Interwoven

Hermione wasn’t sure how long she sat in that leather chair, long enough that the fire had melted away the last of the evening’s chill, long enough that the hum of conversation pulled her mind into a state of ease. She hadn’t felt this relaxed, while sober, in years. It was unexpected, given her current company. Hermione would have never guessed that a room full of snakes would soothe her. Or joke with her. Or share stories of the times Theo dared Goyle and Crabbe to streak naked through the castle. Which surprisingly happened more than once.

Hermione glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room and sighed. It was late, far later than she had planned to socialize. She needed to head to the library, or this was a wasted trip— Hermione could allow a small indulgence of good company, but she could not come to the manor simply to sit and chat. That was far too comfortable for her current situation— far too compliant.

With a quiet breath, she set down her whisky tumbler on the side table and pushed herself to her feet. Her legs were stiff after hours of sitting in one position.

“Off to finish business?” Blaise drawled, watching her with mild interest from where he lounged. Pansy had once again switched positions; now her head rested on Blaise’s lap, and he ran idle fingers through her short hair. Hermione wondered briefly how long they had been together for their level of comfortability and familiarity. Hermione couldn’t imagine letting someone tangle their fingers through her hair in any way beyond a tight fist matched with a bruising kiss.

“Some of us don’t have the luxury of drinking ourselves into oblivion every night,” she said dryly.

Theo clutched his chest as if wounded. “Hermione, please, we’re simply maintaining a well-balanced diet. One part liquor, one part questionable life choices.” He grinned. “If you stay, I’ll give you the privilege of doing a body shot off this finely sculpted specimen.”

Pansy rolled her eyes. “No one wants to tongue your belly button, Theo.”

“Incorrect!” Theo smirked. “The Muggle man from Yorkshire who taught me the fine art of tequila consumption certainly had no complaints.”

Blaise groaned. “For Merlin’s sake, please don’t bring up the Yorkshire incident again.”

“I still have the scars,” Theo said solemnly, lifting his shirt an inch as if to prove his point.

Hermione shook her head, amused despite herself. “I think I’ll pass on that particular honouring, but thanks for the offer.”

Malfoy, who had been silent throughout their exchange, stood with little fanfare. “I’ll walk you back.”

Hermione merely nodded, slipping past the chairs as Malfoy fell into step beside her. She wasn’t in the mood to argue, nor did this seem like anything to fight about.

Pansy’s eyes flickered between herself and Malfoy, but she said nothing. Instead, she raised her empty wine glass towards Hermione. “When you finally grow a spine and decide to go to the gala, come to my shop. You’ll need something that doesn’t look like it came from the bargain bin at Madam Malkin’s.”

Hermione raised a brow. It sounded like an insult, but if this evening taught her anything, it was that verbal abuse is a Slytherin’s form of camaraderie. “I’ll owl you.”

Blaise gave a short wave, his attention on the girl in his lap. Theo hopped up, looking nervous once more as he ran a hand through his messy curls. His mask dropped for only a moment, uncertainty flickering across his face before he smothered it with a grin. “Hermione,” he started, then hesitated, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “If—at some point—you’ll allow it, I’d like to talk. Properly.“ His fingers drummed against his thigh. “Just… think about it, yeah?”

Malfoy rolled his eyes, but Hermione ignored him. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally, her voice softer than she intended. It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no either. But from the way Theo’s shoulders eased, it was enough.

The murmurs of conversation faded as the door clicked shut.

The corridor stretched before them, dimly lit by the sconces lining the stone walls. Their footsteps echoed in the silence, and for a moment, Hermione let herself settle into the cool quiet. She glanced sideways at Malfoy, taking in his dishevelled appearance. The top two buttons of his white Oxford were undone, the bottom of the shirt wrinkled as per usual. Hermione could show him a smoothening charm. Or how to use a damn ironing board. But honestly she took a little bit of pleasure in the fact that Big Bad Malfoy couldn’t straighten his clothes.

His hair was mussed, but that looked purposeful, some sort of fashion thing, she supposed.

Malfoy exhaled sharply through his nose, and Hermione quickly looked away, expecting some sort of sneering remark for her staring.

