Chapter 9
Shocked, Malfoy stared at Ron, mouth agape. He almost grasped the words to say something along the lines of what the fuck but was immediately occupied with deflecting a barrage of curses coming his way. Perhaps he had misjudged earlier. He certainly smelt like a bar, but there was something dangerous in the relentless of the spells and hexes coming Malfoy’s way. He deflected each perfectly, but did have a few near misses.
He was battling a war hero, he supposed.
A strong bombarda narrowly missed Malfoy’s right ear and blew a hole in the side of the house. Suddenly aware of the people – Hermione – inside, Malfoy pivoted on the spot and began to lead the duel away from the house, meaning missed curses would fizzle out over the empty field rather than hitting the backdrop of the precariously constructed house.
What the fuck was going on? What the fuck was wrong with Ron? Why had Ginny demanded he be kept away?
Malfoy steadfastly refused to fire any offensive charms or hexes, settling his mind on defending and de-escalating. A few minor jinxes took hold and Ron was forced to one knee, his leg now paralysed, but he kept firing nonetheless.
It would have been much easier if he could just hurt the man, but he could hardly kill a war hero on his own front doorstep. No matter how much he might have deserved it at that moment in time.
Then Hermione pushed her way out of the front door, eyes wild. Ron stood to her left on one knee, Malfoy stood to her right.
“Shit!” Malfoy cursed to himself. One misplaced curse burst a hole in the side of the house, what could it do to her? He quickly fired three shield charms in Ron’s direction so he could take a second to throw up some spell-safe wards around the front door, wrapping Hermione in its protective embrace.
And in that second, that split second where Malfoy’s eyes were not on him, Ron threw a nasty diffindo from the tip of his wand, hitting Malfoy clean in the shoulder. Red burst from beneath his robes and Malfoy could only thank Merlin it was not his wand arm. But it hurt and by fuck was he going to stand here and take it from this little bastard! Malfoy drew back his wand, a curse on the tip of his tongue and-
“Enough!” Hermione roared, raising her wand and levelling both men with a spell neither of them recognised. They both found themselves pinned to their backs, unable to move. “Ronald Weasley, I do not know who the hell you think you are, but you had better pray to Merlin that Molly can fix this!” Her voice crackled with anger and disgust as Molly came bustling out, pointedly not looking at her youngest son. Her lips were pressed tight in a white line as her and Hermione rushed to see to Malfoy. They could see that Ron had no injuries other than a leg that would regain feeling within 10 minutes.
Molly tenderly lifted the ragged edges of the robes around Malfoy’s wound with her wand and hummed disapprovingly. She began chanting healing spells, moving her wand precisely and cleanly above the deep gash. “Nobody can heal like a mother.” She muttered. Hermione noticed how deep the cut was, but didn’t comment on the bone she could see or the flesh that was knitting itself back together under Molly’s wand. “However, nothing can heal like dittany and I simply don’t have any. I can stop the bleeding and heal it probably three quarters of the way, but you’ll need either St. Mungo’s or an apothecary for the rest, I’m afraid.” Malfoy nodded gratefully.
“Thank you for your kindness.” He said in a quiet tone, not forcing her to meet his eye. “You are very skilled. I can take it from here. Please, if you need to see to…” Malfoy allowed himself to trail off as Molly shook her head, tears brimming in her eyes and spilling over as she rose on shaky legs and took herself back inside.
Hermione looked down at Malfoy, her mouth opening and closing speechlessly.
“I’m okay. I won’t ask questions. But I want you to stay with me, okay? I’m not trying to pass judgement but my job is to keep you safe. That’s it.”
“You’re okay?”
“I’m okay.” Feeling whatever the spell she had coast begin to lift itself, he sat up slowly and flexed his shoulder very gently. “That woman should be a healer. Seriously, this is better work than I’ve seen from most field healers.”
“You’re praising a Weasley? It must be a cold day in hell.” Hermione smiled thinly as Malfoy barked a laugh. They both looked over and saw Bill Weasley and Harry hauling Ron up by an arm each. His body hung limp between the pair so Malfoy assumed they had rendered him unconscious for now. They were dragging him up the hill towards the edge of the wards.
“I should go with them. I changed the wards to- I thought that- well, I’ll need to change them back.” Malfoy made sure to choose his words carefully so as not to cause further harm. Hermione nodded before offering Malfoy a hand as she had done to Harry earlier.
Malfoy looked up at her, a strange look in his grey eyes that she could not decipher before taking the hand and allowing her to help him up.
“Molly will be okay. She has Ginny with her.” Malfoy knew Hermione was not speaking to him, so he did not reply.
They walked a little behind Bill and Harry, nobody speaking. Hermione didn’t know why the men didn’t just levitate Ron, seeing as his feet were dragging along the floor and it couldn’t be easy to walk an unconscious man for a mile, but she didn’t feel it was her business to ask questions.
