Unspoken

To You,

I have many reasons to dislike December. The cold. The dark days. The end-of-year reports and budget due dates. The stress-induced shopping and anxiety of picking presents, and then having to ooh and aah over the gifts given to you while everyone bears down on you with ridiculous expectations that could only signify one thing: the holidays are here.

I did not always hate Christmas. The holidays at Hogwarts were magical - pardon my muggle use of this word. But the enchanting days of my childhood are long gone and now I struggle to look past the pointless waste and insincerity of those who act as though their once-a-year generosity gives them claim to being of pure heart.

After joining the Ministry and seeing how our magical government conducts itself at Christmas, I was appalled. Some committee appointed by the administration thought that post the Second War, it would show “muggle interests” to have house-elves dress up as Santa’s helpers to entertain employees in the Atrium. Days upon days of these poor house-elves caroling, ringing bells for donations - for the Ministry, the audacity - and passing out hot cocoa and cookies… 

And have you ever heard a house-elf sing? No, of course you haven’t.

It only took seventeen Howlers but eventually it was agreed upon that the house-elves would be left out of any future plans and that the committee would satisfy themselves with decorations only. I, personally, think that the enchantments in the Atrium are now more creative and more enjoyable. Last year, the theme was a winter forest complete with fairy lights. Apparently this sort of decor demands a certain amount of magical upkeep, however, and I don’t think the maintenance staff will ever forgive me.

I recommend layering some warming charms in your office until new years…

-------

Shivering, Hermione brushed off another pile of snowflakes from her desk and glared at the magical windows that were the culprit of her current predicament. No matter how many spells she applied to the windows as well as her office, she could not get warm. 

“Elizabeth?” she called out, disliking the whiny sound of her voice.

Her assistant swanned in with a fresh cup of tea and settled in smoothly in place on the watermark. 

“Thank you so, so much,” gushed Hermione, lifting the cup and saucer immediately and letting the steam of the jasmine-scented oolong warm her cheeks. 

“I did send a paper airplane to Magical Maintenance.” explained Elizabeth, her face disappointed. 

“Don’t bother,” sighed Hermione, setting her tea down and shaking more snow off the reports in front of her. “It’s only… the… seventh. Ugh. Please send another?”

The young witch bobbed her head up and down in acknowledgement. “Anything else?”

“No. I’m just reconciling these budgets to see if I can find some spare money for the Hall of Prophecies repairs. It is amazing how many inconsistencies I’m discovering. Arithmancy should be a required course.”

“It is in the States.” piped up Elizabeth. 

Hermione blinked a few times, looking up from the long scroll of numbers. “That’s right. You went to school at Ilvermorny. And you’re a half-blood, yes?”

“What? Oh, mmm hmm. Why are you… asking?”

“Do you have a calculator?”

“Sorry?”

Tapping the pile of paper with the end of her quill, Hermione explained, “I hate using an abacus. Especially since it’s easy to accidentally slide a bead or two if you aren’t magically sticking them into place. A calculator is so much faster and more accurate. I don’t know why I don’t have one in the office.”

“Because of the magical interference with muggle technology?” responded Elizabeth, her expression twisted as though she thought Hermione was being odd.

“That would be a better use of our research money than some of the other projects that have gotten funded,” mused Hermione. She started to scribble something down on a spare piece of parchment, making a note as to whether she might be able to get someone down in the Time Room to look into space manipulation spells-

“Hermione?”

Elizabeth’s voice cut through her thoughts. Her hand jerked and a large blotch of ink smeared at the end of her sentence instead of the appropriate punctuation. 

“Oh, sorry…” she mumbled. “Well, I’ll just take these home tonight and do the calculations there.”

“You have magic. Is it that important to use a muggle method?” noted Elizabeth.

Hermione laughed. “It’s efficient. An abacus is an outdated method that muggles gave up a long time ago. Why are wizards still using them is the better question.”

Elizabeth seemed unconvinced but nodded hesitantly and then noted she was going to get back to the prophecy inventory if her boss no longer needed her. Once her assistant was gone, Hermione glanced over the budgets. 

