Chapter 11
Draco’s holiday had been annoyingly busy. His parents had planned outings and parties and all manner of things to keep Draco occupied during his break from school. He thought about Hermione constantly, but was so exhausted by the end of the day, he didn’t have the energy to try Astral Projection again. He kept hoping she would materialize in front of him, but to no avail.
He was so busy, he almost forgot he had a mission to complete. Finally, on the last night before his return to Hogwarts, Draco had an opening with which to search the library, as his parents were out of the house attending a mandatory meeting for high level Death Eaters. He searched the shelves, but came up empty. He began pulling out drawers and searching for any nook or cranny he had missed. Still, he could not find the journal.
He sat down at the desk to think. As he moved his foot to cross his legs, he kicked something under the desk that made a strange sound. He ducked under to investigate, and was shocked to realize there was a hidden compartment in the desk. Now to figure out how to open it…
He searched the entire desk for a button or lever, but there were none. He tried Alohomora, but it did nothing. He let out a curse in parseltongue that he’d learned from his aunt. Though she did not have the ability to speak to snakes, her close personal friendship with the Dark Lord had taught her many key phrases- most of them curse words. Draco loved the feeling of the language on his tongue. It felt silky and slithery and sensual. The moment the word escaped his lips, he heard a click and a whir. He ducked under the desk to find the compartment had popped open, revealing a small leatherbound book. Draco took it and examined it, finding it completely devoid of writing.
He followed Dumbledore’s instructions to ensure this was the correct journal. He took a quill, dipped it in ink, and wrote Hello? On the first page. The ink sank into the paper, leaving it blank once more. With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking? appeared in its place. Draco grinned to himself.
“Gotcha.”
The next part of the plan was not going to be easy. First, he and Theo needed to explain everything to Blaize and Pansy. They knew they would need as much help as they could get, especially considering the fact that the next step was research. Draco and Theo were both shit at research. If not for Pansy and Blaise, Draco and Theo would have failed half their classes, and they both knew it.
Draco was jittery with nerves all through the start of term feast. Pansy looked terrible, and only ate a few bites of food, despite her friends’ cajoling. By the end of fall term, she had put some much needed weight back on, and the haunted look had faded somewhat from her eyes. Now she looked thinner than she ever had, and was barely able to look her friends in the eye. It made Draco want to kill something.
“Hey, Pans, I need your help with a research project,” Draco finally blurted, hoping to cheer her up. Her eyes met his in curiosity, but with little spark behind them. “Yours too, Blaise.”
“How could you possibly need help with homework already? Term hasn’t even started,” countered Blaise with an annoying air of logic.
“It’s not for school. It’s… personal.”
“Personal?” Pansy asked, arching an eyebrow at him.
Draco lifted the side of his mouth in a roguish grin. “But I’ll only tell you what it is if you eat this entire piece of pie.”
Pansy rolled her eyes, but took a bite, her eyes rolling into her head in pleasure. When they’d all finished their desert, Draco led them up to the seventh floor hallway. They cast revelio to ensure there was no one else around before he concentrated on what he needed. He didn’t want to end up in his room again. It was too personal a space, and besides, where would they all sit? What they needed was a headquarters of some kind. A place where they could meet, strategize, and do research in private. They needed access to ancient records from the time of the Founders. Where were they going to get those?
He heard his friends gasp and opened his eyes to find the intricate door where a blank wall had just been. He grinned, excited to see what the room would come up with. His eyes widened in amazement as he took in the new space. His friends’ exclamations of shock echoed through the room as they entered.
“Bloody hell!”
“How is this here?”
“How did you find this?”
“This is far better than your bedchambers.”
Far better, indeed. The room had fashioned itself into a library. A three story high, perfectly circular library made of gleaming marble. The ceiling was made entirely of glass, letting in a bright cheery light that was in stark contrast to the gray, gloomy day in the highlands of Scotland. A ramp wrapped itself around the walls, leading all the way up to the top, granting easier access to the books.
“What are we supposed to do with all these books?” Draco muttered to the room. He’d been hoping that the one tome that would actually help them would be laid out conveniently on a table. Finding the answers they sought in this collection could take years. Years they did not have.
He sat Pansy and Blaise down at the large wooden table, and brought them up to speed. Blaise took in the information with his usual stoicism, only offering the occasional grunt. As he talked, he saw the light return to Pansy’s eyes and silently thanked Dumbledore for giving them something to live for again.
“Wait, so there’s a gigantic immortal snake slithering around the walls of the castle?” she said with far more excitement than was appropriate to a conversation about giant, immortal, man-eating snakes.
“Or so the legend says. And according to Dumbledore, its venom is one of the few things that can destroy this journal.”
