Chapter Text
“The ritual of Necromancy is, undoubtedly, a department of Dark Magick, and is for this reason excluded from the teachings associated with what the community deems ‘proper’ Magick. Propriety suggests that the Dead be left to their rest, and should not be removed from the hands of Death by any means or for any reason. It is widely taught that the highest soul of man surpasses evocation, even by a Necromancer. ”
The Nightshade Guide to Necromancy
Chapter 1: The Rituals of Dark Magick; Section I - The History of Necromancy
~
Theodore Nott had not been aware that a human body could contain so much blood. Even as he took in his surroundings, the viscous ruby liquid splashed across the floor and dripping down the walls, he had a hard time believing that it had all come from one singular person. And yet there was only one man laying deathly still before him in the center of the room, his life force seeping out of him in thick, oozing pulses as his last breaths rattled in his lungs. Theo shuddered as his eyes trailed over platinum blond hair, a lithe figure, expensive tailored robes. There was so much blood - too much blood - and Theo was rooted to the ground, unable to do anything but watch as his best friend and lover bled out and died. Theo’s muscles strained, his bones bowing, as he fought to close the space between them, but it was no use. His shoes were fastidiously fixed to the floor.
As Theo stared towards the floor, willing his feet to move, he was surprised to find vermilion spatters criss-crossing his white button-down haphazardly, as if his shirt had been used as an artist’s messy canvas. He lifted his hands from his sides, horrified to find them thickly coated in blood, a crust starting to form underneath his fingernails as gooey rivulets began to creep down towards his elbows. The Nott family signet ring winked cheekily on his left little finger, shining brightly through the gore. The jewelry seemed to take some sort of perverse pleasure in the destruction laid out before them both.
He stared at his blood-soaked hands and his blood-stained shirt. He stared at Draco Malfoy, dead on the ground.
He screamed, but no sound left his throat.
~
Theo startled awake, drenched in a layer of sweat, the sheets twisted tightly around his lower limbs like Devil’s Snare as they bound him to the bed. Pansy was perched on the edge of the mattress, a glass of water in her hands, raven-black hair slightly mussed by a pale pink silk sleep mask pushed up on her forehead. She was looking down at him with some semblance of pity, and also a little fear. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the glass, and her wand jutted out of her bathrobe pocket, where it seemed to have been hastily stuffed. She wordlessly shoved the glass at his face and Theo rose onto his elbows to take it gratefully, gulping the cool liquid down as if he’d never seen water in his life. Pansy studied him silently as he drank, the corners of her mouth twitching minutely, like they did when she wanted to say something.
“Spit it out, Pansy,” he muttered into the glass before slurping up the very last drop. His friend took a deep breath and sighed in a ridiculously put-upon sort of way, but her normal mask of indifference dropped a bit in that moment and Theo glimpsed the raw concern in her gaze.
“I’m worried about you, Theo,” she finally said quietly.
Theo sat the glass down on the bedside table and extricated himself from the stifling sheets, rising to sit cross-legged in the bed as he faced his friend. “I don’t know why you would ever be worried, Pans,” he drawled mockingly, his disparaging tone directed mainly at himself. “I’m obviously a perfectly normal, well-adjusted, happy-go-lucky wizard.”
Pansy’s eyes narrowed at his acerbic commentary. He knew she hated it when he was like this, but he couldn’t help himself. Theo didn’t quite feel like being open and honest with his feelings at present, and ill-placed sarcasm was how he dealt with ninety-nine percent of the troubles in his life. SSurely not a solid choice for his mental health, but then, the Nott’s had never been known for their psychological well-being. Being murderous, abusive, fucked-up bastards? Yes. That, they had been known for.
Pansy pursed her lips and fixed him with a fully penetrating glare, the kind he always felt right down to his squishiest, most vulnerable bits. It was a look that had only been honed with time, since they had first met at the tender age of five years old, and now, more than twenty years later, he was worried her piercing gaze might well carve out his spleen if only he would give her the chance.
Instead, he chose to clear his throat and turn away, keeping silent as he watched the shadows of the rosebushes outside the window, dancing across the tastefully-painted ecru wall as they were buffeted by a gusty autumn breeze.
He truly hadn’t meant to still be living with Pansy, three months after he first showed up on the stoop of her pretty brick row-house in Muggle London, but time and grief had gotten the better of him, and now here he was, still trying to test how long it might take before he became one with the mattress in her guest room. Pansy often tried to dissuade him from rotting in the bed, propositioning him with once-enjoyable activities like pints at the Leaky or lazy afternoons at Flourish and Blott’s. However, Theo would rather Avada himself than face the cheerful hubbub and horrific memories of Diagon Alley, so it was no hardship at all to decline her offers every time she presented them.
Still, he knew that as patient and understanding as Pansy had been with him, his time living in her house was now quite limited. His friend was set to marry Percy Weasley - how Pans had settled on him out of all the eligible wizards in the world, Theo would never know - in three weeks time, and while Theo wouldn’t necessarily mind an additional roommate, he certainly didn’t want to chance that he might hear them having sex. Or worse, stumble upon them committing the deed out in the open. Theo’s eyes were by no means virginal, mind you, but there were some sights a wizard should never have to see in his life. And his best friend - or really any witch, for that matter - shagging Percy-fucking-Weasley, was one such sight. Theo would rather eat a pound of flobberworm mucus every day for an eternity than have to witness such an occurrence.
“Theo,” Pansy pressed firmly, drawing his attention back to their conversation. “It’s been four months since Draco died. And as much as I miss him, Salazar knows you miss him a hundred times more. But darling, have you done anything to work through your grief? Seen a Mind Healer? Talked to anyone ? I know you won’t open up to me, but speaking about it might help. I really meant it when I said I’m worried about you.”
He gave her a sardonic grin. “I’m just fulfilling the family legacy, Pans. Completely mental by the age of thirty, fully psychotic by the age of forty, into an early grave by fifty. The good news is, I am at least smart enough to make sure the cycle stops with me. No spouse to abuse, thank goodness, and no heirs of House Nott will ever come from my loins.”
Pansy scoffed and stood up, lifting the empty water glass from the table as Theo flopped back down onto his pillow and pulled the sheets up to cover his face. “There’s no fucking prophecy that says you’ll turn out the same way as your father, Theo. Surely, you have some sort of autonomy. I am sure that not all of the Nott wizards went blooming mad by the time they were forty.”
Theo considered this. “No, you’re right. Some of them died too young. Never got a chance to come into the entirety of their glorious and all-encompassing insanity.” He pulled the sheets down off his face. Pansy was still standing there, frowning at him, her mouth pressed into a firm line and her arms folded over her chest. He rolled his eyes.
“You can go now, Pans. Leave me to my decomposition, if you please. Although actually, I’d love a sleeping potion if you’d be so kind to fetch one for me. Draught of Living Death, perhaps? That should put me out of your hair for a week or so.”
She uncrossed her arms to throw him a vulgar gesture. “First of all, I am not your servant. Second of all, you’ve run me clean out of any sort of sleeping potion, and I will not be buying you any more.”
“Are you sure you can’t go to Knockturn in the morning and get me some?” he whinged, pouting at her in a way he suspected she thought was adorable, even though it was entirely obnoxious.
She gave him a truly pitying look. “I would if I could, Theo, but I’m so busy this week. I’ve got back-to-back wedding appointments for the next few days. If you need anything from the potion shop, you’ll have to go yourself.”
Theo flipped her off as she blew him a kiss and left, climbing the creaky stairs back to her own bedroom. The house fell silent once more as the autumn wind continued to rattle the rosebushes, the thorns scraping at the windowpane like fingernails against the glass. Theo shivered and huddled down into the pillows, watching the shadows until the sun started to lighten the sky. No matter how willing he tried to make his body and mind, sleep never claimed him.
The memories were a different matter. They consumed him.
~
It was late morning by the time Theo stepped out of the floo at the Leaky Cauldron, wrinkling his nose at the scents of stale beer and sweaty bodies assaulting his senses. Salazar, had the place always smelled so bloody rancid? He glanced furtively around the pub from inside the hood of his cloak, but his fears were unrecognized as he realized no one was paying him any mind at all. The barman offered him an uninterested glance before turning to pull a pint, and the few other wizards spread out across the bar all appeared deep in their own glasses of ale.
Theo brushed some dusty floo powder off his shoulders as he strode towards the rear door and exited into the small courtyard beyond. It was quite hot for an autumn day, and the sun beat heavily on his wool cloak, though he didn't dare remove it. Showing his face in Wizarding London would be ill-advised, and most likely dangerous. Theo procured his wand from the depths of his cloak, found the correct brick on the courtyard wall, and tapped it three times. He took a deep breath and tapped his foot to release some anxious energy as the bricks pivoted and stacked and spun to reveal a bustling Diagon Alley just beyond. He momentarily considered the option of simply tucking his tail and scuttling back to Pansy’s to lick his wounds, seeing as how the last time he was here had turned into the absolute worst day of his life. His most recent nightmare sat as heavy as an omen on his shoulders.
Only the promise of a death-like reprieve from the bleak existence he currently called life, delivered to him with mercy by the Draught of Living Death, was strong enough to propel him forward. Steady, measured breaths flowed in and out of his lungs in time with his steps. Breathe in for five paces, breathe out for five paces. Keep your hood in place, your wand at the ready. Don’t get distracted, get what you need, and get out. Theo recited these instructions as if they comprised the single most important incantation in the world. And maybe they did, because reciting them was the only thing that was going to hold him together, in one piece, as he once more tread the very same street where his heart - his entire life - had shattered apart into a million tiny fragments.
Theo pressed his way clumsily through a surprisingly large crowd, which seemed to be the thickest outside Flourish & Blott’s. Big yellow banners hanging from all the storefront windows heralded Gilderoy Lockhart’s newest book, with an in-person appearance later that afternoon. What a day to make a visit to Diagon, he thought with a roll of his eyes. He finally managed to break through the crowd with a shudder and, having left the crushing mass behind, found himself alone on the cobblestones in front of Florean Fortescue’s.
A hot summer day. Two scoops of whiskey brickle ice cream, melting so quickly over their knuckles. Easy laughs, a languid kiss under the summer sky…
The memory came quickly, painfully. He shook his head to banish the thoughts, refusing to look further down the row of shops. He knew what lay just around the bend, past Ollivander’s. There were dusty slivers of his heart, sprinkled amongst the stones, and an unending pool of his tears, long since soaked into the street.
Instead, he made a hard right past Fortescue’s, breathing a sigh of relief as he felt the flaming heat of the sun diminish with each step he took away from Diagon Alley. The perpetually-overcast sky above Knockturn Alley, where he now found himself, felt as soothing as a balm, and his racing heart began to calm a bit.
Breathe in for five paces, breathe out for five paces.
Knockturn, Diagon’s dubious and problematic cousin, was a hub for any Dark Arts-related items a witch or wizard might require, and it had a poor reputation that it often felt it needed to prove as warranted. Despite this, Theo had always felt perfectly comfortable there, certainly more so than amongst Diagon Alley’s frenetic crowds and sunny dispositions. The pall of gloom that constantly hung over Knockturn always greeted him like an old friend.
Past the Coffin House, selling necromancy materials, and Potage’s Cauldron Shop, Theo found just the storefront he was looking for - Plunkett’s Potions. It had a squatty, grim exterior and grimy front windows, but the door was painted a surprisingly chipper shade of buttery yellow. He made sure the hood of his cloak was firmly in place before pushing open the door and crossing the threshold into the musty shop. A little bell chimed over his head, announcing his arrival, but the lone witch inside didn’t even look up from the jar of snake eggs she was considering, and the shopkeeper was nowhere to be seen.
It had been ages since Theo was last in the potions shop, and he hadn’t a clue where the sleeping draughts might be found. He chose an aisle and paced down it, trying to decide if the bottles were grouped alphabetically or by use. It took no time at all to realize that any sort of system was entirely non-existent. Plunkett was obviously not a stickler for organization, and Theo realized this venture was going to take a while unless the shopkeeper decided to make an appearance.
He shuffled past Burning Bitterroot Balm, Mandrake Restorative Tonic, Dogbreath Potion, and Drowsiness Elixir. The bottles were all in various states of neglect - peeling labels, coats of dust, all of them sitting willy-nilly on the shelves. He came across a couple vials of Dreamless Sleep and, while not as strong an offering as what he was ultimately looking for, decided to pick them up anyways. He had just rubbed the grime off a bottle of Draught of Peace, momentarily excited at seeing the word ‘Draught’ peeking through and optimistically hopeful he had found what he required, when the bell over the door tinkled again and two furtive-looking wizards who, astonishingly, looked even more furtive than himself, entered the shop and started walking down the aisle next to his. They were whispering furiously between themselves, and as they drew closer to Theo, he could just barely hear their conversation through the gaps in the shelving.
“I heard she’s powerful enough to bring You-Know-Who back from the dead,” the first wizard, dressed in moth-eaten brown robes, hissed to his companion, who whistled through his teeth as he pulled a floppy aubergine-colored cap down over his forehead.
Theo’s ears perked at the hushed conversation. Were they talking about a powerful Necromancer? Necromancy had always been on the fringe of the magical world, looked down upon even by many Dark Magic practitioners. Its poor reputation seemed to stem from the fact that, of the many wizards and witches who had called themselves Necromancers, none had proven that they could actually bring the dead back to life in any sort of meaningful way.
The most common form of Necromancy - the only form of it, as far as Theo was aware - was the practice of reanimating corpses. These corpses, Inferi, were bewitched merely to do a dark wizard’s bidding. Armies of them had been used during both the First and Second Wizarding Wars, and while Theo had never laid eyes on one, he heard they were a terror to behold - skeletal corpses that travelled in packs, ensconced in a creeping white mist, preying on anything in their path. This had been the only sort of Necromancy the Wizarding World had seen in recorded history. But a witch with the ability to actually bring a body and soul, both intact, back from the lands of Death? Theo was certain it had never been done.
The second wizard must have had the same misgivings as Theo. “You’re putting me on, Ben. There’s never been such a Necromancer,” he muttered to his friend. “How do you know she isn’t just some twisted puppet master, reanimating corpses to do her dark work like all the rest of ‘em?”
The first wizard - Ben - glanced around nervously, causing Theo to shrink into himself while hoping to Salazar that he couldn’t be seen through the shelf. Satisfied with their apparent privacy, Ben turned back to his friend. “Because,” he said, “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Y’know the McLinskey family, lives just down the road from me? The mother died by her husband’s hand last year. He was always an abusive bastard. Anyways, I helped dig the hole for her body myself, helped lower her into the ground. And then yesterday, I seen her leaving the house with her little boy, absolutely fit as a fiddle and acting fully herself.” He leaned in closer. “And then come to find husband hasn’t been heard from nigh on a year. Some are sayin’ he was a sacrifice, a life for a life. Some say he panicked when his dead wife walked back into the house, and ran out of town. I don’t know what’s true, but I know what I saw. And what I saw was a dead woman, brought back to life, walkin' out the house with her son and healthy as a horse.”
“Okay, suppose it is true necromancy,” Garrett said, still not convinced. “How do ya know it was done by this specific witch you speak of?”
Ben shrugged. “Can’t be sure, I s’pose. But if you listen, you’ll hear ‘em - all the rumors about the Avebury Necromancer. And I’m telling you, they really seem to be true.”
The wizards continued wandering further into the shop, leaving Theo’s mind to churn wildly with the information he had just been made privy to. A witch…a Necromancer…in Wiltshire…capable of actually raising dead souls. And of all the days for him to have braved a trip to the Potions shop.
It felt like kismet. It felt like hope. It felt like the one chance he had to regain the life he had lost.
“Screw this fruitless hunt for Draught of Living Death,” he muttered to himself. He didn’t even realize his feet had carried him out of the potions shop until he heard the bell tinkle behind him. And by then he was running over the cobblestones, racing back to Pansy’s house. He needed an owl, some parchment, and a spot of luck, because some way, somehow , he was going to find this mysterious Necromancer, and convince her to bring his Draco back to life.
Notes:
Thank you so much for reading my first ever Dreomione!
I know Draco is dead, but be patient...there will be contact. *Lots* of contact if you know what I mean. And probably a ressurrection, though I make no promises.
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter 2: Beginnings
Notes:
CW for this chapter: brief mention of suicide, and what many would consider MCD.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“A Wizard wishing to practice Necromancy must possess many strong attributes of the heart and mind if he wishes to be successful in his craft. Intelligence is necessary, it is true, but perhaps the most important differentia is a fortitude of mind and spirit. Those in charge of the Wizarding World have always sought to snuff out the practice of Necromancy, no matter the Operator or the Motives. Necromancy is a terrifying power with the ability to reshape and rebuild a future that those in power may seek to protect at any cost.”
The Nightshade Guide to Necromancy
Chapter 1: The Rituals of Dark Magick; Section III - The Qualifications of the Necromancer
~
Hermione Granger was tending to her herb garden when an unfamiliar barn owl swooped low over the lilac hedge and deposited a thick piece of folded parchment directly onto her head.
“That was quite rude, you know,” she grumped at the bird as he perched on the fence nearby to await her written reply. The owl simply ruffled his feathers and clicked his beak at her.
“Such a cheeky little thing,” she tutted as she unfolded the creamy parchment. Her hazel eyes skimmed over the message within, written in a hurried, scrawling script, before she crumpled the letter into a ball and let it fall to the grass. The owl eyed her reproachfully. “You can go back to wherever you came from,” she told him. “I won’t be giving you a reply.” The little bastard merely blinked at her.
She sighed and gathered up her gardening items, tucking her wand into her apron and nestling a few herbs she had clipped into her basket. The sun was just beginning to sink over the dense forest of beech trees that lay to the west of her cottage, and the sky was tinged with a lovely, soft lavender hue. Bringing her thumb and first finger to her mouth, she let out a piercing whistle that reverberated through the forest, startling a flock of starlings nestled in the canopy. The birds took wing in an undulating murmuration, a roiling black cloud that skirted over the tree tops before disappearing from view. Somewhere in the trees, a dog barked, and Hermione smiled as a shaggy black mutt soon burst through the undergrowth and loped across the meadow to her.
Hello, Gwenny,” Hermione greeted the dog, smiling fondly as she tousled Guinevere’s silken ears. “Care for some supper?”
As she plated a simple meal of stewed white beans on toast, Hermione couldn’t help glancing out the kitchen window. The crumpled parchment stood out starkly against the darkening grass, as white as bleached bone. The owl was still perched obstinately on the garden fence. She sighed heavily.
“Well, looks like my secret isn’t such a secret anymore,” she told Guinevere, who didn’t even have the decency to look up from her food bowl. “What an absolute nightmare. I should have been more careful with the last one. We might as well bolster the wards before we get any sort of curious company.”
After supper, Hermione walked the perimeter of her property, Guinevere pacing loyally beside her as they waded through the tall meadow grass. Her land was a small parcel on the edge of the West Woods, mainly comprising a tiny cottage, an extensive fenced garden for both herbs and vegetables, and a small, idyllic meadow that burst into glorious bloom each spring, positively carpeted in bluebells. Hermione loved it in a way she had loved few things in her life - deeply, completely, and reverently. A distant great-uncle on her mother’s side had left the cottage to her, his only grand-niece, in his will, and she had come across the paperwork while cleaning out the Granger’s London home. A few trips to the family solicitor to make sure everything was in order, and the Wiltshire property had officially become hers. She hadn’t believed her luck. The place was rundown and had been abandoned for some time, long enough that it had ceased to be remembered or recognized by the local Muggle population. They hadn't even noticed a change in the countryside when she set a concealing blanket of spells over the entire property and hid it from the view of prying eyes.
The subsequent work to make the house liveable had been punishing, even with her magic. Every single window had been broken, and the roof had gone rotten. Starlings had built their nests in every imaginable crevice of the cottage, and they attacked her maliciously whenever she tried to clear them out. She had thrown so many Knockback Jinxes the first day that she felt as if she were fighting off a swarm of doxies rather than a bunch of measly birds. Once those were finally cleared out, she was left with the lovely chore of scraping and Scourgify-ing copious amounts of bird shit off the walls and the floors. It had been, without a doubt, her least favorite task.
Now, years later, the cottage was finally everything she had dreamed of - exceedingly cozy and comfortable, and a nice quiet haven from the rest of the world. There were always parcels of drying herbs hanging from the ceiling beams, a hearth that held a merry fire on cool nights, walls of bookshelves holding thousands of her favorite tomes, and plenty of snug little nooks for her and Gwenny to hole up in. It still felt lonely, at times, but Hermione was used to that. She’d been alone for a very long time.
As the last shimmering net-like spell left the tip of the wand to integrate into her existing wards, she felt a shiver run down her spine. Although it took her by surprise, it shouldn’t have been entirely unexpected, with October waning and Samhain near. The veil between worlds would be at its thinnest soon, and the concentration of magical energy in this particular part of Wiltshire near numerous ancient henge sites led to a high level of spiritual activity during this time of the year, with it clustering tightly at Avebury and Stonehenge before spreading like a spider’s web across the surrounding countryside.
She stood silently, observing her surroundings, her wand gripped firmly between her fingers. The nearby woods were deeply dark and quiet, more so than normal, but Guinevere was calm and still at her side. Nothing to fret about, Hermione told herself. Sometimes a shiver is just a shiver. And truth be told, she was feeling a bit chilled now that the sun had fully set.
October nights cooled rapidly in the English countryside, and she hadn’t brought a jumper on her evening rounds. She placed a hand on Guinevere’s head and smiled as warm, brown eyes met her own. “What do you say, Gwenny? Secure enough for now?” The dog wagged her tail and chuffed quietly. “I agree. Let’s retire for the evening, shall we?”
With a fire started and a cozy jumper acquired, Hermione returned to the kitchen to steep a pot of herbal tea. Her eyes caught once more on the discarded letter, practically glowing in the garden, and the dark shape of the stubborn owl nearby. She was still incredulous as to how he had managed to locate her and, though a bit peeved by it, could appreciate his tenacity in waiting her out. “He’ll eventually get frustrated and leave, right?” she asked the dog.
Guinevere, snoring on a dog bed next to the hearth, opened one eye and glared at her. Hermione held up her hands in surrender. “Sorry to disturb you, your highness.” The dog sighed heavily, obviously perturbed by Hermione’s audacity to bother her for such a silly question, and settled back into her sleep. Hermione turned back to the window, one finger thoughtfully tracing her bottom lip as she looked out once more at the parchment. Maybe I could use some human interaction after all, she reasoned, her eyes fixed on the letter. Talking to the animals is making me feel rather batty.
In the morning, the parchment was still there. Of course it was.
And the owl was still there, as well. Of course he was.
Hermione strode across the lawn, bare feet sinking deeply into the dew-covered grass, and plucked the letter off the ground. It was rather soggy, but it was still intact. The owl gave her a menacing glare and extended his wings to shake off the dewdrops that had gathered on his feathers. Hermione glared right back at him. “Don’t look at me like that,” she admonished. “It’s not as if I forced you to sleep out here all night. You were welcome to go back to wherever you came from.” With a huff, she turned on her heel, returning inside to spread the parchment out on the scrubbed-top wooden worktable she used to prepare her herbs and other potion ingredients. The ink was splotchy, but still legible. This time, she read the letter in its entirety.
Deliver to: The Most Honourable Necromancer Witch, residing (probably) (hopefully) somewhere near Avebury, Wiltshire, Britain.
Most Honourable Necromancer,
I do not believe this is your official title, but please forgive me. It was all I had to work with based on the very sparse information I have obtained regarding your profession and your whereabouts.
I am desperately hoping this letter reaches you. I am a wizard, living in London, hoping to inquire about the possibility of obtaining your services.
My best friend and lover has been killed. I realize that death is a fact of life, and it will eventually come for us all, but he was taken from me in an exceedingly cruel and sudden manner, and I fear I am not much longer for this world without him. My grief is more endless than I could have possibly imagined.
If you find it in your heart to assist me in this matter, I would be eternally grateful.
With thanks,
T.N.
Frustrated, Hermione drummed slender fingers on the tabletop as she considered the contents of the missive. A heavy black head settled onto her leg underneath the table, offering comfort, and she reached down to caress the top of Guinevere’s silky head. “I can’t possibly entertain this, Gwenny,” she mused. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I never meant to take this so far that I simply started offering services for hire.”
~
When Hermione had first stumbled upon The Nightshade Guide to Necromancy during one of her illicit third-year forays into the Hogwarts Library Restricted Section, she had been hesitant but intrigued. The full capabilities of Necromantic magic had seemingly never been explored in recorded wizarding history, and only its lesser forms had been used by dark wizards and witches to reanimate corpses into armies of mindless, soulless Inferi. She had once been daring enough to ask Dumbledore about Necromancy when she was in his office discussing her completely unrelated time-turner dealings. “It is a branch of magic that has never worked,” the headmaster had told her thoughtfully, gazing off into the distance as he often did. “And we should all be thankful for that.”
She hadn’t thought much of it after that, even through the war, even as her friends and professors died around her. Necromancy was obviously a fantasy, a fiction. People couldn’t be brought back from the dead, intact of their souls and their memories and whatever else that made them, them. It was a child’s silly daydream.
But then, one year to the day after the war had ended, as the wizarding community was gathering at Hogwarts to remember and pay tribute to the fallen, her best friend, a man who had fought with everything he had - gave everything that he had - and saved them all through his selflessness, grew tired of the heavy burden of guilt that he was unable to escape. As quietly and calmly as he had lived, Harry Potter took his own life with little fuss or fanfare.
Hermione’s world had imploded spectacularly when Minerva McGonagall had taken her aside before the remembrance ceremony and told her the news.
She had only ever felt her magic course so strongly through her veins like that once before, as it responded to her anguish. It had sparked at her fingertips, electrified her curls, swirled like a tempest in her very soul. Her all-encompassing grief was quickly and entirely replaced by anger, a rage more fierce than her sadness. The biggest tragedy of Harry’s death was that it hadn’t been necessary in the first place. The heaviness and guilt and shame that had weighed on him was the fault of the hate and evil that resided deeply within the magical community, a festering disease so deeply entrenched that it would never be erased.
Ron had coped by throwing himself into his career as an Auror. “It’s important work, ‘Mione,” he had told her once over takeaway curry in their dingy little flat. “No one can bring Harry back, but I can help bring all the evil bastards out there to justice.”
But the work of the Aurors would never be enough. Hermione knew, deep in her bones, that the D.M.L.E. was no match for the true evil that lurked within the wizarding world. The department’s efforts at eradication were as lasting as a footprint on the beach in the path of an incoming ocean wave. The water would always sweep the sand clean.
Hermione’s own response had been to pour herself into the study of Necromancy. Originally, she had approached it merely as a method to bring her best friend back to life, but gradually she began to think about all the other souls she could save as well. She became maniacal in her devotion to dark magic, and reclusive and angry in her personal life. She knew most would approach her studies with wariness or outright fear, and realized the knowledge she gained would make her a novelty, or a worse, a target. This realization made her paranoid and wary of everyone, and she hid her work, even from Ron. It wasn't long before he became tired of her secretive tendencies and volatile temper, and she really couldn’t blame him. She was still enough of herself to see that she had turned into a monster, and she often worried at how precariously her old self clung to the threads of who she had once been, hoping each day that she didn’t lose herself completely but too obstinate and dedicated to stop her pursuit.
It had all come to a head one summer evening, when Hermione screamed at Ron over a misplaced book. She had just finished a particularly defeating day of practicing spellwork that hadn’t resulted in anything useful, and though it wasn’t any excuse for how awfully she treated him, her anger was seemingly all that she had control over. As she was sipping her last cup of tea before bed, Ron had appeared in the kitchen doorway, a duffle bag in one hand and his wand in the other. “I’m leaving, ‘Mione,” he told her quietly, the pain clear and sharp in his blue eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.” It was humbling, how simply and easily their relationship had ended.
With Ron no longer in her life to distract her, Hermione sank fully into learning about Necromancy. She pulled from every source she could find: Egyptian, Druidic, Chinese, Babylonian, Greek, Roman. She researched them all, studying their methods and teachings and applying it to the creation of her own spells and potions. She grew necessary but rare or hard-to-find herbs and flowers in her own garden. She had always been a good student, but Necromancy challenged her like nothing ever had before. She loved it.
Until, that is, she had to put her learned methods to practice. She couldn’t - wouldn’t - inflict death upon a living being simply to try and bring it back to life, so she resorted to scouring the surrounding countryside and roads for deceased animals. She learned two things very quickly. First, the animal had to be freshly dead, still warm, if her newly-found skills were to bring any part of them back from the clutches of Death at all. Second, she learned she was capable of creating nothing but Inferi.
Simple, soulless re-animation. That was all her years of studying had amounted to.
A lesser witch or wizard would have given up, but Hermione was steadfast. She decided to focus the majority of her rituals and potions on Druidic practices, which had proven the most promising so far. The ancient methods relied heavily on connections to the earth, drawing energy from the natural world around her. She took advantage of the nearby henge sites and the spiritual power they offered via their branching ley lines. She made potions and ointments from herbs and flowers to assist in her practices. She grew henbane and belladonna and mandrake and a myriad of herbs. She persistently continued in honing her craft.
One autumn evening, under a full moon and walking the lane near her cottage, she came across a large black blanket, crumpled at the edge of the asphalt. Except, it wasn’t a blanket. It was a dog - a dog who had been hit and killed by a Muggle automobile. She pressed hesitant fingers to its silky fur- still warm. The dog's eyes were dead and unseeing, but had been warm and brown and deeply soulful in life. Hermione had never successfully brought anything back to life, but she couldn’t help but feel confident in her capabilities this time. She knew she was close. She knew she had to try.
She brought the dog’s body to a copse of trees near the cottage. Ash trees - a symbol of healing and rebirth. She placed the dog in a circle of black beeswax candles under the light of the full moon, and placed posies of symbolic greenery around the corpse. Narcissus, for rebirth. Forget-me-nots, for memories. Asphodels, the flower of Death. The final step, though she loathed it, needed to include a sacrifice. As much as her conscience rebelled against the idea, Death was required to be appeased in order to take back a soul that had already been collected. It didn’t take long for her to find a rabbit hidden in the nearby underbrush, and she incapacitated it with a simple Immobulus from a flick of her wand. “Forgive me,” she whispered into the velvety fur as she slit the rabbit’s throat and spilled its lifeblood within the circle of candles.
Her preparations complete, she knelt before the dog, placing one hand on its body and the other on the earth.
Spells she had created spilled from her lips in undulating incantations, drawing energy from the ground beneath and the sky above. Her murmurings reached a furious fever pitch and then suddenly - there it was. Hermione’s soul successfully slipped free of her physical body for the first time. The sensation was strange, a light ripping and tugging, not entirely enjoyable but neither did it cause any pain. She was exhilarated at having finally achieved such an accomplishment, her entire being electrified. In this untethered, intangible form, she turned to face the veil between the spiritual and physical worlds, shimmering brilliantly before her. Samhain was still far away at that time, and the veil felt thick and dense beneath her fingertips. She poked, prodded, and pressed, searching for the key to its unraveling. Finally, there it was - a single, fraying fiber.
She pulled mightily, and the thread began to unwind, slowly revealing a magnificent plane of existence beyond the veil. Gentle emerald hills, cloaked with grass, rippled in a phantom breeze. She stepped tentatively through the hole, her feet meeting lush, verdant greenery. Before she even had the time to fully comprehend her new surroundings, a soft black nose was nuzzling at her fingertips, and she gasped with delight as she revelled in her accomplishment. “Well, you certainly made that easy,” Hermione said softly to the ghostly spectre of a dog. “Let’s get you back to the land of the living.”
That very same black, wet nose was the one now rousing Hermione from her thoughts, pressing insistently into her thigh as she sat at the table. The parchment was still splayed out on the tabletop, and Guinevere looked at it pointedly before looking back to Hermione again. The dog’s message was clear, and Hermione chuckled fondly. If she hadn’t fetched Gwenny’s canine soul from the spirit world herself, she would have sworn the dog’s physical form had been mistakenly re-inhabited by a human soul instead.
She sighed, summoning a quill and parchment. “Fine, I’ll send an answer,” she told the dog. “But don’t blame me if this all ends poorly.”
Notes:
Thank you so much for reading my first ever Dreomione!
I'd love to reiterate again, because I personally care deeply about this sort of thing, that Gwenny will be *just fine*. She is here simply to be a loyal sidekick and comic relief. Her safety is guaranteed.
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter Text
“A Necromancer should abstain from becoming familiar with those who might seek to acquire any assistance he is able to provide. Friendship and camaraderie should be foreign to him, as his safety may very well depend upon it.”
The Nightshade Guide to Necromancy
Chapter 1: The Rituals of Dark Magick
Section III - The Qualifications of the Necromancer
~
Dear Sir or Madam,
I have received your inquiring correspondence regarding my “services,” as you have called them.
Unfortunately, I am not in the habit of using whatever skills you may think I possess in such a reckless or indiscriminate manner that I would ever entertain offering to help a complete and total stranger who has approached me. I prefer to find people in need, of my own accord, and offer them my help under the agreement of indiscretion.
I am sorry for your loss and I wish you well. Please know that the death of a loved one does not have to be your undoing. I would highly recommend you seek aid of some kind. A Mind Healer may be able to assist you as you process your grief.
I will not, unfortunately, be able to help you.
Respectfully,
G
~
Dear “G”/ Most Honourable Necromancer,
I must admit that I take slight offence to your refusal to use the title with which I have bestowed upon you. I promise, it was used entirely as an honorific, and not at all as an insult or jab.
I do, however, take full offence to the way in which you treated my owl. He (Phineas) has informed me that he was left to sleep in the cold, and was not offered adequate rewards or sustenance. Please make sure you rectify that on this next occasion. He prefers field mice.
A Mind Healer would be no solace for me. I must ask, have you ever loved someone, G? Really loved them? Loved them so much that you both knew each other down the very cores of your beings?
My lover and I were not soul-bound, but we were undoubtedly soul-mates. My soul would seek him out anywhere. My soul still searches for him, even though I know he is lost to me beyond the boundaries of the world which I inhabit.
If there is any way in which I may amend my status from “stranger” to “acquaintance,” I am begging you - please. Please.
With thanks,
T.N.
P.S. If you’d like, you may address further correspondences to me as Sir.
~
Dear Sir,
I have never met a wizard who is able to speak to owls. You must be quite gifted. I gave Phineas a field mouse for his troubles and do hope it was adequate.
Also, it was quite bold of you to assume that there would be future correspondence between us and yet…here I am, writing you another letter. I do believe that means the joke is on me.
And as for your question - yes. I have loved, very deeply. So deeply that I was willing to chase Death down for the souls of the ones I loved, as soon as my skills manifested and I was able to do so.
Necromancy is not always the answer to our troubles. Sometimes, a soul can not be found. Other times, a soul is too far gone. Occasionally, a soul will not want to come back to the land of the living. In the end, we are all at the mercy of Death and his domain.
It also does not come without a price. Purer, simpler souls (my dog would absolutely kill me for describing her as simple, but alas, she can not read) are easier to bring back. The sacrifice necessary for those retrievals is small. Human souls are harder, and the sacrifice is greater. There will be a price to your lover’s resurrection, and you will be responsible for paying it.
I will require five favors from you, related to the five stages of soul retrieval that will need to be performed. I can assure you, these favors will not be simple.
I do not extend this offer lightly. If you agree to the above terms, we will meet in person and I will decide afterwards if I indeed want to help you. If I do agree, I will make you sign a contract. Please think long and hard about what you are willing to give up to Death, because I promise you it will not be an easy sacrifice.
Respectfully,
“Most Honourable Necromancer” G
~
M.H.N.G.,
Please excuse the utterly uncouth abbreviation, but I can not possibly write these words fast enough.
I will do it. Whatever you need. Whatever will bring him back. Whatever Death requires.
Please let me know when we may meet, at your earliest convenience.
T.N.
~
Hermione had long ago thrown any notions of societal politeness to the wind. In her mind, people rarely deserved such niceties. Animals…well, they were another matter entirely. Animals were innocent. Unblemished. Pure of heart. It was an easy thing for her to apologize to a rabbit, or a roe deer, or a badger, when the time came to end its life. The same could not be said for humans.
As a Necromancer, she was expected to bring the dead back to life, but she wasn’t above sending the living who deserved such a fate to Death, either.
Still, she was surprised to find herself becoming anxious at the thought of meeting this mysterious wizard, and even more so to find she desired to be congenial with him, Godric, she even hoped he found her likable.
Although he was absolutely no one to her, and she neither needed his approval nor wanted his attention, she had to admit his letters had been charming. Plus, his persnickety and persistent little owl, who she assumed was most likely an avian representation of his master, had grown on her.
It had been five days since this mysterious wizard’s desperate and uninhibited agreement to do whatever it took had reached her, and she had thought long and hard before sending her final reply.
T.N.,
Meet me at the Red Lion, in Avebury.
It is a Muggle pub. Dress accordingly. And if you have a problem with either of those items, be sure to let me know beforehand so I don’t waste my time.
G
Phineas had returned one final time with a clutch of bluebells in his beak, and Hermione had smiled despite herself. “Your wizard is a fellow student of floriography, hmm?” she asked the owl as she gently took the flowers from his beak.
The bluebells symbolized many things. Death and mourning. Unwavering commitment and steadfastness. Humility. Gratitude.
He would be there. She had no doubt.
Now, the day of their meeting had finally arrived. Hermione chose a particularly Muggle outfit for the occasion, hoping to pass herself off as a typical tourist by being exceedingly uninteresting to the average eye. Denim jeans, a lace-trimmed camisole beneath an oversized cardigan, and trainers. She looked at the bluebells, sitting on the kitchen countertop in a jar of water, and then at Guinivere, waiting hopefully by the door.
“I’m so sorry, my darling,” she crooned, stooping down to ruffle the dog’s ears and kiss her nose. “This is a human-only adventure, I’m afraid.” She stood up and presented herself. “How do I look?” The dog simply stared at her unhelpfully. “Right, that’s my own fault for asking a dog her opinion.” Hermione rolled her eyes and Apparated away with a muffled crack.
She appeared a moment later in a dense cluster of trees, a stone’s throw from the farthest-afield of Avebury’s stone henges. Avebury was never as busy of a tourist destination as nearby Stonehenge, and it was rare that visitors made it out to the fringes of the stones. Indeed, she left the trees to find herself utterly and completely alone. The summer haze clung low at the horizon, softening the trees that lay farther afield as if being viewed through a thin sheaf of gauze. The henges stood tall and proud, imposing as always. A few bugs danced on the slight breeze, and the scent of lucerne was thick and heady. Holstering her wand at her side for easy access beneath her voluminous cardigan, she struck off across the fields towards the center of Avebury and the pub.
The Red Lion was a charming whitewashed building, topped with a sloping thatched roof and adorned with dozens of hanging baskets that spilled pink and red flowers from the eaves. Hermione hesitated at the door before stepping inside. She realized that in all their correspondence, she and her potential “client” - Merlin, was that really what this was? A business arrangement? - had never communicated how they would recognize the other. What an incredibly silly oversight. A quick glance at her wristwatch told her she was extremely early, which she supposed gave her the upper hand. He would have to seek her out.
Her skin felt prickly and raw at being under the human gaze again after so long holed away on her property. She talked herself into ordering a Guinness from the barman so as to blend in with the other patrons, and took it to a secluded two-person table in a corner. There, she settled into the chair closest to the wall, shielding her back out of habit, and sipped her beer. Godric, it tasted delicious. It had been so long since she’d had a good pint. The pub was lively and busy, everyone chattering away in good spirits, and while no one was sitting in her immediate vicinity, she cast a wandless Muffliato charm all the same.
Despite being a painfully slow drinker, her beer was half-gone by the time anyone new entered the pub, and she eyed the newcomer with curiosity as he pushed through the door. He wore a crisp blue-striped button down, navy trousers, and cognac leather loafers. His hair was dark brown, curly and windswept, falling roguishly across his forehead. He held a small posey of bluebells in one hand, a gold signet ring flashing at his index finger.
The wizard had a slightly familiar face, but Hermione couldn’t place him from any of her memories. She was certain she’d never met him outright, or spoken to him. But maybe she had seen him in passing somewhere? A tendril of recollection pressed persistently at her temples, but the particulars were murky, obscured with time and distance. If she had seen this man before, it had been a lifetime ago.
Ocean-blue eyes met her gaze as he felt her watching him. With one last glance around the pub, he seemed to decide that she was, indeed, his mark, and walked towards her table. She stiffened slightly as he drew closer. Did she even remember how to carry a conversation with another human being?
He placed a hand hesitantly on the back of the chair across from her, his long fingers pressing into the velvet upholstery. “G?”
She blew out a small breath. “Hello, T.N.”
He gestured toward the chair across from her and she nodded before he settled wearily into it - whether from relief or exhaustion, she wasn’t sure. “Hullo,” he answered simply, a hesitant hint of a smile ghosting his lips.
They assessed each other quietly for several minutes, until Hermione broke first, looking away and clearing her throat before taking a sip of beer. “Feel free to, ah, grab a pint if you’d like. Or some food. Their fish and chips are remarkably good for a tourist spot so far from the sea.”
He made no move to do anything of the sort, instead choosing to continue inspecting her like a specimen beneath a microscope. “You don’t look at all how I’d pictured,” he finally observed with a tilt of his head.
She frowned at him. “You’re just as rude as your owl, do you know that? Do tell - how did you picture me, exactly? Black flowing robes, a crown of bones, maybe a raven on my shoulder? And let me guess - you thought I'd be old, wrinkled. White-haired. Something like that?”
He gave a small laugh and leaned back in his seat, gesturing at her. “I just didn’t expect…lace. Exposed décolletage. Excellent cheekbones. That sort of thing.”
Hermione felt an unwarranted blush tinge her 'excellent cheekbones' as she gasped and drew her cardigan closed across her torso, feeling each brush of his gaze over her chest. “You boor.”
He placed his hands on the table, palms firmly together in prayer, and leaned forward, bowing his head deferentially, so low that it nearly kissed the table.
“A thousand apologies, my lady. I…I don’t socialize much, and I fear I've forgotten my manners.” His words seemed mocking, but his tone was honest. A quintessential apology. A sign of good breeding, perhaps? She suspected he was a Pureblood.
Hermione scoffed and took another sip of beer. “Fine. Your apology is accepted. I can relate to the lack of socialization, I suppose.”
“I figured as much.” He cringed slightly under the full heat of the glare she leveled at him. “Your letters,” he added hastily. “You just seemed a little…lonely.”
Another scoff. Was that all she was capable of today? “You seemed quite lonely yourself,” she offered.
He nodded, his countenance suddenly more serious. “I am, indeed. Something I’m quite hoping you can help with.”
Hermione studied the wizard’s almost-familiar face. He had a light spatter of freckles spread out across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, as if an artist had carelessly flisked a brush full of paint. A particularly rambunctious curl kept falling into his eyes. And he had a Muggle wristwatch on his left arm - she appreciated the commitment to detail. “Well, what else do you suppose we have in common, besides our pathetic loneliness?” she asked, bringing her beer to her lips.
He lounged back in his chair again, contemplating her question. “I’m not entirely sure, but I have this sneaking suspicion that we’ve run across each other before.”
“The wizarding community is small,” she said with a shrug. “Especially here in Britain. Also, I’ve been told I have a familiar face.”
“No, I feel certain I remember you more intimately than that,” he murmured thoughtfully, tracing his bottom lip with his signet ring. “I didn’t shag you in a broom closet as an idiotic, randy teenager, did I?” As soon as the words left his mouth, his eyes widened in alarm, a deep blush creeping up his neck. She felt a matching one flush her face, deepening the first blush that hadn't yet dissipated. She must look like an idiotic teenager herself, turning red over a wizard's suggestive words.
“Apologies, again,” he stuttered. “Salazar, I’m so fucking inappropriate today. I’m just nervous. Please…forgive me.”
She felt herself stiffen at his words - or more specifically, his curse of choice. “You were a Slytherin, then?” she asked hoarsely, her mind racing clumsily as it continuously tried and failed to identify him.
He looked amazed. “How did you know? Oh… ‘Salazar’. Yes, yes I was a Slytherin.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it! We must have crossed paths at Hogwarts. We seem about the same age. And here I am again, forgetting my manners.” He smiled warmly and extended a hand. “Theodore Nott. It’s an honor to finally meet you.”
There was a sudden and deafening ringing in Hermione’s ears. Her heart leapt and took flight, landing firmly in her throat. With a stuttering gasp, she pushed away from the table, dark beer sloshing and seeping over the pristine white tablecloth as she rose quickly to her feet. Theodore was watching her with confusion, hand still outstretched in polite introduction, as she shoved past him and strode across the dining room of the pub. She wrenched the door open, gulping in lungfuls of clean autumn air, and then she was running. Across the lane and through the nearest field, winding through the towering henges, trying desperately to get to cover so she might get the fuck away.
“Wait!” a pleading voice yelped behind her. “Please. I beg you. Wait!”
She pumped her arms harder, lungs burning. The copse of trees was right there. Only a little further…
“HERMIONE,” Theodore bellowed, close behind her now. Merlin, he was fast. She gasped and stumbled, surprised at the sound of her name. It had been so long since she had heard it spoken aloud.
She recovered quickly from her misstep and drew her wand, turning to face her pursuer. He was an absolute mess, his shirt sweat-soaked across his broad chest, one of his pant-legs torn, his whole body heaving in enormous, panting breaths. He eyed her wand warily and held up his hands in a sign of surrender.
“Hermione, please,” he said one last time. His voice was wet and broken, his face crumpled in grief. There were tears brimming in his eyes.
She pointed her wand at him. “How do you know my name?” she asked him.
He smiled feebly. “‘Brightest Witch of Our Age,’ I believe they called you. Who else would be able to find success in a form of magic that no one else has? And then there are those beautiful brown curls. And maybe the pure terror in your eyes at the thought of associating with a Slytherin? I don’t know, take your pick.”
She kept her wand pointed squarely at his chest. There was only one more question left to ask. “Who was your lover?” she demanded, her voice thick and low. “Who did you want me to bring back from the dead?”
She watched him nearly shrink into himself at the question, shoulders bowing in resignation, face turning haggard as he cast his gaze to the ground. He was a man defeated, and she almost pitied him at that moment.
“Who…was…he,” she hissed slowly through gritted teeth.
Bright blue eyes looked up at her through thick lashes. There was a deep pain in their depths, an unavoidable heartache that twisted her gut in an uncomfortable sort of way. She knew the name before he even spoke it.
“Draco Malf-.”
She Apparated away before he could utter the last syllable.
~
Theo dropped to his knees in the tall grass, staring at the spot where Hermione Granger had stood moments before.
Hermione. Fucking. Granger.
He should have guessed. Merlin, he’d been so stupid. How could he not have realized? A Necromancer more powerful than the wizarding world had ever seen. It could be none other than the most intelligent and gifted witch of their time.
His mind sifted through memories as he recalled what he knew of her. It wasn’t much at all.
Bushy hair, large front teeth, a pile of books held in her arms as a group of Slytherins, led by Draco, mock her as she passes. “Mudblood!” Draco spits at her with a sneer. She lifts her chin high, even as tears threaten to spill down her cheeks, and walks away.
A beautiful girl, sobbing quietly, in the rebuilt castle courtyard. Outside the stone walls, the memorial service for the Battle of Hogwarts one-year anniversary has commenced. Ron Weasley has the girl wrapped in his arms, his face buried in her neck. Professor McGonagall has a comforting hand placed on them both. She’s crying too.
“WEASLEY LOSES THE GOLDEN GIRL,” screams the Daily Prophet headline. There’s a magical photograph of Ron Weasley, shielding his face from the reporters and fighting his way through a crowd. A small blurb follows. Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger have ended their relationship. There are very few facts, but loads of speculation.
“HERMIONE GRANGER CONFIRMED DEAD,” the Prophet proclaims not long after. “IS RONALD WEASLEY NEXT? GOLDEN TRIO ALL BUT GONE.” Apparently she died in Australia, where her parents had moved during the war before being murdered by Death Eaters. She couldn’t keep them safe. The guilt was too much. She took her own life, just like that poor Harry Potter.
“She faked her own death,” he whispered incredulously, his mind slotting the errant puzzle pieces together. “Everyone thinks she’s dead.”
Theo took a deep and shuddering breath, considering his options.
He now held knowledge that would be entirely precious and desirable to the right people. Hermione Granger, alive and well. Hermione Granger, a powerful Necromancer. Either one of those facts would set the wizarding world ablaze. But both of those truths combined? They had the potential to burn it all down completely.
He wondered if Hermione even realized that she was now entirely at his mercy. A sick sort of unadulterated glee washed over him at the thought. Her biggest secrets had now become his most valuable bargaining chips.
The power he felt in that moment was intoxicating.
He Apparated back to Pansy’s house and stripped off sweaty clothes, setting the shower temperature as cold as he could manage before stepping beneath the icy spray. The water sluiced over his shoulders and down his spine as he leaned his head against the tiles, considering what he needed to do next.
Obviously, this newfound knowledge had to be kept away from the press, or any chance he had of getting Draco back would be gone. Hermione would never speak to him again for spilling her secrets, and her life would most likely be put in danger. The wizarding community greatly distrusted the practice of Necromancy as it pertained to the creation of Inferi. But the more far-reaching powers of complete resurrection that Hermione Granger possessed?
He already knew what the public consensus would be.
No one should have that much power.
Could he beg and grovel at her feet again? The desperate honesty, the softness, with which he had approached her the first time, had always been his default. It was surprisingly natural for him to be kind, despite his horrid upbringing - in a rotting manor, by an abusive father who had tried to beat that very same softness from his small son’s body, time and time again.
He wasn't stupid enough to think that method would work for him a second time, though. Hermione didn’t seem the exceedingly cruel type, but he could tell she had a vicious streak, and she wasn’t quick to trust. He admired that about her, the calculated wariness with which she led her life, but he knew it meant she’d never accept any sort of friendly advance from him ever again.
No, Hermione needed to be manipulated. Which, as a cunning and resourceful Slytherin, just happened to be Theo’s specialty.
He stepped out of the shower, not even bothering to towel off, and strode naked into the bedroom, summoning a quill and parchment. He sat at the desk, water streaming off his body to snake down the legs of the chair and drip onto the carpet, as he wrote a quick message.
G,
Your secrets are only safe if you bring him back to me. You spoke of prices to pay. Consider this the price of my silence.
T.N.
Kindness and honesty may have been in his nature, but he’d always been much better at coercion.
Notes:
Still no Draco - I know, I know. "But Magus!" you might be saying. "This is a DReomione. The DR stands for Draco. We're 10K and no Draco in sight!"
I promise your patience will be rewarded, friends :) Just a bit more Draco-less time is needed to help Theo and Hermione figure themselves out.
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter 4: Compulsion
Notes:
CW for this chapter: Death of Major Character (in flashback/memory)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Theo, I know you were lying when you told me that the bruise on your cheek was from falling out of a tree. You’re entirely unathletic, and I have never once witnessed you climb anything. I know what your father is doing to you, and it’s abhorrent.
