Chapter Text
MINISTRY INVESTIGATOR RONALD WEASLEY FOUND DEAD
War Hero's Death Sparks Ministry Investigation
By Lavender Brown, Daily Prophet Staff Writer
Ronald Weasley, Auror and member of the Golden Trio, was found dead in his London flat late yesterday evening. He was twenty-nine years old.
Officials have confirmed that Aurors were called to the property shortly after 8 p.m. after concerns were raised when Mr Weasley failed to attend a scheduled meeting and could not be contacted by colleagues.
The circumstances surrounding Mr Weasley's death remain unclear and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has launched an active investigation.
Lead Auror Susan Bones, who has been assigned to the case, declined to comment on the nature of the investigation but confirmed that enquiries are ongoing.
"At this stage we are keeping an open mind and are appealing for anyone who may have spoken to Mr Weasley in the days leading up to his death to come forward," Bones said.
Mr Weasley worked within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and was widely respected by colleagues. A Hogwarts contemporary of Harry Potter, he fought in the Battle of Hogwarts and later entered public service alongside several other veterans of the war.
News of his death spread rapidly throughout the wizarding community last night, with tributes arriving from across Britain.
Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt described Mr Weasley as "a loyal friend, dedicated public servant, and brave wizard whose loss will be deeply felt."
Mr Weasley is survived by his parents, Arthur and Molly Weasley, his five siblings, and his wife, Hermione Granger-Weasley.
Sources have confirmed that Mrs Granger-Weasley, is expected to be interviewed by Aurors as part of routine enquiries. Ministry officials have stressed that no conclusions should be drawn from the interview and that investigators are speaking to multiple individuals connected to Mr Weasley.
The Daily Prophet extends its condolences to Mr Weasley's family and friends.
Further updates will follow as information becomes available.
“Hermione Granger-Weasley?” Hermione looked up from the article, feeling surprisingly empty.
“Hi Susan.” She gave a soft smile to the familiar redhead standing before her.
“How are you doing?” Susan asked, her voice soft.
“I’ve been better.”
“Of course. Thank you for agreeing to come in to give your statement. I know this is a difficult time for you.”
“Not a problem Susan, I’m only too happy to help. I just want you to find out what happened.”
Susan nodded before gesturing towards a closed office door. “Let's get you settled somewhere a bit more private.”
Hermione followed her down the corridor, ignoring the curious glances from passing Aurors. The Ministry was unusually quiet around her. Whether it was out of respect or suspicion, she wasn't entirely sure.
The office Susan led her into was small but comfortable. A round table sat in the centre, surrounded by three chairs. A self-writing quill rested beside a stack of parchment.
Hermione's stomach sank when she noticed the small crystal vial sitting beside them.
Veritaserum.
Susan followed her gaze. “I wanted to discuss this before we begin.”
Hermione stared at the vial. “Do we have to?”
Susan sighed. “Under the Spousal Inquiry Act, any spouse or recently separated spouse must provide testimony under Veritaserum when a death is deemed suspicious.”
The words sounded rehearsed. Hermione wrapped her arms around herself. “It feels a bit barbaric when you say it out loud.”
“I know.”
“You know I didn't kill him.”
Susan's expression softened. “I do.”
“Then why?”
“Because if I make an exception for you, I have to make an exception for everyone. And if I don’t, questions will be asked. Demanded about your guilt or rather, suspected guilt.”
Hermione looked away.
She hated Veritaserum. Always had – the sheer vulnerability and utter surrender of control. Her every thought and experience laid bare for somebody else's inspection.
“Will it become public?”
“No.”
Susan answered immediately. “The contents of your testimony are protected. Only those directly assigned to the investigation can access them.”
“That doesn't exactly make me feel better.”
A faint smile tugged at Susan's lips.
“Fair. To clarify: Only myself and Auror Creevey have been assigned so will have access. You remember Dennis - Colin’s younger brother.”
Hermione sank into one of the chairs, for a moment neither woman spoke.
Finally Susan pulled out the chair opposite her. “You're not under arrest, Hermione.”
“I know.”
“You're not considered guilty.”
