Chapter 2
Hermione’s breathing eventually slowed. She didn’t know how much time has passed when her mind cleared and her eyes blinked clumsily. Her body ached. Her throat hurt. Her eyes stung. She slowly tested out moving one part of her body at time, taking stock of where hurt. First her neck, then her shoulders, then her elbows, wrists and fingers. Then her spine. Then her hips. Her knees, her ankles and her toes. Each muscle and joint was slowly moved and stretched until she felt ready to push herself up into a half-sitting-half-lying position. Her body protested, sore but otherwise unhurt, and Hermione could tell she had been laying in the same position for quite a while.
Her wand sat on the table next to her, and Hermione carefully picked it up, feeling her magic hum happily to be reunited with her wand. She conjured a glass of cold water and sipped it slowly, allowing it swish around her mouth and slide down her throat as she took stock of where she was.
She was still in the headmistress’ office, settled on the couch directly opposite the fireplace. The embers crackled in the hearth, still emanating warmth. Hermione still shivered slightly, so she conjured herself a warm blanket. She could just as easily cast a warming spell, but there was something about the feel of a soft blanket draped over her shoulders that helped to calm her heart,
“Hermione!” She heard a surprised voice from behind her, and Hermione jolted slightly as she turned to face the source of the voice. It was Professor McGonagall, face drawn into a concerned frown as she observed her ex-student carefully, “I’m glad you’re awake and alert. We shan’t dwell on things, and I can only hope you will contact your Healer for crisis support.” Hermione knew she would do no such thing. She had to convince him that healing is linear. She could not go backwards, “However, unfortunately, our meeting is not yet over.” Hermione’s heart rate immediately spiked, but McGonagall placed a kind hand on Hermione’s shoulder, “I will not force you to read anything more. It was unkind of me to spring that on you, but I had to ensure you understood the severity of the situation. I shall simply tell you what will happen now in a factual and, I shall remind you, non-negotiable way.”
Hermione knew she would not like it. Hermione knew she would struggle with whatever it was she was about to be told. But Hermione was also sure that it would be reasonable and just, and that it would be necessary. McGonagall was not one to overreact, nor was she one to overstep. She simply did what was necessary, and Hermione knew that. Minerva only hoped she would remember it,
“You will be assigned an Unspeakable, and he will stay with you until such a time as your research is complete or the Ministry has put a stop to the unsavouries that wish to harm you and your progress. He will move into your quarters, he will go to your classes, he will travel with you anywhere you go and he will keep you safe. You are a brilliant witch, and a formidable opponent, but you will accept that an extra wand is necessary here. You do not have to like it. You do not have to strike up a friendship, or even a conversation if you so wish, but this is the only way you will be permitted to continue your research and your off-site trips.” McGonagall fixed Hermione with her most firm stare as she watched the young witch process the information.
An Unspeakable? She wondered why she could not be assigned a rotation of Aurors. Easier, in theory. Hermione, even with her Golden Trio pull, knew very little about their work. She visited the Department of Mysteries many years ago and knew of the horrors kept locked away inside. She knew they worked on the most important of Ministry cases, and knew they were some of the most highly trained witches and wizards out there. It was a coveted job to those suited to it, with very few people ever selected to take up a post. Hermione could not name one Unspeakable, and that unnerved her. They were sending someone to live with her. To be by her side until… when? Until she finished her research? That could be a matter of months, but it could be years. Decades. Her problem had never been solved, and she realised she may not finish it in her lifetime. She could be condemning an Unspeakable to a lifetime tied with her, and that was… well, it was unspeakable. She didn’t like it one bit.
Not only that, Hermione couldn’t help but feel a little… put out by it all. Was she not a capable witch? How many times had she been labelled the brightest witch of her age? Her advanced charms class was based almost entirely around spells she had invented. From nothing! Hermione was not one to be arrogant, but she knew she was a superb duellist and could take most threats head on without too much issue. She wouldn’t fool herself into thinking she was the best, but certainly good enough not to need a guard dog.
“I know. You disagree. You feel you don’t need one. That it’s unfair and unjust to assign someone to a case like this. One that may never end.” Hermione wondered for a moment if McGonagall was secretly a master Legilimens, “But rest assured that the Unspeakable is not under the impression that this will be quick or easy. They have no family, no friends to speak of. They are committed to your cause as much as you are. They were given the chance to refuse, but they did not. They know what they have signed up for.” McGonagall smiled slightly as Hermione’s thoughts continued to whirl and process. Brightest witch, indeed. The poor girl never stopped thinking, “They will be arriving in 10 minutes. They were meant to come last night, but I felt that would be doing you a disservice. When I saw you were awake I sent a signal, a 15-minute notice for them to arrive. The floo gate in front of you will open for 10 seconds to allow them to step through before it closes again. I shall leave you to process." McGonagall rose and turned to her desk, "Do try to keep an open mind, Hermione,” She all but pleaded, knowing what kind of reaction was to come.