I am so very sorry he treats you in that way. You, out of all people, do not deserve unkindness."
An excerpt of a letter from Draco Malfoy to Theodore Nott, dated July 16th, 1994
~
The coordinates Hermione had sent in her responding missive landed Theo square in the middle of a very cold and surprisingly deep creek. He emerged gasping and sputtering, completely drenched, and yet couldn’t help but chuckle.
The witch was completely vindictive, as he’d guessed. No matter. He’d dealt with worse.
Theo clambered up onto the bank, dragonhide shoes squelching loudly in the mud, and dug out his wand from the breast pocket of his jacket. A few drying charms and Scourgify’s later, he was as put-together as one could possibly be after an unexpected swim in a forest brook, and was finally able to take in his surroundings.
The creek ran along the border of a deep beech forest, which lay beyond a sprawling meadow. He spotted a cottage across the tall, undulating autumn grass, with smoke curling like calligraphy from the chimney, and a warm yellow glow emanating from the windows. Theo was miffed. Much like the Necromancer herself, her abode was…not what he had imagined.
Nott Manor…now, that great house seemed perfectly befitting a Necromancer’s dwellings. Cold, stone floors and walls that sucked the heat easily from his flesh, cursed objects covering every surface, and a suit of armor that would randomly hurl its weaponry at guests and residents alike in near constant attempts to dismember and disembowel. The manor was grim, and lifeless, and completely indicative of the sort of Wizarding family it belonged to. His father had adored that manor. Theo had abandoned it to rot as soon as he possibly could.
This little cottage before him was charming. Utterly delightful. And while Hermione was apparently some sort of cottage-dwelling, nature-loving Necromancer, rather than the normal dark and twisty sort one might expect, he could not necessarily agree that her home matched her personality. Theo found her neither charming nor utterly delightful.
Okay, maybe a little delightful. But only in an extremely masochistic sort of way.
After Theo had sent his pointed letter threatening extortion, he had of course expected a reply. What ultimately surprised him, though, was the length of time it had taken Hermione to respond. He anticipated expediency, due to her precarious position in the matter, but instead, it had taken nearly a week. Theo was beginning to think he needed to go out and purchase a new owl. When Phineas finally flew in one day and dropped the response into his hands, he could practically feel her seething anger roiling off the parchment. It smelled faintly of Dark Magic.
Fine. 51.400304, -1.768430. October 25th at 5pm.
The message had been extremely brief for the amount of time it had apparently taken her to compose it. No polite address, no personal signature. He was surprised it hadn’t arrived in the form of a Howler.
His thoughts now crashed solidly back into the present as the tall grass parted suddenly before him, and a large black dog emerged from the brush, a menacing growl emanating from low in its throat. Its glittering black eyes promised certain and excruciating death.
Fucking Salazar, it was a bloody Grim. He shouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest - an omen of Death would, of course, feel right at home on the property of a Necromancer. He hastily brandished his wand at the beast, begging his terrified mind to remember any sort of spell that might assist in keeping the dreaded thing at bay.
“If you are responsible for the second death of my dog, I will truss you up by your toes and let the ravens pick your corpse apart,” came a low, silky voice from the shadows behind the creature.
He lowered his wand. “Merlin’s ballsack, Hermione. You’ve both gone and scared me half to death.”
The witch took a step forward into the waning light of the day, enough that he could now make out the details of her face and the deep aubergine hue of her cloak. Her face was stony and drawn, but he swore he saw a bit of amusement dancing in the gleam of her eyes as she took in his disheveled features.
“Unfortunately, I fear we haven’t been scary enough to actually kill you outright. What a pity.” She gave a long-suffering sigh and turned towards the cottage, motioning for him over her shoulder to follow as one might beckon a petulant child. “Come along.”
Theo could very well not come along, seeing as how he was wary of moving even a single muscle in the face of the staring dog, who was studying him in the same way it might size up a filet of beef. He was not exactly what one might call a ‘dog person,’ and so he found the large, menacing, hairy thing in front of him to be more than a little disquieting.
“Will it bite me?” he asked Hermione tentatively.
“Maybe,” Hermione answered. She glanced back at the dog. “Probably.”
The dog snarled at Theo as if to prove the point, showing all of its teeth. Hermione finally whistled for the monster, perhaps taking pity on Theo, but more likely than not simply finding herself bored of the situation. “Come, Gwenny,” she ordered. The fuzzy black beast gave one last menacing growl before bounding away after her mistress, and Theo was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
He wasn’t at all surprised to find his hands were trembling as he stuffed his wand in his pocket, before following the dark figures across the field.
As soon as they reached the door to the cottage, Hermione turned to him and held out her palm. “Wand.”
Theo barked out a laugh. “Are you joking? You’ve gone mental if you think I’m going to hand over my wand and leave myself unprotected in the likes of –” he gestured wildly at her and the menacing Grim at her side “– this present company.”
She wiggled her fingers at him. “Give me your wand, or you’re not allowed inside.”
He put his hands on his hips. He almost stomped his foot. He could play the part of a petulant child if that was how she was going to treat him.
“Shan’t.”
She let out an exasperated huff. “Theodore, I swear to Merlin, if you don’t give me that wand, I’ll -”
“You’ll what?” he challenged, needling her. “Go to the press yourself and spare me the pleasure of spilling your secrets?”
If looks could kill, Theo would be dead a million times over. A smarter man would have broken eye contact at that point, but Theo merely smiled as those gleaming hazel eyes held his own. He always did love a challenge.
“Ah. I believe they call this an impasse, darling. What’s your next move, then?”
The anger and hate storming across Hermione’s face could have started the third Wizarding war. A perspicuous frisson pulled, as taut as a tensioned rope, between them.
“Fine,” she snarled - not, he noticed, unlike her dog. “Keep your bloody fucking wand.” She begrudgingly opened the door for him and held it open as she motioned for him to enter the cottage.
“Many thanks, my lady,” he said with a small, sarcastic bow, pushing past her. His knuckles grazed the pleats of her cloak as he leaned in briefly in passing, his breath surely close enough to ghost across her cheek. He breathed in her scent - clean, earthy, a whiff of citrus. “But really, Hermione, I insist. You must call me Theo,” he murmured.
Hermione’s face contorted into a grimace of disgust as she followed him inside, slamming the door closed in their wake.
She was charmed, obviously.
She then proceeded to busy herself by removing her cloak and shoes, and Theo took the unguarded moment to inspect his new environment. He was standing in what appeared to be the main room of the cottage, as it had a few chairs and a settee and the walls were lined with bookcases holding a simply astounding number of volumes. There was a large stone fireplace with a massive hearth and a fire crackling happily away within it, a carved wooden staircase leading up to the second floor, and a large cushion laid directly in front of it on the floor, on which the Grim - Gwenny? What an odd name for an omen of Death - was laying as it watched him warily.
He removed his cloak as well, and held it up for Hermione to hang next to hers on the coat stand, as a gracious hostess would, but she merely brushed past him and stormed off into the next room. How very rude. He carefully hung his charcoal-grey cloak on the stand and went to follow her, but the Grim let out a throaty growl and looked pointedly at his feet, still clad in his dragonhide loafers. “Salazar, you two run a tight ship,” he muttered, taking off his shoes and placing them by the door. The dog huffed and curled into a tight little ball, tucking its nose under its tail…but its eyes were still trained observantly on Theo.
He followed the clatter of pots and pans into the kitchen, where Hermione was scooping stew out of a large soup pot and into a bowl. “Oh none for me, thank you,” said Theo. “I ate an early dinner before I arrived.”
She blinked at him. “This wasn’t for you,” she said.
Merlin's beard, her manners were atrocious. Narcissa Malfoy would have been apoplectic at the lack of decorum with which Hermione Granger hosted guests.
“You’re not my guest,” Hermione stated matter-of-factly as she settled at a large wooden table, overhung with clusters of drying herbs, and dipped a heel of bread into her stew.
Theo dropped into a chair at the far end of the table, agog that she had just answered his unspoken sentiment. “Are you a… legilimens?”
She simply stared back at him silently, mouth full of baguette, and Theo’s mind reeled once more with questions. This witch was the most perplexing person he had ever met in his life.
“Snape was the most skilled legilimens I’ve ever met, and I could still feel it when he entered my mind. I didn’t feel a thing when you read my thoughts just now. Draco always said that I should learn occlumency, that it was better to be defensive than offensive when it came to the mind. That’s why he chose to focus on occlumency himself, over something like legilimency.”
“Well maybe if Malfoy had focused on legilimency instead and been better at reading the thoughts of people who wished to do him harm, he’d still be alive,” Hermione spat. Theo felt the words land like a vicious stinging hex, the words biting and ripping at his skin like a swarm of doxies. The witch at least had the decency to shift awkwardly in her chair and mumble a reluctant “sorry” around her mouthful of stew.
She finally pushed the bowl away from her with an abrupt shove, sitting back in her chair and dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. It was the most polite thing Theo had witnessed her do all evening. They watched each other in the quiet of the cottage as the minutes ticked by on the clock above the sink and the fire snapped loudly in the hearth.
Hermione finally cleared her throat. “I guess I don’t…actually know how Malfoy died,” she said flatly. Theo caught a whiff of apology or, at the very least, regret. “Will you show me?”
“You mean, tell you?”
“No, you idiot. Show me. The memory. In your mind.” She enunciated each word clearly, as if he were rather dense.
“Ah, so you are a legilimens,” he crowed, smacking his hands on the tabletop. “I knew it. Right, well, in any case, I’m not sure I want to relive that day again. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to forget it. Thank you, though.”
She sighed. “Look, Theodore… Theo. The more I know about all of this, the better. Malfoy’s been dead for some time, and his soul isn’t going to be easy to find. Knowing how he died will be a good start in making it easier for me to locate him.”
Theo squinched his eyes shut, dreading everything that he knew was sure to come. The memory stirred deeply, like a waking beast, in the depths of his mind. “You’re sure you can’t do it without me?”
Her voice was surprisingly gentle when she answered. “They’re your memories, Theo. In your head. So unfortunately, you’re going to have to be there.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her across the table. Her hazel irises held more warmth than he’d ever seen in them, though they still had a steely glint at the edges. Her smooth brown curls were a jumbled waterfall spilling down her back and around her shoulders.
Her entire essence had softened a bit, though he didn’t know why. He was coercing her into bringing her Death Eater bully back from the dead. Ergo, the only person she might hate more than Draco, in this world or the next, was Theo himself. He didn’t deserve softness, or warmth. He didn’t deserve pity.
He took a deep breath. “Fine. How do we do this?”
She stood and picked up her wand from the tabletop, moving to sit in the seat beside him, her body oriented toward his. Her left knee pressed in at his hip while her right knee kissed against his own. Though not outright in nature, it felt oddly intimate.
She leaned in and caught his gaze. This close, he could see spring green flecks clustered at her pupils. “I’m going to enter your mind,” she said in an even, measured voice. “And then you’re going to show me the memory.
“Oh,” Theo said weakly. “That’s it? Simple, then.”
She gave him a disgruntled frown and he let out a shaky breath. “Alright. As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”
She brought the tip of her wand to his temple and nestled it into the delicate skin there. “Legilimens,” she murmured.
Theo had always thought of his mind as a cave of sorts. A dark, dank place, devoid of sunlight, thriving in the shadows, hoarding scary things that never deserved to see the light of day again in his lifetime. Honestly, Hermione shouldn’t have been so surprised when her transparent form materialized within it.
She looked around rather disdainfully. “It’s…very bleak in here.”
Theo was leaning against one of the cave walls, the ceiling above him heavy with glistening stalactites. Somewhere, something dripped in a constant, steady beat. Water. Blood. Who could really know for sure.
“You dare come into my mind and then feel the need to immediately start throwing around insults?” he scoffed. “Rude.”
Hermione gestured around the cavern. “It’s just so…empty.” She sighed. “I should have known, I suppose.”
Theo glared at the implied insult, and she gave a small little chuckle.
“Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Okay, Theo, show me this memory,” she said, getting back down to the business he had hoped she’d forgotten.
“How would one go about doing so?” he asked. “Also, would it kill you to say ‘please’?”
“It’s quite simple really, you just search this empty mind of yours and find the memory, and then we view it together,” she drawled. There it was again, that tone that communicated just how dense and vapid she thought he truly was. Her mouth screwed up into a grimace, as if the next word tasted bad on her tongue. “ Please find the memory, Theo. Let’s just get this over with.”
Theo threw up his hands in disgruntled frustration. “You talk to me like I've done this before, Hermione. Like I know what to do. I’m not an occlumens, for Salazar’s sake,” he huffed. “My brain is not an organized library, it is a cave . Fuck, there’s probably some bats living in here. How do I find the memories for you?”
The witch sighed and rubbed her temple, daring to act as if she was the one having her own mind intruded and trod upon, her worst day about to be re-lived. “Fair enough. I guess I'll just find it for you, shall I?” she conceded.
“If you’d be so kind.”
~
There is an enormous amount of blood, coating the walls and the floor of the concrete cell they’re standing in. In front of them, Draco lays heaving on the floor, air and blood combining into a bubbling, frothy mess at his mouth. The wizard is only seconds from death. Hermione turns to him, standing just across from his dream-state self. Dream-Theo does nothing but stare at Draco’s body between them, his shirt splashed with sticky blood, his hands coated in it as he gasps for air, sucking it greedily into his lungs. Theo digs his hands deep into his pocket, lifting his eyes from the grisly scene that plagues him most nights, more often than he would like to admit. He looks at Hermione. “This isn’t the memory,” he says. The anguish feels thick in his throat.
~
They landed back at the table with a snap. “What in Merlin’s name was that, if it wasn’t the right memory?” Hermione demanded. Theo let out a stuttering breath. “A nightmare.”
Hermione assessed him, her eyes wary. “It was presented as a memory, Theo,” she accused. “A memory which heavily implied that you killed Draco. My legilimency has always been able to tell the difference between a nightmare and a real memory. And that was a memory.”
Theo shrugged as he stared at his hands, trembling slightly in his lap. “I can promise you that it wasn’t. But I suppose maybe it presents as a memory, as if I lived it, because at this point, I’ve just come to accept the nightmare as fact. I’ve dreamt it so frequently, and it always feels real.”
“So if you didn’t kill Draco, why does it appear that you did? Why do you dream about killing him?”
The pain he felt in his heart pulsed frantically as he looked at her. “Oh, I think you’ll come to see why I feel it’s my fault. I may not have killed him, but his blood is on my hands all the same. My selfishness undoubtedly led to his death.”
She looked at him thoughtfully, tapping a delicate fingertip to her chin. “Well then, I suppose I’ll try again. Where were you when it happened, and what day? Give me that as a starting point, and I’ll try again.”
He shuddered. A sunny day. Melting ice cream . “Diagon Alley. June 5th.” A strangled gasp bubbled up past his lips. “It was his birthday.”
~
The sun soaks heavily into the crown of Theo’s head, its heat a near-tangible substance. He’s forgotten what a beautiful, bustling day it was in Diagon Alley. Quality Quidditch Supplies has the new Nimbus edition displayed in the front window, and there are witches and wizards pressed up against the glass, fawning over it. The apothecary has a steady stream going in and out of the doors. Flourish and Blott’s is advertising Rita Skeeter's new exposé. He threads through the crush of bodies like a vapor, searching for the hazel-eyed Necromancer.
When he finally finds her, she’s standing still in the crowd, eyes darting around as she looks for him. He doesn’t know what comes over him, but he reaches for her hand, and it’s warm and small in his, and she gasps.
He points towards Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Shop, and Hermione’s eyes alight on the pair of wizards they’re looking for. The two men are walking out through the door of the ice cream shop, which is trimmed in cheerful red and white awnings, and out into the hubbub of the street. He pulls her along with the tide, swimming through the crowd that bubbles and morphs around their ghostly selves, until they’re just behind the Draco and Theo of memory.
Though only five months have passed, memory-Theo looks brighter, younger. There’s a golden tint to his skin and his face is full, rather than gaunt and hollow like it’s become. Theo can’t believe how drawn and pale he’s become since.
Draco is decidedly radiant, the sun reflecting off his platinum blonde hair, his smile bringing out the dimples that he only ever shared with Theo. A real smile. A smile that could brighten the darkest days.
They’re happy. They’re in love. The concept, now so removed by time and grief, feels jarring. Unnatural. He wonders how Hermione feels, witnessing this. She only ever knew Draco as cold and cruel.
They’re both clutching ice cream cones, whiskey brickle, of course. The sun is hot, and the ice cream is melting, streaming in sticky tendrils down their fingers as they laugh and try to clean up the mess with their tongues as they continue down the street.
As the memories come astride Ollivander’s Wand Shop, Draco suddenly hooks the fingers of his free hand in Theo’s shirt, and spins him so they’re facing, Theo’s back moulds into the brick wall behind him. Their bodies are flush, thighs and chests pressed together in comfortable familiarity. Draco is a few centimetres taller than Theo, and he leans down to gently, reverently, capture his lover’s lips in a kiss. Theo misses the feel of those lips. Soft, pliant. Always so soft with him.
Hermione looks awkwardly embarrassed, as she pries into their moment of intimacy, and so she looks away, only to make the mistake of capturing his gaze. He can feel a tear spill out and creep down his cheek, it’s path tenuous and sticky. “That was the last time,” he whispers, mostly to himself. “He tasted like whiskey brickle.”
The kiss ends and the gaze of the two men is positively worshipful as they smile at each other. “Shall we go home?” Draco asks. “Celebrate my birthday in the best way we know how?” He toys with the clasp of Theo’s robes and slots a long, lean thigh against Theo’s groin.
Memory-Theo pouts. “I wanted to go to Madam Malkin's,” he whines, giving a little grind on Draco’s leg as he does so. “I need a new set of robes for your mother’s gala next month.”
Draco gives a long-suffering sigh. “Alright,” he finally concedes, pressing a last, lingering kiss to Theo’s mouth before taking another lick of his messy ice cream. “Let’s go to Madam Malkin’s.”
Hermione watches them set off down the street past Ollivander’s, followed by a swarthy, unfamiliar wizard who approaches them quickly from behind. Theo refuses to look, refuses to flay his heart from his body once more, and decides to intently study the window of Ollivander’s instead. There is dust in the crevices, and a pile of wand boxes set askew. There’s a tiny little bug making a laborious journey up the window pane, and Theo observes him intently. He’ll do anything but watch the scene about to unfold before them. He already knows it by heart.
“Oi, Malfoy, you Death Eater scum!” he hears the strange wizard shouts. “Avada Kedavra!” He already knows what Hermione sees. Memory-Theo, starting to turn around, a look of horror on his face as he notices a green jet of light bursting from the wizard’s wand. Memory-Draco, seemingly oblivious, taking another step as he continues down the street, the curse hitting him square between the shoulder blades. A whiskey brickle ice cream cone, splatting to the ground mere seconds before Draco’s body crumples.
The bug flies off. Theo looks.
The street is in an uproar. The offending wizard disappears like smoke. Memory-Theo is kneeling on the ground, holding Draco’s lifeless body in his arms as he rocks back and forth. His anguished sobs seem to rend the very fabric of Hermione’s composure to tatters. Her eyes are glistening, a line of concentration bracketed between her brows.
He takes her hand again, the palpable grief of his two selves hanging thick and heavy in the air. She must notice it. “Have you seen enough? Please say you’ve seen enough,” he pleads.
She nods, and the memory vanishes.
~
Within a blink, they arrived back at the table again, Hermione’s knees still pressed up against Theo’s leg and hip, their lungs breathing the same air as they both drew in ragged, heaving gasps. The witch reeled back in alarm as he leaned to the side and vomited all over her kitchen floor, retching until his stomach was empty. When he finally sat up straight again to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, she kindly vanished the sick with a flick of her wand.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured quietly. He felt it was uncharacteristically kind of her to apologize to the wizard who had blackmailed her into bringing her childhood bully back from Death. She would probably take it back once the shock wore off.
Theo offered a shaky smile. “Thank goodness you didn’t remember your manners and offer me any stew,” he told her. “Or that would have been a much bigger mess.”
Notes:
Just a little note to say thank you for reading! I know Draco didn't necessarily appear in physical form, but he has arrived, finally! Alas, only in memory. The poor guy is still dead though, gosh darn it.
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter Text
“I’d rather take coffee than compliments right now.”
A quote from the Muggle novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, published in 1868 (Vol. I) & 1869 (Vol. II)
~
A trip through one’s mind to relive one’s worst memory turned out to be a very taxing venture indeed. Or at least, that’s what Theo had led Hermione to believe after vomiting his stomach contents all over her kitchen floor and then making some pithy quip about her manners.
The ungrateful wanker.
The wizard had then proceeded to slump across the tabletop and moan extensively about the late hour, and his utter exhaustion, and how he couldn’t possibly go home tonight or he might stumble upon his roommate and her fianceé having a promiscuous shag upon the dining room table. He apparently roomed with a couple of rabid exhibitionists.
Hermione had narrowed her eyes and fixed him with her most penetrating glare as he bemoaned his wretched bad fortune in living arrangements. “I will not, under any circumstance, allow you to stay here in my house,” she had told him. “You are an obnoxious little worm, and you are severely trying my patience.”
The obnoxious little worm was currently sprawled on the settee under a thin blanket, snoring softly with a cross-stitched pillow tucked beneath his head. Guineviere stared at him dolefully from her bed by the fire, before turning her sad brown eyes upon her mistress.
Hermione held up her hands in defeat. “What can I say, Gwenny? Apparently I’m a gods-damned pushover.”
The dog gave a huff and closed her eyes, obviously peeved at Hermione for giving quarter to a snarky and slightly handsome blackmailer.
That made two of them.
Hermione sighed and walked her tea cup to the kitchen sink before bracing her arms above the basin, where she stared at her vague reflection in the window. Her hair was a messy halo about her head, having mostly come loose from its plait over the course of the day. There were dark smudges under her eyes, and her overall countenance appeared drawn. Through the outlines of her ghostly visage, she could see into the dark garden, and her eyes honed in, as they often did, on the spot where she had discarded Theo’s letter. Where it had waited for her through the night until the sliver of her heart that was still stupid and selfless heart had told her she could do a good deed, could help someone in need.
She never should have answered him. What an absolute fool she had been.
Her cup of valerian root tea seemed to have finally worked its magic. Hermione could feel the exhaustion clinging to her bones and burrowing into her muscles as her body finally succumbed to the allure of sleep. She was slightly worried she wouldn’t have the energy to make it upstairs to bed.
She slowly made her way around the cottage, extinguishing the lamps and stowing wayward items. Her favorite Muggle novel, Little Women - which she had been reading before Theo arrived - was placed lovingly back upon the bookshelf. A copper pot was hung on its hook above the cooktop, a throw blanket folded and stowed in a wicker basket. When the rooms were tidy and dark, the space illuminated only by the glow of the fire in the hearth, she gave Gwenny one last head pat and began to climb the stairs. Her legs felt impossibly weighty in their fatigue.
“Hermione?” Theo mumbled in the dark. His voice was thick with sleep, syllables slurred and elongated. She paused in her climb.
“Yes?”
“Thank you for helping me.”
Her temper flared at the misplaced gratitude he was extending for coercing her into completing a task that she had never wanted to do in the first place.
Exhaustion may have made him soft, but it had made her acrimonious.
“I didn’t really have a choice, now did I?” she bit out.
There was no reply from the settee. She continued up the stairs.
~
After a restless night of sleep - years of living by herself meant that the mere presence of another body in the house had frayed her nerves to bits and barely allowed any respite - she had hoped to awake to a quiet cottage.
A quiet cottage meant Theo had had the good sense to leave immediately upon waking. A quiet cottage meant she was finally, thankfully, alone again.
For a moment, tucked deep under her heavy duvet, all seemed as it should be. Hermione held her breath and paused to listen. A wood-pigeon cooing from its perch on the dormer window was the only sound she heard. She blew out a heady sigh of relief.
And then the racket began, emanating from the kitchen and causing her blood to boil instantaneously as the clanging roused her fully from her sleepy reverie.
The bastard.
Hermione cinched a floral quilted housecoat over her silk pyjamas and stomped down the stairs. She quickly located the source of the hubbub - Theo, still in her home, still vexing her body’s every molecule, attempting to make breakfast. No, actually, ‘attempting’ seemed to be an understatement. Despite the unconscionable din he was producing, he was, surprisingly, a natural in the kitchen.
“You need to go home,” she snapped at him from the doorway.
The yellow light that Hermione loved so well in the mornings was streaming through the windows, casting the entire kitchen in a soft and cozy glow. Gwenny, the absolute traitor, was sidled up to Theo’s side as he stood at the cooktop, frying bacon with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. “Good morning to you, too,” he smiled brightly at Hermione. “Hope I haven’t been too loud.”
His smile told her that he knew exactly how loud he was being.
Theo’s hair was tousled from sleep and a quick run-through of his fingers, and there was the faded imprint of a cross-stitch pattern on his cheek. He looked like a person who had gotten a lovely night of rest, and had then awoken fresh and ready to seize the day.
Hermione found this particularly irritating.
“I mean it, Theo,” she growled, fingers massaging her temples as a headache began to bloom there. She had never been much of a morning person, but having an obnoxious man in her home, being friendly at such an early hour, was the literal scenario of her worst nightmares.
He gave her a placating look and flipped Gwenny a cooled piece of bacon. The dog caught it easily and swallowed it so fast that the creature couldn’t have possibly tasted it, all the while fixing him with an adoring gaze. Hermione may as well have been nothing more than a garden-variety boulder, for all the attention her canine companion spared her.
Theo noticed her gawking at Gwenny’s obvious infatuation with him. “I heard dogs were a good judge of character,” he offered.
She sniffed. “Don’t take too much stock in her opinions, Theo. She also finds cow shit to be a wonderful eau de toilette , and she eats the rotting corpses of dead creatures with gusto.”
Theo looked at the dog and narrowed his eyes. “Is that true?”
Gwenny chuffed softly. “I thought not,” Theo replied.
“Now, Hermione,” he said, turning back to her and brandishing a spatula as if he were a knight offering his sword and service. “I’ve just had the best night’s rest. I had no idea I would sleep so well in the abode of a Necromancer. You must repel all the bad spirits or something. Anyway, I felt I ought to repay the favor as best I could. Were you aware that I make an absolutely killer breakfast?”
“Of course I wasn’t aware,” she seethed, still far from charmed by his breakfast-making ways. “I don’t even know you.”
“A pity,” he sighed, turning his attention to the stovetop griddle where he flipped a few golden-brown crumpets. “I had hoped the blackmail might make us fast friends.”
He then gestured toward the table, where a French press sat next to a small pitcher of milk and a pot of sugar cubes. “But not to fear. The situation will soon be rectified, and you will finally know for yourself what a wizard I am in the kitchen. Pun intended, of course. And you should be pleased. I made you coffee. Ghastly stuff, that - but what my girl wants, my girl gets.” He turned his attention back to the bacon.
“I am not your girl,” Hermione muttered darkly, but she would be lying if she said the fresh pot of coffee didn’t alleviate the severity of at least some of Theo’s sins. She selected a mug from the cabinet - Rosehill School Science Fair Champion, 1990 - and filled it halfway with coffee, liberally adding milk and sugar until it was the lovely pale color of a mud puddle.
“Ahhh,” said Theo, as he stepped beside her to place a platter of bacon and crumpets on the table and she caught a whiff of his warm, sandalwood scent. “Is that how you handle that filth? By adding so many accoutrements that it is simply unrecognizable as coffee?”
She rolled her eyes at his perfect French accent - the bloody toff - and considered upending the mug on his head. He must have noticed the murderous look in her eyes, because he tutted something at her about it being ‘too early in the morning for homicide,’ and went to retrieve some plates from the cabinet next to the sink.
Hermione watched him move about with a sense of grotesque amazement. Theo was terrifyingly comfortable in her space, almost as if he had been there before. The competency was… alarming.
She studied the wizard as he moved about her kitchen. His flirtatious, devil-may-care attitude was irritating, but it seemed to be a front for something deeper. She saw the shift in his eyes, when he talked about Malfoy. His entire persona turned weightier with the mention of his dead lover. And she couldn’t stop recalling the Theo that she had seen in the memory he had shared - vibrant, happy, in love.
The man in front of her now had a sallow tinge to his skin, and his frame was far more gaunt. Despite being refreshed from his sleep the night before, she sensed that a deep and never-ending exhaustion lay just beneath the surface. He tried to camouflage it with wit and cheek, but she recognized the pain he bore - because she knew it well, herself.
Theo finally settled in the chair opposite her and held out a fork, which she snatched from his fingers, before gesturing at the food in front of them. “Dig in.”
She was in no mood for this - this, of course, being a congenial breakfast including small talk and pleasantry - but the scent of the food was making her a bit weak at the knees, so she speared a couple of crumpets onto her plate and added some bacon and fruit.
“Is your mistress always such a grump in the mornings?” Theo cooed at Gwenny as she sat beside him and he ruffled her ears while sneaking her another bite of bacon. Gwenny whined and he gave her another pat before turning back to Hermione. “Gwenny says you should drink your coffee so you can feel more pleasant about things.”
“My unpleasant feelings are directly related to you, ” Hermione said through clenched teeth. “Unless drinking the coffee is going to make you go away, I fear it will not improve my mood as much as you might hope.”
Theo simply shrugged and stabbed a blackberry with his fork, popping the juicy fruit between his teeth. He sighed as he chewed, eyes closing in bliss. “These blackberries are delicious.”
“They’re from the garden,” Hermione said, biting off a piece of bacon. “Mmph, this bacon is good, too,” she blurted out despite herself, nearly choking on the compliment but unable to contain herself.
Her uninvited houseguest leaned towards her across the table. “Do you want to know my secret?” he asked her quietly.
Hermione frowned at him. “No, but I have the feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.”
She was, of course, correct. The man loved to hear himself talk. He held up his own piece of bacon and looked at it reverently, like it held all the answers to all the secrets of the universe. “A drizzle of maple syrup right before it’s done. It caramelizes perfectly.”
Hermione was aghast. “You wasted my maple syrup? That stuff is expensive, Theo! I save it for special occasions. And this-” she gesticulated wildly, “-is not a special occasion.”
He took a bite of bacon and winked. “Was it really a waste, though? You yourself admitted that it was delicious. And don’t worry your pretty little head, my darling… I’ll buy you all the maple syrup your heart desires. Just tell me. Tell me it’s the best bacon you’ve ever had.”
“Enough with the pet names,” she seethed around a mouthful of buttered, jam-spread crumpet. “I am not your ‘darling’ or your ‘girl.’ I am an unwilling participant in this little situation you’ve coerced me into, and nothing more. So for the love of Merlin, just shut the fuck up, eat your breakfast, and leave my house.”
“And here I thought we were making such progress,” Theo said to Gwenny with a pout.
Hermione sighed as her headache flared brightly at her temples. This had already been far too long of a day, and she had only been awake for roughly half an hour. She slathered her second crumpet much the same way as the first, with butter and strawberry jam, and bit into it.
Bloody hell, these crumpets were so soft. So pillowy. Perfectly craggy. They were delightful - perhaps the best crumpets she had ever eaten.
A shame Theo would never hear it from her. She’d already let slip one compliment today, and she wouldn’t allow another. His ego didn’t need the inflation.
“So,” she finally said, after they had finished eating and Theo was clearing the plates. “I suppose if you’re here, I might as well lay out my terms of our little agreement.”
“Alright,” he said gamely, turning and leaning back against the sink. “And what are those?”
She tapped her fingers lightly across the tabletop. “There will be three parts to your commitment in this process. The first will be the easiest for you to give - it’s something you’ve already done. I’ll need you to furnish more memories of Draco so that I can begin to rebuild his soul and make sure it’s intact before crossing back through the veil.”
Theo crossed his arms over his chest. “So Draco isn’t just sitting over there in a Utopia of sorts, fully himself, being served fruits and fanned with palm fronds? He’s simply… a husk?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Hermione said truthfully. She had never been one to sugar coat or mince words. Theo frowned.
“Souls lose their sense of self, their humanity, very quickly after crossing over,” she explained. “Everything that makes them them deteriorates quite rapidly. By the time I finally locate Malfoy, he’ll be nothing but a wraith, essentially. It’s my job to restore his soul before I bring him back, or he’ll be no more than an Inferi.”
Hermione watched a shudder ripple its way down Theo’s limbs. “He’s not even been dead for five months,” he said quietly. “And you mean to tell me he’s already so far gone?”
She sighed. “He’ll have been dead much longer by the time I reach him for the first time. I can’t begin the retrieval process until February.”
“February?” Theo yelped, hands clenching into fists at his side. “Why February? That’s four months away from now. Samhain is nearly here, why can’t you bring him back now? I thought that was the ideal time.”
The desperate outrage in his voice was palpable - and not entirely unexpected, she supposed. She hadn’t been very forthcoming with her timeline.
“You must look at the method of retrieving a soul as operating on a rolling window of time,” she said, clasping her hands before her. “It’s sensitive. The first thing I have to do is actually find him. Wraiths usually tend to cluster in places they were most familiar with in life, so at least I know where to start my search. But there are no guarantees he will be easy to find.”
Theo staggered to the chair across the table and slumped into it. “So everything across the veil is like a mirror of the physical world?” he asked. “The same landscape and buildings and such?” There was a raw and plaintive edge to his voice, like he didn’t know what questions to ask but desperately needed answers.
“You’re getting lost in the details, Theo,” she told him. “That’s an aspect of my job, not yours. But yes, it is similarly landscaped.”
“And the rolling window of time that you mentioned," he said. “Why can’t you start sooner?”
“I have to space out the timing of restoring his soul,” Hermione explained patiently, taking another sip of coffee. “I begin with the five senses - smell, taste, hearing, sight, touch. The sixth and final step is to restore the sense of self. Ego, essentially. I’m really looking forward to giving Malfoy that back.” She rolled her eyes. Theo frowned at his hands palm-down upon the table.
“If I restore those components too quickly, the soul is overwhelmed,” she continued. “But if I do it too slowly, everything I’ve brought back begins to degrade again. I have to make sure it all lines up with the thinning of the Veil.” She sighed. “It’s much less simple than one might expect.”
Theo shifted in his chair. “I get the feeling that you’re the only successful Necromancer there has ever been simply because you’re incredibly stubborn and meticulous.”
Hermione laughed, despite herself. “That may be part of it, I suppose.”
“Okay, so… I have to furnish you with memories,” Theo pressed. “Any in particular that you’ll need?”
“Anything that relates to the senses,” she told him. “Memories that include how Malfoy smelled, what he enjoyed eating, what he felt like. Things like that. I may also ask that we travel for the viewing of some of the memories, and return to the places that they took place. There is stronger energy in those locations that I can draw from.”
She saw a hundred questions flit across his face, but he simply nodded. “So that’s the easy part, then. And what more difficult obligations do you require of me, dare I ask?”
Hermione debated what requirement to reveal next. She decided on the one that would be a hardship for an ordinary person, but which she knew Theo would be entirely willing to give.
“I need a piece of your own soul,” she told him. “Not enough to impair you in any way. Just enough to make an offering. To let Death know we are committed to bringing Malfoy back.”
His face blanched a little, but he gave a small shake of his head and recovered quickly. “Of course. Whatever you need. Though I must say, I’m touched that you think I have any soul to give you.”
She rolled her eyes. “It will be difficult, certainly, but I’m sure I can scrape enough together.”
He smirked at her. “Fair enough. And what of the final requirement?”
Hermione took a breath. This one wasn’t necessarily a requirement for bringing Draco back, but it was what she wanted. What she needed. This request was personal for her, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Because the rumours were true, of course. Death always required a life for a life. For Gwenny, pure of soul, it had been as simple as a rabbit. For that poor, mistreated woman in Windsor, it had been her shite-bag of an excuse for a husband. Even Draco Malfoy, far-gone and unredeemed as he was, would still only require one life in exchange for his own.
But Hermione desired more. She had a list of wizards and witches who needed to pay for their sins, and had yet to be brought to justice. Most of them were war criminals, on the run after all these years. Some of them hid in plain sight, mocking her. All of them needed to die.
The Aurors assigned to bring in those that were outright criminals had so far either been corrupt, or clueless. And the weight of the Ministry was useless in these matters - rot still spread through its ranks. Some of the people on Hermione’s list were even nestled at its very core. It was humbling for her to think that after the devastation of the war, the unnecessary loss of life and the creation of a generation now riddled with traumatic pasts, and the subsequent changing of the guard within the governing bodies of the Wizarding world, that nothing had actually improved. The wrong people were still in power, except now they ruled under the banner of righteousness and vindication.
She took another nonchalant sip of her coffee. “You should really be thankful for the lead time, Theo. I have five people I need you to kill, and they all need to be dead by the time Malfoy is ready to cross over.”
He scoffed at her proposal. No, she reminded herself. It was not a proposal. It was a requirement.
He would carry out these assassinations and help her execute her vigilante form of justice, or she would refuse to bring Malfoy back - the revelation of her identity be damned. Let Theo go to the Prophet. She’d rather live the rest of her life in Azkaban than resurrect Malfoy without adequate payment.
“And what makes you think I’ll do what you’re asking?” Theo murmured. The boyish, good-natured charm to his features had vanished. There was a hard set to his jaw now, and a sharpness in his eyes. “What makes you think I’m a killer?”
The entire crux of their relationship hinged on the answer to this question. Theo had initially needed something from Hermione, and now Hermione required something in return. She had thought long and hard about whether he was the man for the job, and she had carefully considered the facts.
First, she reasoned, he was the son of a Death Eater, and not just any Death Eater. Nott Sr. had been, even before becoming a trusted confidant of Voldemort upon the Dark Lord’s return, a ruthless and volatile man. Theo did not come off as overly soft or submissive, and she suspected he had picked up some of his father’s more violent skills and tendencies - nurture versus nature and all that. He had both the genetics and the upbringing that favored the likelihood of him harboring a brutish streak when necessary.
And then there was the fact that Theo was rumored to have killed his own father. It took a certain kind of person to kill, but to commit patricide? That was vicious.
She also knew he was spectacular at dueling. Once his identity had become known to her, she had combed her memories for bits and pieces of Theodore Nott from their years at Hogwarts. There was very little to go on, but she had remembered Padma Patil, excitedly telling her about dueling class while on a trip to Hogsmeade. “I’ve never seen anyone so quick with their wand, or their words,” Padma had said breathlessly as they considered a bin of sweets at Honeydukes one day. “And he’s not bad to look at either. His eyes are just so… blue. Like sapphires.”
Those same gem-like eyes were studying her now from across the table, and they belonged to someone who was nothing more than a means to an end. If he was going to coerce her into helping him, she was going to use his skills for exactly what she needed.
So she leaned forward, and offered Theodore Nott the final reason she knew would really, truly turn him into a killer to do her bidding, regardless of anything else in his life that had prepared him for the task.
“Because you told me you would do anything to bring Draco back,” she challenged. “And this is what I require to make that happen.”
Notes:
Did someone order a Dark Hermione with a side of crumpets and banter?
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter 6: Promises
Notes:
CW: implied physical abuse of a child and description of resulting injuries
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“An Unbreakable Vow is the most binding agreement in the Wizarding world. Entering into such an agreement means that you will pay with your life if your vow is not fulfilled.
However, it is important to note that the wording of the vow may be open to interpretation by all parties involved. When entering into an Unbreakable Vow, you must put careful consideration into how your obligatory tasks are phrased. Detailed clarification is advised.”
A passage on Unbreakable Vows from Studies of Advanced Spellwork, authored by Belinda Mattox, 1902
~
Theo wasn’t sure how long he sat there in stunned silence after Hermione delivered her conditions.
She wanted him to kill. Not just once. Not even twice.
Five people.
He had known the witch was vindictive but this request surpassed that. She was bloodthirsty.
Should he be turned on or terrified? He felt entirely conflicted, like there was a flock of seagulls knackering away at his insides.
Bugger.
The truth was, he did know how to kill people, and he had killed. But there was a sneaking suspicion nestled deep in his gut that Hermione’s marks were not going to be easy targets. His gut told him that whomever she wanted dead would not go down without a fight.
He cleared his throat and pushed the last blackberry around the bowl on the table. “I did say that, I suppose,” he admitted, lifting his eyes to meet hers. “About doing whatever it took to bring Draco back. I just thought it would be, you know, performing an interpretive dance or sourcing phoenix tears or something. Five assassinations is, ah, well, it’s a bit steep.”
She shrugged. “That’s my price.”
He watched her as he considered his options. If he said no, she wouldn’t fulfill her end of the bargain. If he went to the Prophet, his hopes were dashed. Either way, neither of them got what they wanted. But if he agreed - they both won.
“You sure you can’t lower it to four?” he hedged.
“Five. I already have a list.”
Theo sighed. He was going to have to brush up on his knife skills and his Unforgiveables.
“Alright,” he finally agreed. “I’ll do it.”
There was a spark of surprise behind her eyes that didn’t go unnoticed. Almost as if she had expected him to say ‘No, sorry, I’d rather that the person I love most in this universe stay dead forever, thank you very much.’
As if he would ever give up on Draco.
“Alright,” she parroted back to him, taking a sip of that blasphemous sugary milk she called coffee as she smiled to herself.
He popped the last blackberry - gods, they really were divine - into his mouth and returned to the sink to deal with the dirty plates that he had left there.
Funny. She was his means to an end, and he was hers. And in the end, they would both get what they wanted. How fortuitous. Provided Theo could stay alive through five different assassination missions, of course.
Seemed lucky, then, that he knew a Necromancer who could resurrect him if need be. Maybe he should negotiate that into their agreement.
The blasted curly-haired legilimens glared across the table at him. “I’m not retrieving you if you end up dead,” she snipped. “Our agreement ends in either your demise or mine.”
“That’s not fair,” he whinged, hating how easily his mind was at her mercy. “My life will be in far greater danger than yours when I’m being sent to literally kill people who don’t want to be dead.”
She barked a sharp laugh. “You know little of the lands of Death that lie beyond the Veil. My life will be in plenty of danger while I try to bring Malfoy back.”
Theo ignored her and set a charm to wash the dishes in the sink, his mind now whirling with possibilities of who she could possibly want dead? Would he have to kill people he knew?
“Your first mark is Pansy Parkinson,” she answered darkly. Blast it all, she really could slip into his mind like a hot knife through butter.
He turned around, mouth gaping open and closed like a fish, to watch her immediately lose her somber composure and dissolve in helpless giggles as she doubled over in her chair.
“Godric,” she cackled, gasping for air and pointing at him. “You should see your face right now!”
She had tears streaming down her cheeks, the laughter coming deep and endlessly from within her. He wondered when the last time was that she’d laughed like that. Her dog's bewildered expression told him it had been a while.
The real problem was that he still couldn’t tell if she had been joking or not. She had a dark sense of humour, yes, but she also had a hit list. One could never be too sure.
“I put my foot down at my friends,” he scolded her. “Find someone else for your list, if she’s on it.”
Her laughter had stemmed a bit, and she was wiping the mirth from her eyes. “No need to be so chivalrous, Theo. Pansy may have been a bitch to me in school, but there are far worse people out there in the world. Witches and wizards that deserve to pay for what they’ve done. Witches and wizards who deserve death.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Pansy’s teenage bullying was child’s play compared to what the people I have in mind have done.”
Theo sat down across from her again and laid his hands flat on the table. “Will I know any of these people?”
Hermione smirked. “Some, I’m sure.”
“Is there any particular way in which you’d like me to kill them?”
Her smirk turned into a wide smile that showed all her teeth. It was beautiful, but it was also utterly terrifying.
“Whatever makes them suffer the most.”
There was deafening silence, and a roaring in his ears. And then the cleaning spell ended and the dishes settled quietly into the sink. A bird called outside. Gwenny snored in her sleep. He and Hermione continued to stare at each other, that now-familiar tension as taut as a bow string between them.
“Well,” she finally said, holding out her left hand. “Shall we make an Unbreakable Vow and commit ourselves to shared ruination, then?”
“Don’t we need a witness?” Theo asked as he grasped Hermione’s hand - warm, dry, not at all deliciously soft - with his own and held his wand in the other.
Hermione shrugged. “It’s not a necessity. Merely a formality.”
“Right.”
She looked up at him and her gaze was pitying, as if she thought him an idiot for courting Death in order to save someone she felt wasn’t worth saving. “Once we agree to the terms, there’s no backing out, Theo. Not for either of us. Are you ready?”
He nodded firmly. “I am.”
Her eyes flashed as she placed her wand to their joined hands. “Will you, Theodore Nott, ensure the deaths of the five witches and wizards whose names I will give you at a future date?”
“Wait, I don’t get to know their names beforehand?” Theo asked. “Doesn’t the vow require specifics?”
She glared at him.
“A formality, right,” he said, clearing his throat. “I will.”
A stream of red-hot light emanated from the tip of her wand and wrapped around their hands in a brilliant, knotted bind before sinking into their skin and disappearing. He could feel the cords of it seared into his bones, despite it not leaving a single mark.
She looked at him and lowered her wand. “Your turn.”
He brought his own wand to their hands, resting the tip lightly on her knuckles. “Will you, Hermione Granger, do everything in your power to bring Draco Malfoy back from Death?”
He could tell the words tasted bitter on her tongue, but she spoke them all the same. “I will.”
A new fiery stream of light wrapped around their hands again and disappeared as the vow took hold.
“Officium vel mortem,” they murmured together, fully sealing their agreement.
Duty or Death.
A shared ruination, indeed. Now, if either of them neglected to carry out their side of the vow, they would be committing themselves to die.
“I think I fancy a drink,” Theo said, his life flashing before his eyes at the uncertain future that lay before him. He would either kill or be killed, one way or another. The thought was utterly morose. He hadn’t felt this grim since 1998.
Hermione arched a brow at him. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”
“Perfect!” Theo said. “Whiskey, it is.”
~
He was nursing his second glass of firewhiskey while Hermione puttered around her kitchen, fastening herb bundles with twine, and peeling potatoes. Gwenny was laying at his feet, her warm bulk pushed up against his toes. It was all so…domestic.
The Necromancer continued to intrigue him.
“You have to go, Theo,” she was currently telling him, for not the first time that day.
He frowned into his whiskey. “Must I?” The haze of the drink had settled beneath his skin, making him drowsy and slightly flushed. He liked that feeling.
She put a hand on her hip and pointed her knife at him in what he felt was quite an unnecessarily menacing sort of way. “You’ve long overstayed your welcome, so yes. I’d like you gone. Until February, at which time I’ll give you your first mark.”
She turned back and sliced a potato into the pot.
Plop.
The juxtaposition - domestic Hermione, talking casually about meting out death - was jarring. Theo took a long pull from his glass, relishing the way it burned his throat and settled warmly in his chest.
He thought about returning to Pansy’s house. She was due to marry Percy in six days. How silly and simple-minded he had been two weeks ago, when he had heard rumour of a powerful Necromancer and thought the twisting turmoil of his life would be righted quickly and easily.
Fuck, he had imagined he’d have Draco back already, and they’d be nestled in a cozy little flat in Kensington, or Mayfair, or whatever posh little neighborhood of London that Draco’s little (beating and very much alive) heart desired.
Instead, he had an angry Death-defying witch, a laundry list of kills to perform, and an Unbreakable Vow to make sure he got the job done.
The firewhiskey in his glass was suddenly gone, vanished by a wave of Hermione’s hand. She was glaring at him.
“If you get too drunk and Apparate, you’ll splinch yourself, Theo."
He gave her a defiant stare as he took a pull straight from the bottle. She rolled her eyes at him.
“Must you always be such a brat?”
“Only for you, darling,” he purred, drawing out the term of endearment into two obscenely long syllables. He knew how much she hated it, and he loved seeing the fire spark to life in her eyes when he made her angry.
This time, she merely sniffed and went back to paring potatoes. What a tease. He’d been hoping for a fight.
“Would you at least like to view a memory before I go?” he asked her, taking another pull from the bottle. Her posture stiffened where she stood at the counter, but she didn’t turn around.
“And why do you think I need to do that?” she asked.
Theo rocked the Ogden’s bottle in an orbit around its base, enraptured with the sloshing liquid within. “I dunno. I just want you to…learn what Draco was really like, I guess. See the Draco that I knew.”
“I have to retrieve him either way,” she spat, still slicing vegetables. “What difference does it make if I like him or not?”
He sighed. “None, I suppose. I just want…I don’t want you to hate what you have to do so much. I want you to know the real him. Know how he helped me, especially as a child.”
She turned around, knife still held in her fingers. Her hair was wild - it seemed to change with her moods. Anger made it take on a mind of its own. He could practically see the magic sparking through her curls.
He realized that he liked that about her - her emotions, writ plain on her body. A canvas for her whims.
“I suppose I could see a memory,” she finally offered begrudgingly. “Since we’re apparently in this mess together.”
He smiled. “Thank you.”
She set down the knife and retrieved her wand from the pocket of her apron, removing a potato peel that had fastened itself to her bosom.
“You’re a domestic goddess,” he told her as she approached him. “An absolute vision.”
“Hush,” she scolded. She dragged a chair abreast from him and sat in the same position as before, slightly askew from him - knee to knee, knee to hip. Her wand rested at his temple. She barely gave him time to prepare. “Legilimens.”
He was noticing, as Hermione joined him in the recesses of his mind for the second time, that the whiskey had well and truly taken hold. “Hullo, there,” he grinned at her as they materialized, grasping a stalagmite for dear life as he nearly tipped face-first into one of the many puddles that littered the cave floor. His legs seemed unsteady. How much Ogden’s had he drunk?
She gave him a patronizing frown. “You’re so sloshed, I fear I’ll become so as well, simply from marinating in it.” She looked at a puddle disdainfully and wrinkled her nose. “That’s straight firewhiskey.”
“So it is!” Theo crowed. “Might you have a straw, mayhaps? Slurping straight from the source seems rather uncouth.”
She ignored him and looked around, her hands on her hips. “Are you even going to be able to find this memory, you sot?”
Theo nodded adamantly. “Oh yes. It is one of my most treasured possessions.” He finally found his footing and meandered off into the darkness of a branching cavern tunnel, gesturing for her to follow him. “Come along, my dear. It’s right this way.”
~
It hurts to breathe. The sharp pain in his ribs, under his left armpit, tells him that they are likely broken. His nose is seeping blood, and feels broken as well. His pinky finger on his right hand is sitting at an odd angle.
Just a typical Wednesday in July if you are lucky enough to be Theodore Nott, Jr., home for the summer holiday before fifth year.
He is sprawled upon the attic floor, above the empty servant’s wing. It is a favorite place for his father to enact punishments. The few remaining house elves, who live near the kitchens, are too far away to hear Theo scream. The air is ripe with swirling dust motes that tickle the nostrils of his broken nose. Please don’t sneeze, please don’t sneeze , he begs his broken body. It will hurt too much.
His left arm doesn’t work very well, so he brings his right hand to meet it, and twists the signet ring on his left little finger three times.