“I know.”
“This is procedure.”
Hermione let out a humourless laugh. “Funny how procedure always feels personal when it's happening to you.”
Susan didn't disagree.
Instead she carefully uncorked the vial.
The silvery liquid shimmered in the light as Hermione swallowed.
She had testified under Veritaserum before after the war during Ministry reforms. She spoke for Malfoy and Mrs Malfoy in the trials. She knew exactly what it felt like. Yet her pulse was hammering. Her mind swimming with the truths she wasn't sure she was ready to say aloud.
Susan poured three drops into a glass of water and slid it across the table. “Hermione.”
The concern in her voice made Hermione look up. “I need to ask this formally.”
Hermione nodded.
“Do you consent to providing testimony under Veritaserum as required under Ministry statute?”
The question hung in the air.
For a brief, childish moment Hermione considered refusing. Considered standing up and walking straight back out the door. But that would only make things worse.
Slowly, she reached for the glass. “Yes.”
Susan gave a small nod.
Hermione stared at the water for a moment longer before lifting it to her lips. The potion tasted of absolutely nothing.
For several seconds nothing happened, then a strange warmth spread through her chest. Her shoulders relaxed despite herself. The tension she'd been holding seemed to slip away like sand through her fingers.
Susan waited..
When she finally spoke, her voice was gentle. “Please state your full name for the record.”
“Hermione Jean Granger-Weasley.”
The answer came effortlessly.
Susan glanced at the quill as it scratched furiously across the parchment. Then she looked back up. “Mrs Granger-Weasley, did you kill your husband, Ronald Weasley?”
Hermione felt a chill run down her spine. “No.”
The word left her lips without hesitation. For the first time since entering the room together, Susan Bones looked relieved.
“Do you know who did it?”
“No.”
Susan’s quill didn’t pause.
“Do you have anyone you suspect may have done it?”
A brief silence stretched across the table.
“No.”
The word landed softly, almost gentle, like it had nowhere heavy to go.
Susan finally looked up from the parchment.
“Thank you. Now Hermione… tell me about your relationship with Mr Weasley.”
Something in Hermione’s chest tightened at the phrasing. Not Ron for some reason. Mr Weasley, as though distance could soften whatever was coming.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her brows furrowed slightly, as if she were confused by her own hesitation.
“It was… complicated,” she said finally.
Susan tilted her head. “In what way?”
Hermione blinked.
The warmth in her body from the Veritaserum made everything feel slightly too clear, too unfiltered, like her thoughts were being held up to the light whether she wanted them there or not.
“I married him,” she said, as though that explained everything.
Susan waited.
Hermione’s fingers flexed against the edge of the table.
“I think people assume that means I was happy,” she added, voice steady but distant. “We were together for four years. Married for… three. I suppose that appears stable enough.”
“And was it?” Susan asked quietly.
Hermione’s lips parted.
No answer came at first.
Her expression shifted, faintly unsettled. “I don’t know,” she said finally.
Susan didn’t interrupt.
Hermione frowned at her own answer.
“That sounds ridiculous,” she continued quickly. “Of course I know. I was there.”
A pause.
Then, softer, “Was I?”
The words seemed to surprise even her.
Susan’s quill scratched, slower now.
“Try from the beginning,” she said. “After Hogwarts.”
Hermione nodded once.
“Ron and Lavender broke up,” she said automatically. “It was sudden. Nobody really knew why. He didn’t talk about it much. Then a few months later… we just ended up together.”
“How did that happen?”
“I don’t know,” Hermione said again, sharper this time, frustration flickering across her face. “It just did. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t like there was a moment where we decided anything.”
Her eyes unfocused slightly. “He was just… there. And I was there. And it felt easier than thinking too much about it.”
Susan’s quill paused for the first time. “Easier than what?”
Hermione inhaled.
The answer came before she had time to stop it. “Everything else.”
Silence settled.
Hermione blinked, as though she hadn’t expected to say that aloud.
Susan leaned forward slightly. “Everything else meaning?”
Hermione’s throat moved as she swallowed. “I worked. He worked. We met up. We argued sometimes. Then we didn’t. Then we made up. Then we didn’t.”