Once they reached the wards, they carefully placed him outside before stepping back through. Harry wrapped a warm arm around Hermione’s shoulders wordlessly. Bill stood by, arms folded, with sad eyes as they waited for Malfoy to modify the wards for the second time that day, locking out the youngest Weasley son.
The wards glowed white for a second before vanishing, indicating they had been successfully adapted. The four of them stood there for a minute, eyes trained on Ron’s body and the deep rise and fall of his chest.
“I should get back to check on mum. Are you coming?” Bill finally said to nobody in particular. Harry nodded before turning to face Hermione.
“I don’t know if I should.” She muttered. Bill smiled grimly, his mouth twisted by his scar. He pressed a gentle kiss to Hermione’s forehead.
“It’s not your fault.” Hermione’s eyes darted to meet Bill’s and he saw the deep sadness and guilt trapped within them. “I know you think it is, but it isn’t.” She fumbled to grasp his hand tightly, clenching it with words unspoken before dropping it again. Harry and Bill both turned towards the house and started off but Hermione did not move. She watched them for a while, until their figures became silhouettes in the distance.
“I’d like to leave now.” She spoke listlessly, no vigour in her tone. Malfoy nodded, carefully training his wand on the form of Ron Weasley as he edged her around him and apparating them quickly to the manor.
Hermione disappeared quickly into her bedroom, not speaking a word other than a muttered ‘thanks’. Malfoy did not follow nor disturb her, even when she did not appear for dinner later that evening.
Tilly came into the main living room and fretted over Draco for a while, applying copious amounts of dittany while marvelling over the wandwork carried out to heal it that far and scolding him for getting injured in the first place.
Draco felt a pang of guilt as he realised how much dittany Tilly had to hand for a household that rarely had guests, while Molly had none at all to speak of. He had always taken supplies for granted and it felt uncomfortable to truly acknowledge the hardships that the Weasley family must face. The same hardships he had ridiculed to their faces for years.
He pondered if it would appropriate to send Molly a gift in thanks. Would it seem arrogant? She would surely be too proud to accept money from a Malfoy, offended to receive a basket of food when she could cook perfectly well and insulted to receive a bath of dittany as if he continued to mock her finances. But he couldn’t say or do nothing. It would be impolite.
Eventually he decided to sit down and write her a note of thanks, enclosing a promise that offered himself in her service should she ever need assistance. She would likely tear up the note and burn it to ashes, but it didn’t matter. He was only thankful she had offered him such kindness in the first place.
He asked Tilly to affix the letter to the foot of their most modest owl and send it to the Weasley home.
Draco did not see Hermione at all that night.
Instead, he saw his mother.
In the throes of a nightmare, he found himself thrust back into Malfoy manor. Lord Voldemort lounged at the head of the table, the same oak chair his father had been seated at for banquets and galas. A bare white foot rested itself upon the table, lazily and gracelessly.
Narcissa Malfoy writhed on the floor and Draco screamed through his teeth. He was held painfully on his knees, two faceless death eaters pinning him there with their hands and their wands alike.
Voldemort cackled, high pitched and terrifying as his mother panted, face pressed to the cold hard stone of her own floors as she wept. She may have been trying to beg, but she could not speak. The words would not form on her weak lips.
“Who is next?” Voldemort hissed, gesturing forward the next death eater in line. Draco recognised this one even through the hot tears that streamed down his face. He had been a few years above Draco at Hogwarts. They had greeted each other in the corridor in a time long since passed, a proud nod between Slytherin scions. Now the boy, barely a man, wore a sick smirk as he settled his gaze on Lady Malfoy. He drew his wand back and Draco struggled, feeling his shoulders tear and pop under the strain but still unable to move.
“Crucio!” The man snarled and Draco jerked awake immediately, his dead mother’s wailing screams echoing endlessly in his head.
Draco found himself sweating and panting and he frantically cast his eyes to the photo of him and his mother. He could see it without sitting up. It had been taken the year before he started Hogwarts. He couldn’t even remember the day it was taken after all this time but he wished he could. Wished he could see his mother’s smile in his mind’s eye rather than her pain.
Sometimes it felt like his brain was so full of terrible memories that it couldn’t hold onto the good ones anymore.
The sun was barely peeking over the horizon so Draco assumed that it was perhaps half past four in the morning – surely no later than five. Was there really any point trying to get back to sleep at this point? Probably not.
He donned some of his casual clothing from his small muggle wardrobe and made the decision to go and sit in the tearoom with a book. Draco had used to do that when he was in Hogwarts. At the end, when he couldn’t ever sleep. On those days – nights – he would sit in the common room by the fire and read while the rest of the school was asleep. By the time they would all start to wake up, he would be feeling more like himself again. Those quiet hours he whiled away were not treasured memories but were almost precious to him. For a few hours, he was just… him. He was a boy with a book and sometimes a few snacks, enjoying the quiet of the night. He could escape for just a while and pretend he wasn’t a servant of the dark Lord, that his mother wasn’t being held and tortured, that his father wasn’t falling over himself to disown his son in favour of a genocidal maniac.