The scrolls on her desk were the budgets for this year and the year previous. A small itch in her mind, not unlike the one that had bothered her about Jefferies, had her align the two years side by side on her desk. Hermione trailed a finger down both columns, noting that the inconsistencies she had told Elizabeth about were less conflicting than they were a possible pattern of negligence.

Or embezzlement. 

Minutes later, Hermione was exiting the magical elevators on the floor that held the Ministries’ archives. Walls of honeycomb styled shelving stretched out behind the glass doors that lead into the magically-maintained environment that housed the history of their wizarding government. A large sign stating, “NO WANDS BEYOND CHECK-IN” was posted near the front, flashing red and pink letters. She nodded sagely, glad that there were proper procedures and policies in place to ensure the integrity of the records.

Luckily for Hermione, her status as an Under-Secretary gave her access to everything and anything her heart could desire, and what she asked of the archivists were all the budgets for the Department of Mysteries back to 1997. They made a note for their visitors' logs and asked the reason for her research.

She frowned and just answered, “Call it a whim.”

-------

The smell of chicken parmigiana hit her nose before Draco had completely materialized within the green flames of her fireplace. Crookshanks immediately ran over to their guest, purring loudly and headbutting Draco against the shins, obviously attempting to ingratiate himself to the person bearing delicious goods.

“You’re large enough as it is, this isn’t for you.” he groused at the kneazle as he took their takeout meal over to the kitchen counter, passing Hermione reviewing the older budgets records. 

“Hello,” she said without looking up, using her wand to highlight another error. 

“I bring dinner and all I get is a hello? I haven’t heard from you in two days, Hermione.” Draco placed the chicken under a stasis charm to keep it warm and walked back over to peer over her shoulder at the documents. “Have you eaten at all today?”

“Huh? Oh, of course.” she said distractedly, making another mark and lifting up the parchment to peer more closely at the illegible handwriting of whatever accountant had drawn up the budget for 1999.

“What?”

“Hmm?”

Draco clicked his tongue at her. “What did you eat, Hermione?”

She struggled to pull away her thoughts from her work, and licked her lips as she tried to think back on her day. Elizabeth had definitely delivered something to her around lunch time but… “I don’t remember.”

“Do you enjoy making me worry about you?” he asked, taking the paper from her hand.

“You said to trust you, and so I did- please give that back.”

Instead of returning it to her, Draco laid the budget back on the coffee table and sat down on her work. Annoyed, she huffed and sat further back so she could look him directly in the eyes to tell him to shove off, but there was a hard, cold gleam to his grey eyes and she swallowed her protest rather quickly.

“What are you doing, Hermio- Crookshanks, get down from there, I already said it wasn’t for you!” shouted Draco at the orange fuzzball on the counter who pulled back his paw reluctantly. “Your owner is over here trying to lay claim to a bed in St. Mungo’s again. I thought I told you to take care of her. Stealing her dinner? For shame.”

The kneazle surprisingly had the decency to look crestfallen and promptly hopped down from the counter to twine worriedly around the bottom of her legs. Hermione sighed and patted Crookshanks gently on the head. 

“Fine, fine, I’ll take a break.”

“What is all this, anyway? Is this for work?” he asked as they got up.

Something purple shifted under all the parchment and her heart thudded painfully as Hermione watched Draco pick up Granger’s planner and peered at the tabs too closely for her comfort. 

“Oh, it’s just notes. To help me remember all the projects at work. These are budgets. I’m tracking some accounting issues.” 

He set the planner back down and she felt like she could breathe again as he led her to the counter and began plating up heaps of chicken, creamed greens, and linguine. Hermione let out a little moan of happiness as she took her first bite.

“I never knew you relished food this much,” he joked with her as he slide into the stool next to her.

“Neither did I,” she mumbled around a mouthful of pasta, enjoying the garlicky nature of the cream. 

“Hogwarts wasn’t exactly a plebian pub, though.” Malfoy told her. “And not once did I ever see you savor your food like this. You’d just walk in, gobble down whatever was fastest, and disappear again to study, or so I presumed.”

She swallowed her bite and observed him eating his food before remarking. “You watched me a lot at Hogwarts, then.”

