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“What kind of a name is Malfoy anyway?”
Draco would have hesitated to return the refilled glass of whiskey if this was the first time. Instead, he gently placed it, pinky finger near the bottom to soften the sound, on the isa engraved coaster. The ice rune eased into a soft glow as the stone cooled with the iced drink. It was an undignified parlor trick but during her presentation of the gift, she lit up as it did. They became a permanent fixture every Wednesday moving forward.
“It all just feels like a sick joke.”
Draco tried to relax. It was clear now. Tonight’s session of wrongdoings would feature his bloodline. He raised his brow and tried to appear as if the blood pounding in his head would not drown her out.
Hermione was curled into the leather chair, her hair flipped on one side. Her neck was exposed, as if she wanted to ensure nothing would obstruct his sight of her. Was it purposeful? She always put meaning in everything. Was it to view him properly? To get a good look at who she designated her representative of all that was wrong in the wizarding world? To watch his reactions to the charges he was lucky to be spared from.
Whatever she had decided, it was clear in her gaze that Hermione was done with her dramatic pause. “It’s either unspoken or snickered about secretly. Another one of these traditions, I’m sure,” the word ‘pureblood’ was clear in the slight momentary wrinkling of her nose.
Hermione lifted her glass, the light of the rune slowly dulling to nothing as she swirled the ice lazily. Draco was unsure if she was ready for his response because her eyes had transitioned and were focused on the amber liquid rather than him. He could wait.
He would take what he could get.
It had started rather unexpectedly. Draco was not sure if that interpretation was mutual, even if it was a safe thought. No one could ever be sure. Not with Hermione Jean Granger.
Draco Lucius Malfoy could be honest and admit that perhaps he was habitually shortsighted. Since the end of the war, many things had developed unexpectedly for him. Three surprise witness statements for himself and his family. Probation with monitored and conditional wand usage. A final note that with his assigned aurors discretion, the five-year allotment could be shortened. The discretion was met easily when Draco had done what no other heir had ever done before.
But that could not have been it. It certainly could not have been the trial. With his courage finding him at odd times, it was characteristically distant when he had a chance to ask. Another opportunity to mend his connection to the Gryffindor trio was gone.
How could he have? What if their whim to defend him, and his family, would vanish as he opened his mouth, the statements stricken from the record? Draco could not risk it. But why would they speak for anyone but his mother?
Potter he could understand but not comprehend – Draco did not identify as a bleeding-heart type. Weasley was stubborn but righteous – too many deaths and a proclivity to follow Potter with whatever The-Boy-Who-Still-Won’t-Die decided must have inspired him to give grace. Her? He could and would not ask. Her testimony was most likely the one that saved him and the one he could least understand.
It must therefore have been later.
Maybe this wrinkle started with the garden plot. As he set upon his task, he found it. An odd carving of runes around the perimeter and a sheen in the soil slowed him down that mid-September afternoon. Draco knelt, brushed his finger across the carving and felt it. He did not freeze this time. He jolted up and rushed back to the manor. Moments later, several urgent letters were written to the Auror Department.
Draco liked to think he remained neutral when Bill Weasley joined a pair of aurors, one of whom was his probationary assignment, a few hours later at his home. It was not a compliment when the ginger headed man noted that growing up around dark magic most likely increased Draco’s sensitivity. “I know a bunch of colleagues who wish they were as intuitive.” As if immersed in ice, Draco wished they never lived here at all than be faced with the reminder constantly. The fireplaces were one of the few ways he found warmth in his home anymore. Lucius and Narcissa were allowed to live their sentence at their French estate, eager to move forward, agreements notwithstanding, not pleased that Draco insisted that he needed to remain in the Manor. It did not matter – the ring was on his hand now, signet digging into his palm.
There was an immediate flash of regret in Weasley’s expression and the weight of a misplaced apology on Draco’s shoulder. A change of subject was required, and Draco remembered to mind his posture as he gestured to show the men what he had found.
Maybe it was that? Not the walk or letter but that hand on his shoulder as Weasley gave a quick and quiet apology. It was a peace offering and Draco was desperate for any peace. He worked with the men, finding the physicality of curse breaking its own reward. Draco’s willingness to put his body in the way earned Weasley’s respect, and after a particularly nasty burn from a backfire, his ire. As he was lectured, in a way that not even his father had ever dared, a friendship was struck, and Draco opened his home.
An earlier version of him would have been appalled at Weasley’s behavior. This one was still trying to change what had been done. “I want this to feel like home again,” Draco confessed to Weasley as he signed the approval paperwork.
