she breathes in disbelief, heart sinking. Hermione stands up, her nakedness forgotten, and reaches toward the Sectumsempra scars across his pecs.

His other hand that isn’t hiding behind him is back up and across the wrist of her outstretched hand, stopping her before her fingers can even touch his pale skin.

“It’s okay,” he says, quietly.

Hermione looks up at him. Gone is the hunger in his eyes; replaced instead by silent resignation.

Hermione shakes her head, suddenly angry at the red, raised scars and at Harry for being the one to cause them. “It’s not okay, Malfoy. He said he only used the spell once. Clearly, he lied to me because it looks as though he was just blindly throwing the spell at you.”

There's a crease between Malfoy's brows as he studies the angry set of her lips, her tight eyes.

“It’s fine,” he says carefully, after a moment. “It was a long time ago.”

“But—”

Malfoy kisses her before she can finish the sentence and then he pulls back just enough to say, “It doesn’t hurt.”

Hermione’s lips part in a protest, but she stops whatever she is going to say when he eases her hand that's still in his grip over his chest, across one of the scars. When her palms touch the rough length of a red scar just over his heart, he says, “This doesn’t hurt, Granger.”

She breathes out short, tremoring exhales as she runs the pad of a finger across the raised scar. She wishes she could take them away, make him forget the memory of the attack, the loneliness he must have felt as he lay on the floor. When Malfoy shivers, her fingers pause. She looks up through her lashes and watches the heavy bob of his throat before meeting his eyes. Something quick flashes across the silver and she only has to part her lips before he kisses her once more.

It starts gentle but it only lasts a second before he’s hoisting her up once more and laying her back down onto his bed, her head against a pillow now. Her stomach lurches and flips at the change of motion and she holds onto him tightly so he doesn’t draw back again. His lips are back and they cling onto her as fingers might grip the edge of a cliff in the fear of a fall. She feels her lips swelling, sure to bruise if they keep going like this, but she only returns each suck, push, and pull with equal intensity.

Malfoy is right there, on top of her, and when he lowers his abdomen down on her lower stomach, she feels the solid length pulsating against her body. He shifts ever so lightly so that his arms are on either side of her head and he can lean on his forearms, but the movement hitches the hardness against her heated core and Hermione moans at the sensation.

She’s going to go mad, she thinks. Because this is madness.

Because there are too many layers between them, and too much room between their bodies even though their bare skins are touching each other at every angle and slant. Because she cannot fathom how she will survive any of this if she’s already falling apart. This need to him as close as possible to her skin, sinking into her deeper and further, is so undoubtedly strange to Hermione that she’s left reeling how she’s ever managed to be with anyone else. It’s never been like this, to such an extreme extent, and it does not make sense how she could have reciprocated any desire or emotion to any of her partners when all along there’s been the absence of this.

Hermione’s clutching onto his shoulders, gripping for purchase, when she feels his hand slide down her body and whisper against her breast. She closes her eyes, digs her fingers into his skin when he brushes his thumb and forefinger against her nipple. The muscles tense under her hands as he leans his head to the side of her face.

His voice is hoarse, gravelly. An echo heard underwater that somehow she’s able to hear through the roar in her head. “What parts of you can I have, Granger?”

She blinks. And then blinks again. Tries to string together his words into a coherent sentence in her brain but she’s too focused on the way his fingers are moving back and forth over her breast. Her brain is quick to catch up though when he catches the pebbled nipple between his fingers and pinches ever so slightly to clear the haze.

“Everything,” she says, breathlessly.

Malfoy halts for half a second. His fingers stop moving, his chest stops falling and rising against her breasts, as he takes in what she’s said.

Perhaps he’s taken aback by her willingness, perhaps he didn't realize he could have more than one thing from her. She softly kisses his temple so he can know she means it and it’s like a dam breaking loose because he’s moving again, faster—kissing the curve of her neck and tracing the line of her collarbone with his lips. His warm breath leaves a trail of goosebumps behind. The hand on her breast slides down to her hip bone, leaving no time for her to miss its presence because his other hand is immediately on her other breast, gently squeezing.

Malfoy kisses the swell of her chest.

“Can I have this?” he asks, his voice slightly muffled against her skin.

“You can,” she replies, her voice cracking. Her eyes close out of their own volition.

Malfoy’s lips slide down and over her nipple to kiss there and Hermione has to bite her lips to not make a sound. The hand on her hip slowly creeps into the hem of her pants and then past the waistband of her underwear.

“Can I have this?”

She doesn’t know if he’s referring to the kisses that move down from the space between her chest to her navel or the path his hand is taking. She feels his long fingers brush along the width of her pelvis, slowly playing with the elastic of her underwear. She jerks against the pillow, her head falling back in a start, when his hand stops in the center of her stomach and then slides even lower to cup her there.

“Y-yes,” she answers—to everything.

Malfoy lets out a small hiss when one of his fingers skims across the wetness of her sensitive folds. He breathes something that could be a curse or a prayer but she’s too far gone to try and decipher it. She feels like she is completely on fire, flames burning across each nerve and vein, all reaching to her core and lighting up the need there. Her throat is parched as she strangles every cry and gasps in a futile attempt to try and not make any sudden sounds. She needs to claw onto the bedsheets with both hands so as to not grip him by his hair and hurt him.

“This?” he rasps, and Hermione can only nod.

He presses his forehead against her stomach and slides one of his fingers through the slickness. She whimpers, unable to stop herself. Another finger joins to stroke her up and down, and then up again. He circles them expertly and then he rubs gently against the outer folds on either side before paying the same attention to her core. She bucks against his hand and her own hips move to increase the friction against his fingers, his calluses helping her out. When his thumb rubs against her cl*t, just flicking the nub, she cries out in a single breath, “Draco.”

She’s so flustered, so coiled up with tension that she almost groans in frustration when his hands pause and his lips leave her skin completely. Somehow she’s able to summon enough energy to lift her head off the pillow to see what’s happening. His hand remains cupped against her, the pressure there now exponentially decreased, and again she somehow stops herself from riding against it.

Silently, she watches his blond head move back up her body.

His face is flushed, his pupils dilated. He looks shattered even though she has barely touched him. His voice, however, is quietly firm, demanding. “Say you won’t let go, Granger.”

She swallows the dryness in her mouth and just stares back at him, unable to voice her confusion through the rush in her body. It’s not a question and she’s not sure what he’s talking about.

“You let go of my hand,” he says again, his voice a little more distant now as his eyes study her face, moving from her lips to her brows, to her nose, the scatter of freckles from the sun, and back down to her lips. She doesn’t think he’s aware of the hand that comes up to her cheek and delicately brushes the curls to her ear. It’s an unconscious gesture and her heart breaks at how soft he’s touching her. He looks lost somewhere, in a memory or a distant moment, and Hermione wills herself to understand where he’s gone.

