exile
11:33 pm, 24th December, 2023
Residence of Reintegration Target #8714: [Redacted] Hermione Jean Granger, age 44
Battersea, South London
“You…” Granger began, then closed her mouth, reconsidering. “I…” she tried again. She blinked, adjusting to the light.
He could fully see her now. Aside from some deeper lines and slightly darker circles, her eyes were just the same. The very same pools of umber and honey with gold flecks at the edges of her irises where they meet white. She had more freckles, larger ones amongst the usual smattering of brown and tan. Her hair was pulled up into a loose knot, and had subtle streaks of silver that glittered just so under the small crystal pendant lamp hanging from the high ceiling above.
Draco waited for the rest of the sentence, taking advantage of the opportunity to gather his bearings. His brain was still in overdrive, but he felt his body move, felt his posture recover to his usual stance, lifting his back off the door, his breath beginning to steady. Self-preservation protocol initiated.
Her facial expression suddenly shifted to something he did not understand. Forced neutrality with an undercurrent of something that looked like disappointment or self-loathing. It unnerved him.
“Oh,” she sighed, moving now, but with her eyes still affixed to his like a beacon, she slowly lifted her coat off of her shoulders and twisted it over the crook of an elbow. Barely audible, seemingly to herself, she said “It’s this again.”
What does that mean?
“It’s what again?”
But Granger didn’t answer. She decided something. She tore her gaze away from him with an expression like it pained her, and with trembling hands, began busying herself with her person. Hanging her coat on a hook against the base of the stairwell against the left wall of the hall, kicking off her shoes.
“Granger?”
“NOPE!” she shouted, the sound of her determined voice echoing over tile and wood. She slapped her shaking hands over her ears and turned away from him towards the end of the hall behind the staircase, her stockinged feet skidding slightly against the smooth tiled floor.
Let’s revisit the facts, he thought, as he followed her down the hall, little notice of the water and mud he was leaving in his wake on the colorful ceramic floor.
Marlowe’s voice was echoing in his head over the din of confusion and curse words. What do we know to be true in this moment?
He was here on ministry business. Reintegration protocol. Notify, persuade, reintegrate. He had done it before, many times. And Granger was hardly the first target in his career not to understand his purpose and power. He could make them all understand, given enough time and pressure.
Very little else about the situation was making sense to him, but he was beginning to recognize the feeling rising inside of him - relief. He had the tiniest foothold towards a way forward, a way through this.
They all retreat initially. He had tactics for that. There had been flowcharts. You find a lever, a button, a weakness, and you exploit it until they submit.
And this would be easy. He already knew all of Granger’s buttons. Or, he did, once.
He rounded the staircase and followed her through a wide archway, into a light and airy kitchen at the back of the house. Granger was at a small island in the center with her back to him, shuffling through a stack of papers, searching for something. He paused a small step into the room and took it all in.
Granger’s kitchen. He was standing in Granger’s kitchen.
It smelled of chamomile and burnt sugar, and he was annoyed to notice his mouth water at the familiar scent on his nose. The sound of hard freezing rain against glass was making an echoing thunderous din, but he hardly noticed over the sound of his own heartbeat ringing in his ears. There was a small extension out towards the modest back garden with a glass roof over a small dining table with three battered wooden chairs. It seemed to serve as a greenhouse, sunroom, and dining area, and the cubby shelves along one side were rammed full of what looked like art supplies and paper. Herbs were bundled and drying from hooks along the walls, interspersed with childrens’ drawings and art projects of varying quality and skill and Muggle photographs in small frames. A clock shaped like a cat with a pendulous tail ticked on the dusty-blue-painted wall beside him, its animated eyes flicking to and fro in time. It briefly mesmerized him, as he timed his breaths to the swings of its tail, forcing himself to calm, willing his body to unclench. He unbuttoned and fully opened his coat, yanking at the knot in his tie, flicking open the top button of his crisp white shirt, needing to breathe, needing to settle into this bizarre environment.