Malfoy paused with his fork midway to his mouth, glancing over at her through his bangs. There was a new sort of tension in the air as he finished bringing his bite to his lips, chewing through the silence as she waited for an answer. A dribble of sauce oozed onto his bottom lip and the blonde wiped it with his thumb, licking it deftly all while holding her gaze. 

Finally he said, “Hard to miss you with that bushy mane.”

Hermione gasped, her free hand flying to the frizzy bun at her neck and quickly put her hand back down once she realized what she had done. The tension broke and Malfoy went back to eating his pasta, a stupid grin lingering in the corner of his mouth.

“So. Er, do you have anything you can share?” she asked, twirling her fork around the food on her plate as she watched Draco not-so-sneakily drop a morsel of chicken for the eager cat at his feet. 

Her question put an immediate damper on the lighthearted mood from a moment ago. Draco paused, poking at his greens and then set down his fork. He turned in the stool so that his body was angled more toward her, picking at an invisible spot on his knee before glancing at her.

“I’ve gotten permission to share with you.”

“And?” Hermione gulped down some of her food without chewing it properly, feeling it drop into her stomach with a thud. 

“All the nightmares I’ve gathered to date, with the exception of Jefferies - they have only one connection so far. It’s not an insignificant connection-”

“Draco, please just tell me.” She might break from the tension.

“They’re all children of Deatheaters.” 

She blinked. Had she heard him correctly? Pushing her plate away so she could concentrate, Hermione asked, “All of them? They all have Deatheater parents?”

The wizard nodded grimly, his mouth tight and unhappy. “As I said, Jefferies is the first case I have identified outside of this pattern. I’ve kept my eye out at the hospital for other potential, similar cases. There could easily be others who don’t recognize the symptoms or don’t realize anything has happened to them. Mind and magic do not go easily hand-in-hand, and mental illnesses are by-and-large taboo within the magical community. Like squibs.”

“Or muggleborns?”

Hermione regretted saying it almost immediately as she watched Draco clench a fist into the fabric of his trousers.

“Sorry.”

He waved off her apology, but didn’t meet her eyes. Shifting uncomfortably, he turned back to his dinner plate and stabbed, somewhat moodily, into his linguine. “Anyway, Theo has agreed to meet with us.”

“Theo?” she asked, brows knitted as she tried to remember if he was someone she needed to remember.

“Theodore Nott. All the cases are actually old schoolmates from different years. But Theo is the one who came to me first.”

Going off the Deatheater heritage, Hermione assumed that all of the nightmare victims aside from the auror must have been Slytherins, like Draco. It just… it was confusing. If Deatheaters were involved with her memories as well as the prophecies, why would their children be the ones to suffer from such horrible mind magic? How was it all connected?

“Do…” Hermione licked her lips and asked carefully, “Do you… also have nightmares?”

Those grey eyes of his cut over to her and held her gaze. “Of course I do. But I know mine are real.”

His words hit her heavily. Appetite quite gone, Hermione folded her hands in her lap and stared at them, unable to bring her eyes back up and look at Draco. It felt like he had just shared something she was supposed to be privy to and it hurt her like never before to be unable to recall her past.

“So, we’ll meet with Theo and the others?” she wondered hesitantly, struggling to find words to fill the horrible silence of her kitchenette.

Her companion shook his head dispiritedly. “No, just Theo. Slytherins… keep their problems to themselves. Reputations to manage, you know.”

“Then, what can we do?”

Draco sighed. “I don’t know. I still need a Pensieve to even be able to review what’s been shared with me, but since we canceled applying for funding…”

Hermione suddenly stood, startling Draco. She marched over to her bedroom without a word, and dug around for the suitcase that held the memories that Granger had left behind for her. Once she grabbed onto the handle of the larger suitcase, the witch slid it out from under the bed and unclasped it.

There were still several vials of memories she hadn’t gotten to yet. They all twinkled in the beam of light from the living room. And in the bottom half of the case sat the Pensive. She rubbed her fingers over the carved runes along the lip of the bowl and grasped it tightly before lifting it out of the red velvet lining.

