Chapter 4
The letters didn't fade.
RUN.
The ink settled again, like whatever force had brought it to the surface was now satisfied with its warning. Draco was sleeping, and hadn't seen it yet.
She should tell him. She should do something.
But her mind was caught between the past and the present, trapped in the space between knowing and understanding.
Then Draco sucked in a sharp breath. His entire body tensed, and Hermione barely had time to react before his hand shot up, clutching his chest.
A strangled sound escaped him.
Hermione’s instincts screamed at her to help, but the moment she stepped closer, the veins reacted.
The ink shifted again, another word formed right beneath the first.
SOON.
Hermione’s pulse roared in her ears. The words sat there, unmoving now, staring back at her like something out of a nightmare.
When she finally found her voice, it came out hoarse. "Malfoy."
His eyes snapped open.
For the briefest moment, Hermione saw recognition in them. Not shock. Not confusion. But something worse.
Something like acceptance.
"You should go," he said.
Hermione’s jaw clenched. "Tell me what it means first."
He didn’t answer. His gaze flickered back to the words, and then he shut down. His features hardened, his breath evened out, his fingers unclenched. He was slipping back behind whatever armor he still had left.
She hated him for it.
"God," he rasped, voice barely above a whisper. "You really do have a bloody savior complex."
The words should’ve hit like an insult. But they didn’t.
Because Hermione didn’t feel like a hero. She felt powerless.
And she was sick of it.
The wand was exactly where she had left it. Hidden beneath the loose floorboard near the fireplace, wrapped in cloth, untouched for far too long.
She hesitated before reaching for it.
The wood felt foreign in her hands, like it no longer belonged to her. She curled her fingers around it anyway, letting out a slow breath as she raised it.
The moment she did, the air shifted.
A sharpe crackle through the silence—just a flicker of raw, untamed magic—and Hermione nearly dropped the wand in shock.
She wasn’t sure if it would work.
She wasn’t sure if it wouldn’t kill him.
She wasn’t sure of anything.
The only thing Hermione knew was that she needed to try something: a diagnostic spell, a countercurse, anything. But the thought of using magic after all this time was tenebrous.
Not because she didn’t remember how. You can’t just forget how to use your wand.
But you can forget how to trust yourself to do it. And Hermione did that.
Her pulse was hammering as she took a slow breath. She willed the magic to come back, to feel something other than the hollow ache in her chest. Carefully, she lifted the wand again, starting with something easier. “Lumos.”
A flicker of light stuttered, weak and uneven, before dying altogether.
Her stomach twisted.
Hermione had expected this. She had known, deep down, that after this long, her magic wouldn’t just come back to her like an old friend. But she had still hoped—hoped that maybe, just maybe, the wand would recognize her, that this whole time of absence and silence wouldn’t have rotted her connection to the thing that once felt like an extension of herself.
But the wand was quiet.
She wasn’t sure if it had given up on her, or if she had given up on herself first. Probably both.
Her fingers shook as she lowered it.
A long time ago, using her wand wouldn’t be synonymous with anxiety. At this time, she would already try to pull the darkness from his veins. To help. To actually do something.
But that Hermione was no longer in charge.
She wasn’t sure if the spell would work. She wasn’t sure if she would kill him instead. And her heart wouldn’t be able to bear another death. No matter who it was.
A sharp breath left her lips, and before she could dwell on it any longer, she shoved the wand back into the place she hid all along, with more force than necessary.
Hermione felt like she was suffocating. Like as if the room had shrunk in size, becoming too small for the emotions bottled up inside her.
She needed air. She needed to get away.
So that’s what she did.
The island was warm, the morning soft and golden as she stepped into the tree line. Hermione tried to think of a painter for today, but her head was too heavy to focus on that.
The ocean breeze followed her, threading through her hair, tugging at the loose fabric of her sweater.
She hadn’t ventured this far in weeks.
Now, as she picked through the undergrowth, she let herself focus on something small, something tangible—her hands, reaching for fruit, the texture of leaves against her skin. She found oranges first. Then something that looked vaguely like a pear.
Her fingers curled around the rough bark of a tree as she hoisted herself up, legs braced against the sturdy trunk. The strain in her muscles felt good — real — pulling her out of her head, out of the memories clawing at the edges of her mind.
Except they always came.
Hermione's mind forced her to revisit the times when her magic felt free and bright. Something that slipped out of her hands, through her wand, with the sole purpose of helping, of improving the lives of everyone.
Hermione couldn't remember the moment when magic became an instrument of war. When something so beautiful no longer healed, but killed.
Her grip tightened around the branch she clung to, fingers pressing into the rough bark as she exhaled slowly, forcing the memories back.
Not now. Please.
But war didn’t listen. It came when it wanted, clouding the souls of those who would forever carry blood on their hands.
The first time she had cast the Cruciatus Curse, Hermione felt the magic in her bones, raw and ugly and wrong. It had burned through her wand like wildfire, like something untamed, like it had never belonged to her in the first place.
In order to sleep at night, in order to keep going, she had told herself it had been necessary. It was for the greater good.
Everything was irrelevant. Nothing she could say could plug the hole that was beginning to grow inside her, devouring her from the inside out. The trembling did not leave her hands each time she held her wand; her breathing was still irregular, as if her lungs could no longer find a home in her chest. Her body was betraying her, falling apart with every second. With every life that found the end of the line.
However, the worst part was the screams.
They begged and screamed and wailed and pleaded and shouted and—
Hermione sucked in a sharp breath.
The branch under her hand cracked, snapping her back to the present.
Her body was tense, legs locked where she stood on the thick tree limb. The sun was still warm. The wind still gentle. The world around her still quiet. Only her mind was enveloped in a deafening noise.
She swallowed down the nausea creeping up her throat, forcing herself to move, to reach for another piece of fruit. The weight of it was grounding, solid, something real in her hands.
Her magic had been her greatest gift, once.
Now it felt like something that wasn’t ever hers.
When she had tried to use her wand this morning, the failure had settled in her chest like something familiar.
Of course it wouldn’t work.
Of course the wand wouldn’t answer her.
She had used it for things it was never meant for.
She had let it become something else.
Something she didn’t recognize anymore.
Hermione forced herself to climb down, movements stiff, mechanical. She focused on the sensation of bark scraping against her palms, the way the fruit pressed into the crook of her arm, anything to distract from the clawing ache in her chest.
By the time she reached the ground, she was calmer, although the memories kept digging into her mind, sharp claws that never stopped scratching.
Hermione swallowed hard, shoving the thought away.
She was here.
That was there.
And it didn’t matter anymore.
By the time she returned to the cottage, her arms were full. Fruit tucked into the fabric of her sweater, a few small branches clutched in her hands for the fire.
For a second, she thought her mind was playing tricks on her.
Inside, Draco Malfoy was standing.
Draco Malfoy—who had been barely conscious, who had collapsed in her bed only hours ago—was now on his feet, hovering near the sofa, fingers grazing the edges of her bookshelf like he had any right to touch her things.
His back was turned to her, his posture tense, but too alert for someone who had been half-dead hours ago. There was no sign of the words written by the curse.
She dropped everything onto the floor with a thud.
His head turned slightly. "Ah," he said, voice still hoarse. "Thought you left me for good."