Interwoven

Hermione had wasted little time once she had extricated herself from Malfoy Manor, immediately heading to the ministry archives to find research on soul-bonding artifacts.
 
Research was a field of cursebreaking many disliked. It required time away from the hunt, needing a meticulousness and patience that many in her profession did not possess. But Hermione loved research. She supposed her aptitude for reading began when she was a tot, when her father would spend hours pouring over medical books to further his knowledge of dentistry, and she would sit on his lap, following along as best a child could.
 
When her father had discovered she’d rather sit and listen to his mutterings about prophylaxis and cementum rather than play with her building blocks, he had seized the opportunity. So he read to her, hours and hours of textbook methodology and research papers, and Hermione had eaten it up.
 
That had translated to Hogwarts well, though her peers had been less than enthusiastic to share her hunger for devouring books. It had saved her life on more than one occasion, her friend’s lives as well. 
 
And once she had left England, with no plan to look back, research became her sole companion, as it had been in the days before Harry and Ron had taken her bushy-haired self under their wing. 
 
However, it turned out that the ministry archives had little information on twisted dark artifacts that tied magical cores together against a witch's will. Though that was unsurprising. Hermione had found in her career that dirty pureblood secrets were not oft given to the government as public record. 
 
So she had gone to knockturn alley, glamoured as a straight-haired, green-eyed witch, in order to ensure she did not run into any from her past that were unaware of her return. She hadn’t planned to stay this long anyhow— not long enough to reforge bridges she’d long burned. Bridges she had thought would last a lifetime but had only survived adolescence. 
 
She’d found only one source of information on the topic, a diary from a 16th-century wizard named Eldricus Thorne, who had attempted to make the local barmaid fall in love with him. A simple love potion hadn’t been good enough for his taste, and instead he had created a locket, with instruction from his dear friend Sectesemus Carrow, that would absorb the blood of the dear girl with a mere touch to her skin, and bond them for life.
 
There had been one complication however, the girl had not been interested in Thorne, the diary had written. And once the locket had bitten at her skin, she had fled from him. He had felt the bond with her, fraying from incompletion, and he followed the tug. A week and a half later, he had found the girl dead. Blood poisoning. The man had later buried the locket, naming it evil for taking his love, and had dueled with his friend Sectesemus, whom he blamed entirely. The entries had ended there, and Hermione had guessed the author had not survived the duel, though she could not bring herself to feel any sympathy for the wizard. She felt sympathy only for the witch, who had done nothing wrong but catch the wrong man’s eye. 
 
The information in the diary had been similar enough to the artifact she had touched and bled from that she felt sick over it. Hermione had hoped that the Malfoy’s were lying, that it had been some ploy to trap her and restore themselves with the dark. If this was true—
 
Hermione didn’t allow herself to think of the alternative. The source of information hadn’t been academic and was plagued with overdramatizations. The wizard had spent an entire entry discussing his impressive thirteen inch penis after all. 
 
So, sequestered in her hotel room, Hermione read and re-read the diary, and catalogued every instance of possible truth amongst the words. She ignored the thrum in her chest and the pinprick on her palm that seemed to grow more irritated by the hour. 
 
Two days into her research, Hermione caught the flu. 
 
It seemed the bog had gotten to her, she reasoned. Her head pounded like a drum, and she spent half the day hovering over the toilet, retching. Though she only allowed short bouts of time for feeling ill— a timer spell giving her five minutes to vomit and clean herself before returning to her research. During one of the moments she had dragged herself away from the en suite, she sent an owl to a contact in Germany. A simple request for him to look into soul-bonds with physical objects as the means of creation. She had worked with Elias once before, when ridding his family’s property of cursed objects courtesy of his great-grandfather. He had been a year older than her and had shown her the many wonderful flat surfaces of his family’s library. A library which included journals and books dating back to the twelveth century. 
 
By the third day, her headache had turned into an ear splitting migraine, and she found herself trembling from the lack of nutrition in her system. The pinprick on her hand had turned a dark purple and itched relentlessly. She had cast a numerous amount of healing spells over herself, those she’d learned for field-healing during missions as well as diagnostics. 
 
The healing spells only held for an hour or so at best, before the illness plaguing her ripped through them like wet paper. The diagnostics showed she was dehydrated, filled with inflammation, and suffering from a sickness of the blood. 
 
She had stared at the blinking balls of color above her body, at the red and black orbs over her circulatory system. 
 
Not the flu. Not that the nagging part of her brain had ever truly believed it, though she’d hoped. But she could ignore the truth no longer.
 
