Archive of Our Own

The July air is muggy and Hermione’s stomach is twisted into anxious knots by the time she pops into existence at the Ministry controlled Apparition point in Brixton.  Harry is waiting for her, leaning against the brick wall of the alley. He’s wearing jeans, a dark blue t-shirt, and a pair of ratty old trainers. Inconspicuous, which she supposes is the point.  She chose a grey pantsuit instead of her black Unspeakable robes for the same reason. It’s 2015 and everyone and their mother has a mobile, which makes an Obliviator’s job that much more demanding.  Tracking down witnesses is easy enough, but magic and electronics have never cooperated, so the digital photographs and videos live on. Sometimes it’s easier to blend in.

“This is the worst one yet,” Harry says, lips set in a grim line as he shoves off the wall and falls in step beside her.  “What the hell is going on, Hermione?”

I don’t know.

She can’t recall the last time she said the words aloud.  Only in this case, she’s afraid she does, and it’s much, much worse than ignorance.

“Have you have evacuated the area?”

“Mostly.”  His voice is gruff.

“Mostly?”

“We don’t know if we got everyone out of the building.  After a little while, it—” Harry tugs his hands through his hair in obvious frustration.  “The doors just stopped.”

“Stopped what?”

“Being doors?”

Hermione stops dead and stares at her friend.  “Things don’t—”

“I know, laws of physics and all that, but Anders, he…” Harry swallows hard, his expression twisting into a grimace.  “He went through it. Like, walking through a waterfall. Only he didn’t come back. It’s like the entire building is…phasing out.”

Hermione has to force herself to breathe, and suddenly she feels chilled despite the swelter.

That’s not possible.

A blasphemous phrase in her book, and yet nothing in the entirety of her experiences in the magical world have prepared her for the levels of bizarre her work has achieved over the last few weeks.  Her instincts tell her there’s a much bigger picture, and that terrifies her. Especially since none of it seems to make sense. There’s no pattern to the incidents, nothing to link them together aside from the undeniably weird quality of their occurrences.  But today—this is the first time anyone’s been hurt. In all likelihood, Anders is dead.

Hermione puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder and squeezes.  She had never met Anders, but Harry made a point to know all of his fellow Aurors and he has a guilt complex a mile wide.  “It wasn’t your fault, Harry. None of this is. But we will figure it out. I promise.”

The scene is cordoned off with yellow caution tape and surrounded by Muggle constables and Aurors in plain clothes.  Cedric Diggory meets them at the barrier, lifting the tape to allow Harry and Hermione underneath. He too is wearing Muggle clothes: khaki trousers and a light purple shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.  He’s sweating, and his perpetually boyish expression is creased with all the emotions Hermione is feeling. Confusion, frustration, fear. Exhaustion.

As the Muggle Affairs coordinator, he’s been working nonstop since the weird started, right next to Hermione, every step of the way.  Liaising between her department and the Muggle scientists the Prime Minister has investigating, he is well aware of how dire the situation is becoming, and probably feels even more helpless to stop it than she does.  He’s not a scientist or an Unspeakable. He’s a PR rep in way over his head.

But Hermione is glad to have him.  He’s steady and clever and has, on more than one occasion, ensured she fed herself.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says.  “Because this is—” He cuts off, raising his arms in a half-hearted gesture, like words have utterly failed him.

Hermione looks up at the block of mid-century flats, each unit delineated by white trim, as neat and tidy as an eleven story chess board.  Some of the balconies have furniture, little wicker seats and tables with flower pots. Others have clothes hanging over the rail to dry. There’s a cat on one, the sliding door cracked open behind it.  The tabby is standing on its hind legs with its paws on the metal rungs, his mouth frozen open in a perpetual meow.

The details of the building are forgotten, however, when she realizes that the whole of it is translucent.  She squints, brow furrowing, as her keen eyes discern the shapes of trees, and heavy clouds, and a skyline that does not belong to London.  She would swear on her life that what looks like a zeppelin hovered in the distance.

