The Archer
11:50 pm, 24th December, 2023
Residence of Reintegration Target #8714: [Redacted] Hermione Jean Granger, age 44
Battersea, South London
The words landed like a physical blow, slamming into him and halting his thoughts in their tracks. He stared at her, unable to process what he’d just heard.
“Your… what?” His voice faltered, the sharp edge of authority crumbling into confusion.
“My daughter,” she repeated, her voice stronger now, steady despite the way her hands twisted the overlong sleeves of her jumper. “Ophelia. She’s not here right now. She’s with her-” She hesitated, the briefest pause betraying something he didn’t understand, couldn’t read. “She’s with family. For Christmas.”
Daughter. Daughter. The word echoed around his skull, enveloping everything in a resonant vibration, like the strike of a gong.
A child. A magical child to at least one magical parent. His mind raced to the dossier: marital status: divorced - magical/non-magical union, children: none . None. In all his years on cases like these, he’d never come across something like this.
Draco stared at her, his mind blanking for a beat, then whirring back to life with infinite overlapping questions, each vying to be the first out of his mouth, though none seemed to win out. He backed away from her, needing space, needing air. He turned on the spot, one hand found its way to his tie and loosened it even further, then rose, rubbing at the light stubble at the tip of his chin in a repeating downward motion, a nervous tick. He glanced around the room, suddenly realizing he’d noted the drawings, the art supplies, the photos…
He shuffled quickly to the nearest wall, where there was an especially intentional display of photos arranged like a gallery. They all had Granger and a girl. Ophelia. Right in the center at his eyeline there was one of Granger, with a young girl of about five or six, holding ice cream cones and smiling at the camera on a pier, the sea in the background. Draco moved closer to the glass, inspecting closely. She had Granger’s curly hair, but it was lighter, thinner. The curls were lightly fanned out around her face like the photo had caught them at the moment of a slight gust of light breeze. Ophelia was smiling broadly, openly, so intensely it might have been a grimace.
He went to the next photo. A more formal portrait of Granger, a tall blond man with an ingratiating smile, and a blond toddler-aged Ophelia, posed together in a meadow, Granger holding one of Ophelia’s tiny hands, the man holding the other, holding the little girl up between them, beaming at her with joy while the child grinned at the camera. A happy couple with a happy child, clearly doted on, beloved.
He went to the next. A school photo, based on the clothing, perhaps her most recent one. She looked to be about eight or nine. She wasn’t smiling or looking towards the lens but seemed to be seeing something interesting just out of frame. It seemed an odd photo to display with such pride of place, like an outtake. Draco found himself drawn to it nonetheless, raking in her features. She seemed to take after her mother in her face - freckles, wide mouth, full lips, dark expressive brows, and impossibly long eyelashes - except her skin was just a shade lighter than Hermione’s deep olive tone, her bone structure slightly more pronounced, and her eye color which seemed to be a pale shade of blue.
It could be no one else’s child but Granger's. Draco almost gasped at the resemblance. Out of his peripheral vision he could see Granger approach somewhat nervously, focusing intensely on him, reading him. It snapped him out of his reverie with a jolt. He turned back to her and rubbed at his chin again, desperately trying to make sense of the implications of the revelation.
What do we know to be true in this moment?
“The Ministry does not know about her,” he said flatly, both a question and a statement.
“Your reaction tells me they do not.” Her response came without hesitation, her voice steady but her expression betraying a shade of something else, pride perhaps.
Pride and joy, a small voice whispered.
He crossed his arm over his chest to cradle his elbow as his hand flexed and fidgeted against his chin, mind still turning endlessly, searching for the connections, searching for the clues. How had she managed to keep such a monumental secret from the Ministry? The buzz of questions continued to swirl within, but he was starting to catch at their tails, wrangling them, catching hold.
“Why don’t they know about her?” is what came out first. He was pretty pleased with it - direct enough to get a sense of what she’d done but open enough that her interpretation of the question alone might be telling of her methods. Yes, well done, brain.
“They don’t know because I…” she paused, choosing her words carefully, “took steps… to prevent them knowing.”
Right, Granger is smarter than you, his brain reminded him.
“What steps?” he snapped, almost mockingly. “Why would you hide her?”
