The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man

Title: The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Suspense, romance, angst
Warnings: Character Death, graphic violence, madness, non-consensual sexual acts, abuse, oral, M/F, and overall darkness. Dark!Harry included.
Summary: DH-EWE: Ten years after the fall of the Dark Lord, Hermione Granger leads of life of self-imposed obscurity, that is, until the day Headmistress Minerva McGonagall is murdered and a certain 'hero' is responsible.
Author's Notes: This fic is in 1st person POV, so take heed. It will eventually be a DM/HG, but there is a squicky scene that might make you think otherwise. There is some non-con in this fic, so if it squicks you, don't read it for Merlin's sake! Comments and ConCrit is welcomed!




The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man

Part 16






The sound of the door bursting open startled me, and I sat up in the tub, finding that the water’s warming charm had nearly run out. When the curtain around the tub was thrust back, I stared up at Malfoy, wide-eyed.

He stared down at me, also wide-eyed…the left eye running up my legs…to my face.

“Shite!” he muttered, turning his back to me suddenly.

All I could do was blink rapidly, and slowly raise my hands to cover my breasts.

“Wha…?” was all I could manage.

“Shite, Granger, I thought you had slipped and bashed your head in here…you did not answer when I knocked or called!”

Malfoy moved to the table by the sink, and pulling a big towel from the shelf, stepped backward, the towel hanging from his hand behind his back. I rose from the water and took the towel, hastily wrapping it around me and stepping out of the tub.

“I fell asleep! Get out, Malfoy!” I screeched, finally deciding to be offended.

Malfoy, not bothering to look at me, limped out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. I could see by looking at the knob that he had kicked the door in…

By the time I had dressed in a pair of Muggle sweat pants and an old Chudley Cannons tee-shirt, Vanishing my irreparably soiled clothes, and left the bathroom, moving my coat to the outside of the door, I found Malfoy sitting on the couch, his right leg stretched out. He was leaning back into the arm of the couch, eating a bowl of what looked to be leftover potato soup.

“More in the kitchen,” he muttered, noticing the hungry expression on my face.

Soon, I was sitting on the other end of the couch; eating ravenously…I got up twice to refill my bowl from the pot that sat on the stove. I was so hungry, not having dinner the night before, or breakfast or lunch that day. Finally, I set my empty bowl in the sink, looking out into the parlour where Malfoy sat, staring into the fire.

He had not looked at me or said a word as I ate, and I wondered if perhaps the shock of the past day was weighing heavy on his mind.

“How’s your leg?” I asked, breaking the silence. I walked slowly back into the parlour, glancing to the windows and the darkness outside.

“It’s sore.”

I sat down on the couch, twisting to look down at Malfoy’s bare foot resting near my thigh. His feet were blistered, I could see, but otherwise were just like any man’s feet…large…and pale…like the rest of him.

“I could try healing it again.”

“No need, it will be better in the morning…” he muttered, his eye still fixed on the fire.

I sighed. I knew I had to tell him about the missing Time-Turner, but I still felt so exhausted, my brain moving sluggishly. Severus’ voice had not sounded since I found the lead box, and I wondered if I had not heard him because I was so tired in body and in mind.

We sat in silence, both of us watching the fire as if it were the only source of entertainment. I could feel my eyes growing heavy again, and when they finally closed, my head fell against the back of the couch, my body slumping slightly.

I woke suddenly as Malfoy touched me, and I raised a hand, nearly smacking him in the face. I blinked at him, tiredly laughing. Somehow, in my exhaustion, I let him move my body so that he took my place on the couch, his injured leg and foot resting upon the floor. He had Conjured pillows, one of which he placed behind his back, and one under my head as he cradled my upper body, letting me lay upon the couch. My head rested on the soft pillow, which was placed upon his hip. Summoning the pale green throw from the armchair, he spread it over me. The other candles had been extinguished and only the fire before the couch lit the parlour.

I gazed upward; only able to see up Malfoy’s nose as he half sat, half lay on the couch with me. I knew he was awake, and still staring into the fire, but I troubled myself no longer…and fell asleep with Malfoy’s left arm draping over my waist while he held Severus’ wand tight in his right hand resting upon the arm of the couch.

Malfoy kept guard over me as I slept, and as I drifted from sleep to waking and back again, I eventually felt Malfoy’s eye on my face…and I smiled in my dreamless sleep.





I awoke to the sound of voices. I was still on the couch, but Malfoy was gone. Daylight streamed in through the front windows, which were open to let in a cool breeze. I arose slowly, my mouth dry.

Moving to the windows, I found that Malfoy was speaking heatedly with his father who was on horseback, and Williamson and Kingsley standing in the yard.

“…Imperius! Where is Wiscombe now?”

I blinked, and sat softly on the bench.

“He’s in St. Mungo’s, Draco…and he is not expected to survive,” Lucius said gravely, his eyes moving up to me, and quickly back down to Malfoy.

