There Will Come Soft Rains

A low branch creaks above the garden gate.

Wine-red petals drift through the air, catching the morning light as they fall across the old stone wall. It’s crumbling but sturdy, with ivy threading between runes chiseled into the stone. Beside the gate hangs a painted sign, its letters softly shimmering:

ACONITE FIELDS: OWNER NOT LIABLE FOR DEATH OR OTHER FERAL BEHAVIOUR

Hermione kneels in the rich, upturned soil. The sun scorches the nape of her neck, but she doesn’t mind. She rises slowly, stretching until her spine pops, then tilts her face to the vast, pale sky. The breeze carries lavender and sage—but also something darker.

Decay.

The air stings of wolfsbane: green, sharp, the eye-watering burn of turpentine. Beneath it lies something sweeter, half-rotted, as though the flowers remember every creature foolish enough to graze too close.

Hermione inhales deeply. A veil flutters around her chin before she peels it off.

This is hers.

Elderfell Grange was in ruins when she found it. A sagging skeleton of a farm clinging to the Wiltshire hillside. Too far from Malfoy Manor to be of value, too historic for the Malfoys not to hoard it out of pride. It once belonged to Muggle tenant farmers, and perhaps that’s why Narcissa insisted. She’d sent a solicitor to Hermione’s legal team—an insultingly small offer and a deed.

A final dig. A way to say: Wallow in the mud where you belong.

But Hermione takes it anyway.

Not just to be done with the war. Not for closure.

Because Elderfell is still alive.

There’s no roof. No floor. Just half-toppled walls and rusted siding, as if the countryside had tried to bury it and failed. But she sees herself in the land.

She rebuilt her mind. Her body. The wizarding world.

So she can damn well rebuild a farm.

And she did.

Now the house stands two storeys tall, its sandstone glowing in the early light. Stained glass flickers in the windows—floral panes, wandering sheep. Magic raises the structure—Reparo, Leviosa, Erecto—but human hands lay the floorboards and paint the shutters. Muggle contractors help raise the bones of it. She likes it that way.

A collaboration. A reclamation.

But the house isn’t her masterpiece.

The flowers are.

Behind the cottage, wrapped in protective wards and ringed in charmed fencing, stretch forty-seven acres of blue-violet bloom: wolfsbane. The largest private GrowSite in England. It shimmers like stormclouds in sunlight, rippling gently in the breeze.

Beautiful. Dangerous.

And necessary.

The GrowSite’s wards hum quietly, keeping out the sheep, the foxes, and the curious child who visits the perimeter every afternoon. This isn’t a vanity project. It’s work. Real work. Hermione hires displaced magical workers. Former house-elves. A few old classmates. Neville manages the broader herbology. She handles everything else: potions, research, daily spells.

Down in the lower fields, lambs tumble through the tall grass, their mothers following behind. Hermione watches from the garden, her knees muddy, her hands scented of straw. Her sunburn itches, but she smiles anyway.

It’s been three years.

Three years since the trials. Since the flashbulbs. Since the healers prescribed potions that made her slow and breathless. She packs her bags, takes her restitution, and vanishes from the wizarding world.

The Prophet says she’s a werewolf.

But really, she’s a farmer.

She’s taken root. So she can never be moved.

And now, with her return only a day away, she just hopes it will be enough to hold her steady.

“Hermione!” Neville shouts, waving a hat wildly above his head across the field. “Morning!” he calls, arms full of tomes, blueprints, reworked formulas, and legal parchments that promptly begin unrolling themselves. A goat trots past and snatches the longest scroll from his grasp.

Neville yelps, drops everything, and takes off after it—only to trip over the hem of his robes. He lands with a thud outside the chicken coop. The goat bleats victoriously as it gallops past Hermione.

Some things, she thinks with a smile, never change.

She draws her wand, transfiguring the goat into a flower pot mid-stride. After rescuing the scroll, she restores the goat.

