Idle Worship

There is a dissociative nature to waking. 

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been asleep. Hours, minutes, days, it all feels the same in the second between sleeping and waking. Alone in the darkness, trapped behind your eyelids, you could be anywhere. Usually, when you open your eyes, you find yourself somewhere predictable. That ambiguous moment happens, you blink to clear the sleep, squint at the sun, and attend to business as usual. 

Not today. 

Not for Hermione Granger.

She thought that she must be dreaming when she opened her eyes and only saw more darkness, like she had another set of eyelids she forgot to open. She blinked furiously. The darkness persisted. 

For no discernible reason, she thought about her father. They'd been out running errands and he asked if she'd like to go out to breakfast with him. It wasn’t the type of thing that they would normally do.

She drank her coffee black, he got a latte with drizzles and garnishes sprinkled into the whipped cream. They didn't talk about anything particularly memorable, but she remembered the layer of cinnamon sugar that stuck to her fingers from the pastries. 

She really felt like she was there, in the little booth at the cafe, but she was snapped from her daydream when she realized that the sounds of dishes clinking and the hiss of the espresso machine were just the ringing in her ears. Her head was sore, and when she drew her fingers back from a tentative touch to the sore spot, they came back bloody. 

Hermione was trying to decide whether she should lay back down or rise from her knees and find out what the hell was happening when she felt herself abruptly fall back into the cold and unforgiving floor. 

The last thing she saw before she slipped again into unconsciousness was the man beside her, but she was unable to focus her vision enough to discern anything about him. It was too dark for her to see properly, and he was just out of reach. He was the shape of a wadded paper napkin on the sidewalk. When she succumbed to blackness, Hermione was frightened. 

She woke slowly, and then with a start. It wasn’t a dream. She was still there, wherever there was. Her eyes shot directly to the person across from her. Most of all, she had hoped that he had been part of a nightmare. 

Her fear quickly turned into worry when her eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness and saw that the man was no longer slumped to the floor, but braced on his hands and knees. He was making a garish display of distress, rocking back and forth, groaning, pressing his forehead head against the cool stone ground.

She threw her weight onto unsteady feet and made her way over to him, in such a state of disorientation and emergency that she did not give herself the bandwidth to question where she was, why she was there, or who she was stumbling towards. She crouched at his right side, steadying her shaky hand by placing it against his back and painting slow, smooth circles with her palm. Like her mother always did, when she was sick as a child. He heaved and she could feel the muscles of his back spasm under her hand.

He tried to sit back onto his heels, but his stomach seized again and he lurched back forward onto his hands, vomiting in a way that seemed too violent for a body that was so blatantly fragile. Even in the low light, she could tell that he was worse for wear. Dangerously thin, frightfully unsteady. 

Hermione then realized that there were several other small puddles of vomit and reached for her wand to scourgify the mess, but she found only the smooth, empty pocket of her denims. She patted both hands against all of her pockets at least twice before cursing under her breath and acknowledging a nauseous sensation of her own. Wherever they were, it wasn’t good. Someone had taken her wand. 

A coughing fit drew her attention back to the man in front of her. A stringy halo of white-blond hair cast down over his face, and she swiped a hand across his forehead to pull it back. She cringed at the streak of vomit she felt slick against her hand as she smoothed it. He immediately vomited again, but all that splashed against the rock was yellow bile that she hoped was the end of his stomach. He didn’t look fit to lose any more of him. 

His body relaxed slightly, his breaths coming heavier and steadier. He leaned back against her, sitting comfortably between her knees so that his back fit against her chest. Just two awkward piles of limbs on the ground, he tipped his head back, eyes closed in exhausted ecstasy. He started abruptly when his weight sank against her, eyes snapping open and vanishing any relief in his features. He had thought she was a figment just as much as she had hoped that she had imagined him. Funnily enough, in however many minutes had elapsed since she had awoken in this ugly new world, Hermione had failed to consider that the man would be someone she knew. 

“What the fuck are you doing here, Granger.” He rasped. Of all of the plausible disaster scenarios that her anxious mind had tortured her with throughout her life, and there were many, none of them never included holding back Draco Malfoy’s hair while he heaved, much less supporting his weight so that he wouldn’t fall into his own vomit.

“As if I know.” She scoffed. Her previous panic now tasted strongly like irritation. “Where is here?”

He looked around as if it hadn’t occurred to him to do so before then. He groaned out half of something crass before digging the heels of his hands roughly into his eye sockets. He was still sitting back on his heels, reclined against Hermione’s shoulder. She hadn’t the faintest clue what to make of this impossible thing.

With his head lolled back into her and his eyes closed, Hermione realized that she had never believed him capable of such relaxation. Even in the company of his closest friends, let alone sworn enemies. Not that she had given much though to the topic. She looked down at him, puzzled, and saw the dark spots of blood across his temple for the first time. The half-dried mess stained his hair a horrifying color, like something out of a horror movie. He was quiet for too long and then she realized that he was asleep. 

Shit. She swore under her breath, cupping one of his cheeks in her palm and using the other to shake him gently. 