These nightmares were the first connection that could lead her to an answer as to what had happened to her memories. Hell, Granger hadn’t even gotten this far in her search. That alone made it worth the risk she was about to take. It was her decision now, not Granger’s.

As she strode of her bedroom, Pensieve clasped tightly in her arms, she noted that Draco had also gotten down from the counter and had started to follow her. He stopped dead in the middle of the living room and stared expressionless as Hermione wove her way carefully around the cough and settled the large stone basin in the center of the parchment strewn coffee table.

She cleared her throat as she stepped back. “As you said… these aren’t easy to find.”

“And you just so happen to have one to spare?” he drawled, an edge to his voice.

“Not, not to spare. I have my own reasons to have this, but this situation trumps those at this moment.” explained Hermione evasively. 

She dared to glance at him and was taken aback by how intensely he was staring at her. It was much more overwhelming than the look he had given her when she had asked him if he also had nightmares. There was a wave of pressure that radiated outward from Draco and she felt like she was drowning in it, like she was being pulled under and-

With a blink, Hermione was able to catch her breath. Draco was no longer looking at her but at the Pensieve. 

“May I take this with me?” he asked, crossing his arms and tapping a finger repetitively against his forearm. 

“Where?” asked Hermione, crossing her own arms in reflection of the unease she was feeling.

“Just to the Manor. I have all the nightmares under stasis in the manor vault.”

“Can you bring one here, now? I don’t understand-”

Draco tsked in annoyance. “No, I will not. We are dealing with people’s memories. Nightmares. Trauma. This isn’t floating around in someone’s memory of a past birthday party. There is danger here. This magic was used to disable someone with fear at best, harm them at worst.”

“So then why should I send the Pensieve with you if they are that dangerous?” she retorted.

“I’m not Potter. I refuse to dive into this head-first like a damn Gryffindor. This requires a methodical approach and precautions, Granger.”

“Don’t patronize me, Draco.” she murmured, starting to feel the brunt of his emotions again. “I get it. You can take it with you. I trust you. Just… don’t leave me out of this.”

Her softer tone had a calming effect, it would seem. Taking a deep breath, Draco nodded and unwound his arms, moving to step closer to her and the Pensieve. 

“We’ll meet with Theo before we do anything. I just want to set up a safe room in advance, test the limitations-”

“I trust you, Draco.” repeated Hermione. She fought against the desire to grab his hand and give it a squeeze. The impulse to act on that urge was strong but she recognized it as a new level of intimacy that she and Draco had not yet engaged in. 

What was she doing? What were they doing? There had been zero verbal indication from his man that he had any interest in her. As it was, Draco had a whole history with Granger that she knew nothing of. It felt like a blank wall that was keeping her from moving forward with him, despite apologies and this growing closeness that Hermione found herself craving more of.

Damn Ginny for poking at those feelings. She was all muddled up now, unsure if what she was struggling with was genuine longing or if, like a baby duck, she had just imprinted on the first person who had extended her a hand of kindness and understanding.

“I think I need to go.”

Draco’s words jolted Hermione out of her emotional upheaval and she jerked to stare at him.

“Why?” she asked, aware that the hour wasn’t unusually late.

“I need to think… about this. Jot some ideas down, and then get some sleep.” he said tiredly, rubbing the back of his head.

There was a hint of stress around his eyes now that she hadn’t seen earlier during dinner. Was he paler than usual? 

“Are you alright, Draco? Are you resting enough?” asked Hermione, sincerely worried, reaching for his face before she caught herself. Her hand was frozen awkward in midair.

He chuckled quietly and grabbed her hand before she could drop it. “What, are you taking care of me now?”

“And if I am?” Was her face hot? She felt hot.

“I don’t mind it.” Draco lifted her hand and pressed her knuckles against his lips before gently letting go. “I’ll take this back to the Manor and see you at work tomorrow.”

She managed a goodnight as he stepped into the Floo and then collapsed into an armchair. Crookshanks, full from eating the remains of the forgotten dinner, padded over from the kitchen and jumped into her lap. Hermione scratched him under the chin, struggling with her decision to give up the Pensieve despite all her predecessors warnings.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep her secrets.” she whispered anxiously to the cat, burying her face into the ginger fur.