Chapter 33
Flames and Fire
Guest column by Hermione Granger
The recent attack on Diagon Alley by the Death Eaters is a wake up call as much as it is a great blow to our world. For more than a decade now, we have benefitted from safety - Death Eaters in Azkaban and Wizarding England secure. For every good thing about the time between the first war and the resurgence of the Death Eaters, there was a lulling sense of safety. Witches and Wizards grew comfortable.
There is no excuse for violence. There is no excuse in ignoring legitimate concerns about our social policy.
In the years leading to the First Wizarding War, there were dozens of heartbreaking stories. In 1977, a Muggle family starved and beat their magical child under the guise of performing an exorcism to put an end to uncontrollable outbursts of magic. In 1980, a magical family of five died in a house fire later determined to be arson. In 1983, 1984, and 1985, a total of 47 witches were killed by Muggle partners when their magical heritage was discovered. If there had been more comprehensive and secure policy around Muggle and magical relationships, we wouldn’t have lost so many sisters in those three years alone. Social pressure to change how we address Muggle relations, Muggleborn integration, and security risks was brushed off as reactionary. The Death Eaters gained popularity initially because they seemed to be the only ones working to change things - an assumption remedied quickly by the Death Eaters own violent actions.
In the wake of the war, when desire to change policy was still engaged and active, the Ministry chose to do nothing about those fears for their own worries about misinterpreted motives and avoiding the possible appearance of blood purity.
It was a tragic misuse of the opportunity.
Pureblood traditions are falling out of favor. Heritage and history is dying with a new generation of young witches and wizards. The Muggleborn population is even worse off than those Pure- and Half-blood witches and wizards who are not being taught at home - the Muggleborns like me are thrown into a world they don’t understand at eleven, when their understanding of the world is already taking form. How can we expect Muggleborns to accept the idea of Natural magic when they aren’t accepting of their own magic to begin with? How can we ask them to take part of our heritage if it is not theirs as well?
Perhaps, if the Ministry had taken more seriously the task of modernizing our laws around safety, we would not see such a clear and generational disconnect between our traditions, and the new witches and wizards of today. Perhaps, if we have made safety a clearer priority, we wouldn’t see such persistent distrust of Muggles and Muggleborns. Perhaps, if we had worked harder to alleviate the fears and pains of our witches and wizards, we wouldn’t be seeing such a sudden resurgence of Death Eater violence.
The Death Eaters blew up Diagon Alley. Their actions are inexcusable - they kill indiscriminately, with no other interest but to cause chaos. The response by the Order of the Phoenix, while well-intentioned, furthered damages to our infrastructure, businesses, and the safety of our population.
The truth is that Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix are distractions. For every attack on Wizarding culture perpetuated by these groups, there is a family who feels the disproportionate weight of those actions. For every conversation on violence and blood purity, there is an ignored conversation about the much needed changes to our laws.
There is a time and place for fighting violence. There is no room for repeating the same mistakes we made 20 years ago.
I beseech the Ministry, in conjunction with our brightest and best thinkers, to start reshaping our approach to Muggleborn inclusion and legal protections for our magical populations. Take the wind out of the Death Eaters sails to begin with - end the problematic policies that lead to unsafe situations and bloody outcomes. Attack the real, terrifying problem that started this whole mess.
And while we’re waiting for the slow wheels of legislation to turn, the Ministry can rebuild our economic keystone.
~~~
Draco wouldn’t come out of his room, not even to comment on Hermione’s most recent article. He’d put up wards and charms, keeping Theo and Hermione both out of his room. His parents, too, were barred from the room and Narcissa responded with tears. It was only Toma who seemed to get through, and only in the dead of night. Toma, and unfortunately, Crookshanks who had taken up residence at the end of Draco’s bed.
If Hermione hadn’t taken to spending nights in Theo’s room, she wouldn’t have noticed. But in the dead of night, when she would sneak down the hall to Theo’s room, she found Toma’s room empty, his bed cold, and the light under Draco’s door on. The wards would thrum, Draco’s magic reaching for Hermione’s, but they never broke.
It wasn’t hard to figure out why Draco had put up the walls.
He was Marked. The few times Hermione and Theo saw him - usually across the fields outside the Library window walking alongside Toma - he was in longsleeve shirts. Dinners, the few times Draco attended, he always wore sleeves.
The few nights following the engagement party had been bliss. They’d been open and intimate, nights spent with Hermione, Theo, and Draco entangled together from the moment they woke up to the moment they went back to bed. It had been every hope Hermione had for her engaged life with the boys, but it had been a short-lived dream.