A letter arrived the next day, to inform him that the unprecedented allowance of a curse breaking review of the Malfoy Manor showed a growth of something or other that allowed the unprecedented approval of the Wizengamot to unanimously agree with his assigned probationary Auror’s evaluation that such actions bespoke upon something and that this was quite surprising to everyone involved due to his family’s history and this unprecedented growth was a remarkable demonstration – his probation was cut short, wand restrictions removed.
It was all going a bit too easy, and Draco was precedentially uncomfortable with it.
The manor was surprisingly easy to resolve with Draco’s cooperation. Many of the curses, runes, and magic were compliant if he was the one dispelling or altering it. The problem was that outside of the walls of his home, someone had tampered with the grounds, altering the magic, without the permission of the Malfoy Family. This magic was colder.
Weasley wasted no time calling in a favor to Neville Longbottom to investigate the odd texture of the soil and Hermione Jean Granger about the odd runes they kept finding. While Draco had not considered it at the time, both unaware of who was called in for backup and more concerned about what had been done to his familial property during their stay, any discomfort the two felt as they entered his home quickly went away when Draco, over his shoulder and unaware of who he spoke to, immediately gave his full permission for the pair to do whatever they needed to do to help, even if it mean blowing the entire plot to hell.
Draco never got to see faces of nerves turn to surprise and excitement. He was only focused on a steeled expression when he saw her curly hair up in a bun and slight relief that Granger would certainly get the job done. How she managed to bring herself to his home spoke more on her courage than his character.
It took three months for the runes corrupting the protective grounds to be removed. It would take weekly restoration to resolve the damage done to the soil and ley lines, scheduled for every Wednesday for the foreseeable future.
But before that, it only took Draco one month to apologize to Bill.
It took one week after that to approach Neville.
It took two failed attempts, beginning one week after his apology to Neville, with each attempt another week apart, when shame dried his throat each time…it took one month after his apology to Bill, on his third attempt to apologize, for Granger to be the brave one again. “I’ve always preferred a drink when receiving apologies owed.”
That evening, two months after the four of them begun working closely together (and one month since the portraits had finally stopped whispering about blood traitors and mudbloods after a particular tongue lashing from Draco), and one month before they succeeded in extracting the runes, the four shared a celebratory drink in identifying what had caused the magic to break away from Malfoy’s domain.
It was that night. It had to be!
Bill returned home first but the other guests stayed. Longer than he thought they would. Neville and Granger left a minute or so apart but that would quickly become the anomaly. Neville’s unexpected appreciation for the Malfoy liquid cabinet and Draco’s instinctual response that they could help themselves to it at any evening the mood struck had to be it. That soil-brained leaf sniffer must be the one who tipped them over the edge.
Draco did not expect that he had instigated a standing Wednesday invitation or that a new order would begin.
Bill would always leave first – understandable with his wife and children waiting for him. At some point, Neville followed shortly after until it would be just him and Granger. It was that shift. When an unspoken conversation he did not know about must have occurred. They had to have spoken. The circumstances were too odd for the scarred ginger, fertilizer muncher, and munchkin-sized bookworm to not discuss things privately.
It would be just him and Granger and that was when it began. Glasses would be emptied, and a fresh drink poured. He wondered if, like him, she was working up the courage to air grievances. There was no way a letter sent after the battle, or a drink would be enough. How could one forgive years of taunting, prejudice, and torture?
He had always been shortsighted. It started simple enough.
“It’s just the word diagonally.”
Draco had not heard such a tone from her before. It reminded him of how Bill sounded when he lectured him, an odd tension developing as he wondered if this was the evening of apologies her smile had put off. “Pardon me?”
“Not inherently magical,” Granger continued as she stared at the ice in her glass, her wide mouth in a gentle frown. “A play on a suffix, dependent on a language not changing, instilling an ironic stillness to advancement, when the entire word and meaning suggests movement. A wizard who let himself be muddied by cleverness. It’s pompous. A disappointing standard once you get used to the wonder – which fades quick if I’m honest.”
“I am still quite entranced by magic.”
“That’s because you finally can use magic the way you want to, rather than how the world demands you use it. It’s a honeymoon phase …but that’s not my point.” What was her point? Draco felt like a bludger struck him in the stomach. What in Godric’s was she saying? “Knockturn Alley. Nocturnally. Even familial estates are not an exception. Grimmauld Place? What a stupid pun for a family as esteemed as the Black’s to partake in. Who invites the grim into their home, never mind naming an estate after it?”
Maybe Draco did not know Granger as well as he thought.
“I’m a Black on my mother’s side.”
