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Title: A Discordant Life

Authors: Sage
Rating: R
Recipient: shiorikazen
Disclaimer: In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to JK
Rowling, Warner Bros, Bloomsbury Publishing, et cetera, this work is intended to
be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this
work.
Warning(s): Moderate swearing, minimal violence, implied sexual situations
Author/Artist Note(s): Beta'd by jen3227 in a last minute save. shiorikazen,
I angsted long and hard over what you wanted here, and I hope this comes close
enough to be enjoyable! :D
Summary: Through all that cacophony, all the rumble of noise that couldn't make
sense but be felt as a whole explosion, there was a constant. A clanging that was
loud enough to be heard over the harshness, and consistent enough to lead him
through the chaos. The sound he always found, because she always found him.
Chapter 1

Sometimes heat grew to the point where the person became so overwhelmed that
the desire to blot and wipe flew into a frantic, angry stripping of clothes before
diving into ice. Hermione Granger was nearing the tipping point as she swiped a
line of sweat from behind her ear, and had to stop the impulse to throw her own
drink at her face.

Fink, her Auror partner for the past five months, grumbled something about
Muggles while shooting a glare at the thick crowd. She contemplated a Cooling
Charm, but any tingle of magic might set off the two women they were waiting
for. The women – who had been selling Veritaserum and Dark potions in both the
wizarding and Muggle worlds – had managed to elude them for three months
now, and Hermione wasn't going to take a risk.

She took another sip of the strong, alcoholic concoction Fink had come back from
the bar with. The taste was terrible, and it was strong enough to make her a bit
worried over the small dose of Sobering Potion she had taken before they arrived.
Even Fink, a man that rarely turned down the pub invites from fellow Aurors, was
grimacing with each sip.

“They said they come here every Friday.”

She lifted the hand around her glass, cold from the ice, and wiped it slowly across
her forehead. “We knew it could have been a setup or misinformation. It doesn't
make a lot of sense that they'd stick to a schedule.”

“Longbottom's informant is shit.”

“Depending on the case,” she said, because she can't help but defend her friends
no matter the subject. Or truth.

“Two redheads just came in through the exit door. One's carrying a…” Fink's cheek
bunched before he returned to his drink. “Employees. Possibility?”

“They make enough money, and don't need the connections. This would just be a
meet point.”

She skimmed over the crowd, seeking any small group more secluded from the
mass or intent on moving through it, when she caught a flash of blond and a blur
of a face aimed at her corner. Her gaze darted back to the side of a hard jaw and
pointed nose before it was just the back of his white-blond head and tall form.
Her fingers slipped through the sweat of the glass before she tightened her grip,
just catching it at the rim as her heart slammed against the wall of her chest. She
stood, her drink thudding to the table, and Fink followed, obscuring her view.

“Granger,” he grumbled lowly, but she was looking past him now, to the empty
spot where the man had been.

Where he had been. She had distantly wondered at the sight of blond, as she had
done for so long now, but it was such a normal function of her thoughts that it
was casual. But she knew it the moment she saw the profile, as if it was the way
in which she had always viewed him and there could be no doubt.

Fink turned, and she moved around him, spotting only one woman with a close
shade of platinum. The tight group of people doubled the heat pressing against
her, with the scent of sweat so thick that she could taste it sweet and heavy on
her tongue. She pushed around and through, muttering apologies she barely
heard as arms slipped slickly against hers, until she made it to the door. She
threw herself against it, stumbling out into cooler air.

A group of people smoking and laughing. A couple nearing the pub from her left.
A cab empty beyond the driver whose eyes were glinting at her in the dark.

“Gr-- Emily,” Fink said, either changing her surname to his wife's name, or
growling at her before he called her it. “What--”

“I thought I saw…our friends.”

“Did they know you saw them?” The implication that they must have, because
she had stormed at them like a first-day Auror, managed to be heard in his tone
alone.

He had definitely seen her. She looked little like herself, but he had seen her.
“No.”

(November, 1998)

Draco Malfoy stepped into the cold of winter in the same clothes he had been
wearing six months and twenty-two days ago. He still lacked the ability to fill
them, and they felt heavy and dirty on his skin now. They smelt of sulfur and fire.

Feet sloshed through snow and slush across the pavement in front of him. People
hunched over against the wind, hands shoved in pockets and faces bent toward
the ground. Draco stood frozen, the weather slashing ice cold across his cheeks
and ears.
His wrists and ankles tingled from where the magical binds had been, and his
inhale shuttered into his lungs. There was a hollowness in his chest, and he forgot
the basics of motion, direction, and thought. Everything was new but him.

()

Hermione dipped the quill in the inkwell pushed towards her, and signed her name
in a small, tight script on the parchment. “I only need certain files from the
Wright case.”

The large man behind the desk nodded, opening a drawer with a key and then his
wand. “Each file has a code in a corner which should be marked and initialized on
the form attached to the case box.”

“I know.” She took the key from his fingers a bit too eagerly, but he didn't seem
to notice. “Thank you.”

She walked easily to the door at the left of the desk, being sure to slump her
shoulders a little and clear her expression. It wasn't until she shut the door
behind her, scanning the rows of shelves dotted with boxes, that she allowed
herself to speed up. There was no one in sight, and it would have to remain that
way until she was done.

F, G, H, I; her feet clicked noisily as she glanced over her shoulder. She couldn't
hear anyone else walking around her, but that didn't stop her from picturing
someone closing in, or running to cut her off, or trying to peer at her through the
shelves.

She slowed down at the row she needed, pulling her shoulders back and raising
her chin. She forced herself not to look back again, too suspicious if someone was
watching, and ducked into the aisle. It would be at the near start of a long line,
and as much as she wanted to run there, she kept her steps even and quiet.

Mane, Mancol, Mancas, Manburr… She gave in, furrowing her eyebrows and
pressing her lips together in a look of confusion as she stopped, turning to look
under the pretense of checking the boxes she had passed. No one.

Manaba, Mamvue, Mamton, Mamstein… She was personally going to recommend

moving old case files to a different section than active ones. It had never felt like
it took this long to get to a case box before. She almost suspected that someone
was magically expanding it as she went.

N, L, D, finally. She looked to both sides of the aisle, and then leaned closer,
inspecting the sheet pasted to the side of the box. Auror Aldberry returned files
two weeks ago, and none had been taken since. Hermione bit her lip, listening for
any hint of movement around her, and then quickly grabbed the box. Balancing it
on a raised knee, she pried the lid off, digging through a stack of manilla folders
for the earliest ones. She hesitated, then grabbed the most recent one, tucking
them all under her arm.

Her heart was beating loudly in her ears as she shoved the lid back on, then
pushed the box back onto the shelf. She held her breath when she turned, sure
someone would be there and staring in curiosity or accusation, but there were
only boxes.

She checked the back of the bottom folder, making sure there were no markings
on it, and then held the stack to her chest as she hurried toward the row of Ws.

(November, 1998)

There was one house-elf left in the manor, and had Narcissa not said this to him
before he could force his feet past the front door, he would have known a moment
later.

Draco still felt him there. It wasn't just the blood stained in the floors, the holes
and blasted plaster, wood, and stone in the walls. It wasn't the crumpled
bedsheets in rooms they won't enter, the empty beams of a missing chandelier, or
the barred entrance to the dungeons.

It wasn't just the memories. The constant, unstoppable images that raged
through Draco's mind from the moment he awoke to the moment right before he
did. The ones that tripped his steps when it hit him like a spell to the chest,
caving him in until pulling a breath was like oxygen through concrete. The creaks
of an old home that sent his heart pounding.

It wasn't just the way they had taken to eating in the kitchen Draco had
previously only saw the inside of less than a dozen times in his life. Nor the paths
he tried to take around certain rooms, or the rush of footsteps that neared a run
when no one was there and he thought he could ignore himself doing it. It wasn't
the four bedrooms he moved into before realizing the distant resemblance to
sleep he achieved in his own was the best he could manage.

It was an actual feeling. A cold creeping along his insides that sent his fine hairs
and teeth on edge. As if the Dark Lord—Voldemort, Voldemort had put a piece of
his soul inside their home to watch and wait. Impossible, Draco knew, but it never
stopped that vice-clutch in his gut. Never washed out the fear he had brought
with him and burnt into the foundation of the manor and the structure of Draco's
bones.
“They set a date for your father's trial,” his mother said, sitting delicately in an
unpolished chair they had moved from the dining room.

Draco took a bite of the fish that was only slightly better than the meals served to
him in a cell, and he stared at a scorch mark across the wall. He couldn't meet
her eyes, or maybe she'd see everything. “I'm sure you're happy for it.”

“And you?” she asked quietly.

His swallow was a knot down his throat, and settled in a leaden weight at his gut.

()

No one recognized Draco Malfoy. Or they recognized a lot of people that could
have been Draco Malfoy, but do you have any idea how many people we get here,
lady? He'd been out of the public eye for years now. Even when he had been in it,
it was mixed in with a hundred other stories about deaths, arrests, and releases.
It was his mother who had dominated news articles, and Draco had only been
pictured once in those.

Hermione cut the picture out of an archived newspaper, and watched him loop her
entire lunch break.

(December, 1998)

A teacup trembled against the saucer as Draco stepped out of the room, his steps
light and determined down the hall. He could see Potter through the archway,
standing near the center of the empty parlor where the fire no longer burned.
Draco doubted the look on Potter's face had anything to do with what he was
there for, and he felt a pulse of anger for it. As if Potter had broken into a
memory that was Draco's alone, kept buried and secret in the walls of his chest.

He focused on the twin glints of green, and the growing reflection of his head in
the round lenses. Anything to keep his thoughts from spiraling out into shards of
glass burning gold across the floor, the tomp-crrch of running feet. Then Potter's
hand fisted above his own, in a decision that didn't seem to mean much, but that
would end up winning him the war.

Little, knee-jerk decisions that defined entire lives. Draco going home the
summer of fifth-year, or berating Hagrid the summer before his first. Every choice
that led Potter to be breathing now across from him, or when Draco's mother
claimed Potter would never breathe again.

He wondered if any human being stood a chance against the raging, unbearable
force of fate, or life, or whatever it was that inadvertently led them to the places
they never wanted to or knew they would be.

“We were notified as soon as magic was used,” Potter said, pushing up his
glasses.

Draco crossed his arms, leaning back against the archway. Casual, uncaring,
because showing how much you cared about anything to someone who didn't
care for you was bound to end in their favor. “It's good to know your distrust has
worked to our benefit this time. Though it wouldn't be a concern if we had our
wands.”

“Or if you were still in prison.” Potter shrugged, and that pulse of anger beat into
a thrum. “Whoever broke in seemed to go directly to Narcissa's bedroom. Is there
anything valuable in there?”

Draco's jaw clenched until it hurt at the back of his teeth, and he concentrated on
that until the desire to snap faded. “My mother.”

“Yeah, but anything else? Something maybe other people know about, but that
the Ministry didn't find?”

“You tore our home apart, Potter – you tell me.”

Potter's annoyance was never subtle, though it varied in degrees. Draco could
always tell when he was about to walk away or try to hex him. It was Potter's
rage that was less readable. “It's important that—”

“I'm aware of how important it is. My answer remains the same.”

Potter looked at him for a long moment, then glanced over his shoulder at the
soft steps in the hall. There was a murmur of a voice that Draco couldn't identify
the words to, but Potter gave a nod. He hoped it meant they were all getting the
hell out of his house.

“Malfoy, whoever broke in must have known the exact location of your mother's
bedroom. They're familiar with the house. Do you know anyone who might try to
hurt her and can?”

Draco raised an eyebrow, and his fingers tightened against his side. “She saved
your life, and cost an army of Dark wizards and witches the war. That list is even
beyond me.”

Potter nodded slowly, his gaze moving down to that section of floor Draco always
walked around. Draco straightened up from the wall, his arms dropping to his
sides.
“The Curse came close enough to singe her nightclothes, and that was only
because she had rolled out of the way. If your lot had come five seconds later, my
mother would be dead. There are thousands who would want it because of what
she did for you, and at least one who is attempting it.”

Potter looked up at him from the top of his eyes, but the glare of candlelight
obscured them until he raised his head fully. “You can't get your wands back for
another six months. That was the ruling.”

Draco had known as much. His family would be free because his mother lied to
save Potter's life, but the Ministry could give a damn about theirs. Potter owed
her, though. Owed her as much as he owed Potter, and he knew the weight of
that debt well enough to know Potter had to know some of it at all.

“Then bring her somewhere safe until we're off magic restriction. Somewhere no
one knows but you. Not even the rest of the Ministry.”

The Ministry couldn't be trusted, but no one was getting at Potter. Draco didn't
fully trust him either, but he knew few he would trust more. Especially now.
Weasley would have been a different matter. Draco wouldn't trust Weasley with a
quill he didn't particularly like anyway.

Draco had an arsenal of words and accusations rumbling at the back of his
tongue, waiting to be released in just the right tone and order to get what he
wanted. Then Potter started nodding, looking over his shoulder again before
checking his watch.

“I'll be back tonight to talk about it. I'm not promising anything, Malfoy. I'll have
to talk to the Minister, and bring in some help.”

“Not Weasley.”

“That's not up to you.” Draco forced back anything that was likely to blow this up
in his face as Potter clasped his traveling cloak. “Besides, Ron is good at blowing
down doors, not putting up wards.”

Granger, then. Potter looked back up at him, and Draco pressed his lips together,
giving a nod before turning for the hall.

()

Hermione finished writing down the conversation she had listened to between the
two women and a man who bought Veritaserum from them. She had had to go in
three times to remember every word – she wasn't usually so adamant about a
transcript, but the memory was on loan from another case against the man, and
she didn't know when she'd get it back again.

She took a deep breath before dropping back into the memory, the dim
restaurant coming into view. Leather booths lined the walls in privacy spells,
making them dark with only a low murmur of sound heard beyond them.
Hermione walked directly to the booth the women always left from, and paused
as they slid out, studying the slight changes to their appearances again.

She stepped past the privacy screen to see if they left anything interesting
behind, and froze at the sight of Draco Malfoy sitting at the table, surveying a vial
of lavender liquid. Her chest caved like a shot of oxygen, but there was no breath
here.

“Draco,” she said, then berated herself for a stupid response.

He put the vial in his pocket, and it clinked off at least one other. What was he
doing here and with those? Facts flashed through her mind, and she shook her
head, shaking them back. She slid into the seat across from him, watching him
frown at his drink before downing the rest of it, his throat bobbing over the
swallow.

He looked the same as when he had left, though his hair was a bit shorter. He
didn't look like he slept well, but that wasn't a big change either. She had
expected him to look years older – she didn't know why. It wasn't until he turned
his head to look outside of the booth that she noticed the small scar on his jaw
that hadn't been there before.

He turned his head back, dark grey staring through her, and she caught the rise
of her hand halfway to the table. She wanted to reach out and touch him, make
him stay. She wanted to ask him the questions racing through her mind, that had
been for a year, or months, or right now.

Long fingers dropped from the clasp of his cloak before pulling his hood up as he
slid out of the booth. Hermione fumbled to follow him, sure he would disappear
the second he was past the privacy screen. His walk was something she thought
she'd recognize anywhere, no matter how long she went without seeing it. The
confident, long strides, the rigid line of his back, the sway of his shoulders.

She kept right behind him out the door and to the pavement, willing the memory
to expand. But then he was gone, disappeared into the blurry image of dark
buildings and faded streetlights where she couldn't follow.

(December, 1998)
He didn't bury Vince. Crabbe was spread out into air and into lungs, or vanished
to whatever place that vanished things inevitably go, both in ash and soul. So
Draco dug through trunks and scattered objects representing memories he no
longer remembered. In a green box Vince had given him a terribly ugly watch for
his eleventh birthday, Draco created a body of memories. Seven pictures, a
Slytherin crest they had made when they were five, an old pack of cards they had
played until they could tell its face by the wrinkle pattern on the back. A Snitch
they used in pick-up games over the summers, crane notes of plans and jokes,
and the last bottle of firewhisky they would ever drink together just three days
before Potter stormed Hogwarts. After a moment of contemplation, he added a
bag of barely-salvaged sweets.

He paid for the lot and the stone that rested crookedly in the ground, larger than
it needed to be for Vincent Crabbe, 20 May 1980 – 2 May 1998. He should have
had them put something else, but he hadn't known what to say. Son, Friend?
They were just words meant to tell some passing person who didn't care that
they had meant something. That the cord of emotions the words might inspire
were pounding through someone else. Draco knew it by name alone, and that
was the mark Vince left on the world. He really didn't give a fuck whether it
meant anything to someone else. He doubted Crabbe would have either – not to
these people.

Draco dug the ground up himself, hard and stiff with winter, that only grew harder
the deeper he went. He dug down to his hips, and not an inch wider than was
needed, until his fingers were blistered and his arms, back, shoulders burned. He
placed the box carefully between his feet, like harder impact might sink it down to
some unreachable place, and then he sat at the edge of the hole. His skin stained
with dirt and sweat that covered him in mud, he stared at the headstone until the
sun disappeared, cold inhales freezing up his lungs and then his blood.

()

Hermione laid two flowers on the ground, then reached up, her fingers skimming
cool marble as she stood. She took a deep breath, looking over her shoulder and
across the bumps of stone, but the graveyard was empty.

(December, 1998)

Draco knocked on the door, checking his watch to make sure he wasn't too early,
and looked back over his shoulder. The door creaked open, and he looked up from
bare feet, jeans, and a baggy t-shirt, to crooked glasses and a greeting nod.
Potter opened it wider, stepping to the side with it, and Draco entered the house
to a burst of warmth. It smelt like food, but nothing distinctive enough to place.
He pushed his hood down when the door shut behind him.

“Are you hungry?” Potter asked.

“No,” he said quickly, prepared for the question this time. Last time had provided
them with nothing but long, uncomfortable seconds where Draco scrutinized for
motives and Potter regretted asking.

“All right. Give me a second.” Potter paused in his turn, nodding his head to a
doorway. “You can sit in there if you want.”

Draco didn't bother answering, rolling a piece of lint between his fingers within
the pocket of his robe as Potter disappeared. The only sound in the house was a
door opening, followed by heavy stomping. Draco kept his eyes on the doorways,
but they revealed no sign of life, and he pretended his heart wasn't beating a
little faster at the possibility.

Potter emerged, clad in boots with the laces lazily tucked into the tops. “We'll just
Apparate right into the house again. What time should I get you?”

“Ten.”

“I can do that,” Potter mumbled, his expression tightening as he stepped forward,

looking at the floor.

Draco's gaze flashed to the wall as Potter's hand gripped the bend of his elbow,
and he shut his eyes at the sensation that brought nausea. He took a slow breath
when his feet were on solid ground, looking at a barren wall with a pattern of
faded roses repeating down the length of it.

“All fingers there, Malfoy?” Potter asked, his hand quickly pulling away.

“You live another day, Potter.”

Potter made a sound that could have meant anything before Disapparating. Draco
moved forward through small dining room and into the kitchen, his mother's
hands moving daintily over the fine china she had insisted on bringing.

“I'll talk to Potter again about getting a house-elf,” he said, glancing at the thin
steam rising from the kettle.

She shook her head. “I believe he's right. No one or thing should know this
place.”

He took his cloak off, draping it over his arm. He didn't think anyone should have
to know this place, though Potter could have done a worse job of it. Draco had
been expecting something falling apart at the nails, and though it was smaller
than a half-floor of the manor, it was in good shape and clean.

“I brought dinner,” he told her, changing the subject before she started in on her
attempt to make him stay with her.

He moved to the row of cabinets, getting it right the second time, and pulled out
two dishes. He bent to kiss the side of her head before stepping back.

“How are you?” he asked as she turned towards him, giving him the smile he had
seen the most in the war and after. The smile he hated in the wake of his father's
coldness, and the smile that he loved now.

It was strength.

()

Harry looked at his watch as Hermione shut his office door behind her, and gave
her a distracted smile. “A little early for lunch. I--”

“Oh.” He looked up at her, and she rushed out, “Yeah.”

He closed the open file on his desk without looking away from her, bits of notes
and several parchments disappearing between the covers. Hermione straightened
up, crossing and uncrossing her arms.

“I want to be put on the Malfoy case. Draco Malfoy.”

Harry stared at her, unmoving, until her anxiety climbed into prickling heat. He
turned his head, taking a deep breath. “Christ, Hermione.”

“What?”

“You took files from the Malfoy case? You have to check with the Aurors on case
for permission before removi--”

“I--”

“Don't lie to me—”

“I didn't!”

“--mess of questioning and spying on our own department to--”

“I'm sorry! I just…wanted to see the case.” She hoped that sounded even a little
less weak to him than it did to her.

“Why?” Hermione licked her lips, searching for a right answer on the wall as he
slumped in his chair. “Hermione, I know you--”

“I saw him.”

Harry's mouth stayed open as he blinked at her, and there was something about it
that reminded her of Ron. But that would have been a very different
conversation. “You what?”

“At a pub,” she said, throwing a hand up. “I was on a mission with Fink. It was
just the side of his face, a glimpse, really.” Harry's eyes moved up to the wall
above her head. “I know it was him, though. I know it. Th--”

“I believe you.” The rigid hold of her shoulders relaxed a little, but Harry still
looked like a statue. “Where?”

“Kent, Muggle world,” she said, and his forehead wrinkled. “Exactly.”

“What was he doing?”

“I don't know. He was leaving.”

Harry leaned back in his chair, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes. “Hermione, I
can't put you on the case.”

“Why not? I've always been highly--”

“This is different.”

“Why? The--”

“You know why. It's personal.”

Hermione crossed her arms. “Barely. Harry, you know me--”

“I do.”

“--know I'm going to do this officially or not. Officially just gives me more time
and access.”

He slid his glasses back on. “You could be fired.”

“I'll stop taking the case files.” After she had copied all of them. “I am sorry about
that. J--”
“I thought it would be earlier than this.”

She paused, shifting on her feet. “You knew it was me?”

He shrugged. “I thought it might be. But I also thought you'd come to me first.”

She looked down at the carpet as guilt blossomed hotly. “I knew what you would
say. But Harry, the case isn't going anywhere. If anyone is going to get to the
bottom of this and figure it out, it's me. I want answers.”

“I know. So do I.”

“So?”

Harry sighed.

(December, 1998)

There was a woman at the graveyard with long, near-unnaturally straight, solid
black hair, or a short man who happened to have such hair. Draco only knew the
height, the smaller frame from the back, and the hair that would slip forward
from the hood when she leaned forward. It was the third time he had seen her
there a few yards from where he always stood, and she was either already there
or would just suddenly be there. Beyond a faraway group lowering a casket into
the ground, and one man walking quickly through the stones, she was the only
life he saw the past three weeks.

It was strange that people didn't bury their dead closer to them. It was the act of
laying them to rest, of giving them a home on the earth, but people rarely shared
their own. They’d rather travel out to a public place to visit a vessel with
memories, regrets, and choices that weren't made – things kept private and
haunting. A ghost tied to your back that no one could see but you could feel.

Maybe burying your dead where you live overpowers life. Death is stronger – life
never wins against it in the end. Maybe it's like a window was tunneled to the
casket, and a person couldn't move on because it was all they were aware of. Like
the choices and opportunities that fade into once-possibilities, and that you carry
around with you until you can let them go. If you can let them go.

There's no place to put those where they stay buried.

()
“What is your involvement with Malfoy?”

Alimere Kragof looked to her left, as if Alexa, the woman she had been on an
illegal selling spree with for months, was still sitting next to her. She was in
another interrogation room, however, likely staring down Fink, who was unlikely
to be asking this question.

“Malfoy?”

Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Tall, blond, pointed nose. A--”ttractive, “--
rrogant, drawl, smirk.” Eye twitched when he was annoyed or nervous, pushed his
tongue into his cheek when he thought, ears turned bright red when he was
angry. His grin was a little crooked, and his laugh was full and heavy and made
his eyes bright. “Ambitious, clever, always looks like he's plotting.”

“Black?”

Hermione sat up straighter, her spine stiff. She had thought he might have
changed his name. She should have known it would be to that. “Black.”

Alimere's expression turned careful. “I've heard of him.”

“What have you heard?”

“His name.”

Hermione tried not to let her annoyance show. “We know you've had interactions
with him.” Alimere stared blankly. “We can use Veritaserum legally here if we
know you are withholding information.”

The woman glared at her, her hands clenching into fists. Hermione shrugged and
stood, grabbing the case file.

“Harrison Black.”

Hermione's surprised showed in the tiny jerk of her body as her eyes widened,
staring unseeingly at the manilla folder. Harrison.

“He sends an owl when he wants to meet, and where.”

Harrison, Harrison, Harrison Black.

Hermione sat slowly, trying to swallow through a mouth and throat that had gone
dry. “What else?”
(December, 1998)

Draco took a deep breath, knocking harder on the door before exhaling. He rolled
the takeaway bag tighter in his other hand, the paper cold. He wondered if he
should ask Potter for a Warming Charm, and then immediately dismissed it.

The door squeaked on its hinges, dragging over the welcome mat just inside the
door. His gaze dropped from the expected height of Potter's eyes to a riot of curls,
then bright eyes that looked like sunlight on mud, tree trunks, mountain ridges,
things connected to the earth.

Draco's mouth went dry, and all the rudimentary greetings died in his throat.

“Hey,” Granger said, opening the door wider. “Harry is in the loo.” She stepped to
the side, half-obscured by the door and staring at him. The corners of her mouth
turned down, and the doorknob clinked loudly in the silence. “You can…come in.”

His leg felt heavy as he stepped forward, releasing the breath he just noticed he
was holding when he was trying to place the burning sensation. The second step
came easier.

“He wanted to know if you were hungry.”

He looked unseeingly at the wall, tracking her movements behind him as the door
squeaked again. “N--”

“Or is that food?”

His fingers crinkled in the bag, and he cleared his throat lightly. “It is.” He didn't
remember the last time he felt this comfortable.

Granger muttered something, and his fingers tightened until his knuckles hurt as
the tingle of her magic washed across his left hand. She stepped around him, and
he could feel the new warmth radiating from the bag.

“He's going to be a few minutes.”

He looked over at her as she stopped a few steps ahead of him, her hands
clasped in front of her and her knuckles white. He stared at her hands, and saw
them clenched into fists at her sides, and gripping the floor as her fingers sought
something that wasn't there, and digging into her skin like she could pull the pain
out of her.

Draco closed his eyes, opening them to the far wall.

“Did you want to come sit down?” she asked, taking three steps backward.
Draco glanced over at her, then at the doorway on the left. Maybe she'd offer him
a drink, and he'd say yes, and she would leave. Maybe Potter's coffee table was in
the same state it was in last time and he could busy himself with a scattered book
or newspaper.

Granger took a slow step back, and after a moment, he followed.

()

Malfoy walked into the pub, scanning the room, and Hermione looked down at her
drink as her heart pounded. Alimere had given her a list of places she knew
Harrison Black frequented, as well as where they had met up in the past.
Hermione had tried to intercept any owl sent to Alimere, but he either hadn't
needed to send one, or he found out they were arrested.

Hermione swirled the fruity alcohol with a tiny, pink straw, and took a long drink.
When she looked back up, Malfoy had his back to her as he stood at a table. She
could only see dark hair that fell to slim shoulders outside the block of Malfoy's
body, but then he turned, and the woman was smiling at his back.

Hermione darted her eyes to the bar, swirling her drink a little too quickly to
appear calm. Malfoy entered the field of her vision, moving along the bar, and
Hermione glanced back at the woman. She was folding a bill of money that
Hermione couldn't make out the amount of, then slid it into her purse as she
looked between Malfoy and the front door.

Hermione frowned, looking over her shoulder for Malfoy, and saw him turning
down the hall towards the loo. She turned, watching the woman stand from her
table, and Hermione's drink hovered in front of her mouth as she looked at the
hall near the woman's table.

Her drink splashed over her hand as she slammed it down and shot to her feet.
The hall near the woman's table led to the men's toilet, so whatever Malfoy was
doing, it involved the women's loo or the side exit.

Hermione shuffled through a group of people, then flew down the hall, slamming
into the exit door. Her shoes skidded loudly over the pavement and pebbles as
she caught sight of a dark form and bright hair. There was no way he hadn't
heard her come out, but he didn't look back, walking quickly down the alley. She
followed, stepping as lightly as possible while trying to catch up, and pulled her
wand.

He disappeared around a corner and to the back of the building, and she hurried
up. She expected to hear the sound of Apparition, but found him turned
sideways, his face aimed at her along with the tip of his wand. She raised her
own, sliding to a stop with her heart thudding.

He stared at her, grey eyes turned golden in the dirty back lights of the pub, the
one behind him crackling off and on. She felt the desire to do so many things that
she didn't know what to do at all. All the signals of movement were getting
confused in her brain, and confronted with the living, breathing, solid shape of
him was somehow surprising. A shock to the system she should have expected.

He glanced at her wand, then slowly lowered his. Something unreadable passed
across his expression as he looked at her. His mouth opened, and she closed her
own, holding her breath, but all he did was turn and disappear with a crack.

(December, 1998)

“It's better than last year.”

Draco looked up from the snow stretching on outside of the window, and the
flicker of candlelight on golden and red ornaments. He would bet on the theory
that Potter purposely left Gryffindor decorations in the box Narcissa had found in
the living room.