Curious, Hermione walks toward the end of the block to peer around the corner of the building.  Brixton. All red brick and traffic lights, empty with the street being cordoned off. She looks up at the sky, brilliant blue and cloud free.  Her gaze returns to the building, which sort of flickers, like a shadow might in her peripheral vision, only she’s looking at it dead on in the middle of the day.

It reminds her of a roll of film her father accidentally double exposed.  She’d loved the photographs, had insisted on keeping what her mother determined was rubbish.  To her seven-year-old brain the images of her grandmother’s house superimposed and filmy over their weekend at Brighton were, well, magical.

But the effect is limited to the building.  Its silhouette is clear and sharp, like a cookie cutter punched it out of the scenery, revealing the gauzy not-London behind it.

“Unreal,” she whispers.

“It’s interesting you use that word,” Cedric says.  “I’ve got a someone you need to meet.”

Doctor Sanjiv Kahtri is small and wiry and way too excited about what’s happening for Hermione to like him.  He’s finally stopped talking, and she looks around at all of his equipment, with its blinking lights, and beeps and whirs, then back to the building they’re all aimed at.

Is it less than before?  Less there? It’s only been a couple of minutes, but—

“Er,” Harry says, filling the expectant silence.  “I need you to imagine I’m about ten years old and say all that again.”

Kahtri huffs, and Hermione can sympathize.  Her scientific expertise is limited to magical theory and spell development.  She’s certainly no expert in metaphysics or quantum mechanics, but what Kahtri said falls in line with what her own research has been pointing toward.

“He’s saying we have reasonable evidence to believe the fabric of reality is tearing.”

“Thinning,” Kahtri corrects.  “A tear would be catastrophic.  I hypothesize this is merely a… weak spot.  A little threadbare, if you will. Like peering out the window through an old curtain.”

“So, what you’re saying is that’s like… another… universe?” Harry says.

Something about Kahtri’s words pop a flag up in her mind, coupled with a stir of excitement.  “Say that again,” she demands, fixing her gaze on the doctor.

“Like looking through an old curtain?”  

“What is it?” Harry asks, picking up on the change in her tone of voice.

“Through and old curtain,” she says, more to herself than Harry.  She shakes her head. It isn’t much, but it’s a place to start.

Before Harry can press her, a mighty wind kicks up, sending Dr Kahtri’s machines into a frenzy.  The air around them grows dim, steel grey and thick, pressurized, as though they’ve been transported to the top of a mountain or the center of a storm, and Hermione’s ears pop painfully.  She stumbles back under the onslaught, steadied by Cedric’s hand on her elbow. There is a single, deafening crack and a flash of light, like thunder and lightning, and the pressure is gone.

A sheet of freezing cold rain splashes to the ground, and everything stills.

The building has vanished, Big Ben barely visible above the trees in the distance.

She keeps thinking about the cat.

It’s easier to think about than the people.  Cedric told her the Muggle authorities reported thirty-one residents missing.  Most of them were children home during summer hols. Gone. Like they never existed.  She tries not to imagine their final moments. Had they frozen in time, like the tabby?  Had they been aware? Terrified? Had their consciousnesses frozen, leaving them more mannequin than human?  Hermione hopes it was the latter with a desperation that takes her breath away. She can’t imagine being locked inside her body, unable to do a thing as she inexorably ceased to exist.

She shakes her head, rubs her eyes, and refocuses her gaze on the Veil.  Through it. The Death Chamber is eerie and still, silent but for the whispers of her breath.  It flutters as though caught in a summer breeze.

Like a curtain.

It had been little more than a niggling idea in the back of her mind, triggered by her conversation with Dr. Kahtri.  But she’s been digging, and the deeper she goes, the more certain she becomes. The Veil is the key.

Now she’s just got to convince everyone else.

Cedric is waiting for her in the corridor outside Minster Fudge’s office with a stack of papers clutched in one hand and dark smudges beneath his eyes.

She hands him her coffee.  “You look like you need this more than I do.”

