Shielded

The next morning, Hermione woke up feeling pleasantly stifled. The fire in the fireplace had gone out over the night, and the lodge was feeling cold, so the warmth of the blanket around her made her feel extra cozy. She nuzzled herself deeper into the bed, when suddenly she felt the blanket behind her nuzzle back. She froze. The blanket was breathing. The blanket’s arm slipped from along her side to encompass her stomach. The blanket was Malfoy.

They had clearly drifted together over the course of the cold night, and although there was a small amount of space between their bodies, Malfoy had apparently reached out to hold onto her just in case. The proximity made her feel surprisingly relaxed, and she had to remind herself that they were just friends, despite her wayward thoughts, and they needed to extricate themselves from this situation as soon as possible. Ideally she’d rectify it without his ever knowing. Was he a heavy sleeper?

As she was contemplating a plan of attack, there was a sudden knock on the door, and Malfoy’s arm instinctually jerked her back flush against his body. She began flailing, attempting to create some distance between them again, but in Malfoy’s half asleep state, he seemed to be insistent on keeping her close, making the blankets wrap them tighter together instead. Hermione tried to wiggle to get out.

“What the…” she heard him murmur behind her.

“I’m sorry! Someone knocked on the door,” she whispered, continuing to move. “I’m so sorry about this!”

“Granger, Granger, stop!” he hissed back in distress, pulling the hand from her stomach to clamp down on her hips and stifle her movement. “Stop moving!”

At his panicked tone she stopped, surprised to notice they were both breathing deeply, and realizing that he was pushing her hard against himself. Another knock sounded.

“New firewood!” called Deacon John’s voice. “May I come in?”

“Come in??” whispered Hermione to Malfoy.

“Come in!” called Malfoy out loud assuredly. How did he manage to keep his voice so steady when he sounded so alarmed moments ago? If she had been facing him, she would’ve looked at him in bewilderment. What was he doing, letting someone in while they were in this position?? As it was, his rapid breathing told her that his own panic hadn’t actually abated, and his hand was still holding onto her very firmly, preventing her movement. He clearly wasn’t feeling at peace with the situation at all. Deacon John shuffled in wordlessly and began fussing at the fireplace. They stayed quiet.

Hermione assessed the circumstances. Why had Malfoy panicked? Could she easily fix it? Was he claustrophobic? Maybe the blanket wrapped around him was too tight? 

She felt him shuffle tentatively behind her before he froze again, and suddenly all her attention flew down south. There, wedged against the cheeks of her bum, she felt the telltale sign of morning wood. She couldn’t breathe. He felt long and hard, and the wiggling had fit it snuggly against her. She warmed, getting pleasantly flushed and flustered.

That’s probably why he had been stressed, she thought in wonder. He was worried she’d realize his state and think it was because of her. Even though she was very aware it was how men often woke up, based on his cluelessness of women’s feelings last night, he probably didn’t know she knew. And if he wasn’t interested in anything sexual with others, this sort of physical setup with another person was likely very uncomfortable. Which was probably amplified if he thought she may misinterpret his condition. The poor guy was likely in complete misery, trying desperately to escape the discomfort.

The same, unfortunately, couldn’t be said for her. She realized, with some chagrin, that she felt her insides turning warm and gooey, and noticed a familiar tingle between her legs, probably primed by how wound up she had been last night already. And despite it being Malfoy, being in this state while being held by him was very enjoyable. In fact, a small part of her argued, it was because it was Malfoy that the feeling was so nice.

Right, that train of thought needed to be stopped right now. She squeezed her thighs together, trying to alleviate the pressure.

“I have left some breakfast provisions on the counter. I hope you enjoy,” announced Deacon John after he finished whatever he was doing at the fireplace. She raised her head to look at him. He had been glaring murderously at Malfoy, seedy eyes narrowed in suspicion, but the look quickly dropped when her face made an appearance over the covers.