“But why do we need to destroy an empty journal?” Blaise asked, flipping through the pages.
“It’s not empty. Apparently, a piece of the Dark Lord’s soul is trapped inside. And if we destroy it, that means we destroy a little piece of him, making him more vulnerable.”
They exchanged wicked grins at the thought.
“Okay, where do we start?” asked Pansy.
“Well,” Draco admitted, “I’m not entirely sure. I asked the room for books that would help us figure this out, and this is what it gave me. It’s a bit more than I bargained for.”
Pansy looked thoughtful. “I think I might know a spell that can help.” She stood, taking out her wand. She closed her eyes as she concentrated on what she wanted to find. “Obscura Revelio!” Her wand slashed down, and from it shot several streams of gleaming white magic, which flew around the space in a lazy dance before attaching themselves to several tomes throughout the library.
“Brilliant!” said Theo. “What did you ask it to look for?”
“Anything pertaining to basilisks. I figured that before we find the room, we should probably have some idea what we’re up against.”
They climbed the winding ramp, using Accio to procure the few volumes that were out of reach. Theo slid down the bannister like a three year old. The others shook their heads at him lovingly.
A few hours later, they began to go cross-eyed from deciphering ancient handwriting, and decided to call it a night. The others turned to Draco as he hesitated to join them.
“I just… found something interesting. I’m going to stay a few more minutes and finish up.”
Blaise and Pansy looked at him as if he’d lost his marbles. Theo cocked an eyebrow knowingly, but kept his silence and ushered the other two out with a wink at Draco.
As the door closed, he wished for the mirror.
Hermione’s face appeared, and he let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for weeks. There had been no more dream walks, and he was too afraid to astral project after the migraine he’d been left with the first time. Her face was lit with twinkling lights as she sat on a sofa, talking and laughing with an older woman who could only be her mother. They had the same smile and the same twinkle in their eye. The tension faded from Draco’s body as he watched her, and he wished for his bed, falling into it as it appeared out of thin air, and letting the darkness overtake him.
A FEW WEEKS LATER
Hermione was buried deep in her schoolwork. She sat at the desk in her room at Ilvermorny, surrounded by books and scrolls of parchment. She scribbled furiously as she completed her History of Magic assignment- twenty four inches on the goblin rebellion of 1245. It really was a fascinating topic. She couldn’t understand why Harry and Ron found it so boring.
Even so, it was a struggle to keep her mind on the assignment when she kept seeing flashes of blond hair in her mind. She sighed in exasperation as she tried to pull her brain away from silky green sheets and a certain inaccessible wizard.
A part of her was desperate enough to attempt making contact, but it was kept in check by her fear. Now that he was a spy for the resistance, one slip could be the difference between life and death. If something she did caused his cover to be blown, she would never recover.
Instead of sitting around moping, Hermione did what she did best- buried herself in academics. She requested extra assignments from her teachers, and submitted extra long essays. She dragged Chepi away from her ever growing group of admirers so they could work on wandless magic in their room. She even begged Professor Kowalski to let her be a teaching assistant, and now had a stack of First Years’ essays laying on her bed, waiting to be graded.
The hours dragged on, and the pile of assignments quickly dwindled. She pulled the first essay onto her desk, and sighed as she realized she may have underestimated the stupidity and laziness of First Years.
The essay was painful, and the exhaustion she’d been fighting began to take over. Her eyes began drooping, and she shook herself to stay awake. Several essays later, and the content had not improved. Her blinks became slower, and the words started blurring on the page.
She saw Draco’s face and jerked to wakefulness. The jolt was enough to keep her awake through five more essays before her head became so heavy, she could no longer hold it up. She laid it down on her arm, determined to simply rest her eyes for two minutes.
She appeared in a circular room lined with books stretching up three stories. She stared around in awe at the beautiful white marble, the gold accents, the BOOKS. It took her several moments to realize she was not alone in the heavenly room. Draco sat at a table, head resting on a large, ancient looking tome, fast asleep. She smiled at his soft snores, and placed a hand on his back.
“Draco. Wake up.” When he didn’t respond, she indulged herself by running her fingers through his hair. He hummed in pleasure, but did not wake. She leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. His eyes opened slowly and caught hers. He smiled dazedly before jerking to wakefulness. Though, was it really wakefulness if they were both dreaming? Hermione tried to push such unhelpful academic questions out of her mind.
“Hermione? Are you really here?” His hand reached out and cupped her face, and she nuzzled into it like a cat.
“Yes and no? I think we’re dreaming again.”
His shoulders drooped ever so slightly before he pulled her into an embrace. She breathed him in, reveling in the feel of his lean muscles pressed against her. He pulled back to look at her, and instinct took over. She pulled him down to her and kissed him, hard. Weeks of fear and worry and longing seemed to explode out of her. He kissed her back with equal fervor, hands tangled in her hair.