“You’re an angel, Hermione Granger,” he says, handing off the papers.  “I don’t care what they say about you.”

Hermione snorts and flips through them while he sucks down the coffee.  Dr. Kahtri’s been busy. The math is…theoretical, what they’re dealing with has ever been seen before, either.  In theory, none of the things she’s seen in the past weeks should have been possible.

It’s bad, horrible really, but Kahtri’s findings back up her own theories, even if the building in Brixton disappeared before she could conduct any of her own tests.  

Cedric vanishes the empty paper cup with a flick of his wand, but he doesn’t look much better.  “Ready?”

“Are you?”

“No.  Not if Dr. Kahtri is right.”

Hermione can sympathize.  Inhaling deeply, she pushes the door open and enters without knocking.  The conference table is sleek, dark mahogany and far longer than necessary.  The whole room reeks of overcompensation, and she wonders who is trying to intimidate whom.  

Fudge himself is seated at the head, with Kingsley Shacklebolt, Head Auror to his right.  Augustus Rookwood is on his left. Rookwood is the Head of the Department of Mysteries, Hermione’s direct superior, and he hates her.  It’s because she’s a Muggleborn, but she’s too damn good at her job for him to make a fuss without drawing attention to his outdated bigotry.  Mostly outdated bigotry.

Harry is next to Kingsley.  He’s been the Auror investigating the incidents from the start, even if Hermione is certain the problem doesn’t strictly fall beneath their purview.  It’s been good to have Harry around, his unwavering faith in her abilities is a rock. He smiles at her, just the barest quirk of his lips.

Cedric sits next to Rookwood, who looks like he bit into a lemon.

“Miss Granger,” Fudge says, not bothering to rise from his seat.  He looks old and frail, the fear pulling at the skin around his eyes.  She knows he doesn’t want to hear what she has to say because as soon as he does he’ll be responsible for that knowledge.  “Nice of you to join us.”

“My apologies, Minister,” she says, ignoring the jab.  “I was examining some last minute data.”

“I hope,” Rookwood says, barely keeping the sneer out of his voice, “you’re prepared to enlighten us.”

Harry glares at Rookwood, but keeps his mouth shut.

“I am.”  She sets her briefcase and the papers Cedric had given her on the table and smooths down the front of her robes.  “You all are aware what’s been happening the last few weeks. Massive electromagnetic anomalies, pockets of time lapses, reports all over London of audio, visual, and tactical incidents that defy scientific or magical explanation.”

“Yes, but have you figured out why?” Fudge interrupts.  “Miss Granger, what is going on?”

Hermione locks eyes with Cedric, who gives her a quick nod.  He’s the only one she’s shared her thoughts with.

“The universe is falling apart.”

She is met with silence, but Fudge’s podgy face is so pale, he looks like a ghost.

“Twenty years ago, Tom Riddle and Lucius Malfoy, both Unspeakables, were conducting an experiment in the Death Chamber when something went horribly wrong.”  Hermione glances at Harry. His face is grim and drawn, grief and anger twisting his mouth into a grimace. “Lily Potter, another Unspeakable, was caught in the middle and killed.  Tom Riddle was never seen nor heard from again, and Lucius Malfoy went mad shortly thereafter and has been in a secure ward in St. Mungo’s ever since.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Rookwood snarls, standing.  He’s huge, menacing, easily six and a half feet tall, his face gaunt and craggy, and his deep voice rumbles like thunder.  He wasn’t the department head in those days, but the scandal had been damaging. The Ministry had almost closed the department, and they’d spent the last twenty years rebuilding the trust of the Wizarding community.  Apparently it still rankled, and he wasn’t above petty intimidation. “Ancient history.”

“Everything,” she snaps, not willing to quail before him.  “Whatever Riddle and Malfoy were trying to do that night—I don’t think they failed.  I think they did exactly what they set out to do. I’ve been going through the research Riddle and Malfoy left behind.  It’s woefully incomplete, but Riddle was obsessed with the idea of parallel universes and was determined to uncover if and how magic was involved.”