“I suppose everything is better than last year,” she added.

She was looking out the window like she was waiting for his father to come
trudging up the slope and into view. The darkness that left only remnants of her
hope was proof of that. It was only in her thoughts of Lucius or him that Draco
saw fragility instead of steel under her delicate posturing.

He leaned forward, picking up a mug of hot chocolate from the table, and held it
out to her. She took her time in noticing, and the heat burned at his fingertips as
he eyed the handle pointed in her direction.

“Thank you, Draco.” She took a tiny sip while he waved his fingers out of her line
of sight. “Will you stay for a few days?”

No. Because seeing his mother empty was more difficult to live with than the
manor. “Yes.”

()

There had been a part of her that thought he wanted to find her. There was no
note, or mysterious Floo call, or clue left on the doorstep of her flat. He was more
subtle. Everything was subtle until he lost control, and she had learned to start
looking for the tiniest things to know what the biggest thing was.

Hermione thought she should show up as herself, without the Glamour and
Concealment Charms she normally clung to to keep people from recognizing her.
Maybe then he would stay, answer her. Or he'd run quicker, and it would be
personal, and this case was not personal.

She just couldn't stop wondering if he was waiting for her. Or had once been
waiting for her, and had now likely given up on the idea that she would look for
him. He hadn't made it easy, but it would have been easiest for her. Riskier than
it would have been if he chose a different name.

“What do you want me to do?” Fink asked.

Hermione pushed her thoughts away, grabbing a small stack of folders and
splitting it between them. “Interview the families.”
Chapter 2

(January, 1999)

“You want a drink?”

“Trying to take it slow instead of rushing me into dinner, Potter? Perhaps it'll be
easier if I remind you that I just don't like you.”

Potter rolled his eyes. “I want to talk to you about allowances, Malfoy. It's been a
month since--”

“Allowance?”

“Yeah.” Potter stared at him, and Draco slowly raised his eyebrows and lowered
his head. “Allowance. The money the Ministry takes from your vault each week to
give to you. Living allowance.”

Draco scowled, the irritation prickling down his spine. “You wait a month to tell
me this?”

“You were told when you were released. It's not my job.”

Draco closed his mouth and clenched his teeth. He felt no semblance of surprise.
The hatred he felt surrounding him inside the Ministry had nearly felt alive, or
maybe it was just the way the scorn kicked up the rage he had known so well the
past two and a half years. They all thought he should be in Azkaban until he died,
and that the acts of the mother shouldn't extend to the son.

Draco wanted to be the sort of man who could make them face the choices he
did, and see what they defined as cowardice, or bravery, or choice then. To face a
man who was not made of the evil they knew and try to become that evil to do
good, to save the lives of people you love. To live in a house with that evil and
survive, instead of dying without cause. He wanted to put them in his life and
watch them, see what made them so much a part of the greater fucking good
that they could have done it better. To figure out what was so inherently wrong
with him that he wasn't enough for either side.

But Draco was rarely the sort of man he wanted to be.

“You forgot.”
“I didn't forget,” Draco snapped.

Potter crossed his arms. “Okay,” he said slowly. He looked like he wanted to ask
questions, but then changed his mind or found another way to ask. “I noticed you
weren't getting one, and I…” He moved back to the doorway on the left, and
Draco stepped forward, keeping his cloak on. “Did you think we just let people go
without money for food, or bills, or anything?”

Draco raised his eyebrow when Potter looked back at him over his shoulder.

“Never mind,” Potter muttered.

Draco's shoe scuffed loudly across the floor when he stopped abruptly, focused on
a head of wild curls within a spiderweb of hair strands that made up her frizz. Her
face was hidden behind a book, but the image was so positively Granger that he
wouldn't doubt it even if he was somewhere else.

“Another time.”

Potter stopped trying to slyly shuffle papers under a pile of books. “What?”

“We'll do it next time.”

Draco glanced over to the dark purple book, and found Granger peering at him
over the top. Her eyes flashed to Potter, and she lowered the book to her lap in a
hesitant fall. “I'll go…to the kitchen. For…water. I'm very thirsty.”

She cleared her throat as she picked up a worn bookmark from the table, an owl
on the cover that blinked at the ceiling. She placed it center on the page before
shutting the book and tucking it under her arm, glancing at him twice as she left
the room.

“Thanks, Hermione,” Potter said quietly as she passed him, but his eyes were on
Draco and doing that intense look that might have inspired fear in men who didn't
know better.

Potter killed the Dark Lord on a line of luck so fine that few even knew it could
exist. He wasn't more powerful – he was fated. An exact aligning of
circumstances and good timing that made him the accident in the Dark Lord's
accidental suicide. Draco wasn't impressed or intimidated, though anyone with a
measure of self-preservation would feel caution without a wand.

“Still have a problem with Muggle-borns?” Draco glared at him, but Potter had
looked down harder men as well. “I thought everything would have got through
your skull by now. You're thicker than…”
Crabbe, Goyle, Weasley. The anger boiled up from his gut. “Blood doesn't define
the line of who I have a problem with, Potter.” As far as he was concerned, the
line was thick and dark, and the other side held most the world and all the things
he couldn't control.

“So that's not why you have a problem with being around Hermione?”

“I don't ha-- No.”

He didn't have a problem with Granger. At least not in the way that he did most
people he knew. At least not in a way he fully understood. Sometimes he thought
he must hate her, but then it felt like he didn't have the room inside of himself to
hate her for being things she shouldn't be. Granger was an annoying little swot,
but if he hated her, like he once and still sometimes thought he should, he
wouldn't have made Crabbe miss.

There were too many things jumbled up inside of him that he had to take apart,
and inspect, and put back together the right way. He hadn't got there yet. He
didn't know if he wanted to, or if he ever would.

“Get on with it, Potter.”

()

Hermione shook her head, stared at Borelli, then shook her head again. “Drugs?”

“Drug, yeah. Seen people on it a couple times when I'm undercover. Pretty
powerful stuff.”

Hermione shook her head. “Okay. All right. You're telling me…”

Borelli looked as confused as she surely did. “This is good information – almost a
fact. What else do you have him on that makes this unbelievable?”

“It's not unbelievable. And I can't discuss that. So, Harrison Black…is a drug
dealer?”

“He doesn't deal it. At least not to anyone I know, or anyone they know. But he's
a name that I've only heard with Euphoria, and no one personally knows him. So
he's high up. I'm guessing he made it.”

She couldn't think of a single reason why Malfoy would create a drug, unless he
needed the money. Or it was somehow connected to everything else in his case
file.
Hermione pulled a clean sheet of parchment from the side of her desk, picking up
a quill. “Euphoria.”

“It's a potion that produces…”

“Right.”

“It costs about a hundred Galleons for a vial – one dose,” he said, and Hermione's
eyes widened as she wrote it down. If Malfoy was profiting from it and living in
the Muggle world, he was making about five hundred pounds off every vial. “The
problem with Euphoria, to the underground, is that it only works for three doses.”

She looked up. “It does nothing on the fourth dose?”

“Nothing. No positive or negative effects.”

“Consistently?” she asked, and Borelli nodded. “Do you know what's in it?”

“No idea.”

“How did you hear about Harrison Black through it?”

“A dealer mentioned his name. When I was with a group of people, we couldn't
find one of the dealers, so we went somewhere and they asked for him.”

“Was he there?”

“No.”

“Where?”

Borelli picked up a quill from her box, and slid the parchment towards him,
scribbling down a name and address.

(January, 1999)

The woman was at the cemetery again, her hands moving in the air. Draco
thought she was failing at casting some spells until his suspicions got the better
of him and he moved over. She was talking, a low murmur of sound that the wind
mostly blocked out.

He moved over further, keeping his steps as light as possible against the crunch
of snow, until he could make out the name on the headstone. His hands curled
deeper in his pockets as the wind lashed at his ears, buzzing out sound as if the
ghost of his cousin had blown right through him.
He hadn't known her. Occasionally, so deep within the greater possibilities of his
past that it was never significant, he wished he had. There were thousands of
moments in which his life could have changed to a different direction than the
thousands of moments that had led him here. She was just one of them.
Something unnoticed until it was gone. To him.

Not to her.

Draco looked down from the tiny words carved into stone above two names, and
settled his sight on the back of a hood.

()

Surprise. It was the first time she seemed to have caught Malfoy unaware, and it
felt like a small victory as he stared at her. He must not have heard anyone
coming up behind him, and she was thankful for the low pulse of music. He
probably would have scampered off.

She held out the whisky she had bought him from the bar. She had contemplated
brandy, but it might be too telling if she knew what he preferred. He looked at her
smile and then the offering, accepting it reluctantly and inspecting the contents.
He was more sure about putting it on the table to the side of them than he had
been about taking it. He was too paranoid to be an easy target, though she
hadn't put anything in the drink.

She should have.

“Phylis,” she said lowly, obscuring her voice as much as she could without use of a
potion. “You looked bored over here.”

“Then you lack skill in observation,” he drawled.

She pursed her lips at the flash of annoyance. “But you lack company.”

“Preferably.”

God, he was a prat. She widened her eyes into something resembling innocence
as he scrutinized her. “I'm better than being alone – I make for very good
company, I'll have you know.”

“Is that so,” he murmured, his eyes flicking across her face. His look was sharp
and his face was hard, and it was making her more nervous. “What is it that you
want?”
She had to stop herself twice from crossing her arms when his gaze dipped below
her face. To the heart of it, then. “My friend,” she said, nodding vaguely over her
shoulder, “told me you were the bloke I could get Euphoria from. Ron Wilson,
right?”

He looked up at her, and there was a flicker of surprise again. Because she knew
he was connected to it, or she had called him the wrong name. She wasn't taking
the chance that he found her out somehow, knew she knew his real alias, and
changed it on her. She had too much to investigate still.

For a moment, he looked resigned. Then he was back to plotting.

“The potion, mind you.” She wasn't taking any chances with his eyes where they
very much shouldn't be again. He was lucky she was undercover.

His lips twitched like he was forcing back a smile. She took that as a bad sign. “I
don't know what potion you're talking about, or why your friend thinks I'm the
one to get it from. You seem like a good girl, Phylis. You should go home.”

“I'm not a good girl.” What was that? Like she was an animal, some pet that
caught the stick.

The smile broke, but just long enough that she missed half of it when she blinked.
He stared at her for a few seconds, like one could believe sincerity with prolonged
eye contact, and said, “I don't sell Euphoria.”

She could almost believe him. “What do you do, then? Trade for it?”

His left eyebrow hiked, and she tensed when he reached out, his fingertips trailing
across the side of her neck. He watched the movement, the push of his thumb
across her jaw, and the beat of her heart became painful. She stood very still, but
then he shuffled closer and pulled her to meet him with a yank at the nape of her
neck. Her hands came up to halt any further tugging, settling on his shoulders,
and her fingers clenched as she debated standing still or shoving him away.

His thumb pushed up under the ridge of her jaw, lifting her chin, and she
swallowed hard at his mouth hovering over hers. Pink and full, surrounded by the
tiny wrinkles of laugh lines, and the shadow of scruff from not shaving since the
morning.

“What is it you're offering to trade?”

A darker heat curled in her gut at the question, and she wondered if he did this
often. If he had done it to other women when it seemed so very easy for him to
ask such a thing to her. She wanted to slap him.
He didn't seem surprised when she raised her eyes to his in a glare, and he had
the nerve to smirk at her. He was playing a game, and that just made her angrier.

“I don't sell, or trade, or supply Euphoria,” he said slowly, lowly.

There was the barest of touches at her hip as he leaned into her, his chest
brushing hers as she released a heavy breath. He moved his head to the side,
and his grip loosened on the back of her neck. His lips skimmed across her cheek,
and his breath was warm against the shell of her ear. She shut her eyes,
breathing in the scent that was him at the heat of his neck. “I see you've learned
that even a mask can become recognizable. You've yet to realize it's also obvious
in what you do.”

His hand slid from the nape of her neck as he stepped back, her mind spinning
before hitting the conclusion, and she swayed forward before reaching for him.
Her hand hit a wall. Or, the air made hard as a wall, with him plainly visible on
the other side of it. Her eyes were wide as they flashed to his, and she pushed
harder against the wards.

“Though, really – Hermione is a screwed up name as it is. You get a chance to

choose something else, and you go with Phylis? You could at least--”

“What? Who?” She looked back, but people were watching them, and she couldn't
dismantle the wards without causing a scene. He'd be gone by the time she broke
through them anyway.

“You're like a child bringing Go Fish to a game of Poker. You might be lucky,
Granger, but you didn't stand a chance.”

She glared at him. “I don't know what you're talking about. You're obviously
mad.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe. But you're the only woman who has ever tried
stabbing her finger through my chest, and that swotty tone is near impossible to
imitate. Everything about you is Granger, and I've always known you better than
you thought I did.”

“You have the wrong person,” she said, because she wasn't a person that knew
when to give up.

He looked at for too long, concentrating too hard – she almost expected he was
non-verbally erasing her illusion spells.

“Go home,” he told her.

She watched him walk down the hall and take a quick turn, her wand dull in her
sweaty palm. He didn't look back.

(January, 1999)

Draco glanced up from the froth of soap on his hands, and then looked back up at
his forehead. He relaxed his eyebrows and leaned closer to the mirror, noticing
the faint line across his forehead. A wrinkle.

He inspected it, then the arch of his eyebrows, a small scar at his right temple,
the weighted, sleepy eyelids tinted blue. The burst of blue-grey around his pupils,
the wider grey, and the rim of charcoal. His left eye might have been slightly
bigger than the right, or maybe it was just the way he was angled and squinting.
The point of his nose, the curves of his cheekbones, mouth, jaw, and chin, the
faint lines around his mouth.

Had those lines always been there and he forgot them, or had they emerged in all
that time it took him before he could meet his own eyes in a mirror? Maybe it was
the weight he had lost during the war and prison that had shaped him just
enough to be different, without spotting all the reasons why it looked like it.

He should know himself to every line and shade of color, no matter how faint. He
shouldn't be startled by something on his own person; to find himself different
than he expected, when he should expect and know exactly. But changes were
rarely felt as gradual things – they always hit like a kick to the mouth.

Maybe it was just in his head – thinking that he should look different after
everything. That there should be some once unrecognizable thing as part of
himself that he had now discovered and needed to get used to.

He turned the taps off, fingers slipping wetly, and stared some more.

()

She tried eleven different changes to her appearance, the next more
unrecognizably her than the last. Every day she practiced different motions of her
hands, her walk, her mannerisms. She attempted accents, expressions, and
contractions.

She had always been who she was, what life and experience created her as. She
had never searched for that person in choices, or situations, or friends that she
thought mirrored who she wanted to be. She was firmly, always Hermione,
whoever that might be to other people. So, how did a person become something
they weren't?
(January, 1999)

Draco resisted the urge to shift on his feet under Granger's stare, and stared back
instead, keeping his expression passive. This will be the last time he came early.

“I'll bring you. Unless you're eating here again.”

So Potter had told her. There was probably nothing they kept from one another.
They were that group of friends who felt things like betrayal when one of them
didn't inform the rest they were going on holiday. That found it perfectly normal
to discuss things like sleep patterns, or shoe choices, or stomach problems –
things no one else in the world would pretend to give a shit about. They had
always been like an odd combination of ingredients Draco would have never
thought to combine. Watching them was both dull and fascinating, but he'd never
drink down the result.

Would never be part of it either. He could barely function in the world they
created.

“I'm guessing you won't, though, since I'm here.”

He couldn't place her tone, but he knew it wasn't offense. “You're not that
important, Granger, no matter what the papers say.”

He was expecting offense now, but she cringed instead. He figured she hated the
attention. It probably interfered with her reading.

“Right. So, you're going to be staying, then?”

She looked smug. Infuriatingly, expectantly smug, from the tilt of her head, the
twist of her mouth, to the way she was looking at him. It was the only reason he
unclasped his cloak, and they glared at one another.

“What are you serving?”

()

Hermione tapped her finger on top of the pile of pages that listed all the recent
customers for Gurnheart's Apothecary. She had known that if Malfoy was creating
a potion – as the rumor suggested, and the one thing he hadn't denied – he had
to be getting the ingredients from somewhere. She had started in Kent, the only
place she had actually seen him so far, and finally found something. It just
happened to be the last thing she was expecting.
The young man stopped giving her worried looks, looking to a man who could
have been his father with relief. The man, his back slightly hunched and his eyes
a bright blue, smiled kindly at her as he stopped behind the counter.

“How may I help you?”

“As you know, the Ministry requested your record of customers, which you
supplied here--”

“Yes. We only had records for the last month. Terribly inconvenient, keeping more
than that.”

“Yes, well, it's not that I have a question about. In the information you provided
for your business, you list…” she looked down at the name, pressing her lips
together in agitation, “Ron Wilson as an employee.”

“Yes, yes.”

Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Ron Wilson?”

“He brews some of the potions.”

“I see. Does he happen to be…ah, about here,” she said, stretching her arm
above her head, “blond hair, pale, grey eyes, little scar right--”

“That's him! Good bloke, fine potion maker. Owls the potions in. Prefers the quiet,
solitary life, you know. Is there a problem?”

A huge problem, considering Malfoy never used that name until she made it up
and told him it. He was obviously hoping to get her off track before discovering
Harrison Black, using her supposed misinformation against her. Clever, sneaky,
conniving, manipulating… She shouldn't even be annoyed, as it was just a
confirmation.

A few months ago, she might have believed he had done exactly this. Taken off to
be alone, and made potions for a small, local apothecary to live on. He was
probably counting on it, since he knew her so well. Not anymore.

“Do you know where he lives?”

“'Fraid not. I can give him your information next time--”

“No, that's quite alright. Thank you. Oh – how long has he been working for you?”

It was the first time he broke eye contact. “About nine months now.”
“I see.” If it was anyone else, she would consider Imperius, but Malfoy probably
paid him off.

She considered reminding the older man about the repercussions of lying to the
Ministry, but it didn't matter. She knew Ron Wilson was a dead end, and wherever
he was trying to make her go, she wasn't budging. And she'd find Harrison Black
before he realized it.

(January, 1999)

Draco stopped in front of the door, his heartbeat thumping in his ears. If someone
had broken through the wards, the Ministry would not be taking the time to knock
if last time was any indication. It didn't make sense that anyone would be
knocking.

Draco swayed back as a fist hammered down against the door again, and looked
over at the candelabrum on a stand near the door. The flare of his irritation over
not having a wand only rushed his barely-fading anger back into a pounding, livid
force inside of him. He took a half-step toward the stand and behind the door, and
felt the numbness in his fingers that preceded wandless magic.

He opened the door just enough to see half of a face, but it was enough.

“Where's your house-elf?”

“Being insufficient somewhere. What do you want, Potter?”

Potter shifted, reaching up to push a hand through his mess of hair, and brought
his hood down with it. “Hermione was going to come”–the anger pulsed hard
enough to block his hearing for a moment–“decided it… Well, I came instead.”
Potter blinked twice. “I've got to take you to fill out some paperwork,” he said
very slowly, giving him a significant look.

Draco scowled, stepping back twice and pulling the door with him. Potter dragged
in snow, and water, and mud, falling in clumps from his shoes and leaving tracks
on the floor. Draco shut the door with a press of his hand, waiting for whatever
speech Potter was going to fumble his way through. If he was there to defend
Granger's honor against the great injustice of Draco Malfoy, he would learn that
Draco had built another army of words since he left Potter's house, and he could
settle for second best for now.

“Are you ready to go?”

“What?”
“Did you just come to my house to fight with Hermione, or did you want to go?”

“I'm more inclined to believe she was there for the purpose of fighting with me,”
Draco bit out.

Potter shrugged. “It was bound to happen.”

Draco knew the things that were unrelenting and unstoppable. He doubted all the
shit Granger went off about had been bound to happen. She could have kept her
assumptions and opinions and fucked off. He should have. He should have walked
away like it didn't matter enough to fire back at her. Like she didn't.

“Malfoy?”

“Let's go.”

()

Hermione looked up in surprise as Borelli opened her office door, glancing behind
him before she waved him in. He kicked it shut behind him, likely leaving a boot
mark on the wood. She frowned at his leg.

“You still working the Black case?”

“Something like that.”

“What did you find in that Euphoria I got you?”

Hermione shook her head, scanning over the mountains of folders on her desk.
The exact ingredients were buried somewhere in the mess. “Wormwood,
Shrivelfig – a lot of the same things in the Elixir of Euphoria--”

“No. Euphoria works in about the same way, but it's…it's not just a mental
happiness, it's physical as well. Not so much as singing and dancing, or anything
with actions, but…to be blunt, it's like being caught in a very prolonged climax. An
orgasm.”

“Yes, got that from the climax bit,” she said, clearing her throat as she searched
for an empty corner of parchment.

“Your whole body feels alive, and it's this intense… You get the point. But it's so
powerful, and people are so caught in the pleasure and euphoria, that they can't
function. At least not if they take the whole dose. But I'm guessing something is
in it that's illegal, or they just think the Ministry won't approve it for the public.”
Hermione's sight glazed over as she stopped writing, the skeleton of a memory
rising from its tomb in her mind. “Or they don't believe in the Ministry process,
and preferred to bypass it altogether.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “There was nothing illegal in the potion. There was,
however–“

“Something to induce visions?” Borelli asked, and she looked up in surprise. He

sighed loudly, pulling up his sleeve to look at his watch. “There was a bad batch
of Euphoria. Or something someone tried to make into Euphoria. Except it was
weaker, and it got a bit dangerous. It made some have violent visions, and in
their state of euphoria, they were convinced they were good things. And since it
didn't incapacitate them, they were able to act on them.”

“Jesus,” she muttered, flipping over a folder for lack of anything else to write on.
She hadn't wanted it to get out, not yet, but this was beyond her control.

“No deaths. Injuries, but no one is talking about who, and the underground is
keeping it pretty contained.”

“Not for long. It's only going to get worse. We'll have to get the whole
department--”

“The batch is gone.”

She stopped frantically scribbling down information and plans. “What?”

“It was bought out. Rumor is Harrison Black bought the lot of it, probably because
no one was buying Euphoria in case it was the fake. Or because it would”–he
waved his hand–“bring the whole Law Enforcement Department on his head. A
drug producing euphoria is one thing. A drug making people attack one another
gets an army of Aurors.”

She dropped her quill, reaching up to press her fingers against the building ache
at the center of her forehead. She took a deep, shaky breath, and then released
it slowly. “All right. You're sure it's contained?”

“Completely gone. Trust me, there were people looking for it for other reasons.”

“Of course.” Anything that makes people suffer or bends them to your will is of
use to someone.

“I'll try to get you another dose, but if not…” He gestured for her quill, and she
emptied the folder before handing both to him. “You can find Klem here. White,
looks like his nose ate his mouth. You'll know what I mean when you see him.”

“You said they weren't likely to sell to me.”

“Bad publicity isn't good publicity when it comes to news around the Dark circles.”
Borelli handed the folder back to her. “They'll be willing to sell to just about
anyone now.”

She nodded, staring at the folder as Borelli left. She took deep, calming breaths,
trying to convince herself there wasn't anything to worry about. She wasn't going
to have to explain something to an entire department that she hadn't even told
her partner yet. Except there were a lot of things to worry about, and she hardly
knew where to start anymore.

Outlines. She needed outlines, and colored markers, and a lot of wall space.

(February, 1999)

In the manor, there was a silence that struck like the wavering after-ring of a
gong. That loud, roaring hush that fell over a city, or a house, or a person after
an explosion. It seemed to take the marrow out of his bones, and he was hollow
when it whistled through him, his movements crackling and empty.

It followed him to other places. He stayed away from the darkened corners of any
place, where the strange objects dangling and twirling in shop windows only
hinted at the darker things inside. But he went to brighter places, places where
he remembered himself being brighter. There was noise there, but it was
discordant and never for him.

No one looked at him. Casual glances, a passing of eyes, as if he was just another
sound in all the noise. It made it hard to know he was alive, to feel more than
another memory he spent his time with. At first it felt like freedom – then it felt
like death.

He didn't want attention. There was a time when he demanded it, but that was
before. That was when he was sure there was something to pay attention to, that
he had earned respect by being. Now he just wanted to be seen.

Sometimes, in the silence, he held his breath until it burned and instinct took
over to force the pull of oxygen. Then he remembered what he had hoped for.
Nights when he trembled into sleep, did the things he'll never do again. Days
when he was sure he'd die at the shaking of his father's hand, his mother's down-
turned face, and the burn of red eyes that chilled a coldness in his gut he still
hadn't shook.
He hoped for this. Another chance at a life to mold and shape into something he
could be happy with. Now he had no idea what to do with it.

Draco looked up from his plate, meeting Granger's eyes, wide and amused for a
reason he missed. Granger was innocence. And sometimes he wanted to grab
hold of that and place it within himself. To remember what it was like to be a child
again. To grin at the feel of the wind, be amazed at the spread of a frog's legs or
the colors of a stormy sky struck with lightening.

The thought made him look over at Potter's scar, the lightening bolt on his
forehead. Something wild and untamed, greater than ourselves, that Potter
became greater than. And Draco wondered, again, what the fuck he was doing
here.

“Harry, where did you get this spinach?”

Potter looked up in surprise. “The supermarket.”

“It tastes like you plucked grass from your garden,” Draco said.

“After someone walked over it with mud.” Granger's nose wrinkled until she
looked at Potter. “They must have got a bad shipment or something. The chicken
is great.”

She looked over at him expectantly, hopefully, and there wasn't a single moment
in his life in which she'd done it before. He couldn't look away from it until she
did, and he followed her gaze to Potter, who was glaring in annoyance.

“It's edible,” Draco offered.

“Fine,” Potter said. “Malfoy can cook next time.”

“What?” Granger's fork clanged against her plate. Draco's response died in his
throat as he closed his mouth, looking over at her. She cleared her throat. “I'll
cook next time.”

“What?” Potter asked.

Draco smirked.

()

The building had broken windows and a decaying exterior, crumbled bricks littered
around the perimeter. The wards were simple enough that she questioned
anything useful being inside, and the bareness she encountered seemed
desperate to make her believe it. She might have left had she not known that the
best or worst of things were normally hidden behind a facade of emptiness
created to make people overlook, turn away, search somewhere else.

The first floor was gutted, only a few rooms and three staircases at the edges of a
vast room, with one of the staircases busted in half. There was a massive hole in
the middle of the ceiling, and without it, she wouldn't have heard a door banging
shut and the footsteps that followed.

Hermione looked up at the ceiling, judging where it came from, and headed for a
room near the staircase the footsteps were walking toward. There was a desk
chair and a broken painting on the floor inside, and she stepped carefully over the
shattered glass, clutching her wand. Parts of the walls were gone, but she put her
back to a corner and ended her Lumos, sending her into darkness.

She waited, silent and still, until the heavy door had groaned and clunked shut,
before she left for the staircase. She kept her wandlight low to the ground,
glancing between the cracks in the floor and the dark in front of her. The only
other light was a slim line under a door, and she carefully navigated around the
hole that took out most of the second floor as she moved toward it.

There was no sound from the other side of the door, and the wards were even
easier to dismantle than the entrance had been. She turned the doorknob quickly,
not taking the chance to see if someone had noticed the wards fall. Pushing the
door open halfway, she stepped inside, scanning half the room under her
wandpoint as adrenaline pulsed along her limbs.

A long shelf along the wall, lined with vials that all contained a light blue mixture.
There were two boxes stacked underneath it, Runson stamped in black script on
the cardboard. Just a heartbeat after she caught the start of movement in her
peripheral, the door slammed into the wall, revealing Malfoy with his wand trained
on her.

The room was empty behind him, and something in his expression changed,
though she couldn't tell what it was since the anger remained. His wand wavered,
and her attention caught on it, too surprised to take the step back when he took
one forward. The wand was near black, tapering into a thin point, and there was a
rim of silver above the clench of his fingers. Whatever wood it was, it wasn't
hawthorn, and his wand was shorter, thicker, more blunt at the point.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, bringing back her focus. “You're lucky
the wards didn't--”

A light blue vial flew toward her at the flick of her wand, and he moved to snatch
it from the air, but he was too slow. She turned to Apparate when he shot
forward, his hand wrapping around her arm, sending them both into a jumble of
pressure.

Hermione gasped in a breath, stumbling as her feet hit the ground. Her stomach
clenched and spun in nausea, and she swallowed the ball at the top of her throat
that normally preceded dry heaving or vomit. Malfoy's grip tightened to keep her
or him on their feet, and she looked up from searching for injuries in accusation.
He was too busy searching the room over her head in surprise to have the
courtesy of noticing.

“Why did you do that?” she yelled. “I could have Splinched you! It's a wonder that
I didn't!”

He just stared at her like the giant idiot he was, and she twisted her arm to grab
his, Apparating them to an alley off Diagon. She should have known better than
to Apparate to her flat, but she had only been thinking of the safest place to go
with the Euphoria.

She glared at him, but he was still giving her that weird look. Probably because
he could have no doubt as to who she was now, no matter how much she had
changed her appearance. She had done her best to look like she enjoyed skulking
around dark places, but Klem still hadn't sold the potion to her.

“You didn't change the wards.”

