Chapter 13
Over the next few days, Hermione felt that her hours were spent watching the same movie over and over again. No matter what she tried, the ending was always the same: she couldn't use her wand.
Malfoy didn't demand much of her, something she wasn't counting on at all when she accepted his help. Hermione expected rough, relentless training, without pause or compassion. At least, that's how she imagined the Death Eaters acted at practice. And perhaps her imagination wasn't too far from reality, but Malfoy didn't fit the mold. Before asking her to try using a single spell, he made sure that her hand had adjusted to the wand again. He said there was no point in trying to plant a tree without first knowing if the land was ready for it. A wise phrase that made Hermione feel like a barren wasteland, with no prospect of ever bearing fruit. She didn't dare verbalize this feeling, but the way his eyes met hers with measured tenderness made it clear that it wasn't necessary either. He could read her like an open book and Hermione didn't know what to make of it. She was used to having to translate herself to the rest of the world, written in a language that was too complicated to understand. But he did it. How, she did not know.
Slowly, he began to try to get her to cast some simpler spells that didn't require so much of her.
“Let’s start with Lumos,” he said on their first real morning of trying. “Basic light spell. Low effort. Most wands respond instinctively.”
Hermione stood on the dewy grass outside the cottage, the grey morning pressing over them like a damp blanket. She stared at her wand, already sensing the failure waiting for her at the end.
“Lumos,” her voice didn't come out as firmly as she tried.
Nothing.
“Again.”
“Lumos.”
To no one's surprise, nothing. Again. She tried six more times before she lowered the wand, fingers white around the wood. “It’s no use.”
“It’s one spell,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it’s over.”
“I’ve tried this before. You think your presence is going to suddenly fix—”
“No,” he said softly. “But maybe I’ll help you not walk away when it doesn’t.”
The next day, he handed her a feather. She knew where this was going. Her voice was dry when she said, “Wingardium Leviosa?”
He nodded. “Try it.”
She rolled her shoulders back and stared at the feather sitting innocently on the flat stone between them.
“Wingardium Leviosa.”
But the feather didn’t twitch.
She frowned, adjusted her position, visualized the feather slowly rising and tried again.
“Wingardium Leviosa.”
Not even a gust of wind answered her.
She stood there, trying again and again until the words began to sound meaningless. Her tone got harder, sharper. The edge of desperation, and something darker, began to bleed into her voice. But nothing moved. It was like calling out for someone in an empty house. Ridiculous and useless.
After twenty minutes, Hermione shoved the feather off the rock with her hand and sat down in the grass, burying her face in her hands. Without a word, Draco sat down next to her. Close enough to feel her frustration leaving her body, but not touching.
“We’ll try another tomorrow,” was all he said.
And they did.
He gave her a stick and asked her to try Lacarnum Inflamari, a basic fire-making charm. Only then Hermione realized how deeply she associated that spell with her first year at Hogwarts, with her lost confidence, with being capable. She remembered casting it easily to light Snape’s robes on fire. At that time, she still honored the attributes that characterize her home.
Now, the hand that held the wand no longer remembered what it felt like to be brave. Her voice cracked mid-incantation.
Nothing but cold air. The stick remained dry and lifeless.
She tried again and again, even screamed the spell once. After an hour, Malfoy took the stick and away, understanding it would not work, leaving Hermione leaving Hermione with the shadow of a tear blurring her vision.
“Alohomora,” he said the next day, standing in front of the kitchen’s cupboard. “Another low-energy spell. Try it.”
Hermione took a step forward and pressed the tip of her wand against the object, chanting the magic words. She couldn't say how long she tried to do it, for how many minutes she stared at the cupboard door, totally immobile.
“Do you feel anything?” he asked after a while.
“Nothing. It’s like—” she shook her head, her voice tight, “it’s like the wand’s just wood.”
“It’s not,” he said. “It’s your wand. And it knows you. It’s waiting for you to come back.”
“Then it’ll be waiting a very long time.”
“You don’t know that.”
She walked away before she screamed. Or cried. Or both.