“If you’re so good at your job,” her mouth twisted into a cruel smirk, “I assume you’ll figure that out.”
He blinked at her, refusing to rise to the bait. His hand flexed absently, betraying the restless churn of his thoughts as silence stretched between them. He couldn’t exactly blame Granger for not trusting him - he was here as an enforcer, after all - but the realization hit harder than it should. There had been a time, years ago, when she’d trusted him implicitly, not because of his role or his utility, but because he was Draco. And he - he’d trusted her more than anyone. More than himself.
And now? Now they were standing on opposite sides of the wreckage they’d made of those fleeting years, two strangers navigating a labyrinth of secrets and regrets.
“So you got to be a mum,” The words escaped him before he could stop them, carrying with them a swell of emotions he couldn’t suppress. Unbidden, images flashed across his mind like a lightning storm - Hermione cradling a blond curly-haired infant, singing to it softly, her hair a mess and her eyes tired but glowing with the kind of joy she’d always yearned for. She’d wanted this desperately.
“Yes, I’m her mum.” Pride and joy.
“You said…” He faltered, his voice losing its edge. The echoes of their long-ago conversations about children and the future that had never come to pass clung to the air between them. “You thought… perhaps you… couldn’t.”
“Yes, well, it turns out I could,” she said simply, with almost a shrug. The movement struck him as almost too casual, dismissive, no story here. He noted it.
“Well, that makes me… I’m pleased for you.” He hesitated, his mind racing, unable to stop himself from voicing the thought. “Her father… the Muggle you married?”
“Henry,” she said simply, her tone even, almost detached. “He’s a physician. We’re divorced.”
Draco’s lips twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Oh, I can’t imagine why,” he drawled, his tone dripping with sarcasm, though the words felt hollow, even to him. The jab landed without the satisfaction he’d expected, dissipating into the stillness like a dropped stone in shallow water.
Her expression shifted, annoyance flickering across her features, her eyes narrowing briefly before she rolled them with practiced ease. “Yes, yes,” she said dryly, smirking at him, “I’m a nightmare, Malfoy, as we’ve established. Well spotted.”
To his surprise, he felt a tug at the corners of his mouth, the faintest hint of a smirk rising unbidden. It was all so familiar - this rhythm of barbs and quips, sharp and cutting, but tempered by something unspoken, something warmer. For a fleeting moment, it felt like slipping back into a well-worn dance, the kind only two people with too much shared history could perform.
But just as quickly as it came, the warmth fizzled, her smirk fading, replaced by a look of weary determination.
“What are you going to do, Draco?” she asked pointedly, her voice steady, though her stance betrayed the smallest flinch, as if bracing for impact.
The question hit him like a punch. His shoulders stiffened, the faint smirk slipping away entirely. For a moment, his mind went blank, the sheer enormity of her question hollowing him out. She’d asked it like she already knew the answer - but of course, she didn’t. Because neither did he.
Inside, his thoughts scrambled, tracing the well-worn map of his protocol, pulling at the edges, testing for loopholes, for options, anything to carve out a path forward that didn’t lead to ruin. He shrugged at last, the movement stiff and awkward, the only answer he could offer.
“What would they do,” she pressed, her voice kind but measured, each word deliberate, “if you told them only what you know right now?”
“Which part?” The words slipped out before he could stop them. They hung in the air, strange and unexpected, even to him. It felt foreign, speaking so candidly to her, to Granger. And yet - somewhere deep in his chest, a flicker of something long buried stirred. It felt almost like the way they used to tackle problems together, dissecting puzzles, navigating impossible situations as a team.
But they weren’t a team now.
“I mean, just telling someone about the kid,” he said after a pause, his voice quieter but no less sharp, “would be enough to have my entire unit here in minutes.”
“Why?” she asked, her tone cool and clipped, but her brow furrowed in what might have been genuine confusion - or perhaps disbelief.
“At best,” he began, his words slow and deliberate now, “it means they have incomplete intelligence, and that -” his voice hardened- “is unacceptable. At worst…” He hesitated, his eyes narrowing, as if trying to read her reaction before continuing. “At worst, it means there’s at least one witch in Battersea who is untraceable. Either end of the spectrum, they’ll be… unhappy .”