“Parallel universes,” Fudge scoffs, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.  “Imposs—”

“According to Dr. Sanjiv Kahtri, the Muggle scientist we’ve been collaborating with, that is exactly what we’re dealing with.”

Rookwood snorts.

“And to be fair,” she continues, not bothering to hide her glare, “what’s happening may be magical in origin, but isn’t strictly magical in and of itself.  He’s probably more qualified to be studying what’s happening than the entirety of the Department of Mysteries. And his math,” she tosses the stack of paper toward them, “is very good.”

Kingsley clears his throat, flicking his gaze between Fudge’s pale face and Hermione.  “Okay, say you’re right. What does Riddle have to do with what’s happening now?”

“I think he crossed over, I think he used the Veil to do it, and I think whatever spell he used literally damaged the fabric of reality.  It’s been unraveling ever since, but for some reason it’s accelerating. So far the anomalies have been contained to London, but I doubt that will last.”

Rookwood is glowering at her and Harry is staring at the table like he wants to bore holes through it with his eyes.

Fudge looks like he’s going to be ill, so Kingsley continues.  “What’s your recommendation?”

“I want to talk to Lucius Malfoy.”

“No,” Harry said, his voice rough.  It’s the first thing he’s said since she arrived.  “That man—”

“May be the only one who can help.  This isn’t going to just go away, Harry.  I can't fix it without knowing how it was broken in the first place.  He’s the only who knows what happened.”

“He’s also mad as a hatter,” Harry returns.  “Besides. Even if he could help you, I doubt he would.”

“We have to try.”

“An admirable plan, Miss Granger,” Fudge says, finding his voice at last.  “But unfortunately, there are only four people allowed to visit Lucius Malfoy: his guards, his healer, and his son.”

“Surely, considering—”

“Not without Draco Malfoy’s presence, I’m afraid.”

Hermione’s stomach swoops, hearing his name out loud.  It’s been ages since she let herself dwell on him, years of diligently applied brickwork around that small corner of her heart.  It was hard, diving into Lucius’ work and not letting her mind wander to Draco, but Hermione is nothing if not determined.

“Then we’ll get it.”

Even if it meant being in the same room with him for the first time since — since.

“No one’s seen him since Narcissa died twelve years ago.”  Harry tugs his hand through his hair.

The service had been private, but rumors were he’d barely spent twenty-four hours in England before leaving again.

“Then I’ll find him.”

It’s gone eleven and Hermione’s only been home for about two minutes when there’s a knock on the door.  She answers it with a sigh.

“You could have told him what you had planned, you know.”

“Nice to see you too, Ronald.”  His cheeks are ruddy with the heat—and probably the pint or two he had with Harry at the Leaky Cauldron—but his skin is pale and he looks tired.

“Don’t Ronald me.  You bloody well know I’m right.”

Hermione glares, but steps aside.  Ron heads straight for the kitchen where he perches on the counter.  Her flat is outrageously small, claustrophobic with books and over-sized furniture.  Not that it matters. She’s never there.

Hermione opens the refrigerator, bypassing the leftover takeaway and going straight for the wine.

“How much did he tell you?” she asks, foregoing a glass and drinking straight from the bottle.

“Only that the world is ending and you think the only person who can save it is the same bloke who killed his mum.”

“Well, when you put it like that.”  Ron snorts. “But really, I think the first half of that sentence trumps the second.  I love Harry, and I’m sorry I sprung it on him, but there isn’t time.”

“Time enough for you to chase down that little ferret.”

“Really?  That’s what you’re going with?  It was seventeen years ago. If I’m not still upset about it, you can’t be either.”

“He was a complete bastard to you!”

“He never pretended to be otherwise.”

Ron shakes his head.  “I never understood what you saw in him.”

To be fair, she’d never been able to put her finger on it either.  True, Draco could be sullen and petty and aloof, but he had his redeeming qualities, too.  He was clever and determined, and if you were lucky enough to be allowed into his own private world, if he let you see beneath the mask he showed everyone else…  She shakes her head and takes a long sip of wine. Sometimes she thinks she just liked the challenge of him. They never gave each other an inch. “Does it matter anymore?”