“Don’t get me started on that one yet,” she mumbled, her eyes finally staring straight at him. He felt his neck prickling again, but it was not cold this time. He wanted to keep looking and was not sure if he should, if he was seeing something he was not supposed to. She seemed to have decided for them both when she tucked her hair behind her ear, to ensure nothing blocked her gaze. Clearly, she had gotten comfortable enough in his library to no longer need to look at it as if it would vanish.
There was a breath of silence, and he knew it was his cue.
“Does it have to be?”
The question brings an intensity to her. He feels like letters on a page, helpless under her gaze as she takes him all in and compels truth from him. Her attention is addictive and moves him to continue.
“Can things not just be…oddly clever? Even just for one wizard? Does everything have to be deep, meaningful, historical? Can a name not just be a name?”
He knew the weakness even as he spoke. The flaw she could throw at him, but she stepped aside it, raising her permanently bandaged arm and tilting it toward him in a mock cheer.
“Names are dangerous things…” she trailed off, inviting him, and he did not know if it was bravery to share the odd toast with him or cowardness to finish her own sentence, though he was scared of where it might go without an ending he could cope with.
A soft clink and they both took a long sip.
“…often. More often than not,” he agreed, seeing her soften her gaze with his response, free from the responsibility of her own sentence. Free from being responsible for how easy it was for this all to break. Let that remain with him. “They can be lessons and warnings. Protection and easily turned into a weapon by the wrong wielder. Cruel just for the sake of cruelty and power.”
He was unaware of her stare anymore, too aware instead that he needed to relax the grip of his fingers against the glass.
“But does that mean it cannot be whimsical and silly? It is not such a bad thought that through our world we can maybe have a chance to move erratically. Sometimes our direction is skewed, and we must hope that we will end up where we should, otherwise…”
Draco stopped speaking as his mouth grew dry, an uncomfortable heaviness in his shoulders, the silent shame and horror and regret and—
“I concede on one but not the other. Diagonally and nocturnally are foolish foundations for critical wizarding commercial areas.”
That night was the start of her sharing, and he worried examining what led him to be the one to hear it all would stop the dominos from falling. How could he help it though? Maybe if he knew what started it would make sure it would not end. He wanted to look ahead for once.
Draco chuckled softly and smiled. She had contorted herself in the leather chair, feet on the cushions and legs pressed into her chest. Her cheeks rested on her knees, her curly hair a halo around her soft face. She had a glow about her. An energy he had never been lucky enough to be the focus of. A brimming satisfaction of having her attention bloomed.
“Nocturnally is rather clever at least.”
“Of all the daft interpretations—”
She was off again, and he filled her glass as it clinked against the formal coasters embedded with his family crest.
Every Wednesday, when Bill and Neville left, Granger would share her grievances with the wizarding world. She wanted him to counter her, her chosen representative of the pureblood establishment. They drank in the library, and both smelled of parchments, paper, and tomes by the end of the night, the quantity of knowledge overwhelming any liquor. Some topics he never considered, such as the natural discrimination from the Improper Use of Magic Office that would get muddied in wizarding world households and allowed half-bloods and purebloods to get ahead, to the absurd.
“Granger, Filch is not a poltergeist.”
“This is why you got second in our classes.” It would sting if he had three glasses less and she had not flipped her hair over her head and let himself be distracted by how slim her neck was. “Apply it Malfoy. Poltergeists are conjured by strong emotion. What is the use of a squib caretaker to clean up mess in a magical castle? How can he work during the day and complete nightly rounds without the aid of magic? All by himself? Before you ask, yes Norris is obviously part of that manifestation.”
It was one of the rare times he had been tempted to call her daft until Granger’s barely controlled smile clued to him that tonight’s purpose may have been to conquer him.
She did that already with her continual prolonged stay.
Occasionally, he felt their roles switch. It caused his stomach to turn but he reveled in the discomfort. It would be his penance, even as she pushed him to be judge, jury, and executioner.
Draco much preferred it when he represented their world, and she attacked him for it. It was more familiar and something he could manage.
“I despise the Golden Girl designation.”
“You helped save the wizarding world Granger.”
“Anyone who fought helped save it. You cannot measure actions as big or small when going against a movement so terrifying. Many people died helping to save it. I was far from pristine. I did horrible things I saw as justice because it was convenient. Being on the winning side and a symbol overwrites the unsavory.”
“You never killed anyone.”
“Neither did you!” Her words are sharp as a knife and there is a cruelty to how she throws it at him. If it were the first night, Draco would know the aim was him, a dig of his failed murder of Dumbledore, but by her design, he is something greater in these moments. “Harry and Ron are not called the ‘Golden Boy’ or any derivative of it.”