“You know, Theo actually misses your friendship,” he drawled, his tone edged with something wry. “It’s almost tragic, really. I think he’s been journaling about it.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, because unrequited friendship is the world’s greatest tragedy.”

Malfoy smirked. “If you ask Theo, it might as well be. I’m surprised he didn’t drop to his knees and kiss your feet.” He slid his hands into his pockets, side-eyeing her as they walked. “You could be merciful and put him out of his misery.” There was something bordering on troubled in the cadence of his voice.

“Is that concern I hear?” She retorted, raising a brow.

Malfoy scoffed, his features pinching. “Please. I just don’t fancy watching Theo mope around like a scorned debutante.”

Hermione shook her head; of course he couldn’t admit he cared about his friend. She wasn’t surprised. Feelings seemed to be as disturbing to Malfoy as dark magic was to a saint. Hermione couldn’t really jest. She herself rarely allowed an errant emotion to bubble from its locked door. Except anger. Anger always seemed to be only a hairpin trigger away from bursting out. She hadn’t always been that way. But it had been easier to shove everything down than deal with the cerebral expulsion of every pained feeling she had. Except on a timer— it was practical to allow the occasional flow of salt from her eyes. Balances the humours, after all.

“I’ve already planned to forgive him. I just need him to stew in it a little longer.”

Malfoy snorted, “Evil witch.”

“I prefer vindictive.”

“An understatement, to be sure.”

Hermione’s lip twitched and she turned away, ensuring he got no satisfaction from seeing her amusement. They walked once more in silence, the quiet pressing in on them like the dimly lit halls around them. Only the squeak of her trainers echoed off the marble. Malfoy winced at the intrusive noise but surprisingly didn’t comment.

The manor always felt larger at night, the shadows stretching long, swallowing sound. Portraits watched from their perch, eyes narrowed but silent nonetheless. Hermione glared back at the pointy-faced pictures, wishing they’d test her so she could scorch them a bit. Give the manor a few matching burn marks amongst its’ dead residents.

“How are you feeling?” Malfoy asked after a beat, voice low. His words snapped her from her violent reverie, and she turned her gaze away from a double-chinned ancestor to glance his way.

Hermione let out a slow breath and considered answering truthfully. Her ribs were sore as hell, and the muscles in her shoulders ached from the pressure of her aggressive spellcasting. And that was only the physical aspect. “Fine,” she admitted instead.

Draco made a noise in his throat, something unreadable. He didn’t argue. Didn’t press. It seemed he wasn’t in the mood to argue either. Maybe it was the alcohol that had softened his edges. Or maybe the gathering of his friends relieved him of his usual icy demeanor.

Hermione ran her tongue along the inside of her cheek as she traced her finger along the wainscoting. “Did you read it?” She didn’t need to specify; there was only one article that mattered.

His jaw tightened. “Don’t.”

The word was firm. Simple.

Her stomach turned. It was bad then. Hermione picked at the skin around her thumb until warmth bubbled up from the wound. “Am I the victim in the story or the whore?” She tried to sound uncaring but wasn’t sure she hit the mark.

“Somehow both.”

“And you?”

He glanced at her sidelong, face impassive. ”You’re too intelligent to play stupid.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek. They’d made him the villain, though she wasn’t sure if he’d ever stopped playing one in the eyes of the public. Convict, blood supremacist, Death Eater. A prisoner of his own making, once locked away in stone and now in a web of rumour and gossip. And this time it was her fault; he’d come to the hospital to ensure she wasn’t going to die and drag him to hell with her.

She expected animosity from his end, but all she received was bored indifference. She supposed that when the public saw you as a monster already, one more tale atop the heap does little.

“Skeeter asked for a comment from your old chums.” He said, breaking the silence. His voice betrayed nothing, but she saw a hint of ice in his eyes.

Her throat tightened. It was to be expected. Her movements had always been scrutinized, her presence dissected for public consumption. And the press, insatiable as ever, always sought commentary from the other two-thirds of their broken trio, as if their voices were required to validate her existence.

Public fascination with them had never waned. War heroes, The Golden Trio, survivors of the greatest conflict their country had seen in a century. They were meant to remain frozen in time—inseparable, unwavering, a symbol of unity and triumph. But reality was never so clean, and the cracks had formed long before anyone cared to notice.