He turned at the sound of her papers tumbling into a heap on the floor. Granger seemed to have found her treasure, a business card she was turning over and scanning with fast-blinking eyes, trying to steady trembling fingers, panic apparently rising, her breaths becoming ragged again. He hated that the sound was familiar to him, hated what it did to the ever-rising ache in his chest to recognize that she was perhaps one spiraling thought away from a full-fledged panic attack, and it made his body react. His arms extended out towards her instinctively, but he forced them to drop into a more open and neutral position. She started searching the pockets of her skirt. He needed to start now, she was about to pull out a mobile.
Say something, you idiot.
“Granger, breathe,” he said, like he was attempting to approach a trapped wild animal. “Please,” he added, and wished he hadn’t, because the way he pleaded sounded familiar in a way that jolted them both back to another time, another place.
A time when she had needed help getting through moments like this. A place where he could hold her against his chest and gently coach her to breathe, please breathe for me, Granger. He must have pleaded with her to breathe thousands of times, but the strange rawness he felt saying it now, saying it in that same way, was threatening to shatter his resolve.
Granger flinched, snapping her eyes shut with apparent strain. He willed his brain to focus on his words, on the tone of his voice. On practiced tactics to calm panicking targets. Bring them back to here and now. Bring their focus to an object in the space.
“What’s that in your hand?” he whispered, stepping cautiously toward her, then thought better of it. Distance. Distance and detachment.
“The after hours number for my psychiatrist's practice,” her voice was shaky but firm, her eyes still resolutely shut.
“Why?” he slipped his hands in the pockets of his trousers in an attempt to de-escalate via body language, make him seem comfortable, okay with this, but it also had the benefit of preventing the sabotaging impulse he felt to reach towards her, to ground her with the sound and feel of his even, steady breathing against her back. The desire to be her anchor was overwhelming him, an instinct that had apparently never left him.
“Because I’m going to call them and tell them I’m hallucinating.”
An exhale that was half-way to an audible “oof” left his mouth, as if the admission had poked him painfully in the chest.
“You’re not hallucinating me,” he said reassuringly, as he turned towards her slowly, removing his hands from his pockets and lifting them into a gesture meant to show he was both real and unarmed.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she whined, her eyes snapping to his, panic still splashed across her expression like a tight mask.
Her fiery eyes gleamed with panicked tears she tried to rapidly blink away, her jaw trembling, breaths still broken and seizing with sobs she was attempting to suppress.
“You’ve hallucinated me?” It came out like a whisper, all air seemed to have left him. The idea of Granger - haunted, alone, tortured by the ghost of him - caused a deep pang of sadness that lodged itself in his chest. It was too heartbreaking to imagine, he couldn’t allow it.
“Years and years ago now, but… yes,” she released a breath that jerked like a sob, her resolve to maintain her composure wobbling dangerously, “After you… When I was… there was a time when…”
She snapped her mouth closed and shook her head, an aura of flyaway curls that had escaped the loose dripping knot on her head swishing around her face with the movement. Whatever she had started to explain was apparently too heavy to carry forth into the growing silence between them.
Occlude, occlude, you fuckwit. He could break himself apart all he wanted once he was back at the base, once he got through this. He inhaled a steady breath to four swishes of the cat’s tail, exhaling for five, visualizing the heavy mass of concern and sadness that was swirling inside of him being compacted, locking it down into something solid and dense but small, flicking it through the opening of a heavy mechanical door. He slammed it closed and spun the lock. Only then did his breathing begin to even, his head clear enough to think.
“Would it help you,” he began, his voice low and steady, “if you touched me?”
Her head jerked up, her wide, teary eyes locking on his.
“I’m not a ghost,” he said softly. He stepped closer, moving deliberately, and let his arms swing forward. His palms turned upward in a small, hesitant offering. “See for yourself.”
