Day Ten
Hermione woke first. She always did. It took a while, but she grew accustomed to seeing the back of a blond head across the cave when she woke.
The air tasted like cotton. Hermione dragged her tongue down the front of her teeth, and her whole mouth had the thick feeling of being hungover. Like she had eaten an entire sleeve of saltines. She rubbed at her eyes and rose from the twin sized mattress, making a slow and lazy way over to the water basin.
She grabbed a glass in each hand and filled them, chugging down half of her own in the time it took to walk over to Draco’s bed, where she left the full glass with a small clinking sound against the stone. She sat back down on her bed, and for what felt like the first time in a long time, though it hadn’t even been two weeks, she felt alone.
Not lonely. And not the sort of loneliness that was alienating. This was more the kind that was peaceful. She was still nauseous with anxiety, but she felt closer to peace than she had at any point in the past ten days. As peaceful as you could feel in a cave.
Hermione couldn’t pin down whether or not she missed having the journals around. Her mood swung on a pendulum, thrown too hard so that every time the marble came back down the whole group shuddered. There was a large part of her that couldn’t even stomach the thought of what they had lost, the real possibility that their only means of escape had dissolved into a mess of pulp that the cave had simply vanished while they slept. There was another part of her that just missed the challenge, the task, the purpose. Even if they hadn’t held the key to their escape, they had given her something to do. A small part of her was glad to be absolved of all responsibility. At least now, if they died down there, it wasn’t because she wasn’t clever enough. Hermione took another large sip of water to wash the thought away.
The sun began to shine down through the skylight, in the quiet way that it did. It never shone too bright or too hot. It was like the sun that comes through sheer curtains, all the harshness filtered out. Still, it was enough to light the small space, and enough to make her feel like a person. Hermione shuddered at the thought of being trapped down here without the gentle glow of the skylight.
Draco began to stir as the light slowly illuminated the centre of the cave. They had both slept through the night, which was an anomaly. Normally one or both of them woke with nightmares; sometimes violent, others more docile. But it was a small space. Hermione always knew when Draco was having a nightmare, and she could always feel his piercing attention whenever she woke in the middle of the night. Some nights, she went to him. Others, she bit her tongue and grit her teeth until she could stand to close her eyes again.
“That must be some sort of fucking record, Granger, I don’t think either of us has slept for that long in months. Maybe we should have considered vacationing here sooner.” Hermione chuckled despite herself, shaking her head as he wiped the sleep from his eyes. She heard the clink of him lifting his glass and setting it down after drinking from it. Little sounds of home. Like leaving the television on in the other room.
“Feeling like a comedian this morning, are we?” Hermione chided, pushing herself up to stand while he stretched the stiffness out of his spindly limbs.
“Oh Granger,” Draco drawled. “Are you just now realising how devastatingly hilarious I am? I thought you’d always known.” Hermione laughed again, a real one, because it was some fucked up kind of world they were living in if Draco Malfoy was cracking jokes from his bed while she made breakfast.
“Oh, I’ve always known. You were just too much of a prat for it to matter.” Did Hermione just admit that she thought Draco was funny? She refocused herself on buttering and jellying toast as he brushed past her, refilling the moka pot and replacing it to brew.
On the eighth day, following some desperate experimentation with the strange, magical kitchenware, Hermione found that one of the pans produced eggs when placed just so on the counter. It seemed to be the same heating mechanism as the coffee, but the eggs would simply appear in the pan when they were done. Two days later, they were still riding the high of such a victory. They were still probably going to die, but at least it wouldn’t be of a protein deficiency.
She could hear Draco scoff, but it sounded more like the beginning of a laugh under his breath.
Hermione carried their plates to the table, and she could have cried for how normal it felt. The warm sunlight, the fragrant espresso, the scrape of the chair as she pulled it out. If she squeezed her eyes shut, she could pretend she was in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, so she kept her eyes open. She barely even blinked. She couldn’t let herself go there, even in her mind.