It clicks right away though when she remembers the anguished moment outside the cave when the fissure broke between them and she’d let go of him. It was a moment of clarity for her, something she didn’t even need to second guess and had done just so she wouldn't drag him down with her. Just so he could be okay, and stay alive.

Is this why you were off earlier? She wants to ask him. Why you stood so far and out of reach, and seemed so uncaring that I had come down to meet you?

Maybe he doesn’t know why she had let go of him and so perhaps he doesn’t know what he’s asking of her now. She thinks maybe he had thought it to be a lapse in judgment and she doesn’t know how to tell him that for all the things he’s always gone off on her for, it wasn’t a mistake for her and she will always do it for him. But she looks into the earnestness in his eyes, the plea hidden beneath his words, and he might not know why he’s asking this of her, hasn’t come to a conclusion about his feelings for her just yet, but she’ll give it to him now, as she always will.

Her numbed hand lets go of the bedsheet and comes up to tenderly rest on his jaw. She grazes her thumb against the hard edge of it.

“I won’t let go,” she whispers and Malfoy meets her eyes.

It’s a little unnerving as he searches for the truth in her words. She doesn’t know what he’s looking for but she understands the trepidation in accepting something without evidence, considering she’s not the only one being vulnerable right now. But he must have found his answer somewhere because the hand on her cheek lowers enough that he can brush his thumb against her bottom lip.

With his gaze locked on her mouth, he leans down to kiss her, a ghost of a touch.

Seals the promise.

And then he lifts himself off the bed with his arm and then his hand and pushes back to his haunches. The absence of his weight is anything but freeing and Hermione looks at him, puzzled. She raises herself on her forearms and watches as the hand still under her pants slides out of her underwear. She shivers without his touch and Malfoy’s lips lift in the corners when he catches the tormented look on her face. He doesn’t say anything to assure her but she realizes quickly what he’s doing when he kisses her pelvis once and his hands start to peel back her pants and her underwear together down her hip.

Hermione sucks in a breath as cool air fans across her bare skin. Slowly the clothing comes down past her thighs, her knees, and then off her ankles to leave her completely naked in front of him. She waits for the embarrassment and the self-consciousness again, for the shyness to come and fold her legs together to hide. But the indescribable way he’s looking at the center of her, melts it all away. She bites the inside of her lip, anticipation growing once again, as her eyes drop to where his hands slowly start to unbutton his trousers. Her heart skips beats and her pulse quickens as he shoves his trousers and boxers down and gets out to throw them somewhere across the room. Her breaths come out rattled and broken as her eyes follow the trail of dark blond hair before settling on the hard length of him. She can’t help but stare, surprised by the sight of the red, glistening tip and the mere size.

This is happening.

She cannot believe this is happening.

They're both naked now, a moment that cannot be erased now that it's happened. Unguarded, without any masks, Occlumency walls, or layers to get in between and mess it all up.

This is them, Draco and Hermione.

Just the two of them at their most vulnerable. She's never felt more intimate with someone.

Her hand twitches, tempted to reach over and touch him, and her lips part as she exhales a long breath. But she barely has a moment to say anything when Malfoy is back, leaning over her. She feels his co*ck settle somewhere against her abdomen and her stomach caves in and shudders.

Malfoy kisses the corner of her mouth and then brings his hand back to her core. The ache is still there, though a little simmered, but he manages to make her coiled up again the moment his fingers touch her.

“Relax,” he says gently against her jaw when her thighs snap up and against his hips. Hermione does try, but she’s too strung up, too aware of every breath and touch for her to let go right away. He strokes her with a sure finger and she feels her eyes close again, her legs lose some of their tension as he flicks the entrance. She lets loose a trembling breath as another finger joins the movements, moving through the wetness. They slide and circle her and she ends up crying out when one of the fingers enters her. Malfoy quickly swallows the sound with his mouth and twists and curves the finger inside of her.

She’s only just adjusted to the sensation when Malfoy enters another finger and Hermione bucks against his hand. He rubs his thumb against her sensitive cl*t to distract her and drags both of his fingers simultaneously out to their tips before pushing them back in, all the way to the last knuckles.

"Oh," she says when he takes them out. She feels the tips of two fingers come together and then another, a third, joining them. She thinks she'll die, won't be able to survive three inside her. Even though she knows she'll have to be able to take the three if she wants the full girth of him.

And Malfoy knows this too because he nudges the three at the entrance and pauses.

"Please," she finds herself begging, not caring how desperate the syllables sound, coming warped from her mouth. She needs them inside her more than she thinks she can't have them inside her.

"Breathe," he says in her ear and she inhales a deep breath through her nose. She feels his chest sink in as if following the breath along with her. When she exhales through her mouth, he dives the fingers in.

She cries out at the sensation, her eyes rolling back. When he turns them clockwise, she sees white.

Hermione writhes, her heels digging into the bed, as heat flares in her stomach. She feels dizzy and a boiling sense of uncontrolled abandonment under her skin, making her want to scream. She kisses him rough and hard to ease some of the shock of the three fingers inside her. Her hand leaves his jaw and joins the other to clasp at the back of his neck. Some of her fingers grip the short strands while the others dig deep into his skin.

She’s never felt something like this before, and she doesn’t know whether that is her fault or John’s. Sex with John…had always been something she found herself giving rather than receiving. Considering it’s also been months since she’s had sex, let alone good sex, she’s just not going to make it.

She’s at the peak of a mountain, her feet barely holding onto the ledge, and she’ll let go completely into freefall if he makes another move inside her.

“Hold on for me,” Malfoy says hoarsely into her ear when she clenches onto his fingers as he curves them horizontally, to thicken the width. She’s too close, her org*sm just there at the edge between land and the unknown, and she barely can say a word. She tries to nod in agreement because she’ll do anything for him and also tries to shake her head so he’ll know she simply cannot last.

Malfoy withdraws his fingers, a loud moan escaping her mouth, and she feels heated wetness on her stomach as he takes himself in his hand and adjusts his position. He lifts his head so that he’s just millimetres away from her face and she feels the tip of his co*ck prod at her core. She wants to close her eyes and give herself into the moment but she feels a greater need to look into Malfoy’s eyes, watch every hollow she’s imagined tracing and memorize every curve of his lips and flutter of his lashes, as they share this.

“Can I have this?” he breathes.

Yes, yes, yes, she wants to say. Take it—it’s yours.

It’s all, irrevocably, just yours.

“You can,” she pants instead.

