Chapter Text
Somnabulatio- A potion created to create the phenomenon known as dream-walking; an elixir formulated to induce astral-projection.
“I despise you Draco Malfoy.” She says and with the words she takes a shuddering breath. It’s clear her composure is collapsing. Draco does not seem to notice this or rather not to care as he provokes further.
His eyes widen a tiny fraction before narrowing maliciously. “Oh yeah? Do you now Granger?”
He says her last name like it’s a curse, like always. She can’t believe she’s only just noticed.
Her chest feels heavy as she reigns in another sob. Still her lip trembles. “I do.” She nods.
“So what- have you forgotten about your deal?! What about our plan Hermione..?." she shakes her head, bowing it as he draws closer to her.
"I don't want to hear it Malfoy, this is somewhat of- of a betrayal..."
He puffs out his cheeks trying for patience. “Betrayal. Alright, then I can suppose that you don’t want to at least hear me out?”
Anger flashes vividly in her eyes, all sense of reconciliation vanishing momentarily.
“Because you don’t understand! You’ve never understood!!” She exclaims.
“Pansy was the one person I never wanted involved in this..and then you just happen to forget to mention that you have that sort of history with her….how do you think that makes me feel?!”
He scoffs “I don’t understand why you hate her so much.”
“You don’t understand?!” She asks incredulously. “She bullied me! You’ve completely broken my trust Draco!”
He smirks at her, “You’re joking. Pansy? Bullied you? That’s not how I remember it.”
Hermione scowls.
**
“Pansy give it back.”
The green eyed girl shook her head silently.
“Give it back or I’ll smack you silly!” Pansy gasped,
“How dare you! You rotten ha-“ Hermione hadn’t even allowed her to finish her sentence before pouncing in her immediately.
“Say it! I dare you to say it!!” Hermione exclaimed, kicking and screaming as she was pulled off a red-faced and roughed up pansy.
“Half-blood.” Pansy spat out nastily, standing to wipe down her robes and fuss at her hair. It wasn’t even a minute later when she was hit with another spell of pain.
“Oh!” It was a clearer utterance of shock than of actual discomfort.
She’d landed flat on her backside and immediately after realizing so, promptly began to scream.
“I’ve been hexed! Someone hexed me!” She sprung up on her two heeled feet and ran out of the room.
Matheo peaked out his head from behind a large pillar.
“Fantastic job Draco, right on target.”
He encouraged the naive, and easily malleable Draco Malfoy who’d been the one to hex her.
**
“Yes Draco, whether you believe it or not that was bullying. For the rest of that entire year she stopped at nothing to make me as miserable as she could.”
“Think it’s quite unfair for you to continue assuming I have any idea of any of that.”
“Yet you do. You were there Draco.” Her voice is brittle, wracked with tears. Tears built from shame, humiliation. Still she holds them back, ignoring the burning feeling in her throat.
He turns his face, with a look of clear discomfort.
“I won’t bother you tonight.” His voice drops, deepening considerably. “Perhaps we do not deliberate our plans tonight.”
For a moment, she remains quiet, yet considering the serious nature of their situation she reconsiders.
“No. You have to, we have an agreement to uphold don’t we…?” Her disposition is considered momentarily with his searching gaze.
“Good.” He concluded plainly, and looked rather self-satisfied at her. As he left, she mumbled a very notorious spell at his back.
Dropping off a spying spell upon his shoulder, so that whenever he said something of importance to the caster (who was her of course), he would be unknowingly sharing it with her.
This, Hermione presumed, would ensure that he did not only have no opportunity to withhold from her information about their plan, but also it worked so that he would have no chance at keeping from her the very thing that plagued her incessantly, Pansy. Or more specifically, the sort of relationship he had with Pansy.
With this spell she would not be left in the dark, even if she eventually lost his trust after he found out, and he would find out, she knew that.
Settling this as an overall beneficial arrangement in her mind, she trudged slowly up the stairs and into her bedroom.
There she prepared to wait three hours for him to finish off whatever business he still had at the school. It was late and had now reached nearly two-thirty in the morning.
So naturally, Hermione did everything in her power to make sure that she would not fall asleep as she waited, so as to not be caught off guard when Draco did return.
Bluebell flames, pepper-up potion, ice-cold water and of course more study material for her next week classes. She stayed there, upright in her bedroom with not a hint of sleep in her for about two hours. Then, realizing she hadn’t, she bathed, got dressed, and promptly finished studying.
Now, with nothing left to do, she wanders about the dark halls of Malfoy manor. She has yet to whittle out what secret Draco is keeping from her, and intends to do so while he’s gone. It is her safety after all.
Yet she is nonetheless appalled to find evidence of the mere fact that Draco and Pansy were indeed communicating. And about Draco’s invitation to become a death eater all the worse.
The discovery is both maddening and terrifying.
How could he, in their shared house, with their shared plans decide to keep something like this from her. Something that could easily put her at risk as a half-blood witch.
She was not easily accepted into certain societies he was familiar with, far-elite and far too ‘good’ for her. Though death eaters were an entirely different level of harmful or dangerous to her. To Draco.
“Hermione…”
She dropped a binding of papers and they fell to the floor, scattering about the room and perhaps smudging the darkly inked letters that were drying on their pages.
“I won’t do this again, because from now on, you will tell me everything.” She demanded, her voice steady and tone serious. Though her knees felt weak and she knew her hands were shaking.
“I do not know who you are speaking to. Surely it cannot be me, the owner of this home, the true Malfoy heir and most of all your hus-”
Papers crunched beneath his shoes and a jar of ink smashed to the ground, broken glass adding to the mess beneath his soles. A messy situation, and yet she spoke with sure clarity.
“Don’t you dare say it. I beg you, do not give me a reason to carry out this spell…”
She had backed him into a wall, or more accurately described, a trap door attached to the bookshelf. This door she was now noticing as her eyes trailed beyond Draco’s hunched shoulders, and peered into a small crack allowing a sliver of light through from the other side.
“Do tell, what spell is it granger…?” He mocked conceitedly but unknowingly his voice snapped her back to the present.
She lets go of his arms, her wand inching away first as she throws from its wooden top the spell- or hex, she’d intended for Draco.
It hits an oddly fallen book on the shelf behind him and shrivels up the hard leather cover and thin pages into a small, black, shrouded lump of ash.
“Don’t gape, you might catch something.” She remarks hatefully and moves past him just when he’s found something to say.
“That would’ve killed me, you tried to kill me!”
But Hermione did not reply. “Granger, what’s the matter with you? lost your fire?”
He walked into the secluded room and his face immediately darkened.
“Oh Draco…I’m so sorry….”
Slumped against the worn, wood chair of the secret study was none other than Narcissa Malfoy. As cold as she’d always been.
Dead.