Recompense and Redress

"Come on in!" Hermione set down the letter she was reading about her Squib legislation and looked up to see the door of her small office open. She grinned as it shut, and she flew to her feet. "Harry!"

"Hi. Nice digs," he said, sitting opposite her as Hermione felt real happiness for the first time in weeks. Harry's face was rather serious, so Hermione demanded,

"What's the matter?"

"You broke things off with Malfoy," he noted, and Hermione shrugged rather defensively.

"You should have thrown a party because of that, no?"

"Ron's dating Susan Bones," Harry pointed out, and Hermione shrugged again.

"That's his prerogative."

Harry drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair and sighed deeply, studying Hermione's face.

"You thought over some of the things he'd done and second-guessed yourself," Harry predicted, and Hermione scoffed.

"Why are you trying to get me back with Draco Malfoy?"

"Because you two obviously made each other very, very happy," Harry said. He scratched at his jaw, where just a little scruff had grown, and he said quietly, "Can I tell you something? I don't think that boy ever, ever hated you. I think he was parroting all the rubbish that had been screamed into his ears from both sides since the day he was born, but I don't think he ever hated you. Sometimes I'd see his eyes look at you… I was a boy, too, Hermione. He may have called you names and said insulting things to you, but I don't ever think he hated you."

Hermione huffed out a breath and reached into her pocket. She pulled out the Australian opal necklace that she put into her skirt or trouser pocket every morning, and she set it on the table. Harry picked it up and studied it, and he guessed,

"Opal?"

"From Australia, because that's where I found my parents," Hermione said. "He gave it to me a week before my birthday because he was nervous I wouldn't like it."

Harry smiled a little and handed the necklace back. Hermione instinctively put it on as Harry said,

"I'm not ready to double date with you and Ginny and Draco. Don't know if I'll ever be ready to be really friendly to him. Ron… Ron'll hate him forever."

"That's his right," Hermione said, but Harry continued,

"I saw Draco Malfoy getting into the lifts today, and he looked like he hadn't eaten or slept in a week. He never hated you, Hermione, and he sure as shit doesn't hate you now."

Hermione shut her eyes and reached to touch at the opal necklace. She buttoned up the caped cardigan robe she had on and covered the pendant, and she asked in a whisper,

"If I love him, in spite of all the wickedness, Harry, am I wicked, too?"

"No," he said at once. "No, I don't think we can help who we love. I fell in love with my best friend's mate. Didn't plan on that. It's not the same, I know, but…"

Hermione opened her eyes, and Harry said again,

"None of the rest of us are ready for him, Hermione, but he looks like he's dying without you. Maybe… at least ask him to tell you the truth."

"The truth?" Hermione repeated, and Harry clarified,

"Ask him what he really thought of you then, and what he thinks of you know. Just ask for the truth, and go from there."

"Level Nine - Department of Mysteries."

Hermione walked down the dark corridor, past the blue-grey light from the lanterns, and she could hear Dumbledore's whispers. Apology and atonement. Recompense and redress.

The door slid open before she even neared it, and the tiny little witch who seemed to guard the department stepped out. Hermione frowned; the witch seemed twenty years older than the last time she'd seen her.

"Hermione… Granger… you must be here for Draco Malfoy," the witch said, her crumpled face illuminated by the bluish light from the walls. "This way."

Hermione followed the little witch into the confusing, round chamber and steadied herself as it rotated. When a stone door slid open, the little witch said firmly,

"Third door on the right. Press your palm."

"Wait…" Hermione whirled round, but the door to the Entrance Chamber had shut, and the rapidly aged witch had gone. Hermione's breath shook in the chilly corridor as she walked past four doors - two on the left and two on the right - and stopped in front of the unmarked door to Draco's office. She knocked, but after a long while, there was no reply. She pressed her palm to the door, and it slid very slowly open. Hermione stepped into Draco's small, minimalist office as the door shut behind her.

"Draco?"

He wasn't here. She studied the shelf of odd-looking silver metallic artefacts, the single bookshelf with four books about death and the afterlife. She looked at Draco's stout desk, upon which there were a few wooden boxes, a container of silvery whisper record cubes, some parchment, a quill, and some ink. But there was no Draco.

Suddenly Hermione looked up and saw it. The narrow door, the one that led beyond his office, was partially open.

That led to the Death Chamber.

Hermione gulped and approached the door, prying it open just enough to slide through. She stepped into the large, rectangular room, nearly empty and very dark. There was just a little stream of silvery light casting from an unseen source, partially illuminating the arch in the middle of the room. Hermione stared at the arch, remembering the sight of Sirius Black falling backward through it and disappearing. Very, very faintly, she could hear the sound of little whispers.

"Lumos. Who's there?"

She pulled her own wand out on instinct as Draco Malfoy came striding quickly toward her. He froze ten paces away, and in the pulsing blue-grey light of his wand, Hermione could see what Harry had meant. Draco looked awful. His hair was a mess. His face was thin and his skin looked papery. The circles below his eyes were plum-coloured and mottled. HIs lips were pale and chapped. Draco blinked a few times once he realised it was Hermione before him.

