Chapter 4
It was raining again when Harry came home that Sunday. It was raining and Hermione was meant to be putting the finishing touches on her report on post-war relations with the northern centaurs. Instead she had been standing in front of the bay window all day, just as dreary and drab as if she was the heroine in a gothic novel, only without the tuberculosis or the good clothes.
The problem with post-war relations with the northern centaurs was the same as the problem with her report: they didn’t exist. Most of the herds in the UK had become more reclusive than ever over the past half decade, and Hermione couldn’t fault them for it. Banding together against a homicidal maniac had not ushered in a new era of equality and peace like she’d hoped. Witches and wizards were by and large quite happy to continue regulating and limiting the freedoms of non-human magical creatures, carry on folks, nothing to see here, and the non-human magical creatures were fed up.
Hermione was changing the system from the inside. Hermione was working her way up the ministry ranks, she was convincing people, she was writing this report.
There was mould on the windowsill.
That was the problem. Sometime in the night a mass of lacy tendrils had crept out of the seams of the cushions in the little reading nook, so Hermione couldn’t sit there and she didn’t know the spell to get rid of it.
Molly Weasley probably knew the spell.
Molly Weasley was just a floo call away.
(Molly Weasley might as well have been on the moon.)
Six of the seven known centaur herds in Great Britain had gone completely silent over the past five years. They were still there – traces of their magic were easily detectable in the forests they frequented – but nobody could find them. The seventh communicated only by carrier crow, and while the crows did not always attack the recipients of their messages, it was true that “lacerations to the scalp” now had its own little box to tick on the workplace injuries form in Hermione’s department. At this point a little blood ‘round the ears was a source of envy – at least it meant you had a line of communication, however hostile.
Hermione was meant to be assessing what sort of threat this cooling of already-cool relations posed to the wizarding world. The assignment should have filled her with renewed frustration at the stupidity of it all, and it did. It had yesterday. It would tomorrow.
Today she was looking at the window. And the mould. And the rain.
“The mudblood mistress will catch a chill,” muttered one of the severed house elf heads above the stairs. It sounded quite hopeful.
Hermione decided to take her bicycle out.
You couldn’t really be tragic on a pistachio-green flying bicycle, she’d discovered: it wasn’t dignified enough. Especially when you were wearing your ex fiance’s tatty old maroon cap tugged down over your ears, your roommate’s black jumper with the wet sleeves pulled down over your hands, and a pair of ancient and mysterious wellies that leaked and pinched.
Today (at least at first) Hermione found this all quite helpful. A face full of wind woke her up rather, and the absurdity of it all did its best to snap her out of her miasma of self-pity.
But the face full of wind turned into a face full of rain, and Hermione wasn’t a competent enough flier (even on her bicycle, which was heaps better than a broom) to concentrate on anything other than peddling and steering. Her water-repellant charms kept slipping.
“Alright up there, love?” an elderly wizard shouted up from the street. He was dressed very smartly and the rain parted above him in a perfect arch. “Bit of a blustery day for that!”
“Yes I’m fine, thank you!” Hermione shrieked back. “Just ducky! Clearly having a wonderful time!”
The man’s impeccable eyebrows went way up, and Hermione kept peddling, feeling heavy and dead and tired. She wrestled the bike down another side street where the wind was like a huge hand between her shoulders. It pushed her up against the side of a building, where a great spout of water from the rooftop took the opportunity to dump down her back.
“Oh fuck off,” she muttered. Harry’s jumper was getting tangled around her knees. She bent down to free the fabric and veered hard into the bricks, bashing her shin.
Hermione didn’t scream. She didn’t blast a hole in the wall, even though she would have enjoyed telling Harry about it later. There was anger somewhere under her skin, she knew there was, but actually feeling it was like fishing eggshells out of a bowl of batter. The harder she tried to pinch at it the quicker it slipped away. She sighed and pedaled back out into the storm.