“Why not Flint, or you, Williamson?”

I could only see the back of Malfoy’s head…and also that he was still dressed in his old Muggle clothes, with the old boots on his feet.

“I am sure that I was probably an option to them, as was Flint. However, both Flint and I have been in the Ministry Headquarters, while Wiscombe has been in the field. They probably thought it easier to grab him,” Williamson said with a sigh. I could just see his face, and it looked pale…ill.

“Wiscombe is not a high profile man, either. He is unmarried, he lives alone, no one would miss him if he were to disappear for a long period of time,” Kingsley continued, the morning sun glinting off the gold ring in his ear.

“What other Healers can we put on call?” Lucius asked.

“Healer Patil…” Williamson began.

“Absolutely not,” Malfoy growled. “I have involved her once for Granger’s sake, and that was enough. If we were to lose Patil…”

“Draco’s right, gentlemen,” Lucius said with a sigh. “Patil is too important to lose. But we need to find someone…”

Williamson nodded, and I noticed that Kingsley was staring up at me, smiling. I smiled down at him blithely and stepped away from the window.

I assumed that Harry and the W.A.T.C.H. had used Wiscombe to infiltrate the Malfoy lands and to get past the wards into the Manor. But how they knew to use Wiscombe bothered me. Possibly Ernie Macmillan had given Harry the name?

I dressed into a clean black skirt, and a black top with a wide neck and long sleeves tight about my arms. I drew my hair back into a low ponytail…and brushed my teeth for the first time in what seemed like ages. I rinsed my mouth, and looking into the mirror again and saw that I had a few scratches at my right temple, but nothing that needed attention.

By the time I had moved to the kitchen for a glass of water, Malfoy was stomping up the stairs, shutting the door behind him while kicking off his muddy boots. He flopped down on the couch, grasping for the pillow I had abandoned, propping up his right leg again. He seemed paler…with a dark smudge under his left eye, the eye patch obscuring his right eye. I assumed he had not slept a wink the night before.

“I will heal your leg, Malfoy…” I offered again.

Malfoy huffed, grouchily, “Have at it. As long as the soreness goes away, I don’t care…”

I sighed and placed the empty glass in the sink, next to the dirty bowls from the night before. I idly thought I should wash them later…

Malfoy tried to pull the pant leg up and groaned when he realized he could not push it high enough for the bandage to be removed.

“Fucking hell…” he muttered as I approached, rising from the couch again, his hands moving to his fly.

I blinked at him as I drew the Elder Wand from my sleeve.

“Granger…don’t look…” he muttered, moving a hand to motion me to turn around. My brow furrowed, but I complied.

The sound of denim falling to the floor made me blush, and then out of the corner of my eye I saw that he had snatched up the throw blanket…I heard him sit down again.

“Get to it, Granger,” he snapped, and I took a breath before turning.

Malfoy sat on the couch, slumping so that his thigh was far enough from the edge of the leather seat cushion that I could tend to the bandaged wound. There were spots of color high on his pale cheeks and his eye seemed to be fixed somewhere high on the wall behind me.

The throw blanket was placed over his groin…I had not thought that Malfoy preferred to go as what Ron had once called ‘commando.’ Of course, I never thought of Malfoy much before Minerva’s funeral…

His legs were covered in golden hairs, so pale that I did not realize how thickly the limbs were covered until I knelt before him. I placed myself so that my knees were on either side of his right foot, my eyes moving along the inner left thigh…to the shadow of the throw blanket blocking my view of what was underneath.

Slowly, I began unwrapping the bandage, finding only a small bit of blood. The wound was not infected as I inspected it, my breath apparently tickling Malfoy for he jerked slightly.

“The wound looks fine…not much swelling…the color of the flesh looks healthy,” I said softly.

Malfoy nodded, but said nothing, swallowing. I smirked, although my blush deepened as I noticed a slight bulging under the throw blanket. Malfoy feigned a cough, and dropped his right hand to obscure the bulge. I rolled my eyes.

I disinfected the wound again with the Elder Wand, and began moving the tip over the outside wound, watching as the skin seemed to glow a golden colour and knit shut. Malfoy sighed, and I wondered if the sensation was pleasurable…

“No scar,” I commented, moving slightly to begin healing the inner wound.

I placed a hand on his left knee to steady myself, and Malfoy inhaled sharply. I glanced up at him, finding that his eye was upon me. I opened my mouth to apologize, but turned to the wound again, repeating the motion of my earlier wand work on the other side.

Again, Malfoy sighed as the skin healed, leaving no mark.

I paid little mind as I inhaled the scent of him from my position…my head placed above his parted knees, my hand on his left knee.

“Good as new,” I whispered, my breath disturbing the hairs of his inner thigh.

Malfoy groaned, which made my stomach do a somersault, and a certain part of my anatomy become very wet…

I slowly slipped my hand from his knee and moved to sit back on my haunches, moving my eyes up his tee shirt clad torso to his face.