They share a single breath, a unified exhale and inhale, and then he pushes into her and they groan together. Her walls instantly clamp down on him and she tries to memorize this overwhelming feeling of him inside her, the way he’s completely filled her to the brim. So much so she doesn’t know where she starts and where he ends. The three fingers may have loosened her up in an attempt to prepare her, but the presence of his co*ck inside her is incomparable. He fits inside her in a way only he ever can and she doesn’t think she’ll ever be the same again. She tries to stain the sound of his breaths, the way they tremble because of how she’s making him feel, to the fibres of her heart.

Tries to steal something from him that can haunt her later.

When he pulls out, she gasps and Malfoy grunts, placing a wet kiss on her cheek.

He lifts his head just enough to say, “Alright?”

Hermione nods, her eyes glazed as she looks into his hooded ones. She feels herself on the tip of consciousness, barely holding on and feeling she’ll fly away in the next breath if he doesn't hold her down. She finds herself at a complete loss, not aware of where her limbs are, how she’s holding on, where she’s attached to Malfoy. The pounding of his heart combines with the frantic beats of hers and she thinks this is fitting—this sense of bewildering loss and unpredictability that she feels right now. It’s Malfoy and only he could be the one to do this to her.

He nods as well, a brisk jerk of his head, and then snaps his hip against hers to thrust back into her.

She moans loudly, her mouth falling apart, and her head presses back into the pillow. His co*ck pulses inside of her and she arches against him to lift off the bed before she finally gives in.

It’s a burst of sensations, a symphony of colour and sounds and vibrations, all at once. Her eyes roll back as her vision blurs and she heaves for air, begging for her lungs to expand, to remove the constriction in her chest, so she can just breathe. She becomes no one, belongs to no one, and it is the most exhilarating feeling. No attachments, no tethers to this world, nothing holding her back. Down, down, past the world, the stars, the sun, and the moon, floating and hovering within a gravitational force. She’s pulled back into her body, deeper, deeper, and closer to where she meets with him. It’s life coming back at once and she could sob at the liberation she feels in her heart.

She breathes heavily and looks back into Malfoy’s face, regaining thought and sense. His hand comes down on her breast, cupping and squeezing her as his lips meet hers. She opens her mouth wide and his tongue enters, licking the seams before flicking against hers. She hears the quiet sounds as he sucks her tongue but she’s so far gone to care and it only makes her kiss him back just as loudly. He pulls his co*ck back out again but his thrust back in is quicker this time. He increases the speed, pulls out and pushes in, and moans every time his hip snaps in place.

She rakes her fingers down the skin of his back, leaving marks for sure, and slides her heels closer to her chest on the bed and opens her legs wider and thatchanges everything. He makes a surprised, approving noise at the back of his throat at the new angle and she feels his muscles seizing under her hands. His head falls into the nook of her neck and she meets his hips with the frantic movements of her own. His breaths are coming out tortured and she feels the tension in his co*ck increase inside her.

Her eyes move past the curves of his shoulder to fixate on the ceiling above and the patterns of ingrained flowers there. There's a rustle near the windows and she drops her gaze to the flying curtains. The light inside is golden from the hanging candles throughout the room. The dancing flames create a warm hue and cast a shadow of their intertwined body along a wall. She follows the movements of their shadow, unblinking. Watches how it moves up and down the creaking bed in synchrony with them. How Malfoy’s body fits over hers in a perfect embrace.

She listens to the way their moans and grunts, sharp inhales and soft exhales, mix into a chorus that runs deep between them.

She never knew until now, had never really realized, how unforgivingly cold she’s been. How she’d been stuck in a hopeless, never-ending cycle of cruel winters. And how all she needed was this one touch, Malfoy’s touch, to bring her back out and into the honeyed daylight again.

Never knew her empty vessel could be filled by someone else for once.

Never knew someone could touch her like this and it didn't have to hurt.

Time has no meaning, if she wants.

It's just a second, a handful of minutes, one hour, a breath, a lifetime. It could last forever, if she wishes.

And, God, does she wish it to never end. Hopes and prays for this moment to stretch into infinity, the seconds as many as the constellations in the universe.

It's emotional for her to receive something like this and to have Malfoy be the one to give her. For so long, she lived thinking there was no break, no moment where she could feel happiness at the hand of another. And that had turned into her thinking she wasn't deserving of happiness from someone else. She still might not be, her sins far too large and innumerable, but someone, something has decided to give her something honest and true in a moment where she could pretend to be.

And Malfoy's holding onto her, kissing her, moving into her in large gulps as if he's unable to pace himself. As if he doesn't know how to stop, how to learn to take small bites, because he's been starving for so long. He breathes like he didn't know he could without being reprimanded for it. He takes it from her like he didn't know she'd give it to him in the first place. It breaks her heart to feel the desperation in him and she doesn't know how to tell him to take, take, take.

Hermione tries to control her muscles so that he can feel like he has a better grip on her and slides one of her hands up his hair to graze her nails against his scalp, knowing he likes the feeling as well. She wants this to be for him as it was for her and pushes her cheek against his, gently anchoring him. She brings her legs up close to his thighs and lifts them to wrap around his waist. She gasps and feels the corners of her vision blur once more when she does this and Malfoy curses when the angle brings him closer down to her.

His final drag out and push is loud and hard and she feels him shudder against her and groan into the pillow. She closes her eyes and pants as well, concentrating on the united beating of their hearts. She holds him close and still in her arms while her own body shakes under him. When she feels him move, she unwraps her legs from around him.

Malfoy lifts his face and looks at her, his eyes wide and dilated. There’s a rosy flush to the peaks of his cheeks, a bead of sweat near his temple. His hair is plastered against his forehead and she subconsciously reaches up with a leaden arm to gently push it back. Her arm is too tired to remain there so she places her hand on his shoulder instead. The candles make him look golden and leave her in the shadows, making her skin dark against his. Hermione stares into his open face, which is for once not hidden or masked.

He looks…shocked, or at least taken aback by what’s happened. She must look the same. She knows however, it is not because of regret. It is a feeling akin to walking into a darkened cave, unseeing, only to turn and be faced with a blinding light. To then stare and stare, unflinching, unwavering.

The shock is because of how it felt. At the possibility that they could have felt this long time ago when the clock hadn't been ticking this loudly. At the fact that this was hiding there all along and all they had to do was surrender.

Of the truth that she sees him and he sees her too.

There’s that question again in his eyes he’s asking her: What have you done to me?

And her answer is just: I don’t know.

Because she truly does not know what this means past the moment it occurred in.

Maybe it's just residual high coursing through her but she feels as though her heart has been carved out and placed into his hands and she’s never felt it to be in a more secure hold. Though there is a seed of hesitation blooming in her heart over the fact that it might not continue past this. She tries not to think about it, tries to bury it deep, even though she can see the shift in his face that suggests he’s also thinking the same thing.

