That Swedish Thing

That Swedish Thing

The wand slipped through her fingers and bounced off the desk.


Horror dawning across her face, Hermione, tears beginning to trail down her cheeks once more, staggered away from her best friend and crashed into the wall before slowly, disbelievingly sliding down to the floor, her eyes wide and distant. Her shoulders shook with the force of her sobs and her fingers trembled as she clutched at the rough carpeting, her hands needing something solid to hold onto as her world collapsed around her.


“How could you?” her voice, choked and tortured, barely broke the tense silence in the room, the emotion raw and abrasive.


Harry’s green eyes were unforgiving and cold in the harsh fluorescent light of the office. “The Hermione I knew would have thanked me for doing what I had to do, no matter the consequences.” The jade bit into her face as his words dripped bitterness, scalding her with their self-righteousness. “Especially after she was violated by some fucking Death Eater scum.”


“I love him!” she screamed at Harry, nearly shaking the office with her conviction and regaining some of her composure.


The young Auror’s eyes widened and filled with trepidation, his body finally losing the defensive stance he‘d taken since she’d appeared. He hurriedly pushed back his desk chair and dropped unsteadily to his knees beside the brunette, trying to take her hands in his own but she slapped them away.


“No, Hermione, don’t you see? You’re just sick. You need help. You just have that Swedish thing,” he pleaded, his voice stuttering and unsure, his green eyes earnest.


“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she replied with absolute finality, steel in her tone as she stood from her spot on the floor and recovered her wand with quick reflexes. The former Head Girl had the length of wood back under his chin before he could blink. His own wand was resting in its place on his desk.


“You’re slipping, Harry,” she said mockingly, her earlier tears beginning to dry.


The young man gazed back at her, dismay drawing upon his features, and his voice was whisper soft. “What has he done to you?”


“He taught me how to survive,” she answered, digging the wand into his skin with deadly accuracy, “and he told me the truth.” Her remark tolerated no arguments.


“Truth? The truth about what?” Harry asked confusedly.


“About how many times you’ve lied to me,” she gritted her teeth as the words slipped out, brown eyes devoid of any warmth. “You couldn’t even tell me the truth about my disappearance. There was no Antonin Dolohov. I had to wait for a trigger after you had my memory wiped clean. How did you manage everything, Harry?”


He stared unrelentingly into her eyes, green clashing with brown and neither giving in. “I won’t apologize for anything.” Harry watched her with new awareness, like an enemy to be defeated on a battlefield.


“No, of course not, then you wouldn’t be the fucking savior of the fucking world, now would you? And it‘s cost me everything!” she shrieked hysterically before getting hold of her rampaging emotions. The tip of her wand pressed deeper, her grip strong. “I know about Narcissa.”


Harry’s gaze was decisive, his body still. “That was an accident and I was cleared,” his voice was certain, never wavering.


“See, I don’t think it was,” Hermione rejoined. “I think you wanted to make that whole family pay for Sirius’ death.” Harry flinched at the mention of his late godfather. “I think you wanted to take out every last Black and Malfoy so there would be nothing left of any of them. When Lucius died in prison and Narcissa called in the tip, you thought, ‘this is the perfect opportunity, I’ll kill her in the middle of the melee and no one will be the wiser’.”


“That’s not what happened,” he declared, his tone rising the slightest bit.


“I saw the scar, Harry.”


This simple statement seemed to silence him and his eyes burned with emerald flames, their depths reflecting no sympathy, not even the slightest hint of remorse at his actions. She was suddenly thrown back to the war.


No matter the consequences.


“You didn’t even tell me you had gone on that raid, as well as nearly a half dozen others, ones that killed far more Death Eaters than they captured,” her words were heated, the betrayal still fresh in her mind.


Harry said nothing in his defense.


“I read every report, all the ones you tried to keep from me, and I know exactly how much blood is on your hands.” Hermione took a deep breath, the fury washing over her in waves. “I’ll only ask you once,” she spoke, her voice firm.


“Where is Draco?”


-


Hermione was worried.


It was the second of January and the clock had just struck three in the morning.


Draco had woken her briefly the morning after their romp between the sheets and told her he had to go out. When she had asked where, he had only smiled and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, telling her to go back to sleep, that he would be back before she knew it.