“I see,” she said, chewing her bottom lip as her gaze drifted, considering. “And…” she hesitated, blinking up at him, “the other parts?”
“You mean, you and me,” he said, his voice quiet but steady - not a question, but a translation of the look in her eyes. Her expression was pleading, her defenses slipping just enough to let him see it: she wanted him to protect her. Like he’d once promised - and failed - to do.
“Yes,” she said softly, “that bit.”
“It’s not covered in the protocol. There’s no… rule that compels me to report our previous… status.”
She tilted her head, a flicker of confusion crossing her face.
“As I said before, it’s not something that usually comes up. Due to the nature of my… form.” He paused, his jaw tightening as though the word itself was a heavy burden on his tongue. He shifted his weight, his hand brushing over his mouth and then dropping to his side, restless and fidgeting. “I’m just supposed to be a faceless Ministry drone, to everyone, by design. The fact that you recognize me alone is reportable, I assume, due to it being highly unusual, if not actually impossible. They don’t like anomalies, Granger. And this case…” He exhaled sharply, shaking his head vaguely, his fist tightening briefly before relaxing, his arm falling stiffly to his side again. “This case is loaded with them.”
That was it. The crux of his problem. Even if there was no explicit rule to cover each strange layer of complexity presented, he was certain there were implicit ones. The system didn’t tolerate gray areas or loopholes.
He tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. Every path he considered seemed to lead to ruin. His process was always the same: precision, detachment, control. But this - her - was chaos. His gaze darted to hers, and for a moment, he thought he saw something crack in her armor.
“Are you going to let them take me, or take Ophelia?”
Her voice shattered the silence, soft but unwavering. His jaw tightened, and he glanced away, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Granger, I don’t have the -”
“I’ve been through a lot, Draco,” she interrupted, her voice thoughtful but shaking just slightly. She hesitated, then stepped forward, shrinking the distance between them but keeping her arms crossed tightly, a shield against her own vulnerability. “I’m very... alone,” she continued, her eyes fixed on some point beyond him, refusing to let him see the full weight of her desperation. “All I have is this house, my work, and my family. I don’t make trouble for the Ministry - I’m not some rebel, not anymore.” She paused, the words seeming to stick in her throat before she forced them out. “I’m just trying to give me and my daughter a peaceful life.”
Her gaze finally flicked up to meet his, tentative but burning with quiet determination. “You don’t know her,” she said, her voice softening, “but believe me, she deserves it.” She hesitated again, as though the next words were caught between her pride and her desperation. “Is there anything you are willing to do to help me protect us?”
For a moment, he couldn’t speak. The question hit him like a curse he hadn’t shielded, stealing the air from his lungs. She was asking for help - from him. Not because she trusted him, not anymore, but because she had no other choice.
“I can’t stop what’s happening,” he said finally, his voice low and rough, like the words were scraped out of him. He straightened slightly, stepping back to create space, as though the act of physically distancing himself could clear his mind. “They already know you’re here. They have your location. Nothing is stopping them from just sending someone else when they don’t get answers out of me. Someone you won’t recognize, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you - or hurt her - to get those answers.”
Her lips parted, and for a moment, she looked like she might argue. But then her shoulders sank, her defiance dimming just enough to reveal the fear beneath it. “You can’t just… make the case go away?” she asked, her voice quiet, almost tentative, like she already knew the answer.
“It doesn’t work like that.” He shook his head, the words clipped, final. “Targets are handed down from on high, from the algorithm. Once it’s flagged, it stays flagged, until the threat is deemed neutralized and the case is closed.”
“And what does that look like?” she pressed, her voice steady despite the slight tremor in her hands as she re-crossed her arms. “For a usual, non-anomalous case?”
He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair before holding up a finger. “You take the trace and get your wand back, your friends back, your life back,” he said flatly. A second finger. “Or, you eventually have an accidental magic incident. That usually ends in your own death or the death of your Muggle neighbors and friends.” A third finger. “Or, you’re incarcerated, and your daughter is sent to a foster home - or to live with next-of-kin.”
His hand dropped back to his side as his eyes lingered on her face, waiting for her reaction. There was no venom in his words, no gloating or cruelty, just the cold, unflinching delivery of facts. He wasn’t trying to scare her. He didn’t have to.