Draco set a steaming americano next to her plate before sitting in the chair across from her. They ate in silence, and she hoped that he was thinking of something good. Somewhere better.
She passed the salt, and before her coffee had the chance to be halfway gone, he stood up and refilled it for her. She smiled up at him, and she wondered how they had ever harboured such hatred for each other. He wasn’t a monster, he was just a boy.
“I can’t believe it took being trapped underground for us to have a civil breakfast with each other. You’re significantly less horrible than I remember you being, Malfoy.” Hermione said, though to her horror, she could feel a faint blush reach her cheeks.
“I still think you’re horrible, but I’ve grown to like that about you. Keeps me on my toes.” Draco said, spearing a bite of eggs with his fork. Hermione laughed in earnest.
“I’ve come to find some of your faults endearing as well, Malfoy. If I was stuck down here with someone less vain, I wouldn’t have quite so nice a view to admire.” Hermione popped the last bite of crust in her mouth and washed it down with another swig of water.
“Do you fancy me Granger? Consider me flattered.” Malfoy scoffed.
“I’ve wanted to shag your fucking brains out since sixth year. The black suits and the turtlenecks really do it for me.” Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth, like maybe she could take it back if she shoved the words back in. Draco looked up at her, absolutely struck dumb.
Hermione tried to take it back, to say she had just been kidding with him, but all that came out of her mouth was an unabashed “I mean it, truly.” Hermione wanted to vomit. Draco’s eyes were the size of dinner plates.
Draco quite literally choked on her confession, sputtering and nearly knocking over his glass of water before picking up and upending the glass into his mouth. Draco cleared his throat and made to say something flippant.
Instead, he said, “The first time I wanted to touch you was during the Triwizard Tournament. I had to sit and watch Krum manhandle you, trying to pull you out of the Black Lake.”
Draco blanched. He pressed a closed fist against his mouth and just stared at Hermione for a solid minute. Veritaserum, he mumbled, as if saying it to himself. The word got trapped in his mouth while he mulled it over.
“Hermione, don’t ask me anything, and I won’t ask you any either. There’s Veritaserum in the water.”
“But we’ve been drinking it all morning. Veritaserum is immediate acting. Why hasn’t it affected us until now?” Hermione questioned.
“It has to be diluted if it’s in the water, so it took time for enough of it to accumulate in our systems.”
Hermione felt extremely conflicted by this information. It didn’t make any sense to her, why there was Veritaserum in the water. Draco was no doubt correct, Potions Mastery aside, fuck that, she also had a Potions Mastery, but there was no other explanation for the conversation they had just had. A conversation made even more complicated by the fact that Hermione knew that what he said was true, just like he knew the sincerity of her desire to jump him at the earliest opportunity. Oh Merlin, she was fucked.
“We can’t just stop drinking the water. We’ll die.” Hermione said, and maybe she would have tried to sugar coat it on any other day, but today was a day of truths.
“I’m hoping that it’s temporary.” Draco snapped. He braced himself against the table with both hands, hanging his head. Hermione grabbed both glasses and dumped them.
“We can give it a day. But I’m not willing to risk whatever small chance we have at survival to avoid spilling our guts to each other. I’m not too keen on it either, but it’s not worth my life.” Hermione shook her head. “We can try to sleep it off, but if our water has been contaminated at the source, there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ll have to drink it. And I’d rather not subject myself to the effects of dehydration, on top of everything.” She sighed, rubbing at her face with the heels of her hands.
“I’m going back to sleep. Goodnight, Granger.” Draco mumbled, defeated. He curled up on his bed and didn’t say anything else.
Hermione laid down on her own bed, leaving their breakfast on the table. Neither of them had much of an appetite. The Veritaserum… was admittedly not ideal. And while Hermione didn’t see this as quite a big enough reason to climb back into bed, her body didn’t protest. She knew that this was embarrassing and frustrating for her, but it was a lot more than that for Draco. For someone who held so much so close to his chest. Anything he told her, anything real, it was like pulling teeth.
For his sake, for both their sakes, she slept.