When Draco arrives, Theo is sniffling into the grime of the floor, having lost his valiant effort not to cry.
“Fuck, Theo,” Draco says, aghast. “What happened?”
“I fell,” Theo lies. He’s not sure why he lies. He knows that Draco knows the truth.
Draco gathers him up carefully in his arms, Theo wincing and crying out and then settling with abject relief into his friend’s embrace.
Draco carries him down the stairs, through the corridors, and finally reaches Theo’s bedroom, where he sets him carefully on the bed and calls for Zippy, one of the house-elves.
Zippy arrives in a blink. “Master Theo!” she gasps. “Is you alright, sir?”
Draco lays a large hand on Theo’s brow, which is sweaty - moisture beads across his forehead and trickles towards his ears.
“He needs healing, Zippy,” Draco grates out. “Can you help?”
Zippy nods gravely. “Zippy can help, Master Draco.”
After Zippy has healed as much as she can, Draco draws the bed sheets over Theo’s mending body and curls around him like a secret. Theo loves this time with Draco, as much as he hates what always precedes it. It makes him feel loved, comforted. Cherished.
Draco’s arm drapes gently across his collarbone, and Theo’s ear is nestled into Draco’s chest. He can hear his friend’s heart thrumming steadily beneath his own intact ribs.
Draco’s chin digs into Theo’s curls, his knee nudged into his hip. “Are you okay?” his friend asks him. Theo’s eyes swell at the tender worry in his voice.
“I’m fine,” Theo rasps. “I’ve seen worse.”
“Come to Malfoy Manor for the rest of the summer,” Draco says. “My father is always gone and my mother would love to have you. I’m sure she’ll take us shopping in Diagon for school supplies.”
“I can’t,” Theo whispers. “My father will never allow it.”
“I promise to make the peacocks behave,” Draco whispers back. “I’ll make sure they don’t chase you again.”
Theo presses his head fully into Draco’s sternum, seeking the warmth and comfort it offers. “I wish I could,” he murmurs before sleep claims him. “I wish I could.”
When he awakes the next morning, aching and parched, Draco is gone, but there is a sprig of periwinkle on the pillow next to his head. Sincere friendship . Theo turns his head and lets his tears flow onto the pillowcase.
~
Theo studied the scrubbed wooden tabletop before him as his present body settled back into his chair. Hermione had her head turned away from him, but he could see tears brimming in the corner of her eye.
“You’re not supposed to feel sorry for me,” he admonished her.
“What makes you think that I do?” she bit back, but there was a definite sorrow that clung to her words, and he saw the lone tear that tracked down her cheek.
“I didn’t show you that memory to explain my past". Why couldn't - wouldn't - she understand? “I showed you to explain his. He was a good person, Hermione. Outside of the persona he showed you... or the rest of Hogwarts, for that matter.”
Hermione turned back to face him, the teardrop now clinging to her jaw. He watched as it broke free, and splattered onto her apron. She buried her head in her hands.
“I still don’t see what difference it makes,” she mumbled sadly into her palms. “His love for you doesn’t mean he was…is… deserving of my absolution. But thank you for showing me the memory, I’m sure it was a hard one to re-live." She looked up at him and sighed. "Was your father abusive your entire life?”
“From my first memory until the day that I killed him,” he murmured, studying the tabletop.
Hermione gave him a long, contemplative look, and then went back to her soup pot.
~
Despite her objections, Hermione had let him waste away the rest of the day with her in the cottage, so Theo had flipped through novels and had long, thoughtful (though rather one-sided) conversations with Gwenny, and napped in the little window nook between the bookshelves. She even fed him a supper of her vegetable soup, the aromas of which he had been salivating over all afternoon. He knew he was no more than the recipient of her misplaced pity, but he was thankful for the meal and made sure to compliment her on her excellent boiled potatoes.
Dusk settled over the cottage like a cozy blanket, similar to the one Theo had been eyeing on the settee. Hermione, sipping her soup across the table, followed his gaze as he stared longingly at his previous night’s bed. “No,” she told him firmly. “You need to go home.”
The sky was a deep inky blue when he Apparated away from Wiltshire and arrived in front of Pansy’s London row-house. He was sad to notice that the sky was bright and had a yellow cast, alit with hundreds of thousands of streetlamps. He couldn’t even see the stars.
The row-house was quiet, thank goodness. No exhibitionist shagging to be seen. Theo crept towards the guest bedroom.
“Alright there, darling?” came a velvety voice from the sitting room, causing him to jump and nearly piss himself. He could just make out the dark shape of Pansy, sitting in a wingback chair with a cup of tea in her hands.
“Salazar’s bollocks, Pans,” he scolded her. “You scared me." He took a breath. "I’m fine, thanks. Other than the heart attack you just gave me.”
The table-side light beside her switched on. Pansy was frowning at him. No surprise there.
“I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me,” she said, suspicion heavy in her voice as her emerald eyes studied his face.
“I’m okay, Pansy,” he assured her. “Really, I am.” I’m actually not. But the point is, that I will be.
She stood and approached him, her lean frame wrapping around his as she enveloped him in a hug. Embraces from Pansy were rare. He was speechless.
She finally pulled away and looked up at him through her fringe of thick, black lashes. Her eyes were tender. “I hope you know I love you, Theo,” she said, and then before he could even answer she took her tea cup, turned off the light and was off to bed, as simple as that.
Theo went to his room and fell heavily onto the bed. Sleep wasn't far off, but it would not be restful.
At Hermione’s cottage, his recurring nightmare had been kept, blissfully, at bay. But that night, it returned with a vengeance.
Now there were two bodies on the ground before him, in that bloody cell.
A silver-haired wizard, and an amber-eyed witch.
Notes:
Theo has now stepped into his ~Assassin Era~ and it’s going to be a sexy, wild, slightly unhinged ride.
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter 7: Panic
Notes:
CW: Graphic depiction of a murder scene, description of a panic attack
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Our Dearest Hermione,
Happy birthday, sweet girl! We hope this birthday card finds you well. We miss you so very much, and we cannot wait to have you come for Christmas and the new year. A new millenium - can you believe it? We will have to celebrate then! I can bake a cake, and your father would love an excuse to buy you some balloons, like he always did when you were little. See you in a few months!
Much love, Mum and Dad
A birthday card received by Hermione Granger, September 1999
~
Wiltshire had settled into a quiet and extended autumn. Samhain came and went with little fuss. No wandering spirits stumbled upon Hermione, no wrathful wraiths nipped at her heels. And then the months bled into winter. Christmas passed - as quiet and painful as always - and then the new year was ushered in soon after, and before she knew it, January was half-done.
The West Woods were often misty when she patrolled the property line every morning to re-set the wards, and they were always dark and silent when she walked in the evenings. The weighty quietude that came with the colder months was a balm for her soul, and the brisk breeze that cut at her face above her scarf and whipped her hair into a frenzy was as welcome as a lover’s caress. She relished the biting sting as it sunk its frigid teeth into her skin. The cold months were by far her favorite.
It had been months since she had banished Theo back to wherever he was living - Pansy Parkinson’s, he had said, which was curious when he was still the lord of Nott Manor - and besides the fact that she had to make her own coffee each morning, those months had been entirely blissful. She had finished putting her garden to bed for the winter, canned and preserved the last of her produce, cleaned out the herb garden, and read more than a few books on her list of those to-be-read.
She was out gathering kindling for the fire when she heard a sharp snap as the ice in the brook gave way, followed by the loud yelp of someone who had just taken a dip in the frigid water. Wand drawn, she crept to the edge of the beech forest, wishing she hadn’t left Gwenny curled up by the fire.
As she watched the intruder scramble up the opposite bank with a curse of “Salazar’s fucking saggy fucking ballsack,” she rolled her eyes and stowed her wand away.
Theo, apparently. The twat hadn’t even seen fit to adjust his Apparition coordinates after ending up in the creek the first time (a brilliant idea of hers, if she did say so herself).
“Why are you here, Theo?” she yelled across the creek at him. “Go back to wherever you came from. I’m still entitled to two more weeks without you.”
“What?” he yelled back, making a great show of not being able to hear her, which was utterly absurd, as she could hear him just fine.
She Apparated across the water with a crack, landing so closely in front of him that he stumbled backwards and almost fell back down the embankment and into the creek.
Gods, wouldn’t that have been lovely.
“Why are you here?” she asked him again, more forcefully. “As far as I know, it isn’t February yet. Merlin, I knew I should have removed you from the property wards. Thank goodness I didn’t allow you Apparition access to the cottage or you probably would have made yourself right at home by the time I returned this evening.”
He merely blinked at her. His lips were starting to tinge the same blue of his eyes, and frost was spreading across his wet cloak in icy fingers. “Pansy kicked me out,” he finally said through nearly-chattering teeth. “Or rather, I walked in on her and her new husband having a shag on the very dining room table I was due to eat supper at this evening, and decided to kick myself out.”
Hermione arched her brow and tsked at him. “Come now, Theo. Don’t tell me you’re a prude?”
He scoffed and began to cast drying charms on his cloak and clothes, his shivers making the spell work a bit tedious. “No, nothing of the sort. I myself have enjoyed many a shag in an unconventional location. However, I draw the line at a surface that others may eat upon. Unless I’m doing the eating, in which case–” he threw her a lascivious sort of smirk, “–you’ll find my lines become rather blurred.”
He reeked of firewhiskey and bad decisions.
“I’m sure,” she replied, rolling her eyes so heavily she swore she could see the back of her own skull. “And are you drunk, by chance?”
“Probably,” he said, casting one more charm and finally managing to completely dry his clothing, “Drowning in liquor is the only possible course of action, really, after your eyes have come to rest on Percy’s freckled and bare-naked arse. No one should ever have to sustain that sort of torture.”
Hermione swallowed hard as a deep and endless pit yawned open in her belly. “Weasley?” she asked faintly. “Pansy married Percy Weasley?”
Theo looked up at her in alarm. “Oh shite, Hermione, I forgot. You and the other Weasel…what’s his name…Ron. I had forgotten you two were an item. I take it that relationship hasn't been a reality for quite some time?”
She swallowed again, past the lump in her throat. “Eight years,” she replied hoarsely, her mind hazy with memories of fiery red hair, bright blue eyes, and warm, roving hands.
Theo assessed her silently as he donned his now-dry cloak and secured it at his throat. “Well…alright, then. That’s awkward. Let’s just pretend I didn’t say anything about any sort of Weasel.” He straightened his cuffs at the wrists. “Anyway, this is the only place I could think of going on such short notice. Is that okay?”
She barked out a laugh. “Absolutely not. I don’t want you here, Theo, and you’re a half-month too early.”
He opened his mouth to speak and she held up a finger. “And before you threaten me with more blackmail, I’d like to remind you that this isn’t at all a violation of our original agreement, which doesn’t start until next month. So I am kindly asking you to leave my property. You’re not welcome here. Not for another two weeks.”
Theo clutched his chest. “My lady, you wound me. The words of a butcher, a verbal sword through my chest. You won’t even take pity on a poor, homeless wretch and invite me for supper before I do as I’m told, like a good little boy?”
Hermione considered his proposal with a frown. She had been talking to the dog quite a bit. A human conversation might feel like a delicacy, even with someone like Theodore Nott.
“Suit yourself,” she finally spat, throwing up her hands. “But as you well know, and love to whine about, I don’t make very good company.”
Theo smirked as he walked past her towards the cottage. “That’s completely fine, darling. I believe I have enough manners for the both of us. And, I happen to love hearing myself talk.”
Supper was a simple pasta that Hermione threw together quickly, using canned tomatoes from the summer garden, and was accompanied by a sourdough boule that she had baked earlier that day. She watched Theo bite into his first slice, loaded thickly with lots of salted butter, and give a breathy sort of moan as he chewed the crusty loaf.
“Good?” she asked, amused.
He was already sawing away at the loaf for another slice. “You have no idea. I haven’t had bread this delicious in ages. Where did you learn to bake?”
She cast her eyes down into her bowl of pasta. “My mother taught me.”
“Ah, the famous Mrs Granger!” Theo said brightly, resting his chin in his hands and smiling at her. “Your dear sweet mum, who obviously bestowed her sunny disposition and wonderful manners on her daughter. Do tell me all about her.”
“Absolutely not,” Hermione bit out, pushing her bowl away and standing abruptly from her chair. She was so done with being polite, being patient, with a man she didn’t even want around, in her home or her life in general. She certainly didn’t want to discuss her mother with him.
She needed him gone.
She felt suffocated, and she’d never felt suffocated here, in her own home, before. Her haven.
It suddenly felt like a prison.
She stormed to the sink and clattered the crockery into the basin, chest heaving as she pulled at the collar of her dress. Were the walls closing in on her? It felt too hot. She needed air.
A movement in the window’s reflection behind her. Theo.
She noticed worried eyes and a tentative hand, reaching toward her shoulder. She shied away from his touch and whirled to face him, her hair a suffocating storm around her. “Get away from me!”
“Hermione,” Theo said evenly, his hand still outstretched and his tone calm. “I think you’re having a panic attack.”
She shook her head vehemently, even though she knew it was true, and her hair seemed to wrap tighter around her throat at her denial. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides. Her pulse hammered in her ears and her chest heaved fast and quick. The air entering her lungs felt thin, limited. Magic crackled in her veins and sparked at her fingertips.
“Hermione, can you slow down your breathing?” a voice asked.
Not a voice. Theo.
Black spots swam in her vision and she gripped the counter behind her for stability, but it wasn’t enough. Her legs gave out. She was falling.
Time warped, expanded, stopped. It took her forever to hit the ground, and when her body made contact, it was softer than she had expected. And then the ground surprised her even more. It wrapped strong limbs around her, and held her tightly.
Not the ground. Theo.
She flailed in his grip. It physically ached to have another person touch her after so many years, and she hated it. Fought against it. Theo’s arms wrapped tighter. “Breathe, Hermione,” his deep voice murmured, almost pleading. It rumbled through his chest and into her spine.
Her eyes fluttered closed at the feeling. Was it good? Was it bad? She couldn’t even think straight. The oxygen burned her lungs. She didn’t want to breathe. She cried out, instead. A long, guttural keen filled with misery and regret.
“Breathe, Granger,” the voice said, firm and insistent, flushed with a tinge of fear. “Breathe, you insolent witch. Four counts in and four counts out. Can you do that? Breathe in… two… three… four. Breathe out… two… three… four. Breathe, and I’ll let you go.”
His voice was repulsive. His voice was sweet music. Theo’s chest rose up and down with his counts, begging her body to mould to his, to follow its lead. His commanding voice burrowed through her body, moving through flesh and sinew, willing her lungs to cooperate.
Hermione followed his lead. Her breathing slowed, evened. She sank into his warm embrace, inhaling his comforting sandalwood scent as her tears streamed onto his shirt.
She did as he said.
He didn’t let go.
The world fell away.
When she opened her eyes again, she was in her bed. Theo was sitting in the armchair by the window, the one that was normally piled with clean laundry that she always put off folding. Her eyes flickered to the neatly folded pile of clothes on top of her bureau. Theo had domestic skills? She didn’t believe it.
He had an ankle crossed casually over a knee and he was turned away from her, staring out the window at the dark woods. A silver thumbnail of moon was suspended in the sky above the trees, the stars splashed in riotous abandon across the sky. Her favorite kind of night.
She regarded his profile, her mind still lost in the quiet, dreamy state between sleep and wakefulness, the beautiful moments when the world felt fuzzy and soft and unreal.
Theo had a beautiful nose - long and patrician - and a nice, strong chin. His hair was curled gently over his forehead and about his ears, and his mouth, even when not smiling, tipped perpetually up at the corners. He had the face of someone who lived in a constant state of delight, which she realized had to be hard in all the times when his life was anything but delightful.
He must have noticed a change in her breathing that heralded her transition out of sleep, because he didn’t even need to turn to her to ask, “How are you feeling?”
She suddenly felt raw and exposed to have someone in her room, intruding upon her private space, and most especially because she had until recently been unconscious in her bed. But she realized with a start that she had never once entertained the notion that Theo might act inappropriately. He may have been a prat, but he was a chivalrous gentleman of a prat, at least.
Hermione sat up and pulled her knees to her chest, the sheet bunching around her. The dress she had been wearing felt itchy and confining, but she was relieved to find it was still on her person. “I’m fine.”
He chuckled softly and finally turned to her. A slice of moonbeam cut across his cheek like a blade. “That’s a lie,” he murmured. “Have you had a panic attack before?”
“Yes.” She purposefully left out just how very familiar with them she actually was.
A muscle feathered in his jaw. He seemed… frustrated with her, but in a rather understanding sort of way. As if he had walked this path before.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“Not especially,” she said, placing her chin upon her knees. “That’s what Mind Healers are for - unless you have a profession I don’t know about?”
Theo sighed, standing up from the chair and approaching the bed as if she were some sort of venomous creature. Maybe his assessment wasn’t far off. “May I sit?” he asked.
“If you must.” She pulled her feet tightly into her body so as not to touch him. Her fears were unjustified. He practically hovered at the bottom corner of the bed, his body barely touching the mattress. A gentlemanly prat, indeed.
“I don’t have panic attacks,” he offered, although she hadn’t asked. “But Draco did.”
“And I'm supposed to care why?” The brutal words rushed out almost thoughtlessly and Theo drew back in surprise. He shouldn’t have been taken aback by her words. He knew how Draco had acted towards her. He knew how awful he had bullied her.
Godric, she had spent so long hating the person that Draco Malfoy was - his beliefs, his actions, his entire being, really. But her words still felt harsh and unwarranted as they fell from her lips.
Bloody Theo and his memories, showing her a Malfoy who was happy, who was in love. As if summoned, his regal, chiselled face swam uninvited through her mind.
Theo was looking at her as if she had slapped him. “Would it kill you to commiserate with someone?” he snapped. “Even someone you think is complete scum?”
He stood abruptly, tugging at the bottom edge of his jumper, his face stony. “Fine. I'll go. I’m glad you’re feeling better, Hermione. I am apparently neither wanted nor needed here.”
Please go, she wanted to beg.
Please leave, she wanted to scream.
Get out, get out, get out.
He was halfway to the door of the bedroom when her voice betrayed her. “Please stay,” she whispered.
Theo turned to her, and his face was surprisingly soft, for all the vitriol of her early barb.
She didn’t deserve it - the tenderness she saw in his eyes.
He retraced his steps and sat on the edge of the bed - more fully this time. His thigh was so near to her foot beneath the sheets, and she studied the valley of fabric between them.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked again.
She tilted her head so that her cheek pressed into her knee, fitting into the hollow there like an old friend. “No.”
He sighed in defeat. Her next words were unexpected, even to her. “I want to show you.” She looked about the bedsheets and patted down her dress. “Where is my wand?”
“It’s downstairs,” he told her, his countenance similar to someone who was dealing with a frightened, injured animal. “Might I go retrieve it for you?”
She nodded. Theo left.
He came back with her wand and with Gwenny, who heaved herself upon the bed and settled at Hermione’s back, pressing into her ribs like a warm and comforting lifeline. Hermione noticed Theo edged further still onto the bed when he sat down again. The curve of his outer leg kissed the pinky toe of her foot, and her senses honed into that one small point of contact.
Theo pressed her wand into her hand. “How is this supposed to work?”
Hermione brought the wand tip to her temple and extended her hand wordlessly. He took it without question.
His hand was warm and broad, engulfing her own. She resisted the urge to wrench herself from his grasp, but her heart fluttered rapidly in her chest at his touch.
“Legilimens simul,” she murmured as she grasped his fingers tightly.
Theo groaned as their feet met the plush carpet of her mind.
“I should have known. A bloody crimson-and-gold library.”
Hermione chose to be an adult about it and ignored him. She was quite proud of her mind, and the organization within. It had far-reaching bookcases so tall they disappeared into darkness and heaved with leatherback tomes full of her memories, squishy, soft carpet, and cushy wingbacked chairs.
She set off into the stacks, Theo following at her heels like a puppy dog. “Where are we off to - the Restricted Section?” he quipped after they had walked for a bit. She didn’t have to answer, because at that very moment they reached their destination. A little cubby of a room, separated from the rest of the library by a thick, red velvet rope. A little brass placard above the entrance read The Restricted Section.
“Circe’s left fucking tit,” said Theo. “Why am I so surprised by something I should have seen coming a mile away?”
Hermione shushed him as she unhooked the velvet rope and they stepped into the section where all her worst nightmares came to live in perpetuity.
The selection was sadly quite broad, for such a young life. The war had not been kind to her. A diminutive bookcase held about two dozen tomes, their spines washed out and lifeless, leather peeling, gold filigree flaking. They were so different from the vibrant, beautiful books in the main library of her mind.
Hermione studied the bookcase. She could feel Theo’s eyes studying her. “Alright there?” he asked.
She nodded and reached for a nondescript black spine. ”24 D cem er 1 99” proclaimed the crumbling spine. She tipped the book out of its spot and into her hand. It was quite dusty, as they all were. She hated revisiting them.
She felt a hand on her elbow and immediately shrank away. The hand retreated. Hermione supposed it was meant to be comforting, but all this human touch was starting to fray her nerves to tatters. “I’m sorry,” Theo told her as he pulled his hand away. She wasn’t sure if he was sorry for the touch, or the memory.
“Are you ready?” she asked him, ignoring the apology.
“I think the more important question is - are you?”
Hermione shrugged in non-answer and took a breath. Held it. And cracked the spine of the book.
~
The Melbourne sun is intense, overwhelming. She watches her past self drag a hard-sided Muggle suitcase away from the cab parked at the curb, wheels skipping over the cracks in the pavement. The asphalt of the street shimmers in the heat. Theo stands beside her, elbow nearly brushing her ribs. He seems to have shoved his hands in his pockets to avoid reaching for her her again. She appreciates it, but she still wishes he’d move further away. His nearness is… flustering.
Memory-Hermione walks up the drive, skirting around the silver sedan parked there, and reaches the front door of the house.
“I don’t know that this is such a good idea for you after having a recent panic attack,” Theo says nervously. “What happens if you have another?”
“Then the memory ends and we go back to the present,” Hermione answers him quietly, watching her past self press the doorbell, wait a moment, and then press again. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Theo huffs. The Hermione of memory, having received no answer to her second ringing of the doorbell, is currently looking at the parked car with frustration writ large across her face.
“What the bloody hell, you two,” memory-Hermione grumbles, retrieving her phone from the front pocket of her carry-on bag and dialing a number. The tinny tone of the call trying to go through floats toward them.
Theo looks between the two Hermione’s. “I don’t like where this is going,” he whispers.
“Whatever you’re thinking, I promise you it’s worse,” Hermione murmurs back.
There is no need to keep quiet, but they do it anyway. If only their normally-pitched voices were capable of changing the horrors of the past.
A third ring of the doorbell. A second unanswered phone call. Memory-Hermione is fidgety, like she’s on the cusp of something big and life-altering, and she simply doesn’t know what. She takes a look around, gaze passing right through her present-day companions. Seeing no one, she slips her wand from her bag and points it at the door. “ Alohomora.” They all hear the lock spring open.
Memory-Hermione hesitates at the threshold. Deep in the pit of her stomach… she knows. Her present self remembers the feeling that stirred within her when she walked through the door - a dark, rotting sort of darkness, seeping beneath her ribs.
She pokes her head through the doorway. “Hello?” she calls out. “Mum? Dad?” Nothing.
The three of them file tentatively into the house, Memory-Hermione leading the way. It’s silent. Still. A clock ticks on the mantel in the sitting room to their right, and light streams through a skylight in the kitchen just ahead of them.
They all pace from room to room. Memory-Hermione calls out again. Nothing.
They end their search of the ground floor in front of the staircase, looking up into the gloom of the second floor and the certain heartache that awaits. Memory-Hermione places a foot on the first step, and Present-Hermione whimpers as she thinks about what comes next.
Long fingers grip her elbow again, wrapping firmly around her skin this time. She takes in a sharp breath. “We don’t have to be here,” Theo says quietly in her ear. There’s a plea in the undercurrent of his voice.
And the truth is, they could leave. Hermione could drop the memory, and they’d whisk back to the cottage, to the bedroom, and none of the gruesomeness of 24 December 1999 would have to be witnessed again.
Instead, she wrenches her arm from Theo’s grasp. “You asked if I wanted to talk about it,” she growls. “This is the only way I know how. Sometimes inquisition comes with a price, Theo. You deigned to ask, and now you get to witness.” He hangs his head solemnly and follows both of her selves up the stairs.
Her parents’ bedroom - empty. The bed is neatly made, the closet door slightly ajar, but nothing out of place. In the en suite, it’s more of the same. A tube of toothpaste on the countertop, a few beard trimmings in the sink. Entirely domestic and normal.
The bathroom straight off of the landing is pristine, with a pile of fluffy, folded towels waiting for a guest, and a pair of house shoes next to the bathtub. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The second bedroom’s door beckons. It’s the last room in the house left unseen. Fate hangs like a choking mist in the air, putrid and unavoidable.
Memory-Hermione grips the doorknob and turns. The scream that rips from her throat when she sees what lies inside is guttural, animalistic. It tears and rips at the space between memory and reality with teeth and claws and fury. She sinks to her knees in the doorway, body wracked with immense sobs, the visceral pain of her grief filling the space so fully that the edges of the memory warp and flex.
Present-Hermione gestures for Theo to see what's behind the door. She herself doesn’t need to look again. It’s burned forever into the backs of her eyelids. Locking the memory away in a book in her mind isn’t enough to forget the fucked-up carnage waiting for her in that bedroom.
Hermione’s father, his desecrated corpse propped in the corner, his eyes unseeing, a clutch of bright pink and yellow balloons tied to his cold, rigid hand.
Hermione’s mother, sitting frozen on the bed, her mouth twisted into her murderer’s approximation of a leering smile, her arms outstretched. Offering a welcoming hug to his visiting daughter.
Their blood smearing the walls around them, used to write four bastardized words upon the wall.
Welcome Home, Hermit Crab.
Years later, those bloodied words still hurt the most.
She had always, somewhere in the recesses of her mind, anticipated their untimely deaths. That possibility was the entire reason she had hidden them in Australia in the first place. Even long after the war, she had known the threat still existed.
And yet, she had restored their memories anyway, because she had wanted them back so badly. The foolish errand of a stupid child, motivated by selfish desires.
She supposes they might have died, regardless. But she always likes to think it was her fault.
And those words… a secret nickname for her, their slightly shy but utterly bold little hermit crab. An epithet born of love and inside jokes, and bestowed upon her before a time when she could remember. And it had been tortured out of them and then used to taunt her.
She watches as Theo approaches memory-Hermione, still sobbing in a rushing torrent upon the floor. He peers into the room, and promptly vomits onto the carpet beside him. Godric, he vomits a lot, doesn’t he?
She sees no reason to vanish the mess this time. What’s the point? It’s not real.
Theo’s stomach contents are an illusion in this version of her reality. But the blood on the walls, the empty gaze of her dead parents - those still feel real, every time.
“Seen enough to answer some of your questions?” she asks.
Theo nods.
They blink away from Melbourne.
~
They returned to the bedroom, Gwenny snoring in the dark. Theo’s thigh was still touching Hermione’s foot. She decided to allow it, just this once.
“So that’s why you have panic attacks?” Theo murmured. “Because you feel responsible for your parents’ murders?”
Hermione shrugged. “My mind healer called it a ‘poor trauma response.’” She snorted. “She may as well have told me I failed my O.W.L.S. I didn’t take lightly to being labelled as poor at something, as you can imagine, not even at processing the murder of my parents. I never went back.”
He shifted at the foot of the bed. “Well, that seems like too much to get into at such a late hour... unless you'd like to?" She shook her head and he cleared his throat.
"Well, I suppose I should thank you for showing me. I know that can’t have been easy.” His voice was low and dusky, like mist banked beneath the treetops. She had the urge to wrap herself in the velvety pitch of his voice. “And now I suppose I really have overstayed my welcome. I’ll take my leave.”
Hermione couldn’t decide if he was suddenly an unthoughtful man turned thoughtful, or simply a crafty gambler hedging his bets on the desperate, lonely feeling that had nestled against her sternum, where her heart was supposed to be.
Her answering sigh was heavy, brimming with resignation and inevitability. “You’re welcome to the settee again, if you’d like.”
Notes:
First, a bit of housekeeping. I will be on vacation from today (15 August) through next Sunday (24 August), which is why this chapter update is a day early! As such, there will be no update next Saturday (23 August). I had hoped to be ahead enough that I could add two chapters this week as a consolation, but life got in the way, as it does. I'll be back with the Chapter 8 update on 30 August!
Meanwhile... there's some progress with the slow burn on the Theomione front! Apologies - Draco is STILL absent. Theo and Hermione just need a bit more time to work out their issues. Patience will be rewarded, my darlings.
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter Text
“I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end.”
A quote from the Muggle novel Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, published in 1938
~
Just as he had the last time he’d slept in Hermione's cottage, Theo awoke refreshed and invigorated. He was floored that one could have such a good night’s rest on what happened to be a rather uncomfortable settee, if he did say so himself.
However, the nightmare that usually plagued him every night - unless he got so drunk he simply blacked out, a tactic which he, consequently, used for many years as a coping mechanism - had once again been held at bay by whatever magic this house, or Hermione, seemed to attract.
It was… curious.
Also, he was positive that Hermione had switched out the cross-stitch pillow from his previous sleep upon the settee, for one that was much scratchier and far more uncomfortable.
He thought he remembered that the former pillow had been stitched simply with a lovely bouquet of sunflowers. The current pillow had a wreath of bluebells with the word ‘twat’ in the middle, embroidered in raised, flowing script. He could feel the imprint of the design etched into his cheek after a night of sleep.
Cheeky witch.
He lay there for a bit on the uncomfortable pillow, in the quiet peacefulness of the morning, until one of those bloody pigeons started up its blasted cooing on the roof. The second floor remained silent, despite the incessant bird - he could hear neither Hermione or Gwenny stirring.
He lay there, knowing what he was supposed to do, what Hermione would want him to do: collect his cloak, put on his shoes, and leave.
So naturally, he decided to make breakfast for her again.
She hadn’t seemed to mind so much the last time he had done it, Theo reasoned. And he’d been practicing making coffee at Pansy’s. Not that Hermione actually drank the blasted stuff - it was more like she added a whiff of it to a cup of sugared milk and called it coffee.
He was just pouring the eggs into the pan for an omelette when Gwenny sauntered into the kitchen and sat at his feet, fixing her beautiful brown eyes on him in an adoring gaze. “Who’s the goodest, goodest girl?” he crooned, giving her a bite of sausage and ruffling her ears with his fingertips. “That’s right, you are.”
They had made fast friends on his last visit, he and Gwenny. It turned out that she really wasn’t so scary after all - mostly, she was just prone to lay around sleeping the day away, and offering judgmental looks whenever she thought he was being an idiot.
Theo, formerly “not a dog person,” had quickly decided he would die for the creature.
How ironic that it just so happened he might very well end up dying on the whim of her mistress’s bloodthirsty assassination requests, all because he had the gall to blackmail a powerful Necromancer without thinking through the consequences of his actions.
Recklessness without deliberation. Yes, that certainly sounded like something he would do.
Hermione didn’t appear in the kitchen until the omelette was finished and he was rustling around in a drawer for a couple of forks. He had the sneaking suspicion she had timed her entrance to cut down on as much small talk as possible. Curls that had escaped her plait were tousled into a wild tumble around her face, dark smudges sat beneath her eyes, and her feet were bare.
Theo’s first thought was that she had an air of disheveled waif about her.
Theo’s second thought was that he found her to be utterly beautiful.
She folded into a chair at the table, knees drawn to her chest in the same guarded way she had sat with him in her bed last night, and pulled the French press across the table towards her from where he had set it beside a mug, the sugar, and the milk.
She finally looked up at him, her face seeming to shift a few times between frustration and gratification, before settling on a look that somehow managed to encapsulate both, and gave him a small nod.
“Thank you.” Her voice was still gritty with sleep.
He smiled and returned his attention to the omelette. “My pleasure. I figured you’d need it after last night.”
Even without being turned around to face her, he could sense when she stiffened. The air hung thickly in the gulf that stretched between them. It was a heavy sort of silence, carrying the normal notes of tension that always seemed to define their coexistence, but also tinged with something unfamiliar. There was nuance to the quiet. There was understanding threading through the undertones. And… relief.
“I don’t believe I ever said I was sorry for your loss,” he told her as he divided the omelette and sausages between two plates. He turned back around and caught her amber gaze. Held it. He thought of pink and yellow balloons, a girl sobbing on the floor.
“I’m so sorry, Hermione.”
Tears brimmed unexpectedly against her lashes, brightening her hazel eyes like topaz. “Thank you,” she whispered, dropping her gaze to her coffee cup and adding a splash more milk.
He was genuinely surprised that she had accepted his apology. Whatever was between them - he hesitated to call it a relationship, as it was no more than a business arrangement, really - had been contemptuous from the moment they had first met in that pub. Every meeting since had devolved into a duel of barbs and glares and threats and criticism.
But Hermione had been vulnerable last night - had felt comfortable enough with him to share a horrific part of her past that she needn’t have. And that seemed to count for… something.
He approached the table and slid half of the omelette onto the plate in front of her, and held out a fork. “Sausages?”
She nodded, eyes trained on the eggs. “Yes, please.”
He placed two links of sausage on her plate, served himself, and then took the pan back to the cooktop. When he turned again, she was watching him carefully, those amber eyes bright and vigilant. He sat opposite her. “So how are you this morning?”
Hermione popped a bite of omelette into her mouth and closed her eyes, making a small noise in her throat that sounded suspiciously like a groan. Did she… like it? It seemed like she liked it. Why did that make him so giddy in the pit of his stomach?
She chewed her mouthful thoughtfully before fixing him with a stare again. Salazar, those eyes. He could drown in them.
“I’m… erm… I think I’m okay,” she murmured. “I haven’t revisited that memory in quite some time.”
“I noticed,” Theo said. “Bit dusty, that brain-book.”
She pushed a piece of sausage around her plate. “My parents hadn’t even had their memories restored for five months. I brought a specialised mind healer to them in late July, after the Battle of Hogwarts, and he was able to set their memories right. It was such a relief.” She paused. “I thought the danger was over.”
Theo felt the urge to reach for her - to take her hand, like a friend, or wrap her in his arms, like a lover. For all her bristle and bite, the Necromancer was soft at the core, and the world had undoubtedly wronged her. It had wronged them both. He shifted in his chair, the inescapable urge to comfort her simmering just below his skin.
“We all thought the danger was over,” he offered, instead. A hollow consolation.
Hermione took a sip of coffee, the steam curling upwards across her brow in hazy spirals, and hummed her agreement. “This is a delicious omelette. Thank you.”
Theo was quite chuffed. He gave her an indulgent smile. “Anything for my girl.”
The mood flipped in an instant. He could practically feel her angry magic gathering in a storm around her.
He would lie if he said he didn’t enjoy riling her up like this.
“As I have made clear before, I am not your girl,” she growled, spearing a sausage violently with her fork. He felt she was trying to send a message. One that he implicitly understood.
“Not my girl,” he agreed hastily. “But maybe my friend?”
“You’re pushing your luck, Theo.”
“Oh, come on,” he hedged. Pushing his luck was rather his forté. “I do believe we’ve moved past being simple acquaintances now. You’ve seen some of my horrific memories, and I’ve seen one of yours. Can’t we at least call it a trauma bond at this point?”
She didn’t respond, but he did catch her duck behind her coffee cup with a glimmer of a smile.
Progress, he told himself. It was progress.
~
“Theo, you simply must leave,” Hermione told him firmly as they sat at the table with the last few bites of their lunch - beans on toast, not his preferred meal, but it was the thought that counted, yeah?
At least, he had believed she had a thought to spare him, until she started up this nonsense again about how he needed to vacate the premises. Obviously, she just felt she could ply him with food to make him more amenable. A strong premise, but he was made of stouter stuff than to cave to her whims after such a simple offering as beans on toast.
“And where would you have me go?” he asked her. “I can’t go back to Pansy’s. I’ll simply die of embarrassment."
“Nott Manor, perhaps?” Hermione asked him. “What’s the point in having an ancestral home if you don’t even live there. Did you sell it, by chance?”
Theo scoffed. “Nott Manor is a dank, festering blight upon my soul. Would that I could get rid of it, but no one will take it off my hands. I haven’t been back there in years.”
She threw her hands into the air in frustration. “It’s a place to live, Theo! And you require a place to inhabit. I don’t see the problem. Do a little renovating, paint the walls, that sort of thing. I’m sure it will feel like a brand new manor in no time.”
He sighed. She didn’t understand. She’d never understand.
How could he make her understand?
“I want to show you another memory,” he blurted.
Hermione scoffed and stood up from the table. “No, Theo. I’m done. I want two more weeks of peace, and I need you gone in order for that to happen.”
She pushed past him and without thinking, he grabbed her arm, wrapping long fingers around her delicate wrist. She hissed and tugged away, as if the contact physically hurt her. He’d noticed the same reaction when he helped her through her panic attack, as if his skin on hers was a burning, biting torture.
“Is it just me?” he asked her as she gasped and struggled in his grip. “Is it my touch that brings you pain?”
A choked whimper clawed its way from her throat, and he struggled to push away all of the thoughts that rushed into his head from that one, singular sound.
“Answer me, Hermione. What is it? What is wrong with me, that I bring you so much agony?” He was pleading, but he didn't care. For some reason he needed her answer like he needed air.
He wanted her to tell him what was wrong with him, what evil she sensed in his soul. He had been searching for that answer his entire life.
There had to be evil in his heart. Why else would he deserve such suffering?
Her skin was hot under his fingers, and so, so soft. His fingertips found the pulse point at the base of her thumb and settled into the groove of her bones. Hermione's heart was wildly aflutter, like a hummingbird, fast and flighty.
She gasped, her eyes bright and hard like polished stones. But he noticed she had stopped trying to escape his grasp - not out of comfort, necessarily, but merely as a bird might go still if captured and held, remaining quiet and watchful and waiting. Waiting to escape.
“It’s not you,” she finally whispered, voice thick. “I just haven’t been touched in so long, Theo, and I… I forgot what it feels like. It’s too much. But somehow, deep down, it’s also… not enough. I–”
He dropped her wrist in an instant. Gods, he had been so stupid. Demanding she answer him, when he wasn’t deserving. Demanding he touch her, when he didn’t have the right.
He stood quickly from his chair, sending it sprawling across the floor. Gwenny looked up from where she lay on the other side of the room, attentive and wary. Hermione’s fist, the one he had captured, was clenched tightly at her side, her chest rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths. As he backed away, ashamed, he noticed her flex her hand, fingers splaying wide, before she let it rest at her side again. as if she was trying to banish the ghost of his touch.
“I’m… I’m so sorry, Hermione,” he stammered, giving her a wide berth as he moved toward the front room, palms up in placation. “I’ll get my things and I’ll leave, I promise you. I apologize, that was completely uncalled for.” He walked swiftly towards the door.
“Theo,” she said from behind him. Her voice was calm. Comforting, even.
“It’s all right.”
He turned back to her, unbelieving. Her hair was still wild, her face still so haunted and sad and beautiful. “It’s all right,” Hermione told him again, forgiveness rippling through the undercurrent of her words. “Will you at least come back and finish your lunch?”
~
They cleaned the dishes together, silently, in the Muggle way that Hermione seemed to prefer. Theo scrubbed the crockery, while Hermione dried the plates with a soft kitchen towel. Their shoulders and elbows were a whisper away from each other as they stood side by side.
Their hands brushed when Hermione reached for a pan, and to his surprise, she didn't pulled away. He lingered there boldly, his skin slick with soap and water, the back of his hand gliding smoothly over her knuckles, and hazarded a glance sideways. Her gaze was concentrated steadily on the point where their skin touched, and she took in a sharp breath before lifting away the pan that she had been reaching for.
Theo’s nerves were lit as brightly as the fire in the hearth. Every sigh that escaped her mouth, every shift of her hips, every rustle of her dress, made his stomach clench desperately.
He’d said he was sorry. Hermione had let him stay and fed him lunch.
Was he a fool, or was there something meaningful in those actions, something he dared not put a name to?
He gave his head a little shake to clear the thoughts, the ideas, the lust currently snaking their way through his mind. He was doing this all for Draco. He loved Draco. He needed Draco.
But he also realized there was no denying it… the witch had captivated him.
She finished drying the last of the dishes as he pulled the plug in the sink, watching the water swirl down the drain. He felt her eyes on him, but he didn’t dare look up. It felt too charged between them, and he feared that if his gaze met hers, the air might actually combust.
Hermione cleared her throat. He stared at the sink.
“I believe you asked to show me a memory?” she asked.
He nodded. There were soap suds left in the sink, and he ran the water again to clear them away. The silence stretched a little further.
Theo heard her sigh, low and deep. “Come into the front room,” she told him. “We can sit in the window seat, and you can show me your memory.”
He followed her between the rooms, like a faithful dog. Hermione had finally let loose her plait, and a riot of curls cascaded down her back, tendrils reaching for the waistband of her Muggle denims. He watched her sit cross-legged in the window seat and twirl her wand between her fingers. When she looked up at him, her eyes gleamed like brilliant brown topaz. She gestured for him to sit, so he did, folding his legs awkwardly to fit in the space beside her.
She scooted forward a bit so that her knees met his, and a ripple of gooseflesh broke out along his spine. Her free hand rested in her lap, palm up, an offering. She brought her wand to his temple, the vine wood cool against his skin. “Legilimens,” she murmured.
He blinked, and they were both in his mind. The cave had an unfamiliar beam of light approximately the circumference of his arm, streaming down from the ceiling and brilliantly illuminating a single pinpoint on the floor. He passed a hand through it, completely in awe, his flesh turning a brilliant, blinding white as it moved through the beam. “What the hell is this?” he asked.
“It would appear that it is sunlight, Theo,” said the swottiest, know-it-all Necromancer of all time.
He rolled his eyes. “Yes I know. But why is it here? I didn’t order sunlight. This is a cave.”
She shrugged. “Well, it would appear that a hole has manifested, to let some light into this dank little place. How fascinating. I wonder what it means.”
He rolled his eyes and took off down the dark passageway to his left. Hermione scurried to keep up with him. “On a mission, eh?” she asked, trying to match his long strides.
He was. He had never felt such an urgent need to show someone why he was the way he was, why Nott Manor had never been a home. Even the urge to tell Draco this story hadn't been so strong.
Theo had lived with this specific memory, and its ramifications, for twenty-five years of his life. And now, someone else would finally know the true depths of his hellish childhood.
~
There’s blood seeping out from under the bedroom doors, a dark red puddle that slithers across the wooden floor like a serpent. The little boy sits motionless on the ground, his back to the wall, right where he is supposed to be while he waits for Mama. She always tells him to sit and wait, to be a good boy, while she deals with his father. His older self stands just down the hallway, next to Hermione, who is watching the puddle in horror.
“How old were you here?” Hermione whispers, her eyes fixed on the creeping red liquid.
“Six,” Theo replies.
When his parents did this, when they went into his father's study and fought, young Theo always amused himself by singing songs, and playing with his stuffed erumpent toy, and pretending that he had an imaginary friend named Bippy, who sat next to him and told him stories. Bippy wasn’t as good of a friend as Draco was, but he was always there when Theo needed him, always there to take his mind off the raised voices, and the dull thud of fists connecting with skin, and his mother’s tortured wails.
Theo had been spending time in the hallway for as long as he could remember, during those times when Mama needed to talk to his father. It was always the same.
The blood is new, though. He’s never seen that before.
Theo and Hermione watch the boy. The boy watches the door of the study.
Deep in his gut, little Theo knows something is wrong. He hasn’t heard his mother make any noise in quite some time.
But he’s also only six. He doesn’t know what the silence truly signifies. He knows nothing of death.
He’s only a child.
They all hear footsteps approach the door. The doorknob shifts slightly, as if a hand is resting upon it.
“Mama?” the little boy squeaks. He’s trying to be brave, like his mother told him to be, but his voice betrays him as it quavers.
The door opens slowly, and it isn’t Mama. It’s his father. He has sweat on his brow and a torn shirtsleeve, and his brown hair, normally neatly coiffed, looks as though it has been caught in a windstorm. A glint of steel flashes at his hip as the wizard pockets a knife, the blade ruby-red.
The father and the son consider each other for a moment. The boy begins to breathe hard and quick, like a nervous rabbit preparing for flight.
“Better run, little lamb,” Nott Sr. finally croons with a malicious leer. “Unless you’d like to be next. I've always wondered if you have the same cowardly, bleeding heart as your mother.”
The child scrambles to his feet, his legs stiff and clumsy and useless from sitting for so long. His father is stalking toward him, a terrifying gleam in his eyes as he smiles, showing all his teeth. He snaps his jaw at Theo, like a biting dog.
“Run, run, little Theo,” he sing-songs. “I’m going to catch you!”
The boy dashes to the stairs and his father slinks after him, as predatory as a feline. Theo and Hermione race to keep up with them as the child barrels through the halls, Nott Sr. hot on his heels. A suit of armor at the foot of the staircase throws a battle axe that barely misses all of them. Portraits jeer at them from gilded frames as father and son advance down the hallway.
There is sheer panic on the child’s face as he rounds a corner and runs smack into a pair of legs, which sends him sprawling to the ground. Lucius Malfoy stands in the hall, floo powder still clinging to his impeccably-tailored robes. Draco peers out from behind him.
Nott Sr. rounds the corner and stops short. He looks at young Theo, heaving on the floor, and then up at Lucius, who is eyeing him back, grey eyes wary.
“Lucius,” Theo’s father says, giving him a nod. The blond wizard nods back.
“I feel we’ve come at a bad time, Thaddeus?” Lucius Malfoy asks.
Thaddeus Nott shakes his head. “No, no - just playing games with my boy. Having a little chase - all for fun, you know.”
Lucius lifts a brow. He obviously does not know. “Well, we should leave you to it then, I suppose. Let us go, Draco.”
But his son finally steps out fully from his father's shadow. “Can Theo come with us, Father? It’s been so long since we saw each other. I’d love to show him my new books.”
“Please,” young Theo gasps from the floor, the adults looking down at him in surprise, as if they had forgotten he was there. “Please let me go. I promise I’ll be good."
“Nonsense, Theodore,” his father says through gritted teeth. “Let us finish our game and leave the Malfoy's be.”
Lucius and Draco head back towards the fireplace. The blond boy hesitates and looks back at his friend, dismay and worry written across his face, but he's powerless. His father throws the powder into the fireplace, and then they disappear in a bright eruption of green flames.
Thaddeus Nott looks down at his son, cowering on the floor, and reaches into his pocket. “Now, where were we, little lamb?”
~
The world was bright and crisp when they landed back in the window seat, the haze of the memory dissipating from their eyes. Theo looked down to his hand, now nestled neatly inside of Hermione’s, her warm fingers curled firmly into his palm. When he looked up at her, her eyes were gleaming, brimming with pain and grief.
“He killed your mother?” she asked thickly. “With you right outside the door?”
He swallowed, past the lump in his throat, and nodded.
“And what did he do to you?” Her voice was a reedy warble, choked with anguish. “Did he hurt you? I know there was more to the memory, Theo. What did he do?”
Theo reluctantly removed his hand from hers and brought his fingers to his throat, slowly undoing the buttons of his shirt. Hermione watched him quietly, her gaze flicking between his hands and his face, a furrow between her brows as he worked. When he was done, he pulled back the left side of the shirt to reveal his chest, and the gruesome scar carved into the skin over his heart.
Coward, the jagged lettering proclaimed.
Hermione gasped, bringing a hand to her mouth. With the other, she reached for him. He shuddered as her skin brushed his, her fingertips gently tracing the wording of the raised scar tissue.
“Oh, Theo,” she whispered. “What did he do to you?”
The letters were misshapen with time, warped by the stretch of his skin as he had grown. They sat nestled below his collarbone, a constant reminder of his murdered mother, of his father’s abuse, of all of his own blood that had soaked into the floor of Nott Manor. He had thought so many times about trying to see if he could remove the gruesome word himself, or if someone else might be able to.
It had made Draco cry, so many times, as he struggled to come to terms with the guilt he felt for not rescuing Theo from his fate that day.
But somehow, Theo had learned to live with his scar... just as he knew Hermione had learned to live with hers. She now pressed the flat of her left palm over his heart, and he sighed as he leaned into her touch, to the comfort she was offering, and the apology she was extending. The world shuddered, fractured, and fell away. There was her, and there was him, and nothing else in that moment mattered. He wondered if she could feel his heart beneath his ribs, thrumming hard and fast, or sense the feather of the quick, shallow sips of his breath on her skin.
Without a sliver of hesitation, he brought his hands up to caress her arm reverently, and she shivered and sucked in a gasp… but she didn’t pull away. He gently rotated the limb until the soft, pale flesh of the underside was exposed to him, the old scar still present but faded by the years that had passed.
Mudblood, it labelled her.
Before he could think better of it, he pressed a tender kiss to the center of the words etched into her arm. Another, to the pulse-point of her wrist that his fingers had rested on earlier in the day. A third, to the center of her palm, recently departed from his own horrid scar. And then he lifted his gaze to her face.
If he had been standing, her expression would have brought him to his knees. There was desire, and need, and pure want in her eyes. A rosy flush had spread across her cheekbones, and her breath was as fast and shallow as his own. Her bottom lip was clenched between her teeth.
“My father did nothing to me that I couldn’t handle,” Theo told her earnestly. “But gods, I think you’ll ruin me.”
She carefully extracted her arm from his grasp and stood up from the window seat. “I think we’ll ruin each other,” she whispered.
~
The day wore on, and at dusk, Hermione and Gwenny left to bolster the wards. Theo offered to help, but Hermione insisted it wouldn’t be necessary. It was her house, her property, and her wards. There was nothing for him to do, she huffed.
“You wouldn’t even like the company?” he had asked, slightly offended.
“I’ve got Gwenny,” she replied, as if it was perfectly reasonable to prefer the companionship of a dog over the man who had just bared his soul to her and kissed her arm so tenderly.
In hindsight, maybe he could understand her preference. He worried that his kisses, chaste as he had meant them to be, might have seemed a tad too presumptuous for someone who hadn’t even been able to stand the feel of his touch earlier that day.
Then again, she hadn’t pulled away.
It still left Theo feeling like an uneasy bundle of nerves. While she was out and about on the property, he paced from room to room, muttering to himself about priorities, and Unbreakable Vows, and misplaced affection, and, most of all, his overactive cock.
“What would Draco say?” he scoffed to himself as he opened the oven for the sixteenth time to check on the beef roast that Hermione had tasked him with watching. "He'd call you a horny little git. Call you a bloody love rat. Fuck, I'm such a fool."