By the end of the week, she had failed at Lumos, Wingardium Leviosa, Alohomora, Lacarnum Inflamari, and Reparo, which Draco had asked her to use on a chipped mug. He’d handed it to her gently, almost with hope. She’d whispered the spell like it was a prayer.
When the mug shattered in her hands, Hermione realized that there was no point in praying, no one would hear her. She fell into silence, and did not come out until the next morning.
He never brought the mug up again.
The one spell she came close to casting was Orchideous, of all things—a silly, showy charm that conjured flowers from the tip of one’s wand. Malfoy thought that it might help because it was playful, not purposeful.
She thought he was ridiculous, but tried anyway.
There was a faint tickle in her fingertips. The wand warmed for half a second. But no flowers bloomed. No petals, no leaves, not even a wisp of color, proof that there was no life in her where anything could flourish.
Still, Draco managed to smile a little. “That’s progress.”
She gave him a glare that could have set his robes on fire, if only she had the magic to do it.
“You’re mocking me.”
“No,” he said. “You’re getting closer.”
“You sound like a teacher at the bottom of the class list, giving out gold stars for breathing.”
Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “You’d be shocked how many people can’t even do that under pressure.”
It went on like this for days. Her routine became a string of failures wrapped in forced encouragement and hollow determination. Every day she showed up. Every day she tried. And every day, nothing worked. Once she pretended to have fallen asleep, hoping that Malfoy would let it pass. It didn't work. He realized the lie and pulled back the blankets. He wouldn't let her miss a day.
Hermione began dreading the mornings. Dreading his patient face. His calm voice. His maddening lack of disappointment. She almost wished he’d snap at her, scold her, call her useless. She could handle that. That she knew how to respond to. It was kindness that she was afraid of, because she didn't know what to do with it.
One night, after the sun had set and they were walking back toward the cottage in silence, she finally said it.
“We should stop. I don’t think it’s coming back.”
Draco looked at her, the moonlight making his features soft and tired. “I think it will.”
“You’re just you're just deluding yourself.”
“No,” he said. “But you don’t know it won’t.”
She sighed heavily. “That’s a very Gryffindor thing to say.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.”
Now, like every other day, they were both on the beach in the comforting sunshine. But Hermione was far from comforted. He handed her the wand again. She didn’t want to take it.
“What now? You want me to try to summon a bloody Patronus?”
He looked at her, quiet for a beat. “No. That’s too much.”
“Then what?”
He hesitated. Then gestured to his arm.
“I want to try something else.”
She stared at him like he’d grown a second head.
“What?”
He didn’t drop his gaze. “Try Finite Incantatem.”
Hermione took an involuntary step back, not believing what her ears had just heard. “On you?”
Malfoy nodded, as if what he was asking her was the most natural thing in the world.
“Are you mad?”
“Possibly.”
She stared at the pale skin of his left forearm, just barely visible beneath his rolled-up sleeve. She didn’t need to see it to know what was there.
The Mark.
“I can’t fix that,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Then what’s the point?”
Malfoy took a slow step forward, carefully aware of her.
“It’s not about fixing it. It’s about reaching it. You said the wand feels like wood. Like it doesn’t want you. So stop aiming at feathers and teacups and try something that matters to you.”
She blinked hard. “You think your tattoo matters to me?”
“You hate it. You hate Death Eaters.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
He smiled, just a little. “Then use that.”
Hermione looked down at the wand in her hand. It felt lighter than usual this morning. She didn’t know what that meant, and she didn’t dare hope it meant anything.
Draco rolled his sleeve up to the elbow and extended his arm, palm up, forearm bare. The Mark wasn’t as dark as she remembered. It looked like a memory now, half-faded, as though the war had tried to erase it and only gotten halfway there. However, it didn't matter that it was faded. The lines were still visible, still carried the weight of something that made her stomach churn.
She lifted her wand, trembling. Even in the face of her nervousness, Malfoy didn't dare move.
“Finite Incantatem,” she said, and it felt like speaking through mud. The words got stuck in her throat, heavy with meaning, and even heavier with doubt.