That's all he had to say? “Luckily for you!” It would have been a lot worse than
Splinching. “And that's about to change, so if you even think of getting into my
flat, you'll--”

“Why didn't you change them?”

Her mouth hung open dumbly, words she wouldn't say and unformed excuses
crackling up from her throat, when he grabbed her arm and held it up. She
clenched her empty hand into a fist, and he yanked her against him, making her
stumble into his chest. His other hand sunk into the pocket of her robes, and she
ripped her arm out of his grip, shoving him away from her.

“I don't have—” She narrowed her eyes at the spark in his own, the look that sent
a numbing tingle of warning up her spine. “I swear to God, Draco, if you try to
get in my flat, I'll curse you.”

He jerked her to him again, bending his head so she could get the full look of his
anger taking up all the space of her sight. “You are making this extremely
complicated, Granger.”

She raised her chin, ignoring the odd rhythm of her heart as he studied her. “Why
don't you tell me why you're selling drugs now?” she spat. “Is that what you left
for? To—“

He glared at her when she smacked his hand away from her other pocket – if he
dug deep enough, he'd find the vial. “I'm not selling drugs. Do I--”

“Creating them, then! Though I know very well that you—“

“I don't—“

“I found you in a room filled with the stuff! It all links back to you, so don't bother
lying to me!”

“I'm not selling it!”

“Are you making a profit from it? Did you create it?”

His jaw clenched, but his hand loosened around her wrist. “I'm asking you to let
this go,” he said quietly.

“I didn't hear the question.”

He scowled, his thumb sliding along her wrist and into the middle valley at the
bottom of her palm. “Don't you have more important things to save?”

She pulled away from him, taking three steps back before he could follow her
again. “No.”

She went home, searching her flat before altering her wards, and then hiding the
vial in a locked drawer. By the time she got back to the building, the room was
empty.

(February, 1999)

Granger snorted. It sounded like an animal before it charged. “Monitoring it

blocks people from using it to hurt other people. The ingredients are dangerous.”

“It doesn't block them – people who are skilled enough to use it usually have the
means to secure it illegally. Monitoring it keeps people who can do good, useful
things with it away from the opportunity. Which is why I'm surprised you--”

“Like you said, they can get it illegally, though--”

“Not if they work for a legitimate company, or don't have the money to go
through other channels. The Ministry needs a hand in everything, to control so
much that people stop being able to control their own lives. They have to earn it
in the eyes of the Ministry – you should give no thing or person that much power.”

She shook her head. “It's your paranoia. Monitoring does more good than harm.”

“They'll have you believe.”

“Not everyone that tells you what's good for you is wrong.”

Reading Granger could be easier than defining shapes. Other times, he wondered
if she was far more skilled at playing innocence than keeping it. It seemed too
fitting a sentence for her not to have meant it in direct regards to his past, but
then her eyes widened and her ears went red as if she realized after.

Draco looked away. “And not everyone is right. It's better to take no one at their
word. It's why you research answers, and don't believe them until you have
multiple sources.”

“I believe some at their word. Or the actions that prove it. I trust.”

Draco leaned back, and the thin legs of the chair creaked under him. “That's
never worked to your detriment?”

She nodded, rolling her hand. “And then I don't trust that person as much. Or
discover they thought they were right, and led me there because they thought it
was best.” She shrugged. “People you trust can lie to you. They lead you wrong.
It depends on how they do it and for what.

“If Harry lied to me because he was trying to keep me safe, I can't blame him for
that. If he led me wrong because he thought it was right, and it wasn't so
obviously wrong that I followed…I can't blame him for that either. But Harry is a
good man, and I love him. He's my best friend.”

When Draco was young, if his father told him to step off a cliff because he would
be safe when he landed, he would have done it. But now he knew that his father
had never stepped off the cliff, and as much as he might have believed the
landing would be safe, he couldn't know.

What was it about his father that didn't change him after the first war? That didn't
spiral him out into the unknown, into the destruction of everything he had
believed? The Dark Lord had died, or almost died, with Lucius in good standing, in
power. But still as a killer, a man who tortured for punishment and enjoyed the
revenge.

It wasn't the father Draco knew. The man who – despite being a hard, expectant
man – had loved him in his way. He knew his father hated, but he never really
saw that until the war started. Hate was an idea that made Draco believe in the
things he was told, and say things he didn't understand, and ignore the things
that Granger could do. Hate was a road to some glimpsed power, and the thing
that made his father smile at him, and the stuff his friends said. It was
impersonal. Like infatuation in a potion that wore off, rather than infatuation with
a person that evolved.

Draco couldn't have known what his father had known. What Draco would have to
do to be accepted in a group like the Death Eaters, to participate in a war, to
teach him about blood. But he still led him there, and then there was no escaping
– not for any of them. Draco had been as prepared for and stuck with his fate as
Potter had been, but when Draco learned what hate truly was, he had become it.

He was done following anyone. Blind trust off the edge of a cliff was still going to
lead you to the ground.
Chapter 3

()

“Confidential.”

“Purchases?”

“Yes.”

Hermione stared at the man, his shorter height giving her full view of his best
attempts at combing over a thin section of hair to hide his balding head. She
wondered why he didn't just use a potion or spell, but maybe that was more
damaging to pride than combing sideways.

She sat forward, folding her hands in her lap, and held his eyes until he was
unsettled. She had learned it best from the person who brought her here – the
more anxious you make a person, the more they concern themselves with doing
what it takes to make you leave.

“We have proof that Runson has sold something to a man who has used it in the
creation of illegal potions, that are being distributed throughout Britain—“

“If that's true, it is not the responsibility of the company. We sell ingredients and
potions, all legal, and cannot—”

“But it is the responsibility of the company to cooperate with the Ministry when
informed of such a situation. Unless you support such illegal use, and wish to
interfere with our investigation. In which case, I—“

“I assure you that we do not support use of our ingredients for any illegal activity,
and wish we could help. However, we have confidentiality contracts—“

“Which are invalid when information is requested by the Ministry because it

relates directly to a case where the person is participating in illegal activities that
are harmful to other people. Then it's a matter of company choice, and in the
best interest of the company to cooperate.” Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Is it
your choice to not cooperate?”

The man pushed his seat back, his face pinched as he stood. “Harrison Black, you
said?”
“Yes. And I'll need all the information, including lists of purchases, and address.”

(March, 1999)

Draco stepped out, as deep into Granger's personal space as he'd ever been, and
pulled the door shut behind him on the manor, or the ghosts, or whatever she
might be thinking. He looked down from the snowflakes melting on her cheeks, to
the deep red of her robes. She cleared her throat, glaring at him when he met
her eyes.

He barely restrained a smirk, raising an eyebrow as he let her simmer in her

assumptions until her cheeks were red. There was something in the flash of anger
in Granger's eyes that made him feel alive. Ready, alert, prepared for whatever
battle she was about to declare.

He was slightly disappointed when she dodged. “Ron is at Harry's.”

“You're an Auror?”

Her mouth clicked shut, and she looked down at the crest on her robes. She was
quicker than he thought she would be at accepting that he hadn't been looking at
her breasts.

“Oh…yes. For now.” There was a beat of silence, and then she was talking again
before he stood a chance to. “In a year or so, I think I'll either go more into the
law than enforcement, or the Magical Creatures Department. Making sure the
right laws are in place is important, but there are people starting to do good
things – though I think I can probably do some a bit faster, and more--”

“Of course you do.”

“--creatures really need help now, and no one is doing anything for them. It's a
good time, too, since…simpler laws, or less involved laws, are being passed to
make the public feel the Ministry is being active in getting things done, when
harder laws that the majority of people would be--”

“You're like a bad book, Granger. Full of information that's mostly useless and
never seems to end.”

“As opposed to you – short, written in Runic, and required reading?”

He frowned. “There's nothing about me that's required reading.”

“That depends on how much one likes runes.”

Draco sneered at her and shifted, his bare feet numbing against the wet and cold
rocks. “I'm not a puzzle.”

“Aren't you? Everyone is. You know, human beings are put together with all these
little pieces of other things. It's hard enough to see it for what it is, but to really
know everything, you have to look at each individual piece.” Granger frowned at
his shoulder. “I'm not sure if that's ever possible with anyone. Or even yourself.
There are parts other people see but you don't.”

“Then they're unimportant, and you--”

“No.” She looked like he had committed a great offense. “Every part of a person is
important.”

“If it's so small that you don't know it--”

“Or you've got used to it, so don't notice it, or mistake it as part of a bigger piece
—”

“Then you see the bigger piece and so still notice it.”

“But it could be completely different. It could be very important, the very thing
that makes that bigger piece what it is. You know that…those big pictures of a
person, and when you get closer, there are hundreds of tiny pictures of that
person that make the bigger face? Well, if you ignore the little pieces, you never
place them right, and you never see the overall picture. It's just a bunch of tiny
images that don't make sense.”

He leaned back against the house, and cringed when water seeped into his shirt.
“Do you make it a habit of roaming about neighborhoods with doorstep
philosophy, or are you here for a reason?” Because wherever she was going was
not somewhere he wanted to be with her.

“Harry told me I should bring you to fill out some paperwork.” She opened her
eyes wide, raised her eyebrows, and lowered her chin. She should have just said
it for all her obviousness.

“Have you been spending a lot of time with Weasley, or have you misplaced one
of my tiny pictures to somehow get the impression that I'm an idiot?”

She shrugged, and there was a tiny smile where he wanted a scowl. “I'm pretty
sure that picture fits exactly right.”

He nodded slowly. “I see. So it wasn't so much an accident of misplacement, but

your own idiocy that you confused for mine?”
The scowl then, and he smirked as he slid inside the manor, shutting the door on
her step forward. He yanked on his boots and pulled on his robe, more concerned
with her entering than leaving. She was standing in the same place he had left
her, though, and her gaze was too curious for him to hold it.

She cleared her throat as she drew her wand, staring at his arm. “I'm, uh… Well,
all right.”

She seemed to grow more flustered the longer they stood there and he stared at
her, before finally grabbing his bicep. He stared at her striped mitten on the dark
of his robe, feeling the dull heat that touched his skin under both. Had she ever
touched him beyond the slap at Hogwarts?

The rose wallpaper came into view with a swirl of nausea, and he swallowed hard.

“Are you okay?”

He looked down at Granger, somehow shorter beside him than when she stood
across from him. “I'm fine.”

Her mitten-clad hand slipped from his arm. “You were swaying a bit.” She looked
up at him then, her lips pursed. “Do you know where the supermarket is?”

His eyebrows knitted together. “What?”

“I mean, I figured you wouldn't look so starved after a few months. You look a bit
less starved now than before, but still…sort of starved, and then I thought you
might not know where the supermarket is.”

He wasn't sure which part to be more offended by. “You really need to reconsider
the picture placement, Granger. And beyond that, I still have a house-elf.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I see.”

He rolled his own. “Concede before you lose.”

“That's my advice to you. I'm—”

“You'll always lose. You can argue about it until you're out of breath, but I won't
free my only elf, and so you've already lost.”

“You know, your-- Uh, Narcissa.”

Draco looked over from the fluffy top of Granger's head to his mother standing
near the archway of the dining room. “Hermione.”
Hermione.

“I forgot the cookbooks. I went directly to Harry's after work, and they're at my
flat. I'll bring them next time, I promise.”

“Cookbooks,” Draco said slowly, frowning at his mother's expression. It was the
light air of politeness that meant she was satisfied with the company or secretly
plotting their demise.

“Yes.” Granger looked up at him and took a step back. “I have one that's five
steps or less, and another where everything is done in twenty minutes or less. I
don't really have time for…” She waved her hands.

Draco couldn't give a toss about her cookbooks – it was when she had been
interacting with his mother that he was interested in. And to the point that they
had come round to a discussion on cooking.

“Are you joining us for tea?” Narcissa asked.

Granger took a breath and looked back at him, holding it for a moment in the
silence. “No. But thank you. I'll, uh, I'll be back in…three hours? Four?”

“Four would be lovely,” Narcissa said.

“Great.” She gave him a nod, and then a smile to his mother. “Eight it is, then.”

She disappeared with a crack, and Draco raised his eyebrows at his mother.

()

Hermione stopped the lighting spell before she finished it, lowering her wand as
she squinted at the side of the Runson building. She had noticed the path to the
building earlier that day, the dirt that grooved deeper on two sides, familiar from
the constant trek of automobiles. She had thought there might be Muggle-born
employees who lived in the Muggle world, but the volume of the thrumming
engine sounded a lot larger than a vehicle taken to work.

As far as any public record or the business filing with the Ministry said, Runson
didn't sell anything in the Muggle world. Yet from the sound of the engine and the
amount of crates people were wheeling out, they were transporting a large
shipment to exactly there. The crates, however, were not marked Runson but
BGC, and three men in suits were discussing something as they watched the
workers.

Hermione moved closer to the building, balling up the piece of paper with Malfoy's
address on it. Or, really, the address to a worn down house that hadn't been lived
in for at least a decade. She had come back to see if they had another address on
record, but now she thought she would learn a lot more by not going inside at all.

(March, 1999)

Everything was a process of learning. Knowledge grew like trees, slowly and
searching. Even in all the events that declared Draco a failure, there was not one
that stood singularly as the moment in which he realized. There was no epiphany.
It was a battle of facts and beliefs, through lines he hadn't known were drawn by
others and himself until he crossed them.

He would forget. The house would creak, or wind would batter a window, and he
expected the Dark Lord, or Snatchers, or a group of Death Eaters. Not as if they
had come back, but as if they had never left. In just a second of time, he was
living it again.

It's over, the combined thought as soon as Voldemort fell, the words people told
their friends, that they reminded themselves of. But the world could declare
anything as some defining moment. Human beings got there by way of teeth, and
nails, and strained limbs, and time.

Outside the window of his bedroom, the sun was setting, a burnt orange and red
across the sky, and Draco saw the world on fire.

()

Hermione looked up at the man in the doorway as he gave a questioning look to

the woman across from her. Hermione straightened from her uncomfortable
slouch, easing the ache that had started in her back.

“Billy, this is Hermione Granger.”

Billy looked more like he was trying to remember a passing face at a dinner party
last year than a person who had had even her grocery shopping evaluated in
newspapers. Hermione was glad for it. It was the wide-eyed silence Susan had
greeted her with twenty minutes ago that had forced Hermione into concealment
spells every time she left her flat. At first, the recognition and appreciation had
been flattering, even if she never saw herself as a hero. After so many years, it
was nice that the world hadn't passed over the effort, and had acknowledged all
they did.

The acknowledgment, however, stopped short, and when they should have been
talking about someone else's courage, they were debating the relationship
between her, Harry, and Ron, or repeating some exaggerated story that didn't
matter anymore. The war had been won, after all – there were important things
to focus on. They had only ever done what they needed to do, out of fear, and
compassion, and love, and maybe a little revenge, too. That didn't make them
heroes, it made them human beings.

“Auror Granger. I'm here to talk about the events that happened at Riddikulus
four months ago. I know you were already interviewed, but the case has changed
Aurors and I'd like to interview witnesses myself.”

“Oh.” Billy looked back at Susan as he nodded. “Right.”

“I understand you were there that night as well?”

Billy tilted his head as his eyes moved to the ceiling, half his face scrunching.
“Sort of. If you know what I mean.”

Hermione moved back to her slouch. “You were intoxicated.”

“It is a pub.”

“So…”

“Yes. I only saw the bloke two or three times, though.”

“Be—“

“He kept looking around,” Susan said. “The guy, I mean. Like he was waiting for
someone to come, not just looking around. He was by himself.”

Hermione nodded. “Mister Liecher, you saw him three times?”

“From what I remember, yeah.”

“Can you describe those times?”

Billy shrugged, pointing as Susan. “Same as her. Last time was outside, with the
other guy, before he ran away. He didn't look like he was about to do something
like that.”

“But he did stop looking around,” Susan added.

Hermione paused, and rolled her quill so the ink wouldn't drop. “This is the
second time you saw him?”

“Yeah, right before we went outside.”

Hermione straightened at the edge of the couch, stopping herself from leaning
back just a little more to crack her back and relieve some pressure. “You saw him
right before you saw him again outside?”

“Yeah.”

“Not right before,” Susan said, holding up her hand. “There were a lot of people
inside, so it took us awhile to get to the back. At least a minute or two.”

She didn't have the floor plan on her, but she had looked at it before coming, and
she knew they had placed him near the middle of the pub. Closer to the front,
though.

“Are there any exits beyond the front and back door?”

“Windows,” Billy said carefully, like it was a trick question.

“Did you see the man come out of one of the alleys?”

“No. There's only one alley. The left side of the pub is right up against a shop. I
mean, there's the back alley, but it's more just a big space before the road—“

“There's no shop right there behind the pub, but there's shops on either side
behind it,” Billy interrupted.

“That's where they were standing, across the back alley and on the other side of
the cobblestones.”

Billy and Susan looked distinctly nervous, and Hermione offered a small smile to
calm them that she didn't feel. “And you're sure you passed the man one or two
minutes before you exited the back door?”

“It could have been longer. It could have been five minutes. Can't really keep
track of time when you're pissed.” Billy looked over at Susan, who twisted her
hand back and forth.

“I wouldn't say five minutes. We didn't stop or anything, just had to wind through
people. Maybe five.”

Hermione stared down at her parchment, her sight glazed. If it did take them five
minutes, it would be fair to assume the front of the pub was nearly as full, and
would take at least a minute or two to get through. Another minute or two to
walk around the pub and across the road, meet with someone, exchange words…
If they were right about the five minutes, it would have, maybe, been just
enough time.
“How confident are you that the man across the road was the same man from the
pub?”

“Pretty confident,” Susan said. “He had his back to us outside, but that hair…”

“He was the only one with that color hair. I mean, you don't miss a thing like
that.”

“And when we went back inside, he wasn't there.”

“You noticed that right away?” Hermione asked.

“After we told some people. The place started emptying when everyone got all
panicked, but we looked about…” Billy exchanged a look with Susan. “About five
minutes after?”

Wonderful.

(March, 1999)

She stopped a dozen steps from where he stood, her striped mittens clasped
together in front of her. The wind ruffled long strands of black hair, and her eyes
watered in it.

“Do you want to go for coffee?” Her foot sloshed as she pulled it out of a puddle
of water and slush, but it only sunk again when she put it back down. “Or tea, hot
chocolate.”

Did she think he didn't know who she was, or was she sure that he did? Or maybe
she had got so used to wearing that mask of hers to hide herself to the public
that it was starting to hide her to herself as well.

Granger didn't do well with the attention. She told him it was embarrassing, and
if people spent as much time trying to help the world as they do paying attention
to those who do, she might not have ever had to in the first place. She preferred
her books, and the dust of archives, and things like equality and respect for life.
Credit was good, adoration was hindering.

She might have been the strangest, most perplexing woman he'd ever met.

He looked back at the headstone, the carved name, and to the patch of ground
where the box sat underneath. It almost felt wrong to contemplate it – to have
even received the question. It was a dark irony, and a tightening in his chest that
might have been guilt, or betrayal, or apology. But Crabbe had made his choices,
and now Draco had to, too.

His feet sloshed loudly through the headstones, flecks of ice and water splashing
up against his trousers. Granger waited until he reached her to turn, walking
beside him.

()

Fink plopped into the seat across from her desk, the backs of his boots thudding
loudly, dropping dirt onto her floor. She frowned, cleaning it up with a wave of her
wand.

“Who's Harrison Black?”

She almost dropped her wand.

“Tell Granger that Richard Cleave has been arrested, he sells for Harrison Black.
You're on a case I'm not?”

She cleared her throat loudly, closing a line of folders. “It's the Malfoy case.”

“…What?”

“Malfoy is connected to Harrison Black somehow. I'm not sure exactly how, but
I'm figuring it out.” Mostly true.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“You've been interviewing the witnesses. I'm concentrating on locating him. We

can't do both at the same time without wasting time. Who is Richard Cleave?”

“We can do both—“

“If I think I've got him where we're ready for arrest, I'll tell you, Fink. I'm just
splitting up the work. It's a big case.”

Fink did a quick tilt of his head which was usually followed by something she
didn't like, like I don't know. “It wouldn't be so much work if you didn't want to
interview the witnesses again. We're just making harder copies of the originals.”

“No. We're making sure we have all the information.”

“What information do we need? Former prisoners get a wand trace. Unspeakables

check the magic, and it's traced back to the magical signature from that wand.
Malfoy's wand.”
Black, tapering, sharp point, silver rim. Brown, solid width, blunt, wooden ridge.
“What if someone else is using the wand?”

“The magical trace would be different, at least a little.”

She shook her head. “If the wand is working well enough for the person to be
able to cast things like that, the magic through that same wand would be so close
to the magical signature that it could fall within the margin of error.”

Fink pushed back in the chair, resting his elbows on the arms and folding his
hands over his stomach. “We have witness reports that put him there.”

“Never his face. Blond hair. So-so height.”

“You're saying…what? Someone set him up?”

Hermione shrugged. “You've read his history.”

“Yeah,” Fink said, laughter in his voice, “I have. Which is why I don't understand
why you're trying to…disprove he did it.”

“I mean the last two years. And I'm trying to get to the facts. The absolute truth.
I'm not having any person being sentenced on charges I didn't fully investigate.
There's a possibility he didn't do it. It's our job to be sure. Either way. Now, who
is Richard Cleave?”

(March, 1999)

Granger and Potter led a life he couldn't understand. It was always strange to be
sitting in Potter's living room, but he had moments where it felt like he was on
the outside of something he'd never seen before. It was both fascinating and
disturbing, but always uncomfortable.

“That was fancy, Harry. Is that going to be the new Potter?” The lightness in her
voice turned to laughter.

“Go bring those in. Or I'll end up pulling a Granger and burning all the food.”

Silence fell, and Draco huffed a laugh at the imagined look on Granger's face.
Glass clinked together, followed by footsteps before she emerged into the living
room. She had a sour expression, and he thought she was deciding to study
cooking in the near future.

She held a glass of Pumpkin Juice out to him, and he took it with a nod. “This guy
was arrested last night for breaking into a pet shop. When they interviewed him,
he said he was pulling a Potter in order to free all the animals.”

“If he had pulled off an effective Potter, they would have praised his name instead
of arresting him for breaking the law.”

Granger paused on her way to sitting down, her shoulders hunched forward oddly
and her knees bent. He thought she might be offended, but he didn't care – he'd
spoken worse truths than that. “Yes, well…if the animals were being tortured or
something, the results would be different. The purpose has to be worth the
action.”

“To him, it was.”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “But breaking the law is worth it to do the action to a lot of
people. Like doing drugs. Or even rape, murder. You can't let a murderer go free
because they thought it all made sense.”

“Governments have ordered people to kill others in the name of something that
government thought made sense, and those people are free. But they're still
murderers.”

“Yes, but the purpose is worth the action. A Death Eater casts the Killing Curse at
you because you have mixed blood. An Auror casts the Killing Curse back to
prevent that person from killing them or someone else. The Death Eater's
purpose isn't worth the action – the Auror's is. Now, if the Auror walked up to
someone and killed them because of how they look, or walk, or where they're
sitting, that's murder.”

“There are circumstances where the line is not so clearly defined for either side.”

“True. But we do the best with what we know.” Granger took a gulp of her drink
before setting it on the table. “You know, Luna – do you remember her?”

“Lovegood? Yes.” It had been a year, not a lifetime. Occasionally he still heard her
phantom banging or yelling from under the floorboards.

“She has this book about names that says who we are is decided the moment our
parents name us. They even list health problems.” She leaned forward, her
expression clearly stating how ridiculous she found the idea. He agreed. “Some of
them were a bit accurate, though. Harry and Ron's was pretty close to some of
their behavior, though it didn't list even some of the bigger traits. You and I
weren't in there.”

“I'm not surprised.” At least not for that reason. He was curious why Granger
would bother looking up his name, but maybe it was that business about him
being a puzzle. She wasn't going to find the answer in a Lovegood book.

She smiled, unforced and simple, and his gaze attached to it.

“I can see where the theory came in. Things beyond our control that end up
shaping part of who we are. But it made me wonder how can it be pretty accurate
most the time, and if there's more to what we share as human beings than just…”

“Basic instincts,” he said.

“Right! You know, we all have trouble finding the right words at times. We can all
be moody. We can all be blunt. We can all be self-conscious. We can all be a lot of
things. And so it makes less sense that we're all so disconnected from one
another when there's so much common ground in who we are as people.”

“Opposing traits can be mistaken for common ground. If you have two people
who are stubborn, that's not common ground.”

“It's the same trait. We're both stubborn. It's a connection between—”

“It forms no connection because no two people share all the same beliefs, or no
fight would be won by one person in both opinions, and so on. One is stubborn
about something, the other is stubborn on an opposing belief. They clash, they
don't meet in the middle.”

“But in the end, you can still both understand the other's point or actions because
you recognize their stubbornness in yourself.”

Draco shook his head. “I was in Slytherin, a House filled with ambitious people –
all the same trait. But the only friends were people who thought they could use
one another to fulfill whatever ambition they had. The rest were viewed as having
an ambition that threatened yours.”

“I'm sure that's not the only reason people in Slytherin were friends.”

Crabbe running through the garden of Malfoy Manor with a stick serving as a
broom between his legs as Draco ran after him, their fathers' cloaks too big and
billowing from their backs. The searching look the first time Draco handed him a
bottle of Polyjuice, before he clapped a hand to Draco's shoulder and gulped it
back without question. Then his face, anger-wrecked, and disappearing into the
flames.

Draco looked down at his drink. “No.”

Granger leaned back in the sofa, pulling her legs up and folding them on top of
the cushion. He didn't think she'd ever looked so comfortable around him. At least
not on purpose, or because she had meant it.

“You wouldn't be the same with another name, though. I don't know if a name
really decides who you'll be, but I do think names match who people are. And
you're definitely a Draco. You wouldn't make sense if you were a…Harrison or
something.”

“Harrison?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah.” She furrowed her eyebrows, clenched her jaw, and held her elbows out to
her sides as she shrugged her shoulders. “Harrison,” she said, her voice strained
deeper.

Something clicked in his throat before the laughter bubbled up harder than he
could stop.

“What?” she asked, before she was laughing with him, the sounds tangling
together in his eardrums.

()

Hermione glanced up at the Healers back in front of her, and then returned her
attention to the report in her hand. Longagger buds, the thing Richard Cleave had
been arrested for trying to steal, were on strict moderation by the Ministry. There
were only seven requests that had been approved and were still active in
England, and it wouldn't be common knowledge. She had no idea how Cleave had
found out about a location, or why he had been trying to get it. Or why Malfoy
had sent him to get it, if that was the case.

She was hoping the Aurors who arrested him found out, and if not, she'd put in
her own request to interview. Hopefully under Veritaserum, if the Aurors couldn't
get anything out of him.

“Auror Granger.”

Hermione looked up from her report and to the empty hallway in surprise, then
half-turned to see the Healer standing in a doorway. Hermione returned the small
smile of amusement, folding the report as she walked back to her.

“Elisa Cleave,” the Healer said, taking a step out of the door.

“Thank you.”

“I can give you five minutes or so, but again, she won't wake up. If you get
permission from her husband, we can reveal her medical records for you.”
Hermione nodded, highly doubting Richard Cleave would even contemplate doing
it. She watched the Healer walk down the hall for a moment, then stepped into
the room, shutting the door. Elisa was pale and tinted blue in the bright lights
spiraling above her bed, but it was the black lines that held Hermione's attention.
Like a system of tiny, dark rivers, they seemed to pulse under the skin in her
face, throat, and hands, and likely there in the parts she couldn't see.

Hermione took a slow, heavy step forward, her heart beating loudly in her ears
and the base of her throat. A bitter, black liquorice, sulfuric stench burned her
nose, and an image of long, pale hair spread over a pillow flashed through her
mind. There was white crust on the woman's chin, and small bubbles at the
corners of her mouth. Hermione had the urge to pull Elisa's jaw down, expose her
mouth, but she knew what she would find if she did.

Hermione stepped back, again, again, again, searching for a place to take a clean
breath.

(March, 1999)

Draco's breath rushed out of him, pain splintering up his spine, before it slammed
into his chest as Granger crashed into him. Her palms pressed into his shoulder
and chest as he tried to draw a breath, and his agitation tipped closer to panic
when she started shaking against him.

“I told you to get into the armchair,” he snapped.

There was a hitch of breath, and then…laughter. She pulled her face out of the
folds of his robe, and her mouth was stretched with her eyes bright. She was
clearly insane. He was clearly insane for expecting any different reaction from a
bloody Gryffindor. Laughing in the face of danger was practically their default.

The Knight Bus took a hard turn, and they went with it, feet skidding and
stumbling across the floor before they hit the side of the bus. He balanced himself
against the cold glass of the window, his muscles tense at the position of Granger
between the stretch of his arms. She was still grinning, her fingers clutching his
robe as if he wouldn't crash to the ground with her if she toppled.

He knew he should have lied when she asked him how he got around without a
wand. He should have told her he had pet Thestrals, but then she would have
been on about magical creatures until his head exploded. It was only slightly less
tolerable than the feel of her against him, the way her whole face was lit up as
she looked at him, and how it made his chest constrict too much around the
increasing rhythm of his heart.
“As soon as the turn ends, run for an armchair before it throws us back again.”