“Malfoy, I need you to wake up. I think you have a concussion.” He groaned noncommittally, which Hermione responded to with a scoff to cover how close she felt to crying as she hiked him up with an arm draped over her shoulder. 

They quickly but awkwardly made their way to the closest wall of what Hermione could now distinguish was a cave. She led him to the ground gently, talking to him loudly as she did. When he finally opened his eyes, they narrowed to slits and pierced Hermione with their stare. 

He jerked his shoulder away from her gentle grasp, which made him wince as he fell back heavily into the stone wall. He gritted his teeth and took deep breaths without opening his lips.

“For fucks sake, Malfoy. You’re hurt. Let me help you.”

“Come off it, you filthy bitch. I’ll be calling for my healer. You must be really conceited if you thought I would ever let you heal me.” 

“Merlin, you’re even worse than I remembered, you insolent shit.” She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead, which was no warmer than it should have been.

“I haven’t a clue where we are, but my wand’s gone, I can’t remember how I got here, and I’d bet my last drop of dittany you’ve got a concussion.” She rolled her eyes in response to his assortment of dirty looks. Draco didn’t have the slightest idea what a concussion was, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to tell Hermione Granger that. He patted at his own pockets and suddenly sobered, coming to the same conclusion as Hermione. He didn’t have to show her his empty hands for her to know that his wand was gone too. 

Though he had been alert and agitated the moment before, he felt his head grow suddenly heavy, traitorously bobbing forward until it laid against her clavicle. She pressed her hands to his face again, both palms this time, placing herself firmly in his line of sight. 

“Malfoy, you need to stay awake. I know your head hurts, but I need you to stay awake.” He looked back at her dazedly, as if she had just spoken to him in a foreign language. 

“Draco.” She snapped. A bit of the fog in his eyes drifted away. He cleared his throat, which only made him gag. She instinctively placed a hand between his shoulder blades, and another on his shoulder as he pitched forward slightly. Surprising her, he did not shrug off her touch. She drew her hands away quickly.

Propped against the wall with his knees tucked up and his eyes closed, she could tell he was still awake from the way his face furrowed in pain. His chin was raised, his neck exposed in a way that struck her as extremely vulnerable. He could have been sitting on the floor in the Slytherin common room, nursing a hangover while Pansy scolded him for gallivanting around drunk with Blaise and Theo instead of helping her with their potions assignment.

“Do you remember anything?” Hermione asked gently. He shook his head but quickly stopped, wincing at the pain.

“Is it your head?” Hermione asked. He dipped his chin slightly in lieu of a nod. His teeth were clamped shut with the resolve of someone trying to suppress vomit. 

“Are you terribly nauseous?” Another dip of his chin.

“Okay then. If you can’t talk, you have to open your eyes so that I can tell that you’re awake.” 

He swallowed, then slowly opened his eyes. There was a small cut on his left temple, and it left a thin trickle of blood that ended at his jawline. Mutely, he locked his eyes with hers. The light, coming from somewhere high in the ceiling, was dim. Just bright enough to make him out properly. Hermione was taken aback by the force of his full attention. There was the usual animosity, but there was something else there too. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said he seemed haunted.

She had always thought of him as someone who was entirely cold. The kind of person who could kill a flowerbed simply by looking at it. But through his eyes, illuminated by the gentle dregs of the moon, she saw someone who was tired. Someone who had been unburdened, once. Someone who wasn’t anymore. As long as she lived, she would never forget the way it felt to have his full attention trained on her for the first time.

Hermione blinked. Draco looked off past her shoulder, his eyes glazed over, looking at nothing. The moment was gone.

“The last thing I remember, I was at the Burrow for someone’s birthday. I think it was Ginny’s. After that there’s just… nothing. I woke up here.”

“I was having drinks after dinner with—” He squeezed his eyes shut like the memory hurt him. Or maybe it was just his head. 

“Hopefully,” Hermione drawled. “This is just all some horrible mistake and we’ll be out by morning. Or whenever it is. I wish we had something to bloody tell time with.” Leave it to Hermione Granger to wish for a clock in hell so that she could schedule how she spent her time in mortal peril. 

Hermione stood up, Draco’s eyes tracking her movements as she slid her hands across the stone face. Up and down, following a coiling pattern with her palm, she examined every inch of the cave and found nothing but smooth rock. 

Hermione drew a blueprint of the space in her mind. It was a dome, the center marked by a hole in the rock that she assumed would flood with daylight, whenever the time came. At present, they had only the feeble glow of the moon. It was impossibly far away, enough to make her think that there was some sort of charm to distance the opening from its inhabitants. The thought made her shiver. She hoped Draco hadn’t seen.

The whole cave was one long, oval shaped room, in the center of which they sat. She compared it in size to a living room that could comfortably fit two adults, three children, and three pets. The oval was quite skinny one way; Hermione thought that if she laid down and stretched herself all the way out, she would make it about three quarters of the way across. She made a mental note to try that later. When Draco was asleep. 

Shit.