Her brow creased. “It sounds so… ordinary when I say it like that.”
Susan’s voice softened. “And was it ordinary?”
Hermione’s lips parted.
Her next words arrived before she could stop them. “No.”
The single syllable shifted the air in the room.
Susan stayed still.
Hermione looked down at her hands as though they belonged to someone else.
“He could be… kind,” she said slowly. “When he wanted to be.”
A pause. “And when he didn’t?”
Her fingers curled slightly. “He could make everything very small,” she said.
Susan didn’t write.
For once, the quill hesitated.
Hermione frowned faintly, as if trying to organise thoughts that refused to line up properly.
“I used to think I was overreacting,” she continued. “That I was tired, or stressed, or reading things wrong. He always said I was thinking too much. That I made problems out of nothing.”
Her voice grew quieter. “And I suppose I started to believe him.”
The words hung there.
Susan’s expression didn’t change, but something in her eyes sharpened. “Did he ever hurt you?” she asked.
Hermione opened her mouth immediately.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
Susan’s quill stopped entirely.
Hermione blinked, as though she hadn’t expected the answer to arrive so cleanly.
Then, almost as if something had been loosened inside her: “Not… like that at first. Not how people imagine it. It was smaller. It started smaller.”
She swallowed. “He would take things. My time. My words. My choices. Then he would tell me I was being dramatic when I noticed.”
Her voice wavered slightly, not with emotion but with recognition, like she was seeing a pattern she had once refused to name.
“I used to think abuse had to look like something obvious,” she said quietly. “Something you could point to. But it doesn’t. It just becomes your normal until you forget there was ever anything else.”
Susan’s voice was careful. “And did it escalate?”
A pause.
Hermione nodded once. “Yes.”
The word came out heavier this time.
Silence again.
Longer.
Then Susan asked, almost gently, “Were you afraid of him?”
Hermione didn’t answer immediately.
Her gaze drifted somewhere past Susan’s shoulder, unfocused.
“Yes,” she said finally.
A beat.
Then, quieter still:
“And relieved when I wasn’t around him.”
The admission seemed to settle into the room like dust.
“I’m glad I won’t have to face him again.”
Susan exhaled slowly at this comment.
SIlence spread through the room, thickening the atmosphere for both women.
“Hermione.” Susan said, voice even, “when was the last time you spoke to your husband, Ronald Weasley?”
Hermione blinked once.
The answer came quickly, too quickly. “Three weeks before he died.”
Susan’s gaze lifted. “Three weeks.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember the exact date?”
Hermione frowned slightly, as though searching a filing cabinet she hadn’t opened in months.
“No. It was… a Tuesday, I think.”
“What was the nature of this?”
A pause.
Her fingers twitched against the table.
“An argument,” she said.
Susan’s quill did not stop.
“What was it about?”
Hermione’s mouth opened.
Closed.
Then opened again, slower this time.
“Me leaving.”
Susan leaned forward a fraction. “Leaving where?”
“Home.”
A silence settled, heavier now.
Susan’s voice stayed careful. “Did Mr Weasley know where you went?”
Hermione shook her head.
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone where you were going?”
Another pause.
Her jaw tightened slightly. “No.”
Susan studied her for a moment. “Why did you leave?”
The question landed differently.
“I think you know this already.”
Susan raised an eyebrow at her answer. An answer so coy it shouldn’t be possible under veritaserum.
“I fled,” Hermione answered simply.
Susan’s quill stuttered, then resumed.
“You fled.”
“Yes.”
“From Ron Weasley?”
Hermione nodded once.
The warmth in her chest from the potion seemed to deepen, like something loosening that should have stayed locked.
“When you fled… did anyone help you?”
Susan’s eyes returned to the parchment.
Her voice changed slightly. Not harder. Just more precise.
“When you say you fled,” she asked, “did anyone assist you?”
Hermione shook her head immediately.
“No.”
“No friends?” Susan pressed.
“No.”
“No Ministry contacts?”
Another shake.
“No.”
Susan paused, quill hovering.
“Where did you go?”