She nodded. “Right. I don't know why you complained about this. It's like every
time you go out, it's an adventure.”

He glared.

()

There was a clicking and scratching at the window, and Hermione raised her hand
to wrap around the end of her wand, though she didn't pull it. She had been
curious over how he would get inside, and figured flying to the window would
have been easier than sneaking or faking his way through St. Mungo's staff. He
must have come pretty often if he knew the window location out of the thousands
that lined the hospital floors.

She had been nervous that the owl from the hospital or the rumors wouldn't
reach him. She had sent him a few owls the past year, more than one with a
tracking charm on it, but they never seemed to get there. Or he ignored them.
The article about it in the paper had been small and buried, but since he was here
now, he must have found it.

The window slid open, bringing in a cool breeze, and a figure cloaked in black
edged through the space, lying flat on a broom. He sat up once he cleared the
window, dipping the front of the broom down until his feet touched the ground,
then swung a leg over the wood. He turned to face her as she stood, moonlight
illuminating the side of a nose and mouth before he reached up, pulling the hood
down. He looked like he expected her to be there, and was as unhappy about it
as she knew he would be.

“I never thought you would get this low, Granger, no matter how much you hate
us, or the ambition that could have put you in Slytherin.”

She almost rolled her eyes. “I don't hate you, and that should be quite obvious by
now.” He always had a certain leaning toward the dramatic. “And my ambition is
for the benefit of the good, not just myself, so Slytherin could have never been
my house.”

“I disagree, when you're cutting my father off from the only thing keeping him
alive,” he snapped. “I—”

“Who said it was me th—”

“Don't give me that shit. I'm–“

“He's not being moved, Malfoy.”

He froze, his eyes digging into her as he tried to figure out the answers without
asking the questions. The vein at his temple was out, and she had a feeling that
the only reason he hadn't pulled his wand like the previous times was because he
didn't trust himself with it right now. He was in a rage, and if the article had been
truth, he would have had good reason for it. There was no better care than at St.
Mungo's.

“You signed to allow the hospital to take money from the Malfoy vaults any time a
medical bill needed to be paid. It's still valid, even if no one witnessed the
signature, because the signature matches the one at Gringotts.”

He barely relaxed. It was the shift of rage to anger, less severe but just as
volatile. A storm that remained, while no longer promising to take your house
with it. She calmed a little in the face of his accusation, but she still kept her eyes
on him.

“I want answers,” she told him. “I know this goes far beyond Euphoria, and you
need to tell me now before this gets worse than it is.”

“It's not your concern, or–”

“Yes, it is.”

“Just—”

“It's my case.”

His head tilted, and he looked at her in a dark sort of wonder that made her
anxious. “That's why you've been following me? Going to all these lengths”–he
gestured behind him–“and trying to unravel it all. It's because you're on my case.
It's your job.”

There was something in the way he said it that made her want to deny it. That
made her want to analyze why he would care that it was because it was a case.
But those were all for reasons she couldn't think about any more.

She raised her chin. “Yes.”

He stepped toward her and she stepped back, the back of her legs hitting the
chair. She put an arm behind her, searching for cushion, and then moved around
it.

“It couldn't be for any other reason,” she told him, her voice stern as he stepped
forward. “You've broken the law in more than one way.” A step forward, a step
back. “That will obviously have legal ramifications. You—”

“What are you scared of, Granger?”

She held her ground when he took a step forward, and leaned back on his next.
“Nothing.”

She was scared of so many things, but in that moment, it was of him doing what
he looked like he intended to do. She knew that look. It was one of those that
rose to the front of her mind when she thought she was safe from it, like doing
dishes, or rolling out of bed, or getting caught in rain. One of those looks that had
a terrible habit of burning itself into someone's brain.

Sometimes she felt like glass in a hollow of concrete, and even if the outside
didn't break, the glass was bound to shatter. And she had worked very hard at
building that concrete, at approaching this as statuesque as she could, but he had
a habit of ruining her best intentions when they didn't fit his own. He probably
thought the same of her.

“It's been over a year, and—”

“I know,” he said, and then he kissed her.

A press of the mouth, warm, soft, dry, as her heart slammed, and it hurt. She
stumbled back, pushing out hands that met the ones reaching for her, and she
pushed them away. Her breath was rushing faster than the kiss deserved, and
she felt unsteady.

“Don't do that!” she yelled, taking another step back for more space, more space,
and he stayed where he was.

“You don't want to get personal? Leave my father out of it, and give the fucking
case to someone else.”

She tore her wand out as he turned for the window, summoning his broom. By
the time it smacked into her palm, he had disappeared. He must have had a
Portkey. Bastard.

(April, 1999)

Draco didn't stop running until he reached the parlor, his feet slapping hard
against the floor and his momentum. He breathed in until his lungs were full, and
raked his fingers through his hair three times. She wasn't in the parlor, so she
must not have left the front door. Which was good. Which was a lot better than he
expected.
He moved down the hallway, and heard his house-elf pop out of the room before
he entered it. Granger blinked at a corner, her mouth shutting, and then looked at
him in accusation for a second, as if he'd scared the elf away. There was a canvas
bag hanging from her forearm, tilted open enough for him to see her initial sewn
into the inside edge.

“Granger…” He had thought he might see her today, but that was hours from now,
and certainly not at his doorstep.

“Hey! I, uh…brought you something.”

She dug into her bag, and he swayed on his feet in front of the hallway, unsure if
he should move forward or keep standing in the way. It would be more polite to
invite her in, but he wasn't going to. Their interactions were rarely that anyway.

“The other day you said that it was like an infestation of spiders and bugs this
month, right? And I told you about the– this.” She held up a black box with the
white figure of an ant on it, its legs in the air and antennas drooping. “You have
to spray it, well…here, I'll just…” She ripped the lid open, half of it tearing and
flopping over the side.

“You brought…bug spray.”

“Yes. Bug killer. It repels, and when they aren't repelled, they die. Sometimes
they get in anyway, and then you find a dead bug inside, but they don't make it
long. I got it for Ron, since he's afraid of spiders, and then I did it at my flat,
which didn't work as well. But that's because I have to spray inside, since the
building owner prefers her own system. Which is inadequate or I wouldn't be
spraying inside in the first place, but she won't listen to me.”

Granger squeezed the nozzle as she was pushing it onto the large bottle wedged
between her arm and chest, and a spray of vapor shot into the air. She looked up
at him like a child caught doing something wrong, and she stepped back, waving
her hand at the air.

“That wasn't… Sorry. It's not really good if you breathe it in.” She cleared her
throat, waving harder at the air, her whole body bouncing. Draco kept his eyes
firmly on the dance of her curls. “I don't mind some bugs, but it's when it's an
overflow that it becomes a problem. Not many people want to wake up with a
roach or spider crawling on their face. So I thought I would bring this to you so
you don't have…so I don't have to listen to you complain if it happens.”

“It wasn't necessary. I—”

“It's for myself, really.” She cleared her throat again, staring at his feet for a few
seconds too long, and then raising her chin. “You should get some shoes on.
There's a very specific way in which you have to do this, and you'll probably mess
it up if I don't show you.”

“I'm not Weasley or Longbottom, Granger. I'm capable of performing more than
two actions at once, or spraying something without hitting my face.”

“And, apparently, you're also capable of making very inaccurate judgments. So

it's really in your best interest that I show you first. Where's your bedroom?”

He raised an eyebrow, and it seemed to fluster her for all the reasons he had
dismissed directly after she asked. His lips curved, and he rocked forward. “Why
do you want to know?”

She huffed, bristling as pink spread across her cheeks, and he decided he liked
the color on her as much as the color of her anger. “Because you can't kill the
bugs where you sleep.”

That wasn't an answer he even contemplated her coming back with. “What?”

“These are smart enemies, Malfoy. And vengeful. There was a cricket I found
dead in my room – which I felt a bit bad about, because I like crickets – and then
two days later? Four crickets in my room, alive. Do you have any idea how
difficult it is to catch them? And the noise? I had to sleep on my couch for a
week. Then the spiders came, two dead, thirteen alive—”

“Perhaps your methods aren't effective.”

“No, they are very effective! It only happened in my bedroom. I think it was
something with the scent of me in there, or attacking where I'm most vulnerable.
It's better to let them roam out of the room before they discover something dead,
then kill them somewhere else in the house. So they aren't as likely to attack.”

“That's completely illogical.”

“You would think so, but the next time, I didn't spray my room. One baby spider.
That was it. Which I released on the other side of the building, because it was just
a baby. But I'm telling you, if you kill the bugs where you sleep, it's going to get
messy. They will know, infiltrate, and attack.”

Draco stared at her for a long moment, but she looked very dedicated to the
belief she was right. Which was just like her, even if she was stating something
nonsensical. “It's more likely you did it incorrectly the first time, and did it
correctly everywhere else the second.”

“Fine,” she said, her tone sinister enough to give him pause. “We'll spray around
your room then, Malfoy. Then we'll see.”

“My room is on the second floor.” Draco clapped his hand, and looked over at the
pop of sound. “Bring me a pair of my boots. It doesn't matter which one.”

“Please,” Granger muttered, but Draco didn't bother adding it himself. “I could
have waited while you got them.”

“Do you harass Potter as much about his elf?”

“No, because Harry will get his own boots.”

“It doesn't take Potter five minutes to get to his closet and back. If it did, he'd do
the same. Especially if it meant not having to leave you to yourself while you're
looking at the furniture like that.”

She blushed again, looking away from the corner table. “I was wondering what I
could transfigure into a ladder.”

“For?”

“The second floor. Maybe we should just do the roof. How safe is it up there?
You've probably never been up there, have you?” She jumped as Blinky appeared
between them, bowing as he held out a pair of boots. “And, you know, my theory
isn't just mine. There are even universal expressions about not doing dangerous
things in personal spaces. If you bring the danger in, more is going to follow it.”

“Those are about things more serious than killing bugs, like extortion through
your own company, involving friends in business, or shagging a co-worker.”

“But the same theory applies. People do dangerous things in their personal
spaces because it makes the danger feel safer, when really, it just makes it more
dangerous. It even eliminates the safe haven until you don't have anywhere safe
anymore… You're wearing those?”

Draco pulled down on the hem of his trouser leg and then straightened up,
looking from his boots to Granger. “Yes,” he said slowly.

“They look a bit…polished for all the mud outside.”

“All my shoes are polished.”

She grinned widely, and he knew he wasn't about to like whatever she said. She
turned around to throw the front door open, and he followed after her. “Shiny.
What is it, do you like to stare at yourself in the reflection? Do you judge—”
“We don't all have to avoid the mirror to attempt forgetting the constant disaster
of our hair.”

“You probably have one of those mirrors that tell you how pretty you are before
you leave the house—”

“If a mirror told me I was pretty, I'd donate it to Hufflepuff House with the rest of
the rubbish.”

“Hufflepuff is far superior to Slytherin, so I suppose that would make your house
the scum on the bottom of the b—”

“If you're completely disillusional, which your bug theory only further testifies to.
A good, put-together appearance matters, Granger – did you understand that? I
know it's something you've obviously not learned ye—ah!”

“…Oh, did that hurt? Because if it's not something you've learned hurts yet…”

“Don't—”

“A third time, then?”

()

Hermione's chin slowly lowered to her chest as she stared at Richard Cleave. His
face was bright red, tendons and veins sticking up on his neck, and his eyeballs
looked to be bulging from the sockets. He was trying desperately not to answer,
but the Veritaserum was working against him. Whatever was about to come out,
she doubted it was the I like potions answer he had given in his initial interview.

“You were trying to steal it to make a potion. Why are you making the potion?”

“I'm not,” he said as Hermione leaned back, saliva speckling the table as the
words finally pried his mouth open.

She looked down at her notes. “Okay, it's for a potion. What is the purpose of the
potion?”

His chin was wobbling with the strength it was taking to keep his mouth shut, and
a bead of sweat ran across the raised, angry veins in his forehead. She almost
felt sorry for him.

“A cure.”

Hermione's eyes widened as she wrote down the information. She had known
Cleave and Malfoy were closely connected, but she hadn't thought it might have
been for this purpose. As far as she had known, there was no cure.

“For your wife?”

He looked surprised, then miserable. “Yes.”

“And for Malfoy?” He seemed confused. “Harrison Black?”

The confusion didn't leave. “What about him?”

“Were you also getting ingredients for Harrison Black?”

“No. He didn't know about it.”

She doubted that – even if Cleave hadn't known it. It couldn't have been a
coincidence. “Then why were you filling an entire bag with the ingredient?”

His face turned a new shade of red, and she contemplated giving him a bit more
of the potion to make this an easier process for both of them. “That's what they
wanted.”

They. “Who is they?”

“I don't know.”

“How could you not know?”

“I didn't see a face.” The man dropped his head in his hands, his elbows wobbling
on the table. “It's my fault.”

“How is it your fault?”

“I convinced her to do it with me.”

“Do what?”

“Euphoria. I had done it once, she did it twice, and didn't want to do it again. It
only works three times, you know? But these two men came up to me, gave me a
vial. Told me it was improved, that it went beyond three, and it didn't matter if it
had been done three times already. I wasn't supposed to take it.”

“Why weren't you?”

“It was for Black. They wanted him to test it, see what he thought. But I took it
home, figured I'd say I lost it. I gave it to Elisa. She got sick. She got really sick.
I was already too…I didn't notice until I came out of it.”

“You took from the same vial?”

He shook his head. “A regular dose. Or else I'd be in hospital, too. It should be
me. It should be me.”

Hermione's fingers had tightened around her quill to the point where they were
numbing. “You're sure her sickness came from the vial?”

“Yeah. She was fine before that. Perfectly fine. There was something in it.”

Something meant for Malfoy. The same something that had put his father near
death for a year. The symptoms were the same in Lucius and Elisa, an
unexplained Dark magic that Healers were puzzled over. As far as Hermione
knew, no one else had the same illness, but she was going to have to check
before she jumped to conclusions.

Cleave was sobbing now, whispering and whining things into his palms that she
couldn't understand. Hermione recapped her inkwell and gathered her things. She
had more questions to ask, but they'd wait. For a little while.
Chapter 4

(April, 1999)

Granger shrugged and looked up from her cup of tea, the light from the coffee
shop windows turning her eyes an ice blue. Her coloring was always so dull that
he thought he'd prefer the difference, but he hated it. At first, he thought it was
because the black hair and blue eyes reminded him too much of Pansy. Then he
thought it was just because it wasn't Granger. It stripped away things that were
distinctly her, and it made him uneasy.

“Sorry – I've been talking about work a lot, haven't I? It's pretty boring when it
doesn't concern you at all.”

No, she'd actually been talking about Evans a lot. Every story or event she
started in on contained him, and it was bothering Draco since the second one.
More when she smiled to herself on the fourth one after talking about waiting for
a meeting to start, which Draco found nothing amusing about to any degree.

He was irritated, there was a tenseness in his neck he couldn't crack out, and his
tea had gone cold.

“Do you ever get sick pretending to be someone else?”

Her eyes widened, and her cup clinked back to the table. “Uh…”

“Every time I see you outside of Potter's, you're wearing a different face. Evans
probably only knows you from photographs in the paper. You're constantly
forgetting the change in your appearance, as if it's who you are. Monitoring what
you say in public, hiding your life. Are you ever concerned you'll take off the
enchantments, and find you feel more at home in the person you are outside of
your flat?”

Her fingers tightened around her cup until her knuckles were white, and he
waited for it to break.

“Sometimes,” she said quietly.

His irritation demanded anger, not a soft voice, and scared honesty, and lowered
eyes. He expected to be more irritated, but it spun into something else he refused
to call guilt. Whatever it was, it made him feel awkward, and it wasn't often he
experienced it.
“I do it for a lot of reasons. All the ones I've already told you. But I guess…I
guess it feels like I can't be who I am when I look like who I am. When I show
that to people. Does that make sense?” She shook her head. “I know it doesn't
make sense. But there's these expectations about how and who I'm supposed to
be, but I'm a lot of things, and not always that. Not always what they want me to
be. So I guess it's easier to pretend I'm never that at all.”

Maybe Granger forgot who it was she was talking to. It would explain a lot of
things in the past few months, and certainly why she still didn't seem to realize
what she said and to who. But he had learned that a human being can never be
who they aren't. They can embrace a part of them or an ideal and try to remain
that way, but they will always slip, and fail, to show themselves or lose a self to
be true to.

The whole world is connected through emotion. The cause, the belief might be
different, but we feel the same. At times when Draco shook with rage, he would
contemplate if it was the same feeling his father got before his father did worse
things. What differentiates is who you are, and what you do with it. It's why he
was sitting here. It's why Granger would always be Granger.

“I know a few things about expectations. You'll find it's better in the end to do the
things that who you are demands you do, rather than someone else. You lose
more failing yourself than failing them.”

Granger stared at him for long enough that his irritation was prickling back into
life, before steam started rising from his tea. She put her wand away as he
looked up, straightening up in her chair.

“I read this theory…”

()

A hand clamped over Hermione's mouth, warm and damp, as an arm pressed into
her stomach. The foreboding feeling she had had while creeping down the
weakly-lit stone corridors folded in on itself and hardened, a pulsing knot of panic
shooting adrenaline into her blood. A hard body pressed against her back as she
was pulled and jerked into a room.

She crumpled the blueprint of the facility in her hand and threw an elbow back, a
heavy grunt sounding at the side of her head and felt against her. She twisted in
the weakened hold, and the palm that left her mouth smacked into the wrist of
her wand hand. Fingers wrapping tightly, pressuring the bones, as the room
plunged into darkness. She still saw a chin, mouth, nose before she couldn't see
anything at all, and it was enough to know.
“If you don't let me go, I'm going to hex and arrest you.” She stomped on his
foot, but he still managed to twist her hand behind her back, nearly making her
stab herself with her wand.

“As opposed to you arresting me if I do?”

“At least you'll miss the hexing.”

“Promises, promises, Granger.”

She stopped struggling against his hold, and her head jerked up quickly enough
to hit off his chin, his teeth clinking together. “How did you know it was me?”

It was probably her voice. Or maybe the way she walked. He must have been
following her, a charm on his feet to keep them silent.

“You're the only person I know who could be here, show up for the first time with
a layout, and just enter with no plan.”

She narrowed her eyes, as senseless as it was in the darkness. “Who says it's my
first time here?”

He couldn't know that unless he'd been following her around. If he had been,
though, he might have tried breaking into the two places she had gone before
this. Out of the four that were approved to have Fligmar sap, the ingredient
scribbled on a note found with Cleave, this was the easiest place to get into, but
he didn't always do things the easy way.

Never the easy way. “How long have you been skulking about this place before
knowing enough to break in tonight? Or did you only come in because you saw
me?”

She moved her hand from the push of it against his chest, the blueprint crinkling
in her grip. She'd kick him before he got his hands on it. Unless he had already
seen what he needed to when he was stalking her through the place, considering
she had circled the supply rooms on the blueprint she was looking at.

His grip loosened, and she tightened her hold on her wand. “Apparate out.”

She shoved back from the touch of his arms and hand, and aimed her wand into
the blackness. She'd rather not be the one to light the place, since it would give
him a second between him seeing and her spell finishing, and she wasn't willing
to let him have the chance. “You're here for the sap, aren't you?”

Silence.
“You're after what Cle—”

Light tunneled into the room as Malfoy ducked out of one of the doors, and she
ran after him, lighting the room when the door slammed shut behind him. The
doorknob refused to budge in the twist of her hand, and the first five unlocking
spells were fruitless. Hermione kicked the door in her anger, forgetting her need
for silence, and then tried again.

(April, 1999)

Draco exited the hallway as Blinky popped out of the room. Granger's hands were
empty and busying themselves by twisting around one another – she was
nervous, he had learned. She was wearing Muggle clothes, a t-shirt and jeans,
and her hair was pulled back into an explosion of curls from the crown of her
head. There wasn't a hint of anything wizarding on her – though he knew her
wand had to be somewhere – and it made him suspicious.

“You're making this a habit.”

She shrugged. “It's better than kicking animals or something.”

“That high up on the list?”

“I know, I was surprised too.” Her hands moved back to wringing around one
another. “We got a list of items from your mum. Food, household things, potions.”

“Oh.” He walked forward, holding out his hand, but let it drop when a list didn't
appear out of anywhere.

“I figured I could Apparate you to Diagon. I know you hate the Knight Bus, and I
have the day off, so… And I have the list.” She tapped her temple. “Though I can
write it down if you prefer going by yourself. That's fine. Just thought I'd offer. I
have nothing else to do, really. I got bored.”

“I thought you couldn't get bored.”

“I've run out of books to read. I have to stop and get some.” She always stared at
his shoulder when she was lying to him. With Potter, she'd start wiping ink
smudges from her fingers. Strangers, she met their eyes, or something close
enough to look like it.

“You're going like that?” he asked, and she looked down at her clothes. “Without
the enchantments, Granger.”
“Oh. Yeah. Why?”

He shook his head, clapping for his boots, and smirked at her flare of annoyance.

()

Hermione walked around the man with a large camera in front of his face, the
flash so bright that it temporarily blinded her behind him. Fink nodded at her,
circling something on the notepad he was holding.

“Unspeakable traced it back. Definitely Malfoy.” He waved a hand at her look, ink
staining his pinky. “Within the margin of error.”

She looked across the pavement and to the bottom of a shoe, the trouser leg
pulled and twisted enough to expose an argyle sock climbing the calf.
“Witnesses?”

“Yeah,” Fink said, jerking his chin toward two blurry figures outside of the privacy
wards.

Hermione turned with Fink, both of them walking towards the outlines. “Odd how
there's always witnesses, isn't it?”

He didn't answer.

(May, 1999)

Potter had handed Draco his wand like he handed him a drink. Draco didn't know
why he kept seeing Potter's indifferent look in his head, or hearing the way he
had kept going on in conversation like he wasn't handing over something that
helped kill the Dark Lord. Or that Draco hadn't touched in over a year, after Potter
had ripped it from his hands in the parlor Draco was standing in now.

He thought there might be a weight to it. A dark, unsettling feeling that would
creep through his blood when he used it. Like a piece of Voldemort had entered
into the core and remained there, to enter into Draco every time he opened
himself to it. But it was just magic. His magic. Part of his very being, whether he
held a wand or not.

“The chandelier…” his mother said, staring up at the light filtering through
crystals.

“I bought a new one. My vault was opened yesterday.”

He didn't have the money or ability to fix anything until then – a situation he had
never encountered, and that made him feel helpless until he was too angry to
notice it anymore. When he was first released, he used the money his father had
hidden in the manor. His father had learned after the first war about the Ministry's
habit of freezing vaults, and Draco suspected the boxes had been stashed around
the house since shortly after his first release. There was a time where Draco
would have left it untouched and waiting for him, but that was when he saw his
father like he never grew past his knee. Before he saw him as a man reduced to
fear and ill-favor, where Draco was finally on his level and could not aspire to be
his equal but above him.

The money ran out, though, and the Ministry's idea of an acceptable weekly
allowance had made him a pauper for four months.

“You fixed the walls?”

“I fixed everything.” Every single thing he wanted to rub out of existence since he
was released. It took him two days, a lot of magic, and no sleep, but he had been
determined. And when Draco was determined, there was little that could stop
him.

His mother smiled, and it wasn't the one she gave him when she was being
strong, but the one she gave him when he was. It was happy.

()

Cleave shook his head, his eyes watering before he blinked it back. “I don't know.
I just dropped the ingredient off each time I got a new one.”

“Where?”

“I always went by Portkey. It was a dark room. Underground, I think. Stone. It

was wet, really cold.”

“Is that where you signed the contract?”

“Maybe. Some place like it.”

“What was in the contract?”

A long stream of gibberish flew out of Cleave's mouth. For a second, she thought
it might be a foreign language and he was trying to get around the Veritaserum,
but he looked too helpless. There must have been spells in place on the contract
to stop him from talking about it – she wasn't going to get anything useful now.
Hermione rubbed her temple as the gibberish finally ended. She could have seen
if there was some way to lift the block, but if he had signed a contract, there
wasn't any way to do it without having the contract on hand. Even then…

“Did Harrison Black have you sign it?”

“No.”

She looked up from her parchment. “You said you didn't know.”

“I know it wasn't him.”

Hermione contemplated him, wondering how it was he could know Malfoy wasn't
the one who offered him the contract if he never saw the person or people who
did. “Was Harrison Black or Draco Malfoy in the contract?”

Gibberish again.

Hermione tapped her quill. “Was I in the contract?”

“No.”

So Malfoy was. That was only a slighter lesser problem than if he had been the
one who offered it.

A loophole. She could work with this.

(June, 1999)

Curls. There was something programmed into his brain that made him pay
attention to any glimpse of springy locks of hair bouncing around him. It wasn't a
new development – he'd been hyper-aware of that sort of hair since the day he
mentally proclaimed Granger his enemy when he was too young to know what a
real one was.

If it wasn't for that, he never would have spotted her inside the cafe, slumped
over a book at a corner table, her palm pressed to her cheek for head support or
to help hide her from the staring. But even without seeing her face, he knew the
hair, and her inky fingers, and the curve of her hunched studying pose. If it
wasn't for that programming of his mind taking control over normal thought
processes, he never would have stepped inside like it was a good idea.

Draco stood tense in the line to the counter, people standing far enough away
from him not to touch him, as he preferred. He stared up at the sign on the wall
behind the counter, food and beverages with their prices listed in sloppy, chalked
print. It was a blur as he concentrated on that slim line of sight from the corner of
his right eye, where Granger was somewhere hidden behind two tables and
business men.

Why had he come in? He was only on the street to pick up some potions so his
mother would stop crackle-coughing dry and hard in a sound that made him think
of death. He had no business here. He hadn't even seen Granger in a month,
since the day Potter told him they couldn't keep his mother at the house against
her will. Draco had ignored Potter's owl for dinner, and the one Granger had sent
a week after that.

He was picking up his life now, and those essential pieces never involved
Hermione Granger and Harry Potter. They had been set up for so long in the
slanting tower of things he didn't want, before it crashed and took everything with
it. A life couldn't start over properly with pieces of the things that broke it. While
some of those things were part of himself, he couldn't do anything about those.
This he could.

He felt nervous. Like he had assigned a task to the universe to make it result in
what they please, and he knew damn well that didn't go in his favor. He should
leave. She wouldn't have even noticed him come in – he would think she was
more open for attack while reading than while sleeping. Not that he wanted her to
notice he was in there. It was more…if she did. If she did then maybe she was
supposed to, and if she acknowledged it, then maybe he was supposed to.
Because he thought about her sometimes. More than he should. And when he
wasn't angry over it, he wondered what she was doing, and what she thought of
him now.

“It's been three weeks.”

Draco turned, confronted with a glaring Granger, her foot tapping. Had she gone
around the room? He hadn't even seen her coming.

“What?” His voice came out dry, and he cleared his throat, side-stepping up in the
line.

“You must have finished reading it in three weeks, and you haven't sent it back.
You stole my book.”

“I didn't steal your book.”

“You stole it!”

Draco glanced around at the people glancing at them. The last thing he needed
was a mob of hero-lovers attacking him. “Just because I didn't return it, doesn't
mean I stole it.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, her hands finding her hips. He expected her to
stomp her foot next. It could be hard to remember she was a capable, powerful
witch when she was petulant. He smirked at her, and she jabbed a finger into his
chest.

“That's guilt!”

“Smiling is guilt? Shit, Granger, never join the Wizengamot.”

“I'm very fair.”

“When you're not jumping to conclusions, and then accusing with no grounds.”

“Three weeks, smirking, guilty. Anyone who wouldn't find it as such is an idiot. So
I'm not surprised you don't find it as such, but I thought you'd catch on to the
obviousness of your own guilt by now.”

He glowered at her, and she raised her chin a little higher. “If I meant to steal it,
I'd have told you I lost it. Furthermore, I could buy every copy out of the
bookshop if I was so inclined, and I have no reason to steal it.”

“The thrill.” She sniffed.

“The…thrill of stealing a book?” He raised an eyebrow. “Is that how you inject
some excitement into your life, Granger? Carry a big bag to the bookshop, do
you? Have—”

“There's no fun in the crime unless you're getting something out of it, which is
the tangible object, and the intangible thrill. And stealing something unnecessary,
like a book, must be for the thrill.”

“I see you've thought about this. Made colored charts over my reasoning? If I was
—”

“Did you read it at least?”

He looked over at the man behind the counter as he cleared his throat, and
ignored the aggravated huff behind him. “I did.”

“Good.” She turned on her heel. “I'll be waiting at the table.”

It took three coughs and throat-clearings from around him before he dragged his
eyes off her retreating form.
()

Hermione nodded to the Auror recruit, a week shy of joining the department,
sweat on his brow and his mouth set in a grim line. The recruit stood from the
table, shooting Cleave a glare, and walked for the door. She pressed herself
against the molding, giving him enough space to get through.

“He won't crack,” he muttered as he passed, and Hermione gave his back a
bewildered look as she moved inside the room.

She hadn't called the recruits in to crack Cleave. She had done so because, if
anything, they were trying to crack the contract, and no one else had the time to
go through the process constantly. She'd let the recruits continue thinking that,
though, if it only made them more willing.