Wonderful. He had already fallen asleep, and though Hermione hadn’t a clue how much time had elapsed since she woke up in this hellhole, she knew it wasn’t long enough for him to be sleeping after a concussion like that. 

She could feel herself rolling her eyes as she marched the few steps back to where he sat, taking his face between her palms. The concern she had felt for him earlier had reconfigured into irritation, and she thanked the gods for that small scrap of normalcy. She felt a rush of pleasure when she realized that she would very much like to slap Malfoy right across his smug fucking face. Only had he not already been injured, of course. 

“Wake up you spoiled prat. It would be very inconvenient for me if you died.” She talked to him like he was an unwelcome animal on her porch. He didn’t wake, and she could feel the tracks left down his cheek from drool that had since dried, sticky like jam. She jabbed at his shoulder with three fingers. He still didn’t wake.

Hermione raised her voice. “MALFOY.” 

He snapped to with a confused grunt, then promptly vomited into her lap. 

Hermione gritted her teeth and pondered the pros and cons of dying immediately. The prospect of burning at the stake in the style of the witch trials seemed rather inviting, all things considered. 

“You have to stay awake, you miserable shit.” Hermione said through gritted teeth. She placed a hand to his forehead to feel for his temperature again. He raised a hand to swat her away but raked it through his hair instead.

“You are a disappointing individual to observe. Horribly boring. Not to mention the fact that this headache is threatening to bisect my skull.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed it slightly, bowing his head.

“I was really hoping this had all been a horrendous nightmare.” He spat. When he lifted his head, he found that Hermione had crossed to the other end of the cave. 

“What the fucking— Granger, I’m going to have to burn out my eyeballs now.” He would have thrown something at her if he had anything to throw or the strength to throw it. Hermione glared at him from where she stood, stepping out of her denims; naked other than a matching white set of panties. 

“Pride be damned, I will not sit here soaked in your vomit. Thanks for that, by the way. Now, do you see a wardrobe of spare clothes lying around? Thought not.” She crossed her arms over her stomach self consciously. “Besides, it’s hot as hell in here. I bet it won’t be more than a quarter of an hour before I find out if you prefer boxers or briefs. Information I would have rather gone my whole life without knowing, thank you.” She scowled at him in unfiltered annoyance and disgust.

“Well in that case, Granger,” he spat her name, “I am delighted to inform you that I wear silk boxers. I look forward to knowing that you will be haunted by my choice in undergarments until the end of time.” Hermione groaned and covered her eyes. Merlin save her. 

She paused a moment before pushing the image into the deepest corner of her brain and reorienting herself to the task at hand. Hermione liked having a task. A goal. Something to complete. She had never in her life been so eager to distract her mind with quite literally anything. 

“Well, there may not be a wardrobe, but there has to be something in this cave. The skylight has some sort of distancing charm on it, so I reckon it isn’t the only thing that’s been charmed. Now get up and help me look, I don’t like tight spaces and I would rather not be trapped in this one.” 

Draco knew he was too unstable to stand, but it wouldn’t be the first time his legs held him up while they shook. He leaned heavily into the wall, which gave way under his touch and he nearly smacked his head into the rock. A silver spigot telescoped out from the rock face and began spilling water into the basin that was carved out beneath it. 

“You would think that an absolutely insufferable know it all such as yourself would be able to break a simple disillusionment charm. Maybe your dirty blood has finally run out of magic.” 

Hermione was too shocked by the water basin to form a full response. “Fuck you Malfoy.”

She began running her hands over the walls again, the same coiling patterns she had traced and traced again, though this time she was frantic. How the hell had he done that? He walked along the wall counterclockwise, opposite her, placing a hand every few feet or inches without any particular pattern. As if by memory, or intuition. Her stomach fell between her feet as she watched it happen. 

The water basin. Shelves with small stacks of old porcelain dishes. A metal bathtub. Shelves with short rows of glassware. 

Draco walked back to the center of the cave, directly below the skylight. He ignored Hermione’s babbling entirely. 

He picked up a rock and sliced it down the center of his palm, drawing blood. Hermione yelped but he still ignored her completely, eyes glazed over with deep focus and realization, and perhaps apprehension. His movements felt removed, like he was the puppet of a higher power. He pressed his palm into the ground, rocks and hard packed dirt. 

There was a loud crack like apparition. Sconces shot from the walls and flames exploded from each one, the massive jets of fire shrinking down to steady flickers of yellow light. A stack of books dropped out of nowhere, leather bound covers slapping against each other as they righted themselves in a stack. The entire cave shifted.

“Fuck.” Draco hissed. When Hermione turned at the sound of his voice, he was still sitting in the center of the cave, and he was staring into the palm of his hand. Only now, the skin was as smooth and pale as it had been before he had defaced it. The smear of his blood on the floor confirmed that she hadn’t imagined it. She watched as it shrank, the small crimson splotch being absorbed by solid stone.

Like it was drinking him in. 

“What in Merlin’s name just happened.” Hermione said, half demanding, half shaking in terror and disbelief.

“We're stuck in one of the caves of The Sacred Twenty-Eight.”