“Thank you very much, Deacon John.”

“It is my pleasure,” he responded, smiling at her in a way that was probably meant to come across as kind, but instead just seemed menacing. Ugh, this guy gave her the heebie jeebies.

“I hope you two have a nice day.”

“Thank you again. You as well.”

With that, Deacon John left the room, slamming the door harder than may have been completely necessary. Carefully, Hermione unraveled the blankets that had wrapped her up, and pulled herself away from Malfoy. She heard him let out a breath. Not wanting to call attention to the predicament they had just been in, she decided to go over to the basket of food Deacon John had brought and look in.

“Dried sausage, milk, dried bread, dried paprika. Amazing, this is food fit for kings,” she joked, glancing at him. He huffed out a strained laugh and rolled to his back, rubbing his face.

“You stay in bed, I’ll go get ready first. The Peppers said that Robert is meant to go pick up the car this morning, so maybe we can head up around noon? What time is it anyway?” She went over to her phone, picked it up to look at it, and almost immediately dropped it in surprise. “It’s 11:30!! I never sleep this long! All those late nights must have finally caught up to me!”

Malfoy merely grunted in response, leaving Hermione flailing quietly, desperately adjusting her plans for the day. She had wanted to knock out some research before checking on the car. She was very interested in Occlumency – the more she read about it, the more it seemed to have applications beyond defense against Legilimency, and the potential excited her. But now, they wouldn’t be leaving the house until afternoon, leaving much less time than intended. She hated when her plans were upturned.

“Granger, it’s okay,” said Malfoy suddenly. “We’ll just eat now, and then have the afternoon to do everything else. We’ll still have plenty of time in the upcoming week to do whatever that big brain of yours planned to cram in the first few hours of the day.”

She glared at him. “I know that. I just… don’t like not having control.”

“Shocker,” he said sarcastically, but the edges of his mouth lifted in a slight smile. “What were you planning for breakfast? I can help get started with preparations so we can move a bit faster.”

She looked at him in surprise. That was very considerate.

“Uh… well, the only thing I can really think of right now is a Hungarian dish called lecsó, for which we need sliced pepper, onion, and tomato. Yeah, it would actually be great if you could prepare those, and I should be out quickly enough to help.” She paused. “Thank you, Draco.”

He shrugged in response, lifting the covers to pull himself out of bed. She saw him raise his arms in preparation to stretch, and quickly rushed to grab her clothes from over the fireplace and ran into the bathroom, having only just gotten her tempestuous thoughts in order.

When she came out again, she saw he had sliced a bell pepper and was working on a tomato, so she started heating up the frying pan before slicing up an onion as well. When he finished, he excused himself to get ready, and Hermione tossed the half of the sausage she had cut off and diced into the frying pan to let it reduce before softened the onion, pepper, and tomato in the sausage fat. She seasoned the vegetables with the paprika, salt, and pepper, whipped up some eggs in milk, and poured them into the vegetable mixture to scramble it all, before turning to slice the non-dry bread that the Peppers had provided by the time Malfoy came back out.

They ate quickly, and as had become habit, Malfoy cleaned up the dishes while Hermione put away the ingredients they had used. Then they put on their jackets and stepped out to go check on their car.

When they walked past the domestic quarters that the rest of the clergy must live in, Hermione saw Deacon John watering some plants. He looked up at them, and his glare fixed angrily at Malfoy, who stared back impassively before nodding his head once. The deacon lowered his head again, ignoring this acknowledgement, and they walked by him without a word.

The town they were in was truly small - other than the church, there was a single street of houses and a park with a small pond and bench. They only had to ask the first person they came across where Robert lived (“Excuse me, where can we find Robert?” “The mechanic or the plumber?” “Mechanic” “Ah, that’s house 11”), and they were able to walk up to the entrance of his quaint home easily enough. They knocked twice, and a small woman slightly older than Mrs. Peppers opened the door.