Hermione shut the door, then took the seat across from Cleave, pushing a cup of
coffee across the table. He took a large gulp of it, wincing at the taste or heat,
and then cleared his throat.

Hermione found the last place the recruit crossed out, and readied her quill.
“Lelep?”

“No.”

“Lelep seed?”

“No.”

“Lelep stem?”

“No.

“Lionfish?”

(June, 1999)

“—accidents happen in every line of work—”

“Except it's not an accident when the person purposely casts—”

“—and salve, and it's better than it was before it even happened. It doesn't make
me a masoch—“

“—have a problem that nothing is bound to help wi— Oh, so you're not
masochistic, you're just a hero that—“
“—problem, it's a good thing when you choose a line of work that helps other
people. And it doesn't make you a hero either, it just—“

“You all have a complex. It's actually disturbing. You all spent too long—“

“You're the one who is disturbing. If you can help people, why wouldn't you?
Really, that's—“

“—hunchback, a flat filled with books, and a list of people saved that you can't
remember. Potter will—“

“—receding hairline, and one of those bitter faces that is very, very wrinkled, and
you'll probably have a limp. I don't know why you'll have a limp, but you'll have
one. Probably from kicking innocent things, or—“

“—get a job helping people cross the street, and saving children from accidental
magic, or getting a job at Hogwarts to interrupt every episode of school bullying.
He'll be fifty and reduced to cutting meat for the elderly who proclaim him a hero,
while he proclaims that he's only a man.”

Her lips moved silently as she searched for a response, and Draco watched the
emotions play over her expression. He smirked when he caught the amusement,
victorious.

“You are incorrigible!” she yelled, but her eyes were bright and her smile was
trembling as she tried to restrain it. “And I'm smiling at the image in my head
because it's so ridiculous, and not because you're right.”

“Right.”

“I'm exactly right. I'm always right.”

“Except for yesterday, when you said—”

“No,” she said, holding up her hand, “I told you already that it was an accidental
phrasing—“

“—week, when you… Right, an accidental phrasing. Then I hope your statement
that you're always right was accidental as well, or you'd end up being wrong.”

“No, that was a very correct, purposeful statement you can take as fact from this
point onward.”

Draco hummed, studying the way she would appear serious if it wasn't for the
smile curving her mouth. He didn't know if she could ever be darkly serious when
she wasn't fighting for something that couldn't fight for itself, and so always
retaining some form of brightness.

Granger was light, like some part of the sun was free and unbound inside of her.
It was impossible to not be drawn to her as all things were to light, to embrace it
or fight it. Impossible to not reach out and skim his fingertips across smooth skin,
the soft slope of her cheek. He didn't mean to, it just happened, like all things
that related to them both rather than singularly. She swayed forward, and he
mirrored her, her smile fading as she whispered about something being
incorrigible again.

He didn't intend on kissing her. He never intended on kissing her. But he did, and
then he wrapped an arm around her too, and pulled her against him. And when
her fingers touched like feathers to his cheeks before tangling in his hair, that sun
traveled inside of him and to his chest, and it was unrestrained and near as
bright.

()

The two sheets of parchment fluttered down to her desk, followed by a thin case
file. Hermione glanced a questioning look to Fink before opening the file, scanning
it quickly.

“The Merryrose case – gathered money from criminals' vaults under a business
facade before transferring them to overseas banks.”

“Right, but—”

“The other papers are a witness interview. And this…this is Malfoy, right?”

She took the picture Fink held out, watching Draco stare down at his feet before
lifting his head. He was angry, his eyes bright against the darkness of his jail
clothes and dirty stone, but she saw the fear there too, rampant under the
surface.

“Yeah.”

“Bludger.”

She dragged her eyes up, looking at the vial of swirling, milky memory that Fink
was holding up. “What?”

“The witness identified a blond man, and picked Malfoy in a photo lineup. But it's
not him.”
She had the intense urge to stand, snatch the memory from his hand, and make
a break for the nearest Pensieve. She settled for rolling her hand quickly in the
air, and he seemed to get the point.

“It looks similar – similar enough that I'm not surprised they thought it was
Malfoy, and whoever it is is damn good at Glamour and illusion spells. It could
almost be Poly—”

“Fink–“

“But either Malfoy got his nose busted to make it wider, and is a stupid enough
criminal to change his eyes brown but keep white hair, or you're right. Which…I
thought you were out of your mind until,” he paused as he reached into his
pocket, and she was too distracted to even take offense, “until this. The face in
this memory? Blurry. But the man specifically remembered seeing Malfoy in the
shop before it happened in the Layweather case.”

“That's the man who wouldn't confirm since he wasn't absolutely sure?”

“Right. And the only reason that the face would be blurry in a Pensieve viewing is
if the person never actually saw—”

“The one who did it.”

Fink turned his palm toward the ceiling. “Since we record more in our memories
than our brains can access. But we also create information in our minds. Which
could be why another witness from the same case, who was sure it was the bloke
in the shop, has a fairly clear picture of Malfoy as the attacker.”

She shook her head slowly. “But there must be an inconsistency. If they only got
a quick look at Malfoy, they would envision the memory of his face that they could
access with their minds. Not the exact replica, unless they happen to have a
photographic memory.”

Fink smiled, and Hermione stood quickly, her chair tipping before settling on its
legs again. “You want to view them?”

“Where are the other witness memories?”

Fink pocketed the vials. “Most weren't willing to give theirs for various reasons.”

“Well, then,” Hermione said, moving across her office and yanking her robe from
a hook near the door, “we'll just have to convince them.”

(July, 1999)
The scent of Granger's sweat was sweet and light as Draco watched a drop slide
down the slope of her neck. He imagined it would be thicker and muskier there, if
he were to lean over and breathe her in. Making it past the frizz of her hair would
be his greatest obstacle; it seemed undecided on where to go, and so it went
everywhere, sticking to her damp skin and bursting out around her head.

“Think about it. Dinosaurs ruled the earth – now they're dead. Lions, panthers,
sharks ruled, and now they're all in zoos.”

“It's because any species with the power to control will do so. Just like people
within humanity itself.”

“That's untrue. At least, not all people. Some don't accept positions of power
they're offered. And there are people who have the power to control their own
life, and they never accept the responsibility to do so. They ignore it when they
could use it do whatever it is they want. With their own life, of course, not just
anything. But instead, they let someone else control it.”

“We're all controlled to some extent, and some more than others.” She gave him
an affronted look, and he continued before she started in on something. “Your
relationship with Potter. If you didn't have one, you wouldn't have even known
the details of the Dark Lord's return, or that he had until the Ministry announced
it. You wouldn't have found yourself fighting in it alongside him. You wouldn't
have the life you do now. So, you are controlled by Potter's influence in your life.”

“Yes, but—”

“The same with the Ministry you work for, and the laws you follow, and the
decisions people make around you. No one has complete control over their lives.”

“But people have more control than what they settle for. Using Harry again, if he
allowed someone else to control his life, he would have been dead. He wouldn't
have broken rules, he wouldn't have—”

“Some would argue that Potter did give up control.” She furrowed her eyebrows
at him as he veered further from the street and the car speeding down it. “To the
fate people claimed he had. He could have taken off somewhere and let the world
become what it would. Instead, he gave in.”

“As his choice,” she said. “He controlled that. Harry does what he wants to do,
what he feels the need to do. Sometimes that's what people say he should do,
and sometimes it's exactly what he shouldn't do. I'm talking about the people
who do things they don't want to because someone tells them they have to. Er,
that is…sometimes people do it because they have to for other reasons.
Sometimes they are just misled. But it's the people who realize that, and then
regain control, and then don't use it to make the best life they can for
themselves. A life they want.

“And it's dealing with cruelty when they should get a divorce, or quit their job, or
begin a revolution. There is no person that should have the power to make you
desperately unhappy, while you take it instead of making it better. We all have the
power to make our lives better. Not all of us do.”

Or know how, Draco thought. Mistakes do not get easier to make, they become
more difficult. When you know the exact way in which a small mistake can
damage your entire future, the presence of choices becomes paralyzing. Even if
it's all you had wanted.

They turned on the street, and Potter's house came into view on the other side.
This was a bad idea. He knew them well enough to recognize it. He just didn't
know if it was a bad idea that made him lose sleep, or an ear, or more important
things.

“I'm just saying that one day, something bigger and stronger will come along to
do what it wants with us. Something that can't be stopped. It's the natural
pattern of life.”

Draco thought it was already there and always had been. That it was fate and
time, and the monsters it created, and the things it took away. But maybe it
would be a virus, one created in a facility by man. It was humanity's greatest
weakness – the arrogance that attempted to control things bigger than itself, and
so the creation of the tools in which would destroy them. And that was in all
things.

“Is this where you tell me that you have an underground shelter filled with
supplies, and a five-year plan on how to lead a resistance to reclaim the world?”

She twisted around to face him, the doorknob turned in her hand as she paused
in pushing it open. He wouldn't be surprised if Weasley was on the other side with
his wand and suspicion. Draco didn't know if he was the one in the cage or the
one looking into it.

Granger opened her eyes wide enough that the blue twilight seemed to infiltrate
and change them almost green. “How did you know?”

He shrugged, and she reached out to grab his arm like he might plan on leaving.
He let her. “I'm more intelligent than you, so I have you all figured out… It wasn't
a joke, Granger, and it certainly wasn't that humorous.”

“Sorry,” she heaved out through laughter and sharp inhales. “You're just so cute.”
“Cute?”

“Like a little kitten in front of a lion, that's rar, and the lion is raaawr. Er, but less
pirate-like and more…grr. Fierce. Animalistic. Wild. Dangerou— The point is that
you're slightly endearing, but it's not going to end well. Kitten, Malfoy.” She
moved her finger from his chest and to hers. “Lion.”

Draco hummed, pressing a palm into the door at either side of her shoulders as
she released the doorknob. “But lions ended up in cages, so I fail to see any bit of
you being dangerous.”

“But you're in my cage, so if you can't see the danger, you—”

“It's because it's not there. I'd like to see you wild, Granger. Out of control. But if
you think I can't keep up, you've already lost the battle.”

Pink crept along her cheeks and lined her ears, and Draco wanted to turn it red.
He moved back instead, too aware of where they were standing to be that
distracted with the warmth of her, but Granger followed him. She waited for the
surprise to turn to knowledge, or maybe to make sure he wasn't moving back
again, because that was when she kissed him.

Her hands fisted in the front of his shirt, and her lips were full, and soft, and
tugging on his own, and it no longer mattered where they stood. He curved a
hand over her shoulder, but it wasn't enough, and so he smoothed his palms
down her sides, tugged her closer, filled all that empty space with her.

The tips of their tongues met, and she made a breathy little sound that rocked
him forward and caused a knot to tighten in his stomach. Need, and his hands
clenched on her hips as he kissed her harder, intent on hearing that sound again,
and again, until he'd committed it to memory and future reference.

Something thumped against the door, and he acknowledged it as Granger's back

with the way she jumped against him, leaning into her for the steadier balance
when he felt uneven on his feet. But then the doorknob sounded, and she was
pulling all that warmth away from him.

She turned as Draco looked up, one of her hands still attached to his shirt and
twisting it tighter, pulling it hard against his nape. It took her a second of staring
at Potter before she noticed, dropping her hand as her breath rushed out. Draco
was too busy holding his own.

Potter was wide-eyed, looking back, forth, back. Granger was setting herself into
her brave posturing, clearing her throat and raising her chin as Draco
contemplated the benefits and consequences of drawing his wand.
Potter hit his palm against the side of the door, then turned, leaving it open as he
walked toward the entrance of the living room. And then he laughed.

()

Larry O'Keefe, the only one of the two men who gave Cleave recognized as giving
him a bad dose of Euphoria, worked for a place named Bell-Ghramer Company.
Hermione couldn't be sure, not yet, but it had immediately reminded her of the
crates they were transporting from Runson with BGC stamped on the wood.

Entering the company was useless, especially with a man like O'Keefe sitting on
the Board of Directors. She had known she would get nothing out of them unless
she found illegal activity, and she hadn't in her research, and Fink hadn't in the
four days he tailed O'Keefe. It was something that would have happened behind
closed doors, wards, and silencing charms. But maybe…maybe here as well.

“Maybe we should have went with the plan to dress up like female escorts.”

“You really have a strong urge to wear women's clothing, don't you?” Hermione
muttered, peering around the building and to the one next to it. “Maybe it's
something you should talk with your wife about.”

“I don't like sending my partner in alone.” Fink sounded annoyed, and she didn't
blame him. She wouldn't have been willing to sit back at all.

“I'll be fine.”

“You're going in as yourself. You'll be a target the second you pass the door.”

“If I pass the door.”

“You're Hermione Granger. They're going to let you into an exclusive club.”

“Maybe. But I also don't have Harry following behind me, and if they know who I
am, they probably know I'm an Auror. I don't think a place like this appreciates
things like that.”

“I should have Polyjuice'd into Potter,” Fink mumbled.

“O'Keefe might not even be here.”

“He's come here for the past four nights. He's here. Just remember to get to the
toilet right away, change your appearance. You have the clothes?”

“Of course.” She ducked back into the alleyway. “They might serve the likes of
O'Keefe and be an investment of BGC, but they're still a business. They aren't
going to do something stupid. There's probably just a bunch of rich people and
people who want to get close to them, drinking expensive liquor, smoking cigars,
networking, and dancing in a way not suited for the public. I'm just looking for
anything that could open an investigation, or anything suspicious.”

“Just be careful, Granger. And don't drink anything. Signal if you need me in.”

“Got it.”

They exchanged a nod as she rounded the corner, smoothing her hair. She raised
her chin while doing her best not to look like she had every intention of arresting
everyone, and approached the two large men at the front door with a stretched
smile. Her heart was beating somewhere in the vicinity of her throat as they
surveyed her, and she didn't miss the quick exchange of glances before the one
on the left opened the door.

Hermione stepped into a room with dark floors and beige walls, the lighting
mellow and golden as a woman smiled at her. “Would you like to check your
robe?”

“Er…no, thank you.” She would probably look a bit out of place with it on, but she
didn't plan on staying herself for long. She'd shrink the robe when she changed
her appearance.

The woman held out her hand. “Your wand, please?”

Hermione rocked forward. “Excuse me?”

“Unless you have an official invitation?”

The hair on her arms stood on end as she glanced behind her, expecting a setup.
“An invitation?”

“Only invitation holders are allowed to enter with their wand. It's a matter of
safety for our guests.”

“Surely, I can be trusted with my wand.” Hermione grinned widely enough to hurt
her cheeks.

“Oh, of course. It's just a matter of policy.”

Hermione nodded knowingly before casting a quick Confundus Charm, and

dropped several Sickles in the woman's waiting palm. She smiled again, sliding
her wand out of sight as the woman blinked, eyebrows furrowing.
“For checking my wand. Keep safe watch of it!”

“I will.” The woman shook her head quickly, closing her fingers around the coins
before smiling at Hermione.

“Thank you. Through these doors, then?”

“Yes. Have a good evening!”

The doors opened to a small entryway that branched into a wide hallway on the
right, and into a large room on the left. The music wasn't too loud, but it drowned
out any conversations being held on the first floor. A railing twisted around the
space on the second floor, a few figures standing at the edge and staring down.
Past them, she could make out elegant tables, pockets of chattering people, and
wisps of smoke. Down the hall, she could see a group of people surrounding a
table, cards in hand, and so she turned left.

The dance floor wasn't crowded enough for her to get lost in it, but it allowed her
to see the two entrances on the other side of it. She was guessing that's where
the loos were, and she walked for them, forcing herself not to look up at the
second floor. She felt like someone was watching her, like everyone was, but
paranoia could make a person believe in anything.

A man knocked into her, a bottle of something in one hand while two girls danced
against him to either side. Hermione staggered to the side, but they didn't seem
to notice her at all, and she twisted faster through the people. She entered the
hall she saw a woman leave from, and her paranoia grew steeper as the hallway
grew darker.

She turned, the music dropping down low enough that there had to have been a
Muffling Charm along the corner. There were a dozen doors in front of her, most
of them open, and she checked in three before deciding they were all toilets. She
looked behind her, making sure no one was following or watching, and ducked
into a loo near the end of the hall.

She moved quickly, needing to be faster than what they would expect if they had
seen her go in and expected her just to use the toilet. She changed her hair to
black and straight, trying to twist it back on her head while unbuttoning her robe
at the same time. She was kicking her skirt off, reaching into her pocket for the
shrunken clothes, when the doorknob jangled.

Hermione spun around, the loo door slamming shut behind a tall man with olive
skin and brown eyes. She pulled her wand as he shot forward, stepping back
when he grabbed her skirt and robe from the floor. He paused, returning her
glare.
“Wh—”

“Do you plan to fight me in a toilet standing in your knickers, Granger?”

She pulled back when he sprung forward, but he seemed to have expected it, the
feeling of Apparition taking her over the moment his hand grabbed her arm. She
staggered, and his grip tightened until she jerked her arm out of it. She reached
out for her skirt and he pushed it into her hand, lights flickering on overhead.

“I knew you'd be there,” she bit out, scanning the room.

A bed, table, television. Headlights passed over the blinds at the window, the
lights electric. What was he doing in a Muggle hotel room? It couldn't be where he
always stayed – he wouldn't bring her there.

“What were you doing? Planning to kill him?” She shot him a glare as she stepped
into her skirt, and he didn't even have the decency to turn around.

“What?”

“Another body to add to the trail of them you've left across Britain,” she muttered
angrily, zipping her skirt. “They all have your wand trace on them. Witnesses to
place you there. If…”

He had gone pale, or maybe it was just the enchantments he had taken off at
some point during her dressing, but there was no hint of color in his face. His
eyes were wide, and she didn't think he was breathing at all.

“What?” He sounded strained.

“The tenth body was found last—“

“I didn't kill anyone.” His anger was a slow unraveling as he got back to
breathing, color swarming in as his jaw and fists clenched. “You think I did?”

Out of all the questions he could have asked had he not known about it, she
wouldn't have expected that one. The Ministry, maybe, but not her specifically,
with all that accusation building with his rage. With the look on his face, she felt
as if she had somehow betrayed him, and it made her want to shove him even
before he took the step away from her.

“The wand trace they did when I was arrested? I don't even have my wand—”

“Who does?”

“–anyone who can use my wand decently would—”

“Fit within the margin of error.”

“And witnesses could be lying for any purpose, or obviously mistaken, because I
didn't do it. The Ministry isn't going to be satisfied until they see me back in a—”

She rolled her eyes. “The Ministry isn't killing—”

“Well, someone is who isn't me,” he yelled. “You can believe whatever the—”

“I don't think you did it,” she snapped, tired of the way he was somehow making
her feel guilty with the way he was looking at her, even when there was nothing
for her to feel guilty about. But every time she looked at the floor and reminded
herself, she would look back up to find it there, tightening her chest. It was him
who should feel that way, if anyone was going to.

“Right. With my trail of bodies-- Are you going to take that for a confession?
Maybe—“

“If I believed it was you, I would have arrested you by now!” she yelled. “We
wouldn't even be here, because I would have Stunned you the moment I saw you
in that alleyway!”

He looked at her for long seconds, and then down at the black wool in his hand.
Her robe – she had forgotten that he was holding it. He folded it over his arm,
easing wrinkles with his fingertips before lifting his head. He looked a lot more
composed than she knew he was.

“Why aren't you?”

“What?”

“Why aren't you doing your job?”

“I am.”

“So if the Ministry knew you were in a hotel room with me right now, without
every intention of trying to bind me and bring me in, they would consider it as
you doing your job?”

They were more likely to put her on probation, and would certainly take her off
the case. She took a deep breath to somehow kill the silence before he could get
smug. “I am doing my job. My job is to find out who murdered these people and
for what reason. To get the facts. And I don't think that's going to work if you're
in a jail cell.”
“It would be easier.”

She huffed a laugh she didn't feel. “If you gave me information.” Everything
would be easier then.

“If you arrested me.”

She raised her eyebrows. On some days, just hearing him say it would have been
enough for her to do it. Other days, she would have brought him to her flat with
illegally acquired Veritaserum. It all depended on her level of fed up, because she
was always fed up with him. “Are you trying to convince me?”

“I'm trying to see why.”

“I told you already.” She shifted on her feet, uneasy under that calculated,
searching look. “They'll convict you on the evidence and the past. I'm trying to
find enough proof.” For him. For him, for him, for him, and he wasn't giving her
anything.

He looked at the wall for four breaths, and when he looked back at her, her lungs
seized up. There was something achingly, painfully familiar about his expression.
Something that triggered panic and fear in her without her knowing why. It was
like forgetting something very important she had been memorizing for weeks, at
the very moment in which she needed to know it the most.

“Who was killed and where?”

“If you tell me what's going on—”

“I can't. Not yet.”

She glared at him, her anger burning her up. “So I just have to keep following
you and some seemingly unconnected businesses and people—” And bodies, and
lying to her department, and losing sleep, and…

“Actually—”

“–you didn't do something you swear you didn't do, while you give me nothing to
help—”

“Then don't do it!” he yelled. “I don't want you in—”

“–why you were there tonight, when he is obviously connected to—“

“He has something I want! I'm—“

“Part of the cure?”

Draco opened his mouth, closed it, and then narrowed his eyes. He hated being
caught off-guard as much as she did.

“I told you to back off. You shouldn't have even been there tonight. These are
dangerous people—”

“I know a thing or two about dangerous people, and I'm not backing off from
anything! If there's some sort of poison, I need to know before it's given to the
public and—”

“He's not giving it to the public! He's using it to get what he wants, which is
revenge, and not to take over the wo—“

He cut himself off, and she tried to blank her expression. She tried to look as
disinterested as he managed to pull off at all the moments it could infuriate her
the most. But maybe you couldn't hide the strength of her curiosity, or he just
knew her well enough to know she didn't miss anything. Not usually.

“Stay—”

“Who is he? O'Keefe?” On his father as well? There was no one Lucius could have
wronged after the war, so it had to be before it, and O'Keefe did not stand on the
lighter side of the world. “Revenge? For…for…” She tilted her head, because there
was only one event in the past year and a half that she tied with the Dark, and
revenge, and a lot of other things. “Wyatt is dead.”

“Good.”

“So, Wyatt—”

“I don't give a fuck about Wyatt,” he growled.

“I find that extremely hard to believe!”

“Because you're blinded by the bullshit!”

Her mouth dropped open, and his jaw locked as he shoved a hand through his
hair, yanking on the ends.

“I told you to stay out of it—“

“It's a case, Malfoy, it can't be—”

“Then give it to someone else.” He said it through his teeth, and she wondered
why he was so angry that it was her.

“Yes, that will work wonderfully, since it will put all my efforts to waste, and you
in a cell. No other Auror would let you go free—“

“Then let them try to stop me—“

“Try? Perfect! Let's add resisting arrest and attacking Aurors to the list of criminal
activity piling up around you! Nothing says innocent to the Wizengamot quite like
a ten minute reading of charges!”

“Just let it go, Granger.”

“I can't do that.”

“Then back off for a while! Concentrate on something else!” She snorted. “I need
some time without you following behind me at every step, or ruin— I'm not doing
anything wrong, I'm making it right.”

“Not the right way.”

“The only way. We all don't have your—”

“Just tell me! I can help! Don't you realize by now how different things can be if
you ask for some help, instead of acting like there's only one way!”

His expression was unreadable because she rarely saw it there, or it was a tangle
of too many emotions. Whatever it or one of them was, he preferred she didn't
see it, because he lowered his head to stare at the space between them. His jaw
was working, the knots at either end pushing out, relaxing, pushing out.

“You don't know what it's like to lose everything, Granger. But there's a level of
ground you have to reach before you can start putting everything to rights. What
is it…picking up the pieces, figuring out what each one is and where it fits. I can't
do that until it's over. I already told you that I don't want your help. You're the
last person I wanted involved…though the first I expected to be.”

“I'm already involved. Y—”

“No, you're not.”

“I am! And I'm going to figure it all out, whether you tell me or not. Tell—”

“And if you wait until I'm done, I'll tell you everything.”

Done with what? “I can't do that. I need to know what you're doing with the
Euphoria, and selling it.” To start with.

He looked suspicious. It wasn't what she was expecting. “I never sold Euphoria.”

“Dr—”

“I didn't. I made it, it was stolen, I found out by who, and they paid me for what
they stole.”

“That's rubbish!”

“It's the truth. I never released it to the public, or told anyone to sell it.”

“Then why would you make so much of it? Or at all?”

The suspicion left, and she wondered what part of that had been right. Or wrong.
If the suspicion was gone, it meant she was off the point.

“I was experimenting with potions. I made it, then tried perfecting it to keep it
from stopping at three doses. I made different variations, but it only ever worked
three times from what I heard.”

She had no intention on telling him why that was. “What did you plan to do with
it? Or are planning.”

“Submit it to the Ministry for evaluation, of course.”

They stared at one another. If it was someone who didn't know him, they would
have believed him.

“Why are you lying to me?” she asked softly.

“I'm not.”

She shook her head, grabbing her robe from his arm, warm from his body heat.
He raised an eyebrow as she pulled it on.

“You're leaving?”

“I'm obviously not getting any answers out of you.” She huffed, buttoning her
robe. “And—”

She jumped, swinging her wand out as the spell flashed over her line of sight. Her
scalp tingled, and loose strands of black hair curled to brown. She shut her
mouth, the blocking spell retreating from her tongue as she glared at him.
“I hate your hair like that,” he muttered, and she did her best to ignore it and the
things it brought with it.

“You know, I shouldn't even believe you,” she snapped. “I shouldn't trust you at
all. What I should be doing is bringing you into the Ministry and feeding you
Veritaserum right now.”

“I'm not leading you wrong.”

She looked up from her last button, and he seemed to be attempting to drill the
words into her head by way of his eyes. She straightened, taking four steps away
from him to make sure he didn't try anything. He stayed where he was.

“I'll never forgive you if you are,” she told him.

She paused to see if he had some great change of mind, like he owed her. Like he
should care enough to have. But there was only the way she couldn't decide on
the emotion on his face, and the tension that crunched against her, and the
silence.
Chapter 5

(July, 1999)

The place was clean, but not in the way that he suspected she had scrubbed it to
shine today. It was…stiff, new, unbroken by use and relaxation. The most lived-in
space was the room with books piled in stacks and full cases like a tiny library,
one sofa and a table in the corner that appeared worn. There were two doors that
were only cracked open, one of which he assumed was the bedroom, but he
didn't peek through the crack.

In the living room, there was a set of three shelves, two empty. “How long have
you lived here?”

“Uh…a year. Why?”

He ignored the question – the answer should have been obvious. There was more
blank space than character, and he had been fully prepared to step into
something resembling the Gryffindor common room. Warm colors, and squishy
chairs, and a ridiculous amount of useless looking things that meant a great deal
to her. He'd seen paint cans and boxes in the closet when she had taken off her
Ministry cloak, and he wondered why she had tucked it away.

“I've been busy.” He turned as she finally exited the kitchen, two glasses of dark
liquid in either hand. He had heard an explosion inside the room a few minutes
ago, and hadn't been willing to risk entering. “I have a lot of plans, but there's
more important things now. I'm hardly here.”

“I see that.”

No sharp look or pursed lips. Whatever she was nervous about, it wasn't him
seeing her flat. She was fidgeting and avoiding his gaze, uncomfortable in her
skin. He'd push it, but if she was nervous for the reason he was trying not to
contemplate too much, he didn't want to push her away from it.

“Firewhisky? You like this, right?”

It was too early for straight firewhisky on a day he didn't want to escape from
yet, but Granger was already drinking, and it would only make her more jumpy if
he declined. “It's fine.”

“Good. Are you hungry? I put a Warming Charm on the food, but if you're hungry
now—“

“It d—“

“I'll be speaking at your father's trial.” Her eyes lifted to his then, because she
was never the type to be a coward about the hard things.

Draco broke from his frozen position to take a gulp of the drink, the whisky warm
to the bottom of his stomach. That was definitely not the reason he had been
contemplating.

“The Ministry asked me. They're just going to ask me a question or two, I don't
know about what exactly. Encounters, I guess. Harry and Ron will be questioned
too. The—”

“I know.”

She didn't blink, like she was waiting for the image to shimmer and prove an
illusion. “Oh.”

“I was told the witness list when I was asked to be one.”

“For your father? Of course.”

She looked down at his socks, and he knew what she was thinking. Of course, on
the other side, the opposing side, not my side. Irritation burned in his chest, and
he knew the slightest thing would turn it to anger. It was an idea they used to
stomp over and call fact, but it was delicate now; he didn't know where he stood,
but he didn't feel like he was facing her anymore. Not right now.

He wished she hadn't brought it up. He was told about it a week ago, and this
was the fourth time he'd seen her since. He thought she understood that small
section of space that held the things they still didn't talk about yet.

“No.” He downed the last of his drink, and took her empty wine glass, stepping
around her to refill both. “I chose not to.”

()

Hermione pushed her briefcase between her knees, digging into her pockets for
the key to her office. Her fingers closed around cool metal that was nowhere near
the shape she was looking for, and she pulled it out.

She recognized it immediately as the watch Crabbe had given to Malfoy – he had
never said when, and while Hermione would think it was from youth, she couldn't
be sure given the one who picked it out. The purple-tinted silver formed into
Snitch links, the bubble of a face with tiny brooms serving as the hands. The
numbers, formed in Bludgers, of the watch would be obscured by the bristle at
the end of the brooms. Tiny splinters of it had fallen to a small pile on the bottom
that made the six orange Bludgers appear to be two.

