A Pound of Flesh

Chapter Eighteen: Coming Apart and Falling Together

Ron’s clear blue eyes were the first thing Hermione became aware of. His face swam into focus, forehead wrinkled in concern.

“Hermione?”

She nodded and found that her head felt fuzzy and heavy.

Ron turned away. “Harry, she’s awake!”

Hermione looked around, movements sluggish. She was propped up on Harry’s couch, still dressed in Death Eater black. Filled with revulsion, she attempted to rip off the offending garment, but couldn’t make her weak arms cooperate.

Ron turned back to her. “Let me,” he said. He produced his wand and Banished the robes. What was underneath was not much better, as she was also still wearing her leather battle robes. But at least it wasn’t Death Eater black.

Harry entered the room, his face ashen. He supported Ginny as she stumbled toward the couch. She’d shed her reenactment robes and was wrapped in a blanket. Hermione could see, even as muddled as she felt, that Ginny shook with tremors. Dean followed behind them, shaking so that the tea tray he was carrying rattled alarmingly. He set the tray on the low table in front of the couch and handed a cup to Luna, who was curled in an armchair next to the Floo.

“What happened?” Hermione croaked.

“Tea first,” Ron told her. “Can you hold a cup?”

Hermione nodded. Ron placed a warm cup of fragrant tea in her outstretched hands, and she wrapped her numb fingers around it.

“Drink,” Ron said, and she obediently brought the cup to her face. Her hands trembled so that she spilled a bit down her front, but the first sip of tea broke the knots of tension inside her. She sagged, and Ron plucked the cup from her hands before it fell to the ground.

“How did we get here?”

“Luna brought you home.” Harry lowered Ginny to the couch next to Hermione and knelt between them. His voice was hoarse. Whatever control he’d had on his emotions snapped, and he ground out harshly, “What were you thinking?”

“Later, Harry,” Ginny pleaded.

“And you didn’t tell us!” Harry continued. He turned to Hermione. “How could you have thought this was a good idea? Reliving the final – that day? Wasn’t once enough?”

Hermione nodded, unable to speak.

“So why – ?”

“We didn’t think it would be like that,” Luna answered, subdued.

“What did you think it was going to be like?” Harry demanded.

Hermione shrugged without answering. She swallowed and focused on drawing air into her tight lungs. She couldn’t catch her breath. Though her eyes were still focused on Ron, who looked back at her, a frown on his lips, she saw another face swimming in front of her, the red glaring out from under hooded brows, mouth opened in a roar of anger. She shuddered and tried to blink the image of Voldemort away.

Luna answered Harry’s question, her voice weak. “We thought it would be fun.”

Harry turned to regard Luna over his shoulder, and whatever the expression was on his face, it made Luna cringe away. She buried her face in Dean’s shoulder and shivered.

Hermione shook her head in denial.

“No?” Ron coaxed, reading her expression. She’d forgotten how good he was at that. “You knew it wasn’t going to be fun. So why did you go?”

“Work. Research,” Hermione managed between gulps of cool air.

Harry turned back to her. “Explain.”

Ron held up his hand. “Give her a minute to calm down, mate.”

Harry looked ready to argue, but just then, Ginny’s hand darted out and she grabbed his shoulder. “I’m going to be sick again,” she said urgently.

Without another word, Harry hefted Ginny into his arms and disappeared down the hallway which led to the bathroom.

Ron rose from his spot at her feet and sat in Ginny’s vacated seat. He perched on the edge of the cushion and watched her, his face intent. His face was pale; the map of freckles on his face stood out in sharp contrast to his skin. He retrieved her cup of tea and handed it to her. Grateful, she took a long sip and pressed her chilled fingers to the warm china.

Hermione closed her eyes and thought of Draco. She longed for the safety of his arms, but knew he was still at work. And she’d already unexpectedly surprised him once as a sobbing wreck, and she didn’t want to do it again. Instead, she hugged herself around the middle and rested her head against the back of the couch.

“Hermione.”

Her eyes popped open and she turned to regard Ron with incredulity. He hadn’t used that soft tone with her since before they’d split. He shifted uneasily under her scrutiny.