“The-Boy-Who-Won’t-Die is already blessed with a title and Weasley is forever my King.”
She softened but the seriousness between her brows remained. “We happened to be a conveniently numbered representation of courage, intelligence, and hope, if you stripped our complexities away. Ron is clever; I rarely beat him at chess but that horcrux whittled him down to run when we needed him. How could we hold that against him though? He was the only one who had something to return to, hope for his family, something for that blasted thing to grab unto. Harry was hunted for most of his life – still lives in fear that it just takes one wizard to start it all again, that nothing that truly matters has changed and never will. I did not catch on fast enough. I was too scared, too focused on cracking the code and getting them food—”
Draco hated it when they discussed the woods. He hated how she saw no wrong in her focus on saving everyone around her except herself. Hated that maybe a sick part of her thought that the reason to be here was to save him.
“—But no one cares about that part. Not really. Malfoy, they fear what I can find in a book. The pieces I can string together. There is no fear of my magic and no action that will bring cause of concern.”
This surprised him. How could anyone not fear her?
It is under the surface, bubbling. A fury at the world, deeply contained, temporarily allowed to roam. The fury is searching, a tentative movement and he could unleash it. A year ago, he would have.
“You are intelligent.” There is an odd trust he senses that allows her to not interrupt him when she has not created a silence for his verbal entrance. “In what you know and how you apply it. You follow your justice and not what the world tells you justice to be. For good and for bad.” Is that why you defended me? Was I part of your justice? He was not the brave one among them.
“You freed a dragon that traditionally guarded a bank and rode it out of Gringotts after sneaking into a vault disguised as—,” his mouth went dry again and her stare had his hand trembling and the back of his neck burning. “As your t-torturer!” He spat out the last word after failing for a moment, taking a breath before he finished his drink, his courage leaving him as he lowered his head, one hand rubbing his eyes for a moment.
He looked up when he noticed she filled up his glass this time.
She had a weird look in her eyes, and he was too scared to pick up the glass again. Her eyes were the only thing that kept him talking.
“You started the DA in fifth year.”
Hermione nodded at his accusation.
“You somehow cursed Marietta Edgecombe.” Another nod. “You did something to take all those classes in third year.”
“A time turner,” she replied gently, her fire a slow comfort now.
“The only thirteen-year-old an adult would trust to balance action and consequence to such a degree.”
“I didn’t use it just for classes.”
“I do not think I am the only one who knew that, Granger. You must have done something remarkable, your brain knowing in the moment what needed to be…Buckbeak.” She nodded again but looked at him, a sheen giving away that there was more to that night. He would need to go through the records, old copies of the paper. He thought he had paid enough attention, but it was, like always, lacking. “Even before, in second year you knew it was a basilisk before any adult and your action saved your life and countless others. You were outrageous even as a first year, smuggling out a dragon.”
There it was again. Hermione held it in and by withholding her interruptions, proved his point. He knew she had more to give, more magic and actions she had done that turned tides big and small.
Draco took a sip and drawled on, rather proud of the following observation. “I know you did something to that bag you bring everywhere. I may not be on probation anymore, but I will not risk it being reinstated by commenting further.” A pleased trill zipped inside him at her grin, and he kept going, to stop her sudden determination to turn him into an unwilling accomplice and accept that he would lose her smile momentarily.
“You changed The-Boy-Who-Won’t-Comb-His-Hair’s face and gave me the opportunity to—”
She straightens at that one and that is when it finally comes out. “I did not know what else to say. I knew they could do worse. I had seen it. Taken curses to avoid doing it. You did not deserve that. No matter, you were my annoying classmates and we were just kids, the three of you were our only chance and I knew if I said no they would kill you and it would be worse if I said yes and I watched and thought of every spell I knew but you were always the smarter and cleverest and if you could not think of it how could I!” He threw the knife back at her and knew, he certainly knew, he had ruined it. It was time to return to his amends and whatever this was, it was over.
“I was stupid enough to think having muggle parents meant anything other than barriers you would crash through to prove you were not my equal but better. How could any apology mean anything with the weight of it all?”
“…Do you always pour because of what I said that time?”
He was silent. She had caught on that he let her pour tonight.
“I’m not perfect Malfoy. I forgave you when you said you didn’t know who we were. When I realized what your home had turned into. When I found out you led the locked up Slytherin’s out to escape the battle and not be forced to face what you had to. When you pled guilty and requested to serve out your parents’ sentences.”