She let out a slow breath, feeling the weight of his gaze on her.

"I suppose they had plenty to say," she muttered, but Malfoy didn’t confirm or deny.

He didn’t need to. They had ignored her arrival thus far— not bothering to speculate in the last article her face had been plastered in. If they had decided to break their silence, it wasn’t for her benefit— it was to rip Malfoy apart.

Harry had testified on his behalf after the war, had stood in front of the Wizengamot and argued that Malfoy didn’t deserve a death sentence. Didn’t deserve his soul shredded by dementors. But that didn’t mean Harry liked him. It didn’t mean he had ever forgiven Malfoy for his torment in school. And Ron—Ron blamed Malfoy for everything. For starting the war, for killing Dumbledore. For Fred. Hermione had felt the same for so long, had allowed Malfoy to be a scapegoat for the crimes of his family and all of the others. She knew now it was ridiculous to pin the entirety of Voldemort’s villainy on Malfoy. He had been a bully, a mudblood hater, a pompous prick. But he hadn’t tortured or maimed. He hadn’t been the one to begin the struggle, nor had he been the one to end it.

If Skeeter had come knocking, Ron and Harry would have answered this time. Not for her, but to make sure the world remembered exactly who Malfoy was.

Hermione chewed on the inside of her cheek, biting down until the physical pain overshadowed the ache inside her heart. “I haven’t spoken to them in years.”

Malfoy didn’t react, just kept walking beside her, his strides unhurried. That piece of information he had deduced for himself months ago. He had needled constantly to the point where she wondered if he had figured it all out on his own. She didn’t care if he knew; no, the words began to bubble up anyway. Years of pushing the thoughts down, locking them away in the recesses of her mind, had created an overflow. And she could do little to stop it once it began.

“Harry always wanted to be more than some icon.” She whispered, the words feeling like daggers in her throat. “He had never been given the chance of a normal life. A family. So when the war ended, he just… he moved on. It was over for him; he had done his part, the Light had won, and so he didn’t have to think about it anymore.

“I don’t blame him. He had been born into conflict. He wanted ordinariness for once. He and Ginny were perfect for each other in that regard. And Ron—“

Her throat stuck, memories flashing behind her corneas like a View-Master. “Ron and I tried, for a while.”

Malfoy turned right at a junction, leading them down a hallway that twisted away from the path she’d expected. Hermione didn’t comment on the change, despite the fact that they had been only eighty-five steps from the library when they’d left the parlour. Hermione wouldn’t allow herself to venture off the beaten path on her own— but she wasn’t simply exploring now. So she took the opportunity to satiate her curiosity of the unexplored regions of the estate.

She continued, accepting Malfoy’s silence as acceptance that he was listening. “We were supposed to work. The stereotype of childhood best friends turned lovers was storybook material. But Ron— I mean at least Harry acknowledged the war had happened— but Ron just pretended it didn’t. That we graduated normally from Hogwarts. That nothing bad had even happened. Even with his brother’s death, he just wouldn’t talk about it.”

The corridor stretched ahead. It was colder here, the air tinged with a crispness that hinted at fewer warming charms. The sconces burned lower, their golden glow casting elongated shadows that flickered against the high, arched ceilings. Malfoy didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at her as the words began falling from her mouth in a torrential downpour.

“And I just— I just couldn’t do that.” She shook her head, footsteps falling faster. “The war took everything from me. It— it, I had a purpose, a job to do, and I became this—“ She gestured emptily towards herself. “This machine. And the only thing that kept me going was the adrenaline. I mean, I had to keep going. I had to keep Harry alive. I had to find the horcruxes, I had to be strong. To be more. To fix it all. Because that’s who I was. Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of Her Age. I made it my mantra. If it had to be done, then I would be the one to do it.”

They rounded another corner, and suddenly, the air shifted. Softer somehow, lighter. The corridor opened into a vast, glass-walled solarium, its domed ceiling stretching high above them, latticed with iron and fogged in places from the cold pressing against the outside panes.

Moonlight filtered through the glass, washing the space in silver.

Inside, the solarium was a lush contradiction to the winter beyond its walls. Potted plants, some nearly as tall as Hermione, stretched towards the ceiling, their vines curling over trellises and winding around decorative ironwork. A single wrought-iron bench sat nestled between two columns of greenery, its surface dusted lightly with fallen petals from a vine bursting with pale blue flowers.

Hermione broke her stride with Malfoy, instead, she stopped in the middle of the atrium. Staring. At everything. At nothing. He stopped a few feet ahead and turned, his gaze finally landing on her. Holding her hostage under its heavy weight. His face was carefully blank, not letting a single errant emotion escape. She couldn’t look at him, but she couldn’t look away. She let out a humourless laugh, one that echoed too loud in the glass room.

“And then it ended, and what the fuck was I supposed to do with it all? What was I supposed to do with the memories? The knowledge of how to tie tourniquets and how many days a body could go without food on the run, and how fast one had to move to avoid a killing curse if it was thrown from ten feet away. I just— I couldn’t let it go. And no one would talk to me about it—“

Her words caught in her throat, trapped like glue. She forced her feet to move, to unstick what was unsaid. She passed him and glanced around the space as if she were interested in what she was seeing. As if the burden she was unleashing wasn’t tearing her apart. “I would try to talk about it, and Ron and Harry, they would leave the room. Or the house even. They couldn’t stand it— when I would bring up Collin Creevey or the way brain matter looked when it leaked from skull fractures, or how it felt to be tortured—“

She could feel him tense behind her, and it felt as if the entire room stilled. Waiting. She didn’t want to unload that weight tonight— wasn’t interested in discussing how it felt to have his eyes boring into her as she cried for someone to save her.

Hermione crossed to the far wall, picking her fingers to death as she moved. “They wouldn’t talk to me, so I found my own outlet. Potions at night so I wouldn’t wake up screaming and whisky during the day so I could stomach the funerals or the press flashing their cameras every time I left our apartment. Ron and Harry were good at avoiding the press— but they always found me.” Her voice was sour. It had been so easy for them to escape attention. But she had been a big under a microscope for the public to dissect— every move she made was speculated. Every frown a statement that she was ungrateful. Unworthy of the attention and yet hounded regardless.

“Ron didn’t understand why I couldn’t let it go. Why I had to talk about it. Or do something. I couldn’t just sit in the house like he wanted to do. Or why I didn’t want to pop out a baby or two. We would fight often. I barely let him touch me because all I could think about was how his hands had looked when he’d been splinched—which was my fault— And I would drink and go to muggle parties and come home late and he wouldn’t even be there. He would be at Harry’s playing exploding snap.” Her voice was ragged, ripped open and flayed. She forced a breath into her lungs. Once. Twice. It did little to soothe the ache.

Through the glass walls, Hermione could see the faint outline of the gardens beyond, the fountain she had searched for earlier barely visible through the frost. She placed a hand on the glass, letting the cold center her. Her eyes flickered across the landscape, looking but not seeing. She heard his footfalls, and then Malfoy was beside her. She could feel his eyes burning into the side of her face. Waiting.

She swallowed, releasing that final weight.

“It was almost Christmas, about three days before, and I had been invited to the Burrow. That was tradition. My parents were gone—“ she didn’t watch that truth land on him, though she felt the air shift once more.

“—I showed up drunk and high. I had discovered that mixing alcohol, potions, and opioids together would numb me to the point where I didn’t think about the war at all or how much I missed parts of it. They didn’t stop me from feeling like I was drowning while everyone else around me was treading water. Ron could tell immediately that I wasn’t all there, but he ignored it. I was being quiet. Wasn’t causing a fuss, so why would he disturb the peace? We hadn’t even spoken to each other in five days at that point.

“Harry ignored me too. Too focused on Ginny and the family he’d created for himself. So I was just sitting there in the living room, surrounded by people and completely alone.”

She wiped furiously at her eyes as tears began to build. She wouldn’t cry over this. Not again. Not in front of Malfoy. “Molly came over and asked me if I was enjoying the nice crisp weather, and I just lost it. I don’t remember everything. Hydrocodone has that effect. But I know from what Harry said that I started screaming. And then I started throwing things. Breaking things. Dishes. Glasswear. Ron tried to stop me— screamed at me that I was ruining everything. George was the only Weasley who didn’t want to live in fantasy land, so when he came down from his room at the commotion, he simply raised his whisky bottle in salute to me.”

Hermione leaned her forehead against the cool window, letting her eyes flutter closed as the memories leapt from the locked box where she kept them. “Ron somehow restrained me and threw me outside the wards. He didn’t even say anything, just… turned around and went back inside. I don’t know how long I sat in the snow. Long enough that the cold crept into my bones despite the downers I was on. Long enough that Harry came outside.”

Her voice was thick with bitterness. “He stood there, watching me with pity. Like I was some great failure of his for turning out this way. At least Ron had the gumption to hate me. Harry couldn’t hate anybody— not even Voldemort. He told me to go home. To get help so I could ‘feel better.’” She scoffed. Feel better. As if the war was some bruise she could simply patch up and forget about.

“He had told me to go home, and I realized sitting there with ice beneath my fingernails and snow clogging my throat, that I didn’t have a home. You were right when you said that. I guess it’s just that easy to see it written across my face.” She looked over at him, and he was watching her back. His eyes as icy as the landscape outside. “So I left. Didn’t even take anything with me besides my wand. I didn’t even say a word to them. I just portkey’d myself to New York and decided cursebreaking was the closest rush I’d ever get to hurting Death Eaters.”

It was silent as the last words fell from her lips. She could’ve kept going— lamenting about how she thought the years had healed her. That she had gotten better. But truthfully all she had done was what Harry and Ron did years prior. Try to forget. Push it away until all that remained was the acrid aftertaste. It made her sick to think about.

She waited for Malfoy to chew her up and spit her out; for him to laugh in her face. She waited for him to take her confession and turn it into a dagger— carve her up like his aunt did all those years ago.

He watched her for a moment more, as if ensuring she had actually finished this time and wasn’t winding up for another bout of oversharing. Malfoy didn’t laugh. He didn’t smirk or twist her words into a weapon. He just looked through her, as if trying to see something that she wasn’t sure was there.

After a moment, he exhaled, tilting his head slightly. “Why do you talk about it like that?”

Hermione frowned. “Like what?”

“Like you did something wrong,” he said plainly. “Like leaving was a mistake.”

She swallowed, caught off guard by the question. “Because it was selfish, and it didn’t fix anything.”

His eyes flickered with something—something quick and cutting. “That’s stupid.”

She stiffened, irritation flaring. “Excuse me?”

Malfoy rolled his eyes, but there was no real bite to it. “You act like you abandoned them, but you didn’t. You act as if you’re some broken toy a child no longer plays with, but you aren’t. You aren’t broken just because you’re intelligent enough to be fucked up by what you went through.”

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her fingers twitched at her sides, grasping at nothing. She didn’t know what to say when he’d taken her entire self-perception and turned it on its heel in such a flippant manner. Not when he looked at her as if he, of all people, understood.

Malfoy huffed, shaking his head when she continued to gape. “You didn’t owe them any loyalty, Granger. When did they ever deserve it?”

She blinked at him. She wasn’t sure who he was referring to— Harry and Ron? The public? The wizarding world?

Had there ever been a difference anyway?

Malfoy held her gaze for a moment longer, then turned and kept walking, leaving the solarium behind and her— dumbstruck— in it.

To the library. That was where they had been going, wasn’t it? Before she had verbally derailed them, and he physically so, with their little detour. Hermione blinked, shaking herself out of her self— or rather Malfoy—induced stupor. And before she could think better of it, she followed.

The conversation should have felt heavier, should’ve stuck in her skin like shards of glass; but somehow, with Malfoy, it hadn’t. He hadn’t given her pity, hadn’t offered hollow reassurances. Just observation, dry and blunt and unexpectedly in her favour.

The twists and turns of the manor continued, and Hermione wondered vaguely if they would ever reach the library or if the estate would simply swallow them up in its vastness. They passed what she assumed was a guest wing, another sitting room, and what looked to be an empty music room. The piano that she glimpsed through the arched doorway was dust-covered and likely untouched for years. Malfoy didn’t stop when she would peek into each space, though she suspected he slowed enough for her to fall back into stride once her curiosity was sated.

They passed many open and closed doors, but the ballroom is what truly caught her eye.

Through the open stained glass doors, the dance hall stretched out before her, a cavernous space bathed in the muted glow of moonlight filtering through high-arched windows. The glass panels in the doorway were intricate, depicting twisting vines and blooming flowers frozen in time, their once-vibrant colours dulled with neglect.

The floor was polished white marble with veins of glittering gold swimming through it like rivers of molten sunlight. Towering columns lined the perimeter, their surfaces carved with ornate flourishes that curled and twisted like ivy climbing stone. At the far end of the room, an elevated platform stood empty, perhaps once meant for an orchestra, but now silent, forgotten.

Dust motes swirled lazily in the still air, disturbed only by the faintest whisper of a draft creeping through unseen cracks. The space smelled faintly of old candle wax and something floral—like a ghost of past revelry lingering in the bones of the manor.

It was hauntingly beautiful, but undeniably lonely, as if it had been abandoned mid-dance, waiting endlessly for music that would never play again. Hermione wondered when last Narcissa had hosted a ball here. When the last swaths of the upper echelon of wizarding society graced the dance floor with delicate curtsies and jewel-encrusted gowns. It was a shame to think that the only opportunity Hermione had at seeing the beautiful space was when it was forgotten.

Malfoy did stop this time. He stood beside her as she stared inside the broken reverie, hands tightly clasped behind his back. Had he received dancing lessons here? From the glimpses she remembered getting of Malfoy at the Yule Ball all those years ago, he had been an adept dancer, though the sneer etched onto his pointy face had quickly quelled any rising inquisitiveness she had had of him at that time.

“Mother wishes for me to extend another invite to breakfast.”

Hermione broke from her imaginings of twirling dancers and champagne towers as his voice sounded out starkly against the heavy silence. She tore her gaze from the dusty dream and stared up at the side of his face. His jaw was tightly clenched, though he conveyed the same air of boredom he seemed to coat himself in anytime they weren’t at each other’s throats.

This again? She was already toeing the line of familiarity by indulging in this evening’s festivities; first the mingling with his inner circle and now the grand tour of the property. Hermione shook her head, opening her mouth to argue—

Malfoy raised a hand, not even sparing her a glance. “I’ve already told her you will decline, so you can spare me the drivel.” He turned on his heel and continued down the hall.

She snapped her mouth back closed, sending another glance into the ballroom before forcing her feet to continue their trek. Part of her wanted to bite back at his borderline obnoxious sentiment. The other part didn’t want to break their rekindled truce. He would be necessary to continue research, she told herself. Hermione caught up to Malfoy, though she kept a good foot of distance between him and herself.

“Can I ask you a question without you biting my head off?”

He turned his head, raising a brow as if the very notion were insulting. Prick. “We’ve already delved deep into your psyche, Granger. Must we continue?”

He wasn’t sneering, wasn’t shooting daggers into her skull as if he wished his eyes could melt through to her brain. She trucked on, “Why are these meals, these invitations, so important to your mother?”

Malfoy rolled his neck and kept his gaze forward. He was silent for enough footfalls that she assumed he was not going to answer her. It was only when he released an annoyed breath through his nose that she knew he would.

“Mother craves stability. Routine. Meals were always something we shared as a family. Breakfast at eight, lunch at one-thirty, dinner at seven. The only deviance was when I began attending school, though mother and father continued on without me.“ He worked his jaw, rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “Then the war broke out, and our home was a shelter for a madman. And even once that horror show had ended, my father and I went to prison, and my mother was left alone, locked in the manor, without magic.” For a moment, he looked like a boy again. One that worried deeply for his mum. A flash, and it was gone, replaced by the tough exterior she had come to expect. “The routine changed. She still hasn’t told me how she fared when I was gone. I don’t know if she ever will, but the moment I returned, our family meals did as well. I didn’t argue even though I was not in the mood for something as silly as drinking tea at the dinner table, because they are important to her.”

Guilt tugged at her insides. “Then why does she want me involved? Is that her fair-weather optimism you spoke about? Or is it like Pansy said; I’m there to restore your name.” Hermione nearly scoffed at the thought. The Malfoys would be better off in a restoration without her moniker attached. Though she supposed that was impossible now that the press had woven them together in the eyes of the public.

“She thinks you’re part of the future.”

He caught the flicker of emotion across her face—the slight twisting of her features, the hesitation in her eyes. His expression hardened. “Granger, it doesn’t matter that I’ve told her how you feel, or that you’ve made it perfectly clear yourself that you’d rather chew your fingers off than associate with us.”

She didn’t argue. There was no point. She’d made it her mission to keep those boundaries clear.

“I don’t blame you for that.” Malfoy continued, his eyes filled with a loathing that she knew was not directed at herself. “But it doesn’t matter what I say. She’s going to keep hoping.” His voice was oddly resigned, but there was an underlying edge of irritation. “And you’re only making it worse by acting like a bloody feral cat every time she so much as looks at you.”

Hermione did scoff this time. “And that’s my problem how?”

Malfoy stopped abruptly, turning to face her with a flat expression. “It’s not. But you skulking around like she’s some kind of predator isn’t helping.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not—”

“You are,” he cut in, voice edged with irritation. “And it’s pointless. You act like the thought of basic courtesy might set you on fire.”

Hermione clenched her fists, willing herself to stay calm. To not snap at him. “So what exactly are you suggesting? That I start curtsying when I walk into a room?”

Malfoy’s mouth curled, not quite a smirk. “As entertaining as that sounds, no. I’m saying that being polite won’t kill you.” Then, after a beat, he added, “Unfortunately for both of us.”

She snorted, the insult too childish for any true anger.

“And if your research is correct,” he went on, tone casual, as if he were discussing the weather, though the set of his jaw was anything but lax, “the bond will be broken soon. We’ll move on, and you can pretend this was all some particularly vivid nightmare.”

Nightmare indeed. The bond warmed in her chest as if protesting the thought. She itched to run her hand over her sternum but didn’t want to give Malfoy the satisfaction of seeing her squirm.

Narcissa had been pleasant, if not a bit pushy. Hermione still wasn’t sure she believed Malfoy’s reasoning for her behavior— in her experience, there was always a motive. Selfish almost always. And the Malfoys were historically nothing but self-serving.

They made one final turn, the familiar stretch of hallway opening before them. The library doors loomed ahead, dark and imposing in the dim light. She reached them first, fingers ghosting over the carved wood, but instead of pushing them open, she hesitated.

Narcissa had tried to bridge the gap despite Hermione’s adamance that the gap remain firmly in place. And in some ways, she reminded her too much of her own mother.

Hermione’s index finger twitched on the handle, and she gritted her teeth together. “Is there a dress code for this breakfast?”

His brows lifted slightly, a flicker of surprise passing over his features before it smoothed into his usual stoic demeanour.

“No, there isn’t,” he replied simply, though there was something odd in the way he said it.

She nodded, turning back to the door. “I’ll be late. There are some things I need to take care of in the morning—“

“I’ll save you some eggs.”

Her lip twitched, and she gave him one last backwards glance. “Enjoy crawling back to whatever chaos Theo is likely sowing in your absence.”

Malfoy tilted his head, his smirk deepening enough that a small dimple protruded from his cheek. “Try not to pass out on the books again, Granger. I hear drool isn’t great for preservation.”

She rolled her eyes, pushing open the library doors without dignifying him with a response. A step inside, and she felt the quiet of the room settle around her like a heavy quilt. There was a heartbeat, and then footsteps sounded beyond the doorway, the sound receding with every passing moment.

Her shoulders dropped, the load of the evening finally settling in. Merlin, she had practically vented her entire sob story to Malfoy— and worse, he had actually listened. She couldn’t even recall the last time she had spoken to someone with that much honesty. Elias maybe, but even he was unaware of the full extent of scars she carried.

This was fine. It was okay to be okay with this—whatever this Something was. As long as she remembered why she was here. Forced to be here. Unwillingly tied. A blood sacrifice in all manners.

The bond would break. It had to. And when it did, this—these late-night detours, and screaming matches, and subconscious mind-bridge rendezvous—would mean nothing.

Hermione slumped into her usual seat, ignoring the scent of bergamot that clung to the neat stacks of notes she had most definitely not written. She lost herself in translation, letting the runes and algebraic expressions wash over her until she no longer felt the thrum thrum thrumming in her chest that felt all too much like the cadence of unfamiliar laughter that didn’t belong to her, yet somehow still echoed in her bones.