When Hermione finally slumped back through the front door her hands were numb from gripping the handlebars. She probably looked more like a half-drowned feral cat than a tragic heroine, she thought as she trudged onto the worn rug. And then there was a noise from the dining room. Hermione looked up, still in the act of dashing rainwater from her forehead, to see that Harry was not alone.
Standing beside him next to the ornate table, clutching a sleek cloak in one hand and a mug of tea in the other, was Draco Malfoy.
Draco Malfoy could do tragic heroine in his sleep, even if he hadn’t had the good clothes. (As if Draco Malfoy would ever be without good clothes.) The rain had darkened his hair from ash to a warm honey. He had let it grow since school – the tips of it just brushed the shoulders of his shirt, which was a soft dusty grey, and Hermione wanted to kick him right in the expensive shins just for being here. Just for being beautiful in her kitchen. The flash of fury surprised her.
Malfoy said, “Granger,” in an alarmed tone.
“You’re dripping,” she said sharply.
“Oh,” Malfoy said. “My apologies.” He moved as if to put down his cloak, then seemed to realize he was not sure where he ought to do that. A little tea slopped over the edge of his mug.
It was the one with a little lenticular print of a Scotsman tossing a flirtatious glance over his shoulder. When you tilted the mug to drink he flipped his kilt up to reveal a pair of surprisingly pert buttocks. Ron had bought it. (“Dad’s got a point about muggles sometimes,” he’d said. “Look how they make him move without magic. Brilliant!”
“Wait until you find out about Imax,” Harry had said. And they’d taken him to see a film about whales.)
Harry and Hermione never used that mug. That was probably why Malfoy had it – it was the only clean dish in the house.
Hermione closed the front door and leaned against the wall of the hallway. She looked into the dining room.
They had all three been out in the same weather, but the storm had expressed itself quite differently on each of them. Neither of the boys looked as though they’d been half-drowned. Harry in particular took to dishevelment well – he always had. He was rosy and windswept. Malfoy just looked pale and posh and ever so slightly mussed. They were not standing close together – a whole third person could have fit between them without feeling crowded – but there was something in the way they angled towards each other that felt…aware. Like they were watching one another.
Hermione sighed.
“What’s going on, Harry?” she asked.
Harry grinned. “Malfoy’s here to fix our plumbing,” he said.
Malfoy made a noise that might have been a laugh, provided you caught that laugh on the way out and wrung its neck. “Is…that what we concluded?” he asked.
“Close enough,” Harry said. “Anyway, he’s brought some biscuits.” He gestured to the table, on which there sat a dented square tin full of what looked like shortbread. Some of it had been dipped in chocolate.
Hermione laughed. It was as surprising as the anger. Then she took Malfoy’s cloak from him (he did not resist) and turned to hang it up in the hall. “Would you mind?” she asked over her shoulder as she wrestled free of the jumper. It took the hat with it. “We’re all drenched, and it’s freezing in here.”
Harry didn’t answer, but there was a rush of warm air along the back of her neck. Steam began to curl gently up from the clothing in her hands. There was an audible gasp from the dining room.
“I know,” she said, turning back. “Wandless and wordless. He’s been trying to teach me that trick for years.”
But Malfoy was not looking at Harry. His horrified gaze was directed straight at Hermione.
“I…what?” she asked.
Malfoy shook his head. He shut his mouth with a snap, then shook his head again. “Nothing,” he said. “Just…have a biscuit? I’m sorry. Potter made me come.”
Hermione took a biscuit. “Harry,” she said. “What’s he really here for?”
“I found him in a shop,” Harry said. “He gives people biscuits now. Also he thinks the house is a deathtrap.”
The biscuit was buttery and rich. It crumbled. Some of the crumbs went on the floor and Hermione looked down. They would not be lonely there. She tried to remember the last time either she or Harry had swept.