Hermione didn’t say a single word. She couldn’t.
The 10 minutes that separated Hermione’s freedom from her permanent ball-and-chain both crawled and flew by. She spent the first half of her time journaling, scribbling furiously across the pages about her… outburst… and her initial thoughts about her newest predicament. Her words came out rather unfavourable, rather angry, but for nobody’s eyes other than hers. She was going to be stuck with some secretive, silent, broody Unspeakable with no friends and therefore no personality. Not exactly the gift of a lifetime.
Hermione spent her remaining 5 minutes racing down to her living quarters, quickly freshening herself up before pacing it back to McGonagall’s office. She had no idea what time it was, but the corridors were empty and she didn’t come across another living soul on her way. A few dead ones, as usual, but she didn’t stop to exchange pleasantries with any of the ghosts she ran through.
Wednesdays were not usually teaching days for Hermione. She would have planning and marking time in the morning, followed by small group tutorials for her more advanced students. And two Wednesdays out the month she dropped by the Dumbledore’s Army meetings – but Hermione could not for the life of her remember if this Wednesday was that kind of Wednesday. This, she thought to herself as she threw a soft but plain jumper over her head, was exactly why she needed to stick to her schedule. How on earth was she meant to keep track of what she was doing otherwise?
Hermione was suddenly struck with panic as she realised, truly, that it was Wednesday. Wednesday. Not Tuesday. Her meeting with McGonagall was meant to last for half an hour, not into the next day! Did students turn up to see her during her office hours, only for her not to be there? Who taught her Advanced Charms Class? She was starving, as well! Missed dinner. Didn’t go for her jog. Didn’t do her yoga. Hermione’s heart reacted to her panic as she scrambled for her schedule, tears welling in her eyes as the panic set in again. She was late. Late for everything and she was failing as a professor and as a person and-
“He’s here. Please return to my office promptly.” McGonagall’s patronus disappeared as quickly as it appeared, breaking Hermione out of yet another spiral. She dried her eyes and finished dressing. She felt very Muggle in her trainers, jeans and jumper but ultimately, it was comfortable. Hermione had the slightest suspicion that today would not be a comfortable day. With a final effort to wrangle her hair into some sort of order (an effort that failed spectacularly), Hermione sighed and locked her door behind her with a series of charms.
Putting one foot in front of the other seemed much harder now she knew what was going to happen. Once she reached McGonagall’s office, she would no longer be a free woman. Chained to an Unspeakable! It may well be unavoidable, but Hermione wished to be upset and petty about it, if only for a week or two.
Besides, it could have been worse. After the war ended, Harry was assigned a bodyguard for 6 months. Wasn’t allowed to go the toilet without him! He was deemed a danger to himself for that harrowing period of time following his final duel with Tom Riddle. He saw danger around every corner and after cursing a Muggle mailman in his paranoia, Minister Shacklebolt felt it necessary that Harry have someone to be with him for a while. Just until St. Mungo’s signed him off as healthy. Harry was all but dragged around by Charlie Weasley for months. To appointments with his Healers, to social visits, to funerals even. Funerals for his friends that he didn’t wish to attend because he was so eaten away by guilt over their deaths. Over killing them. Hermione could remember even now how bloody horrible it was for Harry to have Charlie watch his break downs, his weak moments, take his wand from him when he would wake up from his nightmares only half-way, certain that Death was stood over his bed ready to kill him unless Harry could duel him away.
Some felt that Harry would respond better to someone he knew, but Hermione knew better than anyone that it was worse. Charlie was good to Harry, but their relationship never recovered after that. Not after, in a fit of paranoia and trauma, Harry amputated one of Charlie’s legs and four of his fingers. In fact, Harry’s relationship with the Weasleys as a whole never recovered. They knew he didn’t mean to. But they had lost so much in the war, and any more loss was taken far harder than they knew was fair. That day, that accursed day, Harry lost his family.
At least with an Unspeakable, there was no relationship to ruin, Hermione supposed as she ascended the hidden staircase and entered McGonagall’s office.