When he found the roast still wasn’t finished cooking, he wandered through the sitting room, admiring the various knick-knacks Hermione had spread amongst her books. The shelves were scattered with rocks and pebbles and seashells that had caught her eye; a miniature replica of Gwenny, crafted from soft felt; a piece of driftwood; a blooming sprig of lilac, suspended in clear resin. Then there was a static Muggle photograph of Hermione and her parents in a bronzed frame, from when she was quite young. They had posed her on a park swing, and she could be no more than four. Her head was tilted back in uncontrollable laughter as her parents crouched beside her, both younger than they had been in Hermione’s gruesome memory, smiling at the camera. Her father had a full head of her hair, her mother a more plump face. All three appeared gloriously happy.
One shelf over, there was a Wizarding photograph of Hermione and Ron and Harry, taken during what had to have been fifth year. They were sat on a sofa in the Gryffindor common room, arms linked, smiles wide. Ron kept sneaking sideways glances at Hermione, who never stopped beaming at the camera. Harry had a bit of a nervous, awkward manner about him, as if he’d been caught unawares. Or maybe he already knew how hard things were about to become for all of them. Maybe he already sensed his fate.
Theo heard a thump at the back door and scuttled back into the kitchen. Hermione came in the door a few moments later to find him lifting the perfectly-cooked roast from the oven. “Thank Godric, I’m famished,” she said, slipping out her wand to remove the stasis charm from the potatoes and carrots resting on the countertop. “That walk seemed abnormally cold today. I’m frozen through.”
Theo considered offering to warm her through various sorts of physical contact, but they were finally on good terms, it seemed, and he didn’t want to ruin it just yet. He opted instead for sending a wandless warming charm in her direction, and she turned to him in pleasant surprise as it made contact and no doubt spread through her limbs. A faint smile ghosted across her lips.
“Thank you,” she said as she offered him a plate.
“Anything for my girl,” he told her.
She frowned and shot a stinging hex at him. Inevitably, the good terms were never meant to last very long.
Notes:
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter Text
“And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
But I don't know how.”
Lyrics from the song Wonderwall, by the English rock band Oasis, released 30 October 1995
~
“I think I’m going to start today, if you’d like,” Hermione told Theo as they completed their morning circuit of her property to bolster the wards. The late January sun was weak and watery on the horizon as the days inched toward February, and the morning frost had turned the bottom edge of her cloak into a sodden, weighty mass that felt as if it were trying to drag her down into the dirt.
Or maybe that was her conflicted feelings about…everything. She really wasn’t quite sure.
Theo was looking at her in confusion from where he was trying to wrestle a stick from Gwenny’s jaws. “Start what?”
“Collecting memories for retrieving Malfoy.”
Her new roommate had been staying with her for a little more than a week now, and she and Theo had managed to settle into a companionable rhythm of cohabitation. It felt natural, in many ways, how easily they existed around each other in the small cottage. And while she had, admittedly, been snappish and hostile towards him in the beginning, she would begrudgingly admit that the homeless, hapless wizard had started to grow on her.
She found him to be surprisingly charming. Theo could be quite foolish and self-depracating, of course, but there was a sincerity to him, an honesty to his actions and words that made her feel comforted, and more at ease than she had been in years.
He had often made her breakfast over the past nine days, and he always made her coffee before she awoke. She’d had no idea he was such an early bird.
On the occasional mornings she entered the kitchen to find him missing - usually out for a walk with his new best pal, Gwenny - the French press would still be waiting on the table for her, flanked by little pots of cream and sugar. She would smile to herself and summon a mug from the cabinet and enjoy the stillness and the calm and the cooing of the wood-pigeons.
But somehow, unexpectedly, the days in which she entered the kitchen to find him presiding over the cooktop, or pulling something from the oven, turning to greet her with those sapphire eyes and that crooked grin and those blasted dimples - those were her favorite mornings.
She hadn’t realized how lonely she had been, until loneliness wasn’t an option anymore. Her self-imposed isolation had ended resentfully when she finally deigned to give him quarter, but she would be lying if she said it didn’t bring some relief to be once again living in the vicinity of another talking, conversational, downright chatty human being.
Even if that human being was an obnoxious little twit like Theo.
Their arrangement felt easy most times. He was eager to understand what she was doing, always asking questions, and she couldn’t help but switch into her professorial mode as she taught him about her Necromantic practices - the different purposes for the herbs and flowers, the recipes for making her special salves and potions, and her self-created spellwork that she had honed and polished over the years.
And though she could sense that he was curious, he stubbornly avoided asking her about what lay beyond the Veil - the wraiths, the dangers, the structure and framework of the lands of Death.
Her prior admission that the spirit of Malfoy she sought would be a severely depleted shadow - nothing more than a figment of the man Theo had known and loved - seemed to have stymied any interest he had about what she would find once she crossed over.
Hermione's days with her new companion had thereby fallen into a soothing sort of routine. After coffee, and breakfast, he would walk with her while she fortified the wards. Sometimes they talked, but he generally granted her a reprieve from his insistent nattering, so that they might enjoy the sounds of the creek burbling, or the starlings scolding them away from the trees.
From mid-morning to evening, she brewed potions, compounded ingredients, made them a light lunch, bundled herbs, and practiced her wandwork for the incredibly complex spells that she would be required to do.
Theo generally puttered around the cottage in her periphery, browsing the bookshelves, taking lots of naps - the man was finally starting to look a little less like Death warmed over, and had mentioned that his sleep had been much better since he had started living at the cottage - and, perhaps most helpful of all, cleaning up after her as she went through the motions of making her potions.
And if she was being honest with herself, it was actually an utter delight to turn around from the brewing cauldron and find that the worktable had been cleaned of all her discarded ingredients and utensils, the wooden top Scourgified and sanitized. She felt… taken care of, for the first time in a very long time.
Somewhere in the midst of each day, she would pause for afternoon tea, and Theo would sit with her and, despite her every protestation, tell her small anecdotes about Malfoy. She learned his favorite color (green - no bloody surprise), and his favorite Muggle novel (East of Eden, by the American John Steinbeck - a rather large surprise). She was regaled with the story of the day he got in trouble for transfiguring his parents’ albino peacocks into fluffy white poodles, and about the night he and Theo went skinny-dipping in the Black Lake and came face-to-face with the giant squid. The stories were silly, and short, but she felt in them that same roiling undercurrent of grief and loss that Theo always bore when he shared his memories with her, simmering right below the surface.
They hadn’t broached the subject of his scar again. Or the three chaste kisses he had pressed into her skin. But she could still feel the jagged edges of that undeserved word carved into his chest, and the burning brand of his lips on her body.
When they returned back to the cottage, laden with warming charms and their soaked cloak hems bitten with frost, Theo offered to stoke the fire while Hermione put on a kettle for tea. When she turned from the cooktop again, he was standing warily in the doorway, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “You really want to start today?” he asked her, his blue eyes searching his face. They were stormy now, like a frothy, wind-whipped sea.
She nodded. “I do. I’ll begin with the sense of hearing… I’ve found that it’s easier for spirits to gain that part of themselves back first. The sense of sight can be overwhelming and alarming while spirits are still beyond the Veil, but by giving Malfoy his hearing back first, I can start to communicate with him as I piece the rest of him together.”
Theo lowered himself into a chair. “And what kind of memories do you need for this step?”
“Anything that recalls what he sounded like, or even sounds he may have liked,” she said with a shrug. “There are so many facets to what makes up our humanity. Was there particular music he liked to listen to? Can you remember what he sounded like when he said your name and he was happy, or cross, or sad? Do you remember him lighting up when he heard a specific sound, or heard something that made him nervous, or angry?”
“And you said we might need to travel for this… that it could be helpful?” Theo studied the tabletop with so much intensity he looked as if he were trying to memorize the pattern of the woodgrain.
Hermione nodded again. “If you have an especially strong and useful memory, its powers can be even more potent if it is recalled at the same place it happened.” She offered him a soft smile. “I’m not sure why, to be honest. Sometimes I feel as if I’m making this all up as I go.”
His eyes made contact with her, then, his gaze full of confusion. “You’re a most magnificent witch, Hermione. There’s no ‘making it up.’. You are smart and powerful and capable, and you know exactly what you’re doing. Never sell yourself short.”
The conviction in his words brought a blush to her face. She continued to hold his eyes for a moment.
“I’m sorry to spring this on you with so little warning,” Hermione finally said, getting up and removing the kettle from the stove as it began to whistle. She transferred the hot water to a tea pot and brought it to the table, setting it between them. The steam curled from the spout and shrouded Theo’s features in a gossamer haze. “I know I’m starting this process earlier than we had originally discussed, but I might as well begin if you’re here, rather than waste away the extra time. Do you think you can recall some related memories for me?”
“Of course,” he nodded. “I know just the ones.”
“And will we need to travel anywhere?”
“Scotland.”
~
They landed with a soft crack in a brilliant emerald meadow, bordered by scrubby bushes and punctuated with trees. The lawn of green grass, closely cropped to the ground, extended out from them in an oval of sorts. Hermione dropped Theo’s arm to brace her hands on her hips, gasping in a deep lungful of briny sea air. Transcontinental Apparition had never been easy for her head or her stomach.
“Where are we in Scotland, exactly?” she asked after she had collected herself, her gaze taking in a far-off row of whitewashed houses, and a few spiky church spires jutting into the sky in the distance.
“Irvine, Ayrshire. On the coast of the Firth of Clyde. If you’d like me to get even more specific, we’re at a spot formerly known as Bogside Racecourse.”
“Were you and Malfoy here to bet on the ponies, then?”
Theo chuckled. “Not quite. The racetrack closed many years before we were even born.”
“So why, pray tell, are we here?” she pressed. Godric, was he going to divulge this bloody memory, or had they simply come on a lovely little daytrip?
He looked out over the moors, his eyes filled with far-off visions of time gone by. “Have you ever heard of Oasis?”
“As in, an oasis of palm trees and water in the desert? Or are we discussing one of the greatest English rock bands to ever make music?”
“I must have misheard you, Hermione, because I’m certain you meant to say that Oasis is THE greatest band of all time to ever exist, didn’t you?” he tutted. “Enough of this nonsense over specifics like provenance or genre. They are simply the best, it brooks no argument.”
She rolled her eyes and played along. “Yes of course, Theo. That’s exactly what I meant to say.”
He beamed at her. “I thought so. Now, did you know that in July 1995, between our fourth and fifth years at Hogwarts, Oasis played a two-day concert here in Irvine, just down the way at the beach park?”
“Fascinating,” Hermione muttered, raising her eyebrows in mock amazement.
“I knew that knowledge would knock your socks off. But now, here’s the real kicker. Might you be able to name Oasis’ most well-known song, Brightest Witch of Our Age?”
“I believe that would be Wonderwall.”
“Twenty points to Gryffindor,” Theo crowed. “As for a little nugget of knowledge you might not know… Wonderwall was officially released in October of 1995, but it first debuted four months earlier in Glastonbury, and the band played it sparingly at a few live gigs in between those times. Including here.”
“I take it you’re a bit fond of this song?”
He scoffed. “Darling, it is my song.” His face changed, then, right before her eyes - there was a softening, a crumpling, the joyful flush draining from his cheeks. “And then it became our song.”
Without a thought, Hermione reached for his hand. She was surprised how easily the need, the desire, for human contact had slipped back into her life. She had forgotten what a comfort it could be.
And against all odds, and all her mixed-up inclinations, Hermione wanted nothing more than to be a comfort to Theo. She realized with a sudden dread that she had become far more fond of him than she would like to admit.
Theo looked down at their joined hands, her fingers knitted perfectly in between his, and then up at her face. His gaze was surprised, his eyes full of so many questions that she dared not broach in this moment, a time when emotions were running high and the memories of the past were clashing painfully with the grief of the present.
She wanted to let go, but she didn’t. Instead, she tugged him toward a copse of trees.
They settled cross-legged, knee to knee, in a tall patch of waving grass that reached past their heads and rustled softly in the salty sea air. A single gull wheeled overhead, its lonesome cry sending a shiver down her spine. Theo’s arms were covered in gooseflesh.
“Are you cold?” she asked him. “Would you like a warming charm?”
He shook his head. “Might we just get this over with?” A plea.
Hermione lifted her wand to his temple.
His mind was reminiscent of a sea cave today. The floor and walls were splashed with salt water, and the heady smell of the ocean permeated the cavern. Theo seemed surprised to find that the beam of light had grown, and was now roughly as wide as his body. He stepped into the ray of sunshine, basking in its warm glow. “Hermione, help,” he gasped, reaching for her. “Grab hold before the aliens abduct me. I’ve been sucked into their tractor beam!”
Hermione raised an eyebrow, her hand perched on her cocked hip. She noticed his eyes alight there, at the spot where her fingers rested, before traveling back up to meet her gaze. “How do you know about tractor beams and aliens?” she asked him.
“I was really addicted to Muggle TV there, for a bit.”
“Ah. I feel like that explains a lot.”
~
Theo is hiding beneath his bed, staring at the underside of the mattress, when his bedroom door creaks open. He freezes, breath stilling in his lungs, as a shadow advances into the room. It isn’t until he sees the shoes of his visitor, and recognizes who has come to see him, that he releases a sigh of relief and scrambles out from under the bed.
“Fuck, Theo, you scared the ever-living shite out me,” Draco wheezes from where he’s flung himself against the wall at Theo’s hasty appearance from seemingly thin air. “What on earth were you doing under the bed?”
Theo ignores the question and opts for one of his own. “What are you doing here, Draco? Isn’t your mum’s charity gala tonight? I know she likes you to be present for those.”
Draco smirks and runs a hand through his hair, sweeping a few misplaced strands off his forehead. “I had the house elves help me out with a few charms. My mother’s convinced I have dragon pox, so I’ve been officially quarantined in my chambers until I am either recovered or dead. The elves agreed to cover my tracks.”
“You’re going to get in trouble,” Theo warns.
“Nonsense. I’m the only Malfoy heir. My parents would never harm a hair on my head.”
Theo’s gut twists into a knot at the words, at the notion of a life so different from his own, and Draco’s face pales. “Sorry, Theo. I didn’t mean-”
Theo waves him off. The abuse he takes from his father is something they’d never discussed explicitly, because he always manages to change the subject. And truthfully, he doesn’t want Draco to hear the words - the countless horrors - from his own lips.
Draco has his suspicions - of that, Theo is more than sure. His friend has seen the aftermath of one too many “falls,” more than a few “accidents.” And while he has never admitted it, but Theo knows that suspicion is the entire reason Draco charmed Theo’s signet ring to notify him when twisted three times.
“I’ll always come if you call me with this,” Draco had told him when he had given Theo the charmed ring. “Always.”
Draco now sits on the edge of the bed. “Anyway, I came over to see if you’d like to go to Scotland with me. That silly Muggle band you’re obsessed with is playing a concert there this evening.”
Theo is agog. He had first been introduced to the music of Oasis when Blaise brought a contraband magic-repellant Muggle stereo to school during fourth year. The contraption spun around shiny discs called “CDs” and turned them into audible music. He wasn’t sure how they worked, seeing as how Muggles had no magic, but it seemed like magic to him.
Blaise let him borrow the machine on occasion, and Theo would sit under the covers in his dormitory bed, ensconced in an Imperturbable charm, playing the Definitely, Maybe album on repeat. He didn’t know even half of what the band was singing about, but the music resonated with him, for some reason.
Last month, he and Blaise had even snuck away to Glastonbury while Nott Sr. was away on business, and stood outside the grounds of the Muggle music festival to hear the band play live. It was a silly thing to do, and completely stupid when Theo considered what ramifications there might have been if he had been found out by his father, but it had been… transformative. He’d been especially chuffed when Oasis played a brand-new song that hadn’t been released yet. Wonderwall. The lyrics spoke to Theo. He’d been humming it for a month.
“I didn’t know you were into Muggle music,” he goads Draco, poking him in the ribs. Draco swats his hand away.
“I’m not. Nothing more than a lot of racket, if you ask me. But I wanted to do something for you, and this was the first thing that came to mind.”
Theo is touched. His friend is a stubborn, snooty toff, but he has a soft side that not many people know about. “But how will we get there?” he asks Draco. “We can’t Apparate yet, and I don’t know how to get there by floo. Broom will take too long.”
Draco pulls a cracked teacup out of his pocket. “Nicked this portkey from my father’s collection. It will get us to Glasgow, and then we can take a broom from there.”
Theo quirks an eyebrow. “So we’re arriving at a Muggle concert on a broom? Draco, we’ll stick out like a sore thumb, carrying that thing around.”
His friend opens his cloak to show a breast pocket sewn into the interior, and pats it fondly. “Extension charm. Mother had it added so I could smuggle sweets into school and not burden the owls too much. Fits my Firebolt without an issue.”
Their plan goes off without a hitch until they find themselves at Irvine Beach Park, very far from home and without any sort of Muggle money between them. Of course, it wouldn’t have done them any good. They’re turned away at the entrance by a burly man wearing a badge who tells them the show is sold out as he regards their cloaks and young faces with a wary eye. “Off with ye, lads,” he says, shooing them away. “No room for ye in there.”
Draco stands toe to toe with the man as Theo grasps his friend’s arm, trying in vain to pull him away from certain trouble. “My father will hear about this,” Draco snaps at the man, who simply laughs.
“Your Da outta teach ye some manners, ye wee cheeky dobber. I’ll nae say it agin… off with ye!”
“Please, Draco, don’t be foolish,” Theo pleads as his friend starts to puff up his chest. “Let’s just leave. It’s alright.”
Draco spins away in a huff, and they walk aimlessly for a bit, out of sight of the guard who’s sent them away. Theo has been listening to the band play as they’ve been stuck trying to bargain their way in, and his favorite song - Bring It On Down - is currently filling the air. Theo sings along silently while Draco paces angrily, muttering about rude Scots.
You’re the outcast
You’re the underclass
But you don’t care
Because you’re living fast
“Oi!” There’s suddenly a bright light shining in their faces. “If you two don’t have tickets, you’ll need to leave the vicinity.”
Another man with a badge. Perfect. Theo tenses.
The man drops his light from their eyes as he approaches. His countenance seems a bit more kind than the last guard, and he points off to their left. “I’ve been told the wind’s just right that you can hear the band near-perfect from over by the old racetrack,” he tells them kindly.
“Thank you,” Theo says. “Do we just follow the road to get there?”
The man gives them directions and then watches them walk off into the dark. Once out of eyesight, they step into a shadow and Draco pulls out the broom once more. They skirt over the moors, sticking to the trees, Theo’s arms wrapped tight around Draco’s waist.
The boys finally spot the racecourse and set down on its periphery. There isn’t a person in sight, but the Muggle guard was right - the sound of the concert carries to them loud and pure on the wind. They settle into the grass as the strains of Live Forever reach Theo’s ears.
Maybe you’re the same as me
We see things they’ll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
Draco turns to Theo and smiles. “It’s like a private concert,” he says. “This is actually quite enjoyable.” Theo beams back at him. “It’s perfect.”
They stay there for song after song, ensconced in a cozy cocoon of tall grass, Theo swaying to the music. When he hears the starting strains of Wonderwall, he smacks Draco’s arm excitedly, eliciting a yelp from his startled friend.
“Circe’s tits, Theo,” Draco scolds. “That fucking hurt.”
Theo stands and spins in a circle, arms stretched wide as the notes wash over him on the breeze and he sings along. “Today is gonna be the day when they’re gonna throw it back to you. By now, you should’ve somehow realised what you gotta do.”
He looks excitedly at his friend. “This is the one I was telling you about, Draco! The one Blaise and I heard in Glastonbury.”
He stops spinning and waits in silence, waiting for the chorus, his favorite part. But the wind falters, and lessens, and then ceases altogether. The music fades to a whisper, incoherent and faint from so far away. Theo’s shoulders slump.
“And all the roads we have to walk are winding,” comes a hesitant tenor from behind him. “And all the lights that lead us there are blinding.”
Theo turns in disbelief to Draco, who has risen from the grass and is now walking towards him. Serenading him, for Salazar’s sake. “There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how.”
Theo is in absolute awe. How does Draco know this song? How is this even possible? He’s been so dismissive every time Theo tries to tell him about the music he’s fallen in love with. How did his friend learn these words that he’s currently singing?
Draco grasps Theo’s left hand, his fingers long and gentle on his skin. He pulls Theo into the warmth of his body, as intimate as dance partners, as close as a whisper. Draco’s eyes are a light, misty grey and they gleam mischievously in the dark as he raises their clasped hands to shoulder height, and grips Theo’s waist tightly with his other hand. There’s a soft smile playing across his lips as he sings out Theo’s favorite verse and begins to sway their bodies gently.
“Because maybee… you're gonna be the one that saves mee… and after alllll… you’re my wonderwa-all.”
Draco takes a breath, and there’s a weighty silence as they stare at each other. Theo looks at his friend as if they’re meeting for the first time. There are so many emotions spilling out of him - love, fondness, bewilderment, arousal. He’s never felt so confused in his life. Draco’s still holding his hand.
He clears his throat, and the moment ends. Draco releases his grip and Theo stuffs his palms into his pockets. But he can feel Draco’s touch lingering there, a ghost of a caress across his knuckles.
They’re still staring at each other. “How…” Theo stutters, the words feeling like a jumbled, sticky mess in his throat. “How on earth do you know the words to that song?”
Draco simply smirks at him.
~
The Scotland of memory fell away in a rush, supplanted with the Scotland of present. Hermione glanced around. The grass was kept shorter now, but the shrubs were more bushy and filled in around the edge of the racecourse. The row of white houses across the field were a new addition sometime in the last fourteen years.
She looked next at Theo, finding tears coursing down his face. He brushed them away quickly with the back of his hand.
“It’s okay to cry,” she told him gently, laying a hand on his forearm. Her brows furrowed as she considered the memories Theo had offered her so far. “This was the same summer as the first memory you showed me, wasn’t it? The one where Draco came to take care of you after your father beat you?”
He nodded, eyes glistening. “Coincidentally, that happened to be the aftermath of this little…adventure.”
She gripped his arm and squeezed gently. His skin was cold beneath her fingers. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “I’m alright.”
She wanted so badly to fold him into her arms. Whether it was some latent yet innate maternal instinct, or some deeper-seeded desire, she wasn’t quite certain, but she realized that she was beginning to feel things for Theo that she hadn’t felt for anyone besides Gwenny in a very long time.
Above everything else, the notion that she cared for him felt like being doused in ice water. When she had met him in the pub three months ago, and received his horrifying request, she had felt such hatred, such loathing. His request of her to bring Malfoy back from the dead had been physically repulsive to her.
How had those emotions been flipped on their heads so entirely? Now, she wanted nothing more than to mend his broken heart.
It was his memories, she tried to tell herself, that had brought about this change. Not the memories of Malfoy, necessarily, but of Theo’s terrible past. The death of his mother, mere feet from where he waited for her in the hall. The abuse of his father, and the physical and emotional scars that he bore because of it.
His years at Hogwarts, as a bright child sticking to the shadows, afraid to draw attention to himself but thankful for the friendships he managed to make, and the safe reprieve that the school year offered him.
She looked at him now, at the tears caught in his long, thick lashes, at the grief written in every crease and furrow of his face, and pressed her palm to his cheek. He leaned into her touch, eyes fluttering closed, and gave a deep and shuddering sigh.
“Let’s go home,” she told him.
The Apparition back to Wiltshire was just as horrible as the reverse had been, but Hermione pulled herself together and reheated some cottage pie for them while Theo nursed a cup of tea at the table. When she tried to send him off to bed, he stubbornly refused. “You said you needed memories,” he told her. “More than one. Let me show you.”
So after they were warmed, from the fire and the tea and the cottage pie, she sat with him in the window nook - his favorite spot, he had declared, and she couldn’t blame him, since it was hers as well - and reviewed more memories of the past.
She watched Malfoy and Theo exchange introsuctions upon their very first meeting as children, and their first ‘I love you’ for the very first time as young men. She observed them as boys sitting in the woods behind Malfoy Manor, backs braced against oak trees draped in moss, listening to warblers and chiffchaffs as the birds hopped in the branches overhead, a look of pure delight on Malfoy’s face.
She watched Malfoy’s eyes light up with glee as the Sorting Hat bellowed “Slytherin!” after barely touching his head. Perhaps her favorite memory was watching Malfoy read poetry to Theo when he was feverish and sick in bed, in their cozy Hogsmeade flat they had shared fogether before Malfoy was murdered. The blond wizard had a voice for poetry, deep and plummy and posh, that helped the words roll off his tongue like honey.
When the clock had crossed several hours into the next day, Hermione and Theo finally returned to their present selves, nestled in the nook. The pot of tea was half-drunk and cold. The fire was reduced to embers, and Gwenny was sound asleep in front of the hearth.
Hermione stood and stifled a yawn, stretching her arms high above her head. Her body was stiff and sore, and it yearned for her bed. Theo placed the tea pot in the sink while she stoked the fire, and then they trudged up the stairs together.
It had been odd, at first, having Theo sleep in such close proximity to her. But after Hermione felt he had suffered enough, she had finally agreed to let him sleep in an actual bed rather than the very stiff settee with the very scratchy ‘twat’ pillow, and he had moved in to the spare bedroom across the upstairs hall from hers.
They paused, now, before their respective doors, and whatever was between them stretched like a spiderweb in the chasm - simultaneously delicate and strong, hard to see at times but persisting, all the same.
His hair was tousled from apparition, his eyes smudged dark with fatigue. There was a rogue blade of grass from the racecourse sitting below the slope of his shoulder, and she plucked it off with her fingertips. He watched her steadily, his gaze tracing a path from her hand at his collarbone, to her lips, to her eyes.
“Do you have what you need?” he asked quietly. “To begin the process?”
“I do. And tomorrow, I’ll give you your first mark from my list.”
“Goodnight, Hermione.”
“Goodnight, Theo.”
The doors swept shut between them.
Notes:
A nice, meaty memory of Draco being sweet! I hope you love it.
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter 10: Cuckoo
Chapter Text
"Смерть не отложишь"
A common Russian phrase, translated as “Death cannot be postponed.”
~
Theo was sipping an espresso in a little cafe tucked off the town square of Courmeyeur, a small and quaint resort town in the French Alps. The cafe had a cacophonous wall of cuckoo clocks that were all set to different times, and there was constant chatter from their mechanisms as birds popped out from behind their little doors, or milkmaids and townsfolk spun around the clock faces. Out the window beside his table, through panes drifting with snow, a few intrepid townspeople strode across the square through the current snowstorm that had settled into the valley. The midday sun struggled, hopelessly, to break through the thick cloud cover.
It was going to be a bad storm, the hotelier had told him in broken and thickly-accented English when Theo had stopped by the front desk after dinner the night before. He was told it might be days before the snow would let up.
Perfect. That was exactly what Theo had been banking on.
He was not surprised when Hermione had given him her first mark. He had known, as soon as he saw her memory, that Antonin Dolohov had been the Death Eater that orchestrated her parents’ murder. The wizard had been one of Voldemort’s most loyal henchmen, always willing to prove himself, and always eager for blood.
Dolohov was also a creative sort of sadistic bastard, which is why Theo had had little doubt after seeing the cruelty and hatred that radiated from every aspect of the Melbourne murder scene.
Theo had been casing the man for two weeks. Though the Russian had scampered away into the shadows after the Battle of Hogwarts, like the fucking coward he was, he had slowly become complacent over the last decade, turning sloppy and lazy.
The dark wizard had been living in Courmeyeur for a number of years, and it hadn’t been hard for Theo, using what resources he had in the underbelly of the wizarding world, to find him hiding there. He seemed to have stopped covering his tracks after so much time abroad. Most likely, he felt no one was looking for him after all these years.
Theo glanced outside again. The snow was currently drifting in lazy swaths down from the sky, but the dark, heavy clouds promised a ferocious storm.
The bell tinkled over the door and Theo’s eyes returned to the front of the cafe. A tall, broad man, cloaked in a heavy wool coat lined with fur, stepped across the threshold and stomped his boots to rid them of snow. His gaze flitted around the busy restaurant before alighting on Theo, who raised a hand briefly in greeting.
As he had been planning this meeting, Theo had briefly entertained the notion of disguising himself via Polyjuice, and creating a cover and a backstory for a new persona. He had quickly dismissed the notion, however, when he remembered how flighty Dolohov was. The man might have adapted a more laissez-faire way of life while living in France, but he was still a former Death Eater with a wary comportment and a knack for self-preservation. If there had been even the slightest whiff of irregularity in their dealings, Theo knew for a fact that the man would bolt.
And he really, really didn’t want to have to chase down someone with a renewed urge to not be found.
As Dolohov approached the table, Theo felt a nervous heat build behind his ribs. He shoved the feeling away and focused on the man before him, rising to extend his hand. “Antonin.”
Dolohov’s own hand was large, calloused, and nipped with cold. It swallowed Theo’s, which, he wanted to clarify, was by no means small. “Theodore.”
They sat, and Dolohov hailed over the pretty blond Muggle waitress as Theo took a sip of his beer, a lager that was slightly warm and half-gone. “Une bière pour moi et une pour mon compagnon, s'il vous plaît,” Dolohov told her with a lecherous smile, his gaze roving greedily over the woman’s body. She gave a small nod and scurried away.
With a last, lingering glance at her arse, Dolohov turned back to the table, and the two men regarded each other for a moment. They had only met once or twice before, during war meetings that Theo had attended with his father, but he still noticed the haggard edge to the other wizard’s face, the grey chair coming in heavily at his temples and in the dark stubble lining his jaw. Life may have been quieter for Dolohov since the war, but his appearance hinted that the years had not been easy.
“I haven’t seen you since, what, 1997? You were but a mal’chik,” Dolohov said, his accent gravelly and harsh as it grated against Theo’s nerves. The Russian sat back and fixed him with an appraising glance. “I heard you killed your father.”
So they would be getting right to the point, then. Theo should have known. Niceties and chit-chat were never a concern for those who dispensed evil as easily as they breathed. Idle talk took up time best left for doling out violence and death.
“I did, in fact, kill my arsehole of a father,” Theo confirmed, taking another sip of beer before leaning back in his chair, arms crossed. A muscle feathered in Dolov’s jaw as he processed this confirmation.
“Familial troubles?”
“In a sense,” Theo agreed, opting for a half-truth. “He spent my entire life brutalizing me while telling me I wasn’t good enough, strong enough. I finally decided to prove to him just how good and strong I actually was.”
A broad smile spread over Dolohov’s face, as sharp as a knife blade. “Y malen'kogo volka yest' zuby.” 1
Theo hadn’t brushed up on his Russian recently, but he was certain the words were a compliment. Or more likely, a rather twisted term of endearment. He raised his glass to the Russian and drained the last of it.
What Dolohov didn’t need to know was that Nott Sr had died because he had threatened to end Draco’s life, Theo would die himself before he let anything happen to Draco. The old man had already ripped away one important person from Theo’s life, and he refused to let him claim another. In true Thaddeus Nott fashion, the man had been sure to tell his son that he would never be good enough, even as the life seeped from his body.
Theo never regretted the blood on his hands. His father had been a monster and the world was a better place without him in it.
“You must want to know why I’m here,” Theo said, as the waitress delivered their beers and hurried away from the table. Dolohov watched the sway of her hips for a moment before returning his gaze to Theo, a sadistic gleam in his eyes.
The man was despicable.
“I am indeed curious why little Theodore Nott has come to me after all these years,” he said, settling back in his chair and taking a large draw of beer. The foam of it clung to his upper lip, quivering under his nostrils. Theo wanted to slap it from his face. “I’m really quite surprised that you found me.”
Theo desired nothing more than to tell him that it had, in fact, been exceedingly easy to find him and just Avada him right on the spot, Muggles be damned. But that wasn’t what Hermione wanted.
And he could - would - be patient… for her. His need to carry out her dispatch exactly as she had requested was far more potent than the impulse to be over and done with this sick excuse for a wizard.
“You were hard to track down, Antonin. I’ve been searching for well over a year.” Lies. “I never would have found you if I hadn’t run into one of your compatriots while in Knockturn last month.” More lies. If Theo had a Galleon for anyone who could point him in the way of Dolohov, he would be even richer than he already was.
However, this was where the bluffing began. Theo was banking that there was indeed still a group of Voldemort’s followers waiting in the shadows of the Wizarding world, and that Dolohov was, somehow, involved in their actions.
His shot in the dark found the truth, apparently. Dolohov leaned in closer, his chest knocking his beer glass and sloshing lager across the table. “Who did you speak with?”
Shite. Theo’s mind fumbled for a generic name, the nerves in his stomach clawing at his throat as his pulse quickened.
And then, there it was - an answer, provided by none other than Dolohov himself.
“It was Lionel, wasn’t it?” the dark wizard whispered.
Salazar, the man really had gotten sloppy.
“That’s exactly who it was,” Theo nodded amiably, drawing the new beer towards him. “Lionel told me I could find you here in Courmeyeur.”
Dolohov settled back into his seat, his eyes searching Theo’s face for… something. Apparently seeing what he needed, he cracked a smile. “So now, you’ve found me,” he said, arms stretching wide. “And it must beg the question… what exactly do you want from me?”
The cuckoos sounded on the wall. The storm blustered outside. Theo smiled.
“I’d like for you to hear the proposition I have for you. I believe you might be interested in the…funding… I can offer. You see, the Nott family vaults are still quite full, and though my father and I did not see eye to eye on some things, I have always felt the need to carry on the family…legacy.”
Despite his calm exterior, his stomach pitched at the words. The Nott men carried no other legacy on their backs than a penchant for violence and a birthright of mental instability. Theo would surely be no different, once the stars aligned to determine his fate.
Across the table, Dolohov continued to study him, a finger brushing thoughtfully over his lower lip. Finally, he raised his glass, a cruel grin spreading across his face. “I’m thoroughly intrigued,” he said. “Shall we discuss specifics in a less public place? My house is not far from here.”
Theo nodded, having received just the opening he had been hoping for. “Shall we plan for this evening?”
Dolohov’s steely eyes glinted hungrily. “To friends amongst killers, then. Tost za druzey sredi ubiyts.” 2
The man’s naiveté was positively adorable. Theo’s glass met his in a merry clink.
“Indeed.”
~
Dolohov had eagerly given Theo explicit directions to his remote little house - more of a shack, really - perched well up the valley away from the rest of town. The instructions had been unnecessary, of course, since Theo had located the place two days before, and subsequently discovered it to be surrounded by a sturdy set of enveloping wards that required either a level of ward-breaking beyond Theo’s capabilities, or an invitation to the premises.
What luck that Theo had received the latter without even having to press too hard.
It had only been a few hours since the two men had parted ways outside the cafe, but Theo had gone back to his room to retrieve his daggers and mull over how, exactly, he was to best kill Dolohov to maximize suffering. He could have sworn he felt the Nott signet ring pulsing excitedly on his finger as he ran through his options. Nothing but a matter of nerves and a rapid heartbeat, Theo was certain. His pulse seemed so high and so loud that he was sure it could be heard all the way in Chamonix, on the other side of the mountains.
Now, Theo was fighting through snowdrifts, having Apparated as far as he could before completing the journey to the edge of the wards on foot. The debilitating snowstorm that was promised had finally begun to descend upon the valley, and the wind buffeted him in ferocious gusts, the snow stinging his skin as his legs struggled to fight through the drifts.
As he stumbled through a particularly deep spot, cursing Merlin and Salazar and all the old gods he could remember, he managed to run smack into Dolohov’s wards. His nose plowed heavily into what felt like a sturdy glass window and he reared back in pain, his hand flying to his face . The slightly-opaque ward boundary undulated in front of him, like the bottom of a lake viewed through clear water, as a trickle of something warm ran out of his left nostril past his palm, and a dribble of crimson spattered the snow near his feet.
A bloody nose. Wonderful.
As Theo swiped his cloak across his face, staunching the flow, the wards suddenly shimmered and spider-webbed before his face, before dissolving into the ether. A dark figure of a man stood in the bright doorway of the house up ahead, arm raised in greeting. Theo trudged on through the blinding snow.
The shack that Dolohov ushered him into was sparse and plain. The walls, ceilings, and floors were all raw pine boards, giving the impression that one had simply waltzed directly into a wooden box. The space smelled of woodsmoke, and pine boughs, but beneath these otherwise pleasing scents there was something deeper - like spoiled milk or rotting meat. Theo struggled to keep from wrinkling his nose in disgust.
There was a small potbellied woodstove near the door, a simple kitchen of a few cabinets surrounding a small oven, and a mattress covered in a feather duvet sat on the floor in the far back corner. The air felt heavy with the thick, cloying residue of dark magic. Theo’s heart thrummed wildly in his chest as his body prepared for battle.
Instead, a glass of tawny liquor was immediately pressed into his hands as Dolohov’s leer filled his vision. “Let us toast,” Dolohov said, “to new generations, ushering in new beginnings. To the Dark Lord, may he rise again.” He lifted his glass. “Novyye nachinaniya!” 3
As the wizard tipped his head back to swallow the drink, Theo deftly pulled his wand from beneath his cloak and hit him immediately with a Petrificus Totalis. The glass halfway to his mouth, Dolohov’s entire body stiffened, and he fell heavily onto the planks of the floor with a crack. The tumbler of liquor shattered next to him, the liquid soaking darkly into the floor.
“Not the biggest fan of new beginnings,” Theo said, grinning at the Death Eater now staring up at him in a state of frozen shock. “Endings, though…I’ll toast to endings. Especially yours.”
When the Russian was finally bound to a chair, and the Petrificus was released, Theo expected some sort of screaming, or cursing. Or was it too much to ask for a little pleading? But Dolohov, eyes dark and angry, was infuriatingly quiet as he sagged heavily against his bonds.
Theo leaned on the kitchen countertop and twirled his wand lazily through his fingers. He really would have liked a little pleading.
“Any last words?”
The set to Dolohov’s jaw was as sharp as the daggers currently hidden beneath Theo’s black cashmere jumper. He gazed up at Theo through heavy brows, the malice in his eyes inescapable. “I take it the Ministry sent you, young Theodore?” he seethed, spittle flecking his lips as they raised in a sneer.
Theo barked a laugh. “Far from it, Antonin. The farthest from it, if we’re talking specifics.”
A few deep lines appeared between Dolohov’s brows as he processed what he was being told. “The Dark Order wants me dead? Impossible. I am nothing but a faithful servant for them.”
Theo half-considered pressing the man for specifics, as he obviously seemed willing to talk. If anything, he could certainly be made more willing than he already was. But Theo wasn’t here for conversation, and Hermione had sent him to kill the fucker, not have a nice little chat.
“Actually, I’m here at the behest of a friend of yours,” Theo said as he sheathed his wand at his thigh. “Hermione Granger. She sends her regards.”
Dolohov’s face blanched white as his eyes grew as big as saucers, though he didn’t say a word.
Theo reached beneath his jumper to remove a dagger from the bandolier that sat snugly across his chest, and tested it by pressing the tip to his mouth, feigning thoughtful concentration as he studied his quarry. The sharp blade drew blood instantly, splitting open his skin with astonishing ease. His tongue darted out to smear the crimson bead across his lower lip, the coppery tang of it greeting him like an old friend.
“Ooh,” he said, a dangerous smirk reaching his lips as his eyes flicked up and down the bound man in front of him, now shifting nervously against his restraints. “Pointy.”
Dolohov attempted feigned ignorance. “What could Hermione Granger want with me?” he scoffed. “I heard she was dead.”
Theo shrugged and flipped the dagger experimentally in his palm. The blade glinted eagerly in the dim yellow light of the shack. “I don’t know, Antonin. What on earth could silly little Hermione Granger - who’s definitely alive, by the way - possibly want with a man who cursed her, killed her friends, and murdered her parents?”
He shot Dolohov a wolfish grin before he had the time to respond. “Think fast, my friend.”
With a flick of his wrist, the dagger whizzed past Dolohov’s head and he howled in pain, the chair groaning against the sticking charm Theo had placed on it as the Death Eater thrashed, fighting against his restraints. Bright red blood spurted from the place where his ear had been. Theo’s signet ring warmed against the skin of his finger, pulsing steadily, sending waves of euphoria flooding through his limbs.
“Tsk tsk, Antonin,” Theo admonished the man, drawing two more daggers from beneath his shirt. “I really did hope you would have an answer for me. Am I being too much of a distraction? What a pity. I thought the Dark Lord brutalized his followers in order to prepare you specifically for instances like this. Or was that just a lie my father told me to justify beating his own flesh and blood to a pulp?”
Another flick of his wrist. Another gash - this time in Dolohov’s thigh. The man flung the only sort of curse he currently had at his disposal at Theo, roaring obscenities as he flew though Russian, French, and English. “Mudak! 4 Nique ta mère! 5 You motherfucking cunt. I’ll kill you!”
Theo placed a hand to his heart in mock horror. “Antonin! I do not care one bit what you say about me, but you’ve crossed a line when it comes to my mother.” The third dagger lodged itself in the right side of Dolohov’s chest, causing him to scream in agony. The pulsing of the ring reached a fever pitch, thrumming wildly in Theo’s bones as dark blood spilled around the blade, soaking into Dolohov’s shirt.
Two more daggers left the bandolier. Dolohov eyed them wildly, the whites of his eyes gleaming with a fear that made Theo’s own blood sing. He was glad to look into the face of the man who had brought so much suffering to Hermione, and see nothing but terror within it.
Dolohov deserved to suffer. And he deserved to die for what he had done.
Another flick - the Russian lost his other ear.
Another flick - a twin gash to the thigh wound already dripping onto the floor.
Dolohov was a steady blur of rage and agony, thrashing helplessly against the ropes. But still - no pleading. He refused to beg, to grovel for forgiveness in the face of his crimes, in the face of the suffering he had brought to the strongest, bravest woman that Theo had ever met.
That could not - would not - stand. The wizard would pay for all that he had done to Hermione.
Theo finally palmed the final dagger, the hilt perfectly balanced in his grip, the cruel blade gleaming merrily, eager for gore. He crouched down and winked at Dolohov, flipping the knife deftly from hand to hand.
“Now, I’ve asked you once and I didn’t receive an answer, so I’ll politely inquire again. Any last words, Dolohov?”
The man’s eyes were wild, his screams now quieted into incomprehensible muttering gibberish, his gaze infused with the terrifying knowledge of what he had to know was coming. “Kill me already, you pathetic bastard,” he ground out, his voice thick with loathing.
Theo held the knife to the wizard’s chin, running it along the curves of his jaw and down his throat, opening a thin, seeping seam of bright red blood in its wake.
“I’m sure you know,” he said lowly, as his knife came to rest in the hollow valley just to the side of Dolohov’s Adam’s Apple, “that there’s an artery running right here.”
The Death Eater whimpered - pure music to Theo’s ears. The signet ring throbbed joyfully.
“You hurt my friend irreparably, in so many ways," Theo murmured. “And now she’s dispatched me to end your sorry excuse for a life and fuck, I would do anything for her. Her only requirement was that I make you suffer. And Salazar, do I mean to make you suffer.”
The tip of the blade indented into the skin as Theo pressed lightly, opening the tiniest knick in the scratchy dark stubble lining Dolohov’s throat. Bright red arterial blood spurted rapidly from the wound, in time with Dolohov’s quickened heart.
“How far should I let you go,” Theo mused, sinking the dagger into the chair between Dolohov’s legs, the sharp edges delightfully close to the man’s groin, “before I patch you all up and start this lovely little business deal all over again?” He un-holstered his wand and twirled it lightly.
“How long do you think it will take you to bleed out, Antonin? I must say, I am a patient man, but the pace of your heartbeat assures me that patience won’t be necessary.”
In the end, Dolohov bled many times over before the storm broke, the pleading finally occurred, and then Theo could begin the rather dreadful process of disposing of a dead body.
Easy peasy.
Once he had gotten rid of Dolohov, and set right and Scourgified the entire shack, Theo walked back outside the wards and Apparated to his hotel, where he vanished his clothes and stepped into a brutally hot shower. The water turned pink as it coursed down his body, washing the blood from his skin as the adrenaline finally ebbed from his limbs. The signet ring finally fell dormant on his finger, the pulsing, heated energy giving way to cold, lifeless metal once more.
As he cleaned himself, dragging the slippery bar of soap across the ridges of his abdomen and the planes of his arms, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment in his actions of the evening. He had done exactly as Hermione had asked, and - as terrified as he was to admit - it had been one of the most exhilarating thrills of his life; holding someone’s life in his hands and choosing exactly how to dispense justice for their sins.
He hoped he had done her proud.
~
Hermione had finally added him to the wards, so Theo’s journey back from France landed him directly in the garden. He considered the cottage for a moment, dark and quiet in the early morning hours, bathed in the bright white glow of the full moon suspended above him.
He thought about the first time he had come here, and how it had somehow, inexplicably, felt like home. He thought about the beautiful witch, sleeping in the bedroom through the window just above him, and she too had started to feel like home.
And then, ice flooding his veins, he thought about Draco, wandering the plains of Death alone. His heart clenched painfully at the notion.
He sighed and slipped in through the back door, hanging his cloak on the hook beside it and toeing off his boots. The house was warm and silent, and smelled like dish soap and herbs. He was halfway to the stairs when the fire roared to life in the hearth next to him, and he yelped and jumped away, startled.
“Welcome back,” Hermione said from the shadows, perched on the settee with a blanket draped over her lap and Gwenny curled at her feet. The fire danced over the curves of her face, revealing dark, tired eyes and slightly parted lips.
“Merlin’s bollocks,” Theo groused, scrubbing his face with a hand. “What is it with women who enjoy scaring the daylights out of me in dark sitting rooms?”
“An assassin, afraid of the dark?” Hermione tutted. “An utter absurdity.”
He simply frowned at her, and she chuckled. “It’s done, I take it?”
He nodded. “Dolohov is dead. I told him you sent your best wishes.”
She nodded and stood, the blanket pooling on the floor. “Let me make us some tea, and you can tell me all about it.”
“You wouldn’t rather just view my memories?” Theo asked, surprised. It seemed a bit silly, for a legilimens to ask for an account when she could just view it for herself. But Hermione gave him a soft smile.
“No, I think I’d rather like it if you told me.”
Over a pot of chamomile and Hermione’s ungodly amount of unnecessary sugar, Theo recounted his mission. The charming little village, the cafe with the cuckoo clocks, Dolohov’s shack and his ultimate demise. She asked plenty of questions, particularly about the grisly bits, which left Theo feeling quite flustered.
“And you made him suffer?” she confirmed. “As much as possible?”
Theo nodded, and she beamed. “Good.” The firelight flickered across the planes of her face, casting her in a fiery orange gleam. “I’ve dreamt about him dying from the moment I found his magical signature in my parent’s house. Thank you… for avenging them.”
It dawned on Theo that he had never met a woman like Hermione. She was an impeccable melding of brains and beauty, unafraid of the deepest, darkest things while still living amongst the light.
She often shirked magical methods for everyday chores, but her command over magic was powerful and unyielding. She brewed complex potions with ease, and handled difficult spellwork like it was the most natural thing in the world. For Salazar’s sake, she had even created most of her Necromantic spells herself.
She was truly the most magnificent witch the world had ever seen, and she was sitting across the table from him, unaware of it all, stirring a heaping spoonful of sugar into a fresh cup of tea while she thanked him for murdering someone.
It didn’t matter how many times she asked him to kill for her, he realized. The vow had specified five, but he would burn down the entire world for her if it made her happy, if it lit that same delighted gleam in her eyes that he saw within them now.
It was dawn by the time they finished the pot of tea and settled into a comfortable silence. Hermione glanced out the window, where the sun was lightening the sky, bathing it in peachy undertones, illuminating the frost glistening in the trees.
“I suppose I should refresh the perimeter,” she murmured. “And then I should probably get a few hours of sleep, at least.”
“Would you like me to do the wards?” he asked. “I know I’m not as good at them as you are, but my semi-shoddy work should still get us through til evening.”
She stifled a yawn and stretched her arms over head. “Much as I appreciate the offer, I’ll do it, Theo. But thank you.”
“You’re simply a control freak,” he goaded, and she smiled at the teasing but didn’t correct him.
“Let me at least walk with you, then. I’ll keep you company,” he pressed, not yet ready to leave her orbit.
“Alright.”
The sun was much higher in the sky by the time they returned to stand once more in the garden, where Hermione pointed to a fencepost near the dormant lilac hedges.
“Phineas perched there all night after delivering your first message,” she chuckled, recounting the memory. “I almost didn’t reply to your letter.”
“You probably shouldn’t have,” Theo told her. “I’m a dodgy bloke. Prone to coercion. You should have sent little Phineas on his way.”
She tipped her head back and laughed deeply, giving Theo the opportunity to admire the creamy column of her throat. He wondered what it would feel like under his lips, or his fingers.
He wondered if Draco could feel anything like pleasure. Like lust. The notion was like plunging into an icy lake. Shame spread, ripe and angry, through his belly.
“Your silly owl wouldn’t leave,” Hermione was saying, unaware of the internal turmoil currently tearing Theo’s heart to tatters. “I tried to ignore him, gods did I ever, but he’s a persistent bugger."
Theo’s pulse roared in his ears, his body itchy with regret. The air felt dead in his lungs.
Hermione seemed to notice a shift in him, because she quieted and stepped a little closer, her gaze locked on his face.
“Theo? Are you okay?”
He thought he had perhaps never been further from the notion of ‘okay.’ The conflict warring within him was threatening to rip him apart. He yearned for Draco, needed him like the very air he breathed, missed him with every fibre of his being.
But Hermione - she was here. She was here, she was whole and alive… and she was prickly, yes, and hard-headed and opinionated. But fuck, she was incredible. And so desperately beautiful. He would happily lose himself to her, if she would allow him.
Thank goodness she disliked him. Thank goodness she barely tolerated him. He didn’t think he could bear it if she felt even slightly the way for him as he did for her.
Theo hadn’t asked for this infatuation, but it had ensnared him anyways.
He looked into those amber eyes, so warm and deep and intelligent, and felt the multitudes of what he admired about her simmering beneath his skin, like fire licking along a log as it burned in a hearth.
He was as good as lost to the burn of it. If only she’d do something, anything, to remind him that she found him abhorrent, or at the very least deeply unlikable… that she cursed the very ground he walked on, the air he breathed. If she could do that, if she could remind him that she hated him, then he could walk away from this feeling, from her, knowing it was what she wanted.
So of course he wasn’t expecting it when she took his hand, her delicate fingers wrapping around his own, and stepped close. Her scent was sweet and delicious - like Earl Grey tea and biscuits and something else rich and decadent, a scent both familiar and mysterious - and her skin was warm against him, despite the chill of the morning. He felt the front of her cloak brush his, the rasp of wool across wool sending a white-hot current cascading through his limbs.
He honed in on the curls of her hair, tucked behind the delicate shell of her ear and cascading over her shoulder, as she rose on her toes and placed a kiss to his cheek.
Her lips were so soft, so lovely. Her breath was hot against his jaw as her eyelashes fluttered against his cheekbone. The scent of freshly brewed tea tickled his nose.
The blaze beneath his skin erupted. Theo had never burned so completely, so beautifully. Not even, he hated to admit, with anyone else.