An entire month is gone and tomorrow they return home.

If they have let go because of the fleeting truth behind it, Hermione does not care. It feels right to have shared this with him, to give this to him and have taken something back.

A fitting end if there is going to be one.

“The spell,” he says finally. His voice is low and scratches his throat when he speaks.

“I’m on the potion,” she replies.

He stiffens immediately.

His brows furrow and his jaw clenches. She knows why—there’s only one reason why she would be on the potion in the first place, but she doesn’t understand why he would react this way. There’s a change in his eyes that she’s able to spot but she doesn't understand that either. It's a curious possessive look to the tightening of his eyes that she finds herself being drawn to like a magnet.

She feels his legs shift against hers, of him slowly pulling out, and she thinks maybe he’s about to move away. Thinks maybe they’re done for the night and she has to go back to her own room now that they’ve gotten this out of their system. She lets go of his shoulder, her heart struggling with being at peace with what he’s given her and the thought of having to let go at all.

She’s turning her face away, in a futile attempt to hide the tears sure to fall if she stays any longer when he takes her by the jaw and gently brings her back to face him.

She doesn't resist the move. She lifts her chin in defiance and braces herself for his words. Meets his eyes and doesn't look away.

They’ve darkened even more, a new sharpness in them, making his silver stark against the blackness. She waits and waits for his clipped words, but he bends down only to kiss her, his lips heavy and intrusive, and she promptly returns it.

When she feels him paused at her core, waiting for her, she doesn’t think twice and reaches over to snake her arms around his neck and straddles his hip with her legs. She uses her heels at his lower back to push him in all the way to the end.

They moan at once and his eyes flutter close.

The rhythm picks up again and the knot in her chest unwinds. He bites her neck and she pulls his head back by his roots and kisses him just as punishingly.

It’s faster and wilder than before, their kisses devastating and their touches unyielding.

His hand goes to her throat, holding her and tilting her face up and to the side so he can kiss and lick the line of her jaw. Their moans become louder and delirious, every sound escaping their mouths only goes far enough to be captured by the other.

There’s a frantic push and pull between them.

Ricocheting wounds in a raging war that are starving, trying woefully to make up for what's been lost and what might be taken again.

And yet between it and under it all, there is a known intent to the madness— a need to see who will surrender, who will dare to end this damning moment.

But when Malfoy freefalls again, she is right there behind him, drowning deep in the light.

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

It’s the stabbing pain behind her eyes that wakes her up.

Brows furrowed, Hermione opens one eye and immediately cringes away from the sun filtering through the white curtains. It takes a few seconds to orient herself as she grapples to make sense of where she is and what's happened. But the shock of the light against her weary eyes brings everything back at once and her eyes spring open.

Suddenly, she's aware of whose one arm is wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her back against a solid chest, and the other against her waist. Whose heavy, warm body is aligned directly against hers and whose even, deep breaths are fanning across her hair. She feels every inch of her bare skin that is in direct contact with Malfoy’s and it’s jarring enough to bring her completely out of her stupor.

She scans the room and her cheeks flush as she takes in their scattered clothes, thrown haphazardly in every corner and memories of the night return in a series of fallen dominos. She's incredibly warm, cocooned in the fold of his arms that have locked her into his grip. She waits for some emotion to weigh her down as she takes stock of everything that's happened—something to solidify what she’s feeling, but instead, she gets a sudden realization that she needs to leave. She’s not prepared, and perhaps will never be prepared, for the aftermath of having sex with Malfoy. Nor does she think she can handle whatever tumultuous emotions Malfoy will go through when he wakes up and realizes the same thing.

She didn't mean to stay for the night.

Not that there was much of the night left when they’d finally pulled apart from each other and fallen back to the bed. In fact, she had made way to get up and leave right away, deciding to spare herself from any regretful words spoken, when Malfoy, almost subconsciously, wrapped his arm around her, dragged her away from the edge of the bed and back into him, and fell asleep. Too exhausted herself and somehow drawn to his tight, comfortable hold, Hermione told herself she’d rest for just two minutes and then leave as was probably expected of her. She woke up sometime later when Malfoy’s entire body jerked against hers as he made a choked sound that got lost in his chest. The light outside was dimmed blue, creating panels of grey sunlight across the floor, and the cacophony of birds was just starting up when she peeled her eyes open as he grabbed onto her for purchase.

She knew Malfoy didn’t sleep peacefully, but she hadn't realized just how disturbed he truly was. She felt, rather than heard, his breath hitch and his body cling onto hers, curving onto her like a question mark. Nails digging into her skin, as though he was trying to anchor himself to her before he was pushed off a ledge and into freefall.

She didn't know what to say or do. But, body leaden and eyes groggy, Hermione reflexively flung her arm backwards across his chest and murmured, “Still here.”

Somehow that was enough for him because his taut muscles relaxed and he sighed a loose breath, angling his head closer to her.

Now, she listens closely to his deep breaths, the short inhales and exhales, and the movements of his chest against her back, and realizes he's lost deep in sleep.

Something unspools in her heart and for a brief, transient second, she lets herself imagine this moment as something more permanent. This could be real, she thinks. She could wake up every morning, in his arms, and it could be real.

Cautiously, she lifts the blanket ever so and drops her eyes to where Malfoy’s arm lies against hers. His hand is splayed across her stomach, the warmth of his touch leaving behind a handprint across her skin. Her gaze travels up his hand and narrows on his forearm which rests directly above hers. The inky black outline of the Dark Mark is a stark contrast against his pale skin, and yet somehow even more disconcerting against the scar on her arm. Two scars, completely at odds, yet similar in every form.

She squints at the thin, jagged scars raised throughout the Mark. Rough, raised lines dragged across his skin—as though Malfoy had clawed his nails repeatedly over the Mark, only for the cuts to heal over each other with equal black intensity as an ugly reminder that it'd never go away. She hadn't had a chance to look at it last night. She’s tempted now to brush her fingers against his skin, to try and feel how it must have felt to be bound to something so dark, to feel the shadows of what once his life, but instead, she draws the blanket back over them and closes her eyes.

There’s a headache threatening to pierce through the fogginess and she remembers she’d forgotten to take her potions last night. Despite every protest of her body, she truly needs to leave. If only so she can allow him some more undisturbed sleep before he travels for the day.

Slowly, she tries to peel away from Malfoy and pushes her hips forward so she can slide off the bed.

Instantly, the hand resting against her stomach tightens. Stops her from moving anywhere.

Hermione freezes.

Malfoy’s nose nestles deep into her hair, skimming against her bare shoulder.

Her breath catches as she waits.