She woke alone, but the sheets on the other beds were bunched up like someone else had been there. She was in one of the shared bedrooms at Grimmauld Place, in one of the three large beds placed in the room like Tetris. You could barely see the floor, between the excess of furniture and the clothes and linens strewn around. Tapestries hung from the walls and woven blankets hung from the beds like patchwork. It always smelled like incense.
She blinked a few times, but the sleep didn’t entirely clear, like film on a mirror. She couldn’t find the corner of the plastic to strip it back, so she was left with a reflection of her that was not entirely herself.
She made her way down the winding staircase, soundtracked by the creaks in the floor and the murmuring portraits. She could hear them, they felt loud, but she couldn’t make out anything they were saying. She rounded the corner and pushed through the doors into the kitchen. She had used more force than she needed and jumped when the hinges flew wide open with a crack against the wall. No one turned at the sound.
Her stomach turned over. Had she done something? She couldn’t remember anything happening. But did that mean it hadn’t? Had she done something?
She walked over to the coffee pot to pour herself a cup.
“Would anybody like anything?” She asked. No response. There wasn’t even a hitch in the conversation. Anxiety welled up in her chest. This was strange, even in the current climate. The war made everything tense. But… not like this.
“Harry?” Hermione croaked, not expecting to hear her own voice break. He didn’t spare her so much as half a glance.
“Harry?!” Hermione said, loud enough that someone could have heard her two rooms over. He still didn’t even seem to register her presence in the room.
“Ron?” She questioned desperately. “Ginny?” She felt a tear roll down her cheek. She was shouting now.
“Remus? Harry? Harry please!” Hermione begged. She was right in front of his face now, tears rolling down her cheeks, but it was like she was watching the memory through a pensieve. She felt herself begin to hyperventilate. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t anybody see her? Was she there? Was she still alive?
“Hermione!” A voice shouted, and she gasped in shock and relief. She whipped her head around frantically, searching for the voice. Everyone in the room was still going through the motions of a scene she wasn’t in. But her name had been so clear—
“Hermione!” She could feel her body shaking. The voice was real, someone could see her, someone knew that she was there. She spun around, grasping for purchase, grabbing for smoke, searching for the invisible owner of the voice that called out to her.
Draco.
She woke up gasping for air, face inches from Draco’s as he hovered over her. She braced a hand against her chest, like she could rip it open to let the air in.
“Hermione, can you hear me?” Draco sounded worried, like it wasn’t the first time he had asked her.
“Yes,” she choked out, pressing her forehead into his bony shoulder and focusing on the weight of herself against him. He paced his breaths, deep and slow, and she willed herself to match the steady rhythm.
“You’re safe. It was just a dream. It wasn’t real.” He murmured into her ear in an attempt to soothe.
“That’s easy for you to say, you weren’t the one in it.” Hermione quipped, sitting back and rubbing at her face with her palms.
“What was it?” Draco asked quietly. Hermione tried to just shake her head to brush the question off, but then she heard herself say “Everyone forgot about me. They couldn’t hear me, or see me. It was like being in a pensieve. It was horrible.”
“Fuck,” Draco hissed. “The Veritaserum.” Hermione groaned. Just what they needed.
Hermione tucked her knees up, and Draco rearranged himself so that he was sitting at the foot of the bed and facing her.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you answer. I wouldn’t have asked, but I wasn’t thinking straight, so I didn’t remember that we were on the serum.” Hermione quirked a halfhearted smile and shook her head.
“It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to.” They looked at each other for a few seconds, then she sighed. “We should just try to avoid asking each other anything telling. For the time being.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.” Draco scrubbed at his face. “This fucking sucks.”
“We should,” Hermione drawled, and her tone had certain implications.
“Granger, I don’t like where this is going.” Draco grumbled from behind his hands.
“Do you trust me?” Hermione asked benignly, and only after she had already asked did she realise how loaded that question was under the current circumstances. Draco bit his lips but couldn’t help it when he said
“Yes.”
