Chapter 7
Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi
I Show You Not Your Face But Your Heart’s Desire
Hermione stood staring into the mirror. In the reflection Ron’s arm was slung around her shoulder, Harry stood, glasses perched crookedly on his nose, smiling back at her. She had crept back down the hall after Theo bade her goodnight, whether to check on Malfoy or for the mirror, she didn’t know. She reached up and touched her shoulder where Ron’s hand rested in the reflection, but instead of his hand, all she felt was her shoulder. She watched Harry rake his hand through his unruly hair, just as she had so many times before. She knew this was wrong, that she shouldn’t keep coming back here, but she couldn’t stop. She let her mind wander. She wondered if Harry and Ron had remembered the dittany in her bag for the burns after Gringotts. How they were faring in their own search for horcruxes. If they were remembering to set the wards each time they moved camp.
Sighing, she tore her eyes from her friends and went to sit in the chair near Malfoy’s bed. Severus had apparated away almost as immediately as he came before she could open her mouth to ask any questions. Mipsy, hiccuping the entire trip, had levitated Malfoy to his room and helped Hermione to tuck him into his bed. Mipsy popped in and out, bringing food, drink, and blankets. Hermione did not have the heart to tell her that an unconscious man did not need such things. Wringing her hands nervously Mipsy patted the blankets in tighter around him, never staying long enough for Hermione to get a word in even if she tried. Theo had arrived home sometime in the night seeming surprised to see Hermione curled up in the chair next to Malfoy’s bed. He had apologized for his absence but offered no explanation for Malfoy’s wounded appearance.
Settling into the chair Hermione watched the steady rise and fall of Malfoy’s chest. She stared at his left forearm resting on top of the covers. She tried squinting her eyes, picturing the dark mark she knew to be under the sleeves of his dark green silk pajamas. The scars on her matching arm throbbed as if in answer. She let her eyes trail down to his hands. She shuddered, remembering the pain she had suffered at his hands. She had never considered a man’s hands before. How they might be beautiful. Malfoy’s certainly were. Long thin pale fingers, a vein protruded, starting at the wrist and ending at his middle knuckle. On his ring finger sat the Malfoy signet ring. Silver with a raised M in the middle and on either side two fanged snakes created the band. She briefly wondered if he would think of this, his near brush with death, every time he looked at the ring now. His hand twitched once in a textbook example of suffering from prolonged and repeated cruciatus curses. Hermione contemplated what he had done to invoke Voldemort’s wrath. Perhaps he did not need a reason to enact such cruelty.
The muscles in his hands spasmed. Unthinking Hermione reached out taking his hand in hers. She expected it to be cold and lifeless like it had been just hours before but was surprised to find it warm.
—--
Sunlight filtered through the windows onto her face waking her. Yawning, she sat up, rolling her neck, stiff from falling asleep in a chair. She looked at Malfoy, expecting to slip out while he was still unconscious. Instead, she was met with his gray eyes staring back at her. “Did you know you snore, Granger?”
—--
The venomous tentacula shot out a vine to catch a bit of meat Hermione had thrown its way and tossed it into its fanged mouth. She had been waiting for an unusually late Theo so they could take their afternoon walk in the gardens. She had so many questions for Theo. Maybe, she thought, he knew that and was avoiding her. She sighed and tossed the last of her half-eaten steak and kidney pie toward the venomous tentacula, which rattled its leaves as if in thanks.
“New pet?”
Hermione looked up to see Malfoy smirking at her. Well, that wouldn’t do at all. She narrowed her eyes. “Malfoy.”
His smirk fell as he mimicked her mood. “Granger.”
“What do you want, Malfoy? I am very busy at the moment.”
“I can see that,” he said looking down at her empty lunch tray. His gray eyes seemed to sparkle at her in amusement. When had Malfoy become so tall? He seemed to be significantly taller since she had last seen him sixth year. Hermione furrowed her brows in admonishment for letting her mind wander so. She licked her teeth in a show of displeasure, pushed the tray away, and yanked the current journals and scrolls over to herself.