He exhales and then the grip on her relaxes. His arm holding her shoulders back against his chest falls straight on the bed. His hand flexes at her waist, but then Malfoy eases away from her, turning his head and body to the other side. Quickly, she edges away from him and off the bed. The cold air bites at her naked skin and she takes a second to imprint the image of Malfoy on his bed, the blanket tangled around his bare waist and the softness of the morning light against his hair, before turning back around and tiptoeing across the room to grab her clothes. A minute later, she’s slipping through his bedroom door and out into the hallway.

In her room, Hermione jumps into the tasks she needs to complete before leaving for home, so as to not be left with the whirring thoughts in her head. She takes her missed potions and jumps straight into the shower. She’s just stepped out of the shower when there's a loud knock at the bedroom door.

Hermione frowns, sure she's misheard. When a second knock comes, she grabs a nearby towel and wraps it around her body. She pads across the room and peers into the peephole.

She steps back.

Steps forward and looks again.

Malfoy’s head is dipped low, one hand leaning against the doorframe.

Her heart quickens at the sight of him standing in front of her room. She really didn’t think he’d come after her. She bites the inside of her lip, takes a breath, and slowly turns the knob. She’s just opened the door, a question on her lips, when Malfoy’s head snaps up and he pulls her forward by the waist. His lips are against hers the next second and he steps them together into her room. The door shuts behind them and he spins them around so that her back is against it.

The kiss is hard and she reaches up with one hand to cup the side of his face to return it. Her other hand is desperately clinging to her towel. She arches her neck back as his lips leave hers and scatter kisses along her jaw. Their breaths are heavy and quick and she slides her hand down his cheek and to the back of his head, where she grabs his hair to steady herself. His tongue makes its way into her mouth and she can’t help the moan at the back of her throat that only seems to reinvigorate him.

His lips leave her once more and Malfoy whispers something against her neck, his words getting lost in the drunken haze of his kisses.

She blinks rapidly, her mind completely drawing blank when he kisses that spot on her neck that has her exhaling shakily.

“What?” she rasps.

“Did I do something?” he repeats.

“I—” Hermione shakes her head, not understanding. She tries to push back to concentrate on what he's said but Malfoy’s arm pulls her closer to his body while his other hand snakes up across her neck and to the side of her face. His fingers thread into her wet hair as he kisses her once again, this time gently. “No—what do you mean?”

“You left,” he murmurs, pulling away just enough so that she can feel his breath against her lips. His thumb brushes the tender spot near her temple, making her shiver. “I woke up and you weren’t there.”

Understanding dawns on her and Hermione loosens her fingers from his hair.

“Oh,” she says, softly. “No, you didn’t do anything. I just needed to shower and finish packing up here.”

It's at that moment that his eyes fall to the towel she's clinging onto. She twists her arms around her body, feeling suddenly exposed as he reluctantly steps back. His lips are deep red from the kiss and he roves his gaze down her body. She feels the heat of his eyes, leaving goosebumps in their shadows. She’s brought back to last night and by the expression on his face, she knows he’s thinking of the same thing.

She’d never thought she’d feel shy in front of Malfoy. The whole ordeal is strange, considering Malfoy has seen her completely naked and in an even more vulnerable state than in a towel, but she feels a sense of timidness in front of him now that things have irrevocably shifted between them.

When he brings his eyes back up her body and to hers, she doesn't look away. Locks her gaze with him, overcome by a surge of confidence that replaces the shyness. The tips of his ears turn red and he turns around, seemingly giving her the privacy to change. She quickly walks back to the washroom where she left her clothes.

She leaves the door open and says in an attempt to remove some of the strangeness, “I thought maybe you’d sleep in more. I left so I wouldn't disturb you.”

“I haven’t slept so deeply like that in years,” he replies, his voice distant as he moves across her room.

“Oh.” She’s taken aback by the genuineness in his tone. She pauses before walking over to her mirror and runs her fingers through her curls in a feeble attempt to look put together. “Right, that’s good then. I’m glad you slept. Sleep is important. Especially since you’re travelling today, I’m glad you got some hours in. Personally, I’ve always found portkey travel exhausting, apparition even worse. Coming here was exhausting enough, to think of going home has my body already aching.”

She cringes at her rambling and gives her reflection a strict look to stop doing this thingshe always does when it comes to him.

He’s quiet for a moment, and she thinks maybe he’s basking in her foolishness, when he says hesitantly, “And you? Did you sleep okay?”

Hermione nods even though he can’t see her. “I did,” she answers, truthfully. For the first time, she had fallen asleep without her sleeping draught. “I haven’t slept like that in a while either.”

She chews the corner of her lips, contemplatively, before making her way out of the washroom. “I was going to travel with Amina, but if you’re going soon, I can finish up quickly and perhaps we can…”

Hermione stumbles to a stop when she catches Malfoy looking at her potions lined on her dresser. The word is out of her mouth before she can stop herself. “Accio!”

Abruptly, the potions whirl out of Malfoy’s hand and into hers. He stills, stunned, before turning to her slowly and giving her a strange look.

“Sorry—” She swallows deeply and clutches the potions, willing herself to not put them behind her back. “These are private.”

He watches steadily her, waiting for her to elaborate. When she says nothing further, he asks in a simple tone, “Did you get them from the hospital here?”

“No,” she answers curtly.

He leans against the table. “I don’t recognize all of them.”

It’s not a question and he’s a better man for it. Because Hermione wouldn’t have stopped asking questions and he’s giving her space to explain herself if she wants to. An uneasy silence fills the space between them as Hermione turns it all over in her head. It’s not necessarily a big deal, although perhaps the way she’s acting just now might have made it so. But she’s been living with this part of her life for a long time and though she’s been particular about who she wants to share with, she realizes she wants Malfoy to be one of the people she lets in.

The confusion on his face turns calculated before ultimately all wiping away as his eyes flick across hers. The emptiness in his face creates a cavern of hollowness in her and she realizes that she doesn’t want to close herself to him. Not anymore. If she wants more, then this should be a part of it all.

Hermione takes a steady breath and raises one of the potions, keeping her gaze fixed on the flasks in her hand. “This is a sleeping draught.” She turns to the next. “This is a blood-replenishing potion—just a standard one that has been adjusted for a longer-acting dose. And this one is to break down blood clots.”

She hears Malfoy step closer to her. Feels one of his hands come up and wrap around the potions she’s just shown. He takes it and turns it around to look at the ingredients list.

When he speaks, his voice is toneless, though it’s clear the words halt at the tip of his tongue before stumbling out.

“You’re sick.”

Hermione winces at the word that leaves a sour taste in her mouth. She hates being called sick as if the label is the sole definer of her. Like she is in a permanent state of unbeing, with no sight of ever returning to her true self in the future, leaving her forever as an invalid.