She’d done as he’d asked and had been walking on eggshells the rest of the day when she’d woken up and he still hadn‘t returned. Night had fallen and her anxiety had only increased.


Something was wrong; she could feel it.


It was a miraculous thing really, how much she’d come to care about him in so short amount of time, but she had. It’d been so subtle, creeping over her in the last couple of months, like the tide slowly pushing in and waiting to make its presence known, but she could deny it no longer. No matter how many times she tried to recall the hate she had once felt in regards to him, it wasn’t there.


It’d been replaced by something else.


And it hadn’t happened overnight. They had been stuck in this house together for more than two months and it was hard to hate someone when they were your only company from day to day. The first month might have been filled with awkwardness and hostility, but she always kept in mind that he’d asked for her help, he’d reached out to her. She had sympathized with him.


After the first incident between them, it was even harder to feel that animosity and when she grasped inside herself for it, to be angry and hurt, it had barely been a spark, sputtering its last flicker, especially when he’d gazed at her, contrite and supplicant. Forgiveness was the only thing she could allow herself to bestow.


Then the month of friendliness and glances and almost-touches, and she fell back into bed with him and nary a single thought about the consequences. The night before, she had cleansed, submerged, drowned herself in him, in his eyes and in his hands and in his body. Broken down and had been made whole again.


She was in love with him.


This, she realized, and it both enlivened and alarmed her. He made her feel things she hadn’t felt since her Hogwarts days, since before the war, before the death and the destruction and the pain.


Three simple words and yet it complicated everything, it made the outside world that much more unbearable. It made her never want to return to her previous life and that sole thought petrified her.


How could she ever be the same again?


Hermione huddled deeper into her armchair by the fire, the flames battling the chill settling into the dark library, and looked at the clock on the desk once more. It was nearing four in the morning and the house was still as her eyelids grew heavy.


When the clock chimed five, the door to the library banged open, disturbing the uneasy slumber she’d slipped into and she was out of the chair and across the room before she could even think about it.


Throwing her arms around his neck, Hermione buried her face in his chest, her words coming out muffled. “Where were you? I was worried.”


Draco wrapped his hands around her waist and untangled her from his person, and he started pulling her in the direction of her room. “Come on, get dressed.”


Hermione gazed back at him blankly. “What? Why?”


“Just do it, alright?” he replied testily, his gloved hand swinging the door open.


She dressed quickly and fastened a thick cloak over her shoulders before rejoining him. He pulled her close, his arms circling her body, and withdrew his wand from his pocket. The air around them crackled with intensity as they disappeared, the sound of apparation the only thing left behind in the corridor.


They reappeared on a hill covered in snow, the countryside very familiar to Hermione and she turned to face him, her brown eyes dancing with questions.


He looked away from her inquiring expression, the gray trying to find something to focus on in the dim light of early morning, and gave her a little shove forward.


“Hogsmeade is just over that next hill. I’m sure you’ll be able to find a free fireplace to Floo from.”


Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and studied him in all serious. “You’re letting me go?”


Draco ducked his head, his features giving nothing away. “Yes.”


She was stunned and afraid. She was torn, but she knew, she wasn’t going anywhere.


“I’m staying.”


The gray widened, perfect circles of disbelief, but he didn’t question her reasons, he could see the stubbornness in her stance, in the tilt of her head, in the line of her lips. This was what he’d wanted.


“Okay.” And they apparated back to the house which was both her prison and her home.


A week passed, a week spent continuously searching for the illusive key to his freedom, and she’d taken up residence in his room until nothing of hers was left in the blue room, the one she’d occupied since the night he’d first abducted her from the corridor outside her flat.


It felt like worlds away to her.


Hermione woke one morning to find him picking through his wardrobe, trying to find a shirt for the day, and his back faced her. She couldn’t prevent the gasp that escaped from her lips as she took in the sight, trying to recall how she had missed it in all their time together and failing.


There on his back, running the entire length of his spine from his neck and disappearing under the waistband of his trousers, was a dark pink scar nearly an inch wide. It looked excruciatingly painful.


Draco, startled by her gasp, turned from his perusal to see what she was doing. When he noticed the direction of her gaze, his eyes grew stormy, thunderclouds were on the horizon.


“Oh, that,” he commented indifferently, “that’s a souvenir from your precious Potter. I should be paralyzed, you know, but Blaise got to me in time. He regenerated my nerves.”