The stool next to her scraped along the floor as Malfoy sat beside her at the workbench. She could feel his eyes on her as she began to read. It irked her. What was he doing here? She picked up a sugar quill to suck, but then remembering they were a gift from him, she dropped it like it burned her. What an unbelievable arse he was coming in here like this. She had planned out in her room this morning confronting him and now this had upended all of her plans. She began to hum the chorus to Tearin’ Up My Heart. The pale hand on the table next to her clenched before relaxing to a resting position. Good, she thought. It was good that he remembered just what kind of witch he was dealing with.
“You don’t like me, do you?” Malfoy asked.
Hermione gritted her teeth as fury welled up in her and she forced herself to continue to stare down at the journal. “That is an understatement.”
“A bit rude considering I did rescue you and all.”
Hermione turned her head to stare at him. The nerve of him.
She stares long enough in silence that Malfoy begins to shift uncomfortably on the stool.
“You killed Professor Dumbledore.” she hisses.
Malfoy straightens. “Well, see, really Severus did that.”
Voice rising higher in pitch and volume. “You might as well have!”
“Listen, there are, uh, a lot of things I haven’t explained. I am not even sure I can explain them.” He grimaced. “I failed. I couldn’t. I failed everyone when I couldn’t deliver the killing blow. I ruined a lot of plans. I didn’t want to, but I did and even then I couldn’t.” Shrugging he finished with, “Well, I tried anyways.”
Hermione stared at him, unable to decide where to start picking that ridiculously vague answer apart.
Malfoy cleared his throat, “Anymore, uh, questions for me to flounder about in answer?”
“The mirror?”
“The mirror?” Malfoy echoed her.
Hermione huffs. “Why do you have the Mirror of Erised?”
“The one you’ve been sneaking into my room to look at every night?”. The smirk began to reappear.
“How do you-”
Waving his hand he says, “The portraits. They talk.”
This conversation was not going according to her weeks of planning. Huffing in exasperation she says, “Yes. Exactly. Where did you get the mirror?”
“It was a gift.”
“A gift?”
“Yes, a gift. From Severus.”
As if that even began to explain it. “Why?”
“To remind me of my goals.”
She tapped her quill in annoyance. It was clear he wasn’t going to answer any of her questions transparently. She would have to regroup and come back to this on her terms. But there was one question that could not wait.
“And, uh, Professor Snape, its uhhhm, safe that he knows that I am, uh,” Great, now she’s the one floundering. “That he knows that I am alive and here?” She gestured up and down the length of herself.
Holding her gaze he answers solemnly, “Yes, Granger. You are safe here.”
She feels her cheeks begin to flush under his gaze. Satisfied with at least that answer Hermione went back to her work. Malfoy had stayed, staring at her until the sun had lowered in the sky. Annoyed, she had found it hard to work under his gaze. When she reread the same journal entry for the fourth time and retained none of the information, she gave up and slid a journal to him.
“What’s this?” Genuine surprise laced his words.
“As if you haven’t been reading over my shoulder this entire time. If you insist on being here, you may as well make yourself useful. Take notes on anything even remotely interesting. And uh, also here, on this separate scroll,” she slid a blank scroll towards him, “anything on 11th-century dining.”
“11th-century dining”, he echoed slowly.
Hermione felt herself turn slightly pink. She needed to stop doing that around him. “Yes, well, I think this is the most comprehensive information to come about on 11th-century dining in decades, maybe even a century.” She tapped the scroll with her quill. “So be sure the notes are comprehensive and legible Malfoy because I will be reading them.”
She turned back to work as he mumbled under his breath, “Bloody witches.”
The sun was setting when she reached an entry on experimental charmwork for a diadem. It was the first thing she had encountered in the journals that sounded remotely like something Voldemort would treasure. She was lost in her work when Malfoy slid a full scroll over to her and stood from his chair. She blinked in surprise at how neat his writing was, not a blotch of ink anywhere on the page. The letters looped elegantly in straight lines instead of curving as it often did for her on unlined scrolls. It surprised her how neat it was, unlike the chicken scratch homework of Ron and Harry’s, which she had edited over the years. When she looked up to remark on it all she saw was his retreating back as he sidestepped the venomous tentacula as he headed for the conservatory exit.
—--
The fire crackled in the fireplace holding the October chill at bay as Hermione read Malfoy’s notes by candle light that night. Every night since asking Theo to leave the lights on the candles had remained lit through the night. One night, haunted by the idea of weakness the candles represented in her, she had laid there for hours watching as the wax drip down the sides of the candle. She willed herself to get up, march over to it, and blow it out. She imagined the victory she would feel when each flame flickered out. That morning she as she dressed to catch the sunrise she felt as though the flames danced mocking her defeat.