“Hello, how may I help you?” she asked, the Irish accent a surprising anomaly in the English countryside.

“Hello, we are Draco and Hermione,” said Hermione, deciding to drive the introductions. “Our car broke down near the Peppers’ home, and we believe Robert, who we were told lives here, was asked to repair it. Does that sound familiar?”

“Oh, yes! Yes, my husband is in the garage right now looking at your car. Let me bring you to him. I’m Maeve, by the way.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Maeve,” said Hermione, smiling brightly. Maeve smiled back before she led them through the house to their backyard where there was a garage in the back. The door of it was open, and their car was pulled in, with the front facing inward. As they stepped closer, they could smell the grease, oil, and cigarette smoke from the garage.

“Robert, dear! There are some people here for you!” Maeve called into the garage. A manly grunt could be heard from the inside.

“Just a mo’!”

After a couple of sounds of jostled tools, a large man with a walrus mustache and a sheen of sweat covering his bald head stepped out.

“Oh ho, here is the unfortunate pair!” he pronounced jovially, reaching out to shake each of their hands. “Robert. Robert. Pleasure.”

“Hello, Robert! I’m Hermione, and this is Draco. Thank you so much for being willing to perform these repairs on such short notice.”

“Not a problem at all! Fortunately for you, I don’t believe the issue is a big one, but I should know more in about an hour or so. Would you mind coming back around then?”

Hermione let out a gasp of relief. “Oh that is such wonderful news, Robert! Truly, thank you again! And of course, no problem at all, we’re just staying at the church right now, we’ll be able to come back easily enough.”

“Don’t be silly,” tittered Maeve. “No need to hop back and forth! Feel free to stay here, I can make us some tea! It’s so rare we get visitors from outside of here, it would be great to hear about you two.”

Hermione’s excitement dwindled a bit as nerves set in at the idea of discussing themselves, but at the longing in the woman’s eyes, she found she couldn’t refuse.

“Of course, we’d be happy for some tea. That alright, Draco?” she asked, looking at him.

He nodded curtly, and they went back inside to their living room. It was warm and cozy, with two overstuffed loveseats on either side of a coffee table with a large candelabra in the middle. But that wasn’t what caught Hermione’s attention. No, she immediately focused in on the wall-to-wall shelves filled with books.

“Oh, this is wonderful!” she sighed reverently. “Do you mind if I look around?”

“Not at all!” said Maeve warmly. “Make yourselves at home! I’m so happy to see someone excited by these – Robert isn’t much of a reader, and my vision is starting to fail, so these unfortunately don’t get much love. Feel free to keep any that speak to you.”

Hermione just gazed at her in amazed shock. Malfoy chuckled. “Now you’ve done it. Hermione loves books. You’ll have to force us out of your house now.”

Maeve laughed in response. “No worries at all. Many of these used to belong to my late sister, she was an avid reader as well, so it would warm my heart to know they ended up in appreciative hands.” She smiled at Hermione again, not expecting a response, and shuffled out of the lounge to presumably prepare their tea.

Malfoy threw himself back in a seat, his posture the height of relaxation, clearly preparing to make himself comfortable as Hermione looked around. She could feel his gaze locked on her perusal, but this time, the intensity with which he always observed her didn’t make her feel unnerved. Instead, it warmed her up. She quickly distracted herself again with the books.

She saw an eclectic mixture of literature across a wide range of topics, and absent-mindedly started pulling out the ones that sounded interesting, thinking she could sort them out later. She would probably need to, she decided after a few more minutes, as the first pile had become too big already. She put them down on the table next to Malfoy before she returned to her perusal. She heard him pick up one of the books and begin flipping through it.

“Really? Medicinal plants?”

“Shut up, these are for me, not you.” She was definitely keeping that one.

