I Can See You
“It’s not so much staying alive as staying human that’s important. What counts is that we don’t betray each other.” - George Orwell, 1984
11:01 pm, 24th December, 2023
Residence of Reintegration Target #8714: [Redacted], age 44
Battersea, South London
Malfoy was dead to begin with.
And terribly bored at the moment. And cold. Always so damn cold. Though that had less to do with the biting wind and freezing rain currently pooling beneath the up-turned collar of his long wool coat, and more to do with the fact that he was, you know, dead.
Or, as dead as a wizard can be while still being technically - if not legally - alive.
He was invisible at the moment, though still solid. He stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets and tried to tuck his pale angular face lower into his collar, leaving only his sharp grey eyes peering out of the thick wool layers. It did nothing. He considered shifting into a discorporeal form to avoid feeling so sodden, but thought better of it. Too taxing. Definitely wouldn’t help him stay warm. And this assignment was… odd. He wanted to be ready for any possibility.
But the wait was getting tedious. He had paperwork to do, other ongoing cases to check in on tonight, and one of the other Intangibles in his unit had gotten his hands on some contraband fire whiskey from a raid. Marlowe promised to turn a blind eye for the night so they could all mark the holiday, so long as everyone came back on time.
Merlin, bless us, everyone, indeed.
It was Christmas Eve, after all - a night where Dickensian ghosts supposedly wandered the London mists, terrorizing pessimistic and greedy men into being more generous and compassionate of their fellow man, etc. Seemed a bit sentimental and risky as an operation, if he were honest. Not the direction he’d go with it. Difficult to measure success. Not to mention, people were generally difficult to terrorize into compliance, as he well knew.
The rain splashed lightly against the rather unusually tall garden wall where he leaned, shivering slightly as he did. To his left was the weathered front gate of the target’s residence. Previous attempts to enter the garden and go up the front steps to the door had failed. That had been the first odd thing. It was only a muggle lock in appearance, a simple key turn, no evidence of magic of any kind, no tell-tale traces or echoes. And yet he could not unlock the gate and enter.
The target - a supposed reintegration target, mind you - someone who was not supposed to have use of magic at all , also had wards. Wards he couldn’t break.
He blamed the fucking wand. The embarrassingly small, ministry-issued, assignment-specific twig was in his inner coat pocket, supposedly pre-loaded with a selection of common spells he’d need. This case had had a lot more than the usual spells allowed, one of the main reasons he’d volunteered for it. But it must not have included alohomora. Or basic ward-breaking charms. Seemed an oversight. He’d have to speak to Marlowe.
The wand barely mattered anyhow. There were very few spells he needed for these cases, especially on first contact. His practiced pitch and a quick demonstration of his abilities were usually enough to build a rapport of sorts, the wand was only in case of danger. And danger was rare anymore.
Now there was just protocol. Very little room for improvisation. Very little skill involved at all, really. Dead boring, most of the time.
Though if the alternative was being simply dead, well, then he supposed this - being only legally dead - was marginally better.
A bin down the street tipped over and crashed with a heavy scrape against the pavement from the force of the same blast of icy wind that was biting his cheeks and nose. It was starting to hurt now. He cursed under his breath and attempted to burrow further down into the wool. No luck. Still fucking cold.
Maybe actually dead would be preferable after all, he thought, as he often did.
And that’s when he heard it. The faintest of pops, just around the corner from where he stood, freezing his bollocks off. She'd apparated.
Okay, now this was getting interesting.
Footsteps then, sharp on the pavement. Women’s heels. Quick but steady steps. Unhurried but purposeful. Sounded small in stature.
The rain was coming sharp and fast now, pouring down in heavy sheets that skimmed over the streets, blurring the light of the streetlamps. He raised an arm to shield his eyes as the target turned the corner and skittered into view.
She was holding her jacket over her, pulled flat over her head and outstretched arms like a makeshift brolly. She wore a heavy a-line skirt that fell just to her knees, thick cream patterned stockings, and a thick belt pulled taut around a small high waist. Her jumper was tucked in, a horrid violet thing, so worn the color faded to an almost brown in places, with a tea-stained yellow letter ‘H’ knitted into the front, reminding him with a jolt of fucking Weasley and Potterwho always sported similar jumpers. He decided then he didn’t like her.
Malfoy was on her as soon as she turned towards her gate.