Granger didn’t move at first, her body stiffened as if caught between the urge to flee and her desperate and ever-present need to know. Her gaze flicked between his outstretched hands and his face, searching for the trick. He met her gaze, hoping it looked like the reassuring openness he was attempting to convey.
When she finally stepped forward, her movements were cautious, her breaths uneven. Her hand hovered above his for a hesitant moment, trembling in the space between them. Together they watched the space between their outstretched hands get smaller and smaller. Then, gently, cautiously, her palm met his.
Her small hand was warm, alive, achingly familiar. The heat of it spread down his arm and through his chest in a thrumming ripple of energy that sparked along his nerve endings like a current through a rusted machine, roaring to life after years of neglect. His heart stuttered and his hand flinched, almost imperceptibly, and he watched as his long pale fingers closed over her small still-trembling hand, part reassuring squeeze, part spasm.
Her breath hitched in a quiet gasp, and he watched her eyes dart from their hands to his face where they flicked over his features endlessly, seeming to note and absorb all the ways his face deviated from the image of him she had held in her mind in his absence.
Inside his mind, the cold metal vault where he’d stuffed all his feelings began to shake like it held a caged wild beast, but the lock stayed firmly in place. If he freed those emotions now, he’d be reaching for her, pulling her towards him, tracing his fingers up her thin neck and into her hair to free her mass of curls, to see how her new streaks of silver caught under the light as it unfurled down her shoulders.
Not helpful, brain.
He couldn’t help it. It was the way she was looking at him. Like she needed to memorize him, to drink him in before she died of thirst. It was too much. The animal was roaring and ramming against the box of cold mechanical steel, testing its strength, locating its weaknesses.
When he could stand it not a breath longer, he deliberately loosened his grip. He let go of her hand, the warmth of her palm ghosting over his skin as he stepped back—half a step, no more. It seemed to take everything he had.
The loss of the heat of her was immediate, tangible, like a tether snapping. His fingers twitched at his sides for one steadying breath before he willed them to hang loose, natural, normal.
Granger’s hand hovered in the air for a fraction of a second, then she pulled it towards herself slowly, curling her fingers against her chest as though holding onto the memory of the touch, her other hand coming up to cradle it. Her expression was unreadable—her lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came.
He forced himself to drop their gaze, to look past her, just over her shoulder, where he let his gaze rest on a particularly tacky magnet of Big Ben on the fridge. There was a whole spiel to get through here. And every moment spent in this charged silence made it harder to breathe, let alone think. His throat felt constricted already. The longer they lingered here, the harder it would be to keep his inner vault locked.
“I apologize for causing alarm,” he said after a beat, setting his jaw and drawing himself up to his full height. The action felt like slipping into well-worn, battle-tested, armor - cold, burdensome, but essential. “I mean you no harm. I represent the Ministry of Magic, and I am here on official business.”
Whatever Granger had been expecting him to say, it clearly wasn’t that. Her mouth dropped open again and she allowed herself to meet his gaze. Dumbstruck. Taking another step back towards the safety of her kitchen island, she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him, analyzing, computing.
“Official business,” she repeated, seeming to turn the words over on her tongue, inspecting them for truth.
He cleared his throat, a not-so-subtle declaration to anyone with a shred of manners that he was about to say something rather important, and it really would make this all much easier if he were not interrupted, thank you.
He doubted Granger would get the message.
“The Ministry of Magic has been attempting to contact you through magical, muggle, and legal means to -”
“And you’re the illegal means?” She leaned back against the island behind her in a posture that was certainly an attempt to project casualness, but the hands that gripped the edge of the marble countertop behind her were still trembling.
“Sorry?” he stammered, not getting her meaning.
“What are you, exactly, Malfoy?” she crossed her arms, something sharp and reproachful rising in her expression.
He snapped his mouth closed and froze. She used his surname. She only used his surname when he was about to be told off.
“Because as I recall, you were dead.” Her last word cut across the room like a poison dart.