Hermione ran her thumb around the bubble, trying to decide when he had slipped
it into her pocket and for what reason. To remind her, maybe. About loyalty, and
the things we carry with us.

(August, 1999)

“…under the Imperius, and those times were just as terrifying. He was living in
our home. We were, essentially, under his control, even without the spell.”

His father's hair was tangled, knotted, and as dirty as his skin. The closest he had
seen his father in such a state was when Draco was five and learning how to fly.
But he hadn't been shackled to a chair then and facing a possible execution.

“…Malfoys were as much V-Voldemort's victims as any person I was forced to hurt
during my enslavement under…”

The Malfoys had been victims of Voldemort, butof his father's choices as well.
Draco wondered if there was ever a time before the war that his father thought of
choosing something else. If the only reason why he joined them again and led
Draco to do so was because of fear of what the Dark Lord would do if they didn't.
Because that Draco could understand. He could forgive him for that.

But his father must have known what a war was like – he had been a Death Eater
in the first. He had already killed and tortured, and gone through this trial and
this speech, the dishonor to the name. Yet he taught that hatred to Draco, and
when the war came again, he brought him to meet it.

“…broke the spell, knowing my son was in danger. I didn't cast a spell at anyone
when I entered Hogwarts. I was just looking for my son.”

That might have been the only truth Lucius Malfoy spoke today. Draco hated that
it was out loud to these people, in their uniforms and judgment. It was personal
to Draco. It was something he held onto and reminded himself of, before he could
convince himself to hate his father for the things he'd done.

Draco had been conceived in war, born into it, two months before the end. In the
second war, he was reborn a different man than all the steps that had brought
him there would suggest he was. He had been reborn into something that was not
tainted with the hatred and evil his father could possess. So maybe it was the
same for his father. Maybe when Lucius was knocked down, he finally realized the
important things – the ones Draco had been fighting the entire time for. His life
and his family.

He loved Draco, no matter that he couldn't be the man his father wanted him to
be. And Draco loved his father despite the same. Draco could be violent with rage
over his father's choices and the life he gave him, but it hurt too – and it only
hurts when you love under all that anger.

Draco looked up from the back of his father's head as silence fell over the
courtroom. He wanted to leave to escape the tension growing tighter inside of
him, but then his mother would stand alone.

“It is time to vote.”

()

The door shut behind Fink as he left to find food and tea, and Hermione turned in
a slow circle, scanning the walls. The timeline stretched across her office, events
separated enough to leave room for the facts that came with them. She had a
similar one at home, but it included what she had learned of Euphoria and the
times she met up with Malfoy.

Revenge, he had said. O'Keefe was ruled out, found dead last week. Fink had
asked why she bothered putting up Wyatt, then, but when he saw the first event
she marked down, he didn't ask again.

Hermione moved to her desk and the stacks of photographs, separated based on
likelihood, and grabbed the first pile. They would need to research every one of
them to see if they had any connections to the businesses Malfoy or the dead
were somehow connected to, and then they would have to research every alias.

Revenge.

(August, 1999)

Draco's heart was slamming against his chest and in his ribs, and his fingers felt
stiff and shaky as he unlatched his watch and slid his ring off. He leaned to the
side to drop them on the nightstand, and then undid the last two buttons of his
shirt that Granger had stopped at.

She watched him as he yanked it off, her eyes hooded and her cheeks red,
looking hazy and golden. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth, and he
bent to kiss her as he shook the shirt away from him. He slid his hands over the
curves of her hips, waist, ribs, and around her back. His fingers fumbled on the
clip as her palms touched his chest, hot and soft, and he pulled it the other way,
releasing the strap.

His fingers edged her spine, and then the loop of curls that hung down her back
as the tip of her tongue flicked into his mouth to circle his. Her hands settled on
his hips, uncertainty pushing them to and from his belt before she finally reached
for the buckle. He hooked the straps at her shoulders, pulling them down as his
hips jerked forward with her pulling.

Her head dropped back as she huffed for air, the zip sounding on his trousers.
“Slide back,” he told her, his voice low and rough enough that is sounded more
like a growl than words.

She heard him though, leaning back on her elbows as he shoved his trousers to
his feet and kicked them off. He followed right after her, moving as she did, her
eyes near black in the darkness of her bedroom. He touched her cheek, warm,
and rubbed his thumb along the swell of her bottom lip as he bent his head to her
neck.

He breathed her in as he settled between her thighs, fitting as perfectly as he

imagined he would. He flicked his tongue out to taste her skin as her hands found
his shoulder blades, then smoothed down the curve of his back. He placed little,
sucking kisses down the side of her neck until he found the wild pounding of her
heartbeat.

There was a frantic need within him to devour, to take, to do it nownow, but he
steadied himself. He wasn't going to waste the moment, he was going to draw it
out, take everything from it. He wanted to know her. He wanted to know her like
people truly knew another person. When they are at the bottom, or their back
against a wall. When they lose, win, sleep, when they come, when they think
they're alone. That's when you know them. Before that, you know what they want
you to know, and what you suspect from the times they forget. He promised
himself he was going to learn every bit of her, and he didn't intend on letting
either of them down.

()

Fillywig blood, a thick, bright purple liquid that turned darker in the light, and that
sent Cleave into gibberish. No one owned Fillywig in England, but two had been
approved for the blood – one no longer worked with it, which left her with Dom
Gary.

He worked in the financial department for a loan company that appeared to be

unconnected to the other businesses she had run into, but she wasn't going to set
herself on the fact that it was. She knew he had improved the Wiggenweld Potion
two years ago during a lunch break at his office, which meant he might be
capable of it, and he might be storing things at work.

Even if he wasn't connected, the building wasn't a difficult place to get into. If
someone had shown up trying to break into his office or home, tried to make a
deal, or asked a lot of questions, he might be able to help them. Whoever had the
poison obviously didn't have the ingredients for the cure, or they wouldn't have
had Cleave collect them himself, and were now left on their own or with someone
else. Unless they wanted to be amused at the attempt.

Hermione knocked again on the door where a shiny nameplate declared it Dom
Gary's office, fixing her visitor badge. Still no answer. She dropped her hand to
the doorknob, and it twisted easily in her palm. She looked over at the light
tapping noise, releasing the knob with a clink that was too telling. The man didn't
do anything that suggested he heard it, just kept walking towards her in a way
that was too familiar for her to ignore.

There was no visitor badge pinned anywhere in sight, and he was clad in trousers
and a dress shirt under his robe. If it wasn't for the walk and the look on his face,
she might have passed him off as an employee. He broke eye contact to look at
the door, the nameplate, and she leaned back when his chest brushed her arm.
He grabbed the doorknob, and it was the scar across two knuckles, a souvenir of
his time spent as a Seeker, that left her without any doubt.

She wrapped her hand around his, squeezing as she pulled back, shutting the
door. “What are you doing here?” Because there wasn't any point in pretending to
not know who he was.

It felt like a stupid question after she asked it. It wasn't why he was there, it was
how, it was the timing. And as soon as she thought it, she realized the answer,
and could have smacked herself and him.

“I'm dropping a file off for Gary. You might want to return when he's here.” He
was speaking lower and trying on a different accent, but the drawl was still there.

“Oh, ple—”

He shoved the door open far enough that her grip ripped away from him, quickly
sliding around her and into the office. She followed after him as the lights
flickered to life, immediately spotting the case against the wall over his shoulder.
Two plants stood on one shelf where the glass was fogged, and jars and vials
littered the other five. Either Gary was one of those people who were intelligent
but stupid when it came to commonsense, or he was still in the building
somewhere.
She couldn't see the Fillywig blood until she stepped to the side, four vials of deep
purple on the second to last shelf. She glanced at Malfoy as he took a step
forward, and then she shot a weak hex over his shoulder, just strong enough to
blow the glass out one side of the case without smashing the contents. Malfoy
lurched to the side the moment the spell passed over his shoulder, twisting to
look back at her in surprise.

She ignored him, summoning a vial of the Fillywig blood, and caught it before
dropping it into her pocket. Malfoy knocked the second from the air, though she
suspected he was actually trying to catch it, and it crashed against the wall.

“You idiot,” she yelled at him, pointing her wand at him, and then moved so that
his Disarming spell hit her wrist. A tingle washed up to her elbow, and her fingers
twitched open on her wand, dropping it.

She blew out a hard breath, one goal accomplished, and snatched her wand. She
moved around the desk as Malfoy was moving quickly at the case, grabbing
things from the shelf and shoving them into his pockets. She cast a Vanishing
Spell at the line of blood down the wall, and the puddle of it on the floor.

It was too late – the suds had already formed, rising into the air, and there was
no way she could Vanish them. They were one of the most dangerous attributes
of the blood, and they didn't go away until they soaked through something,
eating everything until it hit air again. One was already burning a hole into the
floor, and it would work its way down until it hit the space of whatever was below
this room. The real problem, of course, was when it touched skin.

Hermione darted forward, wrapping a fist in Malfoy's robe, and yanked him back.
He jangled at the movement, and something thunked heavily before he pocketed
a jar. He didn't even know what he was here for – she doubted the cure contained
everything in that cabinet.

“Do you want it to touch you? Because I'll be happy to check you into Mungo's!”
She yanked again, harder than she had to as he looked at the suds and stepped
back with her.

She released his robe when they were near the door, far enough away to spot any
suds venturing over to them, and she glared when he turned around. He stared
back at her unblinkingly, and she looked down at his pockets, and then the wand
twisting in his grip. If she tried to take everything from him, he'd fight her for it.
She wouldn't blame him for that, either – she would do the same. And maybe, if
he found the cure for his father, this could all be over.

“Do you have any idea how often you put me in situations where I could lose my
job?” she snapped.
“It's tearing me up,” he drawled. “Perhaps if you gave up th—“

She growled at him, slamming the door in his face.

(September, 1999)

Draco gave up on ignoring it, raising his gaze to meet his father's with
annoyance. Lucius didn't even blink over the rim of his glass, and Draco put up
his mental wards. He never knew if his father was a Legilimens or not, but it
sometimes felt like he was, and Draco didn't risk it. He was more inclined to
believe he wasn't, but that he did things purposely to further the idea that he
was. If you don't have it, pretend that you do, and sometimes you'll get the
benefits.

“This is the first time I've seen you in a week.”

“Yes.”

“Three nights you didn't return home until the afternoon.”

It was four, actually, but Draco didn't feel like correcting him. Either Lucius was
finding very little sleep, or very much interest in Draco's life. Part of him wanted
to see his father bothered over the lack of information, but he knew the lengths
he would try going to to find out.

“What have you been spending so much time on, Draco?”

Draco took a deep sip of his drink, and then set it on the table, picking up his fork
and knife. “Hermione Granger. Sometimes I visit Potter at his house. I'm also
studying for the N.E.W.Ts.”

Draco expected the increasing redness in Lucius' face or surprise, but he got
blankness. The only way he could have foreseen Draco's response was if Narcissa
told him, but Draco doubted she told him everything she suspected.

“You need Granger to study for your N.E.W.Ts?”

Draco glared, taking out his aggression on the piece of steak he was gnashing
with his teeth. “I assure you, she's more of a hindrance than a help when
studying. I don't need assistance.”

Lucius stared at him for three rise and clinks of his mother's glass at the edge of
his sight, and Draco didn't concede. “I see,” Lucius said lowly, looking down at his
plate as he cut into the meat.
Draco didn't feel like he won. Lucius' reaction was too calm, and Draco didn't trust
him anymore. He'd win in the end, though. He refused to do anything that didn't
make him happy anymore, and there was no losing in that.

()

Hermione looked at the swirling, dark face, the features strewed, with a swirl of
white from the teeth and eyes. It was making her nauseous, but it wasn't the first
time she had seen an Unspeakable like this. She swallowed, moving her gaze to
the wand pointed at her wrist, and the thin cloud beginning to seep from her skin.
She could feel it drawing up from her arm like a magnet as the Unspeakable
reached for a vial in which to contain it.

“I want the wand trace ran on the entire database. I mean all of it.”

(September, 1999)

“Better?”

“If you like every space crammed with sentimental objects.” Her flat was not one
of sleek fashion or expensive taste, but it wasn't empty anymore, and it was
every inch Granger. He liked it more than he thought he would.

“They're not all sentimental. That lamp just matches my sofa, and those little
figures over there just seemed interesting. Though I also thought I could use
them as bookends if I need to.”

“Yes,” Draco drawled. “Buying something for the sole purpose of decoration would
be impractical.”

“It would be meaningless.”

“Its meaning is to decorate.”

“That's not even a meaning, it's a function that—“

“Why do you buy clothes?”

She looked down at herself, and spread her arms in the air. “So I'm not walking
about naked.”

“But why those clothes?”

“Because they're comfortable. And my work clothes because they're appropriate,

and—“

“But you could have bought a—“

“Yes, I like them for a…decorative sense. But I bought them for their meaning –
keep me clothed, and comfort. Why would you surround yourself with things that
don't matter? You should have kept it empty for all the meaning behind it.”

“Is this the outdoor portion of your design?” He nodded his chin to the top shelf,
where a rock, seashell, and vase of flowers sat. “You don't have to simulate it
when you can step out your door for the real thing. Or just tear down a wall,
maybe. It'll be full of meaning – taking away the wall that separates us from
nature.”

Her hand smacked into his shoulder hard enough to sting before she used it for
balance, pushing up on her toes to grab the seashell. “The flowers are my
favorite, and the rock is a very important rock. And this… I got this at the ocean
when I was eight. I didn't want to leave and so my dad picked it up and gave it to
me.”

He flinched away when she put it to his ear, but she held it there, raising her
eyebrows expectantly. All he could think about was how many other ears and dust
particles had touched the edges now touching his skin.

“You don't hear it? Listen.”

He took hold of her wrist, lowering the germ-ridden thing from his face. “It
sounds like the ocean, Granger. I didn't need an example.” Sometimes she acted
like he spent his childhood locked in a room, or maybe it was the child-like
wonder she still held for parts of the world he'd forgotten.

“Exactly! I mean, it's really just blood in your head, you know. But my dad told
me if I kept it, I could bring the ocean everywhere with me. Which is silly now,
looking back, but I like that. The idea that we can carry things with us, even
when they're gone.”

He ducked his head and spoke slowly as he said, “They're called memories.”

Her eyes narrowed and he grinned as she slid the shell back to its spot. “You're
no longer allowed to listen to it. You're banned from the seashell.”

“I didn't want to listen to it in the first place. It's plagued with germs. I'll be
surprised if I don't get an ear infection.”

“I think the same thing when I have to endure the sound of your voice. You
probably even broke my seashell by touching it. It'll sound like an empty cave
now.”

Draco arched a brow as she huffed at him. “What the hell does an empty cave
sound like?”

“Silent. And…hollow…ish. Like the inside of your skull, I should think.”

“Clever, Granger. Did you look that up in a book of witty comebacks, because it
seems a bit old.”

“I actually didn't know such a thing existed, or I would have bought you one so
you can try keeping up with me.”

“I don't like moving that slowly so far behind, so I'll stay ahead of you, thanks.”

Silence. Her mouth shut with a click as she glared at him.

“I win.” He grinned. “Are you going to mark it down? I know you keep count.”

“I do not keep count. But if I did, I would still be ahead of you by two.”

“I claim biased counting.”

“Of course you do,” she huffed. “You can't win on your own so everyone else is a
cheater.”

“I just won thirty seconds ago.”

“Who even knows how that happened.”

“Right, you can't win on your own, so everyone else does by accident.”

She patted his shoulder. “Half right. A little more—“ He gripped her elbow and
pulled her closer to him, his other hand searching for the small of her back.

She had a way of making him feel jumbled up and displaced. But in a good way.
In the way that he felt his displacement was the best place to be. He didn't
understand it either.

“If you distract me now, I can't be held responsible for forgetting that little
accident before. Just so you know.”

He breathed a laugh. “I'll remember.”

()
It had been eight months since Hermione had viewed any of them, but she still
remembered what they contained just by the shape and holes in each cork. She
had been part of them so often that they felt like her own memories, like they
had happened to her. In a way, she supposed, they had.

This one, the one with the uneven top with a sharper edge, was the one that
bothered her the most. They all did, and the last one should have more. But the
last one was anger. This one was a lot of things, and sometimes they jumbled up
so much that she couldn't distinguish what each one was through the way it hurt.
Maybe because she still didn't know what had been going on his head, if he had
already known the choice he would make. Maybe because she couldn't be enough
in that moment, or even come close it. Or maybe because, for a long time, she
thought it would be the last time.

Hermione tightened her grip on the vial, and walked back to the Pensieve.

(September, 1999)

Horror-shock. A hard knot of fear, hatred, misery, and disbelief. A combined

emotional explosion that choked out breath and dulled all other senses. A feeling
that made one want to tear themselves open, and find the thing that felt like it
was dying within them. There were moments of clarity and numbness, but it was
only in the short moments that the disbelief powered over everything. It's not
real because it can't be real. Because if it was, he was going to fall to dust
because it was more than a person could take while still living.

How much can the world take from you until they've taken something essential to
you? To who you are, or your humanity, or your functioning? When you're
stripped to basics, and then it steals one more thing. Do you realize it right away?
Or do you walk along like a puppet getting its strings cut, a skeleton that's
breaking its bones – a disjointed decline, a series of jerks and pops until you're
on the ground and can't get back up. And do you stay there, or can you get it
back when you can't even move?

He didn't want to move. If breathing was not an automatic function, he wouldn't

do that either.

“Draco?” Granger whispered, her hand stretching out, but it was still further away
than it had ever been.

()

Hermione slid the drink off the top of the bar, craning her neck to look through
the groups of people and to Fink. He seemed to be in an amusing conversation
with the group of business men they had seen leaving the exclusive section of the
pub a few minutes before, and with any luck, he'd manage to find out some
information.

Everything affiliated with BGC and O'Keefe had been a dead end so far, though
there were foreign companies she hadn't looked too far into yet. Not that
everything she had been doing thus far was completely legal, but being caught
doing it in another country would be a very bad situation. But if O'Keefe had been
the one to give Cleave the poison, it meant that someone connected to him had
been the one to supply it – the one seeking the revenge that Malfoy mentioned. It
was just a matter of her finding the person.

Hermione twisted her way to the nearest empty table, rushing to get there before
someone decided to take it over. It seemed a chair couldn't go longer than a
minute in this place before someone sat in it. The pub was one of several owned
by one of the owners of BGC, and finding out more about the important guests to
the pub meant finding out more about the owner. She had already reached
nothing on two, and there were two left to rule out before her head burst from
the frustration.

She watched Fink clap a man on the shoulder as someone slid into the seat
across from her. She leaned back to see if the man was receptive enough to the
touch to show he liked Fink's company well enough, but the crowd was too thick.

She took a sip of her drink as she looked across from her, giving him a harassed
look. He raised his eyebrow at it, rubbing his thumb against his glass before
twisting to look over his shoulder. Malfoy had done a poor job with disguises
today, his hair black and his eyes green, but his face the same. He must have
been in a rush to get here.

“Were you trying to mirror Harry?”

He twisted back, looking over her head before settling his gaze on her. He was
nervous, and it was the first time it showed so plainly since her investigation
started. He definitely wasn't welcome here, and not just by her.

“If I were Potter, would you listen to me?”

“Probably.” Not, but sometimes she was childish, and any bit of annoyance she
could cause him made what he caused her just a little less heavy.

“Does Potter know all you're doing? Because if he was, I'd wager he was your
partner, and”–he nodded his head back–“Potter's not that tall with any magic
outside Polyjuice.” Malfoy took a sip of his drink, and then tilted his head as his
throat bobbed over the swallow. “Always the short men who are the angriest, I
find. All that time spent looking up.”

“It's people who look up to Harry. It's some of those men who are the angriest.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you implying I look up to Potter?”

She tried to smother her grin, but it stayed a smile. “I find it interesting you'd
jump to that conclusion.”

He gave her a malicious look, and she tried to find her partner again. “What
about him – does he know everything you do?”

Nearly. Sort of.

She reached into her pocket, pulling out cool metal. “Everything.”

“Really? So if I told him about that business office…who was it…Gary?”

“Then he'd know who you were and arrest you.”

“Unless I pretended to be Gary, and couldn't fathom why you broke into my
office. I'm sure your partner wouldn't understand it either.”

“Then I would tell him who you are, and arrest you myself.” Sometimes she
convinced herself that she shouldn't be doing anything in the face of his
ungratefulness; but then she thought that was the reason he was acting like it,
and she realized she couldn't stop.

“What happened to blind trust?”

“My trust is only blind when I don't have the time to open my eyes. And it's
especially not blind when you're threatening to tell my partner.”

He leaned forward, undeterred by her look promising very painful, long term
damage. “Why is it that you're incapable of staying out of danger? It's one of your
greatest faults.”

She'd always seen it as a positive attribute…even as a burden. “And yours is

creating it.”

“It finds me. If it was my choice, I'd be living the life I was before I left.”

“You could have been. Or something close to it. It was your choice.”

“No,” he said, and she squeezed her hands together on her lap. “Not yet.”
She stretched her arm across the table, surprised when he didn't flinch away from
her touch when she grabbed his fingertips. She pulled on his hand, and where he
could have easily tugged out of it, he let her drag it toward her. She would have
just handed him the watch, but she had a feeling he would have left it there on
the table, and she would have felt some sort of obligation to take it back.

His wrist was warm enough that it was almost hot, or maybe it was just the
change from the cool dampness of his fingertips. She slid the watch on, avoiding
his eyes, but she could feel them on her, staring at her face. She slid the little bar
into the top of a Snitch, and then pushed the little wings shut onto two metal
knots. Her heart had sped up, and she didn't know why – she was barely touching
him.

She went to pull away when he turned his hand, catching her own and keeping it
there. Her eyes flashed up to his as her stomach twisted, and it was hard to move
under his gaze. “My partner is here.”

She could have smacked herself for blurting that out. She tugged on her hand
when he smirked, but he held tighter. They both knew she hardly tried.

“What do you think I'll do?” he asked in low tones, nearly lost under the pulse of
music and conversation. His thumb pushed along the underside of her wrist and
then swept back down again, and she tried to draw up anger to ease the race of
her heartbeat. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“It's none of your business, and I don't know why you'd care.”

His jaw clenched, and she held onto that. Yes, anger, right.

“I know why you gave me that watch.” She cleared her throat, raising her voice.
“Loyalty, right? As some sign that…that maybe it all meant something, or that I
could believe in…” She shook her head. “But it didn't. You still made your choice,
and the choices you make now for whatever it is you're looking for and doing. To
let me go through all of this to find answers you could just tell me. Your loyalty is
to yourself. It didn't mean anything. So, that doesn't mean anything to me.”

He tightened his grip when she tugged her hand again, and so she yanked harder.
She could feel the track his fingers left on her skin as she dropped her hand into
her lap. His hand curled into a fist, and he slid it back across the table.

“You're wrong.” She couldn't hear the words, but she saw his lips move over
them.

She looked over him, spotting Fink giving her a questioning look as he made his
way through the crowd. She give a tiny shake of her head, and when she looked
back at Malfoy, he was moving to stand.
“I'll see you later,” he told her, though she had a feeling that wasn't what he
wanted to say at all. He had little idea how right he was, though.

She watched him walk past her, in the opposite direction of Fink, and then stared
at the beaten wood of the table.

(October, 1999)

Draco shoved his wand through the crack in the door, and heard it clack to the
floor. The Ministry might use it somehow to find him, so there would be no trace
of the path they were looking for when they did. They wouldn't check the room
under the parlor, the boards still in place across the door from after the first time
they searched it.

He walked back up the stairs and to where he had left his trunk. He concentrated
his sight on the smooth blackness, not daring to look at the house around him.
Everything he saw reminded him of his mother.

The Ministry had put a temporary hold on Draco's vault until they cleared him as
a suspect in his own mother's death, but Draco had been stashing Galleons since
they lifted it after his probation. It left him with enough to buy a rundown cottage
from a man who didn't ask too many questions, and asked less when Draco
Obliviated him. He'd need more if he didn't finish in a few months, but he'd figure
that out when he got there.

There were bigger things to take care of now.

()

Hermione looked over at her clock proclaiming the time as 4:57, which was close
enough to five o'clock for her to not test her patience anymore. As long as the
Portkey brought her somewhere, it meant Malfoy hadn't caught the tracking
charm she put on the watch. She hadn't removed his in the hopes that he would
test it, find it, and remove only the one he'd put on before giving it to her. Hers
was far more complicated and even more illegal, but if he hadn't taken it off, it
would give her direct access to where he was staying.

She just hoped it still worked. And that he was asleep, which would give her time
to investigate every inch of his home for answers.

She could have grinned at the pull behind her navel, and she took a deep breath
and held it, closing her eyes. He was an incredibly light sleeper, so she would
have to be as close to silent as—

Hermione's feet hit a surface that sunk under her weight before she fell forward
with a thud. She had only a second to feel something moving under her before
she was flying, and then her back hit the ground with a painful smack. Her breath
rushed out of her as she stared up with wide eyes at the arm and face that came
over the edge of the bed.

Her inhale faltered and then swept into her lungs as she looked from the point of
a wand aimed at her, and to the eyes obscured by locks of hair that looked grey
in the light of a half-moon through the window.

“Since when do you wear your watch to bed!” she yelled.

“Christ, Granger!”

She pushed herself to her feet as he ripped his blanket off, almost stepping on
her legs when he swung his over the bed. In her worst-case-scenario she thought
she might land on top of a nightstand, but she had counted on the fact that he
always took off his watch and ring before climbing into bed.

“How…”

Her hair was partially obscuring the moonlight on his face when he lowered his
head, but she could see the curves of his cheek and jaw, and knew he was angry.
Metal clinked, and then hit the nightstand on her right with a heavy thud.

“I should have—”

He darted forward when she flicked her wand to light the room, his hand
clamping over her eyes. He must have been hoping she wouldn't see the room
and have enough feel for the place to Apparate there whenever she wanted, but
that wasn't going to happen. She shoved him, taking a step back, but his hand
pressed harder against her as he followed her.

He grabbed her wand when she raised it, her spell hitting the ceiling with a bang,
raining plaster debris onto their heads.

“You actually tried to cast at me,” he growled. “I know what—”

She yanked harder, digging the heel of her palm into his chest as she stepped
back, and her wand came with her. She blinked and squinted in the burst of light
as he muttered a stream of curses, aiming his wand back at her.

“If you Obliviate me, I have everything written down,” she told him.
“Of course you do,” he snapped.

“You know, it's illegal to point that wand at me.”

“I wouldn't if you weren't unstable.”

“Unstable?”

He raised an eyebrow, and in the second she looked up at the ceiling, her wand
went flying from her hand. She spun around before he caught her around the
waist, and she grabbed his arm, trying to pry it off of her as she lurched forward.

“Hermione.”

Something in her jumped, like the latch she had been trying desperately to keep
pinned down the last few months, but she ignored it. She twisted between his
arm and chest, pressing her arm back against him and attempting to spin out of
his grip. Lurching forward again, his arm loosened, and she dug her feet in only
to have him follow right after her. She could see her wand just a few steps away

“Hermione, I'm not going to fucking hurt you.”

She knew that, but this was not to plan. A little Stunner, and then a very
thorough inspection of everything inside the house. If she couldn't get answers
from his mind, she'd get it from the things around him. He had to have
something here that was useful, and told her information he wouldn't.

“I don't keep anything written, and there's nothing here.” His arm flexed around
her, and his voice dropped lower. “You don't sleep where you kill the bugs.”

She slumped against him for a moment, catching her breath as she looked
forlornly at her wand. He still didn't let go of her. “Then why don't you let me
have my wand?”

“Because you put a hole in my ceiling, and you'll likely Petrify me anyway.”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“You're probably lying.”

Something brushed the top of her head, and his chest pressed harder to her back
as he breathed in. “Maybe.”
His exhale moved her curls, and then he pressed deeper, inhaling again. Her hand
tightened on his arm again, and her vision blurred as she concentrated on the
movement of him against her.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

His hand uncurled from its fist at her hip, and then slid, his palm pressing to her
stomach. His head dipped lower, nose bumping the lobe of her ear. She tried to
find logic and sanity through oxygen, which was the only reason why she was
breathing quicker.

“What if I'm seeing someone?”

He paused, fingers twitching against her stomach. “Evans?” he asked roughly.

“E– Oh, please, you– Not that it would be any of your—“

“I wouldn't have left if I could have stayed.”

“You could have.”

“If I could have, I would have. I wanted to.”

“Not enough. I wouldn't have just let them arrest you—”

“That wasn't why.”

She turned, shaking her head at him, and his arm still didn't fall away. “Then—”

“And if you were seeing someone, or didn't want to be here, you wouldn't be
here.”

“Dr—” Her eyes widened when his head dipped closer. “Draco…”

One shove right now, and he'd fall back against the bed, she'd reach her wand.
But there was a wild, static energy within her that had nothing to do with
running. Facing the things she was afraid of was who she was. He made her want
to run, and so, more than that, he made her want to stay. To give in, maybe, just
this time again. To fight in the storm they created together, and that pulse of
feeling that she could never decide was painful or wonderful.