He was staring at me, his eyelid hooded over his pale eye in a manner that I found a bit…unsettling. I cleared my throat and Vanished the bandages on the floor, tucking my wand into my sleeve afterward.

“Granger?”

His voice was deeper than usual…and a part of me responded to that depth…

“Hm?” I hummed situating my wands into the holster through the fabric of my sleeve.

He moved his hand over the bulge in the blanket, and if it were possible, I blushed deeper, knowing exactly what he was situating underneath…

“Did you catch what I said yesterday?”

I blinked innocently, but did not meet his eye.

“When?”

He sighed deeply. “When I said I was not a good man…”

“I caught it,” I whispered, my eyes moving to the discarded denim next to me.

“And I said that you were a good woman?”

I nodded.

He took a breath, leaning forward so that I could feel his deep exhales against the right side of my face.

“I am beginning to believe that you are not as ‘good’ a woman as I thought,” he whispered in a ‘matter of fact’ tone. “That actually, you are quite wicked…like so many others of your sex…but much brighter than those other women.”

I swallowed thickly.

“And if you keep being wickedly brilliant…I might just have to show you how ‘wicked’ I can be…”

I couldn’t breathe…and my chest heaved. I did want to show him how ‘wicked’ I could be…turn my face and kiss him with all my ‘wickedness,’ but before I could move thought into action, Malfoy rose, bending down to retrieve his denims. I watched him move around the couch, dropping the throw blanket and reapply his pants. From where I knelt before the couch, all I could see was his hip and the dip of muscle down to the top of a thatch of course silver curls…

I felt as if I needed to find some private place and…

Malfoy threw the blanket over the back of the couch before adjusting his tee shirt and moving to the kitchen, preparing a pot of coffee.

I had not meant to tease him when I healed him…my only intention was to heal the wound. How was I to know that he did not wear boxers or briefs…or anything under his denims? If anything, he had teased me.

My arousal drained away to something else…something like self-pity.

I did not know if I could…I did not know if I could feel anything….I did not know if sex would be pleasurable again after…

I closed my eyes and set my jaw. I knew I should not even think about it, at least not with the man staring with his one eye at the fire underneath the coffeepot. It was not a matter of who was good or wicked. It was a matter of something else entirely. I wanted Malfoy, and he wanted me, at least a base part of him did…it was very evident and had been literally before my face only moments before.

But for some reason that was not so obvious, he would not have me. And it was that point that made all the difference.

It made me want to be ‘wicked.’





The sunlight was exceptionally warm against my black blouse as Malfoy and I sat on the balcony outside his small bedroom in the groom’s quarters. Two wicker chairs and a small table fit upon the balcony while the French doors were open behind us, gauzy curtains drifting in the breeze. Malfoy sat at my right, sipping coffee…gazing out into the fields before us. He had claimed that we were going to have a long discussion about recent events…

I still felt absolutely awkward watching him slurp messily at his coffee, as if to annoy me. I held my coffee in my hands, resting the cup in my lap. I was waiting for him to speak, but I half wished he would not, and perhaps disappear. The tension of moments earlier, his provocative words spoken into my ear had not left me.

“Alright, Granger…tell me some good news.”

I frowned at him as he placed his coffee cup on the table before us, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

“What do you mean?”

Malfoy turned slightly in his wicker chair to regard me, face to face.

“I do not know where you have been for the past two days, but if you haven’t noticed, my parents are homeless, the Manor is ruined, and twelve men and women were lined up in a row in my mother’s garden…dead,” he growled, his face twisting into a mask of anger.

I blinked slowly, shifting my coffee cup in my hands.

“Some good news would put me in a much more amicable mood…”

I quirked my lips before sighing. Malfoy’s mood definitely needed to be lightened, but I knew that what I needed to tell him would send him into a rage…most likely.

“So out with it…”

I bit my lip, and met his eye. “I have little good news, Malfoy.”

Sitting back into his wicker chair, he ran a hand over the right side of his face, using his eye patch to scratch an itch along his scar.

“Tell me,” he muttered.

I took a breath. “I found the lead box on the landing between the first and second floors. It was covered in blood and burnt skin with a clear handprint…”

“Fingerprints…?”

I shook my head. “There wouldn’t be anything. I opened the box…”

“Both?”

I shook my head again and Malfoy jumped to his feet. As I had thought…he started into a rage.

“You did not hide it properly, Granger! How the hell was it opened? Wasn’t it goblin-warded?”

He was looming over me, a hand grasping my shoulder painfully, and his coffee laden breath hot against my face. I did not move, only lowered my eyes to my steaming cup, hoping he would not jar me so that I spill the scalding liquid in my lap.

“Only one was taken…” I said through my teeth, Malfoy’s grip tightening…but as soon I spoke, Malfoy straightened, falling back into his own chair, a hand over his reddened face.

“One? And why aren’t you in a panic, Granger?” he asked, his voice muffled by his palm.