Draco had never had to answer for this before. This line of questioning from a target, this interest and attention on himself, on his life as Draco Malfoy, did not have a flow chart.
“So you’ll have to forgive me,” she continued with an attempt at a sneer, but the quivering corners of her mouth gave her away, “if I struggle to recover from this absolute bloody nightmare of a moment and ever-so-coolly transition into an explanation of your ministry errand.”
“It’s not an errand,” he spat, his jaw clenching. She needed to stop, he needed her to stop. “Please, Granger, I need to -”
“You died, Draco.” Her voice broke on his name, tears beginning to form in her eyes in earnest, a glossy sheen gathering against lower lashes. Her shoulders hunched forward, like she’d taken a punch to her chest.
“It was in the papers. All of the papers. The honest ones, too,” she continued, tears falling steadily down her cheeks, her voice trembling but seemingly determined to get these words out. “I mourned you. I’ve been mourning you. For,” she slammed her fists on the countertop, the business card in her hand crumpling in her fist, “twelve,” slam, “years,”slam.
Draco flinched with each impact, the sound reverberating through the room like a series of cannon blasts. His throat tightened painfully as he tried to summon words, any words, but none came. The accusation - no, the truth - in her voice gutted him. He probably hadn’t been mourned by anyone else, except perhaps his mother.
His hands in his pockets curled into fists as he grasped for direction, for deflection, for something. What could he possibly say? That he hadn’t meant to leave her mourning someone only legally dead? That he’d traded his name, his face, his body, and his life to keep her safe?
He swallowed hard, forcing his gaze to drop to the floor as the weight of her grief - and the crushing burden of his own regrets - pressed down on them both.
“I… understand your frustration,” he said, staring at a small crack in the tile to the left of his wet shoes. The words came automatically, a line drilled into him during training for handling emotional targets. It was a safe fallback, something neutral to fill the silence, but it rang absurdly hollow even to his own ears. He knew it was inadequate, but compared to the far worse responses clanging around in his brain, it felt like a small victory just to say something remotely rational.
His eyes snapped up to meet hers as her expression darkened, fury radiating from her like a storm cloud. He needed to shut this down. To contain the chaos spiraling between them before it consumed the fragile tether of professionalism he was clinging to. Find a way to defuse her explosive anger, to redirect her fire long enough for her to just listen - for once. This was not a conversation he was prepared to have, had never imagined he would need to have. He knew himself well enough to admit he couldn’t navigate it without a plan. Not on the fly. Not with her.
He forced himself to draw a slow, measured breath, his mind churning for something - anything - that could ground them both. A neutral point. A sliver of understanding. He removed his hands from his pockets and forced him to hang loosely at his sides, shaking them out slightly, preparing himself to be… vulnerable.
Ugh.
“I… did not expect to see you either, Granger,” he began, his voice low but steady, lacing it with all the sincerity he could muster, weaving it into the lines of his posture, into the deliberate stillness of his body. “It’s not… typical for me, in my work, to recognize anyone, much less for them to recognize me. Whether I know the person or not - it usually doesn’t… matter so much.”
He watched her face closely, the storm in her eyes flickering as she processed his words, but the tension in her jaw didn’t ease. He swallowed hard, pressing on.
Honesty, he reminded himself silently. Honesty always worked with Granger.
“I understand,” he continued, his words deliberate, each one chosen with the care of someone disarming a bomb. “Being surprised to see me, I mean. I was also… surprised.”
The understatement felt absurd, almost cruel, given the way the room seemed to hum with the echoes of her grief and confusion. He rubbed the back of his head absently, fingers scraping against his scalp as though he could coax his scrambled brain into forming a coherent strategy. His speech replayed in his mind, a loop of unrehearsed words he now tested for vulnerabilities, for slip-ups. No, it had been honest but vague - perfect in its evasiveness.