Granger moved closer and he felt her hand on his knee. He used the contact, siphoning off the courage and justice that flowed through her being. “Why did you speak at my trial?”
“I heard you had a great stash of whisky and thought nothing would piss off our tormentors than a mudblood drinking it in your family home.”
Merlin's beard, Draco would have kept borrowing that courage and kissed her if she had not moved her hand.
“You wouldn’t stop looking around to see what you could do. You looked me in the eyes, and I knew you didn’t see me as they did.”
Draco took in a shaky breath and steadied himself. He gave a soft smile as he took the bottle back and resumed his duty of filling Hermione’s glass. “Of course. You are terrifying alive. I would be petrified to witness the havoc your ghost would unleash in my familial home.”
They touch every so often now. The topics are the most dangerous when their knees touch and only the fabric of his pants separates their skin.
“Freshly mowed grass, new parchment, and mentha suaveolens.”
His deceased godfather and recently departed guest would be disappointed in him.
“Bless you.”
Hermione smacks his thigh, and he wonders how to get her to do it again.
“It’s apple mint,” she clarifies, her cheeks slightly flushed and her diction softer. It was quite late at night.
“Why not just say apple mint?”
“Because that’s what it is to me.”
“That is an odd one though. Ron had migraines?”
She avoided his question. “Not a lot of people know apple mint was useful for it.”
Draco grew quiet and pressed his knee against hers, tapping into her vein of bravery. “Sixth year was...stressful. My mother sent it as part of a brew I drank.”
She hummed and gave him an odd look. Draco was suddenly aware he had missed something but was distracted by her adjustment. Her boot was now able to tap his and she demonstrated it softly, a sly grin on her face. Whatever was there before, was gone now.
“What was yours?”
“Amber. A library. Peppermint.”
“Two of those are complex.”
“I did not judge you for your taste in men.”
For once, Draco can tell he has surprised her. “Most do,” she confessed softly.
“You have a reason for everything you do. It is beyond my power to be able to interpret what that could be – you must have had a reason for your infatuation, even when a majority cannot pinpoint their own infatuation, you do not act without inspiration. I am sure there was something redeemable.”
Hermione did not move her leg away from his as she laughed and disagreed that emotions could be so controlled, and he only disagreed with her to keep her laughing.
“You kept her in a jar?”
Occasionally, even Draco was flabbergasted, and he had to put his glass down on his new isa coasters to compose himself. Her lips twitched and could not resist turning up. He could not miss how his response had delighted her and allowed her the grace to reveal a sheepish uncertainty about her past decision.
“I was treated quite ghastly throughout that tournament,” she offered softly. “Though that speaks more of others believing her prattle rather than me…it always bothered me. How could people who knew me for years just believe her? Facing that was too frightening. It was easier to place the blame on the beetle in my jar.”
There was no such thing as a stray curl with Hermione. Her being was greater, as if magic herself willed the single curl to move and her disposition took more with it. As she moved to tuck the piece behind her ear, Draco knew it must be the light of the fire and coy of the Manor that bewitched him. Perhaps Skeeter stopped because she too was transfixed, rendered helpless to watch someone greater through glass. He did not need the physical barrier to know his place, her lovely smile and undeserved soul bearing enough to have him be the vulnerable one. He could not deny it but that did not make him worthy of it.
Draco pretended they were somewhere else, that it was only them drinking in his home, with no greater power radiating from her and spoke the words he wished he could have said in another lifetime by her side all those years ago. “Rather wicked to sell papers about an underage witch’s fake dalliances.”
Hermione smiled fully and she must have known she had him. “It was wicked. At least I could argue that I should have known better.”
“Adults are allowed their follies, but that defense is weak to many. You were just a child. You had to grow up to know better.” Draco pondered and saw the next thought was shared between them.
They all did.
The unspoken three words passed before Draco continued. “How did you feed her?”
Draco would have given up a vault to capture how quickly her face flushed and her attempt to stifle her excitement to share logistics.
Very rarely, despite his best efforts, Draco found it difficult to contain his anger toward the adults who never tried, never believed, or attempted, and had the audacity to pretend to be good when using children as weapons.
“You cannot change it. The Order should have done more. If they could protect the Dursleys, your family should have been placed in safekeeping as well. It was irresponsible and neglectful at best.”
It was rare that Hermione was defending.
“We only had so many resour—”
“You were right to be worried.”
Hermione froze and he allowed the silence to remain until a few breaths later, she was able to let a deep tension leave her with a shaky laugh. “Everyone thought I was crazy for thinking they would be in danger.”