The night Draco disappeared, begging off some kind of vague thing he had to do, he’d come back changed. He didn’t want to lay in Hermione’s arms, he turned his face when Theodore tried to kiss him. He was self-punishing, self-isolating. He was guilty and disgusted with his own body, even if it had been necessary for one of them to be one of the Death Eaters.
Draco Malfoy was a silent kind of martyr, the kind of hero forgotten at the end of war.
Toma was a little more forthcoming with Hermione and Theo. “He needs time,” Toma said over lunch, quiet and hushed so as to not hurt Lucius and Narcissa who were taking their own meal in the gardens. “The Mark is a physical presence of Dark Magic in your body. It’s destructive, like all Dark Magic, and it’s eating it’s way through his arm right now.”
“What?” Theo yelped, halfway out of his seat.
“Not literally,” Hermione murmured. She might have been too trusting, or maybe she was too logical, but there was no way the Dark Lord would have purposely destroyed his followers’ magic.”
“Hermione is correct,” Toma said, inclining his head. “You can think of it… like food coloring in a cup of water. It is, yes, diffusing itself through Draco’s body not unlike coloring through water. His magic is learning mine, affirming the connection between us.”
“Side effects?” Hermione asked.
Toma looked at her. “Nightmares,” he said. “His greatest fears on repeat. Intrusive thoughts. He is staying in his room because there are moments when he feels out of control and likely to do something.”
“He wants to hurt us,” Hermione whispered.
“Destroy things,” Theo added.
Toma only nodded. “It will pass. Being around one another makes it easier. Our magic is trying to decipher one another, to secure the forced bond.”
Hermione and Theo understood. They really did, but they wished there was something more they could do for their mercurial, colder fiance now that he was branded. They could only wait for him to come back to them.
Draco found his way back to Theodore’s room late on the night before they were all to leave for Hogwarts. His trunk had appeared in the foyer alongside Toma’s hours ago, so clearly he was ready to leave for the castle, even if he’d skipped out on shopping with his parents and Theo.
He crept in silently, wearing a full set of pajamas that neither Theo nor Hermione had ever seen before with long pants and long sleeves. Despite his best attempts to sneak in, he found both of his lovers awake, staring at him across the room by the fireplace. There was a quiet warmth in the way Hermione was curled up in one of Theo’s sweaters, a book propped open on her lap. Theo was the perfect image of an enraptured audience - he was on the floor, cross-legged by the fire, staring at Hermione with a nearly expectant look on his face.
Draco’s eyes were cold, but his cheeks were pink. “Am I interrupting?”
Hermione shook her head, curls flying. “You never interrupt, love.”
“Come sit with me,” Theo said. “Hermione is reading something Muggle, you’ll love it. It’s wonderful.”
“It’s Shakespeare,” Hermione clarified. “Hamlet.”
Draco’s paces stuttered at that. “Ophelia dies in that play,” he said. He’d read it, then.
“Actually,” Theo said. “No one has died yet, so I’ll kindly ask you not to spoil it, babe.”
Draco finally moved again, shuffling to sit with Theo on the ground. He was close, almost touching, but he was keeping a constant distance between them. An inch, maybe more, between their legs and arms. Even his hands, bracing his weight on the ground, were situated away from Theo.
Hermione cleared her throat. “A little more than kin and less than kind, said Hamlet. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Asked the king. Hamlet counters with, not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.”
“This is bizarre,” Draco muttered.
“Shh!” Theo smacked Draco’s arm goodnaturedly, and Draco froze. Like he’d been struck. Hermione wet her suddenly dry lips.
“The Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.” She put on a voice of forced importance, something high and haughty. “Do not forever with thy vailèd lids seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.”
Hermione’s voice turned deeper now. “Hamlet. Ay, madam, it is common. If it be, why seems it so particular with thee? ‘Seems,’ madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems.’ ’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, nor customary suits of solemn black. Nor windy suspiration of forced breath. No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, nor the dejected havior of the visage. Together with all forms, moods of grief, That can denote me truly. These indeed ‘seem,’ for they are actions that a man might play.”
Draco shifted, the wood under his hand creaking with his weight. Hermione paused only to spare him a look, and Theo tried to press his fingers over the distance between himself and Draco, but Draco refused to make eye contact with his to-be-wife and pulled his hand away from his to-be-husband.