“My parents’ house,” Hermione said.
The answer came easily, but something in her expression tightened a fraction afterwards, as though the memory sat somewhere uncomfortable.
Susan wrote that down.
“You were living with your parents at the time of Mr Weasley’s death?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since I left.”
Susan glanced up.
“And your parents knew you were separating from your husband?”
Hermione hesitated.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “They thought we had simply broken up through mutual agreement.”
Susan’s brow lifted slightly.
“They were not aware of the circumstances?”
“No.”
“Did you tell them?”
A faint shake of the head.
“No.”
Susan studied her for a moment.
“Why not?”
Hermione’s gaze drifted briefly, unfocused.
“Because it would have made it real,” she said.
Susan didn’t respond immediately. The quill continued its steady movement, capturing every word.
“And during this period,” Susan continued, “did Mr Weasley attempt to contact you?”
“No.”
“Did you block him?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
“On all channels?”
“Yes.”
Susan’s expression remained neutral, but something in her eyes sharpened further.
“So,” she said carefully, “to be clear. Mr Weasley’s wife left the marital home without informing him, did not tell her family the full circumstances, did not inform any friends, did not report any concerns to the Ministry, and did not maintain contact with him in the weeks leading up to his death.”
Hermione nodded once.
“Yes.”
The silence that followed was longer this time.
Not uncomfortable.
Measuring.
Susan set her quill down for the first time since the interview began.
“When did you take leave from your role at the Ministry?” she asked.
Hermione blinked.
“Shortly before I left,” she said. “I’d already arranged it. I needed time away.”
Susan nodded slowly.
“And during that leave, you remained entirely unaccounted for by Mr Weasley, correct?”
“Yes.”
Susan leaned back slightly in her chair, studying her properly now, not as a grieving widow, but as a witness whose timeline had just begun to take shape in a very particular way.
“No one,” Susan repeated quietly, “knew where you were.”
Hermione gave a small nod.
“Only my parents.”
“But no one knew what was happening between you and your husband.”
Another nod.
“No.”
Susan’s gaze held hers for a long moment.
Then, softly: “So if something happened to him during that time…”
Hermione’s stomach tightened slightly.
Susan didn’t finish the sentence.
She didn’t need to.
The implication sat between them anyway.
Hermione met her eyes steadily. “I didn’t do anything to him,” she said.
Susan nodded once, but didn’t immediately respond.
Her quill returned to the parchment.
Susan’s voice softened. “Hermione, can you tell me about your last interaction with Ron please.”
And the room tilted.
She hadn’t planned it to happen that way. That was the first thought. Just certainty that she’d chosen the timing carefully.
Ron had been in a good mood when he came home.
Too good.
He was humming something under his breath, tossing his keys onto the counter, already talking before he saw her properly.
“You’re home early,” he said. “Everything alright?”
Hermione had been standing in the kitchen.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
His smile shifted to one she knew all too well. “Right,” he said slowly. “That sounds ominous.”
“It’s not,” she replied, too quickly.
That was the first crack.
He noticed it immediately.
Of course he did.
“Go on then,” Ron said, leaning back slightly against the counter. “What’s happened now?”
She chose the easier answer. “I think we’ve run our course Ron/”
The words landed cleanly.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then Ron laughed a disbelieving laugh.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
The atmosphere changed.
“You’re not serious,” he said again, quieter now.
“I am.”
Ron stared at her.
Then his voice sharpened. “Since when?”
Hermione hesitated.
That hesitation was enough.
His face changed.
“Since when, Hermione?”
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said.
“Do what?”
“You,” she said.
That was the moment everything broke – Ron stepped forward slightly.
“You can’t just say things like that,” he said. “We can talk about this.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“It is for me.”
A beat.
Then his voice rose.
“Is there someone else?”
The accusation hit harder than it should have.
“No,” Hermione said immediately.
“Then what is this?”
“I told you.”
“You didn’t tell me anything.”
“I’m leaving,” she said.
Ron’s expression shifted again, something like disbelief collapsing into anger. “You’re actually doing this,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And you think you can just walk out and that’s it?”