“The house is fine,” she said without much conviction, looking up from the floor to the peeling wallpaper, the layer of dust on the stovetop. It did look perhaps a bit shameful. Somehow they’d never gotten around to replacing any of the damaged furniture. A sticking spell here and a cushioning charm here, as well as some creative mending (the troll leg that had once been an umbrella stand was now wedged beneath one corner of the enormous table) had always been good enough for the time being. And between her intern years at the ministry and Auror training for the boys, “good enough for the time being” seemed to have been the end of it.
It wasn’t just that, though. The mess and disrepair existed underneath a strange aura of abandonment. As if their belongings, far from actually belonging in the house, were simply detritus that had happened to blow in.
But this was stupid. She and Harry had more important things to think about. They weren’t living in squalor, just friendly…well, dishevelment. Besides, what did it matter what Malfoy thought? “The house is fine,” she said again, decisively this time.
“Malfoy doesn’t think so,” Harry said. He was still grinning.
Malfoy was quite pink. She hadn’t known he could blush. For some reason, she thought, he was trying very hard to be polite. Which meant of course that Harry was trying very hard to provoke him.
“Shut up, Potter,” Malfoy hissed. And then he shut his mouth tight, took a deep breath, and tried again. “Look, I don’t mean to disparage,” he said. “I work with very small scale curse removal, mostly in older houses like this where there’s been…” he paused.
“Pureblood shite,” Harry filled in helpfully.
“Yes,” Malfoy allowed. “Potter asked me to stop by and take a look.”
“And?” Hermione asked. She was not particularly interested in small scale curses (whatever that meant) but she found she was mildly interested in Malfoy’s blush, and very interested in Harry’s reaction to it. He kept stealing glances.
“And I’ve been here all of five minutes,” Malfoy snapped. “And it’s impossible to tell what’s the house falling apart because it’s hostile and what’s the house falling apart because the two of you are apparently so caught up in your prestigious and brilliant careers you don’t notice that it’s raining inside.” He said all of this in one agitated breath and then stopped himself with a large gulp of tea.
Harry beamed.
Hermione opened her mouth to say that it wasn’t that bad, then followed Malfoy’s line of sight to the corner where they’d wedged one of Percy’s old confiscated cauldrons to catch the ceiling drip. It wasn’t quite overflowing. She sighed again. It was all a bit much, honestly. She felt like a wrung-out dishcloth and what did any of it matter? “Fine,” Hermione said. “I’ve got some work to finish anyway. I’ll just be in the den.”
Malfoy glanced at Harry, then back at her. “Actually,” he said. “I was hoping you could walk through the house with me, Granger. Most of the malice will be directed at you, not Potter. I’m sorry.”
For a second she tried to weigh which would be more work – refusing or acquiescing – and then she shrugged. “Yes, fine,” she said.
“I’ll start on some dinner,” Harry said quickly, as if he was afraid she would change her mind.
And so Hermione found her(half-drowned-feral-cat-wrung-out-dishrag)self giving an impeccably dressed and pleasingly flustered Draco Malfoy a tour of Grimauld Place.
It did not go well.
At first his questions (and you use this sofa, do you? Is this fireplace not perhaps a little hazardous? Do you find there’s a draft from the crack in this window?) were polite, if slightly astonished. But by the time Hermione had shown him the third bathroom he had lost his filter. “Are any of these rooms usable?” he asked Hermione.
“Well,” she said. “The sinks work in Harry’s, there’s a decent bathtub in the one down the hall if you don’t mind having to light candles. Mine’s mostly for show at this point.”
“Granger,” Malfoy said. He had stopped at the landing in front of her and was looking down at the floor with an expression she could not read. “Why is this book on the floor.”
“There’s a roaming tripping hex in this hallway,” Hermione said. “It kept catching me, so I tethered the book to it.” She turned to lead him further down the hall (she wanted to get the attic over with) but Malfoy did not move to follow her. He stared down at Atlas Shrugged. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath as if to steady himself, and opened them again to fix Hermione with a gaze highly reminiscent of Professor McGonagall. Astonishment and recrimination.