It was as if she’d been doused in cold water, as if her entire body had gone numb as she stared and stared and stared at the colors that told her with no uncertainty that she had blood poisoning. Cursed. 
 
Cursed like that poor witch who had fled in fear of her life, only to lose it a week and a half later. 
 
It was on that third day at approximately two in the morning that her focus shifted gears. She was no longer looking for evidence that she was not cursed and that the Malfoy’s lied. No longer searching for threads that meant she hadn’t irrevocably fucked her life. Instead, she began searching for a way to break the curse. 
 
It was her job after all, wasn’t it? 
 
She had decided that she would spend two more days researching, looking for a way to break the ties that the artifact had grafted between herself and the Malfoy bloodline. If she had nothing in two days, she would check herself into St. Mungo’s and pray for a miracle. 
 
Hermione had never been much for religion, even before magic had come into her life. Her parents had been practical people, and Hermione fashioned herself a practical witch as well. But when facing a hard deadline that meant horrific death, one opened themselves up to the possibilities. 
 
On the fourth day, her nose began bleeding. 
 
She had stumbled into the ministry once again, tremors snaking through her muscles, with a new focus on curing blood curses instead of uncovering pureblood secrets. With a pile of books in hand, she had made her way back to the atrium when crimson began dripping onto Mallian’s Guide to the Blood Humor: Balancing the Biles. 
 
Her head had swam at the sight, and her feet caught under her, sending her falling into an elderly wizard leaving the Floo. He had caught her, nearly uprooting himself in the process. The wizard had murmured something, something lost behind the ringing in her ears as the copper tang coated her lips and dribbled onto her chin. Hermione Granger. She had caught that much from his words. Had seen the swarm of heads turning their way at the shout, and then she had thrown herself through the Floo splinching be damned. 
 
She didn’t get to read the books she had found at the archives. 
 
Instead, once she had stumbled back into her hotel room, sweltering with fever, she had immediately collapsed into the tweed armchair and let the books fall to the floor. 
 
The blood continued to run from her nose, and she had the distinct feeling she was dying. St. Mungo’s. She needed to Floo there before the blood began running from her other orifices. But her body felt so far away—
 
Her wand clattered to the wooden floor, falling from loose fingertips as she shivered in the chair. A cold dread seeped into her bones as her teeth clattered, blood seeping between her lips. Of all the things to end her life, the Malfoy’s had gone down her list exponentially after the end of the war. It was almost poetic, in a fucked-up way. Maybe she had meant to die at the hands of Bellatrix’s cursed blade that day, and now fate was finally wrapping up loose ends. 
 
There was a yank in her chest, as if something had wrapped itself around her sternum and pulled. She gasped, choking on the blood running from her nose—
 
The door to her hotel room burst open, and Hermione fought through the black spots in her vision as she numbly reached for her wand at the base of the armchair. Blond hair was the first thing she made out through her spotty eyesight. Blond hair and a face twisted in rage. 
 
“You fucking idiotic witch—“ 
 
Draco Malfoy stormed across the space, chest heaving as he made his way between her parted legs, dropping his left hand to the headrest beside her head so his face was level with hers. Hermione tried to muster a glare, even in her state, because he didn’t even have the dignity to leave her the fuck alone in death. But the glare didn’t come; instead, she stared up at him blankly, blood running down her chin as she took in his features from a proximity she’d never seen him at before. 
 
Not sick. She could determine that from the lack of blood from his own facial openings, nor did he tremble with fever. Her affliction was her own then, even if they were tied. The dark circles under his eyes had deepened exponentially since their last meet-cute, and there was a thin scar running over his left cheekbone that hadn’t been there before. 
 
He roughly grabbed her chin between his fingers, and she weakly attempted to yank away, another wrack of shudders running through her body.
 
“This is how you’re going to die?” He sneered, grip ruthless on her cheeks, “Alone in a shitty hotel, bested by my ancestors because you were too prideful to listen to me. A Gryffindor with no courage, who’d have thought?”
 
She did glare then, though he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he dropped her chin, using his right hand to grab her own. He flipped it palm up, holding it between them before pressing his thumb down on the pus-filled hole at the center. 
 
She arched, letting out a cry of pain at the sharp agony that went through her arm and up into her chest. The burst of pain gave her a moment of clarity through her sick-induced haze. 
 
“Get off me—“ She croaked out, spluttering blood along the front of his white shirt. He didn’t acknowledge her struggle; instead, he pushed himself off the back of the headrest so he was no longer leaning over her, instead standing straight up between her thighs. He dropped her hand, and she thought he was going to leave, leave after giving her a glimpse of the bully she had grown up with. 
 