“Because all is not lost, Malfoy,” I answered. “Whomever opened the box now sports a burnt hand…burnt so badly by a goblin enchantment that we might be able to find them.”

“There wasn’t any mention of burnt hands among the dead…”

I smirked. This was perhaps the only good news I could impart.

“They would have to go to St. Mungo’s or to a private Healer…” I whispered.

Malfoy was suddenly on his feet again, padding quickly into the apartment. I heard the Floo activate and Malfoy growling indistinctly into the fire. I contented myself to sip my coffee, staring out across the fields, seeing that the sheep were laying along the top of a hill, basking in the sunlight.

I knew I should have mentioned the bit about one of the W.A.T.C.H. members having a burnt hand…but I had almost forgotten about it. I had formed the deduction at some point in the back of the mind, and I wondered for a quick moment if Severus’ influence had aided me there… I still needed to think through the fact I had escaped the groom’s quarters the night of the attack and ended up so far away from danger without knowing how I had done it. I could still remember the dream…and Severus. There was also something Severus had said in my dream…

“You don’t think it could have been Potter’s handprint?” Malfoy asked gruffly, startling me from my thoughts as he sat down in the adjacent wicker chair.

“No, I don’t think so. It seemed smaller, like a woman’s hand…”

“There is no record of anyone at St. Mungo’s with a burnt hand…not yet anyway…”

I frowned. “Other Healers?”

“Williamson is working on it. He’s already back in London…”

I nodded.

“Go on then, Granger. Tell me more possibly good news,” Malfoy said, leaning back into his chair to let the sun hit his face.

“Possibly in their pain and haste, whomever took the Time-Turner did not take something else from the box which might help us…”

I set my coffee aside and rose, going into the parlour and retrieving my coat. Sitting in the wicker chair again, I dug into the pocket and withdrew the box.

“Where’s the blood?” Malfoy asked, his head resting back into the chair so that he watched me down his long nose.

“The enchantments…when I closed the box after I found it, the enchantments burnt off the blood and skin. I do not know why, but the warding parameters set on the box are attuned to me…”

I set the box on my lap, and opened the latch easily. Opening the lid, I turned the box so Malfoy could see inside. Gingerly, I lifted the remaining Time-Turner, and grasped the metal disc underneath. I held the disc in the palm of my hand as I closed the box and slipped it back into my pocket, next to the Invisibility Cloak…I knew I had to tell Malfoy about it…as it was an asset.

“This might be the only good thing about the whole situation, Malfoy,” I said opening my palm for his grey eye to see the circular disc and the engraved design.

Malfoy leaned forward to study the disc, but did not move to touch it.

“What is it?”

I smirked. “I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I have an idea.”

Malfoy rolled his eye and sat back. “Which is?”

I closed my fingers about the disc and pulled my fist back to rest it upon my knee.

“Surely you remember how a Protean Charm works?”

It was as rhetorical question…Malfoy had used it in our Sixth Year…

“There’s only one disc, Granger, so how do you believe that some bit of metal is going to be a good thing?” Malfoy sighed, letting the sunlight hit his face with an inclination of his pale neck.

I gnawed on my lower lip. There had been two Time-Turners. And I knew that with regular Time-Turners that my department had enacted an enchantment soon after the fall of Voldemort that could track and record if a Time-Turner was used. With the strict regulation of the devices, it was only natural that the use of one could be recorded. The idea of how to construct a spell to track the smaller Time-Turners had come from the designs of the two that had once been held in the box now in my coat pocket…

“When one of the two Time-Turners are used, this disc records or somehow alerts the user of the second device that its brother is in use…I’m speculating here, Malfoy, but because there are two devices, they could be used together. So if one goes, the other can follow almost directly behind…” I trailed, falling into my thoughts again.

And you know where Potter wants to go, and when, but will he use it on the exact day and wait? He would risk capture if he waits too long, it is not even two weeks into April…Severus whispered.

The disc would somehow let me know when Harry’s Time-Turner was activated, and possibly tell me where he was when he turned the hourglass… I opened my fingers to let the light catch the smooth face of the silver metal disc.

“We must either find him and stop him, or we must follow him back and stop him there,” I whispered.

“I would rather find him now, Granger,” Malfoy mumbled.

I agreed. Traveling back a few hours had been slightly disorienting…traveling back almost thirteen years could be a bit more than simply dizzying. I had no idea what traveling back so far might do to a person…no one knew. Again, there were speculations, but I did not want to think about it at that moment.

“But we would know if he decided to use it in an hour or in a month,” I said softly, moving the disc from my hand so that I slid it into my sleeve, between the backside of my wand holster and against the inside of my arm. If the disc did have a type of Protean Charm embedded in the metal, it would heat up or vibrate.

“So, one of the Time-Turners have been stolen, and the thief’s hand is burnt, possibly permanently damaged. You suspect it was a woman, and it was not one of the dead.

We have a Time-Turner…and a piece of metal. Please tell me you have more good news, Granger,” Malfoy sighed.

