Chapter 5
Thursday
7am – Alarm and journaling time
7.30am – Breakfast
8am – Morning yoga
8.30am – Set up classroom for practical lessons
9am – Teach 7th year
9.30am – Teach 7th year
10am – Teach 7th year
10.30am – Teach 7th year
11am – Teach 6th year
11.30am – Teach 6th year
12pm – Lunch
12.30pm – Planning and marking time
1pm – Planning and marking time
1.30pm – Planning and marking time
2pm – Planning and marking time
2.30pm – Advanced Charms class
3pm – Advanced Charms class
3.30pm – Advanced Charms class
4pm – Mark homework
4.30pm – Mark homework
5pm – Research time (library)
5.30pm – Research time (practical)
6pm – Research time (practical)
6.30pm – Research time (write up)
7pm – Research time (reflection)
7.30pm – Dinner
8pm – Read for pleasure
8.30pm – Evening yoga
9pm – Jogging
9.30pm – Shower
10pm – Bed
Thursday passed with little event for Hermione. Malfoy did not argue that he had to remain outside of the room during class, much to Hermione’s relief. She did not get much sleep and therefore had to get through the day with little energy. A few times, Malfoy peeked into the room out of pure boredom. Hermione was tempted to renege on their deal and throw up wards out of spite, but the day passed by and she did no such thing. When the clock struck 5pm, Hermione greeted the librarian kindly and headed towards her usual space to start her research.
Malfoy chose the seat diagonal from her. Hermione did not say anything. Malfoy tapped his fingers on the desk. Hermione did not say anything. Malfoy looked around the library and huffed out a breath not inconspicuously. Hermione did not say anything. Malfoy got up and started pulling books out of the shelves and peering at them. Hermione did not say anything. Malfoy sat back down and sighed. Hermione did not say anything. Malfoy stood up again and-
“Can you stop moving around so much? It’s bloody irritating and I am trying to think over here!” Hermione hissed. Malfoy shrugged in a most decidedly un-Malfoy-like manner,
“I’m bored. I can’t just sit and watch you read for hours. My brain will melt.”
“Well, you signed up for this. This is your life now!” It was Malfoy’s turn to not say anything. “Why did you sign up for this, anyway? You must have known what it was, where you’d be?” Hermione probed. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on her book, editing her notes on the journal alongside it.
“It’s complicated.” Malfoy responded after a few moments pause, clearly having deliberated on his answer. A few minutes passed before his boredom again got the better of him and persuaded him to speak, “Why are you researching memory alteration? It’s been written off as a dead end so many times.” Hermione tried not to flinch at the reminder that she was likely going to get nowhere and simply waste her life trying the impossible. She did not succeed in stifling her initial reaction.
“It’s complicated.” Malfoy turned this answer over in his head for a few minutes before deciding it would suffice.
Neither spoke again in the library.
It was not long before Hermione was ready to begin the practical section of her research, trialling some new charms and methods of modifying and restoring memory. She usually preferred to work in the Room of Requirement, given its privacy and space. The pair walked silently in its direction and when the large iron door materialised in front of them, Hermione turned to Malfoy with a blank expression.
“I’d like you to wait outside and allow me to work privately. My research is delicate, as I am sure you know, and I would prefer to be alone when experimenting in this manner.” Hermione did not expect Malfoy to listen to her, but her stomach still turned when he shook his head with a tight-lipped grimace.
“I will accept banishment when working in a well-lit classroom with one entrance and exit with nobody but Hogwarts students, but experimenting with dangerous magic in a room with an endless amount of ways in? Absolutely not!”
“It’s the Room of Requirement! I’ll be safe.” The look Malfoy shot Hermione in response was filled with horrified knowing and pain.
“I know that room better than most. I know how the wards work. I once took advantage of them in the worst way. You might as well be stood in an open field, so like hell am I going take my eyes off of you! It is my job to keep you alive so you can finish your Merlin-forsaken research, so by fuck you will listen to me when I say it is not safe!” Malfoy’s voice had risen steadily over his outburst, until his face became flushed and he was shouting at the young professor with venom on his tongue.