As anyone would expect, nothing happened. Because nothing happened with Hermione. Not even her hatred was strong enough. It was as if she was too empty to use her emotions as fuel.
“Try again.”
She looked at him. He wasn’t breathing hard. Hermione simply couldn't understand how he still maintained such perseverance. He wasn’t tensed for pain or expecting a miracle. He was just…there. Holding his arm out. Trusting her with it.
She closed her eyes.
“No. Now I'm giving up for good. I'm tired of watching my failures.”
She was waiting for his comeback, telling her to try again, motivating her. But he did nothing of the sort. Apparently, he had finally realized that she was hopeless.
They walked back to the house in silence. Not even nature dared to break that silence. Not even nature dared to break that silence. The birds didn't sing, the wind didn't whistle. Even the waves seemed to move with measured caution.
Inside, the light from the windows felt too bright, like it was highlighting all her edges. Hermione went straight to the sink, filled a glass of water with trembling fingers, and drank.
It tasted like guilt.
Across the house, she heard a door creak open, probably Draco stepping into the bathroom, she assumed. Giving her space. Or maybe giving himself some. She couldn't condemn him. She didn't even know how he had coped without shouting at her, without losing patience with her incompetence.
Hermione leaned against the counter and stared at the wall. Her reflection in the windowpane caught her eye, and she hated it. She avoided mirrors at all costs, because she always felt that way. Disgusted by what she saw. With a desire to destroy the person staring back at her. She hated the woman looking back—this ghost of herself. Pale, fragile, incapable. Her mouth was pressed into a tight line, the kind of expression she used to wear only in battle. Now it lived there permanently.
The glass clinked against the sink when she set it down at the same time Malfoy stepped into the kitchen. His eyes flicked to hers, unreadable, then down.
“Do you remember why you picked up your wand again?” he asked softly.
She blinked. “What?”
“Back then. After all that time. You only touched it again because you thought I needed help. With the curse.”
She didn't understand what he was getting at. Hermione looked away.
“You always rush in for someone else. That’s the trigger.”
“It didn’t matter. I couldn’t do it the, anywa—”
Before she could finish, he was already moving. Malfoy grabbed a knife from the counter and, without a single word, dragged it across his forearm, over the tattoo. Deep enough to bleed. A lot.
Hermione froze.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“You said you’re done trying,” he said calmly, voice steady even as crimson bloomed against his skin. “But I think you're lying.”
She stared at the blood pouring from his arm. It hit the tiled floor with a soft pat, the kind of sound that echoed in her bones. All at once, she couldn’t breathe.
“Stop it. You’re insane—”
“I’m not asking for a miracle,” he said. “Just help me.”
Her brain short-circuited.
Blood.
Blood on the floor. Blood in screams. Blood in the dirt, caking her nails and knees and torn sleeves as she tried to piece people back together with trembling hands and magic she barely understood.
Her chest tightened.
“I—I can’t—” she gasped, backing away from him.
She turned and bolted from the kitchen. The kit. She needed to find it immediately. Hermione hurried to the shelf where she always left the first aid kit, standing on tiptoe so that her fingers could grope through the box. They were shaking too much to grasp anything carefully, but Hermione also quickly realized that there was nothing to reach for.
The shelf was empty.
“What—” Her voice broke off.
Behind her, his voice came, quiet. “I hid it.”
“You what?”
“You said you don’t want to try anymore. But you will. If someone’s bleeding. If someone needs you. I’m betting on that.”
Her mind reeled. “You manipulative bastard!”
He didn't flinch. A red trail followed him and fell at his feet, but Malfoy's eyes wouldn't leave Hermione's.
“You don’t get it,” she said. “You don’t know what this does to me.”
“I know more than you think,” he said. “And I know you’d crawl through glass to help someone, even if it kills you.”
Hermione stared at him. At the blood dripping down his wrist, staining his pale skin like it belonged there.
Her hand went in search of her wand, her fingers trembling violently, in a way that she couldn’t grip it properly. It felt like stone again. She raised it, trying to call on something, whether it was instinct, training, desperation. Anything.