“You shouldn’t cause such trouble for Mr Longbottom,” she says mildly, leading the goat by the horn out the gate. “He’s always been good to you.”

Neville jogs up, panting, bracing on his knees. He pulls off his newsboy cap to wipe sweat from his brow.

“Sorry, Mione.”

“She’s a menace,” Hermione says with a wave of her hand. “I see why Muggles associate goats with the devil.”

She shrugs. “At least she didn’t headbutt you.”

Neville snorts. “Delores is a proper tosser, isn’t she? Still scared of horses?”

“She gets along with them now,” Hermione replies, amused. “Don’t worry. Our Delores isn’t half as bad as the real one.”

Neville, still scarred from the animal’s teeth, scoffs. “Azkaban could make room.”

“Neville.”

“I’m just saying. When you start raising mooncalves, she goes to Hagrid.”

“She’d be eaten at Hagrid’s.”

He brightens. “Would she?” He doesn’t even pretend to look sorry.

Hermione rolls her eyes and unholsters the wand strapped to her thigh. She moves with deliberate grace, casting in precise arcs. All around the fields, invisible biodomes shimmer to life in a soft pulse of blue.

Magical wolfsbane, like its Muggle counterpart, is deadly. Touch it. Breathe too close. You might not breathe at all.

The biodomes aren’t just greenhouses. They’re containment systems. No spores. No pollen. No risk. Only scythes can cut through. And only Hermione’s hand-bred bees can survive within them.

She built it all in three years.

She snaps her fingers.

The barn doors swing open.

Dozens of tiny stone golems march into the rows, carrying miniature scythes and watering cans. They cut flowers with rhythmic swipes. Pollen spirals through the domes like golden dust in snowglobes.

Neville levitates the bushels onto floating platforms. They glide toward an underground tunnel, where the barriers will drop and the processing will begin—petals, stems, roots, seeds. Each crate marked with lunar runes that change with the phases of the moon.

It’s a good system.

But it’s not perfect.

Hermione huffs. Neville pats her back.

“Long night?” he asks.

“Isn’t it always?” she mutters. “Between the protestors and the werewolves, I should be drawing curse lines at Gringotts, not farming poison.”

“Well,” Neville offers with a hopeful shrug, “you’ve still got twenty-four hours to cancel St Mungo’s.”

She raises an eyebrow. He shrinks a little.

She storms toward the tree line, wand at the ready.

“Honestly,” she mutters, “how do they keep finding us?”

She slams a hex into the ground. A towering wall of thorns bursts from the earth.

It reminds her of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Her mother used to read her that one. Her mother always knew what to say.

Hermione falters. Her chest tightens. The thorns groan as they settle.

“Hermione,” Neville says gently. He sinks onto a stump, his expansion plans scattered in the grass.

“You really are doing something brilliant,” he says. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that. You made the right choice. You’ve done more for werewolves in three years than the Ministry’s done since—ever.”

Hermione drops beside him and tips her head to the clouds.

The flowers need rain. It feels like she’s always waiting for something to break.

“That would mean more,” she says, “if they actually cared about lycanthropy.”

She thinks of Lupin. Of the war. Of Teddy—barely three years old, already whispered about.

They don’t even know what he is.

Rumours. Slurs. Speculations.

People come to Elderfell, outraged she dares grow wolfsbane. But they never step past the boundary. Even bigots know poison when they smell it.

The Prophet calls it the "aconite fields." Says the air is cursed.

Some days, she hopes it is.

One former Death Eater threw a silver-coated explosive. She lost half an acre. And still, it’s not the protestors that worry her most.

It’s the werewolves.

Some believe Greyback still lives. His followers certainly do. They call the potion a leash. They want the teeth. They want the chaos.

Hermione pays more in protection than in production. That makes the Ministry furious.

Good.

She’s crashed the price of wolfsbane, flooding underground networks, refusing to let the Ministry get its claws on distribution. She writes anonymous papers. Shares cultivation methods with anyone brave enough to grow.