Hermione hummed. “The king now. But I have that within which passes show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe. ’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, to give these mourning duties to your father. But you must know your father lost a father, that father lost his, and the survivor bound in filial obligation for some term to do obsequious sorrow. But to persevere in obstinate condolement is a course of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief. It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, a heart unfortified, a mind impatient, an understanding simple and unschooled. For what we know must be and is as common as any the most vulgar thing to sense. Why should we in our peevish opposition take it to heart? Fie, ’tis a fault to heaven, a fault against the dead-”
Draco shifted again, and Hermione snapped the book shut in her hands.
“Oi!” Theo protested. “What is happening to my story time?”
Hermione flung off the blanket in her lap, unfolded socked feet from where they were tucked under her legs, and sank to the ground.
“What are you doing?” Theo continued. Beside him, Draco was pale and wide-eyed, looking like he was regretting his choice to join Hermione and Theo tonight. Hermione crawled forward, forcing herself into the boys’ space.
Her hands found purchase on Draco’s legs. Her lips sank into Draco’s own, her tongue lapped at his closed, tight lips. When he finally, finally opened his mouth to return the kiss, Hermione shifted. She pressed open, wet kisses to Draco’s cheek, his jaw, his pulsepoint, his neck. Collarbones. The curve of his shoulder. Fabric pulled away from where it was hiding pale skin, and Hermione opened her eyes to find Theo looming over Draco’s back, fingers on the top buttons of their fiance’s pajama top.
Hermione pushed his sleeve down, down, down, her kisses the first thing to hit Draco’s skin before the cold air in the room could rush in, and then she-
“Stop,” Draco said. The air in the room got colder, tense and cruel, and Hermione froze. Draco didn’t sound mad. He sounded pained. “Please.”
Hermione swallowed around a lump in her throat. Below her, the Dark Mark pulsed on Draco’s arm. Ink stark against the pale skin, writhing with something akin to excitement.
“Dray,” Theo whispered, pressing the word into Draco’s ear with a kiss. “Don’t do this.”
“You don’t understand,” Draco said. His words were husky, thick with emotion, and Hermione felt tears spring to her eyes. All around them, there was nothing but the scent of their combined magic, the pressure of Draco’s impending emotional breakdown, and the sudden feeling like lightning was about to strike. Like the ozone layer had rushed into the room.
Hermione ducked down to kiss Draco’s arm, and thin, tight fingers caught her chin. “Don’t.”
The feeling of lightning was tangible now, and it sparked. “Draco Malfoy does not tell me what to do,” Hermione hissed, eyes narrowed. “You think you get to tell me how I feel? You dictate what kind of love I get to show?”
Draco turned his head down, towards the floor, but his fingers dug into her chin.
“You don’t control me,” Hermione snapped. She wrenched herself out of Draco’s hold, and his hand hung there. “You don’t get to be the only one in the room who has done terrible things. Did you forget I obliviated my parents?”
Draco and Theo both flinched.
“Did you forget I killed a man at the Ministry? That I brought the Dark Lord back to power?” Hermione’s fingers wrapped around Draco’s wrist, tight and unforgiving. “Do you think I don’t have nightmares? Or I don’t think about cursing the nitwits I call roommates at school? You think you’re the first man to wish violence on others? You think you hold some kind of claim over the darkest parts of human nature, when it is in fact, the nature of all humans to be dark, terrible things?”
She wrenched his hand down, out of the way, and Draco winced. Theo over his shoulder was watching them, lips parted and eyes wide, and hands now suspended off of Draco’s shoulders. Like he was afraid of them both, afraid for them both, afraid to intervene or to let it go on any further.
Hermione struck out, moving faster than either of the boys. Her lips crashed over Draco’s arm, tongue and teeth taking turns to lavish the snake and the skull alike. Draco gasped, Theo let out a breath, and Hermione’s heart sang. She kissed him, softer and softer with each pass over the Mark on his arm.
There was the same scent of pine soap clinging to Draco’s skin there. The Dark Mark was a new taste, but it wasn’t unfamiliar. Smokey, with the burnt undertone of charcoal. Toma’s magic, but concentrated and bitter. Without the softness Hermione had come to expect now. Even with the sharpness, the new way it clung to her mouth and throat, it was still recognizable. It was Toma’s, mixed with the delicious parts of Draco.
“This does not,” Hermione spoke into the Mark. “Make you an evil man. This is the mark of a man willing to do anything to save his world.”
“You are my world,” Draco whispered, words breaking on tears. “You and Theo.”
Hermione drug her eyes up to meet Draco’s. “Does that make me any less correct?”