“Listen,” he began again, and then he shot a furtive look at Luna and Dean, who were wrapped up in their own world at the moment. He leaned toward her; it was the closest they’d been to each other without fighting since she couldn’t remember when. “I said some things I shouldn’t have at the wedding. About you, and the past.”

Hermione nodded in agreement.

Ron leaned in closer and moved to put his arm on the back of the couch, but then hesitated. His arm hung in the air for a beat, and then he rested it deliberately on the couch behind her head. “Hermione, I didn’t mean you should go out and relive the final battle. I just wanted you to face the past, to let it go.”

She found her voice, though it sounded feeble to her ears. “I know. It was for work.”

Ron reached out and captured the leather robes between his fingers. “You’re even wearing Shield Robes.”

“The same ones.”

“The same ones?” Ron echoed in disbelief. “But they were ruined, weren’t they?”

Hermione shook her head. “They were in my trunk.”

“You looked in your trunk?”

“Yeah, today.”

Ron curled his arm around her shoulder and pulled her toward him. She let him draw her into an embrace; she was too exhausted and too surprised to do anything else. She rested her cheek against his shoulder and welcomed the physical contact.

“What was it like tonight?” Ron’s voice was muffled; his face was buried in her hair.

“Horrible. It was very real. Just like how it happened.”

“Everything?”

Hermione nodded and wrapped her arms around Ron’s waist. She could not banish the image of him, slumped against her legs behind that boulder, and not knowing if he was alive or dead.

Ron’s fingers tightened around her back. “You did what you had to do to survive. It doesn’t make you a bad person,” he whispered.

“I know.”

“You say that, but do you really?”

“Yes,” she lied.

Ron rubbed her back and her eyes drifted closed. She knew she must have fallen asleep; she caught bits and pieces of conversations and then she heard the Floo whoosh to life. She opened her eyes and noticed that Dean and Luna had gone.

“You ready to go home, sleepy?” Ron asked.

She nodded once, mute. Ron helped her to her feet and wrapped a steadying arm around her.

“Harry, we’re going. Floo if you need anything,” he called down the hallway.

Harry’s response was unintelligible, but Ron seemed to understand it because he grimaced and turned Hermione toward the door.

“I think we’ll Apparate back to the flat,” he mused.

“I don’t think I can.”

“I’ve got you.” Ron pulled her out the door and down the single flight of stairs to the ground floor. Once out on the street, he ducked behind the high privacy wall that surrounded Harry and Ginny’s building. “Ready?”

Hermione nodded, Ron tightened his grip, and they were away.

Ron hadn’t been to the flat since he’d moved all of his things out. Once he had Hermione deposited safely in her favorite chair, he stood in the front room shifting from foot to foot. He looked out of place, where once he’d looked very at home.

“Do you have any Dreamless Sleep Potion?” Ron asked. “You’ll probably need it.”

“I could take Draught of the Living Dead and I think I’d still have nightmares,” Hermione said with a sigh as she sank deeper into her armchair.

“All the same.” Ron headed for the kitchen, and the cabinet where Hermione stored her potions.

Too late, she remembered her fresh stock of Contraceptive Potion, and she sat up to stop Ron, but he was already at the cabinet, the door open. He paused for a long moment as he spied the vials she’d just procured earlier in the week, and then he reached up and plucked a Sleeping Draught from the top shelf.

“Well,” he said in the uncomfortable silence that followed. He handed the Sleeping Draught to Hermione. “At least you’re being careful.”

“I – I…”

“Let’s get you ready for bed,” Ron directed. “Up we go.” He pulled Hermione out of the chair and pointed her toward the bathroom.

“You don’t need to – ”

“I know, but that’s what friends are for, right?”

Hermione blinked back her tears and paused at the bathroom door. “Are we – are we friends again?”

Ron shifted from foot to foot again and stared at his hands. “If you want to be,” he hedged.

“Oh, Ron,” she whispered. “Of course I do.”

He cleared his throat and nodded toward the bathroom again. “I’ll be right out here waiting,” he reminded her.

He was leaning against the wall opposite the bathroom when she came out after washing her face and changing into her pajamas.

“You really can go,” she assured him. “I’m not going to keel over in shock or anything.”

“I’ll wait until you’re in bed.”