I rolled my eyes until they fell upon my coat again.

“We have an Invisibility Cloak.”

Malfoy stiffened, and turned his face to me, shadow falling over his pale brows. “Since when?”

I hesitated.

“Since the Ministry…”

His hands grasped the arms of the wicker chair, his knuckles whitening. “And you said nothing because…?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

Malfoy smirked, and began chuckling deeply. “Two Hallows…I bet Potter is literally beating himself about face with his one hand!”

I could not help but smirk. Harry’s Cloak had been a prized possession even before we learned it was a Hallow. It had been a link to his father…and my smirk faded. The last link to his father and the Marauders, it seemed almost sacrilegious that I had it and that Malfoy knew that we could use it… I did not feel the same about the Elder Wand, it had had many masters, but the Cloak had remained in the Potter family for generations.

I satisfied myself in the thought that Harry had nearly given the Cloak away when he left on the floor of the Ministry hall. Harry had not been thinking…but I had. Did that make me a suitable master for one of the Deathly Hallows? Yes.

“Please tell me you found the Resurrection Stone in the Ministry?” Malfoy chuckled.

“I wish…”

The Stone…now that Harry had a Time-Turner, why would he need the Stone? I had had this thought many times, anticipating that he might get a Time-Turner, and since he had the means to go back, what use would he have for the Stone?

The only possible use I could imagine was that Harry could use the Stone to save the lives of those somehow inadvertently killed after the quantum shift. If he killed Voldemort…I had already thought out the changes…who would survive, etc. I had also realized that those people who had died in our timeline would probably die in some other fashion in a revised timeline. Harry, most likely, did not see or know that the universe would ‘course-correct’ itself.

There was nothing I could do about those thoughts. And I wondered what I could do.

“Do you remember very much about Fourth Year?” I asked Malfoy, reaching for my coffee.

Malfoy sighed. “Not really. I remember the Tri-Wizard tournament, I remember Diggory dying…I remember the Yule Ball…that’s about it.”

I pursed my lips. “Rather vague, isn’t it?”

Malfoy shifted in his wicker chair, resting his bare right foot on his left knee, the shift making the wicker crack. “I didn’t keep a day-to-day diary, Granger. I had more important things to think about…bullying people, getting turned into a ferret by Crouch, Jr., and making sure Pansy kept her clothes on after the Ball…”

I laughed, but stopped, my brows knitting…

Diary…day-to-day…

“Oh!”

Malfoy made a strange face and quirked his left eyebrow.

“’Oh?’ Granger?”

“Just remembered something…that might be useful if things do not turn out…” I mumbled, setting my coffee aside and chewing on the nail of my left thumb.

“I, for one, do hope things ‘turn out,’ Granger, what is that mind of yours concocting?” Malfoy asked with a smooth, almost erotic quality to his deep voice.

“A journal…I kept a journal during Fourth Year…a meticulous study plan, notes about the Tri-Wizard tasks, and details about the days leading up to Voldemort’s return…”

Malfoy sniffed, apparently disinterested.

“If…if we would have to go back, that journal might be useful. It would help in knowing where I was, my fourteen year old self…Harry, Ron, Severus, Albus…who to avoid and who to possibly contact on the off chance there is more trouble than we can be manage…”

“Wait a minute, Granger…when I said a while back to think in terms of worst case scenarios, I did not mean…”

“You did mean this, Malfoy. I don’t think Harry will be found, unless he wants to be…and I very much doubt now that he has what he wants we will see him. The people who attacked your home might continue targeting you, but I have a feeling that they won’t bother with me unless Harry commands it.”

Malfoy, again, ran a hand down the right side of his face. “You are right, Granger, but I would rather put all my energy into finding Potter in ‘this’ time than wait around to see if he is going to use the Time-Turner. We won’t even know that the timeline has changed, will we? At least that part will be painless…” Malfoy grumbled, his hand moving to scratch near the wound on his leg I had healed earlier.

“It won’t be painless, Malfoy. Didn’t I explain that to you? When the timeline shifts…we will cease to exist…”

Malfoy shrugged, “Sounds painless to me.”

I closed my eyes in exasperation.

We did not speak for a long while. I had told Malfoy about the Cloak and the Time-Turner. I had given him my thoughts on the purpose of the disc, and I had mentioned my Fourth Year journal, which was still in a shelf in my cottage in the Forbidden Forest. I had healed him, spoken my peace, for the most part, and now could think of nothing else to say.

I rose from my seat, picking up my coat, and moved back indoors to fall onto the couch, wrapping my coat around my arms. I sat looking at the low fire for a long while before I let my body slide down to lay across the worn leather, my cheek resting against a pillow.

I was unsettled even after such serious discussion about the Time-Turners. I could smell Malfoy’s skin and hear his sinful voice in my ear. I did not want to be ‘wicked’ at that moment, I just wanted to feel as if the world made sense.