“It was wrong to erase their memories.” Draco stares at her sternly, a knowledge of how wrong the magic was deeply ingrained. “But you were not the only one to do wrong to protect what was right to make up for what adults should have taken care of for children under their care.”
She holds his hand this time and he finds the heat travels through his whole body that evening, longer after she leaves. The fireplace is not extinguished early though, that chill returning to Draco’s bones as he wonders why she can speak so freely to him. Is it that she cannot share her darkness with others but in her eyes, no one is darker than him? No matter what she confesses, she will always be the lighter one and it is not his redemption she seeks.
If that is all he gets, so be it.
The fire was an odd shade of light blue this evening, enchanted to cool the rooms. The open windows could not help when the summer air was this warm. Draco poured champagne to mark what he considered the beginning of summer.
Perhaps the change in drink inspired a new side of Hermione, who had a sweet giggle that kept escaping her as she tilted her glass at him.
“You must forgive me.”
“I am not the one you should ask for forgiveness Granger.”
“You were his godson!”
“I think for someone who complained about students not paying attention or reading, Snape certainly did not reward you when you did,” Draco shrugged and took a sip, enjoying that their beverage was more on the dry side. “What’s a little fire on a robe to a man who claimed to love a lion?”
Hermione giggled but this time he suspected that even though he said it, he might not be in on the joke.
After Hermione left, Draco stared at their used seats lost in thought. During her entire rant about creature right legislation, she never once pointed the finger at him. She had seen elves in his home but never put up a fuss.
He frowned sternly.
While he was on probation, he had freed all the elves’ blood bound to work at the Manor. He was shocked when this action resulted in an elf representing this freed group demanded to be reinstated for employment and presented their contract terms that stipulated their service was ‘master dependent.’
But no one knew except for his lawyer.
Or rather, Draco did not think anyone else knew. The more he thought about their evening, the more he was convinced.
The meddlers had gone to her to get that contract and she had pretended to know nothing about it.
“Pipsy! You little sneak,” he roared, knowing the elf heard him. “Tonight, I am finishing the bottle and not sharing!”
A pop followed by a wail.
“Master Malfoy, at least spare a sip for Miss Pipsy to celebrate! We only went to her because of the task, we did not want to leave Master Malfoy alone!”
Draco glowered down at the robbed elf before he sighed. Who was he to judge, to be mystified the same way he was? Could he truly blame anyone for running to her, with her knowledge as it was? Even as he detested the world for only taking from her and never caring about giving her anything.
“Fetch everyone here. We will open another. I cannot blame you for what I would have done myself. Let us just keep the letter to ourselves.”
“Did you consider getting a new one?”
If it were anyone but Hermione, Draco would be insulted in her question. It was such a personal inquiry, even if that line had blurred away many months ago.
“No,” he answered honestly. He flexed his thigh for a moment, to feel the weight of his wand holster. “I thought it was my penance. Only my wand could decide if I had the right to wield magic again.” It had been odd, to be reunited with a wand that had changed allegiance. The-Boy-Who-Is-Too-Sassy returned his wand at the start of his probation. An owl had appeared at his home with the package, a letter attached revealing that the wand no longer listened to Potter.
“I got it analyzed when I got it back. Reasonably springy,” he said gently before that smile faded. He could not look at her and missed whatever expression she had. “Wanted a conflicted nature, of trauma and torture, to be used to heal and work with curses, to build talent and teach with backfire, with a core that while not strong, was reliable. I am also a Gemini—”
She smacked his thigh gently.
“You could have afforded another.”
“I could afford the whole shop.” Draco was mildly insulted. She underestimated his vaults but paused when he finally looked at her and began to catch on.
“Ron inherited his. Never quite worked right. Even worse when it broke, and they could not afford another. So critical, to how we function and connect with magic,” Granger began, a pause to take a sip as her eyes narrowed. “So fickle and dangerous, with cores and woods that create temperament. Children thrown into it, those without resources placed at greater disadvantage with the only tool that could help them get out of it. Jeopardize their chance from the start.”
“I used my mother’s. When Potter had mine.”
Draco was not sure if she was surprised by his interruption, admission, or saying Potter.
“Your mother gave you, her wand?”
“She has it back now. Father left his behind.”
It seemed he had stolen language from her entirely. A feat he never knew possible. She stared at him, transfixed, and he did not have to know her as he did to guess the questions flying in her mind. “He does not think he has earned the right to wield it yet. It is my duty to meet with him once every seven years to discuss if he does.”
“Seven…?”
