Hermione’s stomach growled in protest at her empty plate. She had never experienced hunger. She thought she had. She thought she knew what hungry felt like when she was little and her tummy grumbled while her mum was cooking but supper wouldn’t be for another hour or when she wanted a snack late at night but hadn’t bought any sweets in Hogsmeade so she had to wait until morning.
Harry placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. He understood hunger in a way no one deserved to, but, and Hermione hated herself for thinking this, it was helping him now. His body was well adjusted to long stretches of little food. Hers wasn’t. Ron’s wasn’t.
She was solely responsible for finding food after both Harry and Ron and made one little mistake that nearly killed them all. Harry found poisonous mushrooms, and Ron poison berries. She didn’t mind. She actually rather liked her alone time while she was foraging. Unfortunately she wasn’t able to find much and they’d been surviving for weeks on a diet of mushrooms and wild garlic. The boys felt ready to try again.
Against her better judgement, Hermione offered to go looking in a new part of the forest if the boys agreed to stay behind. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them, it was just that, well, actually no, she didn’t trust them. She couldn’t risk more poison berries.
And so, early the next morning while Harry and Ron were still asleep in their tent, Hermione apparated into a new spot deep in the Forest of Dean. She already felt a bit lightheaded from not eating yet that day, and truly hoped it wouldn’t be a wasted day of foraging.
Hermione cast several tracking spells for every edible plant she knew. She’d start by finding the patch of dandelions that must not be far. Then she’d find the Ceps. Ron would not be happy with more mushrooms. Then she’d…find the hawthorn? Hermione paused, if there were red berries nearby the bright color should have gotten her attention, shouldn’t it?
Hermione cast a stronger spell on the hawthorn and let her wand guide her right to, nothing. There was nothing where the magic indicated there was a hawthorn tree. The empty gnawing in Hermione’s stomach twisted and turned into a different ache, a plummeting fear. She felt her stomach drop with the realization that someone, another wizard, had concealed the hawthorn tree. And whoever it was could come back at any moment. She had to get out of there!
But no, whoever concealed the tree was probably a Death Eater, so whatever they were hiding for he-who-must-not-be-named must be important! She had to find out. For Harry! For everyone! What if it was a horcrux? Hermione cast a spell to reveal the hidden object and her mouth fell open as a quaint little wood cabin materialized before her.
She felt sick. She wanted to run. But she couldn’t. She had to be brave. So, Hermione pushed the front door open with ease and peaked inside. She couldn’t detect any wards to keep her out. She suspected whoever had concealed the cabin must have thought that would be enough. Tentatively, she stepped inside.
The cabin appeared larger on the inside than the outside, definitely charmed. She eyed the interior methodically before exploring. There was a sitting area, a dining area, a kitchen, a bathroom, and three closed doors.
“Start with the unknown,” she said aloud to herself as she headed towards the closest door. She had to slap her hand over her mouth to cover a shriek when she opened the door. Thank Godric there was no one there. But there was a set of Death Eater robes and a mask laid out on the bed that scared her half to death.
Hermione tried to calm her frantically beating heart while she riffled through the Death Eater’s drawers and looked under their bed but it was just robes and shoes. Nothing of interest. So she moved on to the next room. She was fully prepared this time to see the awful mask and told herself not to scream, but she didn’t have to. The second room didn’t have a Death Eater mask.
She stepped inside to look around. From the frillier robes she could tell this room belonged to a woman. But again, only clothes, nothing helpful. So she moved on to the third and last door. Huh… Hermione bit her lip in thought as she looked at the room. No Death Eater garb. But this room had a smaller bed, as if for a child. It looked to be the size of the dorm beds at Hogwarts. A man, a woman, and a child?
At this point, just for the sake of being consistent, Hermione looked around the room, checking in drawers and under furniture. She gasped when she lifted the child’s pillow and found their wand underneath. How had these parents not taught their child to never forget their wand?
Something about this wand seemed familiar, but Hermione couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She twirled the wand in her hand while she pondered it, as if that would help jog her memory.
The familiar crack of apparition startled her so much she nearly dropped both the child’s wand and her own. She clutched both to her chest as she listened to the owners of the cabin yelling about their disillusionment charm being broken. She heard a door slamming. Oh thank Godric she wasn’t in whichever room that was.
“Someone’s been here! Someone’s touched my things! Cissa, darling, check your room!”
Cissa? Hermione knew that voice…
“You too, Draco!”
Hermione’s blood ran cold. This wasn’t a child’s room. It was Draco fucking Malfoy’s.
Before she had time to think of a way to hide or defend herself, the door creaked open, and Hermione found herself locking eyes with Malfoy. She raised her shaky arms and held both wands in front of her in an attempt to show she wasn’t afraid, but she was. She was terrified.
Malfoy raised one finger to his lips and Hermione’s brow furrowed in confusion. Be quiet? Quiet. Yes. She could do that.
“No one’s been in here, Father,” Malfoy called out to Lucius Malfoy without turning away from Hermione.
“Are you sure?” Lucius Malfoy called back.
Malfoy’s gaze was unwavering. Had he even blinked? “Yes. I’m sure.”
“Don’t. Move.” Malfoy didn’t make a sound but she could understand the movement of his lips perfectly.
The Malfoys left. To report to he-who-must-not-be-named or to look for the intruder she had no idea. A part of her felt like she should just run. Run as far she could from the cabin and back to Harry and Ron…no, not back to Harry. What if she were followed? Just away. But if Malfoy were going to kill her or hand her over to he-who-must-not-be-named, he would have done that right away, wouldn’t he have? Why bother keeping her hidden and lying to his parents?
