Hunter and Prey

Draco heard Hermione’s screams and took the steps three at a time, imagining her shrieking in a pool of blood. When he was little he had found his mother like that. He had been herded quickly away by a house elf as his father summoned a Healer. No one told him what had happened. He had been about five years old. It wasn’t until much later he understood but he still remembered vividly the crimson sheets.

There was no blood. Hermione was fighting with the air, her fingers incandescent white with magic. Struggling not fighting, he realised skidding to a halt. She’d caught the fading remnants of a spell and was trying to hold it, to keep the link between her and the source as she scrabbled for her wand.

“Trace it!” She shouted. Draco dragged his wand out and tagged the connection. The magic fizzled but he had the signature of the spell. It floated in front of them amorphous, little more than smoke twisting into a pattern. Hermione kicked off the sheets and grabbed her wand.

“Looks like a detection charm but more complicated.” Draco peered at the sigil, conscious he had missed N.E.W.T. Charms and that Hermione was breathing very fast. She murmured several spells in quick succession, making the smoke writhe. Transfiguring a vase into a flask, she caught the smoke and stoppered it securely.

“Harry couldn’t find a trace in my house. There was nothing there to anchor the ward-breach.” Hermione sat down, feeling light headed. She could taste blood. She could taste blood and she was not, absolutely not, going to sick up on Malfoy’s Persian rug. “It was me under a modified monitoring charm. Mediwitches use it on patients with dementia. They need a ritual circle around the patient’s bed and a sample of their blood.” Hermione took a deep breath, staring at her wrists to make certain the rope was gone. “I need to find that barn.”

Whoever had masked the charm had finesse. It was definitely not schoolbook stuff. Someone would need medical training to learn that monitoring charm. Masking it too was complicated, particularly as it was a persistent charm designed to trigger under certain circumstances. She would need to study the signature closely to learn more.

“Someone wanted to know if I slept with someone.” Hermione set the flask down on the bedside table and rubbed her eyes. It was pure happenstance she had woken herself with her own screams in time to see the haze of the charm. She had been so keyed up she had held the spell without her wand. The witch was uncomfortably aware of the wetness between her legs.

“Weasley?” Draco quipped. His first thought had been Greyback or rather the wizard helping him and he did not think that assumption paranoid.

“Ron didn’t go back for his NEWTs. This is beyond him.” One big conspiracy not opportunism, Hermione thought, and the monitoring charm settled any doubt Ryan had been working alone at the beginning. No one straight out of Hogwarts could have compiled and masked a ritual. She needed answers so she could ask more questions.

“There is a bruise on your shoulder.” Draco pointed it out to absolve himself of inflicting it then regretted drawing attention to it. Hermione leapt up to examine herself in the mirror. The mark was red and already darkening. She brushed her fingers over it and winced. Covertly, she investigated her nipples but they were sore all the time so that was inconclusive.

“I am going to put this mark down to a psychosomatic reaction.” Hermione said deliberately, telling her mirror self not to fly into a panic just because the bruise was in the same place as Fenrir had bitten her in the dream. “I am not going to think about it until I have spoken to Harry.” She nodded to herself. “Yes, that is what I am going to do.”

“Why don’t you get dressed? I’ll give you a tour.” Draco suggested, not quite believing what he was saying. Had he told the delectable witch to cover herself? Surely he meant ‘let us disport ourselves in wanton abandon’. Evidently not, as Hermione collected her clothes rather than wink lasciviously. This compassionate lark had knobs on.

Though Draco had to admit later when he found himself strolling arm in arm with Hermione across the south lawn that there were perks to not being a complete wanker. The brittle remoteness he had heard in her voice when she studied that bruise was gone. She was laughing at his jokes, paying attention to him quite naturally. He found himself chatting about the fete and his hopes without the nervous dread that had plagued him over the past weeks.

Yes, things were bad but somehow he could believe they would be alright. Not fairytale wonderful, he was too much of a cynic for that. But the light at the end of the tunnel was not the green flash of a Killing Curse.

Hermione let herself drift. She had done everything she could thus far and could lose herself in waiting. She suffered anxiety after battle rarely before. Waiting to start was something she could control. The consequences were out of her hands. If, if, if hammered in her head but she had learned to ignore the perfectionist fussing. Mostly.

They had dinner and retired to Draco’s bed. His desire did not frighten her. She could reason with him. Hermione settled back into the pillows afterwards, thinking that if this came back to bite her in the arse at least she would know what shape it was. With that thought in her mind, she cast a dream ward, tucked her wand against her and waited for sleep to overtake her.