It’s not enough.

It will never be enough.

Werewolves deserve more.

Teddy Lupin deserves more.

He’s not a werewolf, but he sleeps best when surrounded by her “moonbell flowers.” Andromeda stays overnight at Elderfell once a month.

Hermione wanted to make the world better.

But she couldn’t. Not even for one little boy.

Neville crouches beside her and places a hand over hers.

“The Ministry doesn’t matter,” he says softly. “You do. And if I were bitten—and not by an ill-tempered goat—I’d feel a lot better knowing Hermione Granger was fighting for me.”

He squints. “Galbraith’s a muppet,” he adds with a shrug, as if commenting on the weather.

Hermione snorts. She can’t help it.

The current Minister of Magic, Galbraith, is a bureaucrat in the worst sense—smug, performative, more interested in press conferences than policy. He once proposed replacing werewolf aid with a 'transformational encouragement programme.' She’d hexed a portrait over it.

She laughs. It surprises her.

Neville clears his throat. “So... the brewery, then?”

Hermione shakes her head. He doesn’t bother picking up the scroll.

“That’s a dead end,” she says. “I’ve tried. I can’t automate a brew that delicate. I can barely make it myself. Snape would rise from the grave if he knew I was even thinking about it.”

Neville shudders. “There’s always... expanding the dispensary?”

He flips open a sketchbook. Pushes it in her face until she takes it.

“Wolfsbane isn’t the only ingredient in Monk’s Hood Draught,” he barrels on. “And I’ve been thinking—what if we build—”

His voice cracks with excitement. He pats his knees for a dramatic drumroll.

“A greenhouse!”

Hermione arches a brow. “A greenhouse?”

“I’ll invest! I’m a successful businessman, you know.”

“You quit that business to teach.”

“And I’d do it again! But look—why keep casting complicated biodomes when you could grow plants that don’t want to kill you in a quiet glass box?”

“Because not every plant is a homicidal flower?”

“Mimbulus mimbletonia needs humidity. Shrivelfig likes filtered sun—”

“Neither’s in the potion.”

“Dreamleaf.”

Hermione opens her mouth. Shuts it.

Neville grins. “Got you there.”

She glares. Dreamleaf is delicate. It soothes traumatic transformations. And it does love wind chimes.

“Fine,” she says. “But I’m running out of Malfoy money to set on fire.”

“Your biodomes are brilliant—for wolfsbane,” he concedes. “But most plants don’t thrive under a war ward. Some need quiet magic. Some need to be sung to. Some just want real moonlight, not a rune pretending to be one.”

He presses his thumb and forefinger together like he’s describing a holy relic.

“They need—”

“For Godric’s sake, Neville,” Hermione groans. “Fine. You can have your bloody greenhouse.”

He beams. “Knew you’d come round. You won’t regret this.”

A moment later, the wards hum.

Hermione’s head lifts. Magic ripples across the outer boundary like wind in silk.

She’s already smiling when she stands, dusting her palms on her Muggle shorts. Then she hears it—the unmistakable giggle of a child, high and delighted, echoing between the flower rows.

“Teddy!” she calls, just as a flash of blue darts through the open gate.

Teddy Lupin bursts into the field with wild, puffed-up hair dyed the exact shade of Hermione’s. He throws his arms around her knees, nearly knocking her over.

“Look, look, Hermione!” he beams, puffing up his hair even more. “I made it curly like yours!”

Hermione laughs, scooping him up. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

He wriggles in her arms, then squints, scrunches his nose, and—suddenly—Neville’s exact nose appears on his face.

Hermione gasps. “Oh, no! I don’t know if I can keep you now!”

Teddy giggles madly, his hair now flickering pink with pride.

Andromeda steps through the gate with a weary smile. “Sorry, love. I know we weren’t due until two, but he couldn’t wait.”

“Clearly,” Hermione replies, pressing a kiss to Teddy’s cheek as he transforms his eyes to match hers.