The edge in his words, however, makes her look up at him. She can sense there’s a roiling wave of emotions simmering beneath the surface as he tries to make sense of what it all means for her—for him.

“I…I got struck by an unidentified curse during the last battle in the war.”

Malfoy looks up sharply.

“I didn’t feel it at first—I didn’t even know I had gotten hit with something, until the next night. The aftermath of the war was all such a fever dream that I wasn’t paying attention to what was happening to my body, to the injuries that I had collected. Harry needed me and even though I knew I had been hit sometime between it all, there was never a chance to actually get checked by someone until days later. St. Mungo’s was full and we were still dealing with the victims at Hogwarts, so I thought whatever was happening could wait.”

Hermione sucks in a breath. She hasn't talked about it in years and it feels as though a heated anvil is resting on her chest as she recalls what happened.

“It started with weakness. I couldn’t get off the bed or walk, and when I did, I always ended up feeling dizzy. I thought it was just the exhaustion of fighting for so long so I brushed it aside. And then the fever struck; and I couldn’t figure out what it was because nowhere on the outside of my body was there a mark from where I was struck. No broken bones or bleeding wounds that hadn’t already been fixed. So I kept pushing it to the side, not really worrying because there wasn’t any explicit sign that something was wrong."

The heaviness of Malfoy's eyes on her makes her look back down.

"I fainted one night at Grimmauld. There was no one there and I can’t remember now where everyone was. But I woke up later at Hogwarts with McGonagall and Pomfrey beside me. Miraculously, there was an empty bed and I stayed there while they treated me. We didn’t know what exactly it was at first, but I eventually got a healer at St. Mungo’s and after some time we concluded it must have been some new curse created by Voldemort. There was no research, nothing that could tell us how to reverse it or what exactly was its mode of action. But we think that it causes a depletion of blood cells. Changes their shapes or reduces their capabilities to bind to oxygen.”

Hermione shows him the fourth potion. “This stops it from spreading to organs and changing the other cells of the body.”

“Who was it?”

Hermione glances at him. His face is set in hard angles, his jaw clenched tight. “What?”

“Who cast the spell?”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“It matters to me.”

“Draco—”

“Tell me.”

Hermione blinks in surprise at the clipped fury in his voice. “I don’t know. It could have been anyone. I got hit by Donovan and Greyback at one point, I remember that—” Hermione tries to reach for Malfoy when his eyes narrow to deadly slits. “They’re dead, Draco. They both died that night. It doesn’t matter anymore who might have cursed me.”

"What’s the cure?”

“There is no cure. Not yet at least.”

“There’s no cure,” he repeats flatly. Malfoy takes a step back, out of reach, as if he needs to put some space between her and what she’s just said.

“It’s chronic,” she explains. “We tried to find a cure but in the end, my healer and I decided it was best to try an assortment of potions to help control the symptoms. I’m fine with the treatment plan—”

“You’re fine with taking potions for the rest of your life?”

Hermione runs a hand down her face. “I’ve been dealing with this for seven years already, Draco. It’s been working so far and I see no need to change now.”

She feels tired all of a sudden. Finds herself wanting to recede into herself with the fatigue of this conversation. It’s an old and tired topic—this unknown disease with no name that has been a part of her life for the past years. She’s been angry, afraid, hopeless. Already gone through the carousel of emotions that she can see him trying to wrestle with now.

She had to leave her teaching post at Hogwarts when it got worse, had to leave John for two years just so she could have some time to herself and figure out what it was that she wanted with her life, how she wanted to proceed with this new thing she had to worry about. She needed space and in that time she concluded that any emotion she was feeling about this wasn’t going to get her anywhere and she needed to accept it for what it was. In the end, she came out numb because all she’s ever wanted is to move on—from the war, her memories, the things she’s done. She wants to move past it all and live whatever semblance of the life she’s got left.

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

She sighs. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“Then why,” he says, stepping forward, “did you not say anything?”

“I’m not going to go around telling just anyone this one thing about my life," she retorts.

He stares at her and she knows he’s trying to choose his next words, to not dwell on him being "just anyone".

“Who have you told?”

“My friends,” she says and looks away. “And John.”

But John hadn’t reacted the way Malfoy is now. In fact, he had hardly reacted at all. She had told him she was taking potions when he stumbled across them one night and all he asked was, "But everything is still normal, right?" Once she had assured him yes, she was still normal, that had been the end of the discussion. Back then, she had been grateful for the lack of questions, especially since she had been worn down completely by the experience of telling her friends.

She had told Harry almost a year after her first time with Pomfrey and Ron sometime even later.

She hadn't wanted to tell anyone in the first place. She knew she could do it on her own. Like every other thing in her life, she could handle it all on her own. It simply wasn't something that needed to be discussed by the masses, to be ripped apart by various opinions and statements disguised under the ruse of her well-being. Everything she had done had been private with McGonagall and Pomfrey, and so she was hesitant about bringing more people into something that had left her so vulnerable. Ron and Ginny were still mourning and Harry seemed shell-shocked by the aftermath of the war. Everyone was struggling with their own myriad of issues so she thought bringing up this one thing was unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. That it was selfish of her to throw this on her friends and make them worry when there was nothing they could physically do about it.

It was McGonagall who had warned her that she needed to tell someone if she wished to continue her eighth-year studies at Hogwarts. Harry and Ron hadn't returned, and she didn't see Ginny as often as she liked; virtually she was alone in her year and McGonagall was quite aware of the toll the entire situation was taking on her. Her days were spent between studying and attending her daily check-ins with Pomfrey and though it was lonely, she preferred being on her own for it all.

Eventually, St. Mungo's gave her a concoction of potions that seemed to help her get through her studies by controlling some of the worse symptoms and stabilizing her health enough for her to sit for the final examinations.

At that point, when it was clear things weren't going to relatively get worse, Hermione decided it was safe to finally tell her friends. As expected, they were furious with how long it took for her to tell them. But soon, their questions and concerns slowly started to taper off when it became clear that Hermione wanted to go through it alone and there really was nothing they could do that she didn't explicitly ask for. She might have also downplayed the severity of the curse and the symptoms, but she could also admit it was a lot easier to convince them she was okay than she thought it'd be.

But Malfoy nods slowly, his eyes already far away, and she can see that, strangely, he isn't going to drop this now that he knows.

“Okay," he says, deep in thought. "Okay. I have a private company healer, we’ll switch you to him. I trust his opinion and his practice—”

“Wait—why?”

Malfoy turns to her, looking fiercely determined. “There has to be a cure. There’s no way in hell that this is it for you—the second we get back, I will contact some researchers I personally know outside of Mungo’s and set up a team and a private lab.”