He touched their foreheads together, panting. “God, I missed you so much.”
She nodded, left speechless for the first time in her life.
“I have so much to tell you.”
“I think I already know some of it. I met Dumbledore,” she said, finding her voice.
“What? How?”
“Well… I sent him a message and asked to meet. He came to your aunt’s house, and we tried to convince him to rescue you.”
Draco looked at her in amazement. “You did what? Wait, what do you mean, ‘my aunt’s house?’”
“Your aunt, Andromeda. She lives in the same town as me. I’ve known her my whole life.”
Draco looked at her as if he’d been struck. “She’s alive?”
“Oh, my god. Yes!” She wanted to say more, tell him everything she knew about his estranged family, but held her tongue, allowing him time to process.
“Why would she lie about something like that?”
“Who? Your mother?”
Draco nodded. “I found her once, crying over a picture of the three of them laughing and smiling. Naturally I asked who the girl was that I didn’t know, and my mother told me she’d had a sister when she was young who had died. She said she missed her very much, but that father didn’t like to see her upset, so I shouldn’t say anything about it.”
“I’m sorry you found out this way. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t. How could you have known? Can you tell me about her?”
Hermione smiled. “I can tell you anything you like. I’ve known her my whole life, and her daughter used to babysit me.”
“She has a daughter? I have a cousin?”
“Her name is Nymphadora Tonks, but she goes by Tonks.”
“Tonks? That’s an odd name.”
“It’s a muggle name. Her father is muggle-born. It’s why they had to run away. Ted and Tonks would have been killed.”
Draco shook his head sadly. “I can’t believe I have a cousin in America. It’s an odd feeling, really, finding out you have family you didn’t know about.”
“I can imagine it is a little disorienting. Tonks isn’t in America, though. She’s in England right now, fighting in the resistance.”
“What?”
“It’s how we got in touch with Dumbledore. Dromeda sent a message to Tonks, and she passed it on. She’s one of his top lieutenants.”
Draco turned away, pulling at his hair. Hermione held her tongue, unsure of what to say. She expected him to ask more questions about his family, so his next question surprised her.
“Why did you meet with him?”
“We wanted to save you. We were hoping that he would help us rescue you, bring you here, to us.”
Desire and hope warred with despair in his eyes. “And what did he say?”
“He said that you had agreed to be a spy for him.”
Draco nodded slowly. “It’s a good thing he got to me first. There’s no way I would have agreed to stay and spy if I’d known he could take me to you.”
“You still can. You’re not a prisoner anymore. Say the word, and we’ll figure out a way. Screw the resistance. I just want you to be safe.”
He pulled her into his embrace once more and buried his face in her hair. “Thank you for trying,” he whispered in her ear, sending shivers down her spine.
She looked up into his eyes. “I would do anything to save you.”
“The feeling is mutual, I assure you, which is why I have to stay where I am. The only way to create a world where you are safe is if we defeat the Dark Lord. And I will do anything it takes to achieve that goal.” His eyes flashed with hatred and determination. Their lips met again, softly, sweetly, with more tenderness than Hermione had ever thought possible.
“Which reminds me,” he whispered, kissing her again, “I need your help.”
“With what?” she managed to ask before being distracted by his tongue.
“How much do you know about Hogwarts history?” he panted.
Hermione was fairly sure that was the sexiest question any person had ever asked in the history of the world. It took all of her self control to ignore the burning tingle his touch was eliciting, and come up with a coherent answer.
“Quite a bit, actually. Why do you ask?”
“Dumbledore asked me to find an ancient chamber hidden somewhere in the castle, and I’m having a little trouble.”
“Well, there are several hidden chambers and secret rooms hidden throughout Hogwarts. Which one are you looking for? It must be something useful to the resistance. Gryffindor’s armor room, possibly? Ravenclaw’s Astronomy lab? It couldn’t possibly be the Chamber of Secrets. I know! There’s a room that can become anything the entrant desires, and it’s said to house everything that has ever been lost at Hogwarts!”
“Erm, well, in point of fact… you are currently standing in the Room of Requirement, and I am, indeed, looking for the Chamber of Secrets.”
Hermione looked around with renewed interest.
“It looks like a library now because that’s what I needed. Usually it looks like my bedroom.”
They both blushed and looked quickly away from one another. Hermione felt a pull on her psyche, and heard Chepi’s voice from somewhere far away.
“Oh, no. My roommate is back,” she said, clinging to Draco. “I’m waking up. I’ll search on my end and let you know if I find anything useful.” She kissed him again, desperate to enjoy the feel of him until the real world pulled her back in