“I won’t take the trace,” she said with finality, her voice steady but her hands clenching, betraying the effort it took to hold her ground.
Draco’s eyes rolled so hard, his head tilted back briefly, his exasperation written in every line of his body. For a moment, he stared at the ceiling, as though asking the heavens for patience. Then, snapping upright, he pinched the bridge of his nose, the gesture sharp and frustrated. Of course she was going to be as difficult about this as every other bloody reintegration assignment.
“Why?” he snapped, his tone clipped and incredulous.
“Because it’s Orwellian , Draco!” she shot back, her voice rising. “It’s dystopian. It disgusts me. I refuse to submit to a government that would spy on its own citizens in the name of safety, but for the actual purpose of maintaining absolute, unchecked authority.”
“Yes, of course,” he drawled, a sneer curling his lips, “a martyr for the cause of all that is good and righteous, that’s Hermione Granger.”
Her eyes flashed, and she straightened, her chin lifting in defiance. “I helped write the legislation that became the Opt-Out Clause, Draco. I was one of the first to present my wand.”
“Yes,” he bit out, his tone dripping with sarcasm, “and ten years on, how is that working for you?” His words cut like a blade, but there was a faint edge of bitterness beneath them, something almost personal. “Where’s Potter, the Weasleys, Lovegood, Longbottom - weren’t they something to you?”
“Yes, they were,” she said firmly, her voice steady but quieter now. “But they can’t be now, and it broke my heart, but I have survived without them.”
“What about Ophelia?” Draco asked, his voice dripping with something like mockery, though his gaze betrayed a flicker of genuine curiosity. “Does she have magic? Will she go to a wizarding school? Would Hermione Granger really deny the hallowed halls of Hogwarts the honor of hosting another bushy-haired, know-it-all, Granger-gened swot ?”
“Hogwarts would not be the right place for Ophelia,” she replied flatly, the words carrying a quiet finality that only piqued his irritation further.
“Does she not have magic?” he pressed, his tone sharpening.
“She does.”
“Then explain.”
“No.”
Her curt response felt like a slap, and he froze for half a beat, his brows drawing together in disbelief. “No?” he repeated, his frustration mounting. He stepped closer, his voice hardening as he leaned into her space. “Granger, are you not at all interested in saving your own life?”
She didn’t back away, though her arms crossed even more tightly over her chest, a shield against his intensity. “How would walking you through the specifics of my child’s educational needs save my life?” she shot back, her voice laced with sarcasm but edged with steel.
“By showing a willingness to trust the only person standing between you and a Ministry interrogation chamber!” he snapped, his voice rising, his hands cutting through the air before falling sharply to his sides. The air between them crackled with unspoken tension, his anger and her defiance colliding like dueling spells.
“If trusting you to save my life had ever paid off for me, I’d consider it!”
He didn’t flinch. Instead, his face twisted, his lips curling into something too bitter to be called a smile. “And yet here you are,” he said, his voice low and jagged, “with your life - “ he gestured sharply towards her “- while I’ve got none left to speak of.” The words spilled out, unguarded and venomous, but beneath the venom lay something raw, something broken.
“I begged you not to do it,” she shot back, her voice trembling with restrained fury, her tightly-fisted hands quivering at her sides. “I begged you to stay. I would have kept running with you - I would have died to keep running with you!” Her voice cracked, and she took a step forward, her composure slipping as the years of unspoken grief and regret spilled out. “And I have thought about the moment I failed to convince you every single day since.” Her eyes burned with unshed tears as she stared him down, her voice breaking under the weight of her confession. “How dare you blame me, Malfoy. How dare you throw your choices back in my face!”
The words hung in the air between them, heavy and unrelenting, the silence that followed louder than the argument itself.
Buzz, buzz.
Draco’s inner coat pocket vibrated, cutting through the tension like a lifeline. He exhaled sharply, his hand slipping into the pocket to retrieve the source of the interruption.
“What is that?” she asked, her tone sharp, her frustration still simmering.
He pulled out the stupid fucking wand the size of a pen. “It’s an alarm. It’s midnight.” Right - the firewhisky. Of course. “My shift is over. They expect me back.”
“You’re just… leaving now?” she asked, disbelief etched into her face as she took a half-step closer, as though proximity might tether him there a little longer.