Hermione’s mind struggles to keep up with him, with what he’s suggesting. Realizes that he’s suddenly taking this conversation to a whole new level and he’s serious about it all. More importantly, she doesn't know how to accept this because no one has ever cared enough to push her on this. It's new territory and her first impulse is to completely shut it all down.

“Draco, no. I don’t want that. I've already gone through cycles of studies. It's not going to happen again.”

“Why are you okay with this?” he asks, giving her a bewildered look. “How could you not want more?”

“I do want more," she says, carefully, trying not to bristle at the implication. "But there is nothing to be done about this. This is it for me.”

Hermione’s chest is collapsing as she studies his face. She can’t understand why he is so adamant about this but what's even worse is the way he's looking at her. He's never looked at her like this.

And it’s breaking her heart because it might be pity and Hermione cannot handle pity.

Not from her friends, not from the world, and especially not from Malfoy. She wants him to look at her with something that explains how he feels for her, what she might mean to him, but never with a sense of pity. Pity is an ugly belief stuck in the assumption she doesn't deserve this, that things could have been different but of course not because it's Hermione Granger. She can't stand the idea that anyone would think it couldn't have happened to someone else. As if being cursed is such a unique disposition only Hermione could have somehow managed.

“I have done this already,” she continues, trying to control the shakiness in her voice. “This is why I don’t go around telling people about this because the initial reaction is always blown out of proportion. But don’t you get that I have already been through all of this? That I'm perfectly capable of doing this by myself? I don’t—I don’t need your pity, your concern.”

“This is not pity,” he cuts in, giving her a stern look. “I have never pitied you, Granger and I’m not going to start pitying you now. I just don’t understand why you’ve conceded with whatever inadequate conclusion you’ve been given—”

“Because I’m trying to live my life!” Hermione says, frustrated. She can’t understand how things have changed so drastically in a matter of minutes and why this is the discussion he wants to have with her right now. “I’m trying to move on. I came here because I wanted something more and I don’t want to be restrained by all the things in my life I no longer can control. I can’t stand to be defined by this and it’s taken me a long time to accept that I’ll have to deal with this—as I deal with all the other things in my life that came from the war. It’s a part of me that I can’t change.”

He runs a rough hand through his hair. “You should have told me before. I could have contacted someone by now, had everything already set in motion so we could get started the moment we got back. Why didn’t you ever say anything about this?”

“Would you have cared before all this?” Hermione waves her hand between them, not sure what exactly it is that she’s referring to. “Would it have mattered to you two weeks ago or even three days ago? Yesterday morning?”

“Tell me now then,” he says urgently. “I’m listening to you now, Granger. Tell me, so I can try and fix—”

“There’s nothing to fix,” she snaps. “I’m not weak or broken. There aren't pieces of me left for you to put together now that you've found a way in.”

Her entire body feels as though it’s on fire, her limbs are completely taut with tension, winding with strained pressure. She wants to stab away at her skin to remove some of the restlessness, to relieve her of this overwhelming sense of drowning in these all-too-familiar feelings. She’s gone back in time to when she first learned about the curse and she can feel herself teetering between the line of impatience and cruelty because she desperately wants all this to end. She can't get her hopes up, not again.

“I don’t think you’re weak—”

“You don’t think I would have already tried everything? That I was utterly ruined when I found out about the curse and did everything I could so I could live?”

“I think you've given up earlier than most about this because you don’t think your life has any value,” he answers simply.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asks through clenched teeth.

He shrugs, but his gaze remains strictly on her as if daring her to refute his claim. “I think you like to suffer through whatever is thrown at you because of some twisted belief that you deserve it all.”

Irrational anger bubbles in her chest. “I suppose now that we’ve had sex you would think you know me better than myself. It is so typical of you to be arrogant about this as well.”

Malfoy doesn’t say anything and the fact he thinks he doesn’t need to rebuttal only infuriates her more.

“I suppose you also feel the need to absolve yourself of whatever guilt you have by trying to heal the girl who you used to bully.”

“Granger,” he warns, lowly. “Don’t.”

Hermione lifts her chin, feeling reckless for no other reason than the need to defend herself. “This doesn’t change anything, Draco. I don’t want to talk about this, and I refuse to accept whatever alms you feel you need to give me just because you decided to f*ck me.”

“Is that really what you think this is all about?” he asks, lowering his head to meet her glare head-on. His eyes darken and there’s a quiet storm in his words that has her body completely at alert. “Do you really think this is all because I f*cked you and nothing more? That there is nothing more?"

“I don’t know,” she says quietly, even though she knows it’s not true. Even though what he's asking, what he's implying, is all she wants. “I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know what you want from me.”

She watches as the muscle in his jaw ticks, as the anger brims in the silver of his eyes. She can almost see him count the seconds to hold himself still as he runs his tongue across the front of his teeth.

"How is this any different from anything else you've told me?"

It's not, she realizes. Except perhaps his reaction this time is greater, more obviously concerned, than any other time and it's leaving her feeling unnerved. As though perhaps there is something fundamentally wrong with her that warrants a reaction like this even though she thought she had everything in control. That she does need help in more ways than she thought and doesn't know how to accept it when someone, especially Malfoy, is offering because she's never been this fractured before.

"You don’t need to concern yourself over me,” she says after a few seconds in a voice that she hopes will end the discussion. “I’m not dying, Draco.”

He flinches.

He actually flinches.

His body jerks backm as though he’s just been physically struck by her, and she watches the look on his face completely shatter. Cracks grow in his lips, his eyes, his jaw—breaking him apart one by one. And he doesn’t even try to hide it from her for once—allows the words to hit him so that his mask falls apart to expose him entirely raw to her.

Hermione pauses then, taken aback by his reaction. It’s frightening to see him so affected by something that concerns her that she’s left trying to figure out what it means. She wants to tell him, Can’t you see? This is why I can’t talk about it. This is what I do.

Because somewhere along the last few minutes, she’s lost control over the whole situation by saying all the wrong things and she finds herself begging for a way to reverse time to when she first opened the door.

But then just as efficiently, Malfoy composes himself. And it’s like watching a broken statue slowly put itself back together again because he’s stone now—impenetrable. Cold. And the sight unravels Hermione as the restlessness in her is replaced with sheer desperation to fix what’s just happened. To bring him back to her because she can see him retreating into some shell within him.

With stiff movements, Malfoy steadily places the potion still in his hand on a ledge near him.

“I should go,” he says at last. His hand lets go of the flask and flexes it into a fist by his side. His eyes drop to the floor and moments tick by as he waits for her to stop him, to say something to make him stay.

Her mouth parts but her mind is blank so she closes it, only to open it again with a protest dying in her throat. He turns when she says nothing and makes his way to the door.