Theo snorted out a laugh, breaking the tension in a way only he could. “Enough, you two. We’ll need to leave in the morning, and we won’t be able to do this for a while. Let me love on you both before we have to reinstate Room of Requirement meetings.”
~~~
Hermione wasn’t happy to be back on the train. If she’d told herself at 11 that one day, she would be disappointed to be going back to Hogwarts, she would have thought something had gone irrevocably bad in her life. But it was the truth - Hermione wished she could stay in the Manor, spend the days in the Library or gardens with the boys. She wanted to live in the world she’d made for herself, wrapped in the natural flow of Magic, the unthinking spellwork, her fiences’ arms, the Manor’s scent.
But she was instead, going back to the castle where she’d once learned how to be a Witch. Where it had, at one point, been a place of comfort and knowledge, it had quickly become a place where Hermione had to hide who she truly was, where she couldn’t learn about the real Magic, the kind of Magic Toma and the boys taught her.
Ginny was quiet beside Hermione, but it wasn’t because she was sad to be returning to the castle. Ginny was quiet because she had been staring at Hermione for the last half-hour.
“Whose sweater is that?” she said finally, and Hermione jolted. She looked down at her outfit.
It was one of Theodore’s sweaters, that probably came out of Draco’s closet, and at one point, had been Toma’s go-to cover-up for the chilly evenings. After a bad cycle in the wash, it had come to Hermione and she’d thrown it on in an attempt at comfort during the long train ride.
“Mine,” Hermione said earnestly.
“It’s a men’s sweater.”
Hermione cursed Ginny in her mind, her stupid, pushy, oblivious friend. “It’s my cousin’s. He shrunk it in the wash, and I took it off his hands.”
Ginny eyes her, disbelieving, but let it go. To her right, Ron couldn’t quite move on. “Cousin? Is that where you’ve been all summer?”
Hermione eyes him. She’d told the other Purebloods at her engagement party that her parents were dead, and the twins believed her. It was really only a matter of time before the rest of the school found out, starting with Ron, Harry, and Ginny. “Actually, yes,” she said. She took a deep breath. “I’ve been staying with family.”
“Are your parents still not back from Australia?” Ron asked. There was something in his tone Hermione couldn’t place, but it was better if they believed her parents were dead. She needed the cover of something more permanent than an ill aunt.
“They’re dead,” she said. The compartment was cold and disgustingly quiet, but Hermione pressed on. “Last summer. They were in an accident while caring for my aunt, and I’ve been staying with other family during my vacations from school.”
“Hermione,” Ginny whispered, her voice choked. It was the kind of voice Hermione herself had used, when she was first mourning her parents and their memories. There was a hand on Hermione’s knee, but she shook it off.
“I’m okay,” Hermione said. “It happened a while ago and I have had time to come to terms with it. I’m okay.”
“You never said anything,” Ron said, and it was angry. Not comforting, not gentle, just mean. Like he was angry that Hermione hadn’t told him first about the worst possible thing to happen to her.
“Pardon me for keeping personal trauma to myself,” Hermione parried. “But I didn’t want to be stuck in some Ministry Government house.”
“What?” Ron recoiled at Hermione’s sudden cold behavior.
“That’s what the Ministry does to Mudbloods who lose their parents!” Hermione exploded. “They put them in Ministry homes so they won’t have to further break the Statute of Secrecy. Forgive me for keeping a little secret so I could seek out the comfort I wanted in that time, the comfort I thought would help me process as best as I could. Forgive me for not wanting to be locked in the Burrow with your family while mine was mourning!”
The words were bursting out of her, thoughtless and-
Hermione gasped in a sharp breath. Her hair sparked, her eyes were wild, and just as she started in again-
Harry threw open the compartment door with a bang. “Malfoy is a Death Eater.”
It was like the whole world ground to a stop. Hermione felt her blood turn to ice - this was the precursor to them finding everything out. Harry knew about Draco, about her and Theo, about Toma and the violence and the Dark Magic and the plans to change this world when it was most vulnerable and-
“What?” Ron asked, attention stolen away from Hermione’s parents. Emotions and friends be damned - Death Eaters were the real story. “How do you know?”
“I saw him in his compartment,” Harry said, sitting on the bench next to Hermione and leaning in. “Dressed all in a black suit like he was going to a funeral or something. He wasn’t talking to anyone. We all know the Death Eaters are ramping up attacks, it only makes sense they are recruiting.”
So he hadn’t really seen anything. “That doesn’t mean he’s a Death Eater,” Hermione said. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”
Harry shook his head. “He is,” he stressed. “I know it. And I’m going to get proof.”