He brought his wand quickly to his left palm, slicing it downwards with a sharp murmured spell. Blood welled at the cut, and she could do nothing but lay and watch as he yanked up her hand again and smashed their palms together, mixing her dirty blood with his pure. 
 
Hermione hissed at the contact on her sore hand, clenching her teeth as she writhed in the chair. Malfoy pressed their hands together harder. “Sanguis meus est tuus,” he hissed, his voice low. “Sanet malum tuum sanguis meus. Sanet vinculum cor tuum.”
 
Hermione felt a pulse at the place where their palms met, and warmth seeped through her, calming the trembling of her limbs. He continued chanting, the Latin unfamiliar except for sanguis. Blood. Her body slumped against the back of the chair as her muscles relaxed, and the crimson streams running from her nose ceased to flow. A minute later he stopped his incantation, the sudden silence in the room jarring. Malfoy flipped her palm upwards, and she saw that the inflammation had gone away, leaving only the original pinprick in its place. 
 
He released her hand once more, moving across the room to firmly shut her hotel door and lean against it. He stared at her, eyes pure ice. His original anger had seemed to ebb, however, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion she could see across the room. 
 
Hermione sat up fully in the armchair, relishing in her clear mind and soothed body, though she regarded Malfoy like one did a tornado that had turned its path towards your home. She opened her mouth to ask him to leave now that he had done whatever it was he had done, when his cold voice stopped her.
 
“It’s not a permanent fix.” He said, jaw tight. She hadn’t assumed it was, despite the reprieve she had gotten. No, the tug in her chest was still very much there, like a hollow ache she couldn’t quell. “You’ll return to a bleeding pus pocket in a day or two and likely die that time, unless we solidify the bond.” 
 
“How did you find me?” She croaked out, pushing herself to her feet despite her body’s protest. 
 
He gave her a mocking look. “I followed the tug when I felt you dying like some animal on the other end.” 
 
She ignored the jab, focusing on his words. He felt the tug too. “How do you know so much about the—“ She bit her cheek, not wanting to say the words, to confirm the reality they were in. Acknowledgment felt too close to acceptance. 
 
He rolled his eyes at her childlike behavior, leaning back against the door like he owned the room. “You aren’t the only person who can read a book. I just have access to the right ones, unlike your ministry drivel.” He sneered down at the books scattered across the floor. 
 
She wanted to curse him. Or slam her fist into his pointy nose. She was on the brink of death because of his family, and he was standing there insulting her like she was nothing more than mud on his boot. Her lip curled up, and she snatched her wand from the ground, pointing it at him. 
 
“You are going to tell me everything you know about it.”
 
“I had planned to, before you had run away like a scared pixie.” He bit back, not afraid at all of her ire. 
 
She aimed her wand higher, towards his throat. “This bond,” she forced out, hating the word with every fiber of her being. “It doesn’t affect you like it does me.” 
 
“No.” He said, crossing his arms over his chest. “The Malfoy heir is unaffected by the cursed aspects of the pendant. Otherwise, every time an unwilling bride ran away, there would have been a risk of the bloodline dying out.”
 
“Maybe your ancestors shouldn’t have been so keen on forcing unwilling witches.” She snapped, anger bubbling under her skin. 
 
He merely lifted an eyebrow, giving her a cold look. “I can’t help the behavior of my long-dead relations. And I wasn’t the one who picked up the pendant in the first place.” His look turned bitter. 
 
She looked away, down at the tiny hole in her palm. If she had left that pendant where it was— no. She couldn’t have known. She’d taken all the precautions. 
 
“What do you know of soul-bonds?” His voice was cool and level as he spoke, like a professor merely asking a simple question. 
 
“I know that they are archaic, barbarian at their root because they fuse two magical cores together.” She said through gritted teeth, dropping her free hand back to her side as she refocused her ire on him. 
 
“They are old. Usually the secret to performing them are passed down through bloodlines, but most of that knowledge has been forgotten.” He said, glaring right back with more tiredness than anger. “My grandfather spoke of them only once, and that was only to say that the last member of House Malfoy to perform a soul-bond was nearly three hundred years ago. But I read about them when you showed up filthy in our parlor.”
 
 He continued despite her snarl. 
 
“When soul-bonds are created, they fuse together the magical cores of the participants, binding their magic and their lives together until death, which is the only way to break them.”
 
“That you know of.” She said, chin raised. Cursed were always unbreakable, until someone found a way. This was no different. He just stared at her with an unreadable expression. 
 
“Why did you even come?” She said, eyes piercing, “If the bond doesn’t affect you, why not let me die so you can go about your business?”
 