He and Draco had been eternal glowing embers - low and steady, gradual, natural.
But Hermione was like a bursting firework - exciting, sudden.
Dazzling.
“Thank you for everything,” she murmured into the hollow of his cheek. And then she pulled away, dropped his hand, and went inside.
Theo considered the lilac bushes as the fire consumed him from the inside, burrowing deeper beneath his ribs, turning his bones to ash. His lungs smoldered. His heart burned for her.
Maybe it really would have been best if he had never sent that blasted owl in the first place.
Notes:
All Russian quotes contained in this chapter are courtesy of Google Translate and have not been reviewed by a native speaker, so apologies for any errors. I also chose to use the phonetic translation rather than the Cyrillic translations.
Translations:
1. The little wolf has teeth (Russian)
2. A toast to friends among murderers (Russian)
3. New beginnings (Russian)
4. Asshole (Russian)
5. Fuck your mother (French)Psycho-assassin Theo has arrived! I hope you love him as much as I do.
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter 11: Beyond
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.”
Albus Dumbledore, Founder/Leader of The Order of the Phoenix and Hogwarts Headmaster
~
That morning, Hermione awoke with a feeling of heavy inevitability settled over her like a thick duvet. Deep in her bones, her magic hummed, eager with anticipation. Like a dormant volcano, stirring back to life. She knew what that meant
It was finally time to cross the Veil.
She wrapped herself in her quilted housecoat and padded downstairs, finding Theo and Gwenny both absent, but a pot of coffee waiting for her on the table. She poured herself a cup, doctored it just the way she liked, and then slipped into her brewing room off the kitchen. On the wall above her tiny desk, cluttered with books and parchment but organized in a system she knew well, was a calendar, filled with notations scribbled on it in her hurried script.
Her fingers traced over the boxes, settling on the current day, and the note written there.
Earliest date to make contact.
She flipped through the pages to October, and then counted back the number of days to today, the 14th of February. Her initial calculation was, of course, correct.
She would be making contact with Draco Malfoy’s spirit on St. Valentine’s Day. How utterly ironic.
When Gwenny finally paraded proudly through the door with a massive stick in her jaws, Theo on her heels with his frostbitten cloak and flushed cheeks, Hermione was setting the fried eggs and bacon she had made for him on the table. He fixed her with a heart-stopping smile that made her stomach flip wildly in her belly.
“You made me breakfast,” he observed, his tone a bit surprised as his eyes flickered between her and the plate.
She could see why he was skeptical. Hermione was loath to admit it, but she had been all too eager to transfer exclusive breakfast duties to him since he had moved into the cottage. Over the years, she had become the sort of person that subsisted off of coffee, and coffee alone, until her midday meal, which had horrified Theo to no end.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he had admonished her, the first time she had tried to refuse a plate of eggs and bacon. “You need to eat so you can power that amazing brain of yours.”
In her defence, she knew that Theo found joy in taking care of her. It was unexpected, for a man who had no one to take care of him or show him affection for much of his life, to eagerly offer comfort to others. She had come to find it utterly endearing, though she would never admit it.
Theo now sat down in front of the plate and pulled it toward him, digging in happily as she settled across the table and sipped her coffee. He had a piece of egg halfway to his mouth when his brow furrowed. “You didn’t make any food for yourself?” He had that exasperated tone she had come to know all too well.
“What did I tell you about this. You need to eat so you can–”
“I find it’s best if I don’t eat anything before crossing the Veil,” she interrupted, watching him through the steam rising off her cup as its humid warmth curled up her jaw and across her cheeks. “The journey can upset the stomach a bit.”
Theo’s fork and knife clattered to the plate, and she startled involuntarily at the sharp sound of it in the quiet house. Gwenny looked up in alarm from her spot by the fire.
“You’re crossing the Veil today?” His voice was a gravelly rasp, as if it was hard for him to expel the words from his throat.
She nodded. “I am.”
Theo lurched out of his chair, his limbs moving almost awkwardly, as if he had forgotten how to use them, and slowly walked around the table to kneel before her, his body settling heavily on the floor. It was almost as if the weight of her statement, and the implications that accompanied it, seemed too heavy for him to bear.
Gods, he was so beautiful. She had long since passed the point of caring that she thought so. His hair was tousled rakishly across his forehead from the winter wind, his blue eyes gleaming like gemstones beneath thick, dark lashes.
He reached for her, curling his hands tentatively into the crease behind her knees, his fingers brushing the sensitive skin as his broad hands grasped her calves. A shiver ran down her spine at the touch of his warm hands.
Theo looked in that moment like a groveling sinner, begging for forgiveness before his salvation. He bowed his head reverently toward her.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
It didn’t matter that the vow between them left her no option. She knew, deep in her bones, that it had long ago stopped being a matter of choice. Theo was a decent man, and he had suffered so much in his short life. He deserved her help, regardless of his own sins, or those of his lover.
The urge to lean down to him, to tilt his head up and finally feel the touch of his lips on hers, washed over her in a heady wave. Hermione instead chose to study the soft chocolate curls at the top of his head, her hand coming up to caress them gently. The soft strands slipping through her fingers like water, even silkier than she had imagined they would be. The unexpected groan that escaped his lips was low, nearly a whine, as he leaned into her hand, needy for her touch. She felt a molten, long-forgotten heat pool low in her belly.
When Theo finally looked back up at her, his eyes were darkened by bloomed pupils, the small ring of visible iris now the deep cerulean of a placid lake. His mouth was so close, so tempting.
This was a dangerous game they were playing, and they both seemed to recognize it at the same time. She sat back into her chair, widening the space between them, and he released her legs from his grip, rocking back on his heels. The gulf between them settled back into place.
Sensing the tension, Gwenny heaved herself from her spot by the fire and nudged in between them, tail wagging. She gave Theo a large slurp on the chin with her tongue, and the heavy moment dissipated, though the air in the room still felt charged with possibility, with longing.
With what could have been.
Theo dragged himself back into his chair and resumed eating his breakfast, his eyes darting constantly to Hermione’s face. She sat in her own seat and absentmindedly stroked Gwenny’s ears as she sipped her coffee.
“Is there anything I need to do for you while you’re gone?” he finally asked.
She shook her head. “If anything, it should be a very quiet time here for you today. Boring even. You might consider going out. You haven’t seen Pansy in a while, have you?”
He took his empty plate to the sink and set a cleaning spell on the various dishes before turning to look at her again, ignoring her question.
“Don’t you need a tether? Someone here in this world to anchor you, so that you can make it back?”
She inclined her head at Gwenny. “My tether.”
“A dog? You tether yourself to this world with a dog? No offence, Gwenny,” he said to the canine, who was regarding him with a look of consternation, “but that hardly seems safe.”
“It’s perfectly fine,” Hermione huffed.
“Gwenny is a wonderful worldly anchor. She’s brought me back many times before. I’m not new to this process, Theo. I know what I’m doing, and Gwenny always gets me home safe. I don’t need you to squawk over me like a mother hen.”
It was finally dawning on her, as she studied Theo’s face, that he wasn’t doubting her abilities, or Gwenny’s. The wizard was simply worried about her.
It had been a long time since someone had expressed any sort of concern for her safety. She trusted her own skills implicitly, so while it was highly unnecessary for Theo to fret, it still tugged at something deep inside of her to know that he cared enough to fuss.
To have someone worry over her felt comforting, and sweet.
But it also felt dangerous.
She spent the morning gathering what she would need for her journey and organizing it all into her small beaded bag. For the simple task of seeking Malfoy’s spirit, and beginning the process of imbuing Theo’s aggregated memories into his ghostly form, she wouldn’t actually need all that much.
The most important item, the one she packed first, was a smooth, fist-sized grey stone. As she and Theo had spent the week sifting through his memories of Malfoy, she had channelled them into the rock, which fit snugly in the palm of her hand.
It was a fragment that she had chiselled from a cleaved chunk of the most powerful henge stone at Avebury, now honed to a silky, soft exterior. It thrummed strongly with whispered, ancient magic every time she held it in her grasp, and it was the perfect conduit for storing and then distributing memories of the dead.
She also packed a bundle of asphodels and sage, sand and black beeswax candles, a canteen of water, a silver-handled dagger inset with green garnet stones, a small pouch of floo powder, and a few potions and salves in various bottles and tins.
Theo sat next to her desk in the brewing room, watching her intently as she packed. He motioned at the potions and salves with his chin. “Which ones are you bringing?”
Hermione held up a purple, bulb-shaped bottle to the light, the liquid glittery and swirling within. “This one is Draught of Living Dead.”
Theo snorted. “Planning on taking a nice little sleep beyond the Veil, are we?”
“That would be the Draught of Living Death, you dolt,” Hermione said with a heavy roll of her eyes.
“Draught of Living Dead helps me to better disguise myself amongst the wraiths if needed. Sometimes a living soul amongst the Dead can draw far too much attention.”
“And yet you wonder why I feel the need to worry over you like a mother hen,” Theo muttered, a small crease forming between his brows.
She fought the urge to bring a hand to his face… to sweep her thumb over his cheekbone, to caress his jaw with her fingers.
“Hey,” she instead said quietly, “I’m going to be alright. I promise.”
Though she had noticed it becoming more frequent, the immediate urge for her to touch - let alone comfort - him surprised her, and as soon as Theo’s eyes honed in on her mouth, she jumped back like a startled deer.
To his credit, Theo said nothing, choosing instead to clear his throat and looking pointedly at the remaining containers. “And the others?”
She pointed at the different receptacles, listing them off as she went. “The green vial is a potion I came up with, but I haven’t named yet. It creates a bit of translucency within a living person’s aura, so I can better blend in behind the Veil, if I need to. It helps me develop spirit-like tendencies, essentially, so I can interact with spirits on a physical level. Touch them, communicate with them. Otherwise, my hand slips right through. Besides that, I have a simple Blood Replenishing potion, a Pepper Up potion, a few salves for burns and wounds, and a tonic that helps repair the soul. That one is for Malfoy.”
She looked back at Theo, surprised to find a look of absolute fury darkening his face. “A blood replenishing potion, Hermione? Healing salves for injuries? You’re prepared for battle, but yet you find it so surprising that I’m worried about your safety?” His brow was furrowed deeply now, his eyes the stormy, frothy blue of wild ocean swells.
Anger quickly rushed to the surface, her skin crawling with indignant frustration. “I’m a necromancer, Theo,” she spat at him. “It’s my craft. It’s what I have trained years for. I know what I need to do, and I am bloody good at it. It’s only been me and Gwenny, always, and I don’t need someone else lording over me now, telling me what I can or cannot do.”
“Besides-” she was really hitting her stride now, the ire rushing out of her in a barely-staunched torrent, her magic crackling through her curls, “–this is all your fault anyway, you bastard. You ensnared me in this. You demanded I retrieve Malfoy. You were willing to spill my secrets to get what you wanted. So me, venturing into danger beyond the Veil to rescue a soul I am spell-bound to begrudgingly retrieve? That is all… your… fault.”
Ill-tempered magic rolled off of her in waves as she stared Theo down. How? How had she earlier been caressing his curls, losing herself in his eyes, wondering how his lips might feel on hers, thinking about how she always knew she would have helped him eventually? This maddening, maddening wizard. The absolute audacity of…
“I wish I could take it all back,” he whispered, eyes misty and pleading as he looked up at her from the chair. “I swear to you, Hermione, I really wish I could.”
“Well it’s too late for your honeyed apologies now,” she muttered as she stuffed her bag with the last of her items and slung it over her shoulder, pushing back the crumpled edges of her angry, bitter heart.
She straightened the cuffs of her jumper and tightened the laces of her boots. “We’re both in this mess together, Theo. And you’ve already begun to carry out your part of the bargain. So now it’s my turn.”
She removed her wand from her thigh holster and glanced at him one last time. He looked positively devastated, as if her words had landed like a blade to the heart.
“I can’t promise when I’ll be back,” she told him. “Don’t wait for me.”
His haunted expression was the last thing she saw as she Apparated away.
~
The grounds of Malfoy Manor were neglected and lifeless through the bars of the once-proud and imposing iron gates, which were themselves now crumbling into rusted oblivion. Hermione was tempted to push on the latch to see if the entire lot would topple over as easily as it appeared it might, but she wasn’t here for testing the extent of the wards, or for any breaking and entering. At least not in the physical world.
Her close proximity to the Manor was all she needed to make this work.
Theo had told her that the property had been abandoned for quite some time. Once Lucius had been imprisoned in Azkaban, and Malfoy had forsaken its chilly, impersonal halls for the simpler life he had found with Theo in Hogsmeade, Narcissa had given up on Manor as well. She had dismissed the house elves and jaunted off to the Continent, where she now flitted between multiple family properties scattered amongst sun-drenched landscapes in Southern Europe, taking up as many nubile, young lovers as she liked while drowning her sorrows in the finest red wine one could buy.
Hermione looked up at the imposing facade as a shiver worked its way up her spine. No one seemed to have visited the Manor for quite some time, let alone lived within it. There was a dark, decaying pall settled heavily over the entire house.
A feeling deep in her gut told her that the other side of the Veil would prove Malfoy Manor still had at least one inhabitant.
Of course, it wasn’t necessarily a sure thing that Malfoy’s spirit had chosen his childhood home to reside in. Spirits were often drawn to places that were important to them in life, but it was also possible that, in Death, Malfoy may have chosen to go to Hogwarts, or even to the Hogsmeade flat where it seemed his life might have finally, truly, become his own.
Still, Malfoy Manor seemed the logical place to start her search, and Hermione was nothing if not a logical witch.
She roamed around outside the gates a bit before selecting a small, grassy hillock only a small walk away, and then set to work. From her pack, she took a handful of sand, dispensing it evenly from her palm to create a ritual circle.
The black beeswax candles were placed around the perimeter, and lit with a snap of her fingers. She positioned the bundle of asphodels at the top of the circle, as an offering for Death, and set the sage, gently smoldering, at the bottom of the circle to warn off wayward spirits and wraiths. Her preparations complete, she stepped into the circle and sank to her knees.
A slight breeze brushed across her cheeks, causing her curls to tickle across the nape of her neck. Her left ankle, which she had broken as a child, twinged in quiet protest at her settled position. Her wool jumper itched between her shoulder blades.
She pushed all of those thoughts away to focus on the world around her.
A bird called from the woods nearby - a red-faced goldfinch, from the sound of it, chirping cheerfully. The tall grass around her whispered as it swayed in an air current. The dirt was warm underneath her, baked by the sun.
She placed her hands on the ground, fingertips flexing slightly into the soil, and flung open the door to her mind. The power of the natural world flooded her senses, eager for a place to find purchase.
She tilted her head up to the sky, taking in the cerulean blue expanse and the gossamer haze of the clouds overhead. The sun blossomed just out of sight, its searing yellow heat burning into the corners of her eyes.
Her eyelids fell closed as her self-created incantations began to flow from between her lips, a lyrical melding of Arabic, Gaelic, Latin, and Greek. After years of practice, the foreign words were as easy for her as her native tongue, filling her with familiar ease as their summoned power grew behind her breastbone, her chest nearly bursting with the might of their meaning.
When she felt filled to the brim, overflowing with the strength her spells had given her and the energy the natural world had offered, she reached deep within herself, to her magic, grabbed onto its essence, and thrust outward.
To anyone watching, Hermione would have seemed to disappear in a blazing burst of blinding light. To the Necromancer herself, it felt like nothing more than being welcomed home with open arms.
The Veil now shimmered before her with Malfoy Manor standing just past it, appearing as if it was formed of gathered wisps of smoke. Her delicate fingers prodded the gossamer barrier, searching for that one frayed thread, years of practice helping her locate it with ease.
A gentle tug sent the thread unspooling, to cluster in a glowing pool at her feet. The Manor solidified a bit more, brought closer to its original glory but still tinted with an unmistaken translucence that rippled across its surface, like the broken face of a pond.
She closed her eyes once more and looked inward, visualising her magical core, an inky blue pathway, scattered with shimmering constellations, that braided through her spine, branched into her limbs, and nestled deep into her heart.
It always reminded her of the Milky Way… a carpet of stars to guide her home across the sky. She sensed Gwenny’s steadfast essence, waiting for her, loyal and true. The connection between their souls was familiar and comforting.
The Veil now open wide for her, Hermione stepped through into the lands of Death.
~
Despite people’s varying perceptions of what actually lay beyond the Veil, it was all generally quite boring. The spirit lands were essentially a smoky mirror, reflecting the world of the living brick by brick in tones of grey. Additionally, what was solid in Life turned semi-transparent in Death, the bare bones of the object intact but hazy.
Hermione now found herself in a misty, grey-toned Wiltshire, facing the shifting threads of the Malfoy Manor built in reality. Solid stone and wrought iron became swirling smoke, the tendrils coming together in congruous orchestration to form doors, windows, eaves, and even gargoyles. A ghostly map of Life, rendered in perfect detail.
Only a few short strides took her to the edge of the iron fence. Up close, the metal bars were like ink dropped in water, dark strands swirling together in an attempt to form some semblance of reality. She passed a steady hand through the phantom fence, and the strands dispersed like water on a hot skillet, rendered wild by the distressing proximity of her living flesh.
No matter how many times she did this - bent Death to her will, made it quiver and quake beneath her skin that was so alive with blood and oxygen and sheer humanity - it was always a thrill. One she would never tire of.
Another step took her entirely through the iron fence, its brumous construct dissipating like a flame beneath her breath. She turned to slowly watch it re-form behind her, the threads pulling back together with wispy cohesiveness to heal the gaping wound her body had left in its wake.
The Manor loomed large above her, a hulking spectral facade of diaphanous stone. Hermione did not often feel nervous when beyond the Veil, but in this moment, staring up at this wretched place, adrenaline coursed through her veins like uncontrolled floodwaters.
There was a gnawing ache in the pit of her stomach as she considered the mansion and the memories it had bestowed upon her, memories which haunted her in Life more so than any wayward wraith ever could. A dull ache bloomed in her left forearm.
Giving in to her emotions would do her no good– she knew that. And she had spent too many years of her life sorting through the memories, the turmoil, the anger and pain, that this place had given her to let her internal walls crumble now.
With a quick shake of her head to dissipate the stormclouds muddling her thoughts, she approached the front doors, the shifting threads mimicking thick dark wood, iron hinges heavy with patina, and twin serpentine knockers shaped like cobras, ready to strike.
Fucking pompous Slytherins, she thought to herself with a roll of her eyes.
She stepped through the doors, slicing through like a sharp blade, and found herself in the Manor’s lavish entry. Thick Persian carpets undulated in their ghostly forms beneath her feet. A translucent grand staircase twisted like a coiled snake through the space, its oiled wood bannister dull under a gauzy haze. A massive chandelier, replete with thousands of crystals, hung above her head.
In Life, Hermione imagined it glittered like the night sky. In Death, it was lackluster and lifeless, each crystal foggy and dull.
Hermione looked around the space. She had not spent enough time here to be familiar with the layout… not while coherent, anyway. And she had certainly not been welcomed through the front door when she had visited.
She considered the halls that branched out around her, the ones to her left and right more dark and narrow, the way straight ahead opening almost immediately into a large receiving room where the Malfoys had most likely welcomed their guests arriving by either the floo or the front gates.
Theo had told her that Malfoy’s chambers had been on the second floor of the west wing, which lay to her left. She knew that was as rational a place as any to start her search, although something told her his spirit would not be as easy to find as one might expect.
Still, she turned left, her boots silently treading the flagstone floor as she advanced further into the murk of the Manor.
No matter how much time she spent beyond the Veil, the lack of ambient noise always surprised her. It was like stepping into a vacuum devoid of both color and sound. Her footsteps did not snap or echo across the stone. Instead, it felt as if her ears had been plugged with thick, fluffy cotton, so dense that she could hear nothing but her own breathing, her own pulse.
A pulse which was currently hammering loudly through her veins like a rapid and insistent drum beat.
In the middle of the hall, she passed a set of ornate double doors, fine metal filigree crawling like ivy across their faces. The hint of a sumptuous room behind their translucence, furniture and art cloaked in shifting tones of grey.
A memory sparked deep within her, deep in the back of her mind.
No. She refused to let herself go there now. She refused to revisit that night.
Despite her brain’s protestations, her body betrayed her, drawn to the entryway like the tides to the moon. An inescapable tug of gravity, calling her back to the past - the spill of her blood beckoning her, even in Death.
With a deep breath, she closed her eyes and stepped through the smoky doors of the drawing room.
Notes:
Hermione has crossed the Veil! I hope everyone is ready for our favorite blonde to finally make an appearance :)
If you'd like, feel free to follow me on IG @magusmonoceros where I love to hype my fandom friends, post teasers for TNGTN and my other works, and always have the time for a nice yap!
Chapter 12: Found
Chapter Text
“The Cruciatus Curse, designated as an Unforgivable Curse in 1717, is perhaps the most abhorrent of the Unforgivables. It inflicts a horrific and excruciating pain that recipients have characterised as feelings of burning, searing, stabbing, and flaying. Nerve damage is a common side effect. Extended exposure to the Cruciatus Curse can cause complete and utter insanity with no hope of recovery.”
A passage on Unforgivable Curses from Studies of Advanced Spellwork, authored by Belinda Mattox, 1902
~
Hermione briefly considers, when Bellatrix breaks the Cruciatus curse for a moment and her boiling blood begins to cool, her joints settling back into place, that she never imagined Death would feel like this.
Always an incredibly serious child, the concept of dying had never been an enigma to Hermione. Even before her world descended into war, even before despair and anguish wrapped their arms around her like old friends, she had pondered Death considerably.
How it would find her.
How it would feel.
She has sometimes seen for herself a peaceful drifting off, in her bed, old and wizened with a full life, well-lived and well-loved. The ideal, of course.
Sometimes, she has imagined drowning - the liquid in her lungs, the denial of breath, the panic before the darkness as she sunk into the abyss.
Or a fall from a tall height, the terror warring with the miraculous fear of weightlessness, of flying.
When she learned she was a witch, and came to know of such magical options, she had considered an Avada to the chest - blinding pain, consuming green light, and then nothing at all.
But the Cruciatus that Bellatrix has used to wring the life from her bones is an unending cacophony of suffering. It does not bring Death outright. But it does make her wish for it.
Her blood simmers. Her nerves scream. Her joints pop and her bones warp and her muscles clench, and Hermione finds herself begging for any sort of sign that might tell her Death is close.
When Bellatrix is finally done with her, Hermione is nothing but a shell, brittle and empty. She does not feel the Death Eater straddle her torso and carve that slur into her arm. She is too weak, too broken.
Death has not found her, though Hermione yearns for him.
The only thing she does feel, there in the dark depths of herself, after Bellatrix has left her, is a cool caress of her mind, like a silk scarf fluttering on a breeze. It flits behind her eyelids, spreads across her scalp, and nestles between her ears, feeling as soothing as the cold compresses her mother used to place on her feverish forehead.
“It’s okay,” a voice tells her, far-off and faceless. “You’re going to be okay, Hermione.”
Death has such a comforting voice, Hermione thinks.
The next thing she remembers, she is in Shell Cottage, sweaty and aching and alive.
Death has not taken her yet.
A pity.
~
Hermione stood motionless, staring at the spot on the floor of the Malfoy Manor drawing room where she had felt her life leech from her bones, Bellatrix taking and taking from her until there was nothing left to give.
She had spent over a decade, working hard since that day, to build herself back from the brink. The memories lay nearly forgotten in the deepest recesses of her mind, neatly contained and managed on her least favorite bookshelf. And she had made so much progress.
Her hands barely tremored anymore. Her nerves rarely burned. It had been years since she awoke in a cold sweat, her heartbeat ragged in her throat, the feeling of her flesh being flayed from her bones haunting her with ruthless persistence.
In some ways, she now felt angry at herself for giving this place - even if only a ghostly twin - such a twisted power over her.
But it was here, on the floor of the Manor’s drawing room, that she had learned how truly precious life was. Bellatrix had made sure to teach her that, when she tortured Hermione to the very edge of reason and sanity, holding the fate of her soul entirely in the palm of a hand.
Her mother used to tuck her in at night and tell her stories of powerful women, princesses and pirates, inventors and heads of state. “You’re in charge of your own destiny, Hermit Crab,” her mother would tell her with a kiss to her forehead, and one to her nose. “You make the rules.”
Hermione sometimes thought that her mother’s words, though pretty, were entirely empty.
The rules were never hers to craft. Her destiny had been shaped not by herself, but by the hands of others.
She wasn’t sure exactly what she expected to see when she looked down upon the spot where she had lain and screamed and bled. A dark stain upon the wood, perhaps, or maybe a phantom of herself, writhing on the floor in perpetual agony. But only a thick Persian carpet shimmered hazily before her eyes, unmarred and unblemished. She took one last look around the room, glad to find neither the ghost of herself nor Draco Malfoy, before stepping back into the hall.
On her way to Malfoy’s room, she investigated every nook and cranny along the way, but the endless rooms and alcoves offered nothing. The portraits, still filled with hateful Pureblood visages, muttered at her menacingly as she proceeded through the house. Marble busts, balanced on pedestals, stared at her vacantly. She paused at one she recognized.
Narcissa Malfoy.
Marble was the perfect medium for Narcissa, Hermione mused. The perception of softness, yet utterly cold and unyielding. Even in stone, her face was drawn, mouth pinched as if she’d just tasted a lemon. Her eyes, inset with topaz, glittered icily out at the world. “You were never in charge of your own destiny either, were you?” Hermione murmured to the statue. It stared back at her, unblinking.
The vastness of the Manor meant that it took her at least an hour to search the west wing and find Draco’s room. Though the door looked entirely the same as all the others, she knew without a doubt that this one was the one she had been searching for. A whiff of peppermint curled out through the cracks, the familiar smell of it tickling her nose.
It smelled exactly like the tea Ron used to make when either of them was ill. “Mum says peppermint is good for an upset stomach,” Ron would tell her as he shoved a cup of it in her hands. He hadn’t always been good at taking care of her in other ways, but he had always made her peppermint tea when she was sick.
Hermione pushed away this new round of uninvited memories and stepped through the door before her. The room that had been hinted at through the gossamer exoskeleton gave way to a heavy mahogany four-poster bed, a matching chest of drawers and desk, a wingback chair by the massive stone fireplace, and a wall of bookcases.
There was no Malfoy anywhere to be seen.
“Of course not,” Hermione muttered to herself. “That would simply be too easy.”
She checked the sumptuous en suite, finding nothing but a deep soaking tub and pristine countertops. She returned to the bedroom, giving one last glance around, and fell to her knees to check under the bed.
She didn’t find Malfoy, of course. But she did find something interesting.
Far under the depths of the bed, flat on her belly beneath the bed frame, she studied the spine of the hidden book, pushed flat against the baseboards in the shadowy murk.
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. A twin to the copy on the bookshelf of her cottage.
Extracting herself from beneath the bed with a frown, she brushed off her hands and knees and set off to search the remainder of the Manor.
~
The rest of Hermione’s search of the sprawling house was as unfruitful as it could possibly be. She was startled on several occasions by a few wandering Malfoy ancestral ghosts, but they were long-dead and mindless, their spirits simply traipsing the common landscape that they had inhabited in life.
It was a relief, their peacefulness. Besides the fact that the Manor had played host to a large contingent of Death Eaters and Voldemort himself, the Malfoys were such a proud and arrogant family that Hermione had been certain there would be a few troublesome wraiths lurking around.
Wraiths were desperate, violent souls that refused to go willingly to Death, instead fighting its clutches with everything they had left to give until they were nothing more than a rabid, empty shell. They were rare, but they were a problem, and they were highly capable of doing damage to a living soul. Hermione was eager to avoid them at all costs.
She did admittedly get lost for a time in the Manor library, wending through the stacks, itching to touch the ghostly tomes with her mortal fingers. She passed every single Wizarding title she could ever imagine, common and rare alike, nestled within the shelves, including the most extensive collection of titles regarding the Goblin Wars of 1765 she had ever seen. The presence of the books caused a small little whine to slip from her throat before she could stop it.
It physically pained Hermione to know that this collection of books existed in Life, just beneath the shimmering ghost world of the Veil, its glorious bounty of knowledge entirely inaccessible to her. She moved on.
Hermione spent very little time in Lucius and Narcissa’s bedroom, certain that she could feel the accusing brand of their haughty gaze upon her skin. Lucius was still imprisoned, and Narcissa wasn’t dead, as far as Hermione was aware, but she felt the need to clarify her motives for being in their personal quarters anyway.
“I’m not rifling through your knicker drawers,” she announced to the empty space. “I’m only looking for the ghost of your precious son.”
Hermione figured it didn’t hurt to clarify her motives. If anyone could transcend the planes of both Life and Death to harass Hermione beyond the Veil, it would be Narcissa Malfoy.
“Any idea where he might be?” she queried into the dark and cavernous bedroom. She was, of course, met with nothing but silence. She continued her search.
The kitchen was filled with gleaming pots, the empty sitting rooms filled with elegantly upholstered furniture, the spare bedrooms ready and waiting for ghostly visitors.
The ballroom was nothing but shiny wood floors, and Hermione had the delightful urge to slide across its slippery surface in her socks. She wondered if Malfoy had ever done that as a child… or as an adult.
She wondered why she was wondering about Malfoy sliding around in his socks. She moved on once more, stepping outside the walls of the Manor to search the grounds.
Though it may have been February in Life, the gardens were bursting with ghostly grey blooms in Death - delphinium, foxglove, hollyhocks, peonies, and a multitude of flowers Hermione couldn’t even identify. Narcissa’s gardens were a true masterpiece.
Then there was an entire acre or so devoted entirely to roses, with a crushed white gravel path weaving a serpentine trail through the thorny bushes. Though the colors and scents were lost to the bland desaturation of Death, Hermione swore she could still catch a whiff of sweetness here and there.
The hedge maze was empty, as she knew it would be. Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. She was mortified to admit that at one point, while slightly disoriented in the maze, a ghostly white peacock had slipped through the hedge and scared the absolute Dickens out of her.
Hermione returned to the terrace overlooking the gardens, hands on her hips, and surveyed the grounds that she had picked through every part of, before casting a Tempus and swearing heavily beneath her breath. She had spent nearly six hours searching this godsforsaken property, and she still hadn’t found Malfoy.
She plucked the blood replenishing potion from her beaded bag and unstoppered it before tipping the contents into her mouth. She grimaced at the coppery tang and washed it down with some water from her canteen. She was feeling alright, but she knew the lethargy and headache would come eventually. Better to try and stay one step ahead.
Hermione hadn’t been entirely truthful with Theo when he had questioned her need for the potions she was bringing. The reality was that staying too long beyond the Veil was hell on a mortal body, and her blood eventually started to turn sludgy and slow at around the seven-hour mark. The potion could extend her window of time for a few hours, but nothing more.
Her heart gave a tiny skip as she thought about chocolate brown curls and sapphire eyes, and a heavy guilt nestled deep in her chest for the way in which she had lied to him. He had only been worried about her welfare, and frankly, it was confusing to have someone fret over her again.
She sighed and stowed the canteen and the empty vial away, next retrieving a folded parchment containing several addresses written in Theo’s loopy script.
While he had been certain that Malfoy would be at the Manor, Theo had offered a short list of alternate places in the off chance his lover’s spirit wasn’t residing in his ancestral home. The remaining locations were nothing more than a few international family properties, Hogwarts, and the Hogsmeade flat they had shared together.
Hermione considered her options. Hogwarts seemed quite a stretch, though she was sure Malfoy would certainly have many happy memories of terrifying fellow students and practically ruling the school under Umbridge’s tenure.
Any one of the family properties also seemed unlikely - there were so many of them that she doubted he would equate any number of good memories to one specific spot.
Her thumbnail indented the parchment next to the address of the flat that Malfoy and Theo had shared together.
15 ½ Laurel Lane, Unit B, Hogsmeade. That would be her next stop.
Travel beyond the Veil was more simple than in Life, as it didn’t necessarily hold one’s body, even mortal, to the same physical or logical rules of existence. Despite not being able to touch anything, floos were still useful to her if she used her own floo powder. Wards, a construct and hindrance of Life alone, were absent in Death, which meant that she could travel anywhere she wanted to with far more ease.
In some ways, Hermione felt as if it was simply one of the many ironies to be found beyond the Veil - the ability to travel freely in an inescapable reality. The illusion of autonomy within the shackles of Death.
Hermione strode through the doors to the Manor and into the main hall, hoping she could find her way back to the floo hearth in an expedient manner, and was in the middle of retrieving the pouch of powder from her beaded bag when a frigid chill washed over her entire body. She looked up with a start, the pouch falling forgotten to the floor, to find herself completely engulfed in within the ambling ghostly form of who she could imagine to be Abraxas Malfoy.
Of course, the aquiline nose, stern face, and long platinum locks could have belonged to any one of a number of Malfoy men, but she had been heavily chastised by the portrait of the ghost’s twin not even two hours prior as she roamed the east wing, and the portrait had borne Abraxas’s name.
His specter had the vacant, lifeless eyes of a typical wandering spirit, and he was dressed in a shimmering, colorless set of vintage robes that brimmed with lace at the collar and cuffs. His white-blond hair, falling down his spine, was sleek and tidily secured at the nape of his neck with a simple silk ribbon, and his back was ramrod straight as he walked away from her down the hall.
Hermione had to hold back a chuckle at the fact that even in Death, the comportment of a Malfoy man was that of a wizard with a stick shoved straight up his arse.
Retrieving her floo powder from the floor, Hermione set off once more down the hallway and, after a few wrong turns, managed to find the correct sitting room with the correct fireplace. She cast the powder and watched the desaturated flames twist up into the yawning hearth before stepping into them.
“Fifteen and one-half Laurel Lane, Unit B,” she enunciated clearly as the ghostly flames licked around her body. “Hogsmeade.”
~
The flat that Hermione arrived in was neat and tidy, its modest rooms cast in various shades of greys. She could tell that someone else had moved in since Malfoy had died and Theo had moved out, because the rippling surroundings would thin intermittently and turn extremely transparent, giving Hermione glimpses of how the flat currently appeared in Life - clutter left on many of the surfaces, a forgotten coffee mug on the side table, a child’s wellies cast off by the door.
She stepped out into the sitting room, her eyes skimming across a few pieces of antique furniture, a velvet sofa, and a patterned rug. The furniture layout would have no doubt been slightly different while Theo and Malfoy had inhabited the space, and she tried to imagine how it might have looked.
Theo had given her several memories from the years he lived in the flat, so Hermione had some semblance of what it had looked like.
She knew that the sofa had been a deep emerald velvet, and Malfoy had loved to lounge on it with a tumbler of whiskey while listening to Muggle opera arias.
She knew that the window in the kitchen nook spilled warm, buttery light across the table while they ate crumbly croissants dipped in hot coffee on Sunday mornings and Malfoy read the weekend pages of the Prophet aloud to Theo, who whinged when he reached the financial section and begged for the gossip column instead.
She knew that the walls were thin enough to hear the neighbors, and the cabinet above the cooktop had a squeaky hinge, and the floorboards in the bedroom protested when stepped upon.
It was odd, to be so familiar with a place she had never visited in person, a place which didn’t even exist anymore as she had seen it in the memories of another.
Hermione pictured Theo standing in the flat’s kitchen, cooking bacon somewhere other than her cottage, where it now felt so natural to find him making breakfast. Or Theo spread out on a settee other than hers, thumbing through a book or chattering away amicably as Malfoy poured them glasses of wine.
Or Theo walking in the door, no Gwenny by his side, coming home to Malfoy instead of to her.
Something bitter and acrid settled deep within her gut. It felt an awful lot like jealousy. She pushed it aside, and continued her search.
Hermione saved the bedroom for last, but as she pushed open the door and saw the glowing specter hunched in the corner behind the bed, she realized she never should have looked anywhere else for Malfoy.
Theo had always been his home, more so than anywhere else. Theo had always been his happy memories. Of course Malfoy had returned to the place they had shared together so intimately.
She slipped her beaded bag off her shoulder and knelt before the ghost. His lean frame was curled into a tight little ball, his spine to the wall, his knees pulled to his face and his arms hugged tightly around his legs. A lock of hair fell over his eyes. He was incredibly skinny and gaunt.
He didn’t look anything like the bully she remembered.
He looked small. Forlorn. Helpless.
The unbidden pang of pity she felt for him washed over her like a rogue ocean wave, its unexpected strength catching her unawares.
“Malfoy? Can you hear me?”
She knew he couldn’t, of course, but it was hard to fight the human urge to ask. She opened her bag and pulled out the green vial she had shown to Theo, as well as an amber potion bottle containing the soul-repairing potion that she needed to administer to Malfoy each time she visited.
His eyes were closed, his chin nestled against his knee, his eyelashes fanned across his face.
“I could lie and tell you this is a true gift, to come back from the dead,” she told him, though he couldn’t hear her. “Unfortunately, I’m not so sure it will be enjoyable for either of us.”
She uncorked the green vial and drank the contents, gagging at its rotten taste as she swallowed it down. Then she quickly picked up the amber bottle and held her hand in front of her, beginning to count down under her breath. “Ten… nine…eight…”
Ten seconds was all it took before her skin went as translucent as Malfoy’s. Hermione reached for the ghost with her free hand, her skin coming into contact with him for the first time as her fingertips settled on the bony protrusion of his shoulder. She lifted her hand, swept the hair from his eyes, and grasped his jaw.
“I’m sorry for the indelicate nature of this process, and I’m certain your Pureblood manners would be appalled if you had any of your wits about you,” Hermione told him truthfully before hinging open his jaw and tipping the potion into his mouth.
“Thankfully, you’re none the wiser.”
Once she was certain the potion had made its way down his throat, Hermione settled his head back gently against the wall and took the henge-piece out of her pocket. Holding it in her palm, she took his large hand in hers and pressed the smooth stone flat between them.
The rock turned warm, beginning to hum faintly as it started channeling its stored memories into Draco. She watched him carefully, waiting for the subtle shift that would tell her that he had finally become more cognizant, and then...
Malfoy’s chest inhaled deeply, eyelids fluttering, his translucent form rippling like a gust of wind through a wheat field.
There he was.
“Hello, Draco Malfoy. My name is Hermione Granger. Do you remember me?” she asked.
He didn’t of course. Not yet.
So she could pretend, for now, that she didn’t remember him either.
She could pretend that the man in front of her hadn’t made her early school years miserable, hadn’t let a horde of Death Eaters into Hogwarts and thereby been responsible for the deaths of children. Hadn’t stood by as she was tortured to the brink of Death in his own home, hadn’t walked away from all of his sins, all of his atrocities, with a slap on the wrist.
She could pretend, if she was to fulfill her obligation and bring him back from Death.
She could pretend, for Theo.
She could pretend, if she wanted to live.
Notes:
Twelve chapters in and we've finally found Draco! When I said slow burn I meant *slow* burn.
Chapter 13: Draco
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Death twitches my ear;
'Live,' he says...
'I am coming.'
Virgil
~
It had been dark and silent for what felt like an eternity.
Without being able to see the sun and moon cycle through the sky, or hear the calls of the forest birds transition from morning to evening to the restful quiet of night, he had no marker for which to pin the passage of time upon.
Was it even a day, or a month, if it was experienced in Death? Or was it simply a never-ending eternity?
He had felt the essence of his soul leak slowly from his body as he wandered the washed-out landscapes beyond the Veil. He was cognizant of his sight slipping away, his hearing failing him, his sensation of touch deadening, like rot across his skin.
Was it even his body, anymore? It seemed nothing more than a husk.
The numbness consumed him.
His memories, though - those had been the first to go.
He knew nothing.
What was his name? Who had he been?
Who had he loved? Who had loved him?
What was love?
As his senses began to fail him, he had found himself drawn back to the only source of comfort he had known in life. It had beckoned him, promised him sanctuary. He settled into that familiar space, folding upon himself, gradually curling up like a desiccated flower, brittle and dying.
And then… there was nothing.
So he did not know how long he had been alone, with only the tortuous demons of his decaying soul for company, trapped in a prison devoid of his senses, when he was surprised to feel…something.
It was glowing, brilliant, bright, even though he could not see or feel it. Somehow, despite being sense-less, he sensed it.
The eternal weight of the silence that had settled upon him seemed almost to lift. His senses, whatever remained, strained for something, anything.
The melodic notes of a smoky voice filtered through the thick clot of quietude that had stolen his hearing from him so long ago.
“Hello, Draco Malfoy. My name is Hermione Granger. Do you remember me?”
He did not remember the voice, but he ached to recall its source.
And was that his name - Draco Malfoy?
He burned as bright as the sun, forgotten memories burrowing deep into his soul as the silent world around him exploded in a symphony of sound.
Melodic birdsong. Grass shifting in the wind. Leaves rustling in the trees. A woman, humming a lullaby.
Above it all, a man’s voice, hesitant but sure, singing a song he did not know.
No, not just any man’s voice.
His voice.
Notes:
I very much hope you loved this dual-chapter treat :) This first Draco POV is so short and sweet, how could I not?!
I have a little housekeeping, if you will, regarding updates and timing. Life has been life-ing recently and the buffer of chapters I had built up has slowly dwindled to nothing. I expect plenty of writing time as the weather cools down and the days grow shorter, but for now, my days have been a busy blur of late summer obligations and preparations for winter.
As I would love to focus on pre-writing at least several chapters before starting to post again, it might be a few weeks before there is another Nightshade chapter. I just want to mention that because I know I have been posting weekly up until now. However, I think this is a lovely note to end on for what I am considering Part I of this story, and I'll hopefully be back with regular updates before October is finished! Endless thanks and adoration to everyone who has been following this story - your comments and thoughts and love mean so, SO much to me!!
Chapter 14: Confession
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“A Necromancer’s tether to the physical world is perhaps his most important tool. The tether should be a trusted companion; generally human, though an animal familiar may also be utilized. Whether man or beast, the Necromancer must have the utmost faith in their tether, as it is the only thing that grounds them in the land of the living when they are beyond the Veil.”
The Nightshade Guide to Necromancy
Chapter 2: The Preparation of the Necromancer; Section III - Living Tethers
~
Theo walked along the meandering brook with Gwenny beside him, listening to the burbling of the water over the stones. Dusk was quickly giving way to nightfall, and he still had a few more wards to fortify. He picked up his pace.
Hermione hadn’t asked him to refresh the wards, of course. If she had gotten her way, he would have traipsed off to Pansy’s for the day, where he would have had to first explain to his best friend, who hadn’t seen or heard from him since he had left her house a month ago, that yes, he was indeed alive and well, and no, he didn’t really have an excuse for leaving suddenly in the middle of the night.
Then, if Pansy decided to be charitable and accept his apology - an unlikely outcome on the first attempt, seeing as how she held a grudge better than anyone he knew - Theo would be forced to spend the day drinking expensive tea and listening to the latest wizarding gossip and pretending he wasn’t utterly concerned for the welfare of a witch that he had no business being involved with in the first place.
It was good that Hermione had made it entirely clear that her life and her actions were not to be his business. He appreciated her setting boundaries, giving him a clearly defined map of lines he was not to cross when it came to his feelings for her.
Even so, Theo had stubbornly refused to leave the cottage on her orders, and had instead opted to keep a close eye on Gwenny most of the day. As an active tether for Hermione to the living world, he had to assume the dog would show some sort of indication if things went poorly beyond the Veil.
Of course, he had no bloody idea what that might be, so he had settled on simply watching the dog like a hawk.
It had turned out to be a very boring day indeed, as Theo perched anxiously on the settee for hours watching Gwenny do nothing except sleep by the hearth. At one point, she stood and stared at him, and he perked up at her attention.
“Everything alright, girl?” he asked her, breath stalling in his chest.
Gwenny merely fixed him with a baleful look, sighed heavily, and repositioned herself on the dog bed.
“Right,” Theo said. “Carry on with your beauty rest, then.”
He finally left his watchful post at noon to make a cheese toastie for lunch and stretch his legs a bit. After nibbling half-heartedly at the sandwich, he wandered into Hermione’s brewing room, his chest tightening at the thought of how they had parted that morning - the fury in Hermione’s voice as she called him a bastard, the hardened look in her eyes as she Apparated away.
Theo’s gaze gravitated to the calendar on the wall, and the scribbled notes in Hermione’s handwriting, a script that would be elegant and neat if not for the obvious rush in which she wrote everything, her hastiness melding some of the letters beyond recognition.
“Fucking Salazar,” he hissed as he studied the dates more closely. “Today would be bloody Valentine’s Day.”
Life had been such a blur since he had moved to the cottage that apparently he’d completely lost track of time in general. Turning on his heel, he popped back into the sitting room, where Gwenny was still staring at him in a rather put-upon sort of way.
“I know, I know,” he told her. “I’m an idiot, I gather that. What should I do? Flowers? Chocolates? Nothing at all, because she thinks I’m a wanker and, to be fair, she might be right?”
The dog shifted her gaze to the doorway of the kitchen.
“Right-o, that’s a lovely idea, Gwenny. Everyone appreciates a homemade meal, and it doesn’t even have to be romantic in the slightest. You’ll be okay if I pop out to the shops?” Merlin, Theo, you must stop talking to the dog like she’s a human.
Gwenny’s eyes were closed now - she was either sleeping, or just plain ignoring him.
“Of course you’ll be okay,” Theo muttered as he slipped into his cloak and made sure his wand was holstered against his chest. “You were both perfectly fine before I came along, and you’ll certainly be able to manage without me when I’m finally gone.”
~
In the weeks he had spent with Hermione, Theo had become well acquainted with the Muggle shops in nearby Marlborough. The first time he had tagged along with her, she had gone to the incredibly large Tesco on the edge of the town, and he had gawked at the endless selections of different baked goods and packaged items.
On their next outing, Hermione had taken him into the town proper and showed him the smaller Waitrose store, whose butcher counter and tea selection she preferred, and Theo had been back numerous times since then to pick up the shopping. He enjoyed the task of getting out and about, being useful while also existing anonymously in a place where no one knew his name.
Well, total anonymity wasn’t entirely correct. The Waitrose butcher always remembered Theo and the types of meat cuts he bought most frequently, and often threw in a free soup bone for Gwenny to enjoy. One of the regular checkers, a slim girl with hair so black it shone violet under the lights, flirted with Theo every time she rang him up, and had teased him mercilessly ever since he had gone shopping alone for the first time and been completely helpless when it came time to pay.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” she had asked quizzically as he held the coins to his face and tried to differentiate between pounds and pence.
Theo had wracked his brain as he stared at the money, completely flummoxed by the situation. “Erm, no, I’m from… Turkey,” he settled on as he helplessly held out the handful of coins to the girl. She had given him a kind smile and picked the ones she needed from his palm.
“Turkey? Blimey. You could have fooled me, sounding like some super-posh London bloke.” She dropped the coins in the till and looked up at him coyly through her eyelashes. “If you ever need a local to help you learn the ropes, you know where to find me. My name is Beatrice, but you can call me Bea.”
Today, Bea was absent from her post by the front door, but the butcher greeted him heartily and wrapped up what he claimed were two of his finest fillets, wishing Theo a happy Valentine’s Day as he handed the parcel across the counter.
“Off to cook a nice dinner for your lady love?” he asked Theo with a wink.
Theo gave a hesitant smile. “Erm, yes, something like that.” Only she’s more like the witch I coerced into raising my best friend and lover from the dead and who is, as we speak, putting herself in harm’s way for me beyond the Veil, and who, to my very deep surprise, I have shamefully found I have completely un-reciprocated feelings for.
Raising his hand to the butcher in farewell, Theo took a step back to leave and trod hard on the foot of someone standing far too close behind him to be societally acceptable. The apology Theo started to voice died on his lips as he turned around to find a familiar face staring back at him.
“Weasley?”
Ronald Weasley, broad-chested and solid, was standing behind him wearing a Muggle jumper and denims that looked well-worn and fit him comfortable. He had trimmed his shaggy auburn hair since Pansy’s wedding, to a clipped haircut that suited him much better. He was looking at Theo with wide eyes, one brow raised in confusion.
“Cheers, Nott. I thought that was you. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Shite. This was the last thing Theo needed. He’d rather have run into Pansy, if he was being honest.
Instead, Theo had somehow managed to stumble upon Ron. He wasn’t chummy with the bloke, never had been, and mainly only knew him by association, and perhaps a friendly, intoxicated chat or two at Pansy and Percy’s wedding.
However, the redheaded wizard in front of him also had the distinction of having dated, lived with, and deeply cared for the very same witch whom Theo now happened to harbour highly-confusing feelings towards.
Ron ran a hand through his hair and looked Theo up and down. “How ya been, mate? As Pansy tells it, you left Britain for good after seeing Percy’s naked arse, so she’ll be chuffed to learn you’re out here in Wiltshire among the Muggles, looking no worse for wear.”
Theo could do nothing but give a weak little laugh, his mind scrambling for excuses. “Well, it was a shock, to be certain, but it would take a lot more than Percy’s arse to get rid of me.”
Ron cocked his head. “But you disappeared. Didn’t even tell Pansy where you were off to. She’s been worried sick.” His eyes narrowed in understanding. “You’ve been here all along? What business do you have in Wiltshire?”
Theo knew the truth would come out as soon as Ron told Pansy and she confirmed it was a lie, but he needed a way to exit this conversation and so he blurted out the first falsity that sprung to mind.
“Oh, I’ve been staying at a small Nott estate my father maintained near Ramsbury. Just trying to get it cleaned out before the Ministry curse-breakers come in to clear it.”
Fuck, now he’d brought the Ministry into it, and officially chosen to lie about something easily confirmed false by an Auror. He needed to leave. Immediately.
“But enough about me.” Theo held up the wrapped fillets he was clutching so tightly it was a wonder his fingers hadn’t torn through the paper. “I’ve got a romantic meal that needs attending to. You know, it being Valentine’s Day and all. Lovely seeing you, Ronald, I really must get going.”
Ignoring the questioning look Ron was giving him, Theo strode to the front, paid as quickly as possible, and pushed hastily through the doors. He didn’t dare look back, and he didn’t need to. He knew, without a doubt, that the other wizard was carefully watching him, the inquisitive nature of his Auror’s mind already set in motion.
~
Theo’s head was still spinning as he put the finished fillets and roasted vegetables in the oven to keep warm and collapsed on the settee next to Gwenny, who had finally abandoned her spot by the fireplace. Although she looked perfectly healthy to the untrained eye, Theo could tell she was slightly more fatigued than normal. He patted the top of her silky head before laying down to place his ear against the fluffy warmth of her shoulder.
“Still doing okay, girl? How’s Hermione?”
Gwenny cracked one eye open and gifted him with a glare and an enormous sigh, the rise of her chest billowing beneath his cheek. “Right,” Theo said. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
The gentle swell of the dog’s breathing and the strong, steady rhythm of her heart near his ear was so soothing and peaceful that Theo hadn’t even noticed he had drifted into sleep until Gwenny scrambled off the sofa and he awoke with a start.
The dazed confusion of his impromptu nap still muddling his brain, he sat up and shook his head a couple of times to clear the hazy film from his eyes.