“Vulnera Sanentur,” she choked out.
The same outcome as always. Nothing. Not even a spark. And the blood didn’t slow.
She tried again. “Vulnera —”
Hermione’s voice cracked. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor in front of the sink, the tiles cold against her skin. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stop the blood. She couldn’t fix him. She couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t. And in that moment, she wasn’t looking at Draco Malfoy anymore. She was looking at Fred. Remus. Molly. George. Tonks. Billy. Fleur. Neville. Luna. Ginny. All of them, bleeding, breaking, dying in front of her. Malfoy's blood was the same as all the others she had lost. It was just like the blood that stained her own hands during the war. The blood that would haunt her for all eternity.
Her stomach lurched violently. She gripped the sink, leaned over, and vomited. Her body shook with it. Ugly, wrenching sobs clawed their way out of her throat, and she didn’t try to stop them. She didn’t have the strength for that.
Hermione slid to the floor and curled in on herself, repeating I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, over and over again, although the words were only whispers in the middle of the crying.
For a long time, the only sounds in the bathroom were her quiet, broken apologies and the soft, steady drip of blood hitting porcelain. Then she heard the scrape of fabric as he knelt down beside her.
“Granger,” he said, low and hoarse.
She flinched, curling tighter, burying her face in her arms. “Go away.”
“No.”
“Go.”
He ignored her.
She felt him shift beside her. Then something warm and wet brushed against her hand—his blood, still dripping, staining her skin. She gasped and tried to pull away, but he caught her wrist. Gently. No pressure at all. Just a hand, steady and grounding, even as his own shook.
“You think I don’t know what this is doing to you?” he asked. “You think I don’t remember every single face I saw fall in that war?”
She didn’t answer. The words had drowned in her tears.
“I see them, too,” he said. “Every night. Every time I look in the mirror. Every time I touch this fucking mark.”
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted to scream. She wanted to disappear. But she couldn’t—because he wasn’t letting her.
“You’re not the only one haunted, Granger.”
He was paler than usual. The blood was still flowing, soaking into his sleeve now, but he didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he did and just didn’t care. His eyes were locked on hers, wide and sharp and real in a way she didn’t expect.
“Help me,” he said again. Softer now. Not a command. Not even a request.
A plea.
Her breath hitched.
“I can’t,” she whispered, voice shaking.
“Yes, you can.”
“Go away.” She begged, unable to face him at all.
Her shoulders were shaking, her head bowed low, curls sticking to the sweat on her forehead.
Malfoy watched her like someone watching a match flicker out in the wind, unable to keep the flame alight.
He’d gone too far.
His breath caught. The blood on his arm suddenly felt colder, shame crawling up from it like a second skin.
Malfoy stepped back slowly. He opened the cabinet under the sink and grabbed the first aid kit she’d failed to find. Quietly, deliberately, he sat on the closed lid of the toilet and began to wrap his arm himself. The antiseptic stung. He didn’t wince. He deserved worse. While he was doing all that, Hermione's crying filled the room.
When he stood again, she was still on the floor. Still holding herself like a lifeline.
He lingered in the doorway, his voice barely audible.
“I’m sorry.”
All he got in response was a sniffle followed by a choke.
***
They avoided each other for the rest of the day, Hermione taking refuge in the bathroom until bedtime. Neither of them had an appetite for dinner, for different reasons. It seemed unimaginable that any food could slip down her throat, how nauseous she still felt.
At bedtime, Hermione curled up on the couch, blanket tight around her shoulders, wand hidden from sight. She needed to rest so badly, to pretend that there was an escape from that day and all the others that had passed but still haunted her.
Sleep took a long time to ring his doorbell, but when Hermione opened the door, he dragged her back to the past.
The screaming woke her, ecchoing faintly off the walls. The nightmare hadn’t shown her everything. Just enough. Just that night. The one she never spoke of. The one she could never forget. The night she killed someone.
Her lungs burned. Her skin was soaked in sweat. The room tilted, spinning. Her chest caved inward, pulled into the black hole that always waited for her.
She was starting to have a panic attack.