Hermione was not used to that look being directed towards her. It was surprisingly uncomfortable. It filtered through the bank of fog in her brain and made her feel the first real something (other than quick flashes of feeling or vague irritation) she’d felt in weeks. It took Hermione a moment to recognize that it was shame. “At least this way I see it coming,” she said lamely. She did not mention that Harry, far from being alerted and warned off by this tactic, mostly found himself stumbling over the book itself instead. It could be argued, given that information, that Hermione had really only augmented the hex.
Malfoy picked up the (extremely tattered) paperback. He placed it deliberately onto a side table, then crouched down, held his wand an inch above the carpet and traced a glowing circle above the spot where the book had sat. He looked up at Hermione with earnest, grey eyes and said, “Stay clear for this bit, Granger.” Then he began to make little upward flipping motions with his wand, as if to draw the circle upwards. It didn’t budge.
Hermione rolled her own eyes. When they’d first moved in she’d tried six different countermeasures to get rid of this thing. Malfoy had jumped straight to number five. “You’re trying to levitate it off the floor,” she said. “I did that already. And I tried finite incantatum, two different arithmancy rune circles and Madame Proudfoot’s Curse-Killing Carpet Cleaner, regular and extra strength.” She didn’t mention reducto. That had been Ron’s contribution when the hex had caught her right at the top of the staircase once. They’d patched up the floorboards after (they’d been a bit more motivated in those days).
Malfoy pursed his lips. He gave one last flick of his wand, then put it into his pocket, pushed up his sleeve and did something Hermione had not expected. He plunged his hand into the middle of the glowing circle.
It went right through the carpet as if the carpet was made of molasses, right through that and into the floor. Hermione could see the tendons showing stark on Malfoy’s wrist as he took hold of something, grimaced, twisted. He looked up at her again.
“Did you try cheating?” he asked, and pulled.
The thing that came out of the floorboards looked like an apple-sized black jellyfish, and it looked angry. Malfoy had it tightly in his fist, but the tentacles were loose and thrashing. Some of them wrapped themselves around the edge of the glowing circle he’d drawn and resisted, while others licked at his bare arms. Every time they did Hermione could see the muscles in his forearm jump.
“Is it stinging you?” Hermione asked. She hadn’t ever seen anything like this. The weirdness of it burned away the last of her fog. She took a step closer and the trailing, thready arms stopped flicking at Malfoy and reached towards her as if she was a magnet.
“Get back!” Malfoy said sharply.
Hermione frowned. “I want to look,” she said. “You pulled it out of my floor. Is it alive?”
Malfoy scooted backwards away from her, furious and undignified. “It is stinging me, it’s not alive, and it’ll pull you into your floor if you can’t do as you’re told!” he snapped.
That seemed unlikely. Hermione would have stepped forward again except that Malfoy had taken out his wand and pointed it at the thing in his hand. One of the odd little tentacles pointed back at it, then another, and another. Hermione watched as they wrapped themselves around the wood and pulled. When Malfoy relaxed his fist the blobby hex-jellyfish dangled from his wand, hanging on by its own threads and then reeled itself in. Several of the tentacles were inside the tip of his wand now and the rest of it was following, climbing boneless and intent as an octopus. It was like watching someone siphon grease from a stovetop, except the grease had a mind of its own and also a bad temper.
Then it was gone, and Malfoy was shaking the tension out of his arm. “Ugh,” he said. “Pins and needles.” There was sweat on his forehead.
“What was that?” Hermione asked.
“A tripping hex that went a bit feral,” Malfoy said shortly. He got up and strode to the little hall table, picked up Atlas Shrugged and dusted it off against his shirt front. Quite a lot of dirt came off. He looked at it in horror. Then he looked back at the carpet, scanned the entirety of the dilapidated, grim hallway, nodded sharply and walked back to Hermione to shove the book into her hands. Something appeared to have broken free in him. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
Hermione scowled. “Nothing,” she said. It was none of Malfoy’s business that she didn’t seem to have feelings anymore.