I had to kill Harry. The Titans had said so, and Severus had said so…

But I did not want to. Why would I want to kill my best friend? I missed him, the ‘him’ I knew from years ago. I had loved Harry more than life itself for a time…and now I hated him for making my world an alien place.

If Harry had not been mad, I would have been in my own home, sitting in my garden, soaking in the rays of the spring sun. I would be thinking of what to plant in my little garden, and the trees would be budding with leaves to come. Minerva would still be alive, and we would have tea next to the shore of the Lake. Hagrid and I would take walks about the grounds, avoiding the students. I would go to work, and leave, feeling as if I had done something important. I would get a postcard from Ron from some new exotic place, and I would go into Hogsmeade to buy a new bundle of parchment and bottles of ink… Life would be easy and understandable.

I would not have to feel such all-consuming anger toward Harry, or fear. I would not have to feel attraction and growing affection for Malfoy… I would not have to be afraid of rejection, or that I was somehow uglier on the inside that I first thought.

I realized that tears were streaming out the right side of my eyes, and I sniffed, wiping the tears away.

“Crying, Granger?” Malfoy’s voice sounded from the kitchen.

I did not answer him, but listened, as it seemed cookware was being produced from the cabinets.

More tears streamed out of my right eye into the pillow beneath my head, and tears pooled in my left eye against the bridge of my nose. I missed my old life, and the privacy I had in my own mind.

I wondered how long I would have to share quarters with Malfoy. There was only one bed…and I knew that he might allow me to sleep against him on the couch, but in a bed…never. I wanted my own bed in my cottage. I wanted to lay in the cradled softness, the windows open to a balmy night and the sounds of the Forest.

I sniffed again, moving my left hand so that it rested over my ear. I did not want to hear Malfoy’s voice. I squeezed my eyes shut and I breathed through my mouth. My emotions were swirling inside me, and I knew I was on the verge of panic. As long as I kept breathing slowly, I knew I would be fine.

I comforted myself in the thought that my life had changed…and I would end up stronger.

Hours later, Malfoy gave me his bed while he Transfigured the couch in the parlour to make it a bit more comfortable. We had eaten a meal he had prepared, but did not speak. As much as I wanted to ask how Malfoy had learned to cook, his meal of pork cutlets, boiled potatoes and steamed carrots quite well prepared, I did not open my mouth to speak a single word.

Besides telling me the bed was mine, Malfoy had said nothing either…and we remained wrapped up in our own thoughts.

The sudden upwelling of emotions I had felt did not reoccur as I slipped between the expensive cotton sheets and laid my head on the down filled pillow. I had Transfigured a fork, without Malfoy’s notice, into a chain and pendant so that the strange disc would rest between my breasts. I felt it against my left breast as I prepared to sleep, the metal strangely cool even though it rested near the heat of my heart. I prayed that I would never feel anything else from the disc beside its icy, metallic coolness. But like so many little prayers I had uttered to myself, or wished in my mind, I knew that, eventually, the disc would burn me with a warning.



April 7th, I awoke in the early morning hours by a strange sound, and in my half sleeping state I had pulled the Elder Wand from my holster resting beneath the adjacent pillow. I sat up, eyes wide, but not focused to see in the darkness.

It had been a dull ringing sound that woke me, and I realized by the flash of green light from the parlour that a Floo call had been answered. I wiped my eyes with the back of my left hand and turned my head, the headboard blocking my view into the kitchen.

I could hear Malfoy’s voice, but not his words. The tone of his voice seemed angry, but he did not raise his voice as he spoke into the Floo. I could just see the outline of his body through the sheer curtain between the bedroom and the kitchen as I rose up from the bed…his body visible kneeling on the wooden floor between the couch and the hearth. He was dressed in a pair of pyjama pants only, and his hair was mussed and stuck up at all angles in platinum tangles.

I moved to rise from the bed, my toes just hitting the floor when another flash of green through the dim light of the apartment caught my eye. When my heels hit the floor, Malfoy had stalked into the bedroom, swatting at the curtain and moving directly for the wardrobe that rested in the corner of the room.

Opening the doors, he began dressing. I watched him, wondering if he had noticed me sitting on the side of the bed. When he hesitated to remove his pyjama bottoms, I knew he was aware of my eyes, and he turned slowly.

“I have to go,” was all he said, turning back to the wardrobe and drawing out a pair of black trousers and socks, striding out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. He returned to the bedroom again within a few moments, his hair wetted, and combed down, trousers and black socks on his feet. He moved to the wardrobe, pulling out a pair of what looked like Muggle military boots. “You were right, Granger…a woman opened the box and took the Time-Turner,” he said, slipping his feet in the boots, but did not bother tying the laces.

Moving back into the parlour, I watched him take up his wands from the couch, the chest and arm holster, applying both.

Finally, I was on my feet, my nightdress falling to the tops of my ankles, the pendant jingling quietly as the chain fell over my breasts. I still held the Elder Wand in my hand as I moved into the dark parlour, only a misty grey light coming in through the front windows.