“So,” he ventured pointedly after a pause, his voice softer now, daring himself slightly to hope that he could neutralize the tension in the room that was flaring dangerously like a racing heartbeat. “We’re both on uneven ground here, yeah? Let’s just…” He hesitated, his fingers flexing unconsciously at his sides as though reaching for some invisible lever to pull them back from the brink. “Lower the temperature a bit. Alright?”
He waited, holding her gaze for a moment, watching the flickers of resistance still dancing behind her eyes. But he pressed on, the next words spilling out before he could second-guess them.
“We can talk more about… all of it. Some other time.” The offer hung in the air, a tenuous thread unfurling between them. He forced himself to keep going, to extend the fragile lifeline. “If you like.”
It wasn’t elegant or decisive - nothing like the rehearsed Ministry lines he had delivered so many times before - but it was genuine. And for Granger, that might just be enough.
Granger stared at him, her mouth set in a thin line, arms crossed defensively over her chest. For a moment, she said nothing, her eyes scanning his face again, this time searching for the truth beneath the carefully chosen words. She quickly swiped tears away with the back of the sleeves of her hideous jumper, then rubbed at her eyes with her palms.
“Lower the temperature?” she repeated, her voice sharp and slightly distorted behind her hands. “You show up here, uninvited - inexplicably alive, might I add - and expect me to what? Have a nice, calm chat over tea?” Her voice cracked on the last word, betraying the storm of emotions roiling beneath her barely-controlled exterior. She removed her still-trembling hands from her face, and extended them out to either side like a wind-up to an over-the-top pantomime shrug. “You don’t get to… to materialize into my house now and pretend this is just an assignment for you,” she said, her voice quieter now, but no less intense. “You don’t get to decide the pace of this conversation, Draco.”
“Granger, stop,” he snarled, his jaw tight, the words coming out sharper than he intended. He’d beg her to stop if he had to, get on his knees and grovel. Each word she said was like a stab to his chest, leaving slow-acting but lethal poison in the wound. The feelings were mounting, piling, growing. He couldn’t name them, didn’t know them, couldn’t differentiate one from another. It was making him feel faint again.
She dropped her gesticulating hands to her side, her fists clenching, her eyes still glistening with fresh tears, but fierce. “You think I can just... what, put it all aside? Pretend the fact that it’s you, and it’s me, and this -” she gestured vaguely to the general atmosphere, “this is just… a normal Ministry call?” Her voice broke again, softer now, and she shook her head in disbelief.
His confused mass of feelings was bubbling over now, alchemizing into anger, into defensiveness.
“Oh, sorry, are we suddenly uncomfortable with playing pretend?” His voice was cutting now. He knew this venom well. Knew how to wield it as intimately as his own magic.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she snapped, her hands gesticulating sharply at her sides in a frustrated dithering motion that was so painfully Granger, he almost smirked at the sight of it.
“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing now, for a decade?” he snapped, taking a step closer without realizing it. His words came faster now, sharp-edged and cruel, like he needed to get them out before he lost the nerve. “Pretending to be a Muggle, pretending you don’t have beautiful, powerful, awesome magic flowing through your veins? Pretending that I -” he cut himself off, feeling this all venturing rather sharply into feelings territory again, and he needed it to be impersonal. “Pretending that many people haven’t… sacrificed for you to live - to really live, Granger - all so you could throw it all away on this cozy, quiet, mundane life?”
Her expression froze, her eyes narrowing with a fury that sent a chill through him.
“Throw it all away?” she repeated, her voice rising with incredulous anger. She was stalking towards him, closing the space between them with measured steps. He wished she wouldn’t. “Do you honestly think I wanted this? Do you think I chose to live like this?”
“I think you’re Hermione fucking Granger,” he shot back, his words reckless and biting. “The hero, the genius. You would rather die than do anything that wasn’t by your very own brilliant design.”
She was close now, too close. He could see the gold in her eyes, flecks of fury burning like wildfire. Her anger was coming off her in waves, a heat he could feel crawling across his skin. It was doing something to him, something intoxicating and dangerous. He ordered his feet to step back. They didn’t. Inside his mind, a thick steel vault was being torn to shreds.