She always lost in the end. They both did. But the world was not black, or white,
or grey, but filled with color, and sometimes losing was winning after all.

His nose skimmed her cheek, his hand on her back pressing her closer. His
shoulder jerked, and she looked over at the clack on the nightstand as she tried
to swallow past her heart in her throat. His wand was rolling to a stop at the wall,
and his freed hand slipped along the side of her neck, so barely there.

She met his gaze, and it cracked off the walls of her heart, caving her chest in.
“Okay,” she said, shutting her eyes, and then he kissed her.

(January, 2000)

The spell sliced heat across Draco's jaw before the man hit the ground, convulsing
against the bindings wrapped around him. Draco felt hot liquid run down his neck,
and he muttered a breath of curses as he stepped closer to the man. His mother's
wand did not work as well as his own, even in the feel of it, and it left him a lot
more open to attack than he would have been.

“Again,” Draco said, glancing down the alley, “where did you get it?”

He hadn't been waiting for information like this, but searching for it for months
now. Even knowing the end target hadn't left him with many options. There were
still a few left, but he had to be more careful with those than he had figured out
how to be so far.

Draco aimed the wand, and the man's eyes squeezed shut. “I stole it.”

“From who?”

“This bloke. This bloke, I don't know! Jim…Jim Layweather, I think. He was talking
about how he got it from someone, and he had to bring it to the lab. He said he
was going to make it better and release it himself.”

“What lab?”

“I don't know! Runson, maybe, it's where he works.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“Riddikulus, then we went to Felman's, but he got freaked out, left without his
robe. I took it. That's all I know.”

Draco stepped back, undoing the binds with a wave of his wand, and Apparated.
Chapter 6

()

Slide, pause. Slide, pause. Hermione shut her eyes, taking a slow breath, and
then inched over again. His fingers left the side of her stomach, his arm falling to
the bed. She paused again, waiting for movement or a sign of wakefulness, and
then climbed out of the bed as gently as possible. She crept around on the bed on
her toes, grabbing his shirt from the back of a chair and pulling it on.

The bedroom entered directly into an empty living room. The dining room had
only one chair pulled out from the table, and the kitchen was useless until she
found that the assumed closet was actually a stairway to the basement. In there,
she found…something important, once she figured out what it was.

There were five tables, one of which held nothing but rows of unmarked
ingredients. The other four held two or three cauldrons, one empty, and the rest
filled with the same brew. There was a notepad on each table, quill and inkwell
next to it. No words were written down, but she could see indents from where
something had been written on paper above it.

There were only a few shafts of daylight shining through the tiny windows, and so
she almost missed the movement inside one of the cauldrons when she passed.
She glanced back, expecting a fly or dangling spider as the flash she had seen
from the corner of her vision, but instead was greeted by the dark image of bare
legs.

Hermione stepped closer, holding her breath in surprise and to stop the bitter
scent from fouling her tongue. The image was tinted a murky purple, but it was…
hands over feet, calves, and…lather. What? She blushed as the image traveled up,
no mistake to what it was currently showing, even in the muted light. She felt like
she had when she stumbled upon that little box of things in Ron's closet, or didn't
bother knocking on Harry's door. But it had to be more to it than that.

She looked up at the low whine of the door at the top of the steps, and quickly
scooted over to the next cauldron. Black. The one on the table behind it showed a
group of people crowded together in a lift, gleaming doors opening to a woman
who looked harassed before squeezing in. The image shifted to the panel of
numbers blinking through floors, as if…as if it was showing it through the eyes of
someone.

He was halfway down the staircase now, and she reached for her wand only to
encounter a bare thigh. No, no, no, she had to watch, and she hadn't even looked
at the ingredients on the table, and there were drawers over left, right, cabinet
on the wall—

A building. Wide, two or three stories. There was a rise of a mountain behind it,
and several greenhouses lined in front. The ground was mostly dirt and pebbles,
but there were patches of grass around the greenhouses. By the placement of the
sun, it looked to be around the same time of day as it was in England.

“Find”–she jumped, even though she knew he was coming–“anything useful?”

She didn't even know what it was to decide if it was useful. The image was
approaching two wide doors now, where two men were standing in dark robes.
“What is this? Are you spying on people?”

“Yes.”

She looked up at him, surprised he had admitted it and without hesitating. His
hands were empty, and he was wearing only his shorts and bedhead as he
crossed to the table with the ingredients. She expected him to try and pull her
away, but he only leaned against the table, scratching his stomach.

“You look surprised, Granger.” He smiled lazily, and she gave up for a moment on
trying to look away from him. There was something she loved about the shape of
him when he was casual, when he was, for a short while, satisfied.

“I'll be more surprised if you tell me who it is.”

“Who they are. And no.”

“Is this happening right now?” He didn't answer, but it was answer enough. “What
is this?”

“A sort of potion.”

“To consume?”

“To view.”

She looked back at the image. It was inside the building now, walking down a
hallway where balls of light floated along the ceiling. “How? Is it a spell? Or…did
they drink the potion, and it's made to show what they see after in the rest of the
brew?”

“Almost.” He grinned, his hands wrapping around the edge of the table to either
side of him. “Euphoria.”
She blinked at him stupidly. “This…is Euphoria?”

“It has some in it. It's a different potion altogether. I thought you might have
figured it out by now since you got a dose, but there were really only trace
amounts within it.” He shrugged a shoulder as he looked at the cauldron in front
of her. “And it's old and a bit altered, which is part of the reason why it works. No
one would consider it anymore.”

“So, the Euphoria…it's connected to this? As in, they drink it, and they show up in
these? Trace amounts of what?”

“A person has to consume Euphoria three times to have enough in their bodies for
it to work. Individually, untraceable, but it would have been found if I put it all in
one. The problem is that they have to drink it from the same brew, and then a
fourth dose is added to that,” he said, waving to the cauldrons. “If they drink it
from a different brew, it's useless.”

“Because of slight alterations,” she murmured.

The vision had entered a room with a long table down the center, three men
seated at it. They all seemed to be waiting for something, and Hermione was
waiting, too.

“I've read that the body can work it out, but it takes months to do it. So far, it
hasn't been a problem. The only issue is that with it needing to be from the same
brew, it's worked half the time.”

“What ingredient is it?”

“I'm not sure.”

She rolled her eyes. “I take it that it's illegal then. Just tell me.”

“Is your curiosity killing you, Granger?”

“No, but it is quite murderous towards those that cause its existence.” She gave
him a significant look, but he ignored it. “Why would you give this to so many
people anyway? Or trust other people to deliver it—“

“I already told you, I never gave the potion to the public, and I never sold it. A
few received complimentary doses…as test subjects, all willing. Other vials were
stolen and sold by those other people, none of whom I trusted.”

She stared at the briefcase the vision was staring at. “So they just came here and
stole it? Or stole it from that room in the warehouse? With the weak wards.” She
looked up at him. “You allowed them to. Making the Euphoria more known would
make these people think it wasn't something just aimed at them, and so
suspicious. So you never sold it, but you allowed it to happen.”

His expression was inscrutable. She hated when he did that. “I can't control a
thief. They did what they wanted.”

“And what you did.”

“If it's what I wanted so badly, I would have sold it myself.”

“And risk getting in trouble? No. But you gave them the opportunity, and they did
what you expected they'd do.” She shook her head – he might not admit it, but
she knew him well enough. “Who are these people?”

“You're never satisfied, Granger.”

“Sometimes I'm very satisfied. Just never with you.” He glared at her, and she
looked away when she realized the implication, clearing her throat as he
straightened from the table. “Then tell me what you're looking for. Is this about
the cure?”

“What else?” he asked, walking toward her.

She looked over at the notepad, then back to the cauldron as it watched a man
walk into the room. How often did Malfoy sit down here, watching people's lives
and writing down events, waiting for information? She could believe the cure was
part of this, but it had to be more than that.

“If… There was a vial of Euphoria meant for you, but it was altered with a poison.
The same your father took. Which means whoever knows the cure – as they're
the ones who made the poison – also knows who you are.”

“Perhaps. But it doesn't mean whoever they are know what's in Euphoria, or what
I'm using it for. Or that they've shared that information with the same people
they've shared the cure with.”

“Who is it?”

He looked down into the cauldron, and she had the urge to reach up and flatten a
lock of hair standing on end at the crown of his head. “I don't know. But I know if
they think they're discovered in any way, any opportunity I've created is going to
be gone. And they'll kill anyone who found them out. Which is why you should let
my case sit for awhile.”

She raised her chin, and he shook his head without looking at her. “I thought you
said you had nothing here.”

“I thought you said I was probably lying.” He looked over at her, smirking as he
caught her staring at the cabinets over his shoulder. “This is all there is. If there
was something I didn't want you to know, I would have stopped you when you
were attempting the life of an inchworm out of the bed.”

She blushed, giving him a dirty look. He could have at least moved his arm off of
her, or told her to go ahead then. He'd probably only been holding back laughter
as she shimmied and huffed her way away from him.

Hermione gave a tiny start at the touch of his fingers along her thigh, moving up
and down as he rubbed the hem of his shirt between his fingers. She tried to look
at him like she was about to walk away, but if that was true, maybe she would
have properly dressed and taken her wand before venturing out of the room.

He'd be gone the next time she woke up, she knew.

“Thank you for telling me this much,” she said, sniffing. “At least. Finally.”

“Almost a proper thank you.”

She snorted. “Please. You could have told me this months ago, and saved me a
whole lot of trouble. Never mind that you haven't told me—”

“You're completely ruining it now.”

“Now you know the feeling.”

“You're a menace, Granger.”

“Only when I'm forced to be around you.”

“Forced?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding for good measure. “I've decided that the universe has a
plot against me. It seems no matter where I go or end up in life, it's somewhere
near you.”

“I've discovered the same unfortunate thing.” His hand slid up her side and under
the shirt, then pushed around to her back. She leaned into him without his
guidance.

“It's a shame, really,” she said, pressing up on her toes.

“Tragic.”
She kissed him, curving her hands around the sides of his neck and tangling her
fingers in his hair. His mouth was soft and warm, and it jumbled up her
heartbeats and blood, like it always did in whatever way he was choosing to use
it. He led them back, and her steps followed.

(April, 2000)

Draco slid the Portkey into his pocket, the least detectible mode of travel when it
came to leaving St. Mungo's. Apparition was prohibited and perhaps impossible,
and flying made for an easy target – though better than risking a Portkey and
healer in the room when arriving.

He hated going. For a long time, he hadn't. He didn't want to see the disease
inside of him, and the foam leaking from his mouth. Out here, Draco was doing
something. In there, he was as helpless as he felt. It felt more like was visiting a
tombstone than a hospital bed, and if Draco wasn't sure there had to be a cure
somewhere, it would have been worse. Visiting the dead is hard – visiting the
living as they're dying, unaware of anything outside their suffering, is harder.

Draco walked around the hole that left more air than flooring on the second story,
and flicked the lights on in the room. Half the bottles were gone. Did Dlim think
he wouldn't notice half the shelf cleared? He should have just taken all of it. At
least the wards hadn't been too difficult for such an idiot, but Draco would have to
give him at least a week to sell the whole supply before he made him pay it back.
People weren't easily going to trust a man with no common sense.

Draco turned off the lights and Apparated to the cottage, checking over
everything to make sure no one had found the place. He was particularly good at
covering his tracks, but the closer he got to the end, the more trouble came.

He lit the torches along the walls in the basement, and walked along the tables,
glancing at the one covered in ingredients and potions. He was falling behind in
his cultivation. Euphoria and its sister potion took several ingredients he never
bought outright to prevent anyone from catching on. Some he had to buy, and he
did so under different names at different small shops. The rest he acquired
himself, or purchased the whole animal instead of the saliva, or weeded out
ingredients from already created potions. If anyone caught on to what he was
really making, it would be a lot harder to get information.

Draco looked over into the cauldrons where images moved through the liquid. He
would have never made it as far as he had without it – he learned the
connections and locations, and when he got to them, he learned theirs. It was
only a matter of time before he knew everything he needed to know, even if he
got it wrong and a few of them sent him off the course sometimes. He always
found the path again. They had little idea the lengths he'd go to.

He'd have to be quick tonight if he wanted to catch anything useful, but he had to
deliver the vials before Dlim got around.

Opening the cabinet with a series of spells, he skimmed the names taped to the
vial racks and took a dose from four of them. Glott was on his last dose, a
freelance potion master who worked out of BGC and was affiliated with all the
right people to make him Draco's first order of business.

He separated the vials into different pockets, muttering to himself the names so
he didn't mess it up later. Shutting and locking the doors, he darkened his
coloring and then Apparated to the club.

()

“I told you, I was in Diagon Alley, looking at Quidditch supplies. I was to play a
pick-up game on the weekend.”

“Where?”

Hermione knew that if she looked up at the memory of Malfoy at this moment, he
would be scowling and giving the Auror a look closer to murderous than it should
be in something like this. He would also look tired – the sort that came with grief,
like weights along the bones, where every movement was a struggle with that
much burden. It always hurt to look at him in that second, and so usually, she
didn't.

“Potter's.”

“Your affiliation with Potter isn't going to save you today, Malfoy. Where in Diagon
Alley?”

“Quality Quidditch Supplies. I bought a broom, which I'm sure you found in my
home, when you were tearing it apart. Again.”

“I'll have to check the list. What we've been more focused on is what we found on
your mother's mouth. You know about that?”

Another one she couldn't look at. He was good at hiding himself, at putting up
that icy exterior that made people walk around him on the street or her yell in
frustration, but his pain was too fresh, deep. He looked shredded then, like the
words had torn him apart and down and he'd rather not get back up again.

“It was a white powder, Malfoy, highly poisonous. And the only time we've ever
seen it was on that night. In a safe, under the floorboards of your bedroom, with
Galleons and documents with your name on it. So how does someone else kill
your mother with a poison only in your possession?”

Silence, and Hermione looked up, freezing at the look on Malfoy's face. Who was
killed and where? It was the same look he had given her that night in the hotel
room, after she had told him someone was using his wand to murder people. At
first, it looked like anger. A if this is correct, I'm going to do something violent;
but that was missing the most important part. The revelation, the knowing. As if
he knew exactly, and just needed the last thread of absolute confirmation.

“The same as in my safe?” was the last thing she heard him say before she pulled
herself into the next memory, before she had to see the violent rage from him
that followed the question.

(June, 2000)

He knew her the second he saw her. There should have been some form of doubt
when it wasn't even her face, but he had seen her wear it too many times across
the headstones for him to think it wasn't her. There were half a dozen
enchantments she would present herself as, but he knew that one the most.

Maybe it was just in his mind. Maybe it was born from a desire to see her that
manifested her in front of him, features close enough from this distance that they
matched. Maybe it was the subconscious thought process that knew the two
women he bought potions from always came in different faces that he linked to
Granger. Maybe he had dreamt her in this disguise last night, instead of the way
he normally dreamed of her in curls and a smiling mouth.

But he knew, and his feet froze with his breath, and his heart hammered. He
wanted to stay more than he wanted to leave, but reality can be cold and
unforgiving, and it didn't care what he wanted.

She looked up, her gaze moving past him, and Draco turned. His inhale was hot
and dry down to his lungs as he hunched down, knocking through the crowd and
to the doors, to the exit, away from her before he could decide to stay.

()

“Narcissa Malfoy.”

“Huh?” Hermione asked, looking up as her noodles fell off her fork.

Fink held up a parchment and then slapped it onto her desk. “Report from the
Unspeakables search of the trace records. The closest it comes to is Narcissa
Malfoy. So you mind telling me how a dead woman cast a spell at you?”

Hermione stuffed the forkful of noodles into her mouth, chewing one hundred
times for proper digestion. Also, perhaps to avoid answering for just a few
seconds while she collected a response from the sudden clutter of her mind. And
people bothered asking why she preferred working alone.

“I saw Draco Malfoy.” A dozen times. Or so. “You had your date night with Emily,
and I decided to go see about a man connected to BGC, the company O'Keefe
worked for. That was connected to those two murders. Ran into Malfoy, he cast a
Disarming spell then took off.”

“You should have waited for me! I—”

“It didn't seem like a big deal. Hardly was, really, the guy wasn't there, and
Malfoy was stalking about. He sneaked in, I think. Really, no problem, no big
event, but at least we know what wand he's using. Not his own, at any rate.
Noodles?”

(September, 2000)

Draco stood uncomfortably in the cramped office of Gurnheart's Apothecary, the

open space just enough for him to stand within. Every surface was covered with
old, rusted objects, ingredients, and paperwork. The combination of plants did not
make for the smell of a flower garden, but a moldy, acidic scent that weighed
heavily on his breaths.

“They're all great quality.”

Draco didn't have to be told that – he'd brewed them himself. “Yes. I'll send
another shipment by owl.”

“That's good news, Ron.”

Draco cringed, reaching into his pocket for the bag of Galleons. He set it on the
desk with a loud thud, and the old man stared at it, cork hovering above the jar
in his hand.

“I told you that someone was looking for me—”

“A woman from your past. Is that—“

“I favor my privacy, but I wasn't very secretive with where I live at my last work
place. If she comes, can you tell her that I've been working here for several
months now? To stop her from looking too far into it. As gratitude, I would like
you to take this. If all goes well after she visits, I'll send you the other half.”
Draco pushed the bag forward when the old man looked hesitant. “I insist.”

He wasn't entirely sure Granger hadn't been lying to him when she called him by
that name – it had never been connected to him before, and it was far too close
to Weasley – but Draco took opportunity where he saw it. She knew something
about Euphoria, which was a problem in itself, and he knew she was going to
check apothecaries and suppliers for his information. If she had the wrong name,
he wasn't going to convince her otherwise. He needed her far away from this.

“All right.”

“Very good.”

()

The bed was still the same rumpled mess it had been when she last left, except
an arc in the left side of the covers and sheets. She couldn't remember smoothing
a hand over it, but she didn't know why he would.

She looked down at the note in her hand, a drop of ink in the left corner
suggesting he hesitated before deciding what to write. You may inform me of the
current status of my request. Information can be sent to the previous address.
Regards, Ron Wilson. She had little idea what he was talking about, but she
doubted he was giving her answers. Part of her hoped it was over now, but it
didn't seem like it would be. It didn't feel like it, either – and nothing was really
over until it felt like it.

Hermione looked up at a shuffle of clothing as Malfoy emerged into the living

room, lowering his wand when he spotted her. She cleared her throat, moving as
fast as she could out of the bedroom without appearing like she was on the verge
of running.

“What did you want?”

“A cup of tea,” he drawled. She crossed her arms, and his gaze dropped down her
body, reading her well enough to be annoyed when he looked back up. “I wouldn't
have owl'd you if I had another option. As it is, I've exhausted them.”

Him and his choices. He was always so desperate to believe he didn't have one.
Maybe to blunt the edge of whoever was perceiving him as a failure after he
chose.

She tapped her foot, and she didn't notice the casual lean of his body until he
tensed. “I need the last ingredient.”

“What?”

“A plant. Green, white spores, jagged edges, long vines. The tip might be curved.”

She stared at him, waiting for him to reveal the actual reason. “You have to be
kidding.”

“I need that plant, Granger. I have no leads, and I don't know how to get to
them. Every day is a risk, you know that.”

She felt like throwing something. “I thought you didn't want my help? Didn't want
me involved?” He was angry – probably more at himself for having to be here
than her – but he didn't speak. “Are you going to tell me everything then? Are
you going to stop making me put my career—”

“That's your decision, don't blame me for it. You don't care about the rules when
it comes to what you believe is right. It's what you do. Not what I make you do.”

“But something that wouldn't have to be done if you didn't hide things—“

“I already told you everything about the Euphoria, and you know what I want the
ingredients for—”

“It's more than—”

“—ask you if I had someone else. This isn't risking anything, or doing anything
illegal—”

She huffed. “What do you plan to do if I tell you what it is?” Break in, steal it, use
it in combination with illegal ingredients.

“Research it.”

She waved her hand. “For?”

“General curiosity.”

She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, and he seemed to prefer those moments to
attack, because he took three steps toward her. “God, you're a liar.”

“You're an Auror, and particularly dangerous between two things you feel is right,
when having to forsake one of them.” He picked a thread off his shirt as she
glared at him. “I'm just asking you to name a plant.”
For a cure. She knew he was hiding things from her, that he couldn't have taken
off for this long just to get something she could have helped him to get. Maybe.
He was as stubborn as she was. But the plant was for a cure, she knew that
much. Even if she couldn't care what happened to Lucius Malfoy, she…she cared
what happened to Draco.

“I'll help, with a condition.”

“Of course,” he muttered, and her dangerous look was apparently not dangerous
enough to keep him from moving forward again.

“If you answer three questions.”

He looked at the floor between them in a second of contemplation, his tongue

pushing against his cheek. “Two. And it depends on the questions.”

She'd settle for that – choose your battles and such. “Did you create the powder
in your safe?”

His eyes drifted over her shoulder, his expression reluctant and then defiant. “Yes.
To poison Dumbledore, before I decided it was better with a common poison. Mine
was more effective and worked more quickly, but it could be linked back if
something happened.”

Sixth-year. Sixth-year. “Who had the combination?”

“Anyone who figured it out.”

So, he never gave it out? “Okay, then who knew the powder was in there?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “Anyone who knew the combination.”

His answers were simple, but she felt like they were riddles. Anyone who figured
it out by finding the safe, or who figured it out from him? Anyone who knew the
combination and so saw it, or a certain person or people he had told both to?

“Who knew before they could have opened it?”

The pause was heavy, and she knew by the way he looked at her that he wasn't
going to answer. “You said two. That was your fourth.”

“Your answers were insufficient.”

“Then so were your questions. Never mind that it's a waste to ask me things that
don't matter anymore.”
Except it did matter. Wyatt, the man who had died in Azkaban after being charged
for the death of Narcissa, was barely connected to the Death Eaters. He had
fought for Voldemort in the war, but had never been marked, and was faintly
known in the Dark circles for rape and drugs. He couldn't have found a safe under
the floor of Draco's room, took the powder, and killed Narcissa. Not without
having been told. Beyond that, the memory they retrieved of the murder from his
mind was so thin they had almost missed it, and assumed he Obliviated himself.

She knew there was something bigger going on here. And she knew she was
going to find out what it was, from him or not.

“D—“

“Now answer mine.”

“How do—”

“How sounds like another question, Granger.”

He wasn't going to tell her anything else. If she pushed it after he gave her those
near worthless answers, he was just going to get angry and not give her the
chance again. Allowing her to go first was about the highest amount of trust he
was willing to give anyone right now.

“It's Tamtigg leaves,” she said on a heavy sigh. “They don't normally have white
spores, and only develop them once exposed to powdered Mandrake root. Maybe
something else as well, but that's all I've read.”

So far. She hadn't had as much time as she needed to research it extensively
after it sent Cleave into nonsense. She hadn't been sure it was the last ingredient
until now – unless he was trying to throw her off, because he wouldn't think so
unless he was absolutely sure. At least she had learned about the spores. She'd
need that information when she tried making the cure herself.

“I'm not going to tell you where to get it, so if—”

“I didn't ask for that.”

“Fine.” She swayed back, but he still got hold of a curl, pulling it straight before
watching it bounce back into shape.

“Fine.” His hand slipped into her hair as he lowered his head.

Grey, blue, white, and she pushed out against him. “I'm on your case. We
shouldn't…we shouldn't.”
A line grooved across his forehead, and she stared at it to avoid his eyes. “We
have.”

“Yes, well, I'm almost on the verge of solving all this, so perhaps after is…less
distracting…conflicting…you know, after we can-- It's more likely then. After…”

“Solving it?”

“That's right.”

That response was a lot more convincing than we shouldn't, because he pulled
away from her, stepping back twice. His look was cold. “You should go home.”

Her mouth moved silently before she breathed a chuh, turning on her heel only to
turn right back again. “This is why you drive me mad! I want to just stab you with
my wand! I want to-- Gr!”

He raised an eyebrow as she growled in her throat, narrowing her eyes at him. He
looked amused, and it only increased the desire to do something.

“You are an incorrigible man! Just because I—“ He grinned, and her heart sped up
before she shook her head at him or herself. “You can't just keep all these things
from me, and then have me working day and night to figure things out to help
you, then start with the…” she flapped her hands between them, “like a…a…”

“Incorrigible man?”

“Yes. And it's not funny.”

He seemed to have to look at the floor to smother his smile, or just to think of
the things that made it disappear. “Beyond today, I've never asked for or wanted
your help. You know what I'd prefer. I can do this by myself. I have been. I need
to – do you understand that?”

“I do.” She straightened her robe. “But I don't accept it.”

“Then you have to accept the fact that I have nothing else to tell you. If you keep
chasing after something that's not there, I'm going to finish well before you do.
You're not close to solving anything, Granger. I've already told you all there is to
know.”

All he was willing to let her know. She didn't understand why he couldn't trust her
enough.

“Owl me if you need me again,” she told him, Apparating out before he could say
whatever he opened his mouth for.
(October, 2000)

“What's in it?”

Draco shook his head. “I can't tell you that – you're skilled with potions, right?
Work out of BGC?”

“That's not the only place I work.”

“Oh?”

“I freelance.” Scott's gaze wandered toward the wall. “Here and there.”

Which was exactly where Draco wanted to find out more about. “So you're skilled
enough for there to be a demand for you. You understand why I can't tell you the
contents.”

“What's stopping me from taking it apart in my lab?”

Scott's eyes narrowed when Draco forgot himself, his agitation apparent. He had
been trying to convince the man to take the vial for over five minutes now, which
was nearing the longest it had ever taken him. He didn't know if he was
stumbling through this because of Scott's stubbornness or Granger infiltrating his
mind.

Infiltrating his life. He had come directly to the pub after moving all the Euphoria
from the warehouse, but she had still got her hands on a vial. She must have
followed Klem, who had left right before she appeared. He had known she would
be a threat since he first saw her again, but he had been hoping it would take her
more time to start figuring it out.

Her wards had still let him into her flat. In a way, that knowledge bothered him
more than anything. He thought she would hate him when he left, and remove
the trace of him from her life. But she had still left her flat open for him to walk
into at any time, must have wanted him to. It made him feel guilty, and guilt had
a way of sticking to the walls of your skull so that every thought was cast in its
shadow.

“I'll take that to mean nothing?” Scott rolled his eyes up and shook his head as he
lifted his drink, like he had been wasting time talking to an idiot. It made Draco
want to hex him until it was painful to move for a month.

He bit back the first three responses, all inappropriate for trying to get the other
person to do something. “Yes, nothing. But I'll only ever give you three, so if you
take apart one, you're not going to get the last experience. You should at least try
it before you make that choice.”

“I could get it from the street if I was that desperate—”

“Not from anyone who got it from me. You can take a risk with someone else.
Like I said, I bought out all the bad Euphoria a few weeks ago, but there's always
another botched attempt being sold.”

Scott stared at him in a mix of irritation and interest. Draco reached for his right
pocket before remembering, and took the vial from his left. He pressed the end to
the table, keeping it upright with his fingertip on the cork, and tilted his head.

“What interests you more, Scott? Finding out some of what's in it…or
experiencing it yourself?”

Scott licked his lips, and his gaze darted over Draco's shoulder where his co-
worker was currently feeling the effects. They were safe in this section of the club
– or, at least, these two men were – and Draco had no intention on leaving until
he saw Scott down the dose.

Scott gulped down the rest of his drink, shrugging twice as he watched his co-
worker. Draco slid the vial across the table as Scott sucked in a breath, then
grabbed it from under Draco's finger.

“I'll try it just this once.”

No one tried it just the once. “Go on, then.”

()

The manilla folder with the name Pansy Parkinson scrawled across the top hit the
bottom of Hermione's rubbish bin. It was all information she had requested, and
it was no use to anyone – including her. Pushing her feet against the floor of her
office, she rolled back to behind her desk.

That left Goyle and Nott as the last two in her list of most likely possibilities.
While Voldemort or another Death Eater could have found the powder during the
war, Hermione figured they were more likely to use it, or at least blow the safe
apart. It had been intact when the Aurors found it in a search of the Malfoy Manor
that had been even more extensive than the one after the war. Then again, this
time they had Draco specifically in mind.

The possibilities had to be limited. When the Auror mentioned the powder, Draco
had got that look on his face. Knowing. And if it was such a wide range of
likelihood, he wouldn't have looked like he realized something. To Hermione, that
meant either a small number of people who knew about the powder – or at least
the safe – by discovery, being told, or having made it with him.

She briefly contemplated Lucius, but as evil as the man was, he loved his wife.
The most likely would have been Goyle, who Draco had spent the most time with
alongside Crabbe, and who he might have told on the assumption of Goyle's
eternal loyalty. But she also didn't see Goyle being smart enough, brave enough,
or magically capable enough to fight off Narcissa and Lucius.

Which left Nott. A man she knew very little about, and that everyone seemed to
know nothing or very little about. But she knew by his ease in Slytherin and the
general respect he carried there, and the seemingly effortless passing of his
classes, that he had to be somewhat intelligent and capable.

The problem – as there always was one – was that Goyle and Nott were both in
Azkaban, and had been since the Battle of Hogwarts. Unless they had passed on
the information themselves, or orchestrated the entire thing from a cell. Which
left her with the file in front of her.