“Ron – ”

“Don’t be stubborn tonight, Hermione.”

At last, she graciously climbed into bed and took the potion Ron had fetched her. She leaned back against her pillow and Ron leaned over her. For one heart-stopping moment, she thought he was about to kiss her, but then he pressed his lips to her forehead.

“Sleep well,” he murmured. He turned out the lights on his way out of the room.

She tried to stay awake long enough to hear him leave, but the potion worked quickly, and her eyes drifted shut before he’d closed the door behind him.

***

Hermione’s eyes fixed on the clock over the main doorway to the MLE offices. The second hand measured out each fraction of time seemingly slower than the one before. It seemed like the minute hand wasn’t moving at all. The day had passed in a never-ending stream of paperwork to be updated, investigations to continue, and a long meeting that had been excruciating in its dullness.

She couldn’t be sure, but she would swear that someone had fiddled with the flow of time, just to spite her. Twice she thought she saw the second hand ticking backwards. What she wouldn’t give for a Time Turner, and to jump ahead to five o’clock, when she was free for the day and finally able to go meet Draco.

Tonight was one of his two free evenings of the week. He almost always had Sundays off, but his schedule fluctuated each week, and so it was a tossup to see what his other day off would be.

Draco wouldn’t tell her where they were going for their date; she’d called him during her lunch hour and tried to convince him to tell her, but instead he’d given her an address where she was to meet him after work. Of course, she’d looked it up the first chance she got and found that it was the bookstore a few blocks from Draco’s flat. The idea of having a date with Draco at a bookstore was the only thing that kept her from losing her mind during the second half of her day.

Hannah Abbott breezed by just then, her arms overflowing with paperwork. She blew a wisp of hair out of her face and said, “Trust me, Granger. Watching it only makes it go slower.”

At once, Hermione looked down at her desk, annoyed and a little embarrassed that she’d been caught. Hannah snorted and continued on her way.

Even though she could no longer see the second hand as it took another leisurely circuit around the face of the clock, she swore she could hear the insistent ticking, even over the general cacophony of the office. The sound made her jumpy.

So when it began to ring the hour, Hermione jerked in surprise and relief, and then leapt to her feet. She could hear Hannah laughing at her as the fifth chime died away, but she wasn’t bothered by that, since she’d already wedged herself onto a lift and the doors were closing behind her.

In the Atrium, she weaved through the crush of Ministry workers on their way home and paused at the lines queued up at the Floos. The lines moved forward, but not fast enough for Hermione. She headed for the street level exit, which was only a little less crowded, and then Apparated home.

She stopped for just a moment outside her door, wand in hand, and remembered what waited for her inside.

When she’d woken that morning, she thought perhaps she’d dreamt the entire night, but then she opened her eyes and caught sight of her trunk, still flipped open in the corner. And when she’d ducked into the bathroom for a shower, she spotted the leather battle robes hanging on the hook on the back of the door.

Back in her bedroom, she eyed the empty potion vial in disbelief. If she’d opened her trunk and worn the robes and gone to the reenactment, that meant her memory of her reconciliation with Ron might be real as well. It had only taken six months and a reminder of the life-or-death situation they’d once faced together. It all felt odd and surreal.

In her kitchen, Ron had left a note on the counter, and Hermione felt a wistful smile turn up the corners of her lips in spite of the slight pang the sight of the note gave her. So many mornings, Ron had risen long before she’d roused. He’d be out of bed before the crack of dawn and on his way to Quidditch practice, but always – always – without fail, he’d leave her a note, just like this one, wishing her a good day.

For a moment, in spite of the fact that she knew she no longer loved Ron, she’d felt a twinge of sorrow that left her almost breathless. It was better than before; six months ago, the sight of this note would have destroyed her. Now, it had quite to opposite effect as she regained her breath and accepted that Ron had in fact brought her home last night – that he’d actually been in the flat, that he’d said he wanted to be friends again. She hadn’t imagined it.

Still standing outside her door in the corridor, Hermione shook her head to clear her thoughts and went inside. She kicked off her shoes by the front door and sped down the hallway to her bedroom, where she ditched her robes for a knee-length skirt and a warm sweater.