“You have no idea what I’ve fought for,” she said, her voice trembling with barely controlled rage. “You don’t get to walk back into my life and judge me, Draco Malfoy. You don’t get to decide what survival looks like for me.”
“Fine!” he snarled, his hot angry breath ghosting over her face, “then you don’t get to decide what it looks like for me either!”
She made a sound like a growl of overwhelming frustration. He found himself deeply relating to the sentiment. Self-righteous, stubborn, martyr, Granger. How could he have forgotten how absolutely insufferable she could be?
“How can you possibly be angry with me?” she shot back, her furious expression straining to hold as a flicker of desperation and confusion threatened to overtake her features. “You left me, remember? You left me.”
“I’m not angry with you,” he said, his voice low but laced with venom. “I’m ashamed of you.”
Her face froze, her breath catching like she’d been struck. “What?”
“I gave everything for you!” he roared, had no idea where it had come from, it had simply escaped from him in a heave, perhaps directly from the beast that had escaped an exploded vault inside of him, “and you couldn’t even stay safe.”
“You didn’t give everything, Draco,” she spat, her voice trembling as anger and heartbreak collided. “You just gave up.”
Her words struck him like a blade to the chest, his breath hitching as if the air had been knocked from his lungs. The ache that followed was sharp and unrelenting, like a knife forged from ice, slicing deep and cold.
“Hermione,” he whispered, pleadingly, his jaw trembling. He was losing control now, using her name. “I can’t get into it. I really… I just… can’t.”
“Coward,” she spat, her voice cutting through the room like a curse. “‘Ashamed’ doesn’t do it justice.”
Draco froze, the word lodging itself somewhere between his ribs, pressing on his lungs, his heart. His jaw tightened, and he looked away, unable to meet the fire in her eyes. He had been called worse - by enemies, by strangers, by himself - but hearing it from her seemed to tear at a very old wound, leaving his resolve bleeding out of him, into nothingness, into mist. He was already breaking, and she’d gone for the jugular.
“I have something important to explain to you,” he was begging now, searching her eyes, it was pathetic, and he knew it, and definitely not a tactic recommended in the flowcharts. “You need to let me get through it. You must-”
“I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT THE MINISTRY WANTS, DRACO!” she roared, her voice penetrating violently through his body like the shockwaves of a bomb blast.
“I believe you’ll find them to be rather unbothered by your lack of buy-in, Granger,” he shot back, sarcasm shielding the raw ache her words left in their wake.
“I’ll just… move,” she spat, the defiance in her tone laced with desperation.
“Right, because running and hiding solves all of life’s problems,” he snapped, his voice razor-sharp.
“You tell me - does it?” she fired back, her words landing like another sickening blow.
“It won’t in this case,” he said, his voice colder now, clipped. “They already sent me, Granger. The window of opportunity where you could run, where you could avoid detection, has long closed.”
“I’m not using magic.”
“Liar,” he snapped. “You have wards. You apparated.”
“Prove it,” she shot back, her chin lifting defiantly, daring him.
“I will, that’s my job.”
Her brows knitted together, confusion and anger warring on her face. “Your job?”
“Yes. I’m an agent of the Department of Magical Safety,” he said with a sharpness that felt defensive, even to him. “I’m tasked with -”
“Are you an agent or a slave?” she interrupted, her voice quieter now, but no less pointed, the words cutting deeper for their precision.
Draco’s control slipped entirely, his tone shifting to bitter recitation. “Hermione Jean Granger,” he said with a sneer, “you are hereby notified that the Department of Magical Safety within the Ministry of Magic, under the authority of the Wizengamot and the support of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, has jointly opened a case to investigate you on suspicion of violating the Right to Be Mundane Clause, obstructing mandatory trace enforcement, and harboring or concealing magical activity in contravention of Reformation Order 126B.”
