Dear Dead Dove

“The quarter moon is tonight and I will never let you be alone with her again if you act like this.”

“But Mother, Blaise was almost killed by her. You expect me to not only accept this stupid trial with a mudblood but a murderer too?”

“Need I remind you of the sins your precious father has committed during his past? If you can fawn over him I thoroughly doubt Hermione deserves anything less from you.”

“But-“

“But nothing, you are a Malfoy and I will not tolerate any behaviour less than that. I have seen Theodore’s memories, you have not chosen a side wisely in this.”

“You are always pushing for us to reveal her true potential but somehow this isn’t enough. You and father both pushed for the extreme and it happened.”

“Did I tell you to ever leave her side? To let her die while she and her companion healed Blaise?”

“Do not speak to me as if you haven’t pushed and pushed these pure blood ideologies down my throat. I apologise for my ability to not know how you want me to act when you and father have raised me into the mess I am.”

“Do not use that tone with me Draco.”

“AM I WRONG?”

“Lower your voice at once. They are asleep and we can not afford for any more attention to be brought to us.”

“I'm done with this all. Leave her for the pothead and weasel, god knows how many times they’ve tried to impede through the door.”

“Did you bring her the flowers?”

“You mean the flowers you picked from your garden?”

“What about the book, and the letter?”

“It is all here.”

“Will I have to sit here while you both open the letters or can you be civil?”

“I’d rather eat Dobby than go through with this.”

“You have no choice. You’ve been told what is to happen and if that is the future you’re willing then by all means abandon the plan.”

“You are all mental for this.”

“It is time you push past these stereotypes your father and I have…. Held a hand in raising you to believe. Be better then we were. We are all relying on you.”

“I cannot force myself to feel or do anything if it is not genuine.”

“No one in our family has been afforded that luxury.”

“Let her friends in. We can return later.”

—————

Hermione could feel a hand brushing the slope of her nose, another sensation on her chest and arms.

“She is waking up! Ron come over here.”

Hermione blinked her eyes open warily, reaching for her wand only to feel nothing. She turned her head, searching for the familiarity to strike, and boy when it did, she had never felt as elated as she had that moment.

“Harry! And is that Ron?”

In a mess of arms, the three held onto each other tightly. She scanned both of their faces, noticing the changes she had missed over the summer. Ron had grown even stalker if possible, his freckles doubled and skin a slight golden under the bright lights. His hair had gotten longer, almost reaching his shoulders in a shaggy cut. Harry had grown too, his dark hair was still ruffled as ever and his jawline had become more prominent. A faint subtle was beginning to form on his face too.

“Oh my goodness.” She repeated to herself a few times, pinching her arm to make sure she were truly awake. “I’ve had such a terrible time without both of you here.” She joked.

“We’ve both missed you so much Mione! How did you even end up in the infirmary like this?” Ron asked, reaching for her shoulder.

“Is Luna here by any chance?”

“Luna was discharged yesterday, she was mumbling about fairy lights and shiny things. Said she couldn’t remember.”

Hermione bit her lip as she calculated her response. If Theodore and Pansy had managed to obligate everyone, would she sound even crazier if she were to tell the truth? She trusted Harry and Ron with every fibre of her body, but she didn’t wish to subject them to any more problems in their sixth year.

“I had an episode from emotional distress, my wand snapped and I ended up going crazy.” She laughed, trailing off as she realised her friends didn’t buy it.

“Well, let’s wait until you’re fully discharged from here and we’ll take you to Hogsmeade or something to celebrate the new school year.” Harry said slowly, pushing his glasses further up his nose as he bent his head downwards.

“Ginny has been begging to come see you too but she got pretty caught up with the quidditch trials.” Ron smiled, though it was twisted enough to make her feel bad.

“You two aren’t missing trials because of me are you?” She gasped and kicked her feet over the edge of the bed.

“No, no Hermione, you can’t leave until tomorrow at least. Miss Pomfreys has been on our arse about that all day.” Harry chided, pushing her back onto the bed.

“Please, go to the trials and then come back after. I couldn’t bear it if you two missed out.”

Ron looked conflicted, glancing outside of the window where figures could faintly be seen flying around on their brooms and back towards Hermione.

“Please.” She added, batting her lashes which earnt her a few laughs.

“Do you promise you won’t leave here until tomorrow? You won’t feel alone?” Harry pressed.

“Now that I know you two are back, I could never feel alone.”