“It does if you still—”

“I don’t,” she snaps, her cheeks flushing hot.  If you’d asked her two days ago, she would have believed herself.  Today it’s a lie and they both know it. “I don’t,” she repeats, more evenly.  “I just don’t understand why he left the way he did, and that is what bothers me.  It may always bother me.”

Ron, miraculously, drops it.  He heaves a deep sigh and scrubs his face with his hands.  “I wish Harry hadn’t told me anything.”

Hermione deflates, all her frustration with Ron leaving her in a whoosh she feels in every cell of her body.  She climbs onto the counter next to Ron, resting her head on his shoulder and hooking her right arm around his left.  “I wish I didn’t know, either.”

“It’s not like when we were in school, you know?  Sneaking around, solving mysteries? And… Just—I’m a bloody Quidditch player, and you guys… I can’t follow you where you’re going anymore.  It scares the shite out of me.”

“I’m scared too,” she whispers, and Merlin does it feel good to say it out loud.  “I don’t know if I can solve this mystery, Ron. Not before it’s too late.”

“You will.”

She shakes her head, an argument on the tip of her tongue, but Ron cuts her off.

“You have to.  And you always do what has to be done.”  He nudges her with his elbow. “It’s kind of your thing.”

Hermione smiles, nudges him back.  “When did you get so good at this?”

He huffs a laugh.  “We probably have Luna to thank.  You should send her a fruit basket or something.”

It’s been days, precious, precious days, and by the time Hermione Portkeys into Dubai’s customs office she’s more exhausted and more frustrated than she’s ever been in her life.  She’s also completely over traveling by Portkey. Twelve stops, twelve wild goose chases. The ground still feels like she’s spinning as she walks toward the nearest available clerk.  

She’s gonna smack him twelve times when she finds him.  

If she ever finds him.

“What brings to you our lovely city, Miss Granger?” Director Sharif says in perfect English, eyeing her from head to toe.  It’s not a sexual gaze; he’s sizing her up. He leans back in his seat, confident he has her pegged. She knows she doesn’t seem like much, more like a librarian’s assistant than a highly trained witch.  It’s worked to her advantage in the past. It’s easier to get information if people think you wouldn’t know what to do with it, anyway.

“I’m looking for a man,” she says reaching into her leather jacket for the only photograph of Draco anyone could find.  It did not come from the shoebox beneath her bed.

“We are not a matchmaking service,” Sharif says, huffing a laugh at his own joke.

Hermione ignores him, sliding the picture across the sleek desk.  It’s tidy, the space of an efficient worker, with no personal touches whatsoever.  “His name is Draco Malfoy. I have reason to believe he spent at least a short amount of time here, and it is of the utmost importance that I find him.”

He peers at the picture, but doesn’t touch it, his face impassive.  “What has he done?”

Hermione furrows her brow.  “It’s a family matter.”

“And you’re his family?”

She doesn’t understand why he’s being so evasive and struggles to keep her annoyance in check.  “Director Sharif, I am not at liberty to divulge the particulars, but I assure you I am here with the full authority of the British Ministry for Magic.  Can you help me or not?”

Sharif leans forward then, his dark, intelligent eyes locking with Hermione’s.  She can’t tell if he’s trying to intimidate her into over-sharing or if he’s trying to reevaluate his previous judgment.  Her gaze doesn’t waver.

“I can—on one condition.”

Naturally.  “Which is?”

“When you’re done with him, I want him back.”

“Excuse me?”

Sharif flicks his wand and the top drawer of a filing cabinet in the corner slams open.  Another flick, and a thick file floats out and zooms into his open hand. “I do not know the name Malfoy, but this man is known to the department.  We’ve had our eye on him for some time.”