Behind Andromeda come Harry and Ginny, walking hand in hand, both grinning at the scene. Ginny carries a small picnic hamper. Harry already looks sun-warmed and content.

“Hope you’ve got enough tea for an invasion,” he calls.

“And enough biscuits,” Ginny adds.

Hermione snorts. “For you lot? I’d need a walk-in pantry.”

Trailing just behind, Bill Weasley ducks under the gate, Fleur on his arm. His scars glint in the light, but it’s his eyes that are tired.

Neville clears his throat, dismissing himself. “That’s my cue. Hate to scarper, but I’ve got a murderous goat and a greenhouse proposal waiting for me.”

Harry and Neville shake hands, and the herbologist is on his way. 

The goat follows him a bit too closely.

“Got a few questions about your last batch,” Bill says. “Not for transformations. Just... management.”

Hermione nods. She knows what he means. Wolfsbane does more than tether the moon—it soothes the instincts left behind.

“Of course,” she says. “Let’s get you sorted.”

But she watches him closely.

Bill doesn’t speak much, but there’s tension beneath his skin. He moves like he’s trying to be gentler than he feels.

He isn’t worried about cravings, not really. The hunger, the sleeplessness—he can live with that.

It’s the anger.

Full moons bring out something in him. Not the change. But the temper.

He’s snapped once. Not shouted—snapped. Grabbed Fleur’s wrist too tightly during an argument. His fingernails had left crescent bruises. He’d cried when he saw them, horrified. She’d said it was nothing.

He knows it isn’t.

Wolfsbane makes him nauseous. It makes him weak.

But if it keeps him kind—keeps him safe—he’ll drink it every night the moon begins to swell.

Especially now.

Fleur rests her hand over her stomach, subtle but instinctive.

And Bill watches Teddy with a faraway sort of smile. Not envious. Just... reverent.

Like he’s thinking about the child he’s about to meet.

And silently promising never to become the monster he fears might be waiting at the next full moon. 

The Weasleys leave with a satchel tucked under Bill’s arm before Hermione can even remind them, for the umpteenth time, about the stabilising salve or the ward rotation schedule.

But it isn’t them.

It’s lycanthropy. The stigma runs deep—even for those brushed by it.

The stigma runs deep for everyone.

Andromeda, Hermione, Harry, and Ginny sit at a moss-dappled wrought iron table, their steaming cups of tea balanced among saucers and half-eaten biscuits. The tea is warm, not hot. Hermione cradles hers in both hands, letting the curl of steam brush her cheek as she watches the light settle on Elderfell.

Teddy plays at the edge of the field, chasing butterflies spelled from sea glass and silk thread. They flicker and bob above the grass, catching gold and shimmer in their wings as they dance above the blooms. His hair shifts with his joy—cobalt blue like the sky, streaked with white, then blushing pink for no reason at all.

He barrels after one with more glee than grace—and thumps into the dome shielding the wolfsbane.

His head bounces off it like a Quaffle.

The barrier holds. Magic ripples outward like water on glass. Inside, pollen spins in spirals, locked safely within the containment bubble.

Teddy giggles and leans against the invisible wall, nose squished flat, watching the swirl, a golden waterfall of cascading dust. He can’t breathe it, touch it, or Merlin forbid, taste it, as children so often try. Hermione's charms have been layered to the tooth for him. Elderfell is toxic, but nothing reaches Teddy.

Still, the golems panic.

Tiny ones—no taller than Teddy’s wellies—scramble from the rows in a clattering stampede. A few crash into each other with anxious squeaks, mossy feet skidding across the grass. One trips over its rake and tumbles. Another waves a leaf-sized sign that reads NO TOUCHING THE FENCE, PLEASE in polite block lettering.

Teddy, who can’t read, just laughs harder.

He scoops up two golems—one in each podgy fist—and plops into the grass. The others hover around him in confusion, valiantly attempting order while he clinks his new playthings together like dolls.

Hermione hides her smile in her teacup.