Hermione closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath. She counted to 40 in 2s, then backwards to 0 in 4s. When she reopened her eyes, she found Malfoy’s emotionless mask was back in place. It was unnerving to see him so worked up, but it was almost worse to see how quickly he had pulled himself back under control. Perhaps he knew Occlumency, Hermione wondered to herself as she turned away from him without speaking. She had spent a lot of time looking into Occlumency and Legilimency throughout her research but had never been an expert in the practice herself.
Hermione closed the door after they had both filed in, trying not to look at Malfoy as he set about casting a few minor wards. At least he knew that anything too heavy could interfere with the charms she was to practice.
“You will never speak to me like that again. Not in public. Not in private. You will not intimidate me into obeying you. I am a reasonable woman. You will reason with me.”
“If you are about to die with a wand to your throat, I will not stop to consider my tone.” He responded, voice purposefully even and monotone.
“If I am about to die, by all means speak to me however you please. Any other time, you will speak to me as your equal. Despite what you may believe about my blood, I am.”
Malfoy did not respond to that.
Hermione tried to run off her frustration that evening. Her frustration with Malfoy. With her life, with her research, with everything. Her mind ran back through what she had tried in the Room of Requirement earlier that day, and her heart felt as heavy as lead. She had written detailed notes on what hadn’t worked and why she suspected it hadn’t. She had reflected on her next steps and what she could modify. She had a direction, but she felt in her bones that it would not become fruitful. But the meticulousness of her research dictated she try anyway.
5 years now Hermione had been researching the reversal of memory loss. 5 years. For nearly 3 of those, she had been at Hogwarts. She had started her practical trials almost immediately upon her appointment as Advanced Charms Professor. It hadn’t helped. She felt no closer to a result than she had been at the very beginning. The only thing she had achieved was that she now knew some 500 things that did not work to reverse memory loss.
Hermione sped up, footsteps sounding louder as her speed increased. She had exhausted almost every idea she had. She had a few routes to take, but she suspected they would end the same way as all of the others. They would be filed alongside the ‘FAILURES’.
Sometimes, Hermione felt that was where she would be filed in the textbook of history.
Maybe if she was good enough, she would work it out. Good enough, clever enough, smart enough, magic enough – all of the things she had always feared she wasn’t.
Hermione was pushing herself far past a sprint now, her anguish radiating out as her magic propelled her past when exhaustion should have kicked in.
Faster and faster she pushed herself, tears beginning to spill out of her eyes as she tried to run off her fear. Tried to leave it all behind her. But she couldn’t even do that. She couldn’t leave it behind her. Her fear, her anguish, her trauma, all followed along right there with her, keeping pace without trouble. And so did Draco Malfoy.
Hermione reached the Black Lake and stopped abruptly, knees buckling as she rested her hands on them, panting and heaving as the familiar tendrils of panic crept over her.
Malfoy stopped just behind her but said nothing. Some 10 minutes ago, he had realised something was very wrong when Hermione reached speeds he did not think she could sustain, yet she did. He suspected she had been pushed on by magic and despair rather than fitness, and the rattling sounds that came from her chest did nothing to dissuade that theory. However, he did not feel it was his place to intervene.
Hermione found herself unable to stay upright as she all but collapsed under her own weight, bottom colliding with the thin strip of damp sand and rock between the grass and the lake. The tears came thick and fast then, one palm pressed to her chest as the other made fists in the sand. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t halt it. All she could do was hold on and ride it out and try her best to keep her panic at a more manageable level. She could not tolerate another slip into chest-clutching, body-wracking, eyes-darkening havoc.
She did not know how long had passed when her breathing slowed. Hermione mentally catalogued the different joints in her body, making a conscious effort to loosen each of them and slowly stretch them. Her lungs still felt like acid, and her legs felt like jelly. At some point, Hermione realised, Malfoy had sat next to her. Not close. But there. He did not look at her. She did not look at him. They both stared out over the lake, basking in the calm, quiet surface. Not so much as a ripple disturbed it.