If anything, this seemed to frustrate him further. “Yes, of course,” he said. “My mistake. You enjoy living this way. You prefer to float around like a sad little ghost in a baggy jumper. You’ve never had any sense of self-preservation or respect for books.”
Hermione’s own anger, freed from the dull sludge of her misery, rose up to meet his. “I haven’t any respect for that book,” she said hotly. “And just because I’m an academic doesn’t mean I think books are sacred objects. They’re meant to be read, just like houses are meant to be lived in. Things aren’t only worthwhile if they’re pure and pristine, Malfoy! A few dings and scratches might offend you, but they’re not the end of the world to me!” She did not address floating like a sad little ghost. She thought she might have to punch him again if she did that.
Malfoy clearly did not feel as if “a few dings and scratches” described the state of either Atlas Shrugged or Grimauld Place. He looked just as furious as she was. “This house,” he said, “is trying to kill you. And it’s destroying itself in the process. Go ahead and call me a snob, Granger – fat lot of good that’ll do you when the rest of your hair falls out and Saint Potter’s busy doing retail therapy. Merlin knows what the two of you let happen to Weasley. Is he locked up in the attic like a ghoul, or have you just fed him to the carnivorous ivy out back?”
And then he stopped talking, rather abruptly, because Hermione was throwing Atlas Shrugged at his head.
Malfoy snatched neatly it out of the air. They stood there in the dark hallway, both of them breathing heavily and glaring. Some of Malfoy’s hair had fallen over his eyes. It looked very soft. Hermione wanted to touch it. She wanted to twist her hands into that honey softness and pull it out by the roots. She could not remember the last time she had really wanted anything.
Malfoy tossed his head so the hair fell back. His jaw was set. “Apologies to Potter,” he said tightly. And then he turned on his heel and with a loud Crack! disappeared.
Hermione stormed down the stairs.
Two hours later she had written her report. In entirety. With supplemental reading materials and fourteen footnotes.
Harry had washed the dishes and mended the leak above the kitchen.
They did not talk about Draco Malfoy.
Two days later a beautiful eagle owl returned her book. There was a letter attached.
Granger,
I’m sorry for my behaviour Sunday.
In regards to the house: blood magic is crude and simple. The kind of brute-force solution I employed the other day was only workable because my mother was a Black – anyone else would have lost a hand, so please don’t try anything like it. I’d rather not read in the papers about the maiming of our future Minister for Magic.
In my professional opinion? Number 12 Grimauld Place is in need of serious rehabilitation before anyone of muggle ancestry is to live there safely. The place is, as Potter succinctly put it, a deathtrap.
Much of the actual spellwork will be straightforward (if a bit tedious), but without someone the house deems acceptable to perform it, any work in that direction is likely to exacerbate the problem long-term. I’d suggest enlisting the help of some pureblood witches or wizards, the more closely related they are to the Blacks the better. My aunt Andromeda is the obvious choice, but any member of the Weasley clan would likely do.
Please don’t hesitate to owl if I can be of further (less antagonistic) assistance.
Best wishes,
Draco Malfoy
P.S. I see what you meant about this book.
Hermione read the letter out loud to Harry. She was sitting on the floor, ostensibly so she could play with Crookshanks, but actually so she could lean her back against Harry's warm legs on the sofa behind her. He had one hand on her shoulder, and every few moments he would take a piece of her hair between his fingers, tug on it gently. She read Harry the letter from Malfoy and then she set it on fire.
She cast a containment field first, of course, and levitated the ball of flames a few feet off the carpet just to be safe. It was quite pretty. Crookshanks kept leaping up to swat at it.
Hermione did not need to turn around (and did not want to dislodge the hand in her hair to do so) to know the expression Harry was making. "Stop smiling like that," she told him.