His eyes flashed, a break in that ice that was gone so quickly she thought she must’ve imagined it. His jaw clenched, as did his fists, before he gave her a harsh look. “You’re right. It doesn’t affect me if you die. But mother thinks it wouldn’t be a great look on our family if your death was found to be tied to our name. Azkaban, the kiss, and all that.” He spit the word Azkaban out like it burned him to merely say the word at all. 
 
If she looked hard enough she could see the Azkaban numeral tattoo on his neck, just barely obscured by the collar of his shirt. Three years he had spent there— what had that been like? The cold and darkness, the despair that coated the air like sludge? She hoped it’d been miserable for him. Before this week, Malfoy hadn’t crossed her mind in years, not a single thought had been spared to his fate since she’d learned his sentencing. But now— now she remembered how much she hated him.
 
“Get out.” 
 
“Not until we solidify the bond—“ He snarled, stepping forward. She shot a hex, sending it crashing into the wall beside his head, stalling his advance.
 
“What does that even mean?” She held her ground, practically hissing the words through her teeth. 
 
“Use that big brain of yours.” He snapped, looking like he was one thread away from fraying at the seams. “We have to consummate the bond. To fuse our cores together, to save your fucking life—“
 
Her ears rang, the words bouncing around her skull as she stared at him in horror. He couldn’t mean— 
 
Consummate. Like lovers— like betrothed ones. A sickness spread through her body, wrapping around her heart like the thrum that wouldn’t go away. But the look in his eye. The disdain and sickness that were mirrored right back at her. He didn’t want this. And suddenly he looked very much like the boy hauled off in handcuffs, a haunted look on his eyes like he was bound for the gallows. 
 
“There has to be another way.” She forced out, throat dry, as her grip tightened around her wand. The wood in her palm grounded her, kept her from collapsing under the weight of his words. 
 
“There isn’t enough time to look for another way; you’re practically hand in hand with death already at this point. And I don’t want to go to Azkaban when I’m inevitably blamed for your demise.” His voice had gone cold once more, empty, like the look on her face had sucked the anger right out of him. 
 
Silence filled the room, thick and oppressive. He stared at her, eyes bouncing across her face before he clenched his jaw. His fists tightened and released at his sides. “If you’d rather die, then be my guest as long as you leave a note specifying your decision.” 
 
“Why are you so resigned to this?” She whispered, voice tight. Azkaban aside, there was no panic in his voice. Unlike hers. Sure, there was the air of a noose around his neck, and yet he looked just as inclined to let it tighten as to take it off. 
 
His eyes sparked, like flint on steel. “I was raised to be a stud horse. I’ve spent my entire life knowing I’d marry whomever was chosen for me. What difference does the broodmare make?”
 
An heir whose only worth was the bloodline he would foster. Hermione knew a lot of pureblood households aligned with arranged marriages, and yet hearing him explain it, hearing the lack of vitriol at his fate that had been set for him at birth—
 
She wasn’t the only puppet tied in strings. 
 
Hermione glanced back towards the bed, sheets ruffled from sleep. She would have to lay with him— her stomach turned at the thought. But the alternative... bleeding to death at the hands of a necklace... 
 
Her voice was steadier than she felt when she spoke. “If I agree to this, that doesn’t mean I agree to the bond. I will find a way to break it.” 
 
“I don’t care what you do afterwards. You never have to see me again if you do not wish to, and if you miraculously find a way to break it, all the better.” 
 
She looked back at him and let her wand drop to her side. Another silence fell, heavier this time. Damning them to a fate neither wanted. Her hands began to sweat where they dangled at her side. She didn’t know how to start. Hermione was no blushing virgin, and yet this— how does one begin to consummate a soul-bond with the man she had spent her childhood hating? 
 
Malfoy seemed to sense her thoughts, her unwillingness. He clenched his jaw, looking somewhere over her head. “Lay on the bed.”
 
Hermione closed her eyes, taking in a steady breath. She had chosen this. She would take this over a meaningless death. She would break this connection the moment she was out of death’s clutches. 
 
It was just sex. 
 
Her feet led her to the bed, and she kicked her shoes off, unwilling to track anymore grime between her sheets than would befall them in a moment. Her other clothes stayed firmly put as she shakily slid under the covers. Her gaze was firmly on the ceiling, eyes tracking the crown molding along the edges where the walls joined. She heard, rather than saw, Malfoy slipping his own shoes off before the foot of the bed dipped under his weight. 
 
Maybe she should’ve had a drink first. Her throat tightened in tandem with her fists as they clenched the fitted sheet under her palms. 
 