Despite its calm surface, Hermione knew what lurked underneath. The giant squid. The merpeople. The grindylows. The horrors of the Triwizard tournament. Yet from here, you would never know. It was tranquil. It was perfect. Nobody would know any different unless they really tried to get to know the lake.
It was well past 9.30pm, her allotted shower time, when Hermione finally stood up. A quiet grunt slipped past her lips as she trudged past Malfoy and back towards the castle. Her legs ached and her body shivered but she didn’t have enough will or magic left in her for so much as a warming charm. She couldn’t bring herself to care. She just felt too drained.
Not so much as a word was breathed between the pair as they parted ways and showered. Hermione fell into her bed after a brief shower and slipped into sleep shortly after banishing a copy of her timetable to Malfoy. Her night was restless, filled with accusations of murder and the eyes of her parents, blank and unknowing.
Weeks turned into months, and they passed by with little event. Malfoy remained a quiet presence in her day. He promised not to fade into the shadows, and he made good on that promise. Hermione could tell he made an effort not to disturb her too much, and she appreciated it. But he was so clearly there that she could never quite forget it. He sat next to her at breakfast. He stood guard outside her classroom. He sat diagonally from her at the library. He hovered in the corner of the Room of Requirement. He jogged alongside her. He sat opposite her in her office. He spoke with her colleagues. He chatted with Luna. He conversed with the few students brave enough to offer conversation with him. He was always there. Always.
The only respite she ever truly got from him was during her appointments with her healer. They only happened once a month now, as she had successfully convinced him that she was doing much better. Healing was, after all, linear. She only ever got better.
“And the panic attacks? Almost entirely gone now?” He asked with a gentle smile. Hermione nodded, pushing the memory of two nights ago out of her mind. She had come across a picture of her parents tucked into her old copy of Pride and Prejudice, something she had used as a bookmark in years long since passed, which she had plucked unthinkingly from her bookshelf one night. It had been a bad night.
“I really do feel I am doing much better now.” Hermione’s smile was fake, but the healer didn’t know.
“And your research? Have you made much progress?” He probed gently, cocking his head to one side slightly. Hermione smiled bitterly.
“I am not able to discuss my research.” Not that there was anything to discuss. Even if she was allowed to talk about it, even in Malfoy hadn’t explicitly forbidden any details be discussed with anyone apart from McGonagall, her professional contacts (on a need-to-know basis) and Harry, it wouldn’t matter. She hadn’t made any kind of progress as of late. Her thinly veiled frustration was perhaps veiled too thinly as her healer’s eyes narrowed and he scribbled something onto his pad.
“That bothers you.” He didn’t frame it as a question, which irritated Hermione. She hated being told how she felt. “I would suggest discussing your frustrations with someone that is cleared to know about it. It may help your mental state.”
“My mental state is fine.” Hermione ground out, huffing a deep breath as her tone sharpened. The healer looked up from his pad and met her eyes squarely. His expression shifted from blank to something… other. He made to respond, but Hermione stood suddenly. “That’s our time, I believe.” It wasn’t. “I’ll be going now. Goodbye.” Without another word, Hermione swept from the room and brushed past Malfoy, who waited patiently in the waiting area. He was on his feet in an instant, and clearly thought better of speaking to her at that moment.
They apparated back to the train station by Hogwarts, the platform devoid of students. The student body had left last week, off home for the summer. Much of the faculty did as well, visiting with family. Harry had left that morning, intending to stay with the Weasleys for a while. Hermione had been invited, but wasn’t sure yet if she would go. Malfoy would only have to follow.
Hermione marched steadily towards the castle, seething still from her appointment, heading in the direction of her office.
“My mental state… nosy fuck… what does he even… I don’t need… progress is…” Hermione muttered the whole way up to the office, opening the door with a slash of her wand and allowing it to bang shut behind her and Malfoy. She flung herself into her chair and summoned a stack of textbooks she had read a thousand times: Obliviation: Permanent and All-Encompassing; Memory Loss and Early Reversal; Dementia in the Wizarding Community; Recovering Childhood Memories; Trauma and Memory. The titles glared back at her, almost mocking in their lack of usefulness.