When she turned to leave the bedroom, the sight of her school trunk caught her eye. The open lid and pile of crumpled scrolls beckoned to her. She knelt, intending to return the scrolls to the trunk and close it, but at once she noticed a change in the atmosphere around the trunk and paused, hands stretched toward the pile. The air felt lighter, cleaner, as though some malicious entity had finally taken its leave.

Compelled by the desire to know, Hermione sat back on her heels and let her hands come to rest on the lip of the open trunk. She took a deep breath. No, it wasn’t just her imagination. The air even felt better in her lungs. Of course, she knew she was just being silly. There hadn’t actually been some sort of brooding presence locked in her trunk all these years; no, she knew the real malevolent spirit had been trapped within her, poisoning everything inside and out.

All this time, she’d fought to repress the past, ignore it, try to forget it, and all she’d done was distance herself from the present. Now that she’d finally faced it – literally – she realized that it was easier to breathe. All the fear and uncertainty was gone. She’d gone to the reenactment the night before and come away mostly unscathed. She’d survived it – remembering the most horrible day in her living memory – facing what had happened and what she’d done, and the world hadn’t ended.

Draco had been right: everything did happen for a reason. It wasn’t all bad, and there were parts worth remembering. Whether she liked it or not, the things that had happened in the past that she’d so desperately been trying to forget had helped to shape her into the person she was today. Granted, that person still needed some work – all right, a lot of work – but she was working to fix her flaws. And she couldn’t fix herself if she didn’t learn from her past mistakes.

And in that moment, her resolve to somehow restore Draco’s memories strengthened. She owed him that.

***

Hermione spotted Draco as he leaned languidly against the charming façade of the bookshop, watching the crowds of people that bustled by on their way home for the day. He was looking intently the other way, no doubt expecting her to come from that direction. She came to a halt at his side and waited for him to turn and notice her.

When he didn’t, she cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she said, “could you give me the time?”

Draco checked his watch without looking over at her. “Quarter to six,” he answered before crossing his arms again.

“Oh, good. I’m supposed to meet my boyfriend here at six and I was afraid I was late.”

His head turned a fraction of an inch toward her but he kept his gaze the other way. A small smile formed on his lips.

“Really?” he asked. “Maybe I’ve seen him. What does he look like?”

“Well,” Hermione drew out. “He’s about six feet tall, blond hair, lean. Grey eyes, devilish smile… rather good-looking.”

Draco pretended to think about it for a moment and then answered, “Nope, haven’t seen him.” He dropped one of his hands to his side and Hermione wrapped her fingers around it. “Careful there,” he cautioned her. “I’m waiting for my girlfriend and she probably wouldn’t like it if she found you holding my hand.”

“Pity.”

“Pity?” Draco echoed.

“That such a handsome man is already taken.”

Draco’s smile widened. He gave her hand a jerk and spun her around in his arms. She squeaked in surprise and then laughed as he bent to kiss her.

Hermione held up a hand to stop him. “Careful, sir. We wouldn’t want to upset your girlfriend.”

He rolled his eyes. “That old slag? Nothing compared to you.” Then he moved her hand to the side and gave her a kiss that left her weak in the knees.

“Hi,” he greeted. His grey eyes sparkled down at her.

She stood on her toes to kiss him again. “Hi,” she returned.

“How was your day?”

“Wretched and long and boring. Yours?”

“Classes, the gym, studying, the usual.” Draco kissed the tip of her nose. “It’s better now that I’m with you.”

Hermione made a noise of agreement and rested her cheek against Draco’s shoulder. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. He smelled like home.

“Well?”

Hermione looked up at him. “Well what?”

“Don’t you want to know where we are?”

Hermione glanced at the sign over the door. “We’re at a bookshop.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Yes, but this is the bookshop I told you about on our second date – the one I come to all the time?”

With a nod, Hermione remembered Draco saying that he would take her to the bookshop sometime, and she remembered thinking that would be lovely. He’d remembered – how sweet.

“I know it isn’t really romantic or anything, but I thought you might enjoy spending an hour or so here with me.”

“Only an hour?”

Draco’s face lit with a brilliant smile. He placed his hand on the small of her back and ushered her into the cozy shop.