“I’ve already arranged things,” she said quietly.
That was the wrong thing to say.
His hand moved before she processed it. The sharp crack of contact across her cheek.
The sound seemed to echo longer than it should have.
Hermione didn’t move for a second, standing defiantly, fire burning in her eyes as she stared into his. Then Ron stepped back, breathing hard, staring at his own hand like it didn’t belong to him.
“I’ll be gone by morning,” she said.
Ron said nothing.
Susan’s voice brought her back.
“Hermione?”
Hermione blinked.
The office returned, Susan was watching her carefully now.
“You left that night,” she said gently.
Hermione nodded once.
“Yes.”
“And you never returned.”
“No.”
Susan studied her for a long moment.
“And Mr Weasley never knew where you went.”
Hermione’s voice was frustrated at the same questions being repeated..
“No.”
Susan didn’t press further immediately, instead, she let the silence settle. The quill continued moving, capturing every word without judgement.
Then, carefully, she changed direction. “Thank you,” Susan said quietly. “That helps establish the timeline.”
Hermione gave a faint nod, still slightly distant.
Susan tapped the parchment once with her wand.
“During those three weeks of separation,” she said, “did you hear anything about Mr Weasley’s condition, routine, or state of mind?”
Hermione shook her head.
“No.”
“No reports from friends?”
“No.”
“No concerns raised to you indirectly?”
Another shake.
“No.”
Susan’s gaze sharpened slightly, but her tone remained even.
“So as far as you are aware,” she said, “Mr Weasley continued his life normally while you were absent.”
Hermione paused.
Then nodded. “I think so.”
Susan wrote that down, her face full of determination because what she was building was no longer a case about Hermione Granger-Weasley.
It was becoming a reconstruction of a man who died three weeks after the last person who knew him properly walked out of his life.
Susan’s quill paused again, just for a moment.
“During those three weeks,” she said, “did you have any contact with anyone close to Mr Weasley?”
Hermione blinked.
“Yes,” she said. “My friends.”
Susan’s gaze sharpened slightly.
“Who?”
“Harry, Ginny and Luna.”
“Harry Potter, Ginny Potter and Luna Lovegood?” Susan clarified.
“Yes.”
Susan wrote each name down with careful precision.
“What was discussed?”
“Harry and Ginny talked about the kids mostly. School things. Work. Normal stuff.”
Susan’s quill moved again.
“Did they ask about him.”
Hermione hesitated.
“Not directly,” she said. “They speak to him separately from ,e.
Susan studied her carefully.
“And Luna Lovegood?”
Hermione’s expression shifted slightly at that.
“She wrote to me,” Hermione said.
“About what?”
“Meeting up.”
Susan’s quill stopped.
“When?”
“Once. Maybe twice. In the weeks before.”
“Did you respond?”
Hermione nodded.
“Yes. I said I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
Hermione frowned faintly, searching.
“I didn’t want to see anyone,” she said simply. “I was… staying with my parents. I just needed space.”
Susan’s gaze stayed steady.
“And Luna didn’t ask about Mr Weasley either.”
“No.”
Susan didn’t ask anything else.
For a moment, it looked like she might. Her quill hovered over the parchment, then settled with a final, deliberate scratch. “That’s everything I need for now,” she said quietly.
Hermione blinked.
Just like that.
The weight of the room didn’t lift so much as loosen, as though something had been unhooked but not fully removed.
Susan capped the inkwell. “We’ll be in touch,” she added. “If we need anything further, or if anything changes in the investigation.”
Hermione nodded once.
Her voice felt slightly distant even to herself. “Alright.”
Susan stood first – Professional again now – the warmth of the interview folded neatly away. “Thank you for your cooperation, Hermione.”
Hermione rose too, a fraction slower. “Of course.”
For a second, neither of them moved.
Then Susan gave a small nod toward the door.
A dismissal, but not an unkind one.
Hermione turned.
Her hand found the handle. As she stepped through, the door closing softly behind her, the sounds of the Ministry returned all at once. Footsteps. Murmured conversations. The hoot of an owl.
Hermione walked without quite feeling her feet, her mind, however, was anything but quiet.