“Who?” I asked, my voice still rough from sleep.

Malfoy smirked as he finished adjusting the straps to his chest holster, which held the yew wand.

“Someone we know. Susan Bones?” he asked, his left eye catching the small bit of early morning light and glinting eerily.

I balked. “Susan?”

Susan had been one of the kindest people I knew in school. We were never close, being in different Houses…but she had been in the DA. I knew that Voldemort had killed many in her family, and that she had been particularly sympathetic to Harry…but I did not think that she would be part of W.A.T.C.H. Her sympathies for Harry could not be so blinded by the fact my old friend was…insane. Could she?

Malfoy nodded at the name I uttered in disbelief, and quickly turned to lift his leather coat off a hook near the door, and with one last look at me, disappeared through the passage down into the stables. I hurried to the front windows, barely able to see him move through the mist. Within a moment, he was gone, and I was left to ponder about the life of Susan Bones.



April 10th, one month before the ten year anniversary of Voldemort’s defeat, and I sat alone in the groom’s quarters, Malfoy still not back from what I assumed was the investigation of Susan Bones. I sat on the couch reading Malfoy’s copy of ‘Wuthering Heights,’ having already finished ‘Jane Eyre’ and Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead.’

I had revised my notes, which I still kept in my coat pocket, adding every detail that I deemed important since I had first started the notes in Narcissa’s study. I had found a life times worth of parchment stowed in the bottom drawer of Malfoy’s writing desk in the parlour beside the gramophone and added a good twenty pages worth of information to what I had started.

After coming to no new conclusions after a day of Malfoy’s absence, I had turned to his bookshelves, finding mostly Muggle fiction, reference books, codes of the Law of Wizarding Britain and Wizarding America…and so many other books that even I, being a bibliophile, did not have the stomach to read. I had considered breaking through Lucius’ enchantments on ‘The Hanged Man,’ but decided that I would do it the next day if Malfoy had not returned.

The fact I had not heard from Malfoy did not concern me. A strange peace had come over me, as if realizing, after twenty out of nearly twenty-eight years of my life, that worrying amounted to more worry. I also knew the adage ‘no news is good news,’ and kept thinking about it, repeating it, until I was not thinking of Malfoy at least once every two seconds in the days that passed.

However, when the dull ringing of the klaxon filled the parlour, I nearly jumped out of my skin. The Floo activated as I lounged with Cathy and Heathcliff. I sighed, and slid off the couch to the hearthstones as a flash of green blinded me.

“Hey there, Hermione…” a familiar voice sounded, and as I wiped my eyes of soot and ash, I realized that Charlie Weasley was looking at me through the green fire.

“Malfoy’s not here,” I said softly, trying to smile.

Charlie nodded, “I know. He was on my end an hour ago. He wanted me to Floo you.”

I blinked.

“Susan Bones is dead.”

I blinked again. “Where are you, Charlie?”

Charlie smirked, “Can’t tell you that, Hermione. But what I can tell you is that Susan Bones is dead from the affects of a curse burn she sustained. Before she died, she gave a location, a place Harry might be. Malfoy and I are going to check on this lead.”

I sighed and bit my lower lip. “Was she part of W.A.T.C.H., Charlie?” I asked softly, crossing my arms before my chest, the pendant pressing into my skin.

Charlie took a breath, his usually jovial face becoming serious. “Yes. And from what we have been learning, she and Cho Chang were two that did not hesitate to rally to Harry. We’re going through names…names of those who attacked Malfoy Manor, and other known associates, and we are finding that many were sympathetic to Harry during the War, or were…fanatics of a sort…”

“Something that goes beyond hero worship, I assume?” I asked darkly.

“Yes. Harry is a cultic figure so some of the members of W.A.T.C.H. and now that Harry is taking advantage of these people, their acts are becoming more brazen and more dangerous.

Hermione, a cell of W.A.T.C.H. attacked the Bulstrodes yesterday, nearly killing the whole family in a fire. This is not the first time W.A.T.C.H. have attacked families who were affiliated with Voldemort, but after Glasgow, and then the Malfoys, the cells have taken on a new fervor to destroy any remnants of Voldemort…”

“It’s Harry, Charlie. It is his influence, I have no doubt. If they have hoisted him up as a type of figurehead, it is hard to say what will happen next,” I whispered, leaning closer to the fire, my eyes fixed on the hearthstones under my palms.

“We have been arresting more members, but it seems that for every one we incarcerate, three more decide to join…”

I licked my lips.

It was like this once before, Miss Granger, even before I was born, and the Dark Lord was still a charismatic young man who wanted to ‘better’ the world…Severus whispered.

“Hermione?” Charlie asked, and I quickly raised my eyes to his. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Charlie…what were you saying?”

Charlie’s face seem to become graver still…

“Mum is very ill. Ron told me last night that she has taken a turn for the worse, and that the Healers cannot seem to do anything for her.”