Teddy blows kisses at the butterflies. He rolls onto his side, cradling the golems to his chest as though they’re treasures—not just enchanted pebbles with tiny tools. He plays with them like they’re toy soldiers.

Across the garden table, the others sip tea in silence. Steam curls from Ginny’s cup, untouched. Harry’s fingers tap, once, against the handle of his spoon.

He clears his throat.

Once.

Then again.

Hermione doesn’t look at him. She simply lifts her cup.

“You might as well say it.”

Harry sets his tea down. Gently. Too gently. His jaw shifts, the muscle ticking. He doesn’t meet her eyes.

“They’re out,” he says.

Her hands remain steady on the porcelain.

“Who?”

He hesitates—and that’s all she needs. The flicker of guilt. The weight in his posture. The truth, trembling at the edge of his mouth like a held-back tide.

“Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange,” he says.

A breeze stirs the garden. The runes along the fence hum, low and steady.

Hermione keeps her eyes on her cup.

“They escaped Azkaban?” she asks, her voice quiet but sharp at the edges.

Harry nods.

“I thought wizards were capable of securing their prisons without dementors.”

“It wasn’t the doors,” Ginny says, softly.

Hermione looks up.

“There were claw marks,” Ginny continues. “Big ones. Like an animal.”

Hermione doesn’t speak. She doesn’t have to. She knows.

Greyback’s followers.

Of course it’s them. Of course it’s now.

She watches Teddy. He’s laughing again, making his golems bump into each other like dueling knights. His hair has turned silver at the ends, and he’s oblivious to the storm curling at the edges of their world.

But he won’t be forever.

Harry’s still watching her. There’s something more behind his silence, something he’s afraid to voice—not because it’s cruel, but because it might crack whatever fragile peace she’s managed to build here.

She already knows what it is. She took the aftermath hardest. Not immediately. At first, there was relief. The end of war, the freedom to breathe. She and Ron had moved in together. They’d even gotten engaged. Her parents, memories restored, couldn’t bring themselves to trust magic again. When the nightmares came, Ron tried to hold her, soothe her. But she’d nearly hexed him, once—did hex him, thinking he was someone else.

And then came the silence. Then the resentment.

She’d never truly forgiven him for leaving her in the Forest of Dean. And deeper still—she’d begun to realise she hadn’t forgiven anyone.

Her parents had said they might skip the wedding. It only made her realise: she wanted to skip it too.

“Claw marks,” Hermione echoes. “And I suppose the media’s already chewing on that?”

“The media doesn’t know yet,” Harry says. “There’s still an investigation. I just... I wanted you to hear it from us. Before it blindsides you.”

Ginny elbows him.

Harry winces. “I know you read. A lot. I figured you'd see it in The Quibbler eventually.”

“My, how the world changes,” Hermione mutters, eyes drifting to the bottom of her cup. “When The Quibbler is more trustworthy than that rag at the Prophet.” She flicks a look at Ginny. “No offence.”

Ginny, still a chaser for the Holyhead Harpies but with a pending offer from the Prophet’s sports desk, raises an eyebrow. “None taken.”

She and Harry exchange a look.

“The attacks,” Harry begins, slowly, “some of them are Death Eaters. Those we can hunt. We’ve seen Greyback sympathisers before—we know how to spot them.”

“But a lot of the unrest…” Ginny picks up, voice quiet. “It’s coming from people who haven’t technically broken any laws.”

Harry grips the edge of the table. “There’s muttering.”

“Muttering?” Hermione repeats.

“Purebloods,” Ginny says. “Who else?”

And it clicks.

“Blood supremacy,” Hermione breathes. “The White Masks?”

“It’s not that formal,” Ginny replies. “It doesn’t have to be. They don’t even bother with masks anymore.”

“They don’t need to,” Harry mutters. “The Ministry’s too busy pretending it’s fine.”

Hermione doesn’t realise her hands are shaking until her cup chips against the saucer. She sets it down—carefully, deliberately—and stares at the crack along its rim.