Suddenly, a shimmer caught the corner of her eye, and her attention was brought back to a shelf of books that looked like encyclopedias that she had glossed over on her first runthrough. Hm, strange. What was that distortion she had seen? She looked back at that shelf, inspecting the edges of the panes of wood, trying to find the culprit, when she stopped short. Her eyes had finally processed the title of the first book on the shelf.

“Malfoy,” she said quietly, trying not to sound panicked.

“Hmm?” he responded absently, still flipping through the medicinal plant book.

“They have Hogwarts, A History.”

The flipping stopped. There was a moment of blaring silence. At that instance, a crash resounded behind Hermione, and she whirled around to see Maeve standing at the entry, tea and biscuits spilled across the floor, hands clasping her cheeks. Before Hermione even processed it, Malfoy had leapt from his spot and appeared slightly in front of her in an almost protective stance.

“Who… who are you??” choked out Maeve. Hermione noticed her eyes were watering with fear.

“Who are we?? Who are you??” demanded Malfoy in return, shoulders pulling back. 

“I… I don’t want any trouble!! Please, if you want something of Orla’s, take it, just please leave my husband and myself alone!”

“Orla?? Who’s Orla??” beseeched Malfoy loudly, and Maeve pulled back into herself at the booming voice.

“Draco, Draco, calm down,” spoke up Hermione, laying her hand on his arm. He briefly seemed to stand even more alert before letting out all his tension. He didn’t pull away from her touch. She stepped around him instead.

Maeve was now cowering at the doorway, tear-filled eyes flashing between the two of them, clearly doing her best to appear small. Hermione took two tentative steps toward the woman, hands raised in supplication, and adopted the most soothing tone she could.

“Maeve, we’re sorry for startling you. We… we were just shocked as well, that’s all. I saw a book from… from our school that I hadn’t expected to see. Do you know the book I’m talking about?”

Maeve kept looking between them, holding her arms in a tight hug around herself, and nodded frantically. Hermione inclined her head in return in a way she hoped was calming.

“I see,” she said, brain working furiously to process this development. If Maeve was a witch, then they were in very dire danger. They couldn’t explain Malfoy’s situation, and therefore couldn’t ask her not to perform magic, but without their car, they couldn’t get away if she did. That would need to be the first obstacle they needed to address. “Are you magical?”

She shook her head.

“Is Robert?”

No again. Hermione ran through the options in confusion.

“I’m… I’m a Squib,” squeaked Maeve meekly. “Robert’s a Muggle.”

Hermione set out a sigh of relief. So they were safe. Now she just needed to calm down the woman. 

“Maeve, I’m really sorry again about startling you, but I promise we knew nothing about you, or Robert, or… Orla, I believe you said. We were just passing through, and by some very unfortunate coincidence, came across you. I hadn’t expected to see anyone tied to the magical world here, and it caught us off guard. I guarantee you have nothing to fear from us.”

She gazed at the woman with as much sincerity as she could. Maeve finally looked back at her, lip still trembling fearfully, and looked her back in the eye. After a moment, she nodded once tentatively.

“Okay, good. Can I help you to the sofa?” Hermione asked. On the second nod, she reached out to wrap her arm around Maeve’s back, using the grasp to guide the petite woman into the closer of the two seats. Once she was situated, Hermione quickly gathered the tea supplies from the floor, and used some napkins to dab up the spill, before taking the assembled items back to the kitchen. She saw the kettle was still half full of water, so she remade the tea, served some new biscuits from the tin that had been left out, and went back into the lounge. Malfoy had seated himself in the seat across from Maeve, so Hermione lowered the tea set to the coffee table before wedging herself next to Malfoy. For the first time since their reacquaintance, he didn’t automatically freeze at their contact.

“Maeve, how do you take your tea?”

“Just milk and sugar please,” the woman responded in a shaky voice.

Hermione busied herself with preparing tea for everyone, and slid a biscuit on each saucer for good measure before doling out the provisions. Malfoy took a sip from his immediately and sat back in their seat, but Maeve just looked at hers quietly before raising her gaze again and tentatively asking,

“So, who are you?”