Hermione’s brown eyes connected with his as her stomach fell to her knees. “What are you talking about? Harry wouldn’t do that.”


The blond grimly chuckled. “Of course not. He’s only hated me for over a decade and would gladly dance on my grave. It wasn’t like we weren’t on opposite sides of the war or anything,” he remarked cynically.


Hermione wrapped the sheet around her and stood, her chin trembling despite herself. “You weren’t on opposite sides of the war. You were framed.”


“It doesn’t matter,” he ran his hand frustratingly through his hair, the long strands falling back across his face. “All Potter sees is this.” He held his arm out so she could fully take it in.


The Dark Mark was seared into his forearm.


“No,” she whispered, backing away from him, her eyes filling with tears. “It still doesn’t make sense. You didn’t kill anybody,” her voice pleaded, begging for the truth.


Draco grabbed her before she could move too far away and jerked her head back, his eyes boring into her face, studying every nuance of her expression, and she could feel his presence poking through her mind, questioning her knowledge. His grip tightened on her arms as realization washed over him, blanketing him in astonishment.


“You don’t know. How can you not know?” he asked her amazedly.


Before she could fully comprehend, the blond took hold of her hand and pulled her hastily from the room and down the corridor to the library. He didn’t let go of her as he snatched up one of the files off the desk, nearly dislodging one of the stacks, and thrust it into her chest, her other arm coming up to catch it before the papers inside could slip out.


“It’s time for a lesson in reality.”


Then, Draco told her truths, horrible truths she didn’t want to hear, but truths nevertheless. And it was all there, inside Harry’s folder, his account of the war, the one she had skipped over because she mistakenly had assumed she knew what was inside, and she learned everything Harry had kept from her during those three years.


Hermione could see his green eyes in her mind, the ones that had always sparkled with sincerity, and she knew why he had done it, why he had kept so much from her. He’d wanted to protect her from the stark ugliness of war, but she’d been touched, damaged, destroyed by it no matter how hard he’d wanted otherwise.


It had been inevitable.


The letters on the papers did far more to convince her than just Draco’s word, but it was there for her to see in black and white. The red bled through as she read the entire file from front to back.


His account of the assault on Malfoy Manor, how he’d accidentally hit Narcissa Malfoy in the skirmish with a Killing Curse, how he’d caught up with Draco Malfoy after the battle in Bristow and he tried to extract Voldemort’s location out of him by use of a Severing Charm, how he’d killed Pansy Parkinson and Vincent Crabbe during the attack on Hogsmeade instead of trying to capture them, how he’d crippled Gregory Goyle’s younger sister, a fifteen-year-old girl not involved in the war, in the sneak attack on Goyle Park. So many things she hadn’t known, hadn’t even suspected, all given in a single interview that neither Ron nor Hermione had been present for. And he’d been cleared of it all, some being deemed mistakes, mishaps in the heat of battle, and others written off as collateral damage.


“Did you really think Saint Potter wouldn’t do everything possible to win the war? To close in on the Dark Lord and take out his forces? No matter the consequences?” Draco lowly murmured against her ear.


She felt her face burn with indignation and resolve settle in her mind. Her heart was shattered as she saw her beliefs go up in flames before her eyes, the very things that made her Hermione Granger. It wasn’t about his actions during the war, even though they were questionable at the very least, it was that he had lied to her and had been continuously lying to her ever since.


A very fundamental part of her shifted at that moment and she could feel it deep in her consciousness as she reached up and grabbed fistfuls of Draco’s hair, dragging his lips down to clash with her own. He answered by lifting her into his arms, the sheet falling forgotten to the floor, and taking her against the wall, just like the first time they had come together.


She could only fall deeper under his spell, the water closing in around her head, her loyalty no longer in question, and her mind poisoned with the truth.


A month more passed, it was now mid-February, and they were getting closer to the answer they sought. It was a month spent with touches and tenderness, fighting and fucking, and more words. Hermione was no longer aware of the outside world, having been isolated from it for nearly four months now, and couldn’t see the danger lurking in her actions, in her thoughts, in her principles. She lived and breathed Draco.


But more than that, she knew, without really knowing, that things were about to change. The winds passed over her, blowing away any remaining indecisions and scattering the leftover pieces of her former life. Turnabout was in full play and she knew there was no going back.


She was pregnant.


tbc...