“Oh Merlin, we just talked about this, I’m sorry. I was only baiting you. I didn’t mean to actually ask.”
The faucet dripped, a taunt. Hermione made eye contact with the floor and steeled herself with a breath. She gently wrapped a hand around his wrist, prying it away from his face without any real force. He could rip his wrist away in an instant if he wanted to.
“Draco?” She asked softly, face bent down so she could try to catch his eye. He didn’t say anything, but he met her open gaze.
“Ask me.” She whispered. She was walking on shards of glass but knew he wouldn’t cut her. How was she so sure? She was careful not to phrase it as a question, giving him the choice to ask. A cloud passed over the sunbeam, dimming the room, but neither of them noticed.
“Do you trust me, Granger?” Draco asked, a hoarse whisper, and for fuck’s sake he hated how small he sounded.
“Yes.” She whispered back, never breaking eye contact. Had she sounded any less sure, he would have questioned the veracity of the Veritaserum.
“Ok.” He said, more to himself than to her, nodding his head in confirmation. She trusted him. Why did she trust him? Why did he care if she trusted him? Fuck.
Hermione thought over her words carefully before she spoke, making sure that she would not compel him to answer anything.
“You can ask me something else if you’d like.” Hermione said. “I’d rather not sit in silence for however long this is going to take. I trust you not to ask me anything I’m not ready to answer.” Draco turned this over in his brain a few times before he responded. They were both acutely aware of the need to choose their words carefully.
“I don’t think I’m ready to extend the same invitation.” Draco said, and for Salazar’s sake he wished he could hide under the covers and never come out. Hermione took his hand in hers.
“That’s okay. I wouldn’t ask you to. And I don’t want you to feel like you have to.” Hermione shook her head. “However, if you ask me anything I’m not comfortable answering, I’m going to need you to scream really loud so you can’t hear my answer. And I suppose I’ll turn around so you can’t read my lips. How does that sound?”
Draco chuckled, feeling some of the tension bleed out of him. “Entirely reasonable. But we have to have a signal, or a safe word. So I know when to plug my ears and shout bloody murder.” It was Hermione’s turn to laugh now.
“How about bowtruckle?” She said between giggles. Draco cracked a smile at that, and nodded. Hermione bit her lip to try to keep from laughing, but all it did was make her blush. Any scrap of joy they could collect in the cave was more potent than anything on the surface, tenfold. Draco cleared his throat before he spoke very carefully.
“What’s your favourite kind of weather?” Hermione made a face at him, confused. Regardless of the follow up questions she already had poised on the tip of her tongue, the answer to his question came bubbling out of her.
“Partly cloudy, just warm enough to wear jeans and a t-shirt, but you bring a jacket just in case.” Hermione smiled. “Can I ask you why that was your question?” Draco nodded, so she did.
“I miss the breeze. I miss the wind in my hair on a broom. Even trapped at the estate, I was able to fly around the back gardens.” Hermione hummed. “That’s nice.” She smiled to herself, trying to remember the last time the weather had been perfect. She couldn’t.
“Come on now, I know there’s a million things you’re dying to ask me. Spit it out.” Hermione goaded. Draco just shook his head, eyes downcast. He peeked up at her through his lashes, met again with her befuddled brows.
“Of course there are… things. I’d like to ask you.” He cleared his throat. “But I’d like you to be able to answer them of your own accord. In exactly your own words. I trust you, remember?” Hermione could feel the breath trapped in her throat, and it felt hot and shaky when she let it out. She nodded. It had all been her idea, but it wasn’t until she felt her body flood with overwhelming relief that she realised how unready she had been to answer what he might have asked her. She looked him dead in the eye then, too deliberate for him to do anything to avoid it.
“Thank you.” She said sincerely. He nodded back in acknowledgement. Hermione unfolded her limbs and stood up from the bed, hands on her hips and head cocked to the side as she looked down at him. She extended a hand to pull him up behind her before she made towards the countertop.
“It’s my turn to make the coffee. Care for a cup? I hear it’s the best in town.”