Harry tries to pivot.

“Speaking of pureblood nonsense,” he mutters, “Malfoy’s engaged.”

Hermione blinks.

“To whom?”

“Séraphine Rosier,” Ginny answers with a grimace. “You know—the Rosiers. Ancient blood. French connections. More Galleons than taste.”

Hermione hums. “And perfectly untouched by the war.”

“Exactly,” Harry says. “No charges, no trials, no trouble. She’s the ideal match for someone who wants to rebuild the Malfoy name without getting any blood on the carpet.”

“Apparently, they’re throwing a party next week,” Ginny adds. “Full press invite, exclusive guest list, champagne bubbling with politics.”

“Has Draco even surfaced long enough to plan a party?”

Harry snorts. “Has he ever."

"Harry!" Ginny smacks him.

"What? It's true. He’s been catting around London. Bouncing from witch to witch. Sowing his wild oats. Trying to make headlines—until he binds his magic to Séraphine and goes full House Husband.”

Hermione sips her tea.

“Must be exhausting,” she says. “All that effort to look like he’s still got choices.”

She doesn’t realise how bitter she sounds until Ginny tilts her head.

But before either can comment, Andromeda rises. Her hand lingers warmly on Hermione’s shoulder before she murmurs something about lilies and excuses herself.

Hermione watches her go. She recognises an exit strategy when she sees one.

“Look, Mione, we're just trying to give you a heads up,” Harry says, gentler now. “You haven’t left Elderfell in a while.”

“I leave Elderfell plenty.”

“Doing a Wolfsbane drop in a labyrinth beneath Knockturn Alley doesn’t count as going out,” he counters. “You’re starting your new job at St Mungo’s tomorrow. Ginny’s heard talk—at The Prophet.”

Hermione raises an eyebrow. “What kind of talk?”

Ginny grimaces, tugging her sleeve down over her wrist. “There’s this... image of you. Out here on your toxic farm. Brewing forbidden potions. Refusing Ministry oversight. They’re calling you—” she hesitates, lips twitching, “—the Potions Queen of Werewolves.”

Hermione blinks.

Harry, ever helpful, adds, “In Muggle terms, they’re calling you Pablo Escobar.”

Hermione snorts. “Charming.”

“They think you’re a werewolf,” Harry continues, blunt. “Or hiding one. Or hiding lots of them. Or… I don’t know. Building a militia out of moon-addled misfits. It changes by the week.”

Ginny mutters. “You’ve become a conspiracy category.”

“And since when has The Prophet cared about facts?” Hermione says.

“I haven’t said yes to the columnist job, remember?”

“But you’re still in the room when they talk about me.”

Ginny doesn’t deny it. “One of the editors said—and I quote—‘No one wants a healer laying hands on them if they’re worried she’ll sprout fangs by moonlight.’ Hermione, you know I don’t think that, but what matters is that the Prophet can make it so that other people do.”

Hermione’s stomach turns. Because she knows. She knows Ginny is right. All her years of study will be for nothing if nobody will let her touch them.

“The full moon’s tomorrow,” Ginny continues. “You could—just once—get ahead of it.”

Ginny leans forward. “They’re sending people in, Hermione. Undercover. Pretending to be patients. Waiting for something they can twist.”

“And when they don’t find it?” Hermione asks, voice tight.

“They’ll make it up,” Ginny says, just as tight.

“Teddy will read those papers one day,” she adds softly. “You can’t let them write the story for you.”

Harry leans forward. “A photo. You. In the moonlight. No veil. Just... existing.”

Hermione is quiet.

“They won’t believe anything else,” he adds, not unkindly. “And if you don’t give them something, they’ll keep inventing worse.”

She watches Teddy through the garden, still cradling the golems to his chest. The light catches his curls, his smile. He doesn’t know what they say. Doesn’t know the headlines or whispers.

And she won’t let them touch him, even sideways.