For a moment, she blinked in the relative dimness of the shop, and then her eyes grew accustomed to the level of light. She looked around, eager, at the shelves crammed with used books which rose to the ceiling. Small tables in the aisles were stacked with books in varied arrangements, and at the center of the shop, four deep, cushy chairs clustered around a low table overflowing with piles of books. Dust motes danced in the air and shimmered in the early evening sunlight as it poured through the front windows. Hermione took a deep breath and filled her nose with the comforting, familiar scent of old ink and dusty pages. She beamed at Draco.

“Like it?”

“Love it.”

Their entrance did not go unnoticed in the mostly empty shop. The young woman Hermione had seen on the day she’d followed Draco to his school was behind the counter. The petite woman, likely in her mid-twenties, had the reddest hair Hermione had ever seen, and that was really something, considering the company she kept. “Wotcher, Damien!” she called out a greeting.

“Alright, Alison?” he returned.

“I wondered what you were doing loitering about on my sidewalk.” She nodded to Hermione, her expression growing curious. “Who’s this?”

Draco pulled her toward the counter, his hand still on her back. “This is Jane Granger, my girlfriend.” Hermione caught the somewhat triumphant tone in his voice at the last two words, and it filled her with a giddy warmth.

Alison raked an appraising eye over her face. “Jane,” she said, and stuck out her hand.

Draco continued the introductions. “Jane, this is Alison Welch.”

“A pleasure,” Hermione said as she shook Alison’s hand.

“Likewise.” Alison returned her attention to Draco. “The book you ordered came in this morning. Your timing is once again impeccable.”

“Brilliant!”

“It’s in the back room. I’ll run and get it.”

Alison ducked behind a curtain next to the register and was back almost at once with a package wrapped in plain brown paper. Draco took the package with a quick thank you and then tucked it under his arm.

Alison stared at Draco, incredulous. “Don’t you want to look at it? I know you really wanted this book!”

Draco shot a furtive glance at Hermione. “I’ll look at it when I get home. Jane and I are just going to look around for a while.”

“I don’t mind,” Hermione told him, now curious.

Draco shook his head.

“Go ahead,” Alison urged. “Make sure it’s the right one.”

“I’m sure it’s the right one if you ordered it. I’ll look at it later.”

“What’s the book?” Hermione asked.

Alison started to answer and then froze. Hermione shifted her attention to Draco, who was giving the other woman a warning glare.

“Oh, now you have to tell me.”

“No, I don’t,” Draco responded with a smile that looked like it pained him.

“What’s the big deal?” Hermione made a grab for the package under his arm but Draco danced away, light on his feet.

“The big deal is you don’t need to know.” Draco dodged as she made another attempt at the package.

“Damien, you’re being silly. Just tell me.”

Then she saw it – for a brief moment, worry washed across his features, but was replaced just as fast with a carefully crafted mask she recognized but hadn’t seen in years. Draco Malfoy was hiding something from her, something he was scared of her knowing about.

“Trust me,” she told him.

His face shifted; it was clear he wanted to trust her. Finally, he nodded and jerked his head toward the cluster of chairs. “Over there.”

Hermione followed him. Behind her, she heard Alison mutter something about drama queens.

Draco sat at the edge of one of the dark green chairs and held out the package. Hermione sat in the chair closest to him and took the book into her hands. She looked down at the innocuous package, curious. As she started to pull at the paper, Draco’s hand shot out to stop her, and she looked up at him.

“Before you see what’s inside, just… remember that you liked me before you opened it.”

Hermione nodded, now so curious she could barely contain herself. She slid her finger underneath the edge of the paper and pulled the taped seam apart. In a moment, she was staring at the book, and unable to breathe.

When she was sure she wasn’t going to hyperventilate, she raised her eyes from the title to meet Draco’s searching gaze. “History of Magic, by Eliphas Levi?”

Draco leaned forward, his fingers laced together. He was quick to assure her, “I’m not into the Occult or anything, Jane. Don’t look at me like that.”

Hermione nodded evenly. She was surprised that she wasn’t a shaking mess; inside, she was coming apart. “Then, this book is just… what, light reading?”

Draco leaned even closer. His knee bumped against hers and he took her icy hands in his hot grasp. “How are you doing, you alright?”