“Bugger!” she exclaimed - at the rain, he assumed - as she fumbled with a heavy jangling key ring, struggling to locate the key to the gate.
He shifted then, dissolving into mist, into nothingness, and with some effort, he pulled himself tightly into something small and weightless, like gravitational collapse on a very small scale. It required effort—enough to leave him drained if he lingered too long—but it was still one of his favorite party tricks. You can get in almost everywhere being invisible. And absolutely anywhere being almost nothing and tucked into someone’s handbag or pocket. Her wards probably wouldn't allow something so simple as walking in behind her, but they did not seem to account for discorporeal attachment. Very few did, in his experience.
As soon as the wards were breached, he shifted again. Back to solid, walking behind her, timing his steps in time with hers to mask the sound of splashing rain under his feet. He followed her up the front steps and watched her struggle with her many keys again. He lingered on the second step, their differences in height making the back of her coat-covered head nearly collide with his face. He leaned himself back, slightly, avoiding her erratic movements, then glanced once more up and down the street behind them as her struggle to enter her own home seemed to continue.
“Oh, SOD it!” she shouted, after dropping her key ring a second time with a soft splash on the top step, where a pool of water was gathering from the drips off the coat still resting carelessly over her head. Shaking her small hands of wetness, she steadied herself and set the key in the lock, pulling at the tail of her coat behind her to fall off her head and rest over her shoulders.
And then she froze. All hurry, all frustration, all care for the absolute misery of the cold and the rain seemed to vanish and she stilled with a jolt, the direction of her eyes fixed on the gleaming lion door-knocker at her eye level.
Draco almost rolled his eyes. Wasn’t she freezing? Was she having some kind of fit?
Draco creeped up the final step, holding his breath, looming only a few inches behind her. He reached out his left hand slightly towards the door around her elbow, trying to sense any additional internal wards beyond - he’d need a bit of time to shift again if necessary. But the tell-tale feel of magical protection was notably absent, except for the faint distant thrum of the barrier at the gate behind them.
That’s when she turned. That’s when she angled her head back and to the left, towards him. Scanning the air, looking through him but sensing him.
Draco Malfoy was legally dead, sure. Had been for 12 years. But it wasn’t until this moment - this exact sharp intake of breath, this stopping of his heart - that he felt well and truly done for.
Because he recognized her then. Her freckled skin, her thick curly hair, plastering to her face and neck, cascading over her shoulders in a tumble of wet tangles, her wide mouth and soft - so soft - lips. The line of her thin neck as it twisted at her narrow shoulders. He’d know the lines and shapes of her anywhere, even now. Even dead.
The target was Hermione Granger.
“Granger?” he exhaled, barely a whisper, barely a breath. It had been completely involuntary, and he immediately regretted the slip, because she’d heard it, had to have felt his breath skate across her shocked face.
She jolted again then, and made a small squeaking sound at the back of her throat, side stepping away by half a step, her eyes widening and searching the empty air around him, through him.
He faltered on the step and nearly fell back, gripping the iron railing behind and below him, angling his body as far from her reach as possible, as she waved a shaking hand through the air, searching, grasping.
His mind raced, panic rising from somewhere deep within his chest. Think, Malfoy, think. He could dematerialize again, flee into the night and pretend this hadn’t happened. But that wasn’t protocol. He’d never hear the end of it from Marlowe if he came back without initiating contact. And worse, they’d just send someone else.
She took another step back, her heel skidding slightly on the rain-slicked step. Her hand shot out to steady herself on the doorframe, her grip white-knuckled.
With her a safer distance away now, his brain seemed to stop sputtering nonsense. The wave of panic and fear that had overtaken him was gently receding.
She wouldn’t recognize him. Could not recognize him. No one could. It was part of the package deal of being an Intangible. He’d run into dozens of people from his past since his sentencing and metaphysical execution, and not a single one had ever shown even the faintest flicker of recognition upon seeing his face.
His past had never stopped him from completing a mission. There was no reason to get sentimental now. He had a job to do, a target to reintegrate. Why should it matter if it was Granger?
Very good fucking reasons, a voice retorted in his mind, unhelpfully.
No. No, this was fine. This was an excellent challenge. An opportunity to practice detachment. It changed nothing about his approach.