Hermione separated the letters received by and sent from Goyle and Nott, and
started on the thicker one.

(November, 2000)

Draco glared at Cleave's bound hands, dirt packed under the fingernails. The
sharper edges of his anger had dulled since he first found out Cleave had been
arrested, but it was still there and wasn't going to go away until he found
someone else. He was still working on the people he had learned about through
Cleave's vision, and while he was sure they would lead him to the right place, he
didn't know if that would involve the rest of the cure. He had needed Cleave for
that.

The image moved back to Granger, and Draco set a light above the cauldron,
illuminating the image until most of the color tint was gone. She was herself, all
escaped curls, pursed lips, and the red in her face that came with determination,
among other things. He liked her like that, ready to battle, but it was only when
he saw it directed at him. Not now, at a man under Veritaserum, with a few
secrets Draco wasn't keen on sharing.

He couldn't tell what they were saying. There was no sound on the visions, and
Cleave looked away every time Granger spoke. But Draco watched for a little
while longer anyway, taking her in when she didn't know he was there to turn her
face away.
()

In the garden of our youth, a testament, lined in rock and marble. The poem was
long enough to take up two pages of parchment, but it was that line Hermione
kept going back to. She had dismissed the entire letter at first, but it was
someone Theodore Nott had never responded to or Hermione had heard of. When
there was no obvious suspicion in any letter to Nott or Goyle, she had looked
deeper. And it always came back to this.

Hermione studied the fountain in the back garden of Nott Manor. It was
surrounded and filled with snow, and no tracks were around it except for tiny
paws of some animal that crisscrossed to the woods. Hermione trudged closer,
the depth of a winter-worth of snow threatening the top of her boots. She walked
around the fountain, clearing a circle, and melted the snow within it into water.

Revealing spells gave her nothing. The inside of the basins seemed normal
enough, along with the structure until she got to the bottom. Her knees crackled
against the ground as she lowered herself to it, inspecting the line that went
around the base. It looked like a groove that wrapped around, but there were tiny
lines down the sides that were more telling.

Hermione backed up until her heels crunched into snow, and then cast a pulling
charm, moving her wand back slowly. The lines down the sides became cracks,
and stone grounded together in a sound that filled the entire garden. She moved
the slab aside, ending the spell to cast light into the hole, and found a small,
metal container.

She had known the poem had to mean something. Who would have written Nott
that? His parents were dead, and distant family was far more distant than in most
families. But someone had taken the time to hide this here and tell Nott about it.
She was guessing the answer was somewhere inside the container.

Hermione grinned, Summoning it, but the spell hit a wall that split it like
lightening.

It took her an hour to break the wards, and nothing she did opened the box.
Chapter 7

(November, 2000)

Draco took his time to dismantle the wards on the next greenhouse, having seen
it done by one of the employees two days ago. A few months before at a
warehouse, he had been in a rush and ended up with boils on his body, only
freeing himself from the hold of the wards in time to get a running start on the
security that found him. Draco rarely had to be taught a lesson twice. If he
experienced the consequences again, he had known he was going to.

He looked behind him, his eyes adjusted enough to the weak moonlight to see to
the end of the other greenhouse. There weren't any sounds, or spells flying at
him through the blackness, so if anyone was there, they were waiting for him to
go inside first. Unless it was Granger. He'd prefer guards over her showing up
again. At least he could Stun them without jeopardizing the task, or having to
revive them after. If he Stunned Granger, he couldn't leave her here, and she'd
leave a hell path of fury to wherever she found him next, and would most
certainly destroy every plan he made.

Draco darted into the greenhouse, scanning the plants in their dirt beds until he
found the last one Cleave had stolen before he was arrested for it. Same place,
same plant, but Draco wasn't a stumbling idiot.

He clipped the plant exactly as he'd read to do, placing stems and leaves carefully
in a bag. With a sharp, straight cut, he collected sap in a vial, making sure not to
let it touch his fingers. He capped it when it was full, sliding it into his pocket as
he crept out of the greenhouse.

()

Hermione stared at a very frazzled-looking healer who emerged from a loud room
filled with white coats. She was guessing they were all trying to figure out how
the seemingly impossible was achieved and by who, but Hermione knew they
wouldn't.

“We noticed a change, as I said, but we weren't sure if it was for the better or
worse at first. Then he seemed to stabilize, then improve over the past eighty
hours. There's no trace of the poison left, but his body is still recovering from the
damage. We can't be sure when he'll wake up.”
“But Lucius Malfoy is healed?”

“From the poison. We won't be completely sure what we're dealing with until he
wakes up. I have to warn you that it could have affected his mental capabilities,
and he may not be able to recall the events.”

Hermione nodded. “We've thought of that possibility. We do request that you do

not release this information to the public yet, and try to keep it as contained as
possible. We'll be sending in a guard to stand at his room. Notify us the minute
he wakes up.”

“After the appropriate medical checks, I will notify the Ministry.”

Hermione stopped herself from asking how long that would take. “Floo call me
directly, and as soon as possible. It's extremely urgent.”

(December, 2000)

Draco shoved open the door of the shack behind his house, the wood buckling
under his touch and scraping loudly across the cement. The walls were lined with
shelves, and copper cauldrons of various sizes sat along them. Draco had put
them away when he thought they weren't any use to him any longer, but he
hadn't dumped them in case he was proven wrong. Like now.

He had seen Vratta kill three men, but a month after he had taken all three
doses, Draco had been dosing people that seemed a lot higher than anyone
Vratta was connected to. He had gone into the shack then, and the only reason
Draco still remembered his name was one incident. At the time, Draco had told
himself he read the word wrong. That Black was so much a part of his mindset
that anything close to looking like it became it, and Vrat could have fit. The man
he killed, Stout, had been one Draco dosed, but it wasn't surprising that Vratta
knew him.

Now, after what Granger said, Draco knew differently, and why Vratta always
finished the job with two Killing Curses when one should have been enough. It
was because he was using a different wand. Draco's wand. Without Stout having
said Black or something close to it, Draco might have doubted himself, but it
made too much sense now. They were trying to set him up, either because they
knew he was coming, or paranoia told them so.

There were a limited amount of people who knew about the room under the
parlor, and the Ministry wouldn't have gone in there. The same with who had to
have created the poison his father took, and who knew about the powder in the
safe. It all came back around. And something like this wouldn't have gone
through a lot of people. Draco was assuming there was a person between, but no
more than one. Which meant he was at least one person away from finding out a
location, which was all he needed now. He couldn't hide from him anymore. Draco
knew he could appear in any face, but he was ready for all of them.

Draco lifted the cauldron carefully, making sure nothing sloshed over the sides,
and carried it out of the shack.

()

Hermione almost stood right out of her chair before falling back into it, her hands
in the air as she looked around her office, like there was something around her
that could help calm the burst of adrenaline within her. Poisoned, poisoned,
poisoned, poison: unknown.

She looked back down at the record of Nott's death, passing the box classifying it
as a suicide to read the report. …May 5th…in bedroom of Nott Manor…within five
hours. Body showed no fresh injuries, recent ones attributed to Battle of
Hogwarts. The lips were gold and flaking with—

Hermione's heart was beating in her ears as she shoved a pile of folders to the
side, some of them dropping onto the floor with no notice from her. She flipped
through until the bottom, and then opened her drawers, finding the file she was
looking for in the last one. Slapping it on top of the older Nott's file, she turned
through the pages until she reached the death report. …suggesting physical
restraint, as no significant trace of magic was found on the victim. The knuckles…
lips were gold and eroded.

Her vision blurred on the tight script as her mind spun. “Jesus,” she muttered.

Draco had been in prison on May 5th, not that she would think he had done it
anyway. He had said he created the poison, and while it was a possibility it had
been made before, this wasn't a coincidence. Theodore Nott had been arrested on
May 3rd, which ruled him out, though he was likely the person who told someone
about the poison in Draco's safe. Whoever it was who had written him the letter
and had hid something at his house. A house that shouldn't have been accessible
to anyone but the Ministry and the Nott family without the Ministry finding out.

It had to be a Death Eater, one that held enough personal hatred toward the
Malfoys to kill Narcissa and make Lucius suffer a slow death. Those were the
actions of a hatred born from betrayal. Which, given Lucius' plead to the
Wizengamot and Narcissa's saving of Harry's life, could be any Death Eater. And
given that they used poison, they had tried setting Draco up with Narcissa, and
might have also had to avoid wand use because their trace was in the system.
But not any Death Eater could cross the wards on Nott Manor, create the sort of
potion Lucius and Cleave's wife suffered from, or bother leaving something for
Theodore. If Theodore had thought Draco was behind his father's murder, there
would have been some evidence in the Azkaban letters. The only likely suspect
was dead.

Conveniently dead. Declared as such by a law department rushing to capture the

last of Voldemort's forces days after they lost, and by the same powder that killed
Narcissa Malfoy. A powder Nott could have found out about through his son, and
had plenty of access to while Draco was in seventh year and Voldemort ruled
Malfoy Manor.

He wants revenge. And Draco, who still hadn't shown up after his father was
cured, was looking for it too.

(December, 2000)

Draco slid the box onto the counter, looking at the others scattered around the
kitchen as he tried to make sure he had everything. The shack and basement had
been the most difficult to transport, and he was dizzy now from the constant
Apparition. His energy was drained from the night and the move, and his
exhaustion made it hard to think.

He should have collapsed into a bed, but he Apparated instead, dulling the sound
by appearing in the basement. His legs were heavy up the staircase and across
the house, but the thud of his boots hadn't woken her. The house was cleared
except for the bed and her, and he had no intention of moving either. Her scent in
his sheets would distract him nearly as much as she did.

He hadn't wanted to move yet, the other house serving as a backup for if people
caught onto this one. Granger took away the choice. If he needed to, he'd move
back, preferably after she'd given up on the idea that he would. But he'd rather
have her sneaking into his home than what else was out there searching for him.

Her skin was pale in the morning, her hair tangled from sleep and his hands. If he
was lying with her, her face would be pressed to his neck, and her hair would be
attacking his face, and her breathing would stutter until it subconsciously
synchronized with his. Sometimes she'd knead her toes into his calf, or grumble
when he wasn't being comfortable enough, and she never remembered it in the
morning. She always assumed they slept where they woke, when he knew they
came together, separated, together, apart.

Any logical sense that they should remain together seemed ruined by the facts of
the past, and they both liked facts. But Granger had a habit of disregarding them
when they didn't match the conclusion she wanted, and Draco was too sly and
ambitious not to find a way around them when he needed to.
And Hermione Granger had a way of making him feel like he needed to. It was
like she had said – they were inescapably drawn together, and that inescapable
bit had been well tested and concrete. She gave him some part of himself he'd
grown attached to now.

But right now, she made him feel regret. Not for last night, but…everything. It
made him want to change his mind, to find another way. But there was a
darkness inside of him that he had to dig out, or he was going to push, and push
it away until it soaked through the ground. Spoiled the roots, rotted everything
he had built or could build of his life. Maybe it was going to happen either way,
but he knew he couldn't forgive himself if it was born of ignorance and not action.
And he regretted that she wasn't going to forgive him either way.

()

A squeak made its way out of Hermione's throat as the hand clamped over her
mouth, and she shoved back, twisting out of the grip. Her hand brushed skin as
she raised her wand, and she found it was Malfoy's hand, his wand aimed at her.
His mother's, she reminded herself.

“You are getting far too deep now, Granger.”

“So are you,” she spat, infuriated just at the sight of him being there.

He must have found it through Euphoria. It had taken her piles of records, favors,
and dead ends to find the building. She hadn't even been sure it was connected
to Nott until she remembered seeing the building in one of Malfoy's cauldrons,
and then saw him standing there.

“You need to leave. Now.”

“What are you doing here, Malfoy? Your father is cured. That's all you had been
looking for, right? The reason you left? That's the lie you told me, right?”

“Granger—”

“Did you think I wouldn't believe you? That I wouldn't help? Th—”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I don't want your fucking help before
you can grasp such an easy concept?” If they weren't so close to the building, she
thought he would have yelled it.

“You don't want my help because of what you plan to do. If you were satisfied
with what the Ministry could do, you would have come to me by now. But no,
because you're looking for the sort of justice that's going to put you in Azkaban
instead. You're going to kill Nott, a—”

He hissed, stepping toward her as he shot a glance to the building and then
looked back at her. He looked pale and wild, and she didn't dare lower her wand.
“You don't know what you're—”

“Stop. Lying! I'm not dense. Did you honestly think I would believe all your crap?
That I wouldn't figure it out? God, Draco, I'm so angry with you right now th—”

“He killed my mother.” His voice was quiet, but there was a darkness in it that
almost made her afraid of him. And she had never feared him. “He almost killed
my father. If he could, he would have tried to kill me. Instead, he set me up
twice. What is he going to do? Claim Imperius and walk free? D—”

“He'll be sentenced to Azkaban, and possibly the Kiss—”

“The Wizengamot hasn't sentenced anyone to the Kiss since the end of the war, in
some political posturing to define itself as a better Ministry. I'm not letting the
man who killed my mother live free over political posturing. Potter killed his
family's—”

“That's completely different! He killed him because of what Voldemort was doing,
because of what would happen if he didn't! Voldemort was doing terrible things—”

“And Nott isn't? He's created a poison that—“

“You have the cure for. And he's not going to be doing anything in a cell for life!”

“On that theory, you could have just arrested Voldemort. What's the—“

“He controlled the Ministry and Azkaban, there was no just arresting him. There
was…there wasn't any other way! Not like there is now. You're not Harry, Draco,
and you're not this man either.”

“I've already lost everything, so a bit of who you think I am—”

“Not everything,” she said quietly. “Not yet.”

He flinched, and for a second, there was regret. “What would you do? If he had
killed your parents. Or Potter and Weasley.”

She had already thought about it since the day she found out who had killed
Narcissa. “I'd want to kill him. Anyone who has had someone they love taken
from them by the evil of someone else would feel that way. But in the end, he
would be destroying me too. I couldn't give him that satisfaction. So I'd put him
in Azkaban, and I'd make him suffer like I did.” She swallowed against the knot at
the base of her throat. “Draco, this is a choice. And the one you make is going to
define you, no matter the sort of person you were before you made it.”

He stared at her for a long moment, and he might have swayed forward or it was
all in her head. “I know,” he said, lowering his wand.

Her Stunner flew through empty space.

(January, 2001)

Six drops of the blood before the image moved back, and then a dusting of
powdered root quickly followed, sending the suds back into the potion. Draco
glanced at his watch, dipping the quill more than he needed to in the inkwell
before he continued writing. The image moved to the jar, still half the powdered
root left, and Draco took note of the amount.

The potion boiled up bubbles still covered with the powder, and then the jar
tipped, dumping the rest in. Draco checked his watch, marking down the time,
and then counted the stirs and their direction. The powder mixed in, and the
potion turned to a thick, brown slime.

He hoped Green knew what he was doing. Draco had been awake for more than
two days now, waiting for this moment since he saw Green feed the poison to a
house-elf. He hadn't wanted to miss Green making the cure, and the sleep
sacrifice was paying off for him now. All but one of the ingredients Green was
using were sitting on the shelf behind Draco, so long as Green gave it to the
house-elf and it worked, Draco had finally found it.

()

“It could be Theo.”

Hermione pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Letters to and from
Azkaban don't suggest anything, even when looking for code. Plus, Nott's will put
half his money into an organization to promote wizarding history, which is
connected to Bell-Ghramer. The company Ralph Barg is a silent partner in, a
powerful man never seen, and who also owns the research facility I found Draco
at.”

“You think he funneled the money into the company, and his own pocket.”

“With the rest going into Theodore's vault, and Channing Industries, a front of
Merryrose's.”
“The one killed by Draco?” Harry held up his hand. “Sorry,” he said, flexing his
fingers, “Draco.”

“Yes. And I still don't know who that is, but I'm guessing they're connected to
Nott. Draco probably knows.”

“And now Draco is after Nott?”

“To kill Nott.”

“I got that part.”

“I had expected more of a reaction.”

Harry shrugged. “Killing Voldemort wasn't exactly selfless, Hermione. I would

have watched him rot, but it wasn't just the world I was thinking about when I
got on that table.”

“I know. But you were already doing it because you had to. It… You didn't track
him down to—”

“Yes, I did. I destroyed his soul piece by piece, and then he destroyed himself. It
wasn't just because of what he did to me, but I thought about it. I might have.
When someone takes your parents from you…it's hard to control that much rage.”

“So what do we do?” she snapped. “We just let him go out and kill someone
because—”

“I didn't say that, Hermione. We stop him. I'm just telling you that I'm not
surprised.”

Hermione collapsed into Harry's chair, blinking furiously to beat back the burn in
her eyes.

“Hermione…”

“I'm fine.” Terrified, worried, anxious, upset. “Completely fine.” She took a deep
breath. “Now, Malfoy obviously knows the name Nott is hiding under, if it's the
only one. He has the Euphoria, so he probably knows more than we do. If he
catches someone from that facility, uses Veritaserum… Sneaks in, finds an
address or Portkey… Finds out who has access to Nott's house and grabs them
before they Apparate, or even what Nott's house looks like from the Euphoria…”

“He's close.”

“Too close. If he hasn't got to Nott already.” He could be dead somewhere, or… Or
a lot of other things she wasn't going to think about right now. That she couldn't.

“Okay.” Harry pushed a chair up to the desk. “Then let's figure it out first. What
do we know about the employees?”

(January, 2001)

Draco cracked his neck in a poor attempt to relieve some of the tension aching in
it. He was getting close to the end, and Draco knew well enough by now that that
was when things were going to go wrong. They had already started. Out of all the
questions Granger could have asked him, it had been about the safe. He had been
too obvious, and she was too intelligent. And nosy. Her curiosity was someone
else's death sentence.

The vision moved down a hall and into a meeting room Draco had seen before,
but the few people in the room avoided looking up or greeting Green this time. He
was going to take that as a bad sign, but no matter what happened, at least he
had got the cure from him. He just had to find a safer place to acquire it.

He shouldn't have gone to her. He hadn't wanted to at all, but he had been stuck,
and she was the only person he knew who might know. He should have pushed
Granger away harder. He should have done something to completely derail her.
She wouldn't have stopped, not when there was any lead to follow, but he should
have given her a lie she could believe. Finding out about the Euphoria or the cure
was bothersome. This would be a problem.

A small group had entered the room, and Draco only saw them from the side of
the image. Green was holding a fascination with the table when he normally
studied people to the point of awkwardness. Draco frowned, centering a light
directly over the cauldron to lighten the image. Green glanced up, but it was so
fast that it was just a blur before the table again.

The anxiety was contagious, and Draco looked over his shoulder before focusing
on the potion. The image had moved up the table, like Green was working up the
nerve, before moving to the front of the room. Draco bolted to his feet, his chair
cracking off the floor as he grabbed his wand, as if he was in the room with him
and not shown through liquid. Nott's eyes met the vision, met Draco's, and his
heart thudded painfully.

He found him. This was it.

()

Hermione, Harry, and Fink stepped back in unison, despite the Cursebreaker's
assurances that the box had been cleaned of traps. Hermione released her breath
when nothing happened, and took a tentative step forward after Harry.

There were four bags inside, a wand, and a ring with the Nott crest. Hermione
opened the bag, finding the gold of Galleons. It was the same in the second and
third, and Harry nodded at her after he opened the fourth.

“It's what we expected,” Fink said.

Hermione picked up one of the bags, and moved around the desk to clear a spot
to empty it. She was going to check to the bottom of every one of them. Harry
picked up the wand, frowning as he inspected it.

“We should bring this to—”

Hermione looked up when Harry cut himself off, finding him launching himself
toward Fink before her partner disappeared.

“Shit!” Harry yelled.

“Portkey?”

“The ring.” Harry dumped a bag of Galleons onto his desk, Hermione already
sifting through hers, trying to find anything that pulled at her navel. “There's
nothing.”

“Grab another bag!”

(February, 2001)

Draco uncorked the vial with his teeth, and pulled the cloth out of his father's
mouth, some of the foam spilling over his lips and onto his face. Draco dumped
the vial in, his hands burning from the slices getting the last ingredient had given
him.

He slid a hand carefully beneath Lucius' head and tilted it up, holding his breath
as Lucius swallowed the potion. Draco had brewed it exactly as he had seen it
done, exactly in the way that healed the house-elf. He knew it would take a few
days before he could be sure, but he still sagged with relief when the black veins
through his father's skin turned to grey.

Draco set his head back down, hesitated, and then ran a finger lightly over one of
the lines. It moved and pulsed under his fingertip, but it no longer looked
moments away from breaking through the skin. He pulled his hand back, wiping
his finger on the edge of the bed sheet.
At least he had done this. If he got nothing else right, he had been a good son.
He hadn't failed him. He had been enough this time.

()

Hermione watched as Fink looked up at the wall, appearing as a window in this

room, and motioned for the Veritaserum. Harry had already left with it a question
ago, when it became evident that the guard Fink captured at Nott's house was
not going to talk. Fink had been lucky Nott wasn't home – they all were. It wasn't
likely Fink would have made it out of Nott's personal office without Nott catching
on and sending the guards on him.

“You been sleeping?”

Hermione looked over at Ron as he stepped up next to her, watching Harry enter
the interrogation room. “Yes.”

“If Malfoy's there when we get there, can I throw him into a wall?”

She rolled her eyes. “Only if it's necessary.” Ron looked pleased. “And by that I
mean no.”

“It's only fair for what he's been putting you through.”

“He's gone through enough.”

“Not as much as he will if he killed someone.” He did a double-take, and had the
nerve to look surprised at her glare. “What?”

“Nothing.”

There was a pause before Ron's hand thumped her between the shoulder blades,
and then his arm draped over her shoulder as he pulled her against his side.
“We've got a good team together, and Fink can Apparate us outside the anti-
Apparition wards right by the house. It's going to be all right. We'll make sure of
it.” He continued muttering something about a git and wall, but Hermione ignored
that bit to smile at him.

“He's talking,” an Auror said to her other side. “Get the board ready for the house
layout.”

(February, 2001)
Draco felt like he was on fire, his blood shoving up against his skin, like there was
too much rage and hatred inside of him to leave room for the rest. His hands
were shaking, fingers clutching a moving hardness that struggled against him.
Struggled like his mother must have for breath, desperately reaching for life
before it was gone, stolen from her.

His wand was somewhere across the room, Nott's somewhere to the side of him.
His hand kept reaching for it, slapping into the ground, but it was much too far
away. He'd never reach it before Draco reached his. And as soon as Nott stopped
thrashing wildly, Draco was going to get his, and Nott would truly know.

Draco's heart was slamming blood through his system that made him vibrate,
clogged up his ears and throat, and had his chest aching with an agonizing cramp
he had known few times before. He was breaking apart. He was the skeleton
finally falling to its pieces.

But still, through all that cacophony, all the rumble of sound that couldn't make
sense but be felt as a whole explosion, there was a constant. A clanging that was
loud enough to be heard through the mess, and consistent enough to pay
attention to. The sound he always found.

What made a man? Sinew, muscle, and blood. But what made him this or that
man? The sort that Granger could look up at like she saw light in him too, or the
kind that was here now, panting with his insides shaking in revenge. He knew
what destroyed a man. He knew what kind of man he had wanted to be, and what
sort of man he wanted to be now. But he still didn't know what he was made of.

()

Hermione followed directly behind Harry and Fink, Ron next to her, and two more
Aurors behind them as they ran down the stairs. She expected Harry to move up
enough for her to get off the stairs and around him, but he pulled up short,
making her slam into his back with an Auror against hers. Fink went flying from
the impact of Ron, saved from the ground by Harry's grip on his arm and Ron's in
his robe.

It took her a few seconds to find the blood splattered on the floor under the
moonlight slanting through two tiny windows, and her inhale shuddered. The rest
of the room was covered in darkness until Ron and Fink raised a Lumos,
illuminating a man sitting in a chair. Hermione's jaw dropped as she took a
reactionary step forward, the team of Aurors following her.

It was Nott – it just took her some time to notice it through the swollen features,
the neck stained black, purple, blue. His arms were behind him, and his feet were
roped to the chair.
“Bloody hell,” Ron whispered as the lights scanned the room, Fink moving for the
body as Hermione found it harder to breathe.

Hermione knew him by the stretch of his legs, before the light climbed to his face.
Draco was sitting against the corner, his eyes open and on them, a bruise on his
jaw and a cut on the side of his face. It was the extent of his injuries that she
could see from there, but he still looked more ragged and used than she had ever
seen him.

“You're three days late,” he said, and his voice cracked and dragged, foreign to
her ears.

“On your feet, Malfoy,” one of the Aurors barked out, moving around Hermione
with his wand aimed.

“He's not dead.” Fink turned around, fingers still on Nott's neck as Hermione
sagged against the rail of the staircase. She didn't know how she'd feel, and she
still couldn't define it, but there was relief, and happiness, and a bit of pride too.
“I've got a beat.”

Hermione didn't know she was moving forward until Harry grabbed her arm.
“They have to arrest him, Hermione.”

“I know, but—”

“Granger, you want to do this?” the Auror next to Draco asked, nodding his chin.
Draco's expression was unreadable as he looked at her.

“No, I certainly do not,” she said, her voice clipped. She thought of adding in that
she should, and maybe a few names she had thought up the past year, but there
would be time for that later. All she wanted to do now was maybe hug him, and
heal him, and then hit him.

(March 2, 2001)

Draco watched as Granger grabbed the bars of the cell and yanked them open,
her forehead wrinkled as she stared at the ground moving under her feet. For a
period of time, he had thought he'd never see her again. Not like this, in her
casual clothes and hopeless hair, and her eyes bright when she looked up at him.
He knew it would be something that alternated between what he carried with him
and what haunted him, but maybe he no longer had to think of her in terms of
the past.

He had never been sure what he would do when he found Nott, wavering between
the sureness of his anger and the person he thought he was. Even when he had
Nott beneath him, choking for air, or passed out from lack of oxygen under the
point of Draco's wand. But that clanging sound in the cacophony held steady,
even when he was raging out to atoms that refused to keep it together. He had
lowered his wand. And maybe it wasn't failing. Maybe it was finally getting it
right.

He wanted to be a place where the light grew. For himself, and his mother, and
maybe Granger too.

“You're free,” Hermione said, watching him as he studied her. “Two weeks
overdue, but that's what you get for finding out so much information and then
keeping it to yourself for a year. You're a highly suspicious person, you know. The
whole Auror department thinks so.”

He seemed to be thinking about something very intensely, which made her

equally curious and nervous. So she stepped back when he stepped forward, out
of the cell, but the distance didn't last long. She closed it and pressed her palms
to his cheeks, pulling his head down as she raised to her toes, and kissed him
before she could change her mind.

There was no hesitancy in the movement of his mouth over hers, and he wrapped
her tighter than she would have expected in the circle of his arms. But he had a
way of doing that – surprising her. In moments that would seem like nothing to
the outside world, and in others that changed a life when she had never seen him
coming.

It was like how you had to be a bit delusional to see the future. People can't grasp
it. Those that can, they call mad, except some of them turn out to be right. But
all the ones who say, logically, this is where we'll be in fifteen years, they're
wrong. So, once in a while, it was okay to believe in something mad. To love it
when it didn't always make a lot of sense. Because it might very well be your
future, and it wasn't something to miss out on.

Draco followed Granger up the stairs, signed a release paper, and was handed
back two wands – his mother's and his own. Granger grinned at him like she was
waiting for him to start jumping up and down, and so he raised an eyebrow at her
before nodding his chin to the exit. He smirked when she huffed her way there,
not looking at him until they were outside the building.

He had contemplated thanking her. Mostly during the time he had spent three
days in the basement with Nott bound, unwilling to risk taking on the guards
himself and Nott getting free. He had thought about it in the three days he had
waited for her, knowing she would come. She always found him, even when he
didn't want her to, or when he thought no one could.
The words always got lost in his throat, though, and he thought it was better that
he showed her. He still hadn't figured out how, but he suspected she'd find a way
to tell him.

He breathed the air in deep, crisp and cold in his lungs. The snow had turned to
slush along the pavement, and it splattered up against the robes of everyone
walking quickly to whatever important place they were going to. The world was
always filled with such a rumble of noise, indistinguishable to any person living
within it. Like billions of people slamming on the keys of a piano, all frantically
trying to make a sound the world would want to listen to, and getting lost in the
discord. But eventually, sometimes, you got a melody. Maybe it just sounded
good to you, but you felt it, and it was good, and that's what mattered.

Granger's hand slipped into his own, her fingers cold and her palm warm as she
tugged him down the pavement, muttering on about some important place they
had to get to. Because, sometimes, you got someone else who could hear you
through all that harshness too.

fin.

End Notes: shiorikazen, I hope you enjoyed it, even if I didn't get what you
were looking for (though I hope I did to some extent)! There were a couple
different ways I thought of going, and ended up taking a best guess. I know I
strayed a bit close to that violence line, so hopefully I didn't cross it. A big thank
you to jen3227, who catches my dirty typos, comma parties, and bad phrasing
with super human speed. Also, thank you to the mods here at the exchange,
WHO HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AMAZING BEYOND MEASURE.

Finally, thank you for reading!