Fragments from the interview drifted in no order at all. Her throat tightened slightly, though she wasn’t sure why. She passed a window without seeing it.
Saw her reflection in it without recognising the expression immediately. Behind her, the interview room continued existing, already sealed off into notes and parchment and Susan Bones’ careful handwriting.
Ahead of her, the Ministry corridor stretched on, ordinary and endless. Hermione kept walking. Only when she reached the lift did she realise her hands were cold. And only when the doors closed did she finally allow herself a single thought that refused to settle into language properly.
Something had just ended.
But she couldn’t yet tell what it was the end of.
—————————————————————————————————————————
Dennis sat on the edge of his desk facing Susan, his legs swinging. Sadly, he’d still not achieved the height he’d dreamed of. “So he knew.”
Susan nodded once.
“Yes.”
Dennis frowned. “He knew she left.”
“Yes.”
“And he still…” He hesitated, searching for the right wording. “He still told people they were together.”
Susan’s voice stayed level. “According to colleagues, yes.”
Dennis leaned back slightly in his chair.
“That’s deliberate.”
Susan hummed in agreement as Dennis flipped back through his notes, slower now.
“But she said she left him,” he said. “He didn’t know where she was, but he knew she had gone.”
Susan nodded again.
“He knew she had left the home,” she said.
Dennis looked up sharply.
“Then why report her as still his wife?”
Susan didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she tapped the edge of the file once.
“That’s what we’re trying to understand.”
A silence settled.
Dennis looked down again, but this time his writing was less certain.
“So he was maintaining a public version of the marriage,” he said slowly. “While privately it had ended.”
Susan’s gaze sharpened slightly.
“Not just publicly,” she said. “Professionally. Socially. Everywhere except where she was physically present.”
Dennis frowned.
“That’s…” He stopped, as though the thought refused to finish itself cleanly.
Susan supplied it for him.
“Control.”
Dennis looked up at her.
Susan continued, steady.
“He didn’t report the separation to his colleagues. He didn’t inform his friends. He didn’t adjust his public status within the Ministry. He continued referring to her as his wife.”
Dennis was quiet for a long moment.
Then, very quietly: “And she just let him.”
Susan glanced at him.
“She removed herself from the situation entirely,” she said. “She’s not been at work since the separation. She might not even realise.”
Dennis exhaled. “And everyone believed it.”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Then Dennis added, more carefully now. “Even me.”
Susan looked at him properly.
He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t need to.
Susan softened her voice slightly. “This is why we rely solely on structured testimony,” she said.
Dennis swallowed once. “And the abuse?” he asked.
Susan didn’t hesitate this time. “She confirmed it,” she said. “Under Veritaserum.”
Dennis’s expression tightened again.
“Completely?”
“Completely.”
Silence.
The quill continued moving, but slower now, as though it had adjusted its rhythm to the weight of what had been said.
Dennis spoke again, quieter.
“So he was living as if she still belonged to him.”
Susan corrected him gently.
“He was living as if nothing had changed.”
Dennis let out a deep sigh.
—————————————————————————————————————————
Hermione continued her journey through the ministry corridors, her steps slowing as she reached the central atrium.
The Ministry unfolded around her in its usual controlled chaos, she looked around, scouring for reporters to avoid. Then she saw him.
Draco Malfoy stood near the far edge of the atrium, half-turned as if he had just finished speaking to someone. Dark coat, composed posture, platinum hair reflecting the light.
For a moment, he didn’t see her, until he did. Their eyes met across the distance.
Everything else in the atrium blurred slightly at the edges, conversations continuing without sound.
For a beat, neither of them moved, then slowly, he began to walk toward her, his steps certain in their direction.
Hermione felt something tighten in her chest that had nothing to do with the interview she had just left and everything to do with the fact that she was not ready to be seen by anyone who might recognise what she was trying not to think about. Especially him.
He took another step.
He was closer now.
Close enough that turning away would look deliberate.
Close enough that not turning away would feel like surrendering something she couldn’t name.
Hermione’s gaze flicked past him.
To the lift bank. Then, before he could reach her, she turned and walked away.