Anger welled in her with each well thought out, neatly looped word Malfoy had noted. She kept referring back to the journal hoping to catch him in a mistake. She wanted to blame him. To find fault in his work. But there was none. It did not make sense that Malfoy would sit next to her for hours, having answered none of her questions, to take extensive, beautiful notes on 11th-century dining for her. The elaborately looped C on a lengthy note about a previously unknown spell to debone cod taunted her in particular. Not once in her entire schooling career had she ever borrowed a classmates notes and had them rival hers in their thoroughness. Just what game exactly was Malfoy playing at? Well, she would find out.
Throwing off the duvet, she stomped barefoot over to the door. Not waiting to listen at the door as she usually did, she flung it open. The door knob banged loudly into the wall and several of heads of the portraits in the hall turned to look at her in surprise. Hermione would confront Malfoy this time. This time she would have the upper hand and would force him to answer all of her questions.
As she stormed down the hall a portrait of a woman in Tudor period clothing clutched at her chest as if in horror. “Oh bugger off!” Hermione exclaimed. She would not be surprised if this was the busy body portrait who had reported her nightly trips to the Mirror of Erised to Malfoy. The woman fainted in a very cliche cinematic swoon. Hermione snorted at the theatrics of it. Reaching Malfoy’s door she noticed the woman peek at her with one eye from the portrait’s floor. This whole entire castle was infuriating. And Malfoy was the one who brought her here. She raised her fist and began to pound on the door, yelling “Malfoy! Open up! Why have you brought me to this fucking castle! HUH? I DEMAND answers! I demand you take me to the Order right now! OPEN. THE. FUCKING. DOOR!” She paused and crossed her arms expecting the door to open and reveal the blonde twat. Nothing. She tried the door handle. Unlocked. Pushing inside, she expected to confront him. She hoped to catch him bed startled by her assault. But he was not there.
The mirror stood there beckoning to her with the pounding of blood in her ears. She walked over legs shaky with adrenaline as everything in the room but the mirror blurred. She had no choice in the matter. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if she had really come here in hope of using the mirror. Not to confront Malfoy, but to be reunited with her friends. She had been coming here night after night for the mirror afterall. Why would tonight be any different?
She stood in her blue silk pajamas, so unlike anything she had worn before coming to this castle. Barefoot. Curls an unruly lion’s mane. Mirror Hermione had hot, wet, tears streaming down her face. Real Hermione had matching tears streaming down her own cheeks. Mirror Hermione’s face was cradled in Ron’s hands. With his thumbs he wiped away Mirror Hermione’s tears. Real Hermione reached up slowly and wiped away her own tears. In the distance, Harry approached from behind, and said something that caused Mirror Hermione to laugh and sob at the same time. What did Harry say? What would Harry have said?
A throat cleared behind her. Hermione slowly lowered her hand from her tear streaked cheek, but did not turn around.
“I waited for them to come save you, ya know?” said Malfoy solemnly from behind her. “Waited for them. I thought surely Potter would be too stupid. Too noble to not take the Potter bait. Swoop in. Rescue the brains of the golden trio. Fall into the trap, but by some fluke manage to bumble his way through to victory as he always does. But he never came. Never even attempted to.”
Tears dripped down, gathering at the peak of Hermione’s chin before dripping onto her pajamas, darkening the silk where each drop fell. She looked into Mirror Harry’s eyes as she whispered, “I’m sure they had their reasons.”
Voice dropping an octave as Malfoy enunciated and punctuated each word, “They. Left. You.”
Sniffing, Hermione raised her chin in the air causing heavy drops of tears to fall on her pajamas. “Harry is what is important. He is the one prophesied to defeat the Dark Lord. I am certain that it was a difficult, but necessary choice.”
Malfoy’s roar surprised her. “You saved them! And they left you there to rot!”
Hermione watched Mirror Ron take Mirror Hermione’s hand in his own as she said, “I’m not important.” Mirror Ron smiled sheepishly at real Hermione, just as he always had before.
Quietly from behind in such a soft whisper, she might have imagined it, she heard him say, “You are to me.”