Wait, no. That wasn’t his eyes. That was smoke.
Theo bolted into the kitchen and threw open the oven, and a thick acrid cloud billowed out to engulf him. The fillets and vegetables sat charred on the wire rack inside, barely distinguishable. He looked at the temperature he had set the blasted appliance to, and realized he must have been more tired than he had thought. He had meant it to be on the lowest setting, and he instead had set it to the highest.
Bloody hell.
He began flapping a tea towel through the air to try and dissipate the smoke, opening the kitchen window as he did so. Gwenny was standing at the back door, tail wagging slowly as she stared at the door knob and barked once.
“Right you are, Gwenny girl, let’s open that as well,” he said, flinging the door open… and coming face to face with Hermione.
“Oh,” he sputtered. “Hello.”
Hermione looked very much worse for wear than when she had departed that morning. There were dark purple smudges under her eyes, her skin was pale and nearly translucent, and her curls were limp, their normal neat plait now messy and half-unwoven. She looked as if she could barely stand, and indeed, when she went to step forward her toe caught the ground and she stumbled, pitching forward towards the bricks.
Theo covered the distance between them in a flash, one giant stride allowing him to catch her before she fell. Hermione’s body felt cold, and fragile - so different from how he had imagined she would feel in his arms. She sagged heavily into his embrace, her cheek pressed against his bicep, her arms limp at her sides.
“Hermione?” he breathed, terror slicing straight to his bones. “Are you okay? Do you need a healer, maybe one of your potions? What can I do to help?”
“M’alright,” she murmured into his shirtsleeve. “Need…rest.” Her words were laboured, as if speaking took every ounce of effort she could muster. Still holding her upright, Theo turned to look back at the door, and the smoke beyond, which had no doubt permeated the rest of the cottage.
“Erm, I just....let me just figure out this smoke situation. I’m so sorry, Hermione, I-”
“Ventus,” she whispered weakly. “Charm for… smoky kitchens.” Her knees quivered as if ready to give out.
“Fucking Salazar,” Theo swore, swinging her right arm over his shoulder and retrieving his wand from its holster. “Hermione, you are not alright.”
He flicked his wand, muttering the charm, and the smoke disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place. Then he bent to place his right arm behind her knees and scooped her fully into his chest, pressing her to him like something entirely precious. As he picked her up, two empty potion vials clinked to the ground - the green vial, which apparently turned her into some sort of pseudo-spirit…and the blood replenishing potion.
Theo scanned her body for any signs of injury, finding none, and tucked her closer beneath his chin. She just felt so fucking delicate, which seemed all wrong to him. Hermione was many things, but she wasn’t delicate. She was feisty. Brilliant. Temperamental. Strong.
Dread settled heavy in his stomach.
He carried her into the cottage and climbed the stairs to her bedroom, holding her as carefully as a broken bird. Her forehead, dewy with sweat, was nestled into the crook of his neck, and he could feel her breath ghosting across the collar of his shirt. Her breathing felt shallow and slow as her ribs moved against his arm, her lips were dry and cracked, and she began to shiver violently as he laid her upon the bed and gently rested her head against the pillows.
Once Hermione was settled, Theo cast a warming charm over her bed to abate the shivering and covered her in a heavy quilt, coaxing Gwenny up on the mattress beside her. The dog whined and licked her mistress’s cheek before settling in, pressed in at Hermione’s hip.
“Good Crookshanks,” Hermione murmured as she reached out a shaky hand to pet Gwenny’s rump before turning to Theo. “Harry, where on earth did you find Crookshanks?”
Theo startled at the blatant hallucination. “I’m not Harry, Hermione, I’m-”
But the witch had already fallen thoroughly unconscious.
The next several hours passed more slowly than Theo had ever thought possible, time unspooling as haltingly as a tide across the sand. He sat in the chair beside the window for what felt like an eternity before abandoning it to pace the room, never taking his eyes off the quiet form under the covers, her peaceful face illuminated in soft moonlight.
He considered sending an owl for help, but who would he ask? And more importantly, would Hermione ever forgive him if he brought someone here - even to help her - without her approval?
Somewhere in the depths of the night, exhaustion sunk its claws into him and he could ignore it no longer. He eyed the chair again, and then the bed, where Gwenny gave a hearty wag of her tail and pressed herself further into Hermione’s legs as if to make room for him.
Theo sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. “Are you sure? That seems dangerous in so many ways,” he told the dog. “Mostly because I’m concerned about my bollocks if she wakes up and finds me in her bed.”
Gwenny chuffed at him, as if to communicate just how utterly idiotic she thought him to be.
He tentatively approached the unoccupied side of the bed and rested a knee lightly upon the mattress. Hermione continued to sleep, her curls splayed across the pillows, dark lashes fanned against her freckles. She looked much less ghost-like now, her skin more solid and flushed with life, but Theo couldn’t banish the terror that lingered in his bones as he remembered how she had looked earlier.
Theo slowly brought his other knee to join the first before sinking onto his side across the mattress to face her. He tucked one hand beneath his head but couldn’t help the other from reaching across the space between them, the urge to touch her as inescapable as an Imperius curse.
His hand rested briefly on the warm bulk of the dog between them. “Thank you for bringing her home, Gwenny,” he whispered.
Then his fingers found Hermione’s wrist and buried into the cleft where her heartbeat pulsed between her bones, slow but sure. He breathed a sigh of relief as he felt her blood rush beneath the skin in its steady rhythm. Still, the racing thoughts continued to tumble wildly through his brain.
Theo had seen the empty potion that gave her spirit-like properties and could help her interact with ghosts like Draco. Was it not fully worn off by the time she had arrived home?
But it wasn’t just her translucent skin that had worried him. There had been an empty vial of blood replenisher as well. And she had been so weak, almost lifeless. He was amazed she had managed to make it back across the Veil at all.
“So strong and brave,” Theo murmured across the sheets between them, their bodies bridged by Gwenny’s silky fur. His thumb swept broad strokes over Hermione’s wrist as his fingers continued to measure her pulse, his anxious mind finding comfort in its rhythm. “You astonish me, Hermione. You’re… incredible.”
In the dark and the warmth, his body finally settling to the beat of her heart and the steady whisper of her breath, sleep claimed him quickly.
~
The first thought that crossed Theo’s conscious mind hours later was that those bloody pigeons were at it again, cooing incessantly from the eaves. His second thought, as he opened his eyes and sat up with a jolt, was that he was all alone. In Hermione’s bed.
Which meant that Hermione had awoken to find him there, an event which he had been determined to avoid before he had fallen so deeply asleep.
He hurried downstairs, arriving in the kitchen breathless and barefoot to find Hermione perched in her usual chair at the table, a pile of scones accompanied by clotted cream, strawberry preserves, and a teapot next to the French press in the middle of the table. She was in the process of pouring herself a mug of coffee.
“I made you tea,” she said nonchalantly, blowing on the steaming cup in her hands. “And I popped out to Waitrose to get some scones.”
Theo glanced around the room. Gwenny was curled underneath the table, the warm, yellow morning light was dappling the countertop, and Hermione was upright and healthy in front of him. He gave his head a couple quick shakes in disbelief and stared at her.
“You’re… better?”
She took a bite of a scone, sending crumbly pastry bits all over her shirt. Theo vanished them with a quick bit of wandless magic and Hermione glared at him. “You’re mothering me, Theo.”
He pointed a finger at her, indignation flooding him in a surge at her unnecessary surliness. “You can’t just show up half-dead on the doorstep and pretend nothing happened, Hermione. What the fuck was that last night? I almost called a healer, except I knew that even if you died you’d hex my bollocks off in spite. Even from the afterlife.”
Her eyes widened. “You didn’t actually send for anyone, did you? About me?”
Theo dropped into a chair, reaching for the tea pot. His magic, irascible and wild, swirled with agitation beneath his skin. “No. Of course I didn’t.”
Hermione sighed in relief. “Thank Godric. Now, I need to tell you about Draco so I hope you-.”
Theo set the tea pot down harder than he meant to, and she flinched and fell silent.
“Stop changing the subject, Hermione. I’ll ask one more time - what happened to you last night?” His jaw was clenched so hard he thought his teeth might crumble as he gritted out his last request. “Answer me. Please.”
“Don’t you want to know about Draco?” she asked, deflecting yet again. “I thought you’d care-”
“What I care most about at this moment is you, you bloody idiot,” he hissed, his hands clenching into fists, fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms. He felt the dam inside of him burst, unspoken sentiments threatening to flood from his lips. He didn’t care. He couldn’t hold it all inside anymore.
“I thought you were dying last night, Hermione. I thought you were dying, and I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified. Do you understand that?”
“You were worried I’d die before bringing Draco back,” she scoffed. “You weren’t worried about my safety.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong, you silly witch,” Theo admonished her, his voice cracking with anguish. “I thought I was going to lose you, and it was simply unimaginable. I know you don’t feel any sort of way about me, Hermione, and I will honestly admit that my own feelings are completely confusing and unexpected, but I have nothing else to lose at this point.”
He took a deep breath, reaching deep for the words he most wanted to tell her and closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, her gaze was fixed on his, her amber eyes soft.
“I’ve fallen for you,” he finally said, his heartbeat galloping wildly in his throat. “Utterly. Inescapably. I wake up desperate to see your face, and I go to sleep dreaming of you. I’ve tried to fight the way I feel for you with every breath, Salazar knows I tried. But I can not deny it any longer. I will not. And if my unrequited love is the painful burden I have to bear for the simple pleasure of being near you, I will do it. Gladly.”
He looked down to find a pile of scone pieces littering the table in front of him, the pastry torn to bits by his anxious hands. When he looked back up at her, her glittering eyes brimming with tears, he felt his heart cleave in two.
One half for Draco. One half for Hermione.
“Now that I have come to know you, I will never be able to forget you,” he said more quietly. “Do you understand that?”
Hermione shook her head, her brow furrowing as a single tear coursed down her cheek. He resisted the urge to wipe it away, kiss it away. “There are ways to forget me.” Her voice was harsh, and yet not entirely cruel.
“Obliviate me then. Try to wipe yourself from my mind, if you so choose. But I promise it won’t make a difference. I would know you anywhere, regardless. Your brave heart. Your uncompromising soul.”
He brought his hand to his chest, settling it over his own heart, vulnerable and anguished but still beating despite the odds, both for Draco and for her.
“My father carved a word into my chest. Right here. What was the word, Hermione? Say it.”
She shook her head.
“Please,” he begged her. “Please. Say it.”
“Coward,” Hermione whispered. More tears spilled down her cheeks.
“That’s right. That is what that bastard labelled me. But that isn’t what I am, and I have never, ever let that word define me.”
He reached across the table and grasped her hand, hot and sweaty and, thank Merlin, so very much alive. She didn’t pull away, which surprised him.
“I’m being brave here, Hermione. I may not be a Gryffindor, but I am not a coward. I need you to know how I feel, and I need you to know how bloody worried I was last night. I was so fucking scared that I was going to lose you.”
“But I’m not yours to lose, Theo!” she cried, her curls sparking with frustrated magic. “And I don’t need anyone to worry over me. I’m always in danger every time I cross the Veil, and I can’t have someone sitting at home fretting. I know my limits, and I know how to protect myself.”
Theo so badly wanted to pull Hermione into his arms, rest her head against his beating, aching heart, and show her how much of it was lost to her.
“I know you’re perfectly capable, darling,” he whispered. “But can you really say you don’t want anyone concerned for your safety? Have you truly forgotten what it’s like to be loved?”
Hermione stared at him for a moment, thunderstruck, before her eyes fell to the table and to her hand, still gripped in his. They sat there in silence for a long while, Theo studying her face as she studied the curl of his fingers into her palm, her skin against his, the press of their neighboring magic intermingling like a brewing storm.
“I know that was a lot for you, but I don’t regret it one bit,” he finally said quietly. “I meant every word.”
Hermione breathed a long and shuddering sigh, her eyes still downcast. “I just don’t think I can give you what you need, Theo. Not now. Maybe not ever.”
He gave her hand a comforting squeeze and then released it, his skin still burning with the ghost of her touch even after he pulled his hand away.
“It’s enough that you know how I feel,” he told her honestly. “It’s enough for me, I promise you. You’re under absolutely no obligation to reciprocate.”
The silence stretched once more between them, thick and heavy as the clotted cream on the table. Finally, Hermione wiped her face dry, sat up straight, and gestured at the plate of scones.
“Eat some breakfast and I’ll tell you about Draco. There’s a lot to share.” She paused then, her face softening.
“And…thank you. For speaking your mind. I’d just like to state for the record that I have never thought you a coward.” She gave him a small smile before returning her attention to her plate, and he felt a wild, stupid hope bloom in his belly.
For now, this could be enough. It would have to be.
Notes:
Though I'm not as far along in my writing ahead as I had hoped to be by the time I started posting again, I've had a lot of momentum recently and it just didn't feel right to let Samhain/Halloween pass without uploading a chapter of a story regarding Necromancy and dead souls and ghosts.
Hope you guys enjoy!
Chapter 15: Equilibrium
Chapter Text
“Although not a requirement, a Necromancer is most powerful when he lives a solitary life, free of external forces that might take precedence over his craft. A lover or psouse, children, societal appointments and obligations; all of these have the ability to hinder what should be the Necromancer’s singular focus - the balance of Life and Death. Unbidden emotions and competing duties can well be a Necromancer’s downfall.
The Nightshade Guide to Necromancy
Chapter 2: The Preparation of the Necromancer; Section V - Burdens & Disqualifications
~
Entirely famished from the prior day’s ordeal, Hermione slathered her third scone with clotted cream and strawberry preserves, her mind reeling as she focused solely on the task in front of her. She didn’t dare look at Theo, or his puppy-dog eyes, or his lips, which had spilled such bold and beautiful words mere minutes ago.
Had he really told her that he had fallen for her? As in… he loved her? She must have misunderstood. He loved Malfoy. His love for Malfoy was, as it so happened, the thing that had gotten them into this mess of Unbreakable curses and assassinations and resurrections in the first place.
“Have you truly forgotten what it’s like to be loved?”
That wasn’t the same as saying he loved her. That was simply him asking her if she remembered what it felt like for someone to love her. Right?
No. Hermione absolutely refused to go down that rabbit hole today. Her feelings were jumbled, and messy, and not at all congruent, and she had so much else she needed to tell him. She pushed the burning heat of his words aside and instead focused on her scone.
She could feel Theo’s eyes boring into her across the table, but she refused to lift her gaze until she had swallowed her very last bite. When her gaze finally met his, she found concern and confusion swirling in those ocean-blue irises.
“It took a lot out of you,” he observed. Hermione was sure he was talking about her journey beyond the Veil, but he could have made the same statement about their preceding conversation.
She snorted. Either way, that was putting it lightly. Somehow, she felt that he recognized that as well.
“Crossing the Veil and wandering around in Death isn’t exactly easy on the body,” she told him primly.
“Would you like to finally talk about that?”
“Maybe later. Right now, I’d like to tell you about Malfoy.”
“Okay then.” Theo leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest as he studied her. His tone was easy and light, but Hermione noticed the coiled tension in his shoulders. She sighed.
“As I am sure you have already gathered, I was able to locate him.”
Theo nodded and cocked his head, patiently waiting for her to continue, his eyes brightening with something that felt an awful lot like hope.
“I searched the entire Manor and grounds from top to bottom, but he wasn’t there. I ran into a few other wandering Malfoy ghosts, even a bloody peacock. Walked clean through Abraxas Malfoy. But Draco wasn’t there.” She paused and took a breath.
“He was in Hogsmeade.”
Confusion washed across Theo’s face. “In Hogsmeade? I mean I knew there was a possibility, but…really?”
It was Hermione’s turn to nod as Theo’s brow furrowed. “Wow,” he said with a low whistle. “I thought he would surely be at the Manor.”
“Spirits often settle where they feel the strongest connection,” she explained with a shrug. “Where their happiest memories live. Malfoy may have spent much of his life at the Manor, but his best moments were with you, Theo.”
His eyes were glassy as he took a deep breath, letting it out in a rushing, shuddering exhale before voicing his next question. “And what did he look like?”
“He looked dead.” She frowned as Theo winced. “I’m sorry to be so frank, but it’s the truth. Memories aren’t the only things that erode and strip away from a spirit when they’re beyond the Veil. He’s skinny. More pale than can possibly be imagined, which-” she chuckled, despite the somber mood weighing down the room, “-is saying something. He doesn’t look well, it’s true. But that will change.”
“And what about his mind? Has he retained anything? Did he know you?”
“No,” she said with a grimace. “And he won’t for some time, though I cannot stress enough that this is completely normal. Specifics are the first things to be lost as a spirit withers - names, places, feelings. Some intrinsic things are remembered, such as the concept of…love, for instance. But he can’t put a name to it yet, or a feeling, he just knows that it exists.”
“So that means he doesn’t remember me yet, either?” Theo’s voice sounded so small and hurt that it made Hermione’s heart clench.
“He will most likely remember you first,” she said brightly, in an attempt to be cheerful. “I’m imbuing all of your own memories into him, so it’s only natural. In fact, by the end of the next session he will probably remember who you are in terms of what you mean to him, though he may still not be able to connect your name.”
Hermione took a long sip of coffee before she continued. “But I want to stress that it is only a possibility, not a given fact. I won’t make any promises. Every time I do this, it is different.”
Theo’s posture seemed to straighten slightly at her words, as if some bit of weight had been removed from his shoulders. He drummed his fingers against his bicep as he chewed thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek, his contemplation stretching so long that Hermione was considering a fourth scone by the time he finally spoke again.
“Now tell me about you.”
She scoffed and smoothed the front of her sweater, trying to feign indifference as she brushed away a few crumbs. “There’s nothing to tell, Theo. I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
“Nonsense. I saw the empty vials fall out of your pocket, Hermione. Blood replenishing potion? What the fuck did you need that for?”
Well, she supposed the explanation had to come sooner or later. Theo was smart. Perceptive. He would know if she was lying, and to be honest, she didn’t want to lie to him anymore. Not about this, at least.
“The living flesh doesn’t function very well behind the Veil. I wasn’t quite honest with you before, and I apologise. The truth is, my blood starts to thicken and slow the longer I’m there, which becomes… incompatible with life.” She scrubbed her face with her hands and took a deep breath. The weight of the truth felt a bit too much to bear in this moment.
“A blood replenishing potion can help fight the effects for a couple hours or so. I was running up against the clock by the time I finished searching the Manor, so I needed to take the potion in order to continue searching. Now that I know where Malfoy is, and I can be more efficient, I shouldn’t need to take it again while I’m there.”
Theo pursed his lips in silent frustration, but he didn’t berate her for being dishonest about the danger she could find herself in beyond the Veil, and she was thankful for it. Instead, he decided to continue pressing her about the state she had apparently arrived home in, of which she, admittedly, remembered little.
“And the hallucinations?”
Hermione took in a sharp breath and tried to cover it with a sip of coffee, but her entire body grew tense and alert. She knew her nonchalance was transparent. “What do you mean, hallucinations?”
“You called Gwenny ‘Crookshanks,’ for Salazar’s sake. And you thought I was Potter!”
Hermione choked on her coffee, sputtering and spilling the contents of her mug all over the table. Theo vanished the mess and handed her a napkin, waiting patiently for her to collect herself, like a no-nonsense parent waiting for a child to perform a task.
“What did I say, exactly?” she asked weakly.
Theo’s eyes brimmed with unasked questions. “You patted Gwenny and said ‘good Crookshanks,’ and then you asked me where I had found Crookshanks. But you called me ‘Harry’. And who the hell is Crookshanks?”
Hermione dropped her head into her hands. “Crookshanks was my familiar,” she murmured. “My half-Kneazle. A big orange thing - I’m sure you saw him around school. He passed away shortly after the war. I miss him endlessly, and I’ve searched for his spirit, believe me. The damn cat has never shown himself behind the Veil, though.”
She gave a bitter laugh, but her eyes softened as she thought of the giant orange creature, whom she had loved so very much. “I often think he wants nothing to do with me, especially now that I’ve replaced him with a dog.”
Gwenny whined from beneath the table and Hermione blindly reached out a foot to rub her fluffy chest. “Don’t worry, darling. I still love you desperately.”
She sighed. “Anyway, I must have been incredibly far-gone if I was hallucinating about Harry.” Her fingers threaded into her curls to tug at the roots in frustration. She quietly studied the tabletop.
Theo cleared his throat. “I’ll say. You looked like Death,” he told her quietly. “I don’t know how else to explain it.”
Hermione groaned and pushed herself upright, her eyes searching for Theo’s and finding them quickly, because of course they were on her, they always were - watching, waiting. His disquietude was manifested boldly in the slope of his body as he leaned toward her.
“Was that all that happened over there?” he whispered. “You can tell me. Was there something besides the length of the trip? Did something else cause you to be drained so thoroughly?”
“Oh, let’s just consider discussions of myself off the table for now, shall we?” she asked, attempting to sound far more chipper than she felt. “All you need to know about my journey is that I am back and I am safe. I found Draco. And, if I recall correctly- ”she pointed at the oven, “-I do believe there’s something in there that might need to be sorted out?”
With a gasp, Theo jumped from his chair and flung open the oven door, which let out one more polite exhale of smoke as it revealed the charred contents within.
“The fillets,” Theo moaned. “I was trying to make you a Valentine’s dinner but I set the temperature too high and fell asleep.”
“Tsk tsk,” Hermione admonished as she poured herself another mug of coffee. “That certainly doesn’t make for a romantic Valentine’s dinner, now does it?”
The sun slanted butter-yellow across the floor. Steam curled from her coffee cup. For a moment - just a moment - the heaviness lifted, and Theo laughed, and Merlin, she realised with a jolt how much she loved that sound.
“You know,” he said after he had discarded the burned food and reclaimed his seat across the table, “I had an interesting encounter at Waitrose when I went to buy all that food.” His face was unreadable but she sensed a shift towards seriousness, and her heartbeat quickened.
“Oh?”
His brow creased, just between his eyebrows, in the way that always made him look slightly at odds, like a small child pretending to be cross. “Your ex. Ronald.”
Hermione’s heartbeat leapt like a startled deer, battering the inside of her ribs. “Oh.”
“Do you know if he often has business in Marlborough?” Theo’s voice was soft but there was tension in his shoulders, in the corners of his eyes and the corded tendons of his neck.
“I haven’t spoken to him in a decade,” she murmured, fighting hard against the phantom feel of strong, freckled hands, warm at her back. She could almost smell his cologne, fresh rain and citrus brushing against her senses.
Theo shifted in his seat. “Interesting.” He left it at that, and the issue settled between them like an unwanted package, not yet opened but unable to be returned.
Hermione couldn’t bear to inspect what he had told her just yet, or what that information truly did to her. Not now. And maybe not ever. Surely it was a coincidence, Ron being in Marlborough. “What did he say?” she asked. “I assume he spoke with you?”
Theo’s face turned red at the question. “He asked what I was up to. I was flummoxed to see him so I flat-out lied, like an idiot. Told him a bunch of stuff easily proven wrong - that my family had maintained a nearby estate that now needed Ministry attention.”
A headache bloomed behind her eyelids, pressing insistently at the inside of her skull, and she felt herself sag slightly as the tendrils of it spread across her scalp. Theo stiffened.
“Are you okay?” His tone had turned worrisome, as if he could sense the pain wending its way inside of her brain like a twisting serpent.
She sighed and tried to force a smile. “I’m fine. For now, I think it would be wise to go farther afield for the shopping. Swindon, maybe?” She brought her hand up to gently massage her temples. “I think I’ll go up for a lie-down, though. I might have been far more optimistic about my recovery than I should have been.”
Theo’s steady, watchful gaze never left her as she climbed the stairs. When she slipped back into her bed, aching and weary, she caught a whiff of him on the pillowcase next to her - earthy cedar, bright moss.
Hermione had felt both terror and comfort upon finding Theo in her bed that morning, his tousled hair stark against the white sheets, his breathing heavy and deep. It had been so incredibly long since she had woken up to a man beside her.
She had done nothing but lie there and study his face for a quiet moment, barely daring to breathe in the fear that he might wake to find her studying him.
He had a small white scar over his left eyebrow, a singular dark freckle near the right side of his mouth, and the longest, darkest eyelashes she had ever seen. Hermione had longed to count them, touch them, feel them against her skin.
She had finally urged herself out of bed, dressed silently, and left to get scones. She had needed something, any excuse to get away and clear her head, because she was learning that she didn’t always trust herself to keep the lines of their arrangement distinct and fortified.
Instead, oftentimes when she shone a light on the wall she had built between her and Theo, she could see the fissures that had started to form, eating steadily away at the integrity of the tidy divide that kept them apart.
~
Despite Hermione’s assurances to Theo that it had only taken one night to recover fully, the truth was that nothing had ever taken as much out of her as it had to seal Theo’s memories into Malfoy’s soul.
But he didn’t need to know that.
She suspected that he had his doubts, but he did not know for certain that her blood still seemed to hesitate as it pumped through her veins, or that she fell into bed every night exhausted and depleted.
Neither of them had been aware of the full toll that bringing Malfoy back would cost when they had entered into their Unbreakable Vow, and she would not hold the extent of everything it had taken from her against Theo.
To take some of the attention that he seemed to have so heavily fixed on her since she had returned, Hermione thought it wise to occupy Theo’s mind with other matters and had given him her second mark. Lord Septimus Selwyn, a wealthy aristocratic Death Eater who had been allowed to walk free after his trial under the flimsy guise of being a reformed wizard who had finally seen the light.
Selwyn wasn’t truly reformed, of course. He simply had the good luck of being wealthy enough to buy his freedom, while also being low profile enough for few people to care about his fate after the war was said and done.
By now, he had carried on for over a decade behind the facade of good and upstanding behaviour - generous donations to Muggle charities, the funding of enormous portions of the Hogwarts reconstruction, and sizable endowments to St. Mungo’s for the Janus Thickey award and mind healer programs filled his portfolio.
For the common witch or wizard, he appeared for all intents and purposes to be the picture of a good and law-abiding citizen. And yet, that was apparently quite far from the entire truth.
Hermione had nicked a file from Ron, back when they were still together, charting out some of the dark matters Selwyn had once more become involved in, seemingly before the ink on his Ministry pardon had even dried. The items in the file were just rumours, of course - unfounded and unproven - but there were mentions of Voldemort’s followers regrouping already, of illegal underground potions rings, and even plans to start trafficking Muggles.
Sometimes, Hermione almost wondered if Ron had left the file out for her to find. She had walked away from the file on his desk perplexed and surprised that it hadn’t had any sort of anti-duplication charm on it, a rarity for DMLE files. Then again, Ronald had always been sloppy in his work.
Unfortunately, no action had been taken in the many years since she had read the file, and the man still walked as free as Hermione herself. Like Dolohov, it was time she took matters into her own hands, and she would be lying if she said she didn’t find solace in the fact that Theo would put an end to Selwyn’s life in the very near future.
The remaining weeks of February began to meld into one tiring day after another until finally, well into March, she woke up feeling light and airy and rested. It had only taken a little over three weeks.
Theo was pulling a quiche out of the oven when she settled at the table and greeted him with a smile. Gwenny’s tail beat a drum-beat on the wooden planks of the floor. “Morning,” he said, giving her a small incline of his head in greeting.
Their relationship had been fuzzy and undefined ever since the morning after Hermione’s return. Conversation skirted around Theo’s confession of his feelings, and likewise around her own unwillingness to tell Theo the entire extent of her work beyond the Veil, which had thrust them into a purgatory of sorts.
They were two people living in the margins, flirting with the half-truths of reality. But for now… it worked.
Hermione liked Theo. Truth be told, many days it was hard for her to remember life without him. The evolution of their friendship hadn’t been easy, but it felt like when she was little, and her father had grown a moustache. At first, she had hated it. It was prickly, and wrong, and it made his face look unfamiliar. But before she knew it, time had passed and all of a sudden she couldn’t remember - couldn’t imagine - her father without his moustache.
Theo slid a plate with a slice of quiche in front of her. “Glad to see you up to full speed,” he said quietly as he dropped a fork next to the plate. “Welcome back, Granger.”
She scowled at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged nonchalantly as he walked back to the hob, and she watched the muscles of his back bunch beneath his clingy t-shirt. Somewhere low in the pit of her stomach, bright heat bloomed from an already-simmering reservoir. She tamped it down with a sip of coffee, averting her eyes to the quiche.
“What I mean, Hermione, is that today is the first day since you came back that you’ve been fully yourself.”
She stabbed a bite of egg and pushed it around her plate. “I hadn’t even said a word to you. How on earth could you possibly think I was in any other state than I normally am when I come down in the mornings?”
Theo chuckled softly as he sat across from her. “You’re finally rested enough that you’re being just as cranky and ill-tempered this morning as you should be before you’ve had your coffee. For the last three weeks, I felt I was co-habitating with a ghost. But this morning… you’re back to normal.” He gestured at her with his fork as if he was scribbling his signature on a letter. “Your energy is clearer. Brighter. You finally seem like yourself.”
Hermione scoffed. “This is some real outlandish crap you’re spouting, Theo. Even for a wizard. Be serious, now.”
He just gave her a broad smile. “Ah, there she is. My little lion.”
Her face flushed, despite herself. She could feel indignation rising to her cheeks. “This is nonsense. You’re being ridiculous.”
“All I’m saying is that this morning is the first in over three weeks that you’ve been your normal snappish, sarcastic self.” He leaned forward across the table. “And I like it. I missed you.”
His eyes were as mischievous as always, but there was something else hidden in there, tucked away behind the humour. Earnestness. He popped a bite of quiche into his mouth and ducked his head almost shyly as she finally took her own forkful and bit back a moan.
“Godric, that’s divine. Bacon and leek? That’s my-”
“Favourite? I know. I added a little gouda as well, since you liked it so much last time.”
The simmering heat flared again. She took another sip of coffee.
~
After breakfast, Hermione holed away in her brewing room, working on a couple of different tweaks for the soul-rebuilding potion. Now that she knew how very depleted Malfoy was, she was intent on bolstering the potion so that the next dose would have more of an impact.
She was midway through dicing the liver of a dragon shark when there was a knock on the door. “Room service,” came Theo’s muffled voice. “Might I interest the lady in some afternoon tea?”
Hermione gasped and cast a quick Tempus. “Four o’clock already? Where on earth did the time go?”
Theo, taking that as an invitation, pushed into the room with a loaded tray full of small sandwiches, strawberries, and a tea set. “You, my darling, have been a busy, busy bee and I-”
“Theo, not there, you’ll crush the asphodels prematurely.”
“-simply cannot have you fainting of malnutrition on my watch-”
“Theo! Watch out, don’t knock over the antimony.”
“-and so I simply must insist that you eat and drink something,” he finished, finally setting the tray down on the one small patch of exposed workspace that wasn’t cluttered with ingredients. “My word. You really are up to full speed.”
“I’ve been at full speed,” Hermione muttered as she cleaned her hands and helped herself to a strawberry.
Theo had wandered over to the calendar on the wall and was studying it carefully. “You’re going back again in less than two weeks’ time?” he asked gruffly.
Hermione gave a long-suffering sigh. “We’ve been over this, Theo. I’m good at what I do and I’ve done this before.” She loaded her tea with sugar and then walked to stand beside him. They stared together at the circled date. March twenty-first, eleven days away.
She lightly bumped his hip with hers. It was meant to be playful, a gesture of teasing familiarity, but a surge of heat washed through her at the touch of their bodies colliding. “You have to stop babying me,” she said quietly. “We talked about this.”
He didn’t turn to look at her, his eyes still fixed resolutely on the calendar, but a slight movement caught her eyes near his hip, just briefly. A clenched fist, a quick release. “I know.”
All of a sudden the air in the room felt heavy and dense, like a storm settling into the trees. Hermione took a deep breath, held it slightly too long as she considered herself. Another panic attack?
But no, she felt fine.
The storm was Theo’s magic, roiling and dark.
“Hey,” she chirped at him, desperate to break the surprising atmospheric shift. “I need to start collecting memories. Want to start this evening?”
Though she knew his change in mood was related to her escapades beyond the Veil and the endless danger he seemed to think she put herself in the path of, she also knew how much he loved to relive his memories of Draco.
He finally turned to her, his expression still unreadable, but softer. “I suppose I could be convinced. What sense are you restoring next?”
“Taste.”
The storm lifted, just a bit, although she could feel its agitated undercurrent pulsing steadily through the room. He studied her face, as if he were mapping it, memorising every detail.
“Do you think you might be okay with a bit of travel this evening?” he asked.
Hermione chewed at her bottom lip, and was surprised to find Theo’s eyes fly immediately to track the movement, as honed in as a Seeker on a snitch, his expression nearly feral. She felt her stomach flip and let the flesh fall from between her teeth, but it wasn’t enough to drag his gaze away.
She was acutely aware of the way he watched her mouth shape the next word. “Where?”
His green eyes finally found hers. “A Muggle restaurant, very special to Draco and I. It’s in Twickenham, so quite far from Wizarding London. We went there many times and never saw anyone else magical. It was our little escape.”
Hermione desperately wanted to chew her lip again, but Theo was there, and he was looking at her like that, and suddenly she felt off-balance and dizzy, as if she’d just barrel-rolled down a grassy hill like she used to do when she was little.
Disoriented. Mixed-up. Slightly queasy, if she were being honest.
Denied the ability to fidget as she normally did with Theo still there beside her staring at her lips, she instead shifted from foot to foot as she considered the proposition. “Fine, but I’m only going under extensive glamours.” She glanced again at the calendar. “It’s a Saturday. Will the restaurant be busy? Do we need a reservation?”
Hermione felt relief flood her veins as Theo’s magic stabilized back into something normal. “I’m pretty certain we’ll be able to get in,” he told her with a roguish grin, his blue eyes drifting back to hers. “I have connections, darling.”
Her pulse quickened at his words, at his smile, at his magnetic self-satisfaction.
It’s all for Malfoy, she told herself. It isn’t a date.
Chapter 16: Sunlight
Chapter Text
“The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love, and death.”
E.M. Forster, English author of A Room with a View and A Passage to India
~
When Hermione agreed to go to supper with him, Theo thought his heart might crack open his ribs from the way his pulse picked up, thunderous with excitement. He was worried she could hear it beating frantically as it pumped beneath his skin.
“We can leave at eight?” he had managed to choke out, and she agreed so easily, so readily, that he felt a tiny kernel of hope break through the defences of everything deep and dark inside of him.
He spent the next few hours in scattered disarray before finally offering to refresh the wards while Hermione tidied up her brewing room and bottled up the day’s potions.
It was a testament to her newfound trust in him that she agreed to let him do it with barely a hesitation.
Either that, or she just wanted him out of her sight, after the unhinged and mildly possessive shite he had pulled when he realized how soon she was crossing the Veil again.
Theo wasn’t sure he could have stopped it if he’d tried - the surge of magic that had spilled out of him in angry waves when he thought about her possibly getting hurt again. He would never be able to forgive himself for ensnaring her in this Unbreakable Vow. Never.
The sick feeling he got in his stomach when he remembered how broken and fragile and near death she had been when he fell into his arms that night, overpowered every happy moment he allowed himself to think about Draco.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want Draco back - he still did, desperately - but now he was entirely aware that this process might cost him the loss of yet another person he loved along the way, and he didn’t honestly know if his heart could handle that.
The March air was cold and bracing in his lungs, the sun already sinking below the horizon and painting the sky a gauzy periwinkle. He and Gwenny dutifully walked the perimeter, casting the wards up into the sky above them. Theo was deep in thought, mulling over his plans for Selwyn, when at the edge of the woods, he thought he saw movement in the shadows. A brief ripple in the quiet darkness between beach trees.
He looked down at his canine companion, silent and sure beside him, her ears pricked inquisitively toward the same spot where he had noticed the movement. Both wizard and dog stood and watched, barely breathing, until a deer emerged tentatively from the cover of the forest and took a few slow steps towards them, alert and wary. With the wards in place, the doe couldn’t see him or Gwenny, but she could still sense that they were there. Theo let out a breath and moved on.
Upon finally returning to the garden, Theo cast a quick Tempus. Right on time, just as he had hoped. He slid off his shoes inside the door, hung his cloak, and headed up the stairs.
The door to Hermione’s room was slightly ajar, warm buttery light spilling out into the hallway as Theo reached the top of the staircase. He glanced through the crack as he passed, his eyes drawn suddenly by movement inside the room.
She was zipping herself into a dress.
Theo froze. His traitorous heart, which had nearly beaten out of his chest earlier, now felt as if it might very well stop working altogether. He knew that it was wrong, watching her like this, but he simply couldn’t tear himself away.
Hermione was a vision. Her riotous curls were pulled over one shoulder as she fidgeted with the zipper, and Theo’s eyes traced the long and elegant curve of her neck, the bare slope of her shoulder dusted with a smattering of freckles, the soft indent of her spine as it ran down her back. His gaze lingered especially on two twin dimples, pressed like fingerprints into the pillowy skin atop the delicious swell of her arse.
A triangle of black lace knickers peeked through above the zipper. A matching black bra strap banded across her ribs. Golden-brown skin glowed in the lamplight.
When she stepped into her en suite, still fidgeting with the dress, the enchantment finally broke. Theo clenched his jaw so hard he thought his teeth might shatter. What the ever-living fuck was he doing? He crept to his own room as quietly as possible, secured the lock behind him, and sagged against the doorframe. Finally, his body remembered how to breathe.
Theo had been many things in his life, but he had never been a voyeur. And yet the pull of Hermione’s naked skin had felt more inescapable than anything that he had ever experienced before.
How on earth was he supposed to go to dinner now, with her, in this state? His face was flushed, his pulse ragged, and the front of his trousers were obscenely tented.
He strode to the window and flung open the casement, gulping in huge lungfuls of air. The stars had settled in the sky like scattered pearls, the moon large and bright on the inky horizon. Somewhere, an owl hooted mournfully. Gradually, his pulse began to slow.
Once he had pulled himself together, Theo descended the stairs, resolute in his desire to act as if everything was quite normal and that no, he very much did not want to shag his roommate. He found Gwenny waiting for him at the bottom. “Where’s Hermione, girl?” he asked the dog, scratching the top of her head.
Her smoky voice floated in from the sitting room. “In here.”
When Theo stepped across the threshold, his breath caught at the sight of her, unfolding herself from the window nook. Hermione stood up straight, smoothed the skirt of her dress, and did a little spin. Her smile lit up the room. “Will this do? You didn’t give me a dress code, so I wasn't sure.”
The bodice of the dress fit her like a glove. The sweetheart neckline traced the swells of her breasts like a painter’s brush stroke. Demure sleeves extended to her elbows. The dress cut in at the waist while the skirt flared out at the hips, falling voluminously to mid-calf. It was a spruce green wool, with a light herringbone pattern, and it was simply, utterly modest.
Hermione could have worn that same outfit to a Muggle church, and it would have been deemed appropriate attire. Chaste, even.
Why, then, did it make Theo want to ravish her like he was Muggle King Henry the Eighth taking advantage of a voluptuous young new lady-in-waiting?
Mercifully, his brain started working again before he sat for too long looking like a tongue-tied muppet. He settled on something a friend would say. “You look lovely.”
Truthful, if also the understatement of the century, but it didn’t matter, because upon hearing his words, she bestowed him with a bright and glorious smile, and he felt his heart truly stop.
Only for a moment.
But that moment? It meant something.
~
The outside of the restaurant - Pane e Formaggio - was plain and unassuming, especially in the colder months. Come summer, the front would be draped in sprawling green vines and hemmed in by bushy potted plants, but for now it felt lifeless and drab. No matter. The real magic lay inside.
Theo held the door open for Hermione, and she thanked him as she stepped past, her warm, black tea scent tickling his nose as her shoulder brushed across his chest. Had it been on purpose, the contact? He couldn’t be sure, but all the same, he shivered at the touch.
He then relished the little gasp she gave as she stepped fully into the restaurant and took in the dining room. Theo could relate to her quiet awe. It was the most unique space he had ever seen.
Almost every square inch of wall was lined with shelves full of liquor bottles, backlit to cast a warm amber glow over the entire restaurant. Filling in the gaps were enormous swaths of faux plants so perfectly crafted that they looked entirely real. Creeping roses twisted up lattices, wisteria hung from wooden beams across the ceiling, and jasmine vines crept amongst the liquor bottles. Glass-fronted, elegantly curved Moroccan lanterns hung low over the tables and cast dappled shadows across the linens.
Unlike a normal restaurant, there was no plethora of private tables cluttering the floor. Instead, there was a line of booths along the wall opposite the long oxblood-red bar, and the rest of the seating was communal. Long olive-wood tables, able to seat twelve, stretched across the terracotta tiles, their tops decorated simply with brass candlesticks holding creamy white tapers and small potted herbs.
On a regular night, the space was a vibrant hum of activity, like a busy beehive. Bartenders shaking drinks, patrons conversing, waiters flowing from table to table, chefs calling out from the open kitchen.
But tonight, it was utterly still. And utterly empty.
“Theo,” Hermione asked, her voice barely a whisper. “Why is there no one else here?”
He gave her an easy smile. “I told you I had connections.”
Hidden under glamours that made her - quite disconcertingly, if he was being honest - look an awful lot like Pansy, Hermione was briefly rendered speechless, and Theo took the moment to let his eyes trace over the sleek black bob that barely brushed her collarbone, the deep brown eyes that felt all wrong, the sharp cheekbones that sliced like blades across her face.
And yet, she had left her plush, pretty pink lips completely untouched. Completely hers. They opened and closed for a second, unable to find the right words, her eyes wide with disbelief. “I thought you meant connections for a reservation on a Saturday,” she finally squeaked. “Not the entire restaurant.”
He was casting about for something witty to say, and having not one bit of luck with his eyes so captivated by her mouth, when a deep smooth voice greeted them from within the restaurant.
“Theodore, my friend, so wonderful to see you!”
The man approaching them was broadly built, with a swarthy olive complexion, raven-black hair, and a neatly trimmed moustache that curled up roguishly on the ends. He greeted Theo with a hearty handshake and a clap on the back.
“Francesco,” Theo smiled warmly. “It’s been too long, my friend. How are you?”
“Well, I’m still alive in this beautiful world, and most days, that’s enough. And you, Theodore? How are you? And how is that beautiful man of yours?”
Theo’s heart constricted in his chest. Beside him, Hermione shifted on her feet.
“Draco is… currently in France,” he answered. It was the least messy option, to lie, but it certainly didn’t make him feel any better about it. “He’s off to visit family. His mother’s birthday is this weekend, so he’s meeting her in Nice.”
Francesco raised an eyebrow. “And he didn’t bring you along? You know, I told Draco he needed to treat you like a prince, and instead he treats you like a secret?”
Theo’s laugh was more strangled than he would have liked. “Nothing of the sort. In fact, I fly out to meet him tomorrow. I just had this meeting with my…potential business partner, that I couldn’t miss.” He put a hand on Hermione’s elbow as Francesco’s attention turned to her. “May I introduce Prudence Clearwater, of Clearwater Antiquities?
Hermione shook the meaty hand that was offered to her. “Lovely to meet you, sir.”
Francesco gave her a broad smile and a chaste kiss on the knuckles - Merlin, it did something to Theo to see another man’s lips against her skin - and then gestured to the empty restaurant behind him. “Might I show you to your table? You are welcome to have your choice of arrangement, of course, but I thought the corner booth would be the most comfortable for your transactions.”
He led them to a round wooden table nestled in the far corner of the restaurant, the wooden bench seat curved into a semicircle and cushioned by plush sheepskin. “I have my finest server to assist you this evening,” Francesco told them as he handed them the various menus.
“Luca will be with you shortly. After he brings your entrees, I have asked that he give you complete discretion, so please just ring that-” he gestured to a small brass bell at the center of the table “- if you need him. Otherwise, he will be in the kitchen.”
Francesco clasped each of their hands one last time, his weathered face crinkled into a genuine smile. “Theodore, so lovely to see you, as always. Please give Draco my love. And Prudence… piacere di conoscerla, mi amore.”
In the wake of Francesco’s departure, they sat quietly for a moment. “Well, I guess that’s on me,” Hermione finally said tartly as she removed her silverware from the napkin and smoothed it over her lap. “We hadn’t discussed what moniker I’d be using, so naturally Prudence was the first name to come to you.”
“I’m offended you think I meant any insult in choosing that name,” Theo countered. “Prudence calls to mind wisdom and reason, both of which I believe you possess in spades. If I wanted to displease you, I could have called you Chastity.”
She glared at him over the rim of her water glass. “Is that a comment on my lack of romantic partners?”
“Not at all,” he answered. “Just the name of a horrid old governess I despised very much.”
Hermione gave a small laugh, and Theo was positively thrilled to hear it. He was about to say something witty about feminine virtues when Luca materialized at their table to take the wine order.
Theo, whose eyes had barely strayed from Hermione’s face despite the glamours masking her features, glanced down at the menu in front of him and honed in on a 2006 Primitivo with a description that read “the kind of wine that makes love to you.”
As Luca left to fetch the bottle, Hermione leaned in across the table, the small tea lights casting a warm and flickering light across her face. “Is that a comment on your lack of romantic partners, then?” she whispered seriously. “A wine that will make love to you?”
“It is, actually,” he said, his voice pitching toward seriousness. “Sometimes, when opportunities are slim, one cannot afford to be picky with whom they take to bed.”
Hermione nearly shot a sip of water out through her nostrils as she gave a most unladylike snort. Theo loved it.
The food began to arrive as they were both still chuckling into their napkins. Pillowy house-made focaccia with nutty, vibrant Italian olive oil for dipping. Herby marinated olives stuffed with creamy cheese. Paper-thin slices of salty prosciutto wrapped around juicy slices of candy-sweet melon.
Theo watched her pop an olive into her mouth and lick the oil off her fingers, trying not to stare like a lecherous creep. He failed miserably.
"I'm afraid to ask...how many more courses are there?” she asked.
He gave her a mischievous grin. “Oh darling, this is only the beginning.”
The antipasti course followed. Crispy golden suppli oozing with cheese, and a bright roasted leek salad with creamy stracciatella and toasted hazelnuts. “Oh no,” Hermione quipped as she transferred a leek onto her plate. “A vegetable.”
The primi piatti course was a decadent plate of ribbon-edged mafaldine in a simple mascarpone cream sauce, garnished extravagantly with slices of fresh black truffle. Hermione took a bite and closed her eyes, trying and failing to keep back a moan. “I can die happy,” she sighed. “Just bury me now. I don’t think I can ever top this.”
“Nonsense,” Theo scoffed, twirling pasta around his fork, and she wasn’t aware of exactly what her moan had done to him. “You haven’t even seen what I can do in the bedroom.”
It was a complete mistake on his part, a careless, flirty offhand remark that he uttered before he even thought it through. Hermione’s cheeks flushed scarlet, and her eyes dropped to her plate.
“I’m so sorry,” Theo apologized, backpedaling as hard as he could. “I don’t even know why I said something so crass.”
When she looked up at him again through those gorgeous, thick lashes, her eyes were clear. Curious. “You didn’t mean it?” she asked, tilting her head slightly. The rosy blush lingered temptingly on her cheeks.
“I most certainly did not. I don’t know what came over me, I-” He trailed off as Luca came to refresh their wine and water glasses. When he left again, Hermione was still watching Theo.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out, unsure of what else to say.
She shrugged as she loaded her fork with more pasta. “I don’t mind. I bet you tell that to everyone.”
He gave a small and disbelieving laugh. Was she actually going to let him off so lightly? “I really don’t,” he said truthfully. “But in this case, my mouth out-manouvered my brain and I apologize.”
After the pasta was done, Luca delivered their main course, set a second bottle of wine on the table, and assured them that he would be in the kitchen until they rang the bell.
“Do you think he won a coin toss to make his wages tonight, or do you suppose all the servers drew straws?” Hermione mused quietly as he walked away.
“Well, I did pay enough to cover the wages of every single person who would have worked tonight if the restaurant had been full, so I suppose maybe Francesco just asked for a volunteer,” Theo said as he took a sip of wine.
Hermione’s jaw dropped. “You bought out the entire restaurant? Like, fully? It wasn’t just a favor on Francesco’s part?”
“You know, Granger, I do possess the ability to be a decent human being occasionally. I recognize that I’m a menace and an annoyance to you, but some people actually like me.”
She gave him a soft smile. “I like you just fine, Theo.” Her gaze dropped to his plate. “Now, tell me what you got.”
“Why, Angelo’s Big Balls, of course.” It wasn't a lie. The meatballs in front of him, topped with a fluffy mound of Parmigiano, were positively enormous. And they were accurately named as such.
She huffed a laugh. “Who do you think Angelo was, to have such big bollocks?”
Theo considered the question. “Probably a man who had to walk around like he had just gotten off a horse, if I were to guess. You know, to make room for the considerable family jewels residing between his legs.”
They ate in silence for a moment, enveloped in the quiet hush of the restaurant and the cozy haze of good food. Hermione stole a bite of meatball off his plate. He stole a bite of chicken off hers. They chatted about the weather. Hermione told him about something cute that Gwenny had done that morning.
The inevitable impending task hung over them like a building rain cloud until Theo simply couldn’t take it anymore. He pushed away his plate and set his napkin half-folded on the table. “Shall I share the memory now?”
Hermione nodded once and swallowed her last bite of food. “Alright.”
She cast a few furtive charms to camouflage them from any wandering eyes, even though Theo was certain that Luca and Francesco would stay true to their promise of discretion. Finally satisfied, she scooted across the curved bench and brought her leg up across it, so that her shin pressed against his thigh and her body canted toward him. Her wand tip settled at his temple as her all-wrong brown eyes met his.
“Legilimens.”
It had been weeks since Theo had been back to the cave that was his mind, and at first, he was sure Hermione had taken them somewhere else. He didn’t even recognize it anymore.
There was a gaping hole above their heads that was letting in a steady stream of bright yellow light, illuminating the entire cavern in a warm, sun-drenched glow. Hermione tipped her gaze up to study the remodeled ceiling, thoroughly perplexed. “Theo,” she asked hesitantly as she walked slowly around the space, “what the hell is going on?”
Theo stood for a moment, considering, watching her weave in and out of the sunshine. Here in his mind, she was un-glamoured and utterly herself. The streams of light made her curls gleam a bright bronze, made her hazel eyes glow. She was radiant. A veritable goddess.
“It’s you,” he whispered, the realization hitting him like a punch to the chest.
Hermione paused her perusal of the cave to seek out his gaze. “I’m sorry?”
“It’s you,” he repeated, this time with much more certainty. “You’re the light.”
She gave a weak laugh. “You can’t be serious. I can’t possibly be the first person to ‘let the light in,’ if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
Theo would have to agree with her - it did seem utterly ludicrous. But deep in his bones, he was certain.
It was her.
Hermione’s brow furrowed as she continued to consider his statement, being entirely too pragmatic for this sort of thing. “What about Draco? You love him very deeply. Don’t you think he would have changed something in here, if it’s truly a facet of your mind that is influenced by a person in your life?”