Draco stopped short in the doorway of the tearoom. It was already occupied. Hermione was curled up in the same chair she had taken the previous morning, gazing mournfully out of the window. Her eyes were red-rimmed and vacant but fixed nonetheless on the grounds outside. The rising sun cast a golden glow about her head, and he had to squint to see her clearly.
He refused to let his mind go where it wanted to go, but even then, he had to admit that she had grown up well. Her jumper had slipped from her shoulder, revealing soft skin that begged to be touched.
Draco would never touch it.
Hermione did not look up as he came in, but Draco knew he had been quiet. He simply padded in and chose an armchair. It creaked as he lowered his weight into it, finally alerting Hermione to his presence. She started slightly, entirely unaware he had come in and sat up a little straighter.
“Morning.” She offered with a small smile that barely twitched her tear-stained cheeks, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“Morning.” Draco responded in kind, opening his book to his place and forcing himself to begin reading. Sat near her, he already felt suspiciously calmer. Perhaps he would have been content to simply stare out of the window with her, but that would be a little too familiar. Silence followed. A comfortable, warm kind of silence that was only interrupted by Hermione’s soft voice once again,
“Did you have trouble sleeping?”
“Yes.” Draco’s voice did not cut, it was not unkind. It did not invite questions but it did not forbid them. “Did you?”
“Yes.” He hummed in response to her answer, eyes never leaving his book. He was not truly reading the words, but he forced himself to go through the motions. Why did this feel so comfortable? What about this room at this time made the last remnants of his nightmare seem so far away? “Was it your mother?” Hermione whispered.
“Yes.” Draco spoke so quietly, so softly, that the word barely left his lips. The admission, the truth, the divulgence of trust hung between them. Hermione leaned her head against the chair again, eyes fixed out on the horizon.
Draco did not steal any glances at her. He told himself he did not. He may have caught his gaze lingering a few times, but those were not stolen glances. She was merely in the way of the window and he liked to look out of it.
“I think I’d like to go back to Hogwarts.” The sun was fully up now.
Draco closed his book and held it in his hands. He fixed Hermione with a look that was piercing but not deliberately unkind.
“They’re your family, aren’t they?” He asked
“They are.”
“I don’t know what happened, and it most definitely isn’t my business, but they aren’t mad at you. Even I could see that. Why do you feel like you can’t go back?”
“I don’t know, Malfoy. I just… can’t.” Hermione heaved a deep sigh and furrowed her brow.
“But they love you?” Draco grew confused, exasperated as he tried to articulate the heavy feeling in his chest unsuccessfully.
“I know that, I’m not saying they don’t.” Hermione’s tone grew condescending, although she did not intend it to. She was just trying to explain the impossible feeling of inability – unsuccessfully, of course.
“Don’t you see? You have people that love you. Why wouldn’t you want to be with them?” Draco felt himself getting hot under the collar and heard his tone slip from probing to unkind and rather mean. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t help it.
“I don’t think that’s your place to say, Malfoy! You don’t know what happened, you don’t know how I feel or how I was involved.”
“I don’t think it matters!”
“Well, it does to me!”
Draco found himself on his feet without remembering standing up. He stared down at her with a cold glare, towering over her at his height.
“Why must you shut yourself away? Don’t you see how lucky you are to have friends and family that are not only alive but actually give a fuck how you’re doing? It’s fucking selfish and downright stupid to walk away from that!”
“How fucking dare you!” Hermione reeled, flushing in anger and standing up as well. Her head only reached Draco’s chest but she pushed him back with one hand anyway, refusing to let him use his height to try and intimidate her. “You have no fucking clue what happened to me and my family so don’t you dare stand there and act as though I‘m some selfish brat.”
“But you are! What, you feel sad so you walk away from them? It’s… it’s-” Draco grasped for the word but couldn’t find quite what he meant. “It’s fucking ungrateful!”
Hermione took a step back, staring up at Malfoy with tears in her eyes. She didn’t look upset. Not hurt. Not angry. Something else.
“Fuck you.” She spat, top lip curling in anger. Suddenly, Malfoy got a taste of what she would have been like on the battlefield. She clutched her wand in his hand, sparking, hair moving and crackling with power and rage. “I am leaving. I am going back to Hogwarts in 30 minutes. I have work to do and you will not stand in my way. Not for one damn second.” Hermione shoved past Malfoy and slammed the door to the tearoom behind her, leaving sadness and guilt in her wake.
Malfoy growled into the empty room and collapsed into his chair, no fight left in him. He pushed two hands through his already tousled hair.
What the fuck just happened?