She nodded again.

Draco took a deep breath. “This is going to sound crazy, so please wait until I finish before you run away screaming.”

“I won’t run away.”

“Sure you won’t,” Draco retorted with a resigned sigh. “I’m not sure how to begin.”

Hermione sat in silence, the book like a two-ton weight in her lap.

“The thing is – Jane, do you believe in magic?”

“Like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, that type of thing?”

Draco shook his head. “No, I mean, real magic. Not illusions or tricks. Being able to make things happen.”

She shrugged without answering.

“Well, the thing is, lately – well, no; pretty much for as long as I can remember, it’s just started to happen a lot more recently – I’ve… strange things have been happening around me.”

“Strange things…?”

Draco directed his gaze at their joined hands. He appeared to be steeling himself for her reaction. “Strange things, like… the other day, I forgot my keys and got locked out of my flat. I know the door was locked. The knob wouldn’t turn in my hand. And I was standing in the hallway at two o’clock in the morning, knowing I was going to have to go get Cary to let me in – that’s my landlord – and I tried the knob one more time, wishing the door would open. I heard the lock click, and the door opened, just like that.”

Hermione nodded in acceptance. That wasn’t even accidental magic. That was wandless, nonverbal magic, whether he’d intended to do it or not.

She had to tell him. Now was the perfect opportunity. He would believe her, she knew it, even if her telling him didn’t trigger his memories.

“So you think you… can do magic?” The words got stuck in her throat and she had to try more than once to get them out.

After a long moment, Draco nodded, and then looked up at her. “You ready to run now?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m good.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really?”

She nodded again and swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Yeah. I’m fine. In fact, I… I need to tell you something.”

“Anything,” Draco reassured her, an awed smile on his face, like he couldn’t believe his luck.

“Damien,” she began, “about… about…you being magical.”

His smile widened. “I like how that sounds: magical.”

She blinked away the tears that threatened to form in her eyes and steadied herself. She could do this. Ginny was right; she couldn’t keep lying to Draco like this. And he would believe her.

“Maybe… maybe…”

And then her courage failed her.

“Maybe you ought to lend me this book when you’re done with it. I wouldn’t mind reading it.”

***

The next day, determined to find something that would help Draco remember, Hermione took the morning off and went to pay a visit to his psychiatrist. She was fortunate; the busy doctor had managed to squeeze her into the day’s schedule.

Doctor Sarah Thomas had a sunny, spacious office on the top floor of a seven level building. Hermione rode the elevator up, today a pale, black-haired girl with deep blue eyes that were a shade off of Ron’s eye color. She had the elevator entirely to herself, so she checked her reflection in the mirrored doors to ensure that her disguise was complete. Satisfied, she leaned away from the doors just as they opened to the seventh level.

It didn’t take long to find Dr. Thomas’s office; her name was emblazoned on the glass door two doors down from the elevator. Hermione pushed open the door, feigning nervousness. In reality, she was filled with barely contained excitement. Somewhere in this office was a file with three years of professional notes on Draco. Perhaps the doctor had written down an important detail or clue that would point her towards the person who had Charmed Draco and dumped him in Soho.

But first, she needed to scope out the office, its security and personnel. If the receptionist was apt to leaving the receiving desk, or if Dr. Thomas took extended lunches, Hermione wanted to know about it.

The outer office was light and airy. A bank of windows let in wide slats of sunshine. There was one older woman waiting alone in a ray of sunshine, her face filled with shadows where the sun couldn’t reach. The receptionist, a young man, sat behind his desk, speaking quietly into the phone. He spotted her, and with an encouraging smile, gestured her forward. He put a hand over the phone.

“Madeline Glenn to see Doctor Thomas,” she told him.

“I’ll be right with you,” he said, and pointed to the empty chairs.

Hermione seated herself out of the sunlight, in a chair close to the door to the inner office. She looked around, trying to imagine Draco sitting in one of the chairs, perhaps flipping through a magazine or staring out the windows absently trying to remember.

She settled back in the chair and looked out the window. She could see it in her head: Draco, here, once a week, every week, for the last three years of his life. Each time with the hope that something new – something that made sense – would come back to him.