“As I said, we’re Hermione and Draco. We went to Hogwarts together many years ago, and recently reconnected for a research project. We were just passing through the area on the way to Cheshire when the car broke down, hence how we ended up here. In full transparency, we aren’t even entirely sure where we are, we just intend to continue on our way once the car is fixed.”

Maeve nodded again, looking back down at her tea, before taking a fortifying sip and letting out a huff of breath.

“I see.” She looked between them, and Hermione was shocked to see a look of complete desperation in her eyes. “I’m sorry for my reaction. I just… Robert and I have been on the run for so long, and we were finally able to spend the last 5 months settled down here. I just… I panicked that it was all starting again.”

Hermione and Malfoy shared a look.

“All of what started again?” prodded Hermione gently.

Maeve took another deep breath. “You remember that I mentioned my sister Orla?”

Hermione nodded encouragingly.

“Well, to explain this in full, I need to go back a little over 50 years ago, which was when she first left Hogwarts. She was brilliant with the theory of magic, and developed a multitude of spells even during her time at school, so by the time that she graduated, she was able to easily begin a career in magical research. She became particularly interested in investigating different forms of indirect magic, so magic that required planting or leaving a spell in a location separate from oneself. She used to call it ‘remote’ magic.” At this, Hermione felt Malfoy freeze at her side. She suppressed the desire to shoot him a look.

Maeve continued, “While she was traveling and conducting research on this remote magic, she met her boyfriend,” – at this, Maeve’s voice got suddenly bitter – “who was researching similar subjects, and they began conducting their investigations together. The guy was useless though. She used to write letters to me all the time, and would send me a variety of postcards and updates of their travels. All her stories were about how she would make some great finding or groundbreaking realization, and he would do nothing except redirect her findings to the buffoonery he was looking into…” she trailed off, then mumbled to herself, “oh, what was it that he had been focused on…”

“Strengthening others’ magic?” spoke up Malfoy. The women looked at him in surprise.

“Yes!” exclaimed Maeve. “How’d you know??”

He waved his hand vaguely. “I’ll explain after. Please continue your story.”

“Alright then. But in either case, you’re right. That ninny was convinced that the ability to donate to another person’s magical repository would be the epitome of the defensive arts, as it would allow for already powerful individuals to become even more so. And every discovery dear Orla made had to be applied to that end! He was convinced that magical power could become a resource to barter and sell, and saw great potential in developing the means to do so. But her visions were so much greater – she saw applications where power could not only be injected in other’s magic, but could be isolated in the form of specific spells and charms. That way, it wasn’t reliant on another’s ability to do magic, and a spell or charm could then be used by anyone, regardless of what power they had, if any. Allowing… allowing people like me to perform magic.” At this, Maeve’s lip started quivering, but she sniffed once aggressively before angrily wiping the tears forming in her eyes.

“Anyway, around 2 years after she graduated, she published her first book. Well,” and her voice got bitter again, “her boyfriend published their first book, even though she had done all the actual research, and he had just wrapped it all up in a package that pointed toward how these findings could be applied to magical donations. Then a year later, they published another. 6 months later, another. By the time I married my Robert, I think they had… 7 research books? Something of that sort? But then she suddenly disappeared. I stopped receiving letters from her, she stopped publishing books… I heard nothing. Having had no means by which to contact her, I was forced to wait for news.” She took a deep breath. “I waited 5 years. It was… I think it was in 1966 when she suddenly appeared at Robert’s and my front steps. She had been dirty, and tired, and clearly malnourished, begging us to hide her. Of course, we took her in.”

She looked between them, eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

“You’re too young to have been alive then, but that was right before the First Wizarding War. We knew of Voldemort at the time, but he had just been a madman with some cronies spouting pureblood ideologies at the time. We… we were too naive to be afraid. But Orla was clearly terrified.”