Hermione summoned her notes from the most recent trial with a flick of her wand. Her most recent failure. She glared at them so hard that the pages may as well have started smoking.
“Do you know what pisses me off the most?” Hermione demanded, leaning back in her chair and glaring at Malfoy. He started slightly – Hermione so rarely started conversation with him – but realised quickly that she wasn’t really glaring at him. More… through him. He did not answer, sensing she did not want his input. “It’s the lack of literature! How has nobody ever done this before? How has nobody ever wanted to? I search and I search and there is jack shit to go off! I am just sat here combining half-baked theories and trying to produce a charm based on a wish! I have been at this for half a decade and I feel no closer than I was at the beginning. I have tracked down lost books, I have contacted healers, muggle and wizard alike, I have sacrificed hours upon hours to practical and theoretical research. But it is all for nought. I have fuck all to show for 5 years of my life!” Hermione’s chest heaved as the tears came.
“It’s not all for nought.” Malfoy’s voice sounded almost confused. Hermione’s eyes flashed to his, mirroring his confusion in her own eyes. She really had forgotten he was there for a moment. Embarrassment flooded her body as her cheeks reddened at the outburst. She opened her mouth to retract her rant when Malfoy pushed on. “I’m not here because your research may one day become dangerous. I am here because your research is dangerous. Right now. Right now, there are people working to murder you to stop you finishing it. Have-” He paused, grey eyes flicking around. His wand moved quickly as he threw up more wards, silencing and alarm charms to boot. “Have you no idea?”
Hermione shook her head, confused and embarrassed all at once.
“Granger, when you reported your ideas to the Department of Mysteries last year, seeking approval to experiment with our archive of confiscated memories, it came across my desk. I saw it. I read it. I approved it. I was astounded. I couldn’t believe you were researching it, let alone experimenting with it. So when threats started coming in, I knew I wanted to protect this research. Because it’s important. Because you’re close. I will admit, charm experimentation isn’t my area of expertise, but I’m no layman. I am here because I believe you are going to solve this problem. Your life is in danger because others believe that you are going to solve this problem.”
He took a breath as he powered on, one hand gently tousling his platinum blond hair.
“A week or so before I arrived here, a former Death Eater breached the wards of Hogwarts. He was in the castle when Aurors arrived to intercept. He was two corridors away from your room.” A hand flew to Hermione’s mouth, stifling a gasp. She hadn’t known it was so close. “He was armed with his wand and a Goblin-wrought dagger. I will spare you the details of what he told Aurors he wanted to do, but I am sure you know.”
“But how does that change anything? I still can’t- I can’t do it. I can’t reverse years of memory loss. I can’t reverse obliviation. I can’t-” Can’t bring them back, she was going to say. But she stopped herself just short of that revelation.
Malfoy fixed her with a practiced aristocratic look of condescension and disbelief.
“You are Hermione Granger. The Gryffindor Princess. The fucking Golden Girl, whatever they call you.” He rolled his eyes with something that was no longer contempt. “You wouldn’t be under threat if that were the case. You just- you’re just missing something. Hit me. Tell me what isn’t working.”
For a moment, Hermione just stared at Malfoy. Her worldview almost shattered entirely as her eyes flickered across the face of her childhood enemy. Her childhood bully. He had not only expressed belief in her abilities, he wanted to help. Genuinely. Silence lapsed as she struggled to find the words. Grey eyes met brown, and it all fell away. It wasn’t pureblood versus muggle-born. It wasn’t Gryffindor versus Slytherin. It wasn’t aristocracy versus the working class. It wasn’t bully versus victim. It was a person, offering help to another person. It was different.
Something changed that night. Hermione spent hours talking through the approaches she tried. Her strict timetable lay forgotten on the floor as time ticked by and they engaged in a deep discussion, debating what went wrong and what else could work.