She was frustrated with herself. Yesterday had been the perfect opportunity to tell Draco the truth, and yet the words would not come. The taste of them had been on her tongue, bitter and cold, but there had been no forcing them out from between her lips. In the far back corner of her head was a small voice that kept up a steady whisper of reasons why she shouldn’t tell him.

So, instead of attempting a possibly messy triggering of his memories, Hermione was once again on the case to find the person who had Obliviated him in the first place. Back to her original plan, Hermione’s first stop was the psychiatrist.

The receptionist hung up the phone and beckoned her over. He gave her a clipboard full of paperwork, and she returned to her seat to forge the documents. When she reached the section concerning the purpose of her visit, she paused, stumped.

What reason could she give the doctor for her visit? The truth, that she was only here to pilfer the filing cabinets, would obviously not go over well. But the doctor would be able to see through a weakly fabricated lie, and so she searched her brain for a plausible reason she would need to seek psychiatric help. Of course, there was one glaring series of events that she’d recently begun to face, but she couldn’t very well tell a Muggle doctor about her involvement in a war most of them had no idea had even occurred.

Then again, her story only had to stick for as long as it took her to complete her surveillance.

She’d just finished her paperwork when a reedy juvenile emerged from the inner office looking disgruntled, and the older woman sitting by the windows jumped up to meet him. The boy stalked out through the main doors with the woman on his heels. She could hear them begin to argue in strident tones as the doors closed in their wake.

The receptionist disappeared into the inner office, and for several minutes, Hermione sat alone in the sunny waiting room. She wandered the office in a circle that took her close to the receiving desk, and was rewarded when she saw that the receptionist had left the appointment book flipped open. The doctor would be taking lunch after Hermione’s appointment. That just left the receptionist to deal with.

Before she walked away from the desk, she eyed the computer but knew it would not contain any pertinent files. So instead, she wandered to the windows and looked down to the street outside. How many times had Draco done the same thing?

“Ms. Glenn.”

Hermione spun away from the window, caught off guard. The receptionist, once more seated as his desk, gestured toward the door to the inner office.

“The doctor will see you now.”

***

Hermione headed for the lifts, hyperaware of the shrunken ream of paper in her pocket. It had been almost too easy to get Draco’s file. Once her session with Dr. Thomas had concluded, she lurked about on the seventh floor and waited for the doctor to head off to lunch. Luck was on her side; the receptionist took his break at the same time. On their way to the lifts, they’d walked right past where she’d stood under her Invisibility Cloak.

After she was sure they’d gone, she’d first broken into the outer office and disengaged the alarm system, and then she’d entered Dr. Thomas’s private office. And right where she’d suspected the files to be, in the drawers beneath the bookshelves, she found what she was looking for: the thick file for Damien King. She copied it and then put everything back the way she’d found it.

She was in and out in less than ten minutes.

The doctor’s office was within walking distance of the Ministry. Hermione made it in to work just as the lunch hour ended, and put in the second half of her shift. All the while, the file hung like a thousand pound weight in her pocket. It was her last day of working alone; Susan would be back come Monday, and Hermione was relieved. Desk duty was dull, and once her partner was back, she hoped that they’d once more be out in the field.

At the end of the day, Hermione headed for the Atrium to get into the queue for the Floos, and was surprised to find Ginny there, waiting for her. The younger woman looked as though she’d recovered from their outing two evenings prior, and she smiled hesitantly as Hermione came to a stop in front of her.

“I was wondering if you wanted to go grab a bite to eat with me,” Ginny offered. “My treat.”

“I’d like that.”

Ginny jerked her head toward the street exit, and together, they headed that way.

“It’ll be nice to talk to someone who isn’t storming about the flat like a bloody Hungarian Horntail because of what we did the other night.”

Hermione cringed in sympathy. “Harry still upset?”

“I don’t know whether he’s angrier at me that I went to that reenactment or that it caused him to start having nightmares again.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

They reached the street and paused in the cool early evening air. “I hear you and Ron made up,” Ginny interjected in the companionable silence.

“Did Ron tell you that?”

Ginny nodded, and Hermione felt a surge of warmth flood her body.

“I haven’t talked to him since the other night, but we agreed to be friends again,” Hermione continued.