“No. No,” she says, shaking her head as she stands. “I won’t have reporters here. I won’t have some media vampire in my home, flashing a camera in my face. I’ll write a rebuttal, I’ll—”

“What if it’s Dennis Creevy?” Harry calls behind her before she can get too far.

Hermione freezes.

The words hit harder than he means them to. Or maybe precisely as he means them to. Not because of Dennis. But because of Colin.

She stares ahead at nothing, jaw clenched. The air feels colder. Quieter.

Colin, who used to sneak pictures of her laughing, frowning, focused on an essay. Colin, who was as stiff after the Battle of Hogwarts as he’d been when petrified in second year. His wand was drawn, his body locked in rigor mortis, but his camera was still around his neck. Hermione wonders if she started hating cameras then. If the flash isn’t the only reason they make her sick.

She puts the idea out of her mind.

Teddy toddles up to her, rubbing his eyes. “Mione,” he yawns, latching onto her legs. “Read me the story about the man in the yellow hat.”

She bends down and takes him in her arms, picking him up. He’s already falling asleep, and she doubts they’ll make it to her library.

He’s so without worry. So…whole.

Hermione swallows, turning slowly back toward the table. Her voice is soft as not to awaken Teddy. “If Dennis asks, I’ll stand in the moonlight.”

Not for the Prophet. Not for the Ministry.

But because one little boy might grow up believing all the wrong things about people like him. And she will not let that happen.

“But no flash,” she says. “And tell him it has to be here.”

Hermione goes in search of Andromeda.

The next morning, on a silver tray in Malfoy Manor, a copy of The Daily Prophet rests beside an ornate silver pot of Earl Grey tea.

The room is quiet. Sunlight filters through tall windows in narrow bands, falling across the tray like searchlights.

The headline gleams faintly:

THE FARMER IN THE VEIL

Hermione Granger stands alone on the front page.

Her veil has slipped, caught mid-motion in the wind. Her hair glows silver in the moonlight. She’s not quite smiling—but her eyes are open, steady. Like she knows a thousand things and pities you for only knowing ten.

HOW WAR HEROINE HERMIONE JEAN GRANGER TOOK HER REPARATIONS AND FORMED A QUIET UNDERGROUND REVOLUTION FOR VICTIMS OF LYCANTHROPY

Draco Malfoy stares down at it.

For a long moment, he doesn’t move.

Then his hand closes into a fist.

He crushes the paper—creases cracking, ink warping—as the image bends and folds in on itself. Hermione’s veil flutters once more, distorted by the pressure. Her face is the last thing to disappear.

He crosses the room to the hearth.

“Incendio.”

The fire leaps. The ball of paper hisses, blackens, unfurls in ribbons of flame.

The photo resists. Hermione glows for a breath longer—silver and moonlit in the blaze—before the paper curls in on itself.

Below her, the flame licks up a second image: Lucius Malfoy, walking free from Azkaban, robes immaculate. Out for the twelfth time, until the Ministry finds another reason to send him back. In the photograph, Draco looks younger, a silent shadow following his father—though it’s only been a matter of months.

His irises dance with fire as he watches the paper flare.

The ashes collapse. Draco stands over the hearth, tea cooling behind him.

When he turns on his heel, smoke rises—bitter with ink and old memory—but he stops.

Impossibly, rolling out of the fireplace, is the charred ribbon of the photograph. Turned over with only her hair visible. But he knows.

Beneath the folds, her veil still flutters in the wind.

Draco steps on the paper, grinding it into the marble.

Then he hurls his teacup against the wall.

It shatters.

He strides out of the room.

“Young master?” a house-elf cowers, wide-eyed, watching him pass. But Draco freezes in the doorway.

He clenches his fists. His jaw. His eyes.

“Sorry, Arillie,” he says—genuine, but half-strangled. “Tell Mother I’m leaving.”

And he steps into the nearest fireplace, disappearing in the Floo.

“Tell her I won’t be back for some time.”