He glanced at her, as though daring her to interrupt, her expression unreadable.
“This investigation includes, but is not limited to, review of your magical history, current activities, and any magical entities, artifacts, or persons within your sphere of influence.”
Draco took a breath, unable to rein in his anger as he continued to rattle off the script burned into his brain.
“Under the statutes of magical compliance, you are hereby required to present yourself at a designated Ministry facility for interview, registration, and re-evaluation of your magical citizenship. Non-compliance will result in escalated investigative measures, up to and including forced reintegration or, should circumstances warrant, removal of all magical associations and privileges and permanent relocation to a secured rehabilitation facility.”
He snapped his mouth shut, staring at her like he’d just thrown a gauntlet to the floor.
“I am to be your contact for the duration of the case,” he took a step into her space, forcing her to step back, “from now until such a time as the ministry considers it resolved.”
Another step.
“My duties as your contact include daily reports to my immediate superior of your activities and whereabouts,” step, “as well as gathering any evidence that either proves or disproves guilt.”
Hermione’s back was against the island again, he stepped closer now, forcing her face to tilt up towards him as he dominated over her.
“I will liaise with ministry officials and employees to move your case forward, and,” the sharp jab of his finger to her chest punctuated every word, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous timbre. “You. Will. Comply."
They locked eyes for a long, charged moment, her defiance and fury softening into something sharper—calculating, as if he could almost hear the hum of thoughts and strategies assembling in her mind.
“What are you going to tell them?” she asked, her voice steady but her jaw betraying her with a subtle tremble. He could see it now - the faint cracks in her defiance, the flicker of fear she was trying hard to bury. For the first time, he thought she might actually be grasping the gravity of her situation.
“What,” he purred, his voice dripping with condescension as he angled himself even closer, “have you gotten yourself into, Granger?” His fingers twitched at his sides, resisting the sudden, irrational urge to stroke the line of her jaw or wrap his hand around her throat - not to harm, but to remind her who was in control here.
Her eyes narrowed, meeting his with a defiant steadiness that irritated and intrigued him in equal measure.
“What do they know?” she asked, her tone even, flat. He recognized it for what it was: a stalling tactic. She was already calculating, thinking through the angles, cataloging the loopholes she could exploit.
“What are you afraid they know?” he asked, a challenge. She blinked up at him but said nothing. He tilted his head, studying her, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make her shift uncomfortably under his gaze.
“Let’s just say,” he began, drawing out the words as his eyes roved over her features, searching for any tell, any crack in her armor, “they know you’re hiding something. The Ministry might not have the specifics yet, but they will.” He let the weight of his words hang in the air for a moment before delivering the blow.
“If they find out you’ve been able to evade the trace,” he continued, his tone now sharp and cold, “you’ll have to say goodbye to all of this -” he gestured lazily around the kitchen, his movements casual, almost mocking, “- this… quaint terraced house in Battersea. And instead, you’ll live out your days as a lab rat in some rehabilitation camp in Norway.”
He watched her closely as her face stiffened, her chin lifting in that maddeningly familiar gesture of defiance. It was the same look she’d worn a thousand times before, in classrooms, courtrooms, and battlefields. That stubborn, unyielding pride that refused to back down, even when the odds were stacked against her. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, her knuckles whitening, and for a split second, he thought she might actually lunge at him.
But then she drew in a long, slow breath, as though summoning some hidden reserve of composure. Draco rolled his eyes internally. He knew this game. She was playing rebel, the eternal crusader for justice, railing against the Ministry’s authority just because it wasn’t her idea.
She had nothing. He was sure of it.
But then her shoulders dropped, her stance shifted - not surrender, but something sharper, calculated. It was the tell. She had a card to play.
“And what would happen…” Her voice came quieter now, but her gaze burned, unwavering. She breathed in deeply again, bracing herself, as though making some monumental decision.
“What would happen to my daughter?”