“I think things could have been different, if at that first day at Hogwarts, I did not only care about a single handshake.” Seven formative years could have been vastly different. Seven years of apologies Draco knew he owed, no matter what others said. Seven years between each discussion, to find out if Lucius was brave enough to find out of his own wand could forgive him. “Some penance can be done outside of the courts.”
“That explains why your surname still holds such power. Not many families would do so.” He was not sure what she meant by this but he moved past it. No need to remind her that his parents fled the country and he was a homebody unless business required him to leave the Manor.
“Not many families have acted in a way that warrants the decision.”
“He could learn wandless magic. Other schools do not even teach with a wand. The connection is more tactile.”
“That would break his wands trust if he even tried,” Draco explained before he paused and decided. He took out his wand, gently holding it between them in his palm. It was a bit different than it was when Potter had it. He worked with it, with the Manor’s magic, to see if it would let him make it something greater, even if both of their cores were not strong, maybe they would work together to overcome it.
“Runes,” she breathed, a finger ghosting along the indents. Not carved but formed with an ancient blood magic, countless hours given for purpose. “How did you even get your wand to accept, Malfoy this is unheard of! Fire’s knowledge, dawn’s intuitive light, a gift of divine interaction, the ice of cosmic coherence, necessity of friction and shadow, protection and sanctuary with polarity and regeneration, you stabilized them with the ancestral hearth and death?”
In a surprise, her planned discussion of wand inequities was clearly gone. While not his intention to distract her, a small part of him could not help but preen at the attention. “I am a Malfoy. It always relates to the ancestral. I would need luck and magic to make it work.” She held his hand again.
“Eiwaz has interpretations as a tree of life, another ancestry,” she spoke quietly now, as if a secret between them and he knelt closer with that invitation. They spent the evening this way, bundled together, until both their wands were out, and Draco was not blind enough that the distance they shared was either between conspirators or cherished. He was just unsure which one Hermione saw him as.
“Of course not. I was never first, and I desperately need to be. We all have our flaws.”
Now this was ridiculous. Hermione was first in everything. First in class. First with figuring it out. First with her bloody hand up. There was to be less of a back and forth tonight though. The surprising switch to gin had Hermione odd. He could not figure it out.
“I was the third friend Malfoy. That was always obvious.” He could not say anything back. He remembered their fourth year, the ripple of discussion at the second task. Of the two underwater, which one was Potter supposed to save? The number of times she was forced to be in the middle and the united fronts against her. “They are dear to me of course. My best friends. But once the adrenal of survival wore off, I knew. Among Harry, his family, his career, I was too low on the list. Too low for what I wanted and unfair demand from Ron who only had so much to give.”
She had finished her drink and he refilled it. An estimated shot of gin and an approximate pour of tonic. “I wanted to be first. To be a wizard’s first choice.”
He almost dropped the tonic he held. Did she not see? Her intelligence, justice, and actions aside, she was magic herself. How could her hair be straight and controlled, when she was an uncontrolled force reshaping magic around her? She was too creative, too adaptable. She was nimble, thought fast and acted quickly. The magic loved her and so her core remained solid, strong. She was the most beautiful witch he knew, and he would sell a piece of his soul to be last on her list, for the hope to even be on it.
“They were both furious with me. During that tournament. Victor Krum had asked me, and they were shocked I was chosen. Upset that I was mad that I was their last resort. I have not liked chaperoned events since. I felt so pretty that night. It was nice to be selected first for something other than schoolwork.”
Their knees touched and bravery followed. “Krum’s a smart lad.”
Hermione smiled that odd hidden one of hers again. “Certainly not when my teeth were bigger.”
Draco had the decency to accept the slight flush he knew was across his face. She had started doing this. Teasing him. “Better than that shiner you gave me in third. My complexion makes the bruising stand out.” His thigh earned another smack, and he wondered if it was his imagination that the touch lingered.
It is almost a year since they began these Wednesday nights, and it is Draco’s fault for assuming he could ever truly comprehend her.
“What kind of a name is Malfoy anyway? It all just feels like a sick joke. It’s either unspoken or snickered about secretly. Another one of these traditions, I’m sure.”
Hermione let herself have another sip of her refilled glass before she set it down. Draco wondered if the flush at the back of his neck was travelling to his front or if he had grown complacent in choosing not to target him when she stared at him so intensely.
“Bad faith? What a set up.”
As he opened his mouth, she narrowed her eyes. “I’m dumping this in your fiddle leaf pot if you say its clever.”