At first, Hermione had simply tried to increase the power of memory retrieval charms. That hadn’t worked, and had instead destroyed related memory chains. She had tried to imbue memories identical to the lost ones, but they would not take hold. She had attempted to neutralise the magical signature of the original obliviation, but that had caused rapid memory deterioration of previously unaffected memories. She had tried to splice retained memories and adapt them with the lost information, but it only created a jumble of un-sequenced memories that would surely lead to insanity in a real person.
Malfoy listened patiently to each approach, suggesting modifications for each. Could she try to isolate the affected memories that would deteriorate with the neutralisation? Could she manually sort the jumbled memories? Hermione heard each suggestion and then produced notes showing how she had tried to do so and why that approach had also failed. But no matter how often Malfoy’s ideas were rebutted, a spark remained in his eye. The spark of curiosity. Of willpower.
The sun was creeping above the horizon, signalling morning when Malfoy leaned back in his chair, hair positively unruly from his hands running through it so many times.
“What about Potions? Have you thought about how a memory potion could be adapted to retrieve lost memories?”
Hermione shook her head grimly.
“No. I won’t pretend to have a Potions Mastery, but I experimented with several memory potions – most commonly, Memoria Oblitus. Potions enhance what’s there. Where the memory is inaccessible, potions cannot help. To them, the memory isn’t there.” She shrugged vaguely and mirrored Malfoy’s actions in leaning back, fingers threading through her hair to push the curls out of her face. His brow furrowed slightly as he met her eyes again.
“Are the memories there, then?” Hermione made a non-committal sound as she flicked her wand for the thousandth time that night – morning? – for a particular research file.
“It’s hard to say. I contacted St. Mungo’s and arranged to take a variety of memory loss patients to a muggle hospital. I conducted an fMRI – it’s a type of scan of the brain, showing which parts are working at different times. I wanted to see how their brain activity would change when reacting to memories they still had, memories they never had and memories they used to have.” Hermione handed the scans over to Malfoy, who looked at them briefly before handing them back with a slight shrug. Pink kissed his cheekbones in mild embarrassment.
“I don’t know what any of this means.” Hermione laughed in response, not even stopping to realise how unusual the sound was for her nowadays, let alone around Malfoy.
“I didn’t either. I’m not a doctor. But diagnostic charms don’t really give you the raw data in the same way. They just give you the summary.” She didn’t feel the need to explain what a doctor was – Malfoy seemed to have a basic understanding of muggle jobs, even if his knowledge of technology was severely lacking. “I had them analysed by a muggle specialist. They said that, in essence, all 3 responses were distinctly different.”
“What does that mean then?”
“Well, it means that the memories aren’t there but they aren’t… not there.” It was Hermione’s turn to furrow her brow. “It’s somewhere in between, I guess.”
“Legilimency, then? Have you thought about using Legilimency to retrieve inaccessible memories?”
“I’ve considered it. But of course, people with memory problems are incredibly vulnerable and the risk of using Legilimency… it could entirely shatter their mind, leaving them worse than before.” The pair lapsed into silence again. They looked in different directions, Malfoy turning over other options while Hermione reflected on how much having a sounding board had made things feel less futile.
“What about a combination?” Malfoy eventually asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Like…” He trailed off, reaching for the words in his mind. “You’ve been looking at each approach separately. Charms, potions, Legilimency. Separate entities. But couldn’t they interact?”
“Interact?” Hermione echoed, mind immediately racing.
“Yes. Couldn’t you-”
“Use a potion to prime the brain for memory recall and reduce neurological barriers, use charms to restore links between parts of the brain and the lost memories while using Legilimency to monitor changes and deconstruct the barriers in the brain?” Hermione’s eyes were wild, her hair curling around her face as her mind and magic charged themselves up.
“Would that work?” Malfoy asked, trying hard to stifle a feeling that felt incredibly like awe as he literally watched her make plans in her mind.
“I don’t know.” She breathed, eyes darting around the room as she made a mental list of where she could start. Her eyes finally met Malfoy’s, and an excited grin split across her face. Malfoy mirrored her unconsciously, “I don’t know!”