“I’ll be back,” he said, his tone clipped, curt, the words as much a reminder to himself as to her. “I’m your case contact, remember?”
“But we still haven’t worked out what we’re going to do here!” Her voice wavered, the earlier anger fading into something closer to desperation.
“There is no ‘we’, Granger.” He straightened his collar, already turning toward the hallway, his exit from this absolute shit-show now within his grasp. “I’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll have at least eight weeks for you to shout at me about the past as much as you like.”
“So you’re not going to report me,” she called after him, her voice sharp with defiance, her footsteps quick and skittering as she closed the distance between them. “Or Ophelia. Right now, tonight, or at any point before we see each other again?”
He glanced over his shoulder as he strode down the hall, her challenge trailing him like a shadow. But beneath the fire in her eyes, he saw something else - a flicker of raw, unguarded desperation. She shuffled closer, her brows knit in determination, yet the weight of her plea hung heavily in the charged air between them.
Buttoning his coat, he turned inward, his thoughts churning. Reporting her would be simpler - cleaner. It would mean following protocol, doing what was expected of him, and steering well clear of the tangled wreckage of her life. A life he had resolutely declared off-limits to himself the moment they’d taken his.
The protocol was clear. The consequences predictable. But this case wasn’t simple, and, damn it all, she wasn’t just anyone. The anomalies piled up faster than he could catalog them: her untraceable daughter, her recognition of him, her existence beyond the Ministry’s reach. Too many unknowns. Too many loose threads threatening to unravel everything.
And then there was the thought that cut through it all, sharp as a knife: she had mourned him. For all her strength, for all her fire, she had chosen to grieve for him - a ruined boy stumbling through the ashes of his own life, doomed by choices not always his own. Choices made by adults who should have protected him, and, yes, choices made by him. But he had been desperate, terrified. He had spent years searching for somewhere to belong - wandering, lost - finding only traps and dead ends.
A ghost even before they’d made him one. Yet she had mourned him.
Why? What kind of person saw something worth grieving in the wreckage his life had been? She deserved better, but she’d clung to him, even in death. And now, here she was again, asking him to save her. Him - a ghost, a tool, an utter failure. The thought scraped against something deep inside him, leaving a wound he didn’t understand. Only that, inconveniently, he cared.
He needed time - to understand, to decide.
“No,” he said simply, his tone clipped and final, the word slamming down like a judge’s gavel.
“Why not?” she pressed after a stunned beat, her voice softer now, but no less insistent.
He reached the end of the stairwell, his exit route just ahead, so close to the sanctuary of rain and silence. He didn’t look back as he huffed, “Call it a gift from the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
“You swear it?”
He turned slightly, arching a brow at her. “What is this? Do you want an Unbreakable Vow?”
“Is that an option?” she snapped, the flicker of hope in her voice almost heartbreaking.
“No," he scoffed.
“Wait!” she shrieked as his hand reached the doorknob, desperation flickering through her tone now, no longer masked. “What time will you be back? Tomorrow?”
He turned slightly, one hand on the doorframe, his expression caught somewhere between curiosity and exhaustion. “Why?”
“I could have tea ready,” she offered, her voice quieter now, almost shy, as though unsure if the gesture would land or be dismissed.
For the first time that night, his lips twitched into something resembling a genuine smile, brief but real. “For a nice, calm chat ?”
“I assume that is more than we could hope for,” she said dryly after a beat.
“Let’s say four, then,” he said, then added after a thought, “If you adjust your wards, I’ll knock this time.”
“Right,” she said, “Ophelia will be here. You could… meet her.”
He hesitated, turning back towards the door, his fingers tightening on the doorknob. “Yes, alright,” he said at last, the words soft, almost reluctant.
“And Draco?” Of course, she had to have the last word. She always did. He braced himself, one foot dangling into the rain-soaked night, but still, he didn’t turn around.
“Thank you, and…” she hesitated, her voice softening, forcing him to look back, to meet her eyes one last time, those fiery eyes that seemed to see too much. “Just… thank you.”
He nodded once, the gesture brief but deliberate. Then, stepping into the rain, he shifted into invisibility, his gaze never breaking from hers until the very last moment. The door shut behind him with a sharp, final slam.