I love you too, he wanted to tell her. Maybe just as deeply as I loved Draco, though for entirely different reasons and in entirely different ways.
Instead, he told her, “I do love Draco… very much so. He has always been my safe harbour, someone who has always done his best to keep me safe, someone I can - could - always turn to when I needed him.”
Theo took a deep breath, feeling the truth of his next words deep in his soul. “But you, Hermione… you’re the sun that chases away the storm. You are those first gorgeous, dazzling rays that flood in through the clouds and wipe the world clean.” His heart beat heavily in his chest as a lump formed in his throat. “You’re the light.”
Hermione stood stock-still and silent, barely breathing, her face confused but her eyes soft. And then, the fragile, beautiful bubble that had bloomed between them popped.
“How can a Necromancer who deals in Death also be someone who lets in the light?” she asked bitterly, her voice tinged with something that felt a lot like heartache. “Your sentiment is beautiful, Theo, but I’m just not sure I’m actually the cause.”
He wanted to pull his hair out in frustration. He wanted to kiss her senseless. He wanted to scream from the sheer tumult of all the emotions coursing through his veins.
Why didn’t she understand?
Maybe her denial was just another way of rebuffing him, letting him down gently. Theo took another deep breath and rolled his shoulders, trying and failing to clear his thoughts from the tumbling path they were currently taking.
“I suppose you’re right. I’m sure I’m just crazy.” He refused to meet her gaze as he gestured towards a tunnel leading off to the left, ensconced in darkness. He didn't want her to see the hurt in his eyes. “The memory is this way.”
~
Pane e Formaggio looks exactly the same - the walls of liquor bottles, the soft honey glow of the lamps, the long, stretching tables beneath the draped wisteria. But it is absolutely buzzing with activity, the steady, comforting hum that comes with any busy restaurant. Low voices meld in a gentle tenor flow, punctuated by the clink of silverware and wine glasses and an occasional sharp laugh that breaks through the mellow undercurrent.
Draco and Theo are at one of the communal tables, smack in the middle, bookended by Muggles. To Theo’s left is an elderly couple, who appraised them curiously as soon as Draco reached across the table to grasp Theo’s hand, and who have since been trading loaded glances between themselves over forkfuls of pasta.
He and Draco have worked their slow and wanton way through briny olives flecked with rosemary and tarragon, bruschetta bursting with fresh, juicy tomatoes atop toasted focaccia, and a plate of indulgent, creamy carbonara studded with crispy chunks of salty guanciale. Draco sighs in satisfaction as he eats from each plate, eyes half-closed and near orgasmic every time the flavors hit his tongue.
Theo isn’t sure there is anything more attractive about Draco than when he enjoys a good meal, treating each bite as if it is a long-lost lover. And certainly won’t be complaining when Draco devours him with the same sort of reverence after they go home that evening.
To Theo’s right is a boisterous family of five - two young adult children, a spouse, and two parents who settle somewhere between geriatric and middle-aged. Theo’s never been good at guessing ages, but he imagines the man and woman would be about the same age as his parents, if they were still alive. The two are currently arguing over whether a cappuccino is acceptable to ask for at such a late hour if it’s being ordered at an authentic Italian restaurant located in Britain. “This place is only open for supper,” the man is telling his wife. “Why would they have a cappuccino on the menu if you weren’t meant to order it after dark?”
“If this restaurant were in Italy, they would throw you out simply for the sheer audacity of even considering it,” his wife chides teasingly. Before Theo knows it, the father is ordering a round of cappuccinos for their entire party, if only out of spite for proper Italian beverage etiquette.
Draco sits across from him, grey eyes bright, flaking off a forkful of tender sea bass as his gaze lingers around the room.
“You know,” he says with a rueful little grin as he stares at the faux creeping roses climbing up toward the ceiling in a thick column, “I can’t decide if this place is upscale or kitschy.” He pops the bite of fish into his mouth and closes his eyes in bliss at the taste of it, a slight moan escaping his lips.
Theo laughs. “That is kind of the point, you know. Regardless, it’s all very expensive to appease your toff-ish tendencies. Now shut up and let me eat my high-welfare chicken.”
Draco nearly chokes on his fish. They had shared a chuckle over the menu description earlier, contemplating the living conditions and social programs available to the ‘high welfare chicken’ that the menu stated was used to make the restaurant’s Pollo al Limone.
Of course, then Draco had felt the need to ask the server if the sea bass was afforded the same oceanic favoritism as the chicken, and hadn’t even been able to coax out a smile from her stony face. No matter. Theo had laughed until his stomach hurt.
“Theo,” Draco murmurs. “You simply must have a bite of this sea bass. It’s positively divine.” He loads up a forkful, making sure to get each component balanced delicately upon the tines - herb-flecked aioli, lemony fish, butter-crisp potato, peppery spinach - and extends the offering out across the table.
Theo’s gaze holds Draco’s as he leans forward slightly to accept the bite he is being offered, and seals his lips around the fork. Grey irises disappear in a blackout of dark pupil as Theo groans at the mouthful, a perfect melding of fat and acid and salt enveloping his senses.
“See, what did I tell you? Perfection.” Draco’s stare is wolfish, blatantly hungry for something entirely different than the plate of food in front of him. Theo releases the fork and leans back into his seat, chewing thoughtfully, swallowing slowly.
“Perfection,” he purrs in agreement.
The meal continues, their plates are cleared. All the while, the two wizards only have eyes for each other. Draco’s heated gaze promises tangled bed sheets and hot, wet kisses, and Theo can barely stand it when - rather than asking for the check and whisking him home to their bed - Draco instead orders dessert: a slice of tiramisu and a slice of lemon pie.
His skin is flushed, hot from the weight of Draco’s eyes that are all but undressing him at the table. The tiramisu is heavy and sweet, rich with chocolate and espresso and creamy mascarpone. His hand reaches across the table, winding between plates and votives to capture Draco’s fingers in his own. Draco smiles, a glistening smear of lemon across his lower lip.
“I love you,” Draco whispers.
The simmering tension that has been building like a flooding river to Theo’s left finally lets loose with an angry discharge. The older woman huffs in an affronted sort of way. If she had any pearls to clutch, they would be nestled between her bony fingers. Her husband grumbles in displeasure, muttering something under his breath about “improper” and “disgusting” and “shouldn’t do this sort of thing out in public”.
Theo feels his shoulders tighten under the sting of the couple’s judgment. Draco has fixed them with a peevish glare, and Theo can feel him fidget under the table as his foot taps a steady tempo on the floor. A nervous habit he’s had since they were boys. “Anything you’d like to say to my face?” Draco drawls at the old couple.
“Draco, don’t,” Theo mutters. “Just let it be.”
But it’s too late. The gauntlet has been thrown amidst the cutlery and dessert plates.
The old man puffs up his chest and levels a finger at Draco. “It’s just not acceptable for you two to be out in public, being the way that you are. It’s not right. And it’s disgusting.”
Draco smirks. “Disgusting, you say?” He turns back to Theo and winks. “Shall we show them disgusting, darling?”
“I–” Theo can’t even get two words out as Draco rises from his chair and leans eagerly across the table, his tie dragging through the remains of their dessert, his abdomen achieving a near-miss with the votive candle. He fists his hands in the front of Theo’s jumper and captures his mouth hungrily.
Theo gasps at the suddenness of it all, and Draco seizes the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his tongue sweeping through Theo’s parted lips with gentle strokes. He tastes like tart lemon and unending adoration. He tastes like comfort. He tastes like home.
When Draco finally releases him, flushed and dishevelled, into his seat, the entire table - no, the entire restaurant - is watching them. The hum has quieted to a whisper as everyone waits to see what will happen next. Draco merely sits back in his chair, blots his lips primly with his napkin, and turns to the old man, whose jaw is slack with disbelief.
“Disgusting?” Draco repeats back to him. “You’re mistaken, my good sir. That was delicious.”
~
Theo sat for a moment, certain that he could still taste the bright citrus of Draco’s lemon pie curl across his tongue. Hermione cleared her throat and turned away from him, taking a long sip of wine. The warmth of her body against his disappeared as she tucked her leg back beneath the table. Neither of them said a word for a moment, and the silence of the restaurant settled around them with a hush.
He could still feel every moment of his memory. Draco’s firm lips against his own. The smouldering glint in his grey eyes. The brush of his warm, long fingers.
How was it possible to long for and miss him so much that sometimes he feared he might die from the sheer crush of unending grief, and yet still long desperately for the witch beside him?
It felt as if he had one foot in the past and one in the present, though of course, with Hermione’s brilliant skill, Draco would one day be in the present as well, here beside him. What then?
Would he never see Hermione again?
Theo turned to look at her. She was studying the small dessert menu, her eyes tracking across the page as he watched her hungrily. She was still glamoured, looking so unlike herself, and yet all he could see was her.
“Shall we order dessert, then?” he finally asked, his voice cutting through the quiet.
She gave him a tentative smile, and nodded, and rang the bell. A moment later, Luca was at the table.
They ordered a slice of chocolate cake to split.
“You know,” Hermione said quietly, pausing for a moment to lick ganache off the spoon in a way that made Theo want to crawl under the table and die, “that was very brave, what Draco did.”
Theo cleared his throat. “Yes, well, he was a petty little prat, wasn’t he?”
She gave an easy laugh. “Petty, yes. But I still think it was brave. Maybe there's more Gryffindor in him than anyone would like to admit," she mused. "He could have said nothing. Or he could have told them off without kissing you in front of the entire restaurant.”
“Does kissing someone in a restaurant make one particularly brave, then?” Theo asked, suddenly feeling slightly dizzy. He realized he had leaned so close to Hermione that he could smell her black tea scent and the chocolate on her breath. His gaze traced a path from her dark brown eyes to the perfect pink Cupid’s bow of her lips… the lips that belonged to Hermione even as every other feature belonged to someone else.
She was so near, so close, so agonizingly tempting. If he closed the gap, if he kissed her, what would she do? Would she regret it? Would he?
“Theo.” She breathed his name almost like a question, like she was asking for permission. Her exhale ghosted across the curve of his jaw, her voice honey-sweet and made even more sultry by the wine.
He shuddered at the feel of her voice as it caressed him like soft, silken sheets. “Yes?”
“I was wondering if you’d made any progress on Selwyn?”
With a sickening jolt, Theo came back to reality - the reality of a relationship built upon a business arrangement. He gave a curt nod, drew himself upright, and straightened his cuffs. The moment dissipated like smoke in the wind. “I have.”
Notes:
Pan e Formaggio is based off an actual restaurant in London called Circolo Popolare, if you're curious as to what I imagined the restaurant looking like. And yes, thank you so much for asking my favourite question, which is - "Magus, what would you order if you were to eat there?" And the answer to that would be: a bottle of the Eleuteria Calabria Rosso 2021, the Apertivo Classico, Stracciatella e Porro, and Mafaldine al Tartufo. Oh, and a slice of lemon pie.
Have I ever been to Circolo Popolare? No. Have I ever been to London? Nope. But best believe if I visit and this restaurant is still open, I will save all my pennies for a meal there.
Chapter 17: Gifted
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.”
Guy de Maupassant, 19th-century French author
~
Somehow, she had given him his hearing back.
And somehow, it had made his existence all the more hellish.
Without her there with him, there was nothing to hear.
Nothing, that is, but the sounds in his own head. The auditory gifts that she had given him looping over and over, a never-ending thrum that he was unable to pause.
Chattering birdsong filtered through birch trees.
A light breeze rustling dry leaves.
A booming, sonorous voice - coming from a hat? Was he remembering that right? - announcing “Slytherin!” to a chorus of background cheers.
A small, wobbly-voiced boy croaking out “My name is Theodore Nott. What’s yours?”
A rushing creek tripping noisily over rocks in a streambed.
~
The sound of his own voice had been lost to him with everything else, but he was slowly, slowly recognizing it. Remembering it.
He listened to himself read poetry as an adult.
"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."
He listened to his teenage self sing, his trembling tenor building to something strong and sure.
"And all the roads we have to walk are winding,
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding,
There are many things that I would like to say to you,
But I don't know how."
Those were the happy sounds. The happy memories. But after the happiness, the darkness began to creep in. The bad sounds began to overtake the good.
~
A woman told him not to slouch, her words sharp but tinged with fear.
No, not someone. His mother.
A man told him he was a disappointment, his tone drawling and deep.
No, he knew that voice. His father.
There was a slippery, evil hiss as something slithered heavily over stone.
There was screaming. Pleading. Crying.
An oily, evil voice rasped “Well done, Draco. Well done.”
What had he done well? Who was that man?
~
His own childish voice frustrated him the most as he listened to himself hurl horrid, hurtful words.
“My father will hear about this.”
“Scared, Potter?”
“No one asked your opinion, you filthy Mudblood.”
And then, when he began to plead, to beg, he wished he couldn’t hear a thing at all.
“Please, not my mother. Hurt me instead. Please!”
“Let me prove myself to you, my lord. I can do better, I promise.”
“Why are you doing this to me? Why? Please stop!”
Draco tried so hard to push the darkness away, but it lingered, threading through every memory like a sickness.
He tamped it down deep inside of him and tried to return, constantly, to the good sounds.
~
There was another man that Draco loved to listen to, a gentle man. His husky voice was soft and warm around the edges.
The man asked, “Can we run away together, just you and me? Somewhere no one can find us.”
The man confessed, “I love you. I think I have always loved you. And I hope you love me, too.”
The man whispered, “Don’t leave me. I don’t know how to be anything in a world without you.”
He wasn’t just any man, though, was he?
His name was Theodore.
Theodore. His voice elicited an ache somewhere where Draco’s heart ought to have been.
Made Draco think of long-forgotten feelings he couldn’t even yet put a name to yet.
Made him chase the ghost of things he thought he might have known once.
Love. Comfort. Safety.
Draco wasn’t sure what those things felt like, but he must have, at one point.
But those things called to him all the same, beckoning him closer.
Somehow, he knew that Theodore…Theo. Theo was the key.
~
And then there was her. The smoky-sweet voice, low and measured and calm.
“Hello Draco Malfoy, my name is Hermione Granger. Do you remember me?”
Hermione.
Her-mi-o-ne.
He savored each syllable like a decadent meal.
He rolled up and down the peaks and valleys of her name as it lilted gently in its cadence.
He tumbled it over and over like a river stone until it was worn and smooth and familiar, something he could grasp and hold onto.
He repeated it, over and over, until it became a gentle and ever-present murmur in the background of his empty existence.
Hermione.
She had told him that she was there for him. And she had told him that what she was going to do for him would be hard. That he would only have the sounds she gave him to keep him company, and that at times they would inundate him, bury him.
He had been so happy to hear anything at all, that he hadn’t listened. Hadn’t believed her.
But she had been right, of course. He should have been able to tell just by listening to how her voice sounded.
Her words were crisp and clearly enunciated, her tone was authoritative and no-nonsense.
She was the kind of person who didn’t speak without meaning what she said.
He wondered how she knew him, what history between them had come before.
He wondered how she had found him here, in the soundless, empty void.
He wondered why she wanted to help him.
Before she had left him, she had gifted him something else, something to remember her by.
He couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it, but he sensed it all the same. A deep, dark pocket of the universe, full of spinning planets and beautiful constellations and inky black nothingness, just for him.
She had folded her gift into a tiny scrap and nestled it deep within him, entombing it securely in the shell of what had once simply been his body.
He sensed it even now pressed firmly at the edge of his consciousness, keeping close like a faithful friend.
Reminding him of her.
Hermione.
The giver of stars.
Notes:
The song lyric quoted is, of course, from Wonderwall by Oasis.
The poem quote is from I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth.I know this chapter is quite short, but it felt natural to me to start Draco’s POV slowly, as he comes back into himself. I’ll be back with a regular-length chapter next week! In the meantime, happy Thanksgiving to all the U.S. readers out there!
Chapter 18: Reckless
Notes:
CW: themes of sex trafficking, implied non-consent, and sexual servitude.
Chapter Text
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist
~
Theo tried to ignore the bead of nervous sweat currently coursing down his spine as he stepped out of the floo and brushed the errant powder off his formal robes.
When he left the cottage - and Hermione - mere moments ago, he was the perfect, composed assassin that she needed him to be. In reality, though, he felt the exact opposite. He was fidgety. Anxious. For many nights over the past months, he had been kept awake by the fact that, rather than burn Dolohov’s shack to the ground, he had simply Scourgified it and called it a day. What if he had missed something that tied him to the scene? It would be hard to carry out the rest of the unbreakable vow if he were rotting in Azkaban.
The only thought that gave him some comfort on the matter was that no one reputable would go looking for Dolohov, which was why he had absconded to the Alps in the first place. Selwyn, though, was a different matter entirely.
Theo had to draw upon all the cleverness he possessed to try and figure out how to kill the bloody man off. Selwyn was so well-entrenched in society that his death would be noticed immediately, and the DMLE would undoubtedly conduct a thorough investigation into such a high-profile member of society. The only viable option Theo had come up with thus far was to make it seem as if the wizard had disappeared into thin air - and that was, of course, going to be nearly impossible to accomplish.
Sharp, quick footsteps clicked on the tiles, causing Theo to look up from studying the rug in the Selwyn Manor reception room. The footsteps belonged to a tall, thin blonde dressed in a Muggle ensemble of a figure-hugging pencil skirt and crisp button-down, who was approaching him with a broad smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, plastered across her face.
“Mr. Nott,” she purred in a husky voice, offering her hand. “A pleasure to finally meet in person, sir. My name is Lila. I’m Lord Selwyn’s assistant.”
Ah, yes, Theo’s first roadblock to a clean and easy hit. He had been communicating with Lila via owl to set up this meeting for the past week. He shook her hand, the bones delicate beneath his fingers, but her grasp firm and cool. “A pleasure indeed, Lila.”
She gestured for him to follow her further into the Manor. “Might I get you a beverage? Tea? Water?”
“Oh no, I’m fine. Thank you.”
Lila smiled and ducked her head, almost shyly, and began to lead the way through the dusty old house.
Selwyn Manor was an illustrious old wizarding home, full to the gills with centuries of priceless antiques. Gilded frames lined the walls, holding both moving wizarding portraits as well as motionless paintings by famous Muggle artists. Thick tapestries and sumptuous upholstered furniture abounded. There were marble busts and statues everywhere. They passed by a suit of armor eerily similar to the vengeful suit of armour in Nott Manor, and Theo’s blood chilled.
Despite the opulence and clutter in the main part of the manor, Selwyn’s study was a masterclass in aristocratic restraint. There was a heavy mahogany desk at the center of the room, a deep leather Chesterfield sofa opposing two maroon velvet chairs near the fireplace, and a portrait of Lord Selwyn himself on the wall. Other than a variety of whiskey bottles and snifters displayed pleasingly on a table in the corner, the room was surprisingly free of extraneous accoutrements.
“Lord Selwyn will be with you in just a moment,” Lila told him as Theo glanced around the room. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything to drink? A whiskey, perhaps?”
If he was being very honest with himself, a whiskey to calm the nerves sounded exactly like what he needed. “No, I’m alright, but thank you all the same.”
She gave him that same odd, near-emotionless smile. “Have a seat, if you’d like. He shouldn’t be too much longer.” With a small nod, she exited the room and the door closed almost silently behind her.
Theo walked hesitantly around the study, thoroughly aware that he was most likely being watched in any number of ways. He picked up a few whiskey bottles and inspected them. He leaned in to examine the brush strokes on an oil painting - a Manet, if he was correctly remembering from his brief foray into collecting Muggle art before the black market became far more alluring.
There was a crackling fire lit in the hearth, which felt so wrong without a large, shaggy black dog beside it. He wondered what Gwenny was doing at that moment.
He also wondered what Hermione was doing.
Theo’s mind wandered back to their date, if he could even call it that, at Pan e Formaggio. That night had opened up a new aspect of their relationship, though not in the ways one might expect. He hadn’t taken her to bed afterwards. He hadn’t even kissed her. But ever since that evening, Hermione had taken it upon herself to begin teaching him things that she had never deigned to show him before. Almost as if the last imperceptible hurdle to an understanding of full trust between them had finally been surmounted.
Just yesterday, Theo had learned how to make an herbal poultice for healing wounds and lacerations. But that wasn’t all. Hermione had shown him some of her meticulous notes and extensive journals regarding all the trials and errors she had made while honing her necromantic skills. She had even walked him step-by-step through brewing a blood replenishing potion, a feat which he wouldn’t have thought possible until he finished stirring for the fifty-sixth time counterclockwise, and she had performed a diagnostic and announced it to be a successful batch.
Theo had always been shite at potions, but Hermione was an excellent teacher. She was extremely self-assured, razor-sharp, and patient. He’d been worried that he couldn’t help himself from becoming fixated on her lips as she explained the methods, or her fingers as she tried to show him the correct way to dice up a manticore spleen, but he couldn’t help but pay attention to the process of learning something new. It had been years and years since he had put his brain towards learning something new, and it invigorated him.
It also didn’t hurt that Hermione seemed to bring out the best in him.
Theo’s ruminations, which had settled back on thoughts of Hermione’s lips, were interrupted by the blustering entrance of Selwyn. The older wizard strode across the room to Theo, his deep navy robes billowing behind him as a broad, toothy grin spread beneath his bushy white mustache. He took Theo’s hand and shook it heartily.
“Theodore, my lad. What a pleasant surprise! When I saw your name on my calendar this morning I couldn’t believe my eyes. I assumed there must have been some mistake,” Selwyn beamed, his gravelly voice grating against Theo’s every nerve. “But it is really you!”
Theo forced a chuckle that he hoped wasn’t too stiff. “In the flesh, Septimus. How are you? It’s certainly been an age since we last spoke.”
Selwyn nodded gravely. “Not since your father’s funeral, I believe. My condolences, once again. Such a tragedy. Did they ever catch the wizard who murdered him?”
Theo felt his stomach flip. It had been a long time, and he’d been good at covering his tracks. No one had ever come for him in the matter of his father’s death. He’d endured a simple questioning and been released within the hour. But sometimes, he swore he still felt Tiberius Nott’s impossibly slippery blood on his hands.
“Unfortunately not,” he answered Selwyn. “I do believe that at this point the DMLE has simply abandoned the case. I haven’t heard a thing about it in years.”
Selwyn scoffed. “I am not surprised. A former Death Eater is no better than the dirt beneath the DMLE’s boots since the war ended. It is despicable. One of us gets murdered and it is simply marked as an unsolvable case.” He shook his head, brow furrowed, then nodded his head towards the table of liquor.
“It seems a drink might be in order. Would you like a whiskey?”
“Twist my arm,” Theo answered. Selwyn would be suspicious if he didn’t accept at least one snifter. Pureblood custom all but demanded it. Selwyn poured them two fingers each of a twenty-five-year-old Ogden’s.
“Neat?”
“The only correct preparation for a whiskey of that caliber,” Theo drawled, and Selwyn smiled.
“Quite right.” He handed Theo a glass and raised his own. “To Tiberius. May he rest in peace.”
Theo bit back a grimace as he raised his glass in answer and took a sip, the whiskey leaving a delightfully warm path as it travelled down his throat and into his belly. “Indeed.”
He hoped he didn’t sound too flippant.
Selwyn gestured at one of the velvet chairs by the fire and sat in the other. Theo settled into the seat, loosely holding his snifter and turning his body toward Selwyn. The wizard was watching him with deep curiosity, but a lifetime of being a proper host wouldn’t yet allow him to ask the questions he so desperately wanted to ask. So he instead chose propriety, as Theo knew he would. “How is the manor, my lad? I imagine there was not much left once the curse-breakers were through with it.”
Theo forced a rueful grin and took another sip of whiskey as he tried to hold back the bile threatening to rise in his throat.
“Well, Septimus,” he mused, “I will not lie to you; that’s part of the reason I’ve paid you a visit today. Nott Manor is dreadfully cold and lonely, with just myself prowling its halls. I’ve heard you can.. help with this. Help provide a little something to keep me warm. Keep me occupied.”
He felt sick.
Selwyn’s face cracked into a wolfish smile that was all teeth. It wasn’t friendly so much as it was… predatory.
“Oh, my dear boy,” he chuckled. “You have come to the right place.”
“Excellent,” Theo said, “I-”
Selwyn held up a hasty finger to quiet him. “Lila!” he bellowed. “Come in here, please.”
It wasn’t a moment before the blonde entered - she had to have been waiting right outside the door. “Yes, my Lord?”
Theo nearly gagged at her earnest, doe-eyed usage of a title that was rarely used anymore, even among the Pureblood set. It was especially disgusting when considering what Theo assumed the terms of her ‘employment’ were, and all of the ways in which she ‘assisted’ Selwyn. It felt degrading for her. As if she were nothing but a dutiful servant.
Selwyn pointed at Theo. “Please take Lord Nott’s wand, my dear.” He turned back to Theo. “It is a necessity, I am afraid, before we can conduct the conversation we are about to enter into. I assume you were expecting this level of discretion, but if it is an issue, you are free to take your leave without judgment. I simply cannot have the possibility of anything being recorded. You understand.”
Oh, Theo understood. He was about to dive headfirst into the seedy underbelly of the wizarding world, and there could be no record of what they were about to discuss. He gave a curt nod, pulled his wand from his chest holster, and held it out to Lila. She took it from him gently, her lips held in a serene and good-natured smile.
Her bright blue eyes were lifeless.
“Thank you, Lord Nott. I will take good care of it, and it will be returned to you upon the conclusion of the appointment.”
She gave Theo a small curtsy, turned and did the same to Selwyn, and clicked out of the room. Selwyn turned to Theo.
“She is a beauty, isn’t she?”
Theo tried not to quell his stomach as he prepared to fully enter into the conversation he’d been dreading. “I prefer brunettes, myself.”
Fuck, why had he said that. He couldn’t mix real life with his current make-believe persona. It made things all the more dangerous.
Selwyn’s smile had turned predatory again. “Good, because Lila is only allowed to service me, I’m afraid. And as it were, I am quite attached to her. She is very… adept at her job. And I have never met a Muggle with such bright blue eyes.”
“Are they all Muggles?” Theo asked. He didn’t have to elaborate or clarify. He knew the business Selwyn was in, and Selwyn himself expected the query.
“They are. Witches are too much of a hassle. I would have to find a way to temper their magic, and our community is too small. People would start to notice. Muggles, though… they are the perfect candidates. Powerless. Eager to please. There are so many of them that no one notices when a few go missing here and there. It’s natural, even, in their society for pretty women to just… disappear.”
Theo was horrified at what Selwyn had just told him. The thought of the wizard, bloody and dying and begging for his life, flashed through his mind unbidden. His signet ring pulsed as if in answer to the thought.
Yes, the ring seemed to say. What a lovely idea indeed.
Theo cleared his throat, begging forgiveness to Hermione and all the gods he could name as he asked his next question. It was for appearances, he told himself. It was only for appearances.
“Are they trained, these Muggle bitches? Or will I have to handle that myself?”
Selwyn’s smile turned oily, as if he were offended that Theo would ask such a thing and was determined not to show his consternation. “The girls all have a degree of service which they are held to. Duties in the manor and in the bedroom are all trained to an exceedingly high standard. Past that baseline set of skills, though, the improvement upon them is left to the discretion of the buyer.”
He winked. “But I will assure you, Theodore. They are trained very well for all but the most depraved tasks.”
Theo wanted to end it, immediately. He’d only needed the appointment to scope out the manor and see if he could lay eyes on anyone else living with Selwyn, but now the only thing he wanted to do was outright destroy the sick bastard sitting in front of him.
He considered his options. He could offer to take a few days to think on the matter and be on his way in a matter of minutes, abandoning this disgusting conversation where it lay. But he couldn’t leave just yet. Something inside of him needed to probe at the full extent of the operation.
“I assume I would join only the best clientele?” he asked, smiling over the rim of his snifter. He took another sip of firewhiskey, and Selwyn’s face turned smug.
“Of course. I would not cater to anyone other than those who are the elite of our society. Although my confidentiality agreement prevents me from giving names, I can, of course, let you know that you will be in fine company, with over a dozen like-minded wizards of a certain…belief. Maybe even a witch or two.”
That was odd. Selwyn was one of only two former Death Eaters that Theo knew of who had been spared Azkaban. Assuming his allusion to a “certain belief” meant Death Eater ideals and convictions, that didn’t make much sense. Unless the movement had gained more followers.
“And I’ll have my pick of girls?” Theo confirmed. “I gander you have quite a few of them waiting in the wings, seeing as how you’re running such an organized operation.”
Selwyn nodded. “Your pick of any girl you fancy. Or two, if your appetite is as oversized as your manor. Once you sign the contract, I shall trot them all out of their stable for you to compare.” He leaned forward between the chairs, his voice barely a whisper. “I will even let you sample the wares, if you would like, before making a decision. It is not something I often do, but for the beloved son of a dear, old friend, I will have no problem making an exception.”
The bile was climbing higher in Theo’s throat now. The signet ring was throbbing. Kill, kill, it demanded.
Theo pushed the feeling away. He held up his glass with the last swallow of whiskey. A log cracked loudly in the hearth, sending a shower of sparks out toward the fireplace screen.
“You have a deal, Septimus,” he murmured.
Selwyn had all the self-satisfaction of a cat that had just killed a bird. He raised his snifter in kind. “A pleasure doing business with you, Theodore.”
The whiskey burned even more than before as Theo finished the glass.
A few more pleasantries were exchanged and then Selwyn cleared his throat and called for Lila. The meeting was over, the documents would be ready to sign in a few days time, and the arrangements would proceed. But for now, he was free to go. Thank Merlin.
Another hearty handshake, and Theo was following Lila back along the route they had taken earlier, looking for any other signs of life, any reason at all to believe that anyone lived at the manor except Selwyn.
He’d been casing the property for a couple of weeks, of course, camouflaging himself right outside the wards and observing.
Because of these observations, he knew that Lila left every day at six o’clock, except on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. On those days, Selwyn made her stay late, for reasons Theo hated to think about.
He also knew that unless there was some sort of social event, Selwyn went to bed every night at nine o’clock sharp. It was still considered winter, and his social calendar was sparse, so the many galas and charity events of the warmer months hadn’t filled his evenings quite yet.
Instead, Selwyn made himself a pot of tea every night - not being allowed a house elf was a condition of his extremely lenient Ministry probation, but Theo was still amazed the man had learned to boil water - and read a book. He always took his last sip of tea and extinguished the sitting room lamp right at 8:45, spent fifteen minutes in the ensuite doing whatever sorts of things he did before bed, and turned off the light on his bedside table precisely at nine on the dot. Every night.
Theo was thankful for the wizard’s regimented schedule. It made planning his death significantly easier.
Now, the quiet, empty manor - soundless except for the rustle of Lila’s skirt and the click of her heels - afforded Theo a further comfort. There didn’t seem to be another soul around.
They were halfway to the floo when Theo cleared his throat. “Lila, might I be able to use the loo?” he asked, hoping she would acquiesce rather than insist on sending him on his way. He kept himself from sighing with relief when she gave him an emotionless smile.
“Of course. It’s just here, actually.” She pointed to a door a few steps away, which Theo had been hopeful was just what he was looking for. “I’ll be right outside in case you need anything, and once you’re done, I can give you back your wand and see you out.”
“Thank you,” Theo said gratefully. “I’ll only be a moment.”
Lila leaned against the wall a few paces away, a bored expression settling across her features, as Theo stepped into the loo and closed the door behind him.
Not a moment to waste.
Ever committed to his craft, he had to make his ploy seem realistic, of course. He undid his belt, dropped his trousers, and proceeded to take a piss while removing the cover from the tank of the toilet. It wasn’t the cleanest aim he’d ever had in his life because, as it turned out, trying to complete a task while performing this sort of bodily function led to all sorts of conflicting information passing through his body’s networks.
As a child, he’d often been stumped by a common mind-numbing coordination feat that all his friends liked to challenge each other with. Pat your head, rub your belly. It seemed simple enough in theory, but was loads harder in execution. The signals his brain sent would often become all jumbled, and he’d either end up doing the exact opposite of what the instructions were asking him to do, or his limbs would simply freeze in confusion.
And as it turned out, trying to take a piss while deconstructing a toilet was a lot like trying to pat his head while rubbing his stomach.
Somehow, he managed to get the top off the tank with as little mess and as little noise as possible, and with a small plop, he dropped in the ward interrupter he had been hiding in his robes. Thank Merlin that Selwyn hadn’t demanded Theo be subjected to a pat-down. This whole venture would have ended before it began.
The ward interrupter was an unassuming thing, a small silver orb no bigger than a marble. Once triggered, it was able to deactivate any surrounding wards for a set period of thirty minutes. Only a handful had ever been crafted, and it was a highly sought-after device, chiefly by the DMLE - for confiscation and destruction, of course. Theo had spent an age, years ago, tracking one down on the black market. He had paid out the nose for it, and it had been sitting in the Nott Gringotts vault ever since.
His task accomplished and his piss complete, Theo used the flush of the toilet to mask the replacement of the tank cover, washed his hands, and exited the bathroom. Lila pushed herself off the wall from where she was waiting without a word, and they continued their journey through the manor.
In the floo parlor, Lila presented Theo with his wand, which he secured back into its holster. She then handed him the pot of floo powder, and he took a pinch. Her tight smile was back, her blue eyes empty.
“I’ll be in touch to schedule your next meeting with Lord Selwyn,” she told him, and he thanked her and threw the powder in the fireplace. When he stepped into the green flames, he could still see her lifeless gaze, staring through him rather than at him.
The Leaky was blessedly empty when Theo stepped out of the floo. He didn’t even take three steps into the tavern before apparating back to the cottage, his stomach churning steadily.
He reappeared in the cottage kitchen, right next to the table. A loaf of bread was cooling on the wooden top, steam still curling off its golden crust. Hermione was standing at the counter peeling carrots, humming a nonsensical tune as a soup pot bubbled on the hob next to her and warm afternoon light filtered in through the curtains. Gwenny thumped her tail in greeting from her usual place by the hearth.
“Theo!” Hermione exclaimed, turning to greet him. “Oh good, you’re right on time. I was just about to-”
Theo braced a hand on the closest chair, leaned over, and was sick all over the floor.
He stayed that way for a moment, hunched over and heaving, unable to meet Hermione’s gaze as she took slow and measured steps to stand beside him. She vanished the mess before placing a warm, steady hand on his back. “I had really hoped this wouldn’t be a habit, you know. You, being sick all over my floor.”
The quip was tentative, like she knew something was wrong and was desperately trying to keep the mood light. Theo swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, finally bringing his gaze to meet hers. He sighed. She would find only darkness in what he was about to tell her.
~
The tea Hermione made for them had long gone cold in their cups, the rest of the pot untouched. The fire had reduced to embers, and the cottage was turning slightly cool, but neither of them could move from their chairs. Twilight was descending in a gentle lavender haze outside the windows.
“I knew he was no good,” Hermione finally murmured, despair lancing through every syllable. “But somehow I still didn’t know the full extent of his depravity. And he’s been functioning like this for… years?”
Theo shrugged. “Selwyn himself didn’t tell me much about the operation at all. And I’ve been able to glean very few details. He’s very protective of his arrangement. And his clients would expect no less.”
“What about the Muggle he employs… Lila? Could she be convinced to tell us more?” Hermione traced the contours of her tea cup in distraction, and Theo watched her fingertip glide over the curve of the handle before skating in worried circles around the rim.
“I don’t know how much she knows, to be honest,” he admitted. “She seemed vacant inside. Her eyes were so…empty, almost as if she were a husk. I can’t possibly imagine what Selwyn does to her. And even if she knew the extent of the operation, I can only imagine that Selwyn modified her memory. Someone like her is a liability - an outright threat - to everything he has. He wouldn’t leave her with the ability to ruin it all, I assure you.”
Hermione frowned, her eyes glassy with emotion. “That poor girl. And you didn’t get any sort of estimation as to how many more there are?”
“Selwyn said he had over a dozen clients, so there are at least that many. But he also made it sound as if he had a surplus. He said I could-”, Theo shuddered, swallowing hard, “-he said I could have my choice of girl, and even sample a few if I wanted.”
The agitation that he had been watching build in Hermione’s face like a gathering storm finally forced her out of her chair, and she began pacing around the kitchen.
“I assume he has business partners, as well,” she bit out, fury beginning to mingle with the sadness in her eyes. “If we kill him off, they still won’t be free. It will be as good as doing nothing.”
Theo shook his head determinedly. “That isn’t true, Hermione. We would be cutting the head off the snake. It's effective a lot of the time. Just think about how far Voldemort’s followers scattered after the first war, after he was defeated. They were in such bad disarray that it took them over a decade to reassemble. It could work if we kill Selwyn. It could.”
Hermione paused, and her gaze hardened as she stared past him out the kitchen window, as if she were chasing some far-off memory. “If you think he’s the snake, you’re sadly misinformed.”
With a heavy sigh, her shoulders slumped inward in defeat, and Theo could see the tears beginning to brim at her lashline. She brushed furiously at her eyes with the backs of her hands and resumed her pacing. “This is…this is… so much bigger than I even imagined,” she stammered. “It’s all too much. It was supposed to be simpler than this. I can’t… I can’t…”
Theo stood and moved toward her before he could second-guess himself, one arm looping around her waist while the other came up to cradle her shoulders. He swept her against him, and she immediately brought her hands up to his chest, but not, as he anticipated, to push him away. No, instead she fisted them into his shirt and held on to him like a lifeline.
“I know,” he soothed, his hand making comforting sweeps across her upper arm. “I know.”
He felt the fabric of his shirt turn damp where her face was burrowed into his chest. “It never stops, Theo. I thought I could make a difference, but it never gets better.”
Theo didn’t say anything, didn’t press her to elaborate how or why or what she was feeling. He simply held her, treasuring the warmth of her body and the rise and fall of her breathing against him.
Gods, what a feeling, for Hermione to let him hold her. It felt so intimate, being granted this level of her trust. Months ago, maybe even weeks ago, she would have wrenched herself from his grasp, but now she burrowed into the shelter of his arms. Her acceptance of his consolation, of his physical comfort, meant everything to him.
“Let me at least do this,” Theo murmured into her soft curls. “Let me kill Selwyn. And then we can go from there.”
Her breath stilled, as if she were considering his words, and when she spoke, her voice was small but steady. “Alright.”
He continued to hold her for as long as she would allow, his thumb tracing idle circles over the fabric of her shirt. She sniffled. “When will you do it?” He felt her words, warm across his pectoral, and prayed to every god he knew to keep his dirty mind at bay at the feeling of her mouth against him.
“Two days' time.”
They stood in silence for a moment longer, the only sounds coming from Gwenny as she sighed in her sleep. Finally, Hermione pulled back the tiniest bit, leaning into the bracket of his arms. Her hazel eyes moved from the wet spot she had left on his shirt, up across his chest and along his throat, before meeting his stare. Her eyes were soft and gleaming.
“Promise me you’ll be safe,” she whispered.
For the second time that evening, his body moved before his brain could even process what he was doing. He leaned his head down towards Hermione’s beautiful pink mouth, his gaze still ensnared by her own, and pressed his lips to hers.
Theo had kissed many people in his life. He would never, under any circumstances, label himself as inexperienced in that department. But suddenly, he felt like a teenager again. His thoughts were a turmoil, his senses heightened.
There were her lips against his, and nothing else.
Nothing else mattered.
Nothing else existed.
Hermione didn’t startle or pull away. But she didn’t lean into it, either. She stood there as still as stone beneath his fingertips and his mouth, her only reaction a surprised little intake of breath as his lips settled against hers.
Theo reeled away from her almost immediately with a gasp, striding backwards and putting some space between them as his mind finally caught up to what he had just done. “Fuck,” he groaned. “Oh fuck, what have I done?”
He watched her bring a hand to her mouth, a fingertip pressing against her lips. “Theo, I-”
“I’m so sorry, Hermione,” he pleaded, cutting her off. “I never should have done that. Fuck. I’m such an idiot. Please forgive me.”
She moved to speak again, but Theo launched into motion, collecting his wand from the table and his cloak from behind the door. He stepped into his shoes, in such a hurry to leave that he crushed the backs beneath the heels and effectively turned them into slippers.
He was finally able to wrench his gaze back to Hermione. She was still standing there, fingers still settled on her mouth, her eyes brimming with confusion. Her lower lip trembled, just slightly.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, one final time, before apparating away in a blink.
~
“Well, well, well, look what the Kneazle dragged in,” Pansy said with a bemused smirk when she answered the door of her row-house. “I’m sorry, but we don’t accept solicitors. I don’t care what you’re selling.”
Theo must have looked more destroyed than she realized because her face immediately fell once she got a good look at him. “Come in, come in,” she finally chided, opening the door wide and beckoning him inside. “Can’t have you scaring off the neighbourhood children with your miserable face.”
“Do the children in your neighbourhood often creep around out and about in the dark?” Theo asked as he stepped across the threshold and slipped off his shoes.
Pansy placed her hands on her hips and levelled her most venomous stare directly at him. “No, that habit seems to be reserved for wayward friends who leave suddenly without a note and then show up months later on the stoop as if nothing’s the matter.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry Pans, I can expl–”
“Darling?” came a deep voice from the stairs. “Is everything alright?”
Percy Weasley descended into view a moment later, clad in rumpled pyjamas with his wand clenched tightly in his hand, his bright red hair mussed from sleep. His relief was palpable once he recognized their late-night intruder. “Oh, Theo. Just you then. Right.”
Theo gave him a nod. “Weasley. Good to see you’re wearing clothes these days.”
Pansy rolled her eyes. “You can go back to bed, Perce,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll be up in a minute once I complete my interrogation of this vagrant wizard formerly known as my best friend.”
Percy gave a yawn and a sleepy little wave and headed back up the stairs. “A pleasure as always, Nott,” he said over his shoulder.
“Has he ever realized that your nickname for him brings to mind a woman’s handbag?” Theo asked as they moved into the sitting room. Pansy poured him a glass of firewhiskey and shoved it in his hands.
“That’s my husband you’re talking about, Theo,” she growled through clenched teeth. “I’d suggest you watch your tongue. I’m married to him, and he gives me orgasms whenever I want. You, on the other hand…” she sniffed and poured herself a gin. “Well, I suppose I wouldn’t want any orgasms from you, anyway, but bloody hell, a note would have been nice.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Pans,” Theo told her honestly, swirling the amber liquid in his glass as he watched it gleam in the lamplight. “It was all quite sudden.”
“I’ll say,” Pansy snipped as she sat in a plush leather chair and tucked her legs up beneath her.
“And then wouldn’t you know, Ron told Percy he saw you in Marlborough, which was a surprise to me because I had assumed you were either dead or in massive trouble with the DMLE to have seemingly dropped off the face of the earth so quickly. And come to find out, you’ve simply been hanging around Wiltshire, lying to Aurors about business with some family manor in Ramsbury that I know for a fact doesn’t exist. Ron knows, as well, in case you were curious. He checked the records.”
Theo sighed. “I’ve been…away on business, that part is true. Personal business. I’m truly sorry that I didn’t let you know I was alive and well and free from Azkaban.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was thoughtless and stupid. I’m sorry if I made you worry.”
Pansy barked a laugh. “‘Away on business’ my arse, Theo. Your only business is being an ill-mannered Pureblood prat with more money than sense. Whatever sort of business do you have to attend to that drags you away in the middle of the night and makes you disappear for weeks on end?”
Theo upended the rest of the whiskey down his throat, letting its fiery warmth settle in the pit of his belly. He hadn’t been kind to his friend, nor truthful. But he could rectify that, just a bit. He could be truthful now when it mattered most.
“I’ve found a way to bring Draco back.”
Pansy stilled, barely daring to breathe. “You have?”
He nodded. “I can’t tell you specifics, Pans, I truly can’t, but that’s why I’ve been away. That’s why I’ve been so quiet.”
She brought her glass to her lips and swallowed the last of her gin. Her face softened a little, her eyes almost wistful. “Well,” she said, “that makes things interesting.”
He nearly cringed as he pivoted back into untruths. “Anyway, something has come up along the way and I was wondering… if I might have my old room back?”
“How long do you need it for?”
“Undetermined.”
Pansy sighed in a very put-upon sort of way. “Fine. But I’ll need you to be quiet and respectful around here. Percy’s been stressed at work recently, and I don’t want you making his life miserable.”
“Oh, the Deputy Minister needs his beauty rest?” Theo smirked. “Eight hours minimum, I reckon. I can just see the Prophet having a field day with this information.”
Pansy’s brown eyes were so sharp that they could have filleted Theo open if she’d tried hard enough. He held up his hands in surrender. “Fine. No spilling to the Prophet. And I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”
Pansy drained her gin, and they both stood to go their separate ways - Theo to the guest room he knew so well, and Pansy toward the stairs. He was halfway to the door when he heard her, quiet now. “Theo?”
He looked over his shoulder to where she had paused in the threshold. Pansy sighed. “I’m glad you’re back. And I’ll be overjoyed to see Draco again, whenever that is.” She gave him a small smile and headed for the stairs.
Theo went to his familiar room, and lay on the familiar bed, and stared at the familiar shadow of the rosebushes ghosting across the wall.
He knew there was a familiar nightmare waiting for him when he closed his eyelids.
~
Two nights later, Theo stood in the copse of trees just past Selwyn’s wards, waiting.
He was an absolute mess. He hadn’t slept since he’d arrived at Pansy’s. He’d barely been able to eat. He kept thinking he saw Hermione everywhere, just out of the corner of his eye, her pain and confusion nearly palpable. Of course, every time he turned to her, she was never actually there.
Theo had stopped by the cottage earlier, when he knew she would be out reinforcing the wards. Inside the little house, it was warm and quiet, and he took a moment to appreciate that he could still apparate straight into the kitchen. Hermione hadn’t completely disowned him, then. Her tea-scented perfume wrapped around him like a caress as he moved through the house.
He had retrieved his bandolier of daggers from his room and considered leaving her a note, some sign that he’d been there, before dismissing the idea. She would have felt the wards tingle as they admitted him. Hermione would know he had been there.
Promise me you’ll be safe.
Theo shook his head firmly to dispel the thoughts of her smoky voice and bring himself back to the present, settled into the darkness of the trees. He consulted his Muggle wristwatch. In half an hour, Selwyn would head to his bedroom.
He honed in on the honeyed glow of the lamp behind the sitting room curtains. All he could think about was how similar in hue it was to the warm rays of sun that came in through the kitchen window at the cottage, spilling over the countertops as he made breakfast and watched Hermione load her morning coffee with truly unhealthy amounts of cream and sugar.
He thought about her weaving through the sunbeam in his mind, her face glowing, her smile tentative and warm.
He thought about Draco, sunlight illuminating his brilliant blond hair as whiskey brickle ice cream dripped down his knuckles.
Theo’s heart ached.
The minutes passed, as slow as the tide. Finally, Selwyn turned off the light, and Theo checked the watch again. Right on time.
He moved his gaze to the second-story window in the east wing of the manor, and a few moments later, it illuminated. The bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, the light turned off, and the window next to the bathroom lit up. The bedroom.
There was a pause. He imagined Selwyn sliding beneath the covers, settling into the pillows, completely unaware of his impending death.
An eager smile spread across Theo’s lips. Not much longer now.
He continued to wait patiently in the dark cover of the trees. Ten minutes passed. Twenty. At half an hour, the old wizard had to be deeply asleep. Theo gripped his wand and murmured the spell that would activate the ward interrupter.
And with a delicate ripple of air, Selwyn’s wards fell.
Chapter 19: Guarded
Notes:
CW: mention of blood, description of injuries
Chapter Text
"It is not always a given that a soul will be found beyond The Veil. Some souls degrade more quickly than others and are reduced to nothing but dust. Some souls hide, afraid to be found and brought back to face the hardships of Life. Still others may be considered rare, coveted by Death himself, and hoarded like treasures. The Necromancer must be aware that he will not be able to bring back every soul that he goes in search of."
The Nightshade Guide to Necromancy
Chapter 5: The Preparation of the Soul; Section I - Readiness
~
Theo was set to assassinate Selwyn tonight, and Hermione was restless.
It was a moonless night, the stars glittering like brilliant diamonds in the inky sky, when she stoked the fire high and decided to take a bath. She made a pot of tea, added a handful of milky scented salts to the bathwater - scalding, as she preferred it - and slowly removed her clothing piece by piece.
A pair of wool socks. A soft cashmere jumper. An undershirt and her favourite denims joined the pile of fabric on the bathroom floor. And when she was only in her bra and knickers, steam filling the bathroom and fogging the glass of the mirror so that it obscured her reflection, she closed her eyes and ghosted her fingertips across her skin, abandoning all reality as she pretended it was another pair of hands that caressed her, rather than her own.
A light brush across the ribs, soft touches trailing up either side of her spine. She undid the clasp of her bra and set it aside, fingernails tracking across the sensitive undersides of her breasts. She tipped her head back and let out a hum of pleasure as her fingertips left a trail of goose flesh across her chest before her hands feathered lower down the soft planes of her abdomen.
Her thumbs whispered over the curves of her hips, hooking into the elastic of her knickers and pulling them languidly down her thighs. All the while, she imagined long fingers and broad palms, lightly calloused and firm, so strong but so gentle.
Hermione thought of the last time Theo had touched her, when he had held her, and she had let him. He had been so solid and soothing, smelling of cedar and something smoky, and so very, very warm. She had melted into his arms and quickly realized something that threatened to turn her world completely upside-down.
She liked it. She liked him. And deep down inside of herself, she could imagine a world where she reciprocated his feelings.
And that was something that he could never know.
The evolution of their relationship hadn’t been the slowest progression, but it hadn’t been quick either. When Theo had confessed his feelings for her weeks ago, she had been taken aback and tried like hell to brush it off as empty, misplaced sentiments.
He’s sad, she told herself. He’s sad and lonely. Of course, he’s going to have feelings for the first warm body that shows him comfort and affection.
Hermione lowered herself slowly into the steaming water and leaned her head back against the cool enamel of the bathtub with a sigh.
It was messy, whatever was between them. And it would no doubt be messier still if she did decide to pursue anything with him, if she gave him a piece of her heart and surrendered to the maelstrom of fluttering wings that took flight in her stomach every time she thought of him, because eventually, it would be inevitable - she would be the one standing alone at the end. She had to make sure she was ready for that.
Once Draco was brought to life, once he was back in Theo’s arms, it wouldn't just be the two of them anymore. She would be alone again, and while that wasn't so bad, she knew that Theo would feel guilty. And she didn't want him to feel that way, so she buried her feelings for him as deep as they would go.
Of course, tonight, Theo was dispatching her second mark in this fucked up arrangement they’d both been reckless enough to enter into, and Hermione could think of nothing but his safety. This was going to be a tricky one. Theo had poked around the darkest parts of the wizarding world to gain any sort of current information he could on Selwyn, and they had known about the trafficking even before the initial meeting. They just hadn’t known it had become such a tangled, expansive web.