Maeve inhaled deeply.

“She told us we needed to be, too. She… she told us she had just escaped Voldemort’s grasp. She said that after the resounding success of their most recent book, her boyfriend had gone out for celebratory drinks, and had bragged about the fact that he had developed a way to take others’ magical power, and that he was going to become one of the strongest wizards of all time. That he was going to sell the solution, and become one of the richest. Of course, the wrong people heard him.” Hermione got a strange sense of deja vu from reading The Tale of the Three Brothers many years ago.

“They followed him home, and tortured him for information on how to do what he described. Having done none of the research, he couldn’t explain it to them, instead…” she squeezed her eyes shut, and a tear trickled down her cheek, “Instead telling them that it was Orla who knew. As long as he was left alone.” She kept her eyes shut. “So they did. They left him to die, which was how Orla found him that night. She tried to save him, but couldn’t, and his parting words were just the memory of this incident. That was all the warning she got. She worked frantically to hide her most pressing research and destroy the rest, by which point the men had returned for her. They turned out to be Death Eaters, and they took her to Voldemort.”

Maeve opened her eyes again. “She didn’t tell us anything of her time with him, other than the fact that she was forced to help develop means by which he could control his followers. She said she had found ways for them to be contacted by him, be able to travel to him, and protect him from their betrayal. It was at the end when he demanded ways to control their minds directly that she finally decided she had to escape. At this point, she came to myself and Robert. She begged for us to keep her research safe. We agreed, and after she hid it in our home, she insisted she couldn’t stay, warned us to hide, and disappeared again.”

Maeve dropped her face into her hands and began sobbing. Between the heaves, she choked out, “My Orla was found… was found… 6 months later.”

Hermione quickly got up and went to the woman to wrap her arms around her shoulders, propping herself on the armrest of the seat. She rubbed Maeve’s back consolingly. When she looked at Malfoy, she saw he had a contemplative expression. She disregarded him, instead reaching out to grab a napkin from the tea tray and handing it to Maeve to blow her nose.

“Maeve, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Maeve wiped her eyes and nodded, taking a shaky breath. “Thank you.” After a few more moments as she gathered herself, she spoke up again. “From that moment onward, Robert and I were constantly on the run from the Death Eaters trying to get Orla’s research. It was a terrifying, stressful time, on top of the fact that I was targeted for being a Squib. We left the country for a while, and only came back after the First Wizarding War was over when Robert’s mother got sick. We were able to live a relatively happy life, avoiding the Second Wizarding War altogether. Although we kept moving, it was more of a preemptive measure and a habit, as we hadn’t had any incidences of being pursued for roughly a decade by that point. We started feeling complacent, and decided to at least remain in the vicinity of Andover. We were getting tired, and believing we were safe, thought we could finally settle down. Then suddenly, about half a year ago, we noticed we were being observed again. Robert gathered up his savings from his work as a mechanic, and we moved here,” she concluded.

“And when you saw we were magical, you were worried they had found you again,” guessed Hermione, and Maeve nodded forlornly.

“Well, thank you for telling us this story. And I’m sorry again for scaring you the way we did. You deserve rest.”

“Not at all. It was… it was therapeutic, finally being able to tell someone after so long. I’m not sure if you two were affected by the Second Wizarding War,” (Hermione and Malfoy glanced at each other sardonically, but she didn’t notice), “but I was so afraid at that time that I completely went underground with Robert, and I have been cut off from the rest of magical world since. I… I don’t know if anyone knows of Orla, or any of her sacrifices.” She looked at them hopefully. Hermione shook her head sadly, but to her surprise, Malfoy cleared his throat.

“I believe I’m familiar with her work. Just to be sure, could you please tell me what her last name was?”

Maeve looked at him in confusion. “Doherty.”

“And what was her boyfriend’s name?”

“Albert Hughmont.”