Behind her, she could feel the space he occupied shift slightly. She couldn’t look back to see if he followed, she didn’t need to.
Her pace stayed even as she crossed the atrium, but her pulse didn’t.
By the time she reached the lift, the sound of her own breathing felt louder than the Ministry around her.
The doors slid open and she stepped inside.
And only when they closed did she allow herself to exhale properly, as though she had been holding something in place far longer than she realised.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
That was the first lie she told herself.
The second was that she had known all along.
———————————————————————————————————————
Hogwarts in eighth year was different. The Castle was still patched together in places, still carrying ghosts in the architecture. Quiet corridors where laughter had once been louder. Rooms that pretended they were just rooms that hadn’t been used as morgues.
She met him where they always met when they didn’t want to be found.
A disused classroom near the astronomy tower.
He was already there – of course he was.
Draco stood by the window, hands loosely at his sides, looking out at the grounds as if he had arrived earlier to practise leaving.
When she entered, he didn’t turn immediately.
That was the first sign. “Did you hear?” he asked.
Hermione shut the door behind her.
“Yes,” she said.
A pause.
Snowlight pressed against the glass. “They finalized it,” he said.
Hermione didn’t answer straight away. She set her bag down carefully, like anything too sharp might break something already strained beyond repair.
“I thought there might be a delay,” she said finally.
“There isn’t,” Draco replied.
Now he turned.
Not fully.
Just enough.
Their eyes met, and neither of them moved closer. Despite the tears gathered in his eyes and her desperate desire to engulf him in a hug.
Hermione swallowed. “So that’s it,” she said.
It wasn’t a question.
Draco gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. “Yes.”
Silence.
Hermione looked away first. A mistake she didn’t correct. “Is she here yet?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
Astoria Greengrass.
The name sat between, suffocating the couple.
Hermione nodded once.
“I suppose that’s convenient,” she said.
Draco’s jaw tightened slightly.
“You could refuse,” she said, before she could stop herself.
Draco didn’t react immediately.
When he did, it was very controlled. “You know I can’t.”
“I know you think you can’t.”
A flicker in his expression.
Something sharp, quickly contained.
“It’s not a question of what I think, I know I can’t” he said.
Hermione nodded again, as if absorbing information she had already memorised.
“If I refuse, I die and you’ll be killed. That’s not something I'm willing to risk.”
“Does she know?” Hermione asked quietly.
A pause.
“Yes,” Draco said.
“And?”
“And nothing changes.”
That landed harder than anything else.
Hermione let out a small breath that wasn’t quite a laugh.
“Of course it doesn’t.”
Draco looked at her properly then.
Fully.
Like he was trying to remember something accurately before it disappeared. “You understand what this is, why we had to meet,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
Hermione nodded once. “Yes.”
Another silence.
Longer this time.
He took a step forward.
Then stopped.
As if the movement itself had boundaries. “I don’t have a choice, I won’t risk you. Your life, Your future.” he said.
Hermione’s voice was quieter now. “I know.” But she didn’t say it like she agreed.
Draco’s gaze held hers for a moment longer than either of them could pretend was casual.
Then he spoke again, softer. “This doesn’t change what happened.”
Hermione shook her head slightly. “No,” she said. “It just changes what happens next.”
A pause.
Something unspoken pressed at the edges of the room.
Hermione finally reached for her bag, withdrawing a small pendant, handing it to him before stepping away, tears falling freely down her face.
He gazed at the pendant in his hand. “Algiz?”
“I should go,” she said, wiping tears away as she gave his soft eyes a final look.
Draco lunged forward, grabbing her hand and pulling her tight to him. As she tried to bury her face into his chest he stopped her. Placing his hand under her chin and pulling her face up to stare into her eyes.
“I love you, Hermione Granger. Please forgive me.” Hermione felt the soft ghost of his lips against hers before suddenly being cloaked by the cold as he released her and stepped towards the door.
Hermione didn’t stop him as she watched his hand pause on the handle for half a second. It wasn’t long enough to change anything but it was long enough to be noticeable
Then he opened it and closed it behind himself without looking back.