He had stopped by earlier that evening. She had felt the wards shiver as they admitted him through into the cottage while she was out along the stream with Gwenny. It felt good to have him close, even if she never laid eyes on him.
Theo had been gone for two days, ever since he had chastely pressed his lips to hers and set a simmering, sumptuous heat flaring along every single one of her nerve fibres. And for two days, Hermione had missed him.
But she had seen the look on his face when he had pulled away. It had looked a lot like regret in his eyes as he stuttered an apology and fled. And she’d let him. She knew it would be easier that way.
All her life, Hermione had been able to keep her life compartmentalized. Studies and schoolwork took up most of her brain, while love and relationships were relegated to a dusty corner. And it wasn’t as if she’d never let herself experience that kind of thing, obviously. She had fancied Krum, and she had loved Ron. But in the end, her singular goal had always been to achieve her magic’s highest potential.
Somehow, though, Theo had managed to blur the lines between her life’s very neat and regimented compartments, and now the contents lay in a jumbled, confusing mess at her feet. What if she couldn’t organize them again as neatly as she had before?
What if she didn’t want to?
Hermione took a sip of her tea before placing the cup back on the stool beside the tub and sinking lower into the bathwater. She was drowsy from the heat and the late hour, wondering if she was being stupid and silly to hope that Theo would be returning to the cottage after dispatching Selwyn when–
Crack.
THUMP.
The bathtub water shivered, and the cup of tea chattered as it nearly tumbled onto the tiles. Her wand, balanced on the stool beside the teacup, fell to the floor with a clatter. It felt as if an Erumpent had landed gracelessly in the sitting room.
Gwenny barked once in alarm, startled and sharp.
With trembling fingers, Hermione picked up her wand. She was alone except for the dog, wet and naked and… fuck. This was not ideal. She held her breath, waiting for another noise, something else to clue her in to whatever surprise lay waiting for her downstairs.
Maybe a piece of furniture had fallen over? Maybe the ceiling had caved in? She thought the cracking noise had been an apparition, but who on earth could it be except–
“Theo?” she called, her voice quiet and tentative as she strained to listen to the silence.
And then, there it was, his voice feeble and weak and nearly a plea. “Hermione.”
She leapt from the bath in a tidal wave of churning water, not even bothering to dry herself as she belted a housecoat around herself and bolted towards the landing, her wet feet leaving half-moon puddles across the floorboards. She clung to the bannister and hoped like hell she wouldn’t slip as she rushed down the stairs.
There were two bodies lying in a heap on the floor beside the hearth.
One of them was Theo.
Hermione rushed to him, kneeling beside his body and rolling him so she could see his face. He was deathly pale, and there was blood oozing steadily from what appeared to be a dress shirt bound tightly around his upper thigh. She unwound the shirt to find a clean, deep laceration from some sort of slicing hex that had cut through his clothing and skin, nearly to the bone.
She cupped his cheek with a shaky hand, and he groaned, his dark eyelashes fluttering.
Alive. He was alive.
She turned her attention to the other figure and - what the actual fuck?
The man was dressed in crimson robes, seemingly unconscious, with an angry purple bruise at his temple. He was tall and broad, with sandy blonde hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. His face wasn’t familiar to her at all, but the crimson robes… was he a bloody Auror?
Hermione couldn’t deal with that right now. She flicked her wand to cast an Immobulus and watched the spell settle over his form before turning back to Theo. She pressed her fingertips into the flesh around his wound, assessing it, and then brought her hands back to his face to swipe her thumbs across his cheekbones. His eyes opened with a gasp. “Hermione? Oh gods, am I…did I…what…”
“Shhh,” she soothed. “You’re at the cottage, Theo. You’re going to be alright. There’s a nasty slicing hex on your upper thigh, but it didn’t hit anything vital. It even looks like there was an attempt to heal it. Did you…?”
“The house elves taught me, “ he whispered, eyelids fluttering closed again. “My father… so often… the house elves...” His voice dropped off as his entire body went limp.
“Fuck! ”Hermione cursed. “Stay with me, Theo.” She summoned a vial of blood replenishing potion from her brewing room and it rocketed into her hand. Leaning over his prone form, she uncorked the bottle and tipped it into his mouth. “Drink this. Now.”
His eyes opened halfway, lazily, as if it took a massive amount of energy just to do so. “Bossy…witch,” he wheezed, but with all the effort he could muster, he swallowed. The effects were nearly instantaneous, and it only took a moment for his breathing to deepen and his cheeks to pinken a bit.
Hermione sighed in relief and dropped her forehead to his. “Good boy.”
“That… does things… to me… you know,” he said weakly, and she nearly sobbed at the blissful normalcy of his teasing.
She hazarded a glance at the Auror - still unconscious - before turning her focus back to Theo’s wound. Whatever he had done to heal it had managed to staunch the worst of the blood loss, but the wound was still gaping and deep. She imagined whatever he had learned when he was younger had been focused on fixing the more life-threatening aspects of his injuries, while still keeping the marks visible to his father to keep suspicion at bay.
The thought made her stomach heave, thinking about little Theo having to heal himself after his father’s brutal beatings. Thank Merlin that Tiberius Nott was dead in the ground, or she would have killed him herself. She clenched her teeth together, trying to keep herself focused on the task at hand.
Hermione summoned a few more items from her brewing room and got to work on Theo’s wound. First, she tore the gash in his pants open a bit more to expose the wound better. Then a targeted Aguamenti to wash it out, followed by a Muggle antiseptic cleanser. “I’m going to try an Episkey,” she told Theo, “but the gash might be too long or deep. In that case, I’ll need to stitch you myself, by hand.”
“That’s fine,” Theo murmured in answer, still drowsy and depleted. “I trust you.”
Her chest nearly cracked open at his heartfelt words as she concentrated on his wound and held her wand over it, murmuring an Episkey charm as she began the movements. The edges of the laceration started to draw towards each other slowly as she poured all her attention into the wandwork, repeating the incantation over and over again. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple and plopped onto the floor.
“‘s getting better?” Theo asked groggily. Hermione ignored him, staring at the spot where the thin thread of blue light streaming from the tip of her wand met the laceration, knitting Theo’s flesh back together until there was nothing left but an angry red seam.
She finally allowed herself a deep, shuddering breath. “All better.” She took a generous glob of dittany salve from the tin beside her, sweeping it onto her fingers and massaging it into the scar before she covered it with a bandage.
“Thank you.”
Hermione returned her attention to Theo’s face, finding that he was now watching her with those bright blue eyes, one arm tucked underneath his head to showcase a gloriously muscled bicep. He seemed to be more recovered, but she still wanted to err on the side of caution. “Will you drink another blood replenishing potion for me?”
Theo managed a cheeky, if lopsided, grin. “Only if you promise to call me a ‘good boy’ again.”
“You brought an Auror home with you,” she told him primly as she tipped the vial into his mouth. “I don’t think you get any more praise until we’ve handled that.”
As if right on cue, the Auror groaned.
Fuck. She had hoped to have more time to figure this out.
Beside her, Theo let out a groan of his own as reality hit. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I… he’s… I guess he’s Selwyn’s bodyguard. Apparently, the Ministry appointed a fucking Auror to protect him? I swear I didn’t see a trace of him the entire time I was conducting surveillance. He came out of nowhere and I–”
She held up a hand to silence him. “What am I supposed to do with him, Theo?” she hissed. “Why did you bring him to me?”
“Because you’re good at memory charms.”
She froze. “I told myself I’d never do another memory charm after what I did to my parents. It almost wasn’t reversible. I can’t do that again.”
“Yes, but you were removing yourself from the entirety of your lives together. Seventeen years is a lot of memory to erase. Sixty minutes or so should be far less harmless.”
Hermione shook her head vehemently. “I can’t. I refuse to.”
Theo sighed. “What would you have me do, then? He’s seen me. I’ll be sent to Azkaban. And then I won’t be able to carry out our vow, and I’ll die.”
Hermione scrubbed her face with her hands, feeling as if she wanted to tear her hair out. “Is this some sort of reverse blackmail, you prat?”
“No,” Theo said honestly. “It’s just the truth.”
She glanced again at the Auror. “Fine. But you owe me one hell of an explanation when I’m done.”
~
It was the darkest hours of the night when Hermione apparated deep within the trees at the edge of Selwyn’s wards. Through the dense forest, she could just barely make out the manor, which was an absolute hive of activity - Aurors milling about outside and every light in every room blazing behind the windows. The bodyguard must have been able to get word out for backup before Theo rendered him unconscious and fled.
She didn’t have much time at all, then. There was no doubt in her mind that the surrounding area would be combed thoroughly, assuming it wasn’t already being heavily monitored. She took one last look at the manor and hoped like hell that Theo’s blood-depleted brain had the wherewithal to clean up after himself before he grabbed the Auror and apparated back to the cottage. Otherwise, he’d be destined for Azkaban after all. Maybe her as well, if they could retrace Theo’s steps.
Hermione had completed most of the Auror’s memory removal at the cottage. It was a finicky task, and time-consuming, and she had wanted as little work to complete as possible upon dropping him off at the manor. She hadn’t known the DMLE would be here for certain, but she’d had her suspicions.
The Auror whom Theo had abducted was leaning unconscious against a tree. With steady hands that masked her nervous unease, Hermione completed the final memory modifications to make sure that all memories of her and Theo and the cottage were removed from his mind. Then she cast a Confundus spell, pausing for a moment to watch as it shivered through the wizard’s limbs.
He awoke with a start and blinked up at her as she murmured a Lumos and dim light seeped from the end of her wand. “Lila?” he muttered, confused. “What on earth are you doing out here?”
Hermione had glamoured herself to vaguely resemble Selwyn’s assistant based on Theo’s description, and she was pleased to find that it held up to the Auror’s recognition in the murky dark of the woods. “Hello,” she said simply. “I need you to do something for me, if you can manage.”
The Auror’s eyes were glazed and empty, fixed on her every word. “Anything.”
“I need you to walk back toward the manor. The wards will probably stop you, but you must be persistent. Keep trying to get through until one of the other Aurors comes. Ask for Ronald Weasley, and only speak to Ronald Weasley.” She leaned in closer, her eyes steadily locked onto his. “And once you’re with him, I need you to tell him everything you know about Selwyn’s girls. Everything. Where they’re kept, what they’ve been made to do, and who has purchased them. Alright?”
The Auror gave a dazed nod. “Alright.”
Hermione helped him to his feet and gave him a little push in the direction of the manor. She followed at a distance as he scraped through the underbrush on his singular mission. He cleared the trees, took several steps, and walked straight into the invisible wards, the force of which sent him backwards onto his arse. Unperturbed, he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and did it again. The Confundus was doing its job beautifully.
In the distance, she watched a couple of Aurors clustered near the manor turn to look in the direction of the racket. Letting out a sigh of relief, Hermione disappeared with a quiet pop.
When she arrived back at the cottage, it was as warm and silent as she’d left it. She discarded her shoes and cloak by the door, put another log on the fire, and popped her head into the sitting room. Theo was curled up in the window nook, a book forgotten in his lap as he stared at the doorway. When she stepped through it and met his eyes, relief washed over her in a wave.
Theo looked just as relieved as she felt. “Everything went well?” he asked as she approached him.
She nodded. “As well as it could have, considering our entire predicament.”
Theo shifted to make some space for her, and Hermione sat down beside him. “What are you reading?” she asked, glancing down at the book. It was a dog-eared paperback copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
He set it to the side with a shy grin. “I wasn’t reading, really. More like I was having a terrible crisis and I just needed something to hold in my hands.”
Hermione gave a small grin as she nudged him with her knee. “So you chose a book to provide some emotional support? Sounds like something I would do.”
Theo huffed a laugh. “Yeah, I suppose it does.”
They sat there for a moment, smiles dimming as the weighted silence seeped in again. Finally, Hermione spoke.
“I want you to show me what happened tonight. I need to know what went wrong, and I need to make sure you didn’t leave something at Selwyn’s that could implicate you in this.”
“I know.”
Hermione held up her wand. “Shall we begin, then?”
The light flooding into the cave of Theo’s mind from up above still felt so foreign and startling to her, even though it seemed to be something good rather than bad. She glanced at Theo through the sunbeam, wondering if he would try to convince her again that she was the sole cause of whatever it represented to him.
“You are those first gorgeous, dazzling rays that flood in through the clouds and wipe the world clean.”
Preposterous. She was a monster.
She hadn’t always been. Once, she had been so happy and carefree that she thought that nothing could possibly change that. Once, she had loved and been loved.
Now she felt like there was a cold, empty chasm where her heart was supposed to be.
As a Necromancer, she conducted her business in Life. She did not walk in the sunlight. She sacrificed a life for a life, she ventured into Death to fulfill the trade, and she moved on.
Even if she removed the Necromancy from the equation - which for so long had merely felt like an intrinsic and interwoven part of her soul - she still wouldn’t be the light, happy girl who had boarded a train almost two decades prior with ink on her fingers and hopes and dreams tucked tight in the folds of her school robes.
That Hermione had died long ago, and no amount of traversing beyond the Veil would ever bring that innocent little girl back.
Theo was watching her intently now, a sad sort of wariness on his face, almost as if he were waiting for her to rebuff him again. When she stayed silent, letting him take the lead, he sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets before walking into the dark. As always, she followed.
~
They’re standing in a corner of Selwyn’s bedroom, watching the Theo of memory advance across the room like a predatory feline. There’s not an ounce of light in the room - no light from the hall, no moonbeams through the window. Memory-Theo is less a form of substance and more a conjuration, reminding Hermione of the times she thinks she sees something moving in the dark, but it’s really just her mind playing tricks on her.
The elusive movement tracks closer to the bed, and beside her, she feels Present-Theo lean in close to her ear. His breath tickles across her earlobe as he whispers what his previous self is doing in the dark. “I have a knife in my hands, one of my daggers. In a moment, I’m going to trip over Selwyn’s shoes, and I’m going to drop it.”
“How long did you have left at this point, with the interrupter?” she asks.
“Twenty-five minutes. I had apparated into the hall and took some time to gather myself.”
She swallows just as Memory-Theo lets out a hoarse “oof” and the dagger clatters to the floor. Suddenly, the room is ablaze with light from the bedside lamp, and Selwyn is sitting bolt upright on the mattress.
“You,” he seethes at Theo, confusion and anger warring to take control across his features. “Your father would be so incredibly disappointed.”
“It was bad enough that Selwyn had to be an absolutely horrid old man,” Present-Theo tsks. He’s dipped his head lower, now his breath skating across the pulse in her throat. She breaks out in goosebumps, adrenaline coursing through her veins from the scene unfolding before her and achingly heightened by Theo’s close proximity to her. “Then he had to go and bring my wanker of a father into it.”
Selwyn summons his wand from across the room - placed well out of reach on the mahogany chest of drawers like a man who sleeps without a care in the world, the dolt - at the same time that Memory-Theo lunges forward and plunges the dagger into the older wizard’s chest.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make you suffer in the way that you deserve, you disgusting piece of filth,” he growls as he twists the knife brutally between Selwyn’s ribs. Frothy pink bubbles begin to seep from the corners of the old man’s mouth.
“Effective,” Hermione muses quietly. “So you did still make him suffer a bit. A blade to the heart would have been quicker, but he could have gotten out a scream. Going for the lungs suffocated him slowly while taking away his ability to make any noise at all. I’m impressed.”
His mouth is so close to her neck she can feel his lips pull into a smirk as she stares at the dying wizard. “Thanks for the compliment, Granger. Unfortunately, you’ll see here in a moment that Selwyn’s inability to scream didn’t really save me any hassle.”
Indeed, Selwyn is still gasping like a fish out of water and clawing feebly at the knife protruding from his ribs when the bedroom door sweeps open and slams against the wall, and their mystery Auror rushes into the room with his wand levelled at Theo.
“Stupefy,” he yells as Theo dives out of the way of the spell, sprawling across Selwyn as he scrambles across the bed.
“Bit green, that one,” Theo mutters cheekily. “Should have sent off a spell much earlier.”
The Auror continues to play offence against Theo, who is diving around the room avoiding spells, relegated to defend himself with daggers so as not to leave his magical signature all over the room. “How on earth did you gain the upper hand?” she asks, hazarding a sideways glance at him.
He’s still watching the action, but his lips lift into a cocky grin. “You’ll see.”
As if right on cue, Memory-Theo pops up from behind the bed and flicks a dagger at the Auror’s wand arm, slicing deep through skin and muscle. The Auror yelps, and Theo takes the opening to rush him, a heavy brass candlestick from a nearby table firmly in hand.
Theo’s arm is swinging the candlestick at the Auror’s head when he manages to fire off one last curse. “Sectumsempra,” the Auror screams out as a white beam of light leaps from the tip of his wand and barrels towards Theo’s abdomen.
Hermione gasps, her breath dying in her lungs as her throat constricts. If she hadn’t seen Theo come home, hadn’t felt his flesh against her fingertips, she wouldn’t believe he could survive such a close call. Because it’s too close. Fatally close.
Her eyes brim with tears. Present-Theo is silent beside her. Across the room, Memory-Theo pivots with all the power and grace of a ballroom dancer, and the spell grazes his thigh. The cut is deep, and for all his bravado, he screams.
Despite all this, the momentum of the candlestick is still in motion, and it finally makes contact with the Auror’s temple with a sickening crack. He crumples to the ground, unconscious, as Theo slides a third dagger from his bandolier. He stands over the wizard on the floor, palming the blade, contemplating. There is an absolutely murderous gleam in his eyes that chills Hermione to the bone.
She and Present-Theo both watch, barely daring to breathe, as Memory-Theo considers the unconscious man before him for a moment. Then, as if reality snaps back into Theo’s body, he gives his head a quick shake and slides the dagger back into the bandolier.
The blood is blooming a deep burgundy at his hip, soaking into his trousers as Memory-Theo rummages through Selwyn’s closet to find a dress shirt that he can bind around his upper leg.
“Bloody nightmare, trying to find a fabric that went nicely with the color of my eyes,” Present-Theo quips, but all Hermione feels is terror building in her chest, even though she already knows that he made it out alive. Her emotions aren’t playing fairly with her pragmatic brain.
“How long did you have left at this point?” she asks as Memory-Theo checks the watch on his wrist.
“Ten and a half minutes,” Present-Theo beside her murmurs in reply.
“So you left Selwyn where he lay,” she says. The plan had always been to get him off the property and dispose of him as if he’d simply disappeared. Obviously, that hadn’t happened.
“I did,” Theo answers. “I couldn’t have moved him at this point. It would have taken too much time. But this is why I use the daggers, so that nothing can tie me to the scene. It’s not ideal, but I’m as good as a ghost.”
“Provided you didn’t leave any blood,” Hermione whispers.
As Memory-Theo retrieves one of his blades from Selwyn’s ribs and the other from the floor, Hermione and Theo approach where he’d been working, looking for any sign of blood. Her eyes sweep over every surface - the bed, the floor, the furniture. Nothing seems to yield any crimson spatters, and she finally releases the breath she’s been holding.
Memory-Theo stands with a grunt, the Auror’s thick frame draped over his shoulder, and heads towards the door. “Five minutes to make it to the edge of the wards,” Present-Theo says as he watches his previous self. “I barely made it.”
They follow Theo through the halls, his pace laborious as he hauls the Auror with him, his wound bleeding steadily into the shirt. Hermione can almost hear the ticking of the clock as the seconds pass by, turning into minutes, bringing the deadline closer and closer.
“What happens to the interrupter when it expires?” she asks as they wind through the manor towards the east wing door.
“It’s quite handy, really,” Theo tells her from just a step behind. “Self combusts. If the Aurors find it, it’ll be a pile of ash dissolved in the water of the toilet tank. Entirely untrackable.”
They make it out the door and onto the lawn. Memory-Theo is moving at a clipped hobble now as he crosses the grass, weighted beneath the Auror.
“Two minutes,” Present-Theo says behind her.
They all break into a trot, the Auror bouncing with every stride as Memory-Theo winces below his bulk.
The seconds tick by.
“One minute.”
Theo quickens his pace as much as his injury and his load will allow. The trees are so close and yet so far away.
The seconds tick by.
Panting and sweat-slicked, Theo launches himself and the Auror into the trees just as the wards shimmer and return to normal behind him. He lays there for a moment, chest heaving, before extracting his wand from his chest holster and bringing it to his thigh, murmuring a quiet healing spell.
“It’s a low use of magical signature,” present-Theo assures Hermione as she watches him shoddily heal himself. “I made sure my father couldn’t detect it when I was a boy, so the Aurors shouldn’t be able to pick it up either if they sweep this area.”
She nods, her words thick and unmoving in her throat as she watches the Theo of memory lay on the ground of the forest floor, rapidly growing weaker. He reaches out a hand, grasps the Auror’s forearm, and the two of them disappear.
~
Gwenny’s tail thumped a greeting on the wood floors as Hermione and Theo returned to the window seat. “Well, I’d say it was a success,” Theo said, running a hand through his hair with a sigh. “At least in the sense that I don’t think I left any blood.”
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath, her veins coursing with rampant emotions. She had nearly watched Theo die. He had been centimetres away from a fatal Sectumsempra blow. She tried and failed to tamp down the panic in her gut.
“Hey,” a low voice soothed, long fingers sliding across the back of her hand and curling into her palm. “I’m here. I’m okay. You healed me, and everything’s fine.”
Hermione sighed and opened her eyes. Theo was watching her with a sort of vulnerable softness, almost as if he had laid himself bare for her and turned every facet of himself toward the sun for further inspection. Her breath caught.
“I almost lost you,” she whispered.
His brows were knit together in worry, but one edge of his mouth tipped up into a lopsided smile. “That was the past,” he told her, squeezing her hand with his own. “This is the present. And I’m right here.”
It was instinct that propelled Hermione toward him, not reason. Her body moved almost of its own accord, her hands rising to grasp his face as her chest pressed flush against him. She held herself there for a heartbeat, nose to nose, nothing but breath between their lips. She held herself and waited - for the logic, for the doubt, for the little voice in her head that would surely tell her not to do this.
But nothing came, and so she kissed him.
Theo’s lips met hers with a slight hesitation, almost as if he was unsure. Of himself or of her, she couldn’t decide. His hands rose to rest tentatively on her hips, a featherlight touch that conveyed his uncertainty. She couldn’t pretend to be surprised - she’d given him every indication that this was something she didn’t want, didn’t ache for, didn’t need.
She was tired of denying herself the one thing she desired most in this world.
Hermione met Theo’s hesitation with insistence. She allowed herself to melt into him, to run her tongue along the seam of his lips in a desperate plea for entry.
And finally… finally… Theo groaned as if something inside of him broke free. As if he were giving himself permission to accept what she was offering, his tongue swept out to meet hers in a messy tangle. Now there was no pretence, no charade. He wanted this as much as she did.
He tasted like warm cinnamon and forbidden decadence as she licked into his mouth, the glorious slide of their tongues sending a cascade of shivers down her spine. Her hands were still cradling his face, her chest rising and falling with his as if they were of the same mind, the same intention.
The pressure of his touch intensified as it worked to draw her to him, his large hands leaving her hips to sweep up her sides and along her ribs. He pulled her close with such ferocity that she was amazed they didn’t just meld into one molten, frenzied figure.
Every adoration of him that she had never put a voice to, every thought of him that she’d buried deep within her, was now nothing but kindling for the fire burning deep in her belly.
She thought about how much she had missed his quiet, steady presence for the two days he had been at Pansy’s as she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth.
She thought about how much she adored finding a French press full of coffee waiting for her every morning as he tilted her chin to deepen the kiss, demanding more.
She thought about how much she loved watching him twirl Gwenny’s soft ears between his fingers with a look of gentle fondness as she broke free of his mouth to pepper hot kisses along his jaw.
Hermione took all that fire, all that heat, and gave herself to it completely, pouring it into the spark between them until it seemed that she and Theo were nothing but a blazing inferno of tongues and mouths and lips and teeth.
When she moved herself to straddle his lap, her knees nestling against his hips, he pulled away. “Hermione,” he whispered, her name sounding so precious and reverent as it fell from his lips. She whimpered, chasing his mouth again, and whatever he had meant to say fell away before he could voice it.
Hermione changed the slant of her head, giving more of herself to him, and he brought a hand to the front of her throat, fingers splaying across it as the pressure he offered increased just so, giving her trachea the tiniest hint of restriction. Fuck if it wasn’t divine, balancing on that knife-edge of dominance, and she rewarded him by grinding her pelvis against him with a whine, wanting more, wanting every piece of him, as if she could devour him whole.
Theo’s hand dropped to her chest, settling firmly against her sternum and pressing her away from him with a gentle palm. She heard herself whine again, the sound foreign to her ears, as her lips left his. “Theo, please.”
He took a gasping breath, as if the action of separating himself from her physically pained him. “Hermione…oh gods, I can't tell you how much I want this. But I…I need to make sure you’re going into this willingly. I want to make sure neither of us do anything rash, anything we regret later.”
She tilted her head, brows furrowing in confusion. “I thought this was what you wanted?”
“It was. It…is.” His hand left her chest to card his fingers anxiously through his hair, rifling his curls into messy disarray. “But all of a sudden, this isn’t just some fantasy in my head. It’s real. You’re kissing me. And… I’m panicking because things are going to change when Draco comes back. Having him be here won’t stop how I feel about you, but… it will complicate things.”
Hermione bit her bottom lip and watched Theo’s eyes track the movement as he shifted minutely in his seat beneath her. “I hope you don’t think I’m some delicate flower, Theo. I’ve had years and years by myself, and I’ve been content like that. I’m used to being alone.”
She sighed, pressing on, because she needed to get this off her chest. It was now or never, and she had waited long enough. “Seeing you so close to death made me realize how precious you are to me. You’ve made me feel, for the first time in a long time, like I might want to be with someone again. Specifically, I’d like to be with you, and I can’t keep ignoring that fact. Whatever comes of this… we don’t have to continue after Draco comes back, if you don’t want to. I’m an adult, I can handle it, and I wouldn’t hold you to any sort of future. And if you’re having second thoughts, then we don’t have to do anything. I just thought you might… want to.”
She shrugged, striving for nonchalance, trying to project a confidence that overshadowed how nervous she felt inside. A shivering thrill ran down her spine when Theo shifted again beneath her, his hands settling once more at her waist as his fingertips pressed into the exposed flesh where her shirt had ridden up. The motion scooted her forward a bit, and she gasped as his hardened length nestled right up against her core, solid and heavy and hot.
“Gods, Hermione, I want nothing more than to take you upstairs and show you every little thing I want to do to you. Don’t you see what you’ve already done to me, witch? But I need you to know - you aren’t just some conquest or hook-up that I shag a time or two and then abandon as soon as Draco is alive again. You understand that, right?”
His exhalation was shuddering as he struggled to find his words. “And at the same time, it isn’t like I can ask Draco how he feels about this - and it doesn’t feel right, with him so close. I need to know how he feels about me being with someone else. It’s…” He trailed off, going almost limp with despair as his forehead sagged to rest against hers.
“Complicated?” Hermione offered, her words quiet in the intimate space between them.
Theo hummed in agreement. “Yeah.”
Hermione sat there for a moment, just listening to him breathe. Theodore Nott - the one person she had never expected to turn her life upside-down and leave her so desperately dizzy and breathless.
“Would you consider me a particularly pragmatic person, Theo?” she finally asked him.
He considered her question, one side of his mouth lifting in a fond smile. “Pragmatic? You’re practically the definition, Hermione. You’re realistic. Practical. You always lead with your head rather than your heart.”
“Indeed.” Hermione huffed a laugh. “Now I want you to remember that description when I tell you that I’ve put a lot of thought into what you mean to me, and here is what I have decided.”
She took a deep breath and cupped his jaw in her hands. “You’ve changed me. Indisputably. I may be the Necromancer in this equation, but somehow you’ve brought me back to life. And I… I don’t know what the future holds, it’s true, and I don’t know how things are going to be between us once Draco’s alive. But what I do know is that I simply can’t fight how I feel about you anymore. And I don’t want to.”
Theo squeezed his eyes shut. “But I don’t want to…”
Hermione held a finger to his lips, quieting him. “This is always how things were going to be between us, Theo. I realize that. You had an entire life before me, an incredible love that spanned decades. I won’t pretend that I can change that, or make you forget it. I know you won’t abandon Draco, and I wouldn’t want you to.”
Tears brimmed at her lashline. “But I also… I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t acknowledge whatever it is that’s between us.” She paused for a moment, both hands moving to cup his jaw. “And you’re right - I was hasty tonight. I’m glad you stopped me before I carried things too far, because I don’t want to regret anything, and I don’t want you to, either.”
Theo leaned heavily into her touch, like a man starved. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I never meant for it to be this way, for me to give you such conflicting signals. You must think I’m such an arse. It’s just…”
“Complicated, I know.”
“Keep interrupting me, witch, and I’ll have to start kissing you again just to make you stop,” Theo growled, and Hermione laughed softly.
“Look, I don’t hold it against you, Theo. The mixed signals. We couldn’t have possibly planned for how we feel about each other, but sometimes these things just happen. All I do know, right now, is that I think sleep will do us both some good. Let us clear our heads a bit.”
“You’re right.” Theo sighed. “I should probably go to Pansy’s and give you some space. Let me just gather some things and I’ll get out of your hair.”
Hermione frowned. “You’ll do no such thing. Merlin, Theo, you’re acting like such a bloody noble Gryffindor. I came on to you tonight. There’s no reason you need to leave. In fact…” she ran the edge of her nails lightly over the stubble building on the curve of his throat, relishing his warm skin beneath her fingertips. “I was hoping you’d sleep in my room with me tonight, if that’s not too much to ask. Fully clothed, no expectations, but… I want you here. Only if you’re willing, of course. But I watched you almost die today, and when I inevitably wake up with nightmares, I want to reach out and feel you next to me and know that you’re alive.”
Theo cocked his head to the side, his gaze quizzical. A muscle feathered in his jaw. “Why did my brush with Death affect you so much? Surely you could have found my spirit beyond the Veil and brought me back, if that were to have occurred?”
Hermione’s heart ached as she thought about all the souls she’d gone in search of over the years who had never shown themselves to her. “Some spirits can’t be found, Theo. I know that better than anyone. And I don’t want to chance yours being among them.”
Theo’s hands began to move across her back in soothing circles, slipping easily over her shirt and skin. She could tell that he sensed a larger story there, but he didn’t press. He simply offered an opportunity. “Would you like to talk about it?”
She shook her head sadly. “No.”
Chapter 20: Education
Chapter Text
"In Greek mythology, asphodels (Asphodelus) were flowers of the Underworld, known to carpet the Asphodel Fields, where newly departed souls went to rest. Thus, the flowers were often used in rituals for the dead. In Victorian floriography, the sentiment of the blooms is most often “my regrets follow you to the grave.” The flowers can be found across Europe and elsewhere throughout the world."
The Nightshade Guide to Necromancy
Chapter III: Initial Rites and Ceremonies; Section II - Instruments: Herbs and Plants
~
When Theo woke up for the second time in Hermione’s bed, he was pleased to find that, on this occasion, she was right there beside him as the buttery light spilled in through the bedroom’s sheer curtains.
Having spent the night here on her own invitation, with no need to scramble out as quickly as possible, Theo took a moment to appreciate his surroundings. He realized that, although he had been in her room numerous times, it had never been during the early hours of the day.
Other than the last time, of course, which didn’t count since Theo had made a mad dash out of the sheets without even a single glance about. He’d been so nervous that Hermione would hex his bollocks off that he hadn’t allowed himself the luxury of quiet consideration.
The bed, a firm mattress set on a low-slung frame built of solid oak, was a veritable nest of comfort. Hermione had topped soft, silky sheets with a fluffy duvet encased in sage green linen, and filled the bed with approximately one dozen squishy, feather-filled pillows. Her comforting black tea perfume wrapped around him like a caress.
His gaze previously fixed politely on the surrounding environs, Theo finally worked up the courage to hazard a glance in Hermione’s direction.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, Gwenny had worked her way between them like a dutiful and very hairy chaperone. She had her back to Hermione and her paws firmly planted in Theo’s ribs, as if she were gently setting a boundary of some sort. Hermione’s arm was slung over Gwenny, holding the familiar to her chest tightly as her breath stirred the long hairs tufting from the dog’s ears. Both of them were snoring in a quiet and utterly adorable sort of way.
Theo felt his pulse flutter wildly in his throat as his gaze slid over tumbled, wild curls cascading across pillows and dark-lashed eyes resting on softly freckled cheeks.
Merlin, Hermione was so beautiful in sleep.
She always carried herself with a sort of innate regal composure that commanded attention and respect. It was more than warranted, of course. She was always the smartest person in the room, that beautiful brain of hers constantly in motion, and he loved that she never pretended to be anything other than completely in control.
Maybe that was why seeing her asleep was so affecting to him. It allowed an undefined softness to blur the deeply wrought edges that had been etched into her by life and war and hardship. In sleep, Hermione wasn’t a brilliant Necromancer or the brightest witch of her age or a war hero, marked by so much loss that sometimes Theo wondered how she got out of bed every morning.
Instead, she simply was.
His gaze drifted lower, to Gwenny, who had one golden-brown eye cracked open. She was watching him intently.
Hermione stirred, making soft, sleepy little sounds that traveled straight to Theo’s cock, and he snapped his eyes back to the ceiling before they could get the better of him.
“It’s okay to stare at me,” Hermione murmured, her voice thick and languid with sleep. “I do my own fair share of staring at you, myself.”
Theo turned his head to look at her again, the confusion obviously evident on his face, because she laughed. “Gwenny,” she explained with a half-shrug.
“You can… talk to her?” He was astounded. What couldn’t this brilliant, beautiful woman do?
Hermione laughed again. “Not talk, necessarily. But we have a connection I honestly can’t even explain. I can’t decide if it’s because she has been my tether for so long, and we’ve connected on a deeper level, or simply because she’s special. It surely isn’t my doing, because I’ve never been able to communicate with another animal like this in my life. Not even Crookshanks.”
She ran a finger up the slope of the sleepy dog, who sighed contentedly and burrowed further into her chest. “Gwenny doesn’t speak, necessarily, but she sends me… images. It’s almost like a daydream. I’ll pause for a moment, and all of a sudden I’m seeing the world from her perspective rather than mine. Like just now, it came to me as a dream.” Hermione swallowed. “You, in my bed. Watching me like that.”
Theo’s heart stalled beneath his ribs as the revelation that Hermione could communicate with Gwenny was replaced by something heated that swelled dangerously in his chest. “How was I watching you?”
Hermione propped herself up on her elbow, cheek cradled in her hand. When she spoke again, her voice was dusky, intimate. Nearly a confession.
“You were watching me the way you always watch me when you think I don’t notice, with those stupidly beautiful blue eyes of yours. Looking at me like I’m something precious. Something worthy of being coveted and desired.”
“You are.”
Theo couldn’t be anything but truthful in that moment, as the morning sun kissed her shoulders with gold and illuminated her hazel eyes, still soft with sleep. He reached out a hand, tentative and gentle, and traced his fingertips across her cheekbone. “You are,” he repeated.
Hermione leaned into his touch with a contented hum. “I like you here,” she said quietly. “In bed. With me.”
Everything unspoken still hung in the balance between them. Not just Hermione’s true opinion of herself - she had called herself a monster, for Merlin’s sake - but also the promise of Draco’s return and Theo’s resulting crisis of loyalty.
She had told him she didn’t mind being alone in the end, when Draco was returned to him. That she would take whatever he could give her and cherish it while it lasted.
Maybe Theo believed her. She was resilient and strong, and she’d absorbed every blow that Life had dealt her and used it to forge herself into something stronger. She was surely more than capable of loving him and then letting him go.
No, Theo’s biggest hesitation came from within. He wasn’t sure that he was strong enough to let her go when the time came. And that wasn’t fair to Draco, to drag him from the clutches of Death simply to bring him back to a life where Theo couldn’t give him what he deserved. How was he supposed to separate the two?
Guilt washed over him in a rush. He had led Hermione on, and now he was trying to run away from her. In the process, he had betrayed the love and trust that Draco had placed upon him. Gods, what an absolute arsehole he was. Would he ever be able to stop hurting the people he loved?
Hermione must have sensed a shift in him, because she raised her hand to catch his wrist where his fingers still lingered on her cheek and pressed a comforting kiss to his knuckles. “It’s okay, Theo,” she whispered. “I know it’s a lot.”
“I don’t deserve you,” he muttered, his voice turning bitter with frustration. “I don’t deserve either one of you.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Hermione admonished, patting Gwenny on the rump and coaxing her off the bed. The dog begrudgingly left with an enormous sigh, padding out of the room, and Hermione scooted closer to Theo in the bed. His pulse jumped as he felt her radiating warmth kiss his skin.
“I need you to hear me loud and clear, Theo,” she said gently, her eyes searching his own. “I’m just as lost and confused as you are in all of this. When I left The Red Lion that day, I hoped to never see you again. I hated you. I hated you even more when you blackmailed me. So imagine my surprise when one day, I looked up at you quietly cooking supper after you had wormed your way into my home and my life, and realized that I was actually quite fond of you.”
Her voice dropped an octave, low and sincere. “And then you left, and I missed you. My heart physically ached in my chest so badly I thought it might actually crack open. And when I witnessed you almost die… gods, I couldn’t even bear it. The thought of losing you, the possibility of never finding you again? It nearly broke me entirely.”
She tucked a stray curl behind his ear, and he couldn’t help shivering at her touch as her fingers stayed to trace the shell of his ear. “You are deserving of love and happiness, you know. You deserve good things.”
Her finger continued downward, along the column of his throat. Theo swallowed thickly beneath her touch, his entire body alight with anticipation. He gathered it up and shoved it down deep, unable to let it consume him. “I don’t know how to love you both in the ways that you deserve,” he confessed. “What if I… what if I ruin you?”
Hermione’s smile was sad, but fond. “I told you once that we would ruin each other, Theo. It’s been in the cards for quite a while, I’m afraid.”
~
Over breakfast, the sleep-tinged vulnerability of their earlier bedroom discussion morphed quickly into brisk, no-nonsense business.
“I need you to poke around Percy Weasley,” Hermione told him as she nibbled on a piece of bacon. “We have to know why Selwyn had an Auror assigned to protect him.”
Theo shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Weasley and I aren't exactly chummy,” he admitted. “I don’t think I’ve said more than a few words to him at any given time. Plus, you know what he’s like. He takes his job very seriously, and he isn’t one to gossip.”
Hermione simply smirked at him. “The vulnerability of most men can be found in their biggest strengths. Percy takes his job very seriously because it makes him proud to do so. And pride makes a man particularly boastful if you know how to coax open the floodgates. Percy was my prefect and head boy, remember? He was utterly dedicated to his responsibilities, and yet I didn’t even need any spellwork to make him as gossipy as a loose-lipped schoolgirl.”
“Yes, well, I don’t have tits,” Theo pointed out. “It’s not exactly as if I can flirt my way into making him spill Ministry secrets.”
Hermione gasped. “Are you assuming I used my body to get what I needed, Theodore?” She threw a bit of crumpet at him. “My tits hadn’t even come in properly at that time, you pervert. I merely played to his prideful nature, and that was enough… he ended up singing school secrets like a bloody canary.”
“That still doesn’t help the fact that we aren’t best mates,” Theo grumbled into his tea. “He’s going to think it incredibly odd that I want to have a little chat after so many years of pretending he barely exists.”
“You’ll figure out a way,” Hermione shrugged as she forked a piece of egg into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “I trust you.”
Theo’s heart skipped a beat at the easy way in which she said it.
I trust you.
“Now there’s something else I wanted to talk about,” Hermione continued, her countenance shifting slightly as she became more guarded. “I’m going beyond the Veil today and… I want to teach you how.”
Theo stilled, feeling as if he was caught beneath a heavy, crushing weight that simply wouldn’t relent. The feelings that had begun to swirl at her initial words - protectiveness, hope, appreciation - were suddenly trapped by something else, all-consuming and terrible.
Dread.
“Why?” he asked quietly, mind racing with questions. Hermione was the Necromancer, not him. In what world would he possibly need to know how to access the Veil and breach it? It was one thing for her to teach him how to brew potions or make salves, but this? This was madness.
Maybe it was the burst of agitated magic that had flooded his veins at the mention that tipped her off, or maybe it was merely a change in his expression, but Hermione quickly shook her head, answering a query he hadn’t even put a voice to.
“Nothing’s wrong, Theo. I’ve enjoyed teaching you these past few weeks, and it feels good to pass on my knowledge to someone else.” She smirked. “You can’t imagine how hard it’s been all these years, not showing off how brilliant I am.”
The reasoning was sound, he supposed, but her tone seemed almost flippant, as if she was compensating for something she wasn’t ready to tell him. Still, Theo took what she was offering in the only way he knew how - with gratitude.
“Alright,” he told her slowly. “Teach me.”
Her face broke out into a glorious smile that stole the breath right out of his lungs.
They spent the rest of the morning in the brewing room, cloaked in the smell of dried herbs and buoyed by Hermione’s ebullient spirit. She truly did love to teach, Theo could admit as he watched her explain the exact weight of sand needed for her Necromantic circle while using a small scoop to transfer the sand onto her set of gold scales.
“It’s incredible how an overage of even a few grams makes the process so much more difficult,” she told him, tipping the sand from the scoop so slowly that it fell only a few grains at a time as she chased the perfect balance. “But if I use too little sand, I can’t cross over the threshold.”
Theo realized his eyes had been far more focused on her lips than her teaching when she cleared her throat, and he startled. “What?” he asked worriedly. “Did I miss something?”
“Probably the last hour of everything I’ve been telling you, if I were to guess,” she said, trying and failing to hide a smile. “You’ve been more focused on watching my mouth.”
“It’s so pretty when it’s saying ridiculously intelligent things,” Theo confessed, probably being far too honest than was wise, but finding he was utterly incapable of stopping himself. He paused before jumping off the breathless precipice he’d been standing atop since last night. “And with all the memories you’re collecting regarding what things taste like, I just… I can’t stop thinking about how you taste.”
She took a step closer to him, then another, until the heated sliver of space between them was as thin as a piece of parchment. Her sweet perfume infiltrated his senses, and he was certain he could count every single freckle sprinkled across the bridge of her nose and scattered across her cheeks, if she would let him. He’d gladly kiss every last one.
“And what do I taste like?”
He considered her question. “Like… peppermint tea and shortbread biscuits.”
“Mmm,” she hummed, inclining her head so that her nose nearly brushed his chin. “I like shortbread biscuits.”
“Me too. I fucking love shortbread biscuits,” he ground out, his entire body buzzing at the closeness of her presence and the proximity of her mouth.
“Theo,” Hermione said quietly, his name silky and languid as it left her lips. Her breath ghosted across his jaw. “You’re acting quite recklessly, do you know that?”
He did, in fact, know, because he had never been so aware of each movement, every utterance, in his entire life. He was testing both of their limits, and though he realized he was terribly close to wrecking himself completely in ways he would probably never recover from, he couldn’t find it within himself to stop, either.
Theo had always been so loyal to Draco, so devoted and steady, but this taut, breathless thing between him and Hermione threatened to tear it all apart at the seams. He was drawn to her in ways he couldn’t explain, ravenous for her in a way unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He knew she would never demand anything from him that he couldn’t give, but that didn’t keep him from his desire to give her everything.
“Apologies,” he said quietly, even though he didn’t feel apologetic in the slightest. “I don’t know what came over me.”
The edges of her lips quirked up ever-so-slightly. “Don’t let it happen again, Nott.”
~
It was midday before Hermione had walked Theo through all of the preparations needed for crossing beyond the Veil. To his credit, he had paid her teachings his utmost focus, despite the fact that every movement and sound from her threatened to undo every last stitch of restraint he possessed.
Now, she was eating a cheese toastie he had made her, and he was considering the dagger she carried with her when she made these trips. The steel that made up the handle was beautifully iridescent and turned various colors when the light hit it just right, reminding him a bit of the Aurora borealis. The hilt was patinated silver, embellished with delicate carvings of ivy vines and blooming roses, and inlaid with chips of a luminous green gemstone.
“What is this stone?” Theo asked as he inspected it, swiping a thumb over the embellishments. “Emerald?”
“Garnet,” Hermione replied around a mouthful of her sandwich.
Theo hummed, waiting for her to elaborate. He knew she would. She’d been talking his ear off all day, teaching him things, and he was certain she wouldn’t leave even a single bit of knowledge unshared.
He was right.
“Many cultures relate green garnet to the life force of the Earth. The Hindus, especially, believe it represents the never-ending cycle of life, death, and rebirth,” she finished, brushing crumbs off her hands. “It’s fitting for a Necromancer.”
“It’s a beautiful blade,” Theo mused, bringing it closer to examine the floral motifs. “Ivy for affection? Friendship? And the roses… did you have this blade made, or was it given to you?”
Hermione grew almost guarded, her open expression shuttering closed in moments. Her voice was hesitant, as if she was choosing her words carefully. “It was given to me. By a friend.”
Theo slipped the blade into the floral scabbard, adorned to match the handle, and set the knife on the table. “You can tell me, you know.” He slid the blade across the table to her, but his eyes were fixed steadily on her own. “I won’t pretend that I love having secrets between us, but I’m not going to demand them from you, either. I just want you to know that you can tell me things.”
She swallowed thickly. “I know. I just don’t think this particular story is one I want to share right now.”
“Alright. Fair enough.” His curiosity was piqued, but he decided to let the matter rest for now. It wasn’t worth scaring Hermione off, or at the very least, making her skittish. She would tell him when she was ready.
“Do you have to do anything to tether yourself to Gwenny each time you cross over?” Theo asked as Hermione deposited her plate in the sink.
She shook her head. “No. The tethering process only happens once.”
“Would you ever… consider using me as a tether?”
Hermione snorted. “I have a perfectly capable dog, Theo. Why would I tether myself to you when she is able to perform her duties just fine?”
Theo let out a bark of laughter at her frankness. “Salazar, Granger. You don’t have to be so harsh. Could’ve at least let me down easy.”
She smiled back at him. “Sorry. Just trying to make sure I keep your ego in check.”
“Yes, I’d say it’s sufficiently been taken down a few notches.”
“Good. My job here is done, then.”
They stared across the table at each other for a moment. Theo hated how far away from him she currently was. He wanted nothing more to fold her into his arms and take her back to that cozy nest of a bed and spend the afternoon fulfilling the incessant wish he had to count every last one of her freckles.
However, they had a vow to fulfill.
And Draco was waiting.
They walked out into the garden, where Hermione had laid out every last thing she would need. Now that she had located Draco and knew how to get to him, her travels beyond the Veil were supposed to be far simpler. She could start from the cottage and utilize the floo in order to travel straight to the Hogsmeade flat, and she would be far less in danger of having to spend an extended amount of time in Death.
“Alright,” she told Theo, gesturing at the collection of odds and ends before them. “Show me how it’s done.”
“You didn’t inform me there was going to be an exam, Professor Granger,” he muttered rather unhappily, though he should have seen it coming when she insisted on teaching him every last detail of building a Necromantic circle relentlessly.
She merely shrugged. “I make no apologies. Many people don’t truly learn something until they do it themselves, and now it’s your turn to practice.”
“Won’t it be off if I complete the circle rather than you?” he asked. “Aren’t you supposed to tie yourself to it?”
Hermione gave him a smile that was so incredibly smug that he realized he wouldn’t be getting out of this before she even opened her mouth. “Anyone can build the circle. It doesn’t bind to me until I speak the incantation.”
Theo gave an exasperated sigh and picked up the pouch of sand they had weighed out earlier, reaching into it for a fistful of sand. “Try to distribute it as easy as possible,” Hermione coached as he spun slowly on the dry grass and began to build the circle. “Good. Just like that.”
“No ‘good boy’ for all this fine work?” he asked. She levelled a terrifying glare at him and he gulped. “Right. I’ll just get on with it.”
Once the circle had been established, he reached for the three black beeswax candles, nestling them at equidistant intervals into the sand. Then came the fragrant bundles of sage and asphodels. Hermione had also included a few sprigs of rosemary this time, tied together with plain twine. Theo placed a bundle between each of the candles, making sure to give the sand a wide berth with each step that he took so as not to disturb it. A quick bit of wandless magic flowed from his fingertips to light the candles, and then the circle was ready.
He returned to Hermione’s side to inspect his handiwork. “Well?”
She leaned into him slightly, her shoulder warm and firm against his, and he had to ball his hands into fists to fight the overwhelming urge to touch her in all the ways he wanted to. “Not bad for a beginner,” she murmured quietly, her tone pleased. “Good boy, Theo.”
“Fuck, Hermione, you can’t just-”
But she had already stepped away from him, reaching for her satchel with a devious smile. “Whatever are you going on about?” she asked innocently. There was no doubt in Theo’s mind she knew exactly what she was doing to him, but the circle was already in motion, and he couldn’t do a thing about it.
Hermione dropped the strap of the bag across her body so the bulk of it nestled at her hip, gave him a cheeky wink, and strode into the circle. She looked so bloody delectable - her hair in a thick, neat plait over her shoulder, her denims rolled and cuffed over low leather boots, her boatneck jumper askew to show a peak of defined collarbone beneath the chest holster that held her wand.
“Thanks for building the circle,” she told him as she knelt and placed her fingertips against the earth, just before her eyes shuttered closed. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Hermione, I-” Theo paused. He didn’t even know what he wanted to tell her. To be safe? To tell Draco he loved him? To tell her that he loved her? It didn’t really matter, though, because Hermione’s eyes were closed and she had already begun to murmur the incantations she had taught him.
Arabic first, deep in the back of her throat. Grant me entry to the spirit realm. Show me the way.
Next came melodic Gaelic. I possess the power of the earth and sky. The might of the earth flows through me.
She switched into undulating Greek. Show me the way to Death. Grant me entry to the spirit realm.
Lastly, poetical Latin. I come for another. I come for Life. I come in peace.
Theo was watching her intently as the words tumbled from her lips, her hands anchored to the ground as her face tilted toward the sky. He could feel her magic swirling in a thick torrent around her, sending out searching tendrils like roots and branches that infiltrated the world beyond the circle, seeking purchase. He had felt her magic before, but this felt more wild, as if it was morphing into something raw and primordial.
With a gasp, he realized Hermione had begun to glow as if lit from within by the sun. Fissures appeared across her skin, bright light pouring through the cracks that erupted across her body. When her eyes fluttered open, they were as brilliant and dazzling as burning stars.
The cracks opened wider, the brightness intensifying, until the outline of her body was completely lost in a blinding ball of light. It was so bright that Theo couldn’t bear to watch anymore, spots clouding his vision so badly he briefly wondered if he’d go blind.
Then… nothing. The light winked out, leaving nothing behind inside the circle but a few flattened blades of grass. The air rippled ever-so-slightly, a faint movement Theo would have brushed off as a trick of the light if he didn’t know any better.
“Be safe,” he whispered as she moved behind the Veil. “Come home to me, Hermione.”
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