Her terrified expression seemed to slowly relax as her staggered breaths eased to a more normal rhythm. She released the door frame and righted herself, hand resting against her chest. Taking calming breaths. She shook her head slightly, grumbled something under her breath that sounded an awful lot like, “Must have been the mulled wine…” and turned back to the door, eyes down now, avoiding the door knocker’s tricks this time.
She turned the key and then the doorknob, and stepped through the door, still tense in the shoulders. Still uneasy, still… sensing something.
Cat-like, he slipped himself in behind her, just as the door was creaking to a soft metallic click , and shoved his body tightly against the door behind him, willing his breathing to steady, willing himself to focus.
A tidal wave of another sort was gathering momentum in his brain. Of memories. Of history. Of her. He could feel the power of it ratcheting back; other necessary operations weakening, better judgement on the verge of receding away. It was all too tempting to allow it to overtake him, swallow him up, to give in, just this once.
Instead, he occluded. Poorly, probably. He was a bit out of practice. Now, with the swelling eddies of everything safely tucked away in a box labeled don’t fucking think about it, you git, the questions started.
Why the absolute fuck was Granger a reintegration case? This reintegration case? The details he’d gleaned from the dossier did not fucking align with the Granger he knew - well, other than the height, and general weight, and age, and history, to a point, he conceded. Granger had disappeared from the papers only a few years after his sentencing, and Draco had tried not to think about it at the time. Unfortunately, Granger being bloody famous made that somewhat difficult. There had been a whole hullabaloo for a time, Potter and Weasley refusing to comment on the whereabouts of the third member of the golden trio to the press, endless content-less articles, wildly speculating everything from her marrying a Muggle - which he supposed was more-or-less the truth of it now that he’d seen the file - to her moving to Argentina to become a dark sorceress. It had been around the same time as the opt-out clause, so it hadn’t been unusual for people to simply disappear from Wizarding society. Lots had tried it at first. None had held out for ten years. Something must have happened, something he had missed in the time since being captured, rehabilitated, sentenced, then, well, becoming this.
That’s what happens when you get dead, his shock-addled brain offered by way of pep-talk, presumably. You miss stuff.
Cheers, brain, brilliant, thanks, helpful as always.
Granger lingered in the middle of her still-dark foyer, the only sound her ever-steadying breath and the gentle drip, drip of the water still cascading down the hem of her coat and onto the worn tile floor. Keeping his focus firmly locked on her, he stole quick glances about the space, observing, assessing, attempting to wrench back control of the situation before it went well and truly tits up.
The light of the streetlamp outside flickered through heavy rain and through the transom above the front door, illuminating a strange quivering glow about the room. Her head was cocked to the side, facing away from him. She seemed to be… listening. Waiting.
The moment stretched. He had no idea what he was waiting for. He was in the target’s residence. She lived alone. It was the moment he’d been trained to seize. But he was waiting for something too. Waiting for this to feel like a typical assignment. Waiting for the heavy ache in his chest to ease, for his brain to stop being catastrophically useless.
“Draco?” she said timidly into the darkness.
And it was like a crack of lightning.
His occlumency walls vanished without a trace. The tidal wave of everything he’d tried to suppress crashed over his mind, an ocean of images, conversations, arguments, regrets overwhelming him with a brutal force. If he could still faint - wait, could he still faint? It’d never come up - he might have fainted. The ache that had been building in his chest suddenly dropped like an anvil into his gut as he heaved a massive - and audible - involuntary breath.
Cold dread flushed through every vein, and without warning, without a choice in the matter, he shifted. The change was instant. He felt it in every nerve - a crack of tension splintering away as mist solidified into muscle, bone, and skin. His invisibility: gone. His form: excruciatingly solid - like the weight of his body was too much to inhabit.
Fuck, his brain supplied, most helpfully.
This could not be happening.
“Draco,” she said again, stronger this time, her tone sharper, surer. Granger-like. “I can feel you there.”
She was revolving now, taking small but confident steps, turning towards him, deliberate, readying herself for some assured outcome. This wasn’t a guess, some niggling trick of the light she needed to convince herself wasn’t real. She knew.
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Every plan, every protocol, every word of the Ministry’s carefully crafted pitch disintegrated under the weight of her gaze. She could feel him, and it wasn’t supposed to be possible.
“Granger,” her name fell out of his mouth unbidden, his voice strangely steady despite his brain being carried out to sea in splinters. Their eyes locked on one another. His cool grey against her warm, golden brown.
Her mouth fell open. And then the lights came on.