“Why?” Hermione asks, hiding her eagerness at receiving the file.  Finally, an actual lead. She flips it open and there, right on top is a photograph of Draco, dated mere weeks ago.  She lifts it, staring, steadfastly refusing to let her jaw drop in amazement. He’s older, obviously, but it’s him. Same angular face and pointed nose.  His hair is long, twisted in a knot at the nape of his neck, his fair skin lightly bronzed by the sun. In the picture he’s accepting an envelope from another man.

“Let’s just say we’d like to have a chat with him.”

Well that sounds ominous.

“It looks like you’ve been surveilling him for months,” Hermione replies, keeping her voice light.  There are at least a dozen different photographs, all taken in different locations. “Why not bring him in yourself?”

“He’s…slippery.”

Hermione snorts.  Doesn’t she know it.

Sharif half stands and leans across the desk, placing his hand in the center of the file.  “Your word, Miss Granger. I want Draco Malfoy, as you call him, delivered into our custody when this so called family matter is resolved.”

Hermione meets his gaze once more.  There’s an edge to it now, a fierceness.  Sharif wants Draco for more than a chat. But what choice does she have?  There are over three million people in Dubai, and that’s just the Muggles.  She’ll never find him without the information in that file. And she’s wasted so much time already.

“Of course, Director.  You have my word.”

Her hotel is hot and dim, but the westward facing window fills the room with the mid afternoon sunlight.  The Ministry had secured her lodgings in a prestigious Magical neighborhood, but she’d taken a modest room on the edge of the slums.  The file Sharif gave her was a wealth of information, including the little tidbit that a man called Omar. He's been spotted with Draco several times over the last few months, is known to frequent the cafe across the street.  

She’s been watching it all afternoon.

At three-fourteen, Omar rounds the corner at the end of the block, and waltzes into the cafe without a care in the world.

With a grin, Hermione slips back into her leather bomber, ties an inconspicuous brown scarf around her wealth of hair, fixes her aviator sunglasses in place, and hurries to join him.

He doesn’t linger today, and Hermione barely has time to order her own tiny cup of espresso before he’s hurrying out, frowning at a Muggle mobile device.  The file was unclear on that point: no one seems to know if Omar is magical or not, but Hermione doesn’t have time to fret. She’d had to master Memory Charms as part of her Unspeakable training, and will use them if she has to.

Omar cuts a circuitous, westward path, but doesn’t seem to be aware that she’s following him.  Half an hour later he darts into a small carpark, making a beeline for an old rustbucket on the far side.  She curses beneath her breath and sprints after him, trying to keep at least one car between them. If he makes it out of the lot, she’ll never see him again, but needs to maintain the element of surprise.

He slams his door shut as she makes it to the rear of the vehicle, and he’s too absorbed in the task of getting the piece of junk to turn over to notice her.  A flick of her wand and the lock on the passenger door pops up and then she’s sliding into the seat, aiming her wand at his face. Omar startles, shouting and bashing both of his knees on the dash in an attempt to get away from her, only to find the door won’t open.  When he realizes he’s trapped, he wedges himself in the corner, as far away from her as possible.

“I see you recognize this,” she says, giving her wand a little flick.  He flinches, eyes wide. Almost definitely a Muggle, but surprisingly knowledgeable.

“If you want the car, t-t-take it,” he stammers in English.

“I don’t want your car.”  Hermione smiles. “I want Draco Malfoy.”

Omar didn’t recognize the name Draco either, but a flash of the picture and the jut of her wand beneath his chin was enough to remind him.  Another jab of her wand and a text message arranging a rendezvous was sent.

At least she thanked him before Stupefying him and wiping his memory.

The beach-side restaurant is small.  They’re away from the main strip, so there are more locals than tourists, and Hermione hides in a shop across the boulevard, thumbing through racks of clothes while she keeps an eye on the patio.  She doesn’t want to give him the opportunity to run from her, but she also wants to make sure he comes alone. This will be tricky enough without additional variables.

Her breath catches in her chest when she sees him.  Dressed in khaki trousers and a white linen shirt, Draco’s taller than she remembers, and he’s grown into his shoulders.  Gone is the lanky boy she shared Head duties with at Hogwarts. He seