Many Midnights
December 1st 1999
December rolled in on a Wednesday, accompanied by a light, drizzling rain.
Hermione hummed into her paperwork, still riding the excitement of her and Theo’s latest trial run of the Time-Turner wristwatches. They’d managed three separate one-hour jumps.
Eon had proven a useful, if chaotic wealth of information, and when it wasn’t attempting to explode her into witch jelly, it offered up delicious time spells.
Hermione was in a bright mood when her order from the Mystic Stitch arrived with an unexpected delivery girl and guest. Pansy Parkinson invited herself in trailed closely by Astoria Greengrass.
Hermione blinked owlishly up from a stack of wrinkled inter-office notices. The symphony of multiple threads of thought still wove behind her eyes as she organized each issue into an order of urgency based on topic, time relevancy, and how annoyed she happened to be by the author of said note.
“Hullo!” Hermione smiled and brutally skewered a crinkly paper note on her ticket spike—or The Spike of Efficiency—as Atrix dubbed it. The needle of the spike was satisfyingly bloated with checked-off notices.
Astoria’s small nose wrinkled as she took in Hermione’s office and its chaos of paper. Pansy eyed The Spike of Efficiency as though she might steal it.
“What brings you?” Hermione asked, absently blowing muffin crumbs from her desktop.
Luna had baked a ghastly batch of mochi matcha butter muffins which had such a rubbery texture Theo had taken to bouncing them off the wall while wallowing (introspectively high on Luna’s Wit potion).
Hermione consumed them out of penance and (poverty and necessity’s favorite niece) hunger.
“Find what you were looking for ladies?” Hermione prodded when neither visitor spoke.
“Delivery.” Pansy dropped a dress box on Hermione’s overcrowded desk, toppling two piles of stacked research. It probably wasn’t on purpose because she jumped like a startled cat.
“It seems even SPEW members have house-elves now.” Astoria sniffed.
“Is that all? Thank you for the delivery, but you could have left it in the mail room.” Hermione sighed, gathering up spilled, and now crumpled, piles of paper.
“It’s couture, Granger, not owl mail,” Pansy drawled.
“Why are you delivering it? No offense, Parkinson.”
“I’m the owner.”
“I thought The Mystic Stitch was house-elf run, by elves for elves, etc.”
“It is. I co-own it with my house-elf, Thimble.”
Hermione almost dropped the papers again. “Really?” She smiled. “Well, it’s a lovely store. Though, a bit upscale for current house-elf wages.”
Pansy rolled her eyes. “High-end wizard families provide their estate and its caretakers with high-end luxury goods.”
“That’s an interesting business model. Good for you Parkinson.”
“Thrilled to have your approval.” Pansy looked anything but.
“Anything else?” Hermione tried not to be rude on principle, but she had a never-ending pile of work.
“Yes, actually.” Greengrass clasped her elbows.
“Which is?” Hermione sat back at her desk, checking off The Mystic Stitch’s delivery in her planner and subsequently skewering another note off her desk.
“I would like to know your intentions.” Astoria clicked up to Hermione’s desk in three-inch heels.
“Glad to know you’re taking an interest. Is this related to any particular charity? I have my policy proposals and intentions written up in the departmental pamphlet.” Hermione tried not to look impatient. She’d put off much of her workload to deal with the legal compensation of house-elves. (Those temporarily employed at the Ministry for Floo Flue patients). She had a backlog of house calls and legislation to get through as well as the Free Elf Union to attend tomorrow. She wished Astoria would get on with it.
“Your intentions towards the Malfoy heir.”
“Pardon?” Hermione blinked up from her planner, emerging from her fog of tasks.
“I would like to know your intentions towards Draco Malfoy, the Malfoy heir,” Astoria repeated unhelpfully.
Hermione looked to Pansy for some shred of context. Pansy merely studied her manicure.
“What’s she on about?” Hermione persisted.
Pansy obliged, too enthusiastically. “Are you and Draco snogging? Doing the naked dance? Hiding the sausage, so to speak.”
Hermione recoiled.
“Well, that answers that.” Pansy rolled her eyes.
“Do you intend to court him?” Astoria’s knuckles whitened on the back of the guest chair.
“Astoria,” Hermione said, firmly. “What is this about?”
Astoria narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been spending weekends together. What are you doing then, if you’re not snogging?”
“Are you engaged?” Hermione was certain they weren’t.
Astoria pursed her lips. “Our parents have talked.”
“Are you his girlfriend? Dating?”
“Our parents are discussing meetings.”
“Your parents . . . like for a play date?”
“I don’t expect someone like you to understand. And I don’t understand why you won’t answer a simple question!”
“And I don’t see what it matters. Why are you talking to me about it? Talk to Draco if you want to date him.”
“So you call him Draco now?” Astoria pounced.
Hermione tried not to burst into laughter. She truly did. But honestly. “Well, I certainly don’t go around calling him the Malfoy heir!”
“This is so typical.” Astoria sneered. “Just because you couldn’t keep hold of a pure-blood like Ronald doesn’t give you the right to go grasping after other witch’s promised fiancés!”
Hermione tried to be polite for Daphne’s sake. But grace had a limit. “My deepest apologies, Greengrass. I would love to see the ring. Around which calendar year can we expect to see it? And what interactions with your parent-promised fiancé would you find amenable? In fact, allow me to break it to your husband-to-be. It would bring me tremendous joy to let the Malfoy heir know how uncomfortable he’s been making you—and that his parent-promised wife doesn’t approve of his job.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Astoria’s cheeks puffed, and a myriad of interesting colors tinged her skin from red to green to pallid gray tones.
Pansy crunched down on a green apple, her eyes wide and enraptured.
“This has been delightful. Thank you for the delivery, Parkinson, Greengrass,” Hermione gestured towards the door.
“He may shag you, Granger. But all you’ll get is dick. Malfoys reserve their hearts for their wives.”
“Oh, thank Godric, Greengrass! I was really worried for you there. It would be so embarrassing to get neither!”
***
St Mungo’s Hospital
Daphne’s splotchy, tear-stained face met Draco at the door of the Hospital’s Children Ward. Her uniform looked as though it hadn’t been laundered and she’d definitely hit her limit on Pepper-up potions.
Draco crushed her summons inside his pocket. He’d had to take off work to be here, but Daph never asked for silly favors.
“Please,” her voice cracked. “We’re going to lose her.” She revealed a small bundle. A baby who couldn’t be more than eight weeks old sneezed weakly. She wasn’t breathing well. “Her name’s Daisy and she has a twin, just as sick. Her Gran was watching her while Mum took a nap. Both got the Floo Flue. Daisy’s our youngest. We can’t get her to speak. Not even with a Talking Spell. She’s no teeth.”
There were nine infants in the infirmary. Children too young to be made to say, thank you.
“We’ve exhausted curse and soothing spells. They’re too young to petrify.”
“I’ll take care of it, Daph.” Draco took the little girl, solemnly. “Get Theo here too, yeah? I could use his help.” He murmured, glancing around at the array of messy diagnostics. Healers filled the nursery, and parents stood by silently, watching with hungry despair for answers.
Draco passed Daisy off to Healer Patil. He’d heard after Lavender Brown’s death Parvati went into healing.
“What are you doing in here?” She asked skeptically.
“Healer Greengrass asked if I could take a look from a Curse Breaker’s point of view. If that’s all right with you?” Draco made a quick copy of each child’s chart.
He sat in the hall, studying charts and timelines when Theo arrived as though he’d already been on his way before Daphne finished her owl’s summons. He bore an armful of scrolls and a pillow.
“What’s that for?” Draco glared. If Theo thought he was going to nap—
“Daph, of course.”
Draco looked their friend over and sighed. The witch was falling asleep in the doorway.
“Daph? Wake up, Luv.” Theo slung an arm around the witch.
“At least take a nap in the corner there, or I’ll sick Mrs Weasley on you.” Draco rubbed blurry eyes.
Daphne laughed wearily but conceded after filling Theo in on as much data as they had. She fell asleep in a guest chair almost before her eyes shut.
Afterwards, Theo stood by the glass window taking in the row of cribs.
“What I know,” Theo roused, “is that we need more time. We’re about to break some rules.” He grimaced. “Hermione will murder me and my past lives if you breathe a word of this.” He removed two watches from his pocket.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re testing out her prototype. Don’t break it, or I’m out a Christmas gift.”
***
The Many Midnights of December 1st 1999
Draco scrubbed sleep from his face. Theo had exhausted his French Estates. They had begun methodically. Turning back time one midnight after another, 24 hours—though the watches could have done less or more. Theo didn’t want to chance breaking one of the timepieces with experimentation. Each day they moved down one floor in the Nott Manor.
It was eerie. Listening to themselves through the floor and ceiling. Knowing they would be at it still in twenty-four hours. Knowing what they had been at and were currently at, a few feet above their heads.
Dangerous. The temptation to peek at the future. Jump their research ahead. (Yell at themselves to shut up.) Theo was at ease with it. But Draco hazarded they were breaking about every law of time travel in the book.
They slept on couches.
They ate whatever the house-elves brought.
They ran out of floors in the Nott Estate.
They switched to Theo’s second Estate.
Sleep. Eat. Trial. Research. Scream at one another. Trial. Research. Change floors. Repeat.
Draco woke to Theo’s nudging foot.
“We need to recruit.” Theo yawned. They were on the last floor of his French vineyard Estate. Above their heads, the dulled sound of yesterday’s argument raged on.
“You have another Time-Turner in your pocket? Besides which. Who’s going to be able to catch up to this mess?” Draco gestured to the storm of papers, test notes, research stacks, and the hoard of equipment. Chemistry and potions both.
“Who do you think?” Theo drawled.
***
Draco stomped around Theo’s London flat at ten in the never-ending morning when Theo was certain both he and Hermione had gone. Theo headed straight to bed yawning that they’d get to work in five hours.
Draco lingered in the sitting room. He cataloged the differences between Theo’s estate and his cohabited flat. Covered in Hermione’s influence: electric kettles, chunky knit blankets, cozy fireplace nooks, and stacks of books.
It was small. Cozy.
Too cozy. It looked like a couple’s home.
Draco let himself into the room opposite the one Theo disappeared through. A library, with a bed in it. It was different than her room at Ginny’s. More books. More bed. Less space to move—as though she spent less time here. Except why did she need a bigger bed then?
He eyed the offending frame. He’d been sleeping on a couch or floor days now. He hated the look of it. Something Theo had provided. All silk, linen, and French cream with flower embroidery. He hated that she slept in Theo’s sheets. He didn’t want to examine the feeling.
He turned to leave when a rattle caught his sleep-deprived attention. Eyes narrowed, he sighed giving into the urge to peek. Beneath the bed’s skirt crouched the ugliest chest he’d ever laid eyes on.
Raising his wand in defense, Draco curse broke the binding ward (taking care to study it so he could re-cast it later.) Unhooking the lock and unwinding a chain, he cracked open the lid. An ooze of dark magic bubbled up at him.
This witch and the deadly books she kept under her bed. He smiled fondly.
At least this collection she kept relatively content. From the scorch marks under the bed, he wondered how badly the French Rune Book had gotten on with this lot. He had to refresh the wards on that tomb daily.
He should confiscate this lot as well. Her wards were adequate, but these were not the sort of tombs one read in bed. If she fell asleep on one it might bleed her dry of blood, flesh, or soul. And now he was going to nap over them.
Re-warding the chest, Draco slid it back under the bed. Sitting at the edge, he loosened his tie and removed one shoe at a time.
She wasn’t using the bed. He was exhausted. She would never know . . . unless he stole her books. Did he want her to know?
Fluffing her pillow, he paused as he felt a scrap of silky fabric. He dragged his hand out from under and stared down at his handkerchief. Monogrammed. Definitely his.
He’d given her half a dozen. Maybe she’d fallen asleep using it . . . except it was clean.
The idea of her, lying here in the dark, breathing in his perfumed handkerchiefs kindled a hot ache in his chest. Stirring greed. The rolling over of a dragon in his blood. Pleasure to be needed, to be wanted by someone so . . . had she thought of him here? In this bed? Had she . . .
“Salazar, Granger.” He groaned, shifting his trousers.
A rattle beneath the bed startled him back to his feet.
“Bloody Muggle Hell. How do you sleep in here?” Malfoy fussed, glowering at the scrape of the book chest beneath the bed.
“Probably because you’re bloody exhausted all the time.” Blurrily he glared over the edge of the bed. “One more peep out of you lot and I’ll burn you to ash and use your remains for plant fertilizer in my aunt’s rose garden.”
He lay back down, stiff. Slid the handkerchief back beneath her pillow. Closed his eyes. Occluded the memory of it violently, as though he’d never found it, and winced as the folder in his mind ripped at the spine.
His mind a blank shell of ice, Draco fell asleep on the covers to the scent of book dust and Hermione’s shampoo— eucalyptus and peppermint.
***
A Prelude to the Button War
Hermione shuffled toward her and Theo’s apartment, dress box tucked under one arm. Yawning, she couldn’t wait for their wristwatches to be approved and these long days put to rest. Perhaps she would even put in for a month’s vacation. Take that trip with Ginny.
With what money? A nasty voice piped up in the back of her mind. She elbowed it back down wearily.
The ominous rattle of a window warned Hermione that Theo was up to research again. He’d been relentlessly fascinated by the contaminated Floo Powder. Tassel had become a regular feature of the sitting room to keep Theo’s sneezing to a minimum.
Tonight, the research sprawl had grown. It oozed across the dining table, papered the hall walls, and led into the sitting room. The couch and chairs pushed to form a circle of open space and diagnostics clouded the air like a flock of birds.
Tassel had baked up a storm. An untouched feast lined the coffee table, squished against the wall between the couch and chairs. Theo was just lying down between plates of cucumber sandwiches and old jammy biscuits, hands and face sooty, red-eyed, and grumpy.
At the heart of the flurry of diagnostics stood Malfoy.
Hermione scrubbed her face and looked a second time.
Draco’s robe and jacket had been discarded on the back of the couch. His sleeves were rolled up, displaying pale arms and green-tinged veins and the faded black of the Dark Mark. His head tilted back, studying a complex chart. The stretch of pale skin bare from his throat down several tugged open buttons and a discarded tie.
Hermione froze in a daze.
“Like what you see?” Malfoy asked, voice scratchy.
Yes. “Charts are beautiful things.” Hermione kicked off her heels and looked at anything but the sexy, disheveled, scientist-aesthetic taking up her sitting room.
He swallowed visibly. “Sorry for the mess.”
“Never apologize for a research party.” She draped a blanket across Theo.
“Hey, Mione.” He scrubbed his face giving her the footnotes of their research project. Her stomach sank at the thought of all those babies. Naively, she’d thought the Floo curse taken care of.
“Tagging out.” Theo hugged the blanket to his chin and rolled away from them.
Malfoy’s scowl deepened. He looked ready to kick Theo awake.
Hermione nodded towards the kitchen. “Take a break. Catch me up to speed on your take and I’ll see what I can help with.”
“You’re not going to bed?” Malfoy followed her as she put on the kettle.
“Theo never works this hard unless it’s important. You’ve been at this for days, and you’ve both been abusing Time-Turners. Yet you’re still running out of time.” She broke into Theo’s tea tins, finding the Ginger Snap blend, a black, cookie-flavored tea with chunks of candied ginger, and cinnamon stick. She needed the caffeine.
“Theo makes it better.” She watched their mugs steep to avoid the trap of his gaze. Astoria’s covetous jealousy felt a little more deserved with Malfoy’s tie undone, the man standing in her second kitchen.
“From the smell of it, a little bitterness won’t hurt the flavor.” Malfoy walked around the kitchen island to stand at her side. Their arms brushed—tingled at the contact.
“So what do you need?” She set a timer.
Malfoy leaned back against the counter, rubbing elbows with her. “I’m not sure you could handle my needs, Granger.”
And she did not flush. For a moment, she contemplated what he’d do if she flirted back in earnest. Probably get uncomfortably polite.
She met his cool silver gaze. “Why’s that, Malfoy? Need someone to kick you in the balls to get off? Because I’d consider helping you out with that for free.”
Malfoy winced. “No, thank you so much for the offer. Must you always bring a chainsaw to the tea party?”
Hermione fluttered her lashes. “What can I say, your fiancée is the jealous sort. I need to be proactive.”
He stilled. “Astoria paid you a visit?”
She pinched the ghost of disappointment before it reached her expression. So he was aware. Were they actually a couple though? “I got the other woman speech and everything.” Hermione snorted. “If she bothered to use her eyes, she’d know better.”
“Why’s that?” He glanced down at her. A smile hovered at the corner of his mouth.
“Gryffindor?” She twirled a finger at herself. “We aren’t exactly known for hiding our affections.”
“No, you’re not, are you?” His gaze dropped to her mouth and trailed down her throat. “Slytherin lovers don’t leave clues unless they’re meant as a statement. Astoria was looking for one.” He glanced away dismissively. “She’s a bright witch. She won’t bother you again.”
Hermione was not disappointed by that answer. “Still, I’m not comfortable making your fiancée uncomfortable.”
“Fortunate that she’s not my fiancée then, isn’t it?”
And she was not relieved.
“Relax. No witch currently has a claim to stake that you can defend. I’m all yours, every Saturday. Do try to be gentle—unless you want to leave a statement on me?” Malfoy raised a brow.
Hermione tapped her lip, contemplative. “Mm, maybe a big swirly button badge that flashes “Hermione’s Great” and “Draco’s Drab”.
His eyes narrowed, but she caught the twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You don’t want to get in a button war with me, Granger.”
“No?” Hermione grinned behind her hand.
“No.” Draco turned to face her fully and leaned forward casually.
“Terrifying rebuttal.” Hermione leaned back. “This button idea is growing on me by the second. You’ll have to wear one to get into Theo’s Estate.”
“Perhaps I should teach you what a real statement piece is.” His hand slipped around her, caging her against the countertop. His silver gaze lingered on hers, dipped to her throat like he might bite.
“Emeralds and diamonds?” Her breath caught audibly.
“Don’t look so scared, Granger. I’m not the one with a kink for violence.”
Hermione gaped, arching back against the counter as he kept leaning forward. “I do not!”
The timer went off and she jumped shoving him back a step.
His expression blanked. “You’re not actually scared of me, are you, Granger?”
She released the timer like a hot coal and scoffed. “You wish.”
He pulled back. ”Again, not one of my kinks, darling.” He retreated another step. “Tea’s getting bitter.”
And she was not bitter at the timing of over-steeped tea. Her? Bitter over Malfoy not doing more?
Turning slowly, she fished out the strainers in stilted silence. She was not frightened of Malfoy. He just unsettled everything.
She gave him a sharp glance, finding he’d retreated out of arms reach. Occluded behind a pearly mask of indifference. Why did he keep doing that? She’d meant to read up on it. Now she found the task bumping up her priority list.
Clearing her throat she tried to clear her mind. “So what do you actually need?” She slid his mug towards him across the counter.
He made a face at his first sip, then downed it like a scalding shot. “Theo wants your perspective.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked more irritated than calm. “If you can catch up on our research, our failed tests.”
“What do you think the problem is?”
Malfoy breathed out slowly. His gaze on her face again. His expression masked. “It’s intention-based magic. Even if a baby could say thank you, what would it mean to them but bable?”
“Intention based.” Hermione frowned. “So, even if you could make the babies speak . . .”
“It wouldn’t mean anything.” Malfoy nodded.
“Hold that thought.” Hermione hummed into her tea, leaving Malfoy to stew in his mood as she retreated to her room. She had a spark of inspiration and hoped one of her illegal books would, once again, provide her with an answer.
***
Spelling her bed to float, Hermione reactivated three warding circles over the burnt wooden floorboards in her room in preparation to remove the rankest of her illegal volumes from its padded cell. A collection of dark spells from the 17th century.
Intention played a large part in the ability to cast magic. It was almost thoughtless to float a feather or jinx someone to trip on their own feet. It was something else to wish someone dead or tortured.
But babies didn’t want to float feathers. And she doubted gratitude entered their basic instincts beyond a meal and a comfy place to sleep.
Hermione frowned as she undid the warding locks on the book chest. They felt less reluctant, less sticky than usual. Quieter too. She didn’t hear a single chain rattle. She snapped the lid back, the last ward smooth as an oiled door. Nothing looked amiss. Still, she counted her books, like a bird its eggs. She took stock of the room. Nothing seemed out of place—but she had tossed the whole bed in the air.
Sweeping the thought from her mind, Hermione withdrew—
“The Codex Maledicta: A Dark Scholar’s Primer. That can’t be legal.” Malfoy read over her shoulder almost cheek to cheek.
Hermione jumped with an undignified squawk clutching at her heart. “Salazar’s spit! Do you Muffilato your shoes?”
“Don’t clasp your pearls so soon, darling. I haven’t even begun with the filthy talk.” Malfoy inspected her wards, poking and prodding before allowing, “These will do, I suppose.”
“Of course they will,” Hermione snipped.
Malfoy shoved his way in beside her, resting his pointy chin on one palm. Wand lightly clasped in his free hand.
“What?” Hermione scowled.
“Research away, darling. I’m here to see your soul doesn’t get eaten in the process.”
“That’s what the wards are for.” Hermione rolled her eyes.
Malfoy flashed white teeth. “Yes, they’re very good. Well done.”
She gave him a narrow glare as she set the volume within the wards and resisted the urge to prod at them. They were fine.
“This promises to be very boring. I’m sure you’ve plenty of work to continue—put those back!” Hermione growled, turning to find Malfoy emptying her collection from the chest into a complex ward he’d drawn up on the fly.
“I’m making myself useful, Granger.”
He was making himself distracting, Hermione thought, sourly.
“Hand’s off my chest!”
Malfoy paused and turned to stare at her. Pale eyebrows quirked, his gaze dropped to her clavicle, then lower. A faint flush stained his white cheeks. A gleam of bemused mirth and affront in his gaze.
Hermione cursed her tongue. “Book chest.”
“Yes, do be specific when shouting about unhanding your chest, Granger,” Malfoy drawled.
“Now whose pearl-clutching,” Hermione muttered.
“What are you researching anyways?”
“Whipping boys.” Hermione flipped through the volume and took a sip of her tea.
Malfoy shivered and inched away. “I distinctly remember mentioning I respond well to praise.” He tugged at his already loose collar.
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Hermione rolled her eyes. “Intension magic, right? Well, if you can’t break the spell, maybe you can offload the price onto a whipping boy.”
Malfoy’s lips parted. Silver eyes intoxicatedly full of something dangerous to name. Something like wonder. “Clever.” His gaze drifted over her face.
“It may not work.” Flushed, Hermione returned her attention to the volume. “It’s a nasty spell. The linking and transferal of one being’s pain to another.”
“But it might work.”
“I need to research how not to make it permanent, Malfoy. A simpler spell. The transferal of a specific curse—that or whoever saves these babies will suffer every gastric pain, cold, broken bone, and jinx—or worse—until the bond can be severed.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You certainly will not.” Hermione scoffed. “You’d die of sneezing, and who’s to say all that ill magic won’t rebound right back to those kids?”
“If it gets me out of this December first hell loop, I will. The healers could petrify me until they find a better solution.” Malfoy shrugged.
“Firstly,” Hermione jabbed a finger in his face. “You will let me finish researching. Secondly, should we be unable to adapt a working spell, we will involve the families of these children in the decision. And thirdly,” Hermione growled, “You would be the worst option for whipping boy. We’d need you around as the likeliest of us three to break the curse!”
Malfoy’s cool fingers wrapped around her jabbing fingers, a smile played across his mouth, his shadowed eyes fond. “Worried for me?”
Hermione sniffed, “It’s called malpractice, Malfoy.”
“Finish your research, Granger. You’re not going to be the whipping boy either.”
“Yes, yes, we all know it’s going to be me, isn’t it?” Theo yawned from the doorway behind them.
“Go back to sleep.” Malfoy didn’t release her finger, or look away.
“I would, but you two are noisy.”
“No one’s going to be a whipping boy!” Hermione growled. “We are going to adapt it into a spell!”
“A curse.” Malfoy nodded, still smiling at her.
“Alright, wake me when you’ve got something.” Theo’s feet retreated across the hall, his door lightly clicked shut.
“You might as well sleep too.” Hermione tugged on her finger.
“I have some tombs of my own on curse transferal.” Malfoy released her hand with a shadow of reluctance. “Not the most successful area of study—as cursed objects tend to absorb the magic after long exposure. But I’ll gather what may be relevant.”
“Good. And don’t leave my books a mess on the floor. Put them back in the book chest, please.” Hermione rubbed her hand, finger still warm from his grip.
“A please out of Hermione Granger. Dangerously close to a thank you.” Malfoy chuckled, gathering up her books once more and organizing them into the book chest.