Drawing upon the courage he built back up over the last few weeks, Draco took a sip and spoke. “A curse can be seen as an intent to harm or punish. Dark magic, in general, is a wrongful gift. Many of the protective enchantments in the manor are woven to direct harm at those who stand against it, their intent in the grey. They can be seen as negative to the recipient, a blessing to those indoors, but be cruelly manipulated as well. That is what started this all.”
Draco eyed the window over Hermione’s shoulder, able to spot the groove that had him send an urgent letter a year ago. Moments like that had him very grateful the rune extraction had worked.
“Bill thinks that because I grew up around dark magic and him and his people here, my magical core developed an increased sensitivity to dark magic. It was his main argument for letting me start doing contract work as a curse-breaker. He said I had a ‘natural talent’ for it.”
It was an odd thing, to be proud of a vocation. He never thought he would be and had not yet told his parents, even though he had been doing it for six months and had a full-time offer sitting at his desk that he still needed to respond to. By Hermione’s startled look, he did not want to think about the implications that technically, even late, she was the first person he had revealed this too. Clearly, Bill could keep a secret when needed.
Draco smirked and let himself show off, just a bit. “He was half right.”
Hermione sat up, delayed her congratulations and leaned closer, her eyes shining as the gears in her brain spun. She would not want him to finish, her start and his supplementary all she needed. “There is power in names. Yours is a reminder of magical predisposition. Your bloodline is good at curses. That’s why they wanted this as their base. The Blacks were notorious for their proficiency but to be so good your very paternal bloodline had it engraved in its name…you didn’t just stand in front to protect us as the heir when we curse breaking. There was another reason.”
“First of all,” he lifted his left hand, the one furthest from her and twisted the ring so that the emblem was visible. “The heir does not wear this ring.”
“Since when!?” Her eyes widened.
“Before the trial. It is what let me ask to serve my parents sentences. Father and Mother were upset that I knew of a legal amendment but could not say anything then. I got an earful after.”
“You’re head of the house. The wards must follow you before anyone, and you can change them. You stood there to test how much you could do intuitively and what had been siphoned away. Purebloods know this because your last name literally spells out. The Ministry dropped everything when you let them strip the curses away from the Manor not just because no one had ever done it before. No one from a Malfoy Black bloodline had ever let anyone near their protective runes before. It was centuries of precedence erased with a letter."
“The combined dark magic proficiency is also rooted deeply with history, loyalty, and protection of those we care for the most. I would not mind a legacy of dark magic proficiency that creates curse breakers that make others tremble and allows other to sleep peacefully for once.”
Hermione was beaming and he could tell she had latched onto a detail.
“You were examining the wards that day. You had already changed something before you called Bill. What was it?”
Draco emptied his glass, wondering how much she knew already. About all of it.
“I wanted to expand access.”
He let her fill his glass.
“To everyone?”
“I have too many enemies. I always will. I can just do what I can.” Before he could lose himself, Hermione pressed her ankle against his and compelled him to keep going. “Anyone I deem safe. To let the manor trust me and accept those I wanted here. Protect them so no one could ever hurt them again.”
“Just calibrating the blood bond should have strengthened it sufficiently to protect your family Malfoy. Even though it was nasty, if we had not aggravated it, that rune would never have hurt you. It lashed out due to the spell backfire integrated into the curse. Almost all the curses in the manor were like that. Removing the curse is the only thing that could hurt you.”
It was the first time she used his last name with a power, instilling a magic of potential and meaning and something he could not understand in the moment. It was her focus on the curse only hurting him that should have warned him what her next question would be.
“Who didn’t you want to get hurt again?”
The heat had spread to his chest, and it took all his strength to breathe smoothly.
“That rune amendment moved to have the grounds magically syphon and weaken witches and wizards who were muggleborn. I swore when you escaped that if you ever came back, you would never get hurt again. I wanted to strangle Bill when he brought you because the manor was not ready to listen to me yet. At least this time, I could stand in front—”
Draco never got to finish. He heard the glass clatter to the ground, spilling the liquid and sending the ice cube spinning across the floor, the sudden movement causing him to let go of his glass and echo her glass with his own.
She gripped his shoulder with her hands, staring down at him as her curls enveloped her. Draco squeezed the sides of the chair, to stop his fingers from doing what they wanted. “Ron never had migraines.”
“What?”
“He never had migraines. It took me forever to figure out what it was for.”
“Oh.” Draco caught on as she moved closer to him, hands jumping to her sides as she hugged him, and he realized he could pull her close. “Oh.”
“I like the idea of a golden curse breaking dynasty Draco.”
The heat finally moved south, and Draco could not help it as he inhaled amber and peppermint as Hermione kissed him and realized that if he were truly honest, it had most likely started when she punched him in the face.