A belt clinked before Malfoy slid himself under the covers as well. He shifted his weight until he was hovering above her. She slammed her eyes shut, no longer able to see the cornices from under his body. The smell of bergamot and parchment filled her nostrils, and Hermione registered dimly that she’d never been this close to him before. Were his eyes closed as well? Like two virgins fumbling around in the dark? Or was he staring down at her, disgust on his face at having to dip his prick in the mud?
 
She smelled horrid, she knew. Like days old sick and sweat. It was vain that she even thought of that in her situation. 
 
He shifted again, and she jolted when his voice sounded above her. “Do you want me to take off your—“
 
“No.” She bit out, squeezing her eyes shut harder as his breath brushed over her face. She released the sheets from her fingers, flexing the stiff digits before hooking her thumbs into her jeans and knickers. She shimmed them down as far as she could without touching him, before she used her feet to push them down the rest of the way. Her legs bumped against his in the process, and both of them stiffened. 
 
When they were down around her ankles, she left them, not wanting to fully take them off. That felt too personal— too much like drunken lovers hooking up after meeting in a bar and not whatever this was. 
 
“I’m going to start.” 
 
His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper between them, and she hated it. Hated that he wasn’t just screaming at her for putting them in this situation, hated that the ice that usually paved his words was missing. 
 
He murmured a spell and she gasped as the area between her thighs became lubricated. Her jaw clenched together tightly, and she sent her thoughts out in a search for something distracting. Her first time, which felt as horridly awkward and painful as this, was with a muggle man shortly after graduation. She’d needed an escape from Gryffindor’s Princess. A reprieve from the wizarding world she knew, from the friends who asked too often if she was okay. Friends who worried too much over her sleepless nights and obsession with the war they all seemed to have let go. 
 
She’d met the man in a bar in downtown London. They’d both had too many drinks when he’d enthusiastically brought her to his flat, though she was more than excited herself. It had been a short affair, a tussle between the sheets that lasted only long enough for her to wonder if this is what it was always like. 
 
Malfoy pressed in slowly, and her eyes snapped open involuntarily. His gaze was already on her— a strained look on his porcelain face and distress in his silver eyes. She let out a choked sound as he seated himself fully, her body stiff as a board under him. The noise caused him to blanch, and he quickly forced his gaze to the pillows above her head, breaking the eye contact since she was unable to do so herself. He moved then, slowly but surely, a rhythm that was choppy and disjointed.
 
The thrum in her chest grew like a tidal wave, a deep seated feeling of euphoria washing through her— 
 
It horrified Hermione, the way the bond was trying to make this pleasurable. She fought against it, gritting her teeth as her skin began to glow a soft gold. His own body shimmered above her, the glow seemingly pulsating in time with the thrum in her chest. 
 
Hermione turned her head to the side, squeezing her hands in the sheets so hard her fingers cramped as the thrum began to tighten around her sternum. It felt less like a distant flutter in her chest as it had before, and more like a cord— a golden, shining rope she could picture in her mind. 
 
Her body trembled under him as his pace grew less controlled. The pleasure built in her lower abdomen, spurred by the growing connection between them. Malfoy’s pleasure, she realized dimly. She was feeling not only the bond’s warmth but his stilted pleasure through it. She squeezed her eyes shut once more, her breathing ragged at every jilted brush of his body against hers. 
 
The warmth around her became nearly unbearable, both of their skins shining like molten gold in the afternoon sun shining through the hotel window. The cord in her chest tightened, pulling taut as her body arched into his unconsciously. He thrusted to the hilt, a stifled grunt falling from his lips as his pleasure crested that peak, and she let out a matching noise when she felt that pleasure echo through the bond—
 
There was a snap in her heart, in her magical core— like a band pulling tight— and she gasped, clutching at her chest as if she’d be able to grab the cord and rip it out. 
 
The glow faded around them, leaving them pale and sallow-skinned. It was done then. Hermione was distantly glad that the ritual hadn’t asked her to reach her own crest of pleasure. She didn’t think she could’ve stomached it. The tightness in her chest faded, softening until she felt only that glowing cord purring in her sternum. Satiated, when she felt only bile in her throat. Her body was numb, her eyes hazy when she finally peeled them open. 
 
Malfoy yanked off of her, ignoring her wince at the sensation, and stumbled into the en suite. She heard retching beyond the open door, though she couldn’t bring herself to move, to care. She stared at the nightstand beside her, too spent to be angry, to hate him for it, though she knew the anger would come later. 
 
There was a clap of apparation from the bathroom, echoing through the chamber as the cord in her chest pulled tight.