She couldn’t believe she was doing this, she was trusting Draco Malfoy. She wasn’t sure how long he was gone but long enough for her to decide to take a nap on his bed. To conserve her energy, she told herself.
She awoke to the sound of the door opening and instantly grabbed for the wands, but only hers was there. She sat up in bed and held her wand out, ready to fight.
Malfoy’s lip tilted up into a lazy smirk as he twirled his wand around in his hand.
“Well, well, well. There’s a little Mudblood sleeping in my bed.”
Hermione felt her cheeks heat. At the insult or his playful tone or the reminder that she was in his bed, she wasn’t sure.
“My parents are back at the manor. You’re safe, Granger.”
Hermione wasn’t sure being alone with Malfoy was a good thing, but she couldn’t help sighing with relief that Lucius and Narcissa were not only gone, but didn’t know she was there! It was enough to make her lower her wand.
“Do you want to tell me how you found our cabin?” Hermione felt the mattress dip as Malfoy sat down beside her.
“I’m not sure. I was tracking hawthorn and the spell led me here.”
Malfoy stopped fiddling with his wand and gripped it tightly. “You were tracking hawthorn?”
“Yes…”
“Why?”
“The berries are edible.”
Malfoy studied Hermione’s face carefully, as if he’d never seen it before. She wondered if he could tell she’d lost weight since the start of the horcrux hunt. Did she look as starved as she felt?
“I’ll bring you food, but you can’t be wandering around here. Snatchers will find you.”
The concern in Malfoy’s voice had Hermione on edge. Why would he care if snatchers found them? Then again, why did he hide her now?
“How? If you can find us couldn’t any Death Eater?”
“Us?”
Hermione cursed her slip up. Though she was sure Malfoy must have already known she was with Ron and Harry. So she only nodded.
“I won’t find you, you’ll find me.”
“And how will I do that?”
“The same way you found me the first time, you’ll track the hawthorn.”
Hermione blinked. The hawthorn? She looked down at the wand gripped so tightly in Malfoy’s hand his knuckles were going white. The hawthorn wood wand!
“Did you leave your wand on purpose?”
Malfoy chuckled, as if Hermione was telling a joke. “No. I didn’t. And if Father knew I’d forgotten it he’d kill me. I guess you just got lucky. Picking the right plant to track.”
Hermione nodded in agreement. “Yea, and the right room to hide in.”
Malfoy chuckled again. “And the right room to hide in. But you should get back to Potter before he comes looking for you.”
Hermione had to agree.
“Why does He have you in the forest?”
Malfoy gripped his wand even tighter, if that was even possible. “Officially, it’s to keep the snatchers in line. But I think it’s something else.”
He didn’t elaborate so Hermione only nodded. Whatever or whoever the Malfoys were looking for, surely she would have been on the list.
She felt an odd sort of comfort at knowing that she was safe, at least for right now, in this moment, in this cabin. She wondered if Malfoy felt it too, because the next thing he said was, “I’ll take care of you, Granger. Follow the hawthorn!”
•••
Hermione was able to keep the boys satiated with the mushrooms near their campsite for about a week before Ron suggested looking for food somewhere else again. This time, she couldn’t persuade them not to come with her, and so they side-along-apparated with her to a spot as far away from the Malfoys’ secret cabin as she could go.
To Ron’s dismay, Hermione’s tracking spells showed that there were more mushrooms here, and Hermione insisted they gather some before she look for anything else.
But Harry wandered off, distracted by the faint glimpse of a color he hadn’t seen in weeks. Gryffindor Red.
“Mione, are these berries safe to eat?”
She wasn’t sure. She didn’t know what those berries were and didn’t have a spell to identify them. And she didn’t think Ron would be patient enough to let her pull her foraging guides out of her beaded clutch and try to identify them naturally.
“No, they’re no. Sorry, Harry!”
“What about these?” Ron sounded hopeful.
Hermione actually did recognize these berries. Rosehips! They could eat these!
What were the odds of two bushes with similar looking red berries in the same area? Hermione bit her lip to suppress a smile. What were the odds of three?
She cast the tracking spell for hawthorn and left the boys collecting rosehips to follow the hawthorn. It didn’t lead her to a tree or a cabin, just a lone broken branch sparely dotted with red berries.
“What’s that, Mione?” Ron stopped to pick up the branch. He tried to pluck a berry but it wouldn’t budge.
“A sticking charm,” she smiled as she took the branch from him.
“Who put a sticking charm on berries?”
Hermione removed the sticking charm from a single hawthorn berry, letting it roll into her palm. She cast Reparifarge on the berry and sure enough, it untransfigured into a vial of murtlap essence.
“Woah!” Harry dropped his handful of berries as he reached for the hawthorn branch and Hermione inwardly groaned. Those were still edible! “Is that from a magic tree or something?”
“There’s no such thing as a magic tree that grows potion ingredients already jarred!” Ron scoffed as if of everything in the wizarding world that was the most ridiculous idea he’d ever heard.
“What about one that grants wishes?” Harry countered.
Hermione ignored them. She unstuck and untransfigured a leaf and it turned into a note, on stationary with the Malfoy family crest at the top.
I’ll keep you safe, Granger.
Follow the hawthorn.
“What’s that, Mione?”
Hermione stuffed the parchment into her pocket.
“It’s nothing.”
“So where did this come from?”
How to answer that? A friend? Was Malfoy a friend? Perhaps he could be one day.
“Somewhere safe.”