She could hear two voices talking quietly behind a door behind the large desk McGonagall used. Hermione had never personally been in that private room, but she remembered Harry describing it when Dumbledore had used it during his Pensieve lessons. It wasn’t particularly cosy then, but who knows how things have changed. In the nearly 7 years since Albus Dumbledore passed, many things had. His brother Aberforth, first and foremost, had become an active member of the Hogsmeade community – never truly forgiving his brother, but able to live with the choices he had made at the very least. Hermione still liked to visit him now, and while he would huff and puff and act like he hated it, she knew he didn’t.
“Oh!” McGonagall gasped, stepping out of the private room, surprised to see Hermione seated on the sofa where she had slept last night, “Thank you for coming so quickly. The… the Unspeakable has arrived and is ready to meet you,” McGonagall eyed Hermione with a strange look, “Are you ready? To meet him? Are you feeling okay?” Hermione scoffed at that and resisted the urge to roll her eyes,
"I don’t think I could ever really be ready for getting chained to a mysterious, friendless, bland husk of a man who has spent years stagnating in the Department of Mysteries.” She huffed and gazed up at the ceiling with an air of defiance, “I mean, it’s not like I wasn’t there at the Battle of Hogwarts! How does the Ministry so easily forget what I did? I am a damn good witch, and I just don’t see why getting me a babysitter is going to make me any safer than I can make myself. I invent spells! I break boundaries! I killed Fenrir Greyback!” Hermione’s voice rose with every statement; the anger that she hadn’t had time to process between the spiralling and the hurrying coursed through her. She stood up for the sake of expending some of her restless energy. Hermione stepped over to the fireplace and stoked the embers with her wand, “Did you know that, Professor?” McGonagall did not interrupt to correct her to use her given name. Hermione felt tears in her eyes; her voice dropped to a whisper as she remembered the girl she thought of as a rival but really was just a teenager, the same as her, “I killed Greyback. It wasn’t even hard. I saw what he did to Lavender and I killed him. Nobody else ever managed that. They tried. But I did it. It took me maybe half a minute.” Hermione turned from the fire and gripped the mantlepiece to steady herself and her voice, “But now, they decide I need a babysitter? What could an Unspeakable possibly do for me that I cannot do for myself?”
“I don’t believe it’s what you cannot do, Granger, but more about what you should not have to do.” A drawling voice came from the doorway of the room Hermione has never been in. A voice that stiffened her spine and ran her blood cold. She whirled around in one swift movement, wand clutched in her hand still,
“Malfoy?” She uttered, truly bewildered as she set eyes on the boy- man that she hadn’t seen since the media circus of a trial they all endured,
“Indeed.” He offered no elaboration.
“You? You’ve been assigned to… what, protect me?” Hermione’s eyes narrowed as she swept her eyes over the Malfoy scion,
“Yes.” He, again, did not elaborate.
Hermione looked around wide-eyed, clutching for straws as she sought McGonagall’s help. Surely this isn’t right! However, the headmistress appeared to have vanished. Great. Perfect timing. Hermione suspected the open doors leading out to the balcony meant that McGonagall had shifted into a cat and leapt away while she had the chance. Typical!
“No.” Hermione says simply, attempting to match Malfoy’s slightly bored energy and clipped tone. He smirked unkindly and pushed off from the doorframe to meet Hermione in front of the fire. He ran a hand through his blond hair (he had clearly cut back on his gel consumption, Hermione noted, since it not only tousled easily but did not spontaneously combust near an open flame),
“It’s not up for debate, Granger. You need an Unspeakable, I am an Unspeakable.” Hermione snorted involuntarily and Malfoy’s eyes snapped to hers, humour gone and replaced by a hard glint in his grey eyes, “How charming. Regardless, it’s done. I’m here until your research is done or the terrorists sending threats are dead.” Hermione shook her head and turned away, facing out into the office,
“I don’t care. I don’t want you. I want someone different. This is a conflict of interest. We know each other.”
“Yes. Probably. But,” Malfoy’s tone remained clipped, “Here I am. The… what was it? Mysterious, friendless, boring husk of a man assigned to you?”
“Bland.” Hermione corrected him immediately, “Mysterious, friendless, bland husk of a man,” Malfoy chuckled dryly at that, but Hermione refused to look round at him. She felt some vague discomfort at how close he stood, with all the extra height he had on her.