I lowered my eyes again. Ron had mentioned that Molly had been feeling poorly since George’s murder, and it seemed that she had let her sorrow develop into a true ailment.

“Dad won’t leave her side, and Ginny…Ginny has secluded herself from the rest of the family, thinking that all of this…Harry…is her fault.”

I frowned. “Of course not, Charlie. I hope that your family is making that clear to her…”

“They are, but Hermione, you were close to Ginny in school…you know how she can be sometimes. Ron knows even better than I do…after her First Year…”

I raised a hand to stop Charlie, knowing all too well of Ginny’s complexes. Even though it had been years since Ginny and I had spoken, it seemed as if there were some character flaws time had not straightened, and wounds that had not healed.

“Ron might call you if Mum is feeling better, Hermione. Being cooped up in a safe house in Merlin knows where is starting to fray his nerves.”

I smirked. “I know the feeling.”

Charlie smiled, winking, “I am sure you do. Still don’t know how you’re getting on with Malfoy?”

“Well, he hasn’t been around for a few days, so…no.”

Charlie chuckled, and I was glad to see him smiling again. His face was genetically constructed to smile, in my opinion.

“I hate to cut this short, Hermione, but I need to catch up to Malfoy. If anything happens, I will Floo right away.”

I nodded.

“Hermione, take care, alright? If anything happens, Floo Kingsley in London, or Gumboil.”

“I will.”

“Good girl. I’ll talk to you soon.”

The Floo deactivated in another flash of green and I fell back, coughing. I hated Floo calls.

I flicked my wand to my face to clean away the soot and ash, and with a sigh returned to the couch and picked up ‘Wuthering Heights.’ I did not read, however, but stared out the front windows into a grey day.

As much as I adored Charlie, I wished I could have spoken to Malfoy. After a few days of not speaking to anyone but Charlie, I suddenly missed my familiar. When I lived in my cottage, with no one else besides my half-Kneazle, and myself, I did not feel that talking aloud was anything to be concerned about… My mother would tease me for talking to myself, and with a familiar I had a viable reason why I was talking out loud.

In some ways, I began to miss Malfoy’s sarcasm.






Malfoy returned late that night, startling me from my place on the couch where I had fallen asleep, ‘Wuthering Heights’ resting on my belly. He seemed to burst through the door, his leather coat wet from rain, his face paler than usual, and his hair dirty and lank about his face. He looked like the ghost of some tragic hero in the books he had on the shelves.

“Malfoy?” I croaked, the book sliding off my belly to thump against the floor.

He did not say anything, but drew his wand from his chest holster to light the candles. The candlelight warmed his features, and he did not resemble some pale wraith from the moors.

“I cannot stay long, Granger. I came to collect a clean set of clothes, grab something from the pantry and be off again,” he grumbled moving through the parlour, dripping muddy water along the floor, stalking into the bedroom.

I began to follow, only making it to kitchen when he reemerged, shrinking a bundle of clothes and slipping them into his innermost coat pocket. I pressed myself against the front of the sink when he moved to the pantry where magically supplied groceries appeared everyday…an innovation I found particularly nice, and wondered if I could convert my own pantry in my cottage into something similar.

Grabbing some sort of sweet pastry and biting into it, Malfoy hummed, falling against the pantry door as he shut it.

I could only stare at him, my hands grasping the edge of the sink behind my back.

“Weasley called you?” he asked, his voice slightly muffled by a large amount of bread in his cheeks.

I nodded.

“I’ll be off for a while longer, Granger. You have everything you need here. Mother or Father will surely be by at some point…and I don’t have to remind you not to leave the property?”

I shook my head as Malfoy took another untidy bite into the pastry. He chewed, staring back at me, and swallowed.

“You won’t be able to reach me for a while, Granger, so contact Kingsley or…”

“Gumboil, yes, Charlie conveyed the message,” I mumbled.

Malfoy smirked, pastry packed into his cheeks.

“Don’t mistreat my books, Granger. I’m rather fond of Muggle literature…” he grumbled, stalking out of the kitchen and into the parlour, stuffing the last of the pastry in his mouth.

I followed him, avoiding the small puddles of muddy water on the floor. He stopped at the door and looked around the parlour and past me. Then, swallowing the last of his pastry, his left eye fell upon me.

“No reaction from your little bit of metal?” he asked, his eye moving to the chain about my neck and then to my breasts…making me blush since I had decided not to wear a bra, not expecting Malfoy to return so suddenly.

“No…” I whispered, wanting to raise my arms to cover my nipples that poked through the light grey material of my shirt.

Malfoy’s eye lingered a moment longer before traveling to my face…

“Let’s hope there is never a reaction,” he whispered, taking half a step forward, his left hand raising…but fell to his side again as he opened the door to the stables with his right hand.

He smirked at me one last time, and seemed to fly out the door. I tried to see him go through the front windows after closing the door, but saw only darkness. His coming and leaving had seemed like a dream.