“I’m glad. So is Harry, when he isn’t too busy being upset with me.”

“I’m sure he is. It can’t have been any fun for the two of you to be stuck in the middle like that.”

“Well, no, but it’s over and done with now, right?”

“Yeah, I think so. Ron was great the other night. Helped me get ready for bed and everything. He even saw my supply of Contraceptive Potion when he went to get me some Dreamless Sleep Potion,” Hermione admitted.

Ginny didn’t reply, and Hermione glanced over at her. The other girl’s lips were pressed together in a tight line and she looked troubled. Hermione regretted her words at once, which had no doubt reminded Ginny just who Hermione was taking Contraceptive Potion for.

“Do you plan to yell at me some more about… my boyfriend?”

Ginny winced, and her face twisted with a brief grimace. “I want to discuss him. But I want to hear your side, too. I won’t interrupt.”

Hermione sighed in resignation. “Fine. But can it wait until after we’ve eaten?”

“Of course.”

And true to her word, Ginny didn’t say another word about Draco throughout their meal. They discussed Ginny’s healer training, Hermione’s recent thoughts about attending university, and the general happenings of the Weasley family. It wasn’t until they were pushing away their dessert plates that Ginny took a deep breath.

“So, Hermione. Tell me.”

And Hermione did. She told Ginny about her losing battle to keep her distance from Draco, about the way Draco had been such a comfort and a friend to her during the last few weeks. She took Ginny through the various avenues of her research, including that afternoon’s outing to the doctor’s office. She listed off each person she suspected as the one who possibly Charmed Draco and hid him at the club, and then gave the reason why she didn’t think it could have been any of them.

“And I… I don’t know what to say, Ginny. I never meant for it to be like this. I never thought it could be like this. I was just going to find out who had Obliviated him and hid him, and why, and then I was going to make sure the charm was holding and leave him where he was. But then I was just drawn to him. I can’t explain it. I couldn’t stay away. And… I love him. I wish you could know Damien. Then you’d understand better.” Hermione exhaled in regret.

“His name is Draco,” Ginny said, her voice soft.

“What?” Hermione asked, confused.

“You called him Damien. His name is Draco, not Damien. You know that.”

Hermione blinked, and then shook her head slowly.

Ginny reached across the table and covered Hermione’s shaking hand with the steady warmth of her own. “I know he seems like a different person, but he’s still Draco Malfoy, and you know it.”

Hermione closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

“Be reasonable, Hermione. How much longer are you going to hide him from the rest of your life? How long are you going to hide him from Harry, and – Ron – and everyone else? You’ll always have to choose between him and us, and that’s not fair to anyone involved.”

“He’s not who he was!” Hermione pleaded. “If I could just explain that to everyone, then maybe – ”

“So you explain to everyone that Draco Malfoy, who would have faced life in Azkaban if he hadn’t died, is alive and well, and doesn’t remember who he is or what he did, and then everyone just forgives and forgets?”

Hermione sagged in her seat and covered her eyes with her free hand. “It isn’t fair, Ginny. The things he did… it’s in the past, and he didn’t have a choice.”

“I know it isn’t fair. But it’s not fair to him, either, that you’re lying to him,” Ginny soothed. “What’s going to happen if that Memory Charm suddenly wears out or he manages to break through it before you tell him the truth?”

“He’ll hate me.”

“You don’t know that – ”

“He would,” Hermione said forcefully. “You said it yourself: he’s Draco Malfoy.”

Ginny grasped her hand and squeezed it. “So what are you going to do?”

Hermione bowed her head and screwed her eyes shut. It didn’t keep all the tears at bay, but it stemmed the worst of the flow. Her voice choked, she whispered, “Tell him anyway.”

---

Author's Notes: It's funny how stories take on lives of their own. When I first made the decision to continue this one-shot as a full-blown story, I figured it would end up at 12 chapters. Then this past June, I recalculated that as perhaps 20 chapters. It's now my duty to tell you it's going to reach the chapter thirty mark.

Anyway, since we're now 2/3 through the story (and the last third moves fast) you can expect some VERY BIG THINGS to occur in the next several chapters. For sneak previews of these happenings, join my yahoo group.