Hermione reflexively steps toward him.

“Draco,” she says, his name a plea.

He stills, the door half-open. He waits but doesn’t turn around.

Stay, she wants to say.

I’m sorry, she wants to tell him. I've been so alone in this, that I don't know how to do this with someone else anymore.

Instead, the words that come out are quick and foolish, cowardly and reckless—not at all what she truly means to say. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

She knows the answer to the question the second she says it. His back stiffens and his knuckles turn white where he holds the door and the silence between them is excruciating.

She realizes just as quickly the question could refer to anything—the curse or what happened between them last night. She doesn’t even have a chance to take it all back because she knows as strongly as she knows herself that he would never say anything about either of the things when he lowers his head.

He looks over at her and there’s nothing there. His eyes are devoid of all emotion. “No one will have to know, right, Granger?”

It feels like the air is knocked out of her to hear her own words back. A punch straight to the stomach, leaving her breathless.

When he leaves, the door shutting behind him with a definite click, the silence is deafening.

___________________________________

They’ve barely arrived at the London hotel when Hermione pulls away from Amina and starts scanning the building for Malfoy. He had left later than when he was supposed to, having been delayed because of some issues with the portkeys, and just before Hermione had gone with Amina. He should still be here at the hotel for his luggage and Hermione spins around looking for a familiar shock of white hair.

There’s no way they’re going to part on such a note, she thinks feverishly. She said some regrettable things and all she knows now is that she won’t let him leave her after that conversation. Her stupid need to self-sabotage anything that happens to her isn't going to get in the way of this.

“Hermione, your luggage—”

Hermione grabs Amina’s arm. “Do you see Draco anywhere?”

Amina frowns at the desperation evident on Hermione’s face. “No…He must have just arrived, however—”

“I need to find him,” Hermione mutters, distractedly. She turns around and starts fumbling through the landing crowds of people, searching for Malfoy.

“Hermione—wait, there’s a surprise for you!” Amina calls after her but Hermione pushes further away, anxiety cleaving at her heart as the troughs of people increase. The hotel is a port of arrival for travelling witches and wizards and the regular bustle of crowds is significantly larger in the evening. She spends several minutes looking throughout the hall but eventually concludes he’s not there and makes her way to the front exit.

She pushes through the hotel door and steps outside. The sun has already set, leaving behind swirls of blue light across the darkening sky. The air is considerably chillier for May and the sudden shock of the London landscape halts her for a second, leaving her feeling overwhelmed. She grips her forehead, exhaustion still building inside her body from the day of travel, and exhales heavy breaths as her eyes jump across unrecognizable faces.

She’s just about to give up and make her way back inside to search there once more when she finally finds him pushing through the crowd at the end of the stairs, holding on to his luggage. He’s moving away from her and she cries out in relief, before running down the hotel steps. Hermione calls out his name but it’s swallowed by the noise so she follows him further as he moves to the side of the road where it’s less crowded. She reaches for his hand before he can cross apparition lines and disappear.

Immediately, her hand is twisted painfully, locked in a defensive grip, and she’s pulled forward into his body.

She gasps at the sudden movement and looks up at his face with wild eyes. The violent, guarded look dissolves into confusion as he takes her in before melting away into recognition within seconds. The luggage in his other hand drops to the ground with a loud thud, discarded completely. His hold on her lessens considerably and he turns their joined hands so it’s no longer at a position that hurts her. He doesn't let go so she twists her fingers so they're intertwined with his and holds his hand firmly.

“What are you doing?” he breathes. There are shadows under his eyes, fatigue pulling down at the corners of his lips. His gaze can’t seem to settle somewhere on her face, leaping instead from one point to another as he drinks her in.

“I’ve been looking for you.” Hermione swallows through a new wave of nervousness. “Were you just going to leave without saying anything else?”

His face turns reserved and his eyes become weary. “I didn’t think there was anything else left to say.”

She shakes her head. “It can't end like that.”

His brows furrow but he doesn’t say anything. He’s still looking at her in disbelief, as though he’s unsure where she’s going with this, or if she’s really standing in front of him. She realizes that perhaps he too had thought he’d never see her again once they got home and their conversation back in Morocco would be the last one.

She'd planned the things she had wanted to say to him, but all of it vanishes from her mind as he stares at her. She’s tempted to look away from the intensity of his gaze so she can gather her thoughts but instead forces herself to take a deep breath. “I need to talk to you."

"I'm listening, Granger," he says quietly.

She nods, more to herself than to him. To convince herself to keep going. "I want you to know, okay? I want you to know everything. But it’s hard for me to talk about it because I've never done this before...”

Hermione pauses, her eyes momentarily flicking away from Malfoy and over his shoulder. She thinks she's heard her name—saw a familiar flash of orange near the hotel entrance. When she can’t see anything, she looks back at Malfoy. His frown deepens, his eyes searching her face for hesitation.

“What I'm trying to say..." She clears her throat. “I want to tell you about these things, that is, I want you to be someone in my life who knows me, but…”

Like a magnet, her gaze jumps back to the hotel, drawn once again to an echo of her name, a blurred figure waving at her.

Hermione freezes as ice fills her veins, spreading to her lungs and her heart, paralyzing her completely to where she stands.

“Granger,” Malfoy is saying, an expression of confusion mixed with inexplicable worry filling his face. She feels her hand jerked gently toward him as he tries to get her attention again.

Hermione blinks once more, but there they are.

Ginny, waving her arms to catch her attention, and Ron, standing at the side of the entrance behind her, away from the moving crowd.

Her heart hammers in her chest and she briskly shakes her head in denial.

What are they doing here?

There's ringing in her ears as everything substantially slows down around her. The noise, the movement of the crowds, everything stills to one infinite moment. She can’t believe what she’s seeing and it’s so incredibly startling to see her friends after so long that she lets go of Malfoy’s hand.

His head automatically snaps to his now empty hand, to the space where their hands were joined. She tries to say something to Malfoy, to explain what’s happening, but her lungs are squeezed of air and she doesn’t think she’s breathing at all.

And then she’s walking, her feet moving of their own accord as numbness replaces some of the ice, away from Malfoy and toward her friends.

She pushes through the crowd and somehow makes her way up the stairs.

Ginny is squealing, pulling Hermione into a hug before she can even say anything.

“Surprise!” she shrieks, slapping a kiss on Hermione’s cheek.

Her arms lie loosely at her side as she looks over at Ron. He looks increasingly awkward as they stand in the corner and she knows right away that Ginny must have forced him to come out. The port is filled with international travellers so it’s rare for them to be identified amongst the people when it’s so crowded and dark outside—still, the look on his face is suggesting he’d rather be anywhere but here.