"Nox," he whispered. In the very dim light of the room that came after he'd snuffed out his wand, Hermione could see Draco walk briskly back over to a sharp bench upon which he'd apparently been sitting. He picked up a little silver cube and brushed his wand over it, setting it back down on the bench. He walked up toward the arch, and for a horrifying instant, Hermione had a mental image of Draco hurtling himself through the Veil.

But Draco just listened. He just stood there, staring at the gently undulating, wispy blanket that separated the living and the dead. He nodded as though someone had told him something directly, and then he stepped away, down the stairs and across the floor.

"Follow me," he said sharply, walking past Hermione and back into his office. She followed him, shivering with fear and unease, and she let him wrench the door to the Death Chamber shut. She stood in the little open space of Draco's office, and she demanded,

"When is the last time you ate or slept?"

"Why are you here?" Draco countered, and Hermione huffed a little breath. She crossed her arms over her chest and said in a rushed sort of ramble,

"I got caught up in the bad memories, the things you'd said and the things you'd done when your soul was too young to come to your own conclusions about any of this. I second-guessed the idea that you could be a good man now. All I could do was remember the bad things; I couldn't focus on the present. The night I sent you away, I dreamed of an awful thing you'd done. It was the night of the Quidditch World Cup, when we'd seen you in the forest and you'd mocked me, said they were coming for Muggles, and -"

"I was trying to save your life," Draco whispered, and Hermione froze. Draco shook his head a little, looking so weak she thought he might fall over. His eyes welled a little, and he admitted, "My father specifically asked me that night to find the Granger girl and let him know where you were. I did believe in Blood Purity. I did mean Mudblood as an insult when I said it. But that night, and the night years later at Malfoy Manor, I was very afraid you were going to die, and something inside of me screamed at me not to let that happen. It wasn't until the very end of the war that I realised no one deserved to die, and that there was no such thing as a Mudblood. It was you who made me see it, slowly, over time."

A very long and heavy silence followed then, and Hermione whispered at last,

"Oh."

"I was particularly cruel to you - even more than to other Muggle-borns - because the crush on you, the admiration I had for you, was completely taboo compared with the specific hatred I was meant to bear you. But I never hated you, Hermione. I never could make myself hate you. I was awful, and I'm very sorry for that. But it was easier than I'd imagined to fall in love with you, because I never hated you. Not the way they'd trained me to hate you."

"Oh," Hermione said again, remembering Harry's words up in her office. She reached beneath her cardigan and pulled out the opal necklace he'd bought for her. His dim eyes lit up a little when he saw it, and she asked him,

"Will you let me cook dinner tonight? Something very hearty. Cottage pie. I'll bake chocolate biscuits. We'll fall asleep in your bed at nine o'clock and sleep late; tomorrow's Saturday."

Draco shut his eyes and leaned against his desk a little as he muttered,

"That sounds... really nice."

"I am very sorry," Hermione said, and Draco opened his eyes, looking surprised. Hermione gulped and clarified, "I am very sorry that I assumed the worst of you, that I judged your adult self on the immature regurgitation of bigotry that you performed as a child. I am very sorry that I panicked and sent you away after one bad dream, that I didn't give you a chance to discuss any of it with me before cutting you off."

"Well, I'm sorry, too," Draco nodded. Hermione sighed very deeply.

"There are voices on the other side of the Veil telling me to stay the course, that together you and I can change things."

Draco smirked just a little and nodded. "Just today, I heard that same voice again. The one you think is Regulus Black. He said the same thing today that he said before. We died for him, but you can live for the others. Hermione, I was very alone and on the verge of having precisely no purpose before you came to my house. When you contemplated my apology and you forgave me, it was like a new man had been born within my broken, stupid little soul, and I… and then I fell in love with you, and I broke all over again when I thought perhaps there was no moving on, after all."

"I'm sorry," Hermione whispered again. She stepped up to Draco and took his face in her hands, dragging her thumbs under his hollow, shadowed eyes, and she demanded again, "When did you last sleep or eat?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. Three days, maybe."

Hermione nodded once, very firmly. "Cottage pie, then, and to bed at nine."

Draco tipped his head down and brushed his lips against Hermione's. He made a weak little noise, and he whispered,

"Oh, Merlin's Beard; I thought I'd never kiss you again."

"Kiss me," Hermione told him, squeezing his face a bit harder. "Kiss me as much as you like, Draco."

He did, pushing her back against the black tile wall and holding fast to her waist as he crushed her mouth with his. She felt the chap of his dried lips, felt the shake in his fingers, and she knew he needed rest and food. But right now, they needed each other. For weeks, they'd needed one another, and Hermione hadn't been able to see it. So she kissed Draco back as hard as she could, and in her mind, she thought,

Thank you, Harry.