The last time Hermione saw Malfoy he was a different person. He truly was a husk. It had been 4 years and then some since she watched Malfoy in the courtrooms. He had just watched his father’s wand be snapped as he was carted off to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban, and he had watched his mother be placed on strict probation terms that restricted her movements and use of magic for the rest of her life. Narcissa had almost died with shame and regret. She was hospitalised not long after. Hermione did not know if she survived. Harry had spoken on her behalf, and that saved her from prison, but punishment was unavoidable. The public wanted blood. They saw her as a woman who had housed the Dark Lord, waited on him and kept him comfortable. The Lady of the Manor in which atrocities had been committed. Even the word of Harry Potter could not save her.
After all of that, Draco had waited for his sentence. Hermione and Harry both spoken for his defence. Hermione cited the delay he was responsible for at Malfoy Manor that saved their lives. Harry spoke about how he was a boy, the same as him, who was dragged along on the Tom Riddle ride against his will. Neither lied, neither tried to pretend he had some secret affiliation for the Order or falsely claimed that he didn’t truly align with his father’s bigoted beliefs. Neither was true. But he was a boy. A child thrust into a war he did not choose for himself. As with his mother, it wasn’t enough. Hermione had never seen Draco Malfoy cry until that moment. She had seen him angry, humiliated, furious, embarrassed, but never scared. Never truly, truly scared. Even the ferret incident left him fuming but not terrified in the way he was, sat in the courtroom, chained to a chair.
He was sentenced to pay reparations totalling around 85% of the Malfoy estate, 18 months in Azkaban prison, followed by 18 months of probation similar to his mother. After that, for the rest of his life, he would submit his wand for checks monthly to ensure he was not using Dark Magic. If he was, it would be snapped, and he would never leave Azkaban.
Hermione would never be able to forget the way that boy – barely 19 years of age – sobbed as he apologised. Not begging to be freed, not begging to be spared, just begging to be heard. He had been so pale he was almost translucent, face gaunt and cheeks sunken. Prisoner’s robes too big for him, hanging off his frame. Skinny and broken and so, so afraid.
The man stood next her gazing into the fire was nothing like the boy she saw then. This man was tall, much taller than Hermione, and broad in an almost unnatural way. He was not exactly rosy-cheeked, but he had grown into his pallor. Hermione could recognise a handsome man when she saw one, and the tailored black robes didn’t do much to change her mind. Not that he was attractive, Hermione reminded herself. It was Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy who had for some reason been assigned to her side, never to leave her alone for even-
“Oh, Merlin.” Hermione groaned, pushing away from the fire shoving her hair out of her face. What was it McGonagall had said yesterday? That the Unspeakable would move into her quarters? “Oh, no. Absolutely not. Nope, I’m not having it!” Hermione muttered to herself as she began to pace, “It just won’t happen. I can’t have that. No, it won’t work. It simply won’t. It can’t!”
“Do you need me for this bit? Or are you happy to pace and mutter on your own for a while?” Malfoy interrupted her thoughts, raising an eyebrow as Hermione stopped and turned to face him again,
“Where do you intend to sleep?” She demanded, voice ever so slightly too shrill. Malfoy didn’t flinch, to his credit, or blink either,
“In your quarters. I imagine it’s where Professor McGonagall has gone. As I understand it, she will be enlarging them to add a second bedroom and some other facilities to make this easier on us.” Hermione sighed, closing her eyes very tightly as she sat rather ungracefully on the couch. She counted to 10 as she breathed slowly, feeling herself getting overwhelmed but begging herself not to react. Not in front of him. When she finally opened her eyes, Malfoy was watching her intently. He did not speak. Simply watched,
“Stop staring,” Hermione snapped, rather rudely, “This is bad enough without you gawking,” Malfoy huffed quietly and averts his eyes. He muttered something, but Hermione didn’t catch much more than ‘bloody rude’ and ‘whatever I please’, “Shut up.” She followed up with just for good measure.
“Well, isn’t this going to be fun. Right!” Malfoy announced, smacking the mantlepiece in determination, not allowing Hermione to get a word in before powering on, “What’s on the agenda, Granger? I was promised ground-breaking research alongside the Golden Witch or whatever. Lead the way!” Malfoy gestured to the door, chuckling inwardly at the sight of Hermione sat, scowling, arms crossed on the sofa. No sign of movement. No sign of life apart from her heavy, angry breaths. He almost cracked a smile when she suddenly darted up, huffing as she flounced out of the room, muttering the whole way as she headed towards her classroom,
“Bloody Draco bloody Malfoy! Fat lot of good he’ll do. Just get in the way. Annoy me. Gods, what will Harry say! Oh-ho, just wait and see, I’m not having this-” And on and on she went, all the way down the corridor. If Malfoy could hear her rather threatening mumbling, he gave no indication.