With a few more moments of banter, the two boys walked out of the infirmary. Hermione glanced at her body, shying at the runes that ran the length of her arms. She peered under and checked her chest and stomach only to find that they had spread almost everywhere. They danced from a silvery blue to almost translucent. They could have been mistaken for scars far away when at their most prominent. It was no trouble, she could just cast a cooking charm on herself and wear longer robes.

Madame Pomfrey shuffled out from her private room and over to Hermione. “Here is some water dear, I was also advised to give you these two things.”

The older woman smiled gently as she placed a leather bound book and letter into her lap.

“I’ll come back in an hour and bring you some food, call out if you need anything before then.”

“Thank you.”

Hermione wondered when Madame Pomfrey was going to ask her questions about the runes, or about how she had ended up here. Hell, even she wanted to know what had happened after everyone had walked away. She distinctly remembered Luna passing out after hitting her head and then it was blank.

The leather book looked old, the outside was scuffed and worn and the rough initials of R.B were scribbled all over. She decided she would come back to it later, slightly perplexed at who had sent her this.

The letter on the other hand was cast in silver, her name was written in a large font at the front.

Unable to open it still ten minutes later, she cast it aside uselessly and opened the book only to find that it was empty. All of the pages were browning and ruined, though not one singular pen mark could be seen.

Next to her was a pile of white roses. About as large as her fist and all were fully flourished, not one was still budding.

Caving in on herself she turned towards the window, trying to make out the figures racing in the sky.

——

“Hermione, it is time to wake up.”

Brushing away the person who was prodding her she rolled over and huffed. Her body had began to ache all over, the runes had darkened and neither Ron nor Harry had come back to see her all day.

“Who is it?” She roused, not daring to roll back over.

“It’s Narcissa, and Draco as well.”

What were the Malfoys doing here? Had she tarnished their image and they were here to scold her? Possibly make her go and apologise to Zabini when he had started it.

“It’s the quarter moon darling. The envelopes are ready to open.”

“Is that why this one wasn’t opening before?” Hermione gasped, sitting up reaching towards the bedside table.

“Dolores is coming to see you both in half an hour. Apparently no one else is allowed to be present but I will be right outside the door waiting.” Mrs Malfoy explained, she hesitated to reach out for Hermione but stopped herself.

“I believe Draco also has some things to say to you.”

Hermione drew her brows together, purposefully ignoring the other human in the room with them and watched helplessly as Mrs Malfoy left them.

They stayed in silence as both fiddled with envelopes, growing more agitated as they refused to open, burning their finger tips.

“How is this supposed to work?” Hermione hissed, more so to herself than to the shadow lounging on a chair.

“I don’t know.” Malfoy admitted grumpily.

“You must both hold hands and help each other open them. How romantic isn’t it.” Mrs Umbridge cooed as she walked in, heels tapping loudly against the floor.

Malfoy didn’t waste time, he held onto her hand loosely and they both tore the two envelopes open.

“Read them, then we may have a little overdue chat I believe.”

Dear Miss Hermione Granger,

I hope this letter finds you well and you are adjusting to the new year at Hogwarts. You have been selected to participate in the new law trial (Act 2776.4 see below) in which the transferable and heritable power of pureblood families are tested in an experimental engagement between a pureblood heir and a muggle-born witch or wizard. On your behalf, Mr and Mrs Granger have nominated you as willing to oblige with this procedure. Once the rings have fastened into your flesh, binding magic is released into your bloodstream. In accordance to Mrs Dolores Umbridge: more information may emerge when the time calls for. Until then, fortnightly meetings will be installed to measure the effectiveness of procedures. The first test will be apparating into warded places against muggle-born. Vials of your maga will be taken weekly to cross-check for abnormalities or changes and behavioural counts will be taken every fortnight during meetings with Mrs Dolores Umbridge.

Yours truly,
Dolores Umbridge.

Hermione scoffed and reread the letter. None of this made any sense! There had to be a reason behind this? Was it to prove as a set of examples why muggle-borne would always remain inferior or were the pure bloods becoming to entwined with incest? Both seemed perfectly suitable but just as revolting as each other.

“I was told that every question I may have would be answered in this letter, yet it has nothing useful.” Malfoy said curtly.

“You also referred to yourself in the letter numerous times and then signed it off by yourself with your seal?” Hermione pushed, beginning to believe this was as big of a hoax as it sounded.

“Nonsense, it is a perfectly normal procedure. It just is a much more personal process then say, a trial of enforcing one to wear sunscreen everyday.” Mrs Umbridge laughed, ignoring the questions entirely.

“This engagement will go on for as long as I see fit. It is an important milestone in my life. I wish to prove my thesis correctly and you two will do your best to help me get there ok?”

“Is this even legal?” Malfoy scoffed, ripping the letter to shreds in front of him. “This proves nothing except a waste of time.”

“Nonsense, of course it is legal. You two are only one of the four experimental couples doing this as well,”

“Are you planning to ban muggle-borns from the wizarding world or are you perhaps trying to save the ancient powers of pureblood families? It could be either though I can only imagine with the sacred 28, there is only so much interbreeding that can exist over time until blood magic begins to backfire and curses riddle the wilting magic. Without enough raw, fresh, maga blood magic can only be so useful. Pureblood Wizards and Witches are getting weaker with each generation aren’t they? I suppose you could implement half bloods into the regime yet half of their blood would still be tied to the original 28 meaning it would all collapse sometime in the future. Muggle-borns are the anomalies. There aren’t enough to overtake the demographic of purebloods but they have untainted maga. Powerful and malleable. You want to experiment with the real thing before you properly propose the law don’t you?” Hermione gasped, the words stringing together as fast as she could figure out the puzzle. She had to be onto something here. It was no secret that the sacred 28 were producing more squibs in the past millennia than ever before. Of course this was all theoretical but it provided much more reason than a selfish desire to want to ban muggleborns. If that were the case Mrs Umbridge wouldn’t have been the first, far more powerful people before her had tried and ultimately failed. It was a genetic lottery and unless all muggles were whipped, they ultimately had no way of controlling the anomaly.

Malfoy smirked at Mrs Umbridge, nodding his own agreement to Hermione’s theory. “It is a rather plausible statement isn’t it? I can only imagine the desperate lengths the ministry is willing to go to ensure this doesn't become widespread.”

Mrs Umbridge reached out her wand, eyeing both of them before turning her want onto Hermione.

“Obliviate.”

“Protego.” Malfoy spat, his face drawing darkly. “Have you not yet learnt not to raise a wand against your students without their permission?”

Mrs Umbridge only smiled, pocketing her wand and clasping her hands together. “We will be taking blood and behavioural examples next week. I’ll call for you both at some point.”

Hermione withered into her bed, mind racing as she realised how slow her reaction time had been. Perhaps it was still the underlying dread from the fight with Blaise but she no longer felt very confident in casting abilities.

“This is for you as well. Ollivander was rather distraught when he heard that your wand had been broken.” Malfoy hummed, handing her a small wooden box though his eyes remained intently on the woman who had just left.

“It's vine wood, unbending, 11 inches with a Dragon heartstring core.”

Hermione inspected it carefully, it didn’t seem to be a trick. For good measure she pointed her wand at Malfoy and whispered, “Langlock.”

To her delight he was unable to speak any further, his mouth moving but his tongue remained glued to the top of his mouth. She cast the counter curse and placed the wand back into its box. It wasn’t too unsimilar to her previous wand though she still didn't trust Malfoy within an inch of her.

“Did Blaise purchase it?”

Malfoy snorted in surprise, “why would Blaise buy you a wand? Don’t tell me you are so delusional that you think you had a lovers spat and this is his way of repaying you.”

Hermione crossed her arms. “Blaise stepped on my wand and broke it.”

“On purpose?”

“I mean, if you bind someone, silence them, transfigure the ropes to snakes then accio their wand and break it… I guess that counts as purposeful right?”

Malfoy frowned as he leant on his haunches. “Does he know that you struggle with non-verbal spells?”

“Should he even have to? We aren’t even meant to learn those until next term.” Hermione rebuted.

“Well the answer is no regardless.”

“Who brought it then? I don’t believe for one moment that your mother and father walked you into that shop to buy me a wand.” Hermione actually laughed in disbelief as she imagined Malfoy, white-face and embarrassed, being forced into Ollivanders.

“Aren’t you just on the money today?” Malfoy coughed, covering a small smile as he got onto his feet and made for the doorway. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow Granger.”

“Two days.”

Malfoy nodded, and closed the door quietly.

Hermione reached for the wand and pulled it out again. “Prior Incantato.”

Diffindo. Cruicio. Silenco.

Odd. Unless this wand was someone else’s previously, there should have been no spells on the record of its history. Ollivander didn’t usually sell previously owned wands, perhaps this one had been so similar to her last he had found it at chance.

She cast a protection charm around her, it was nearly invisible but rippled as the wind blew through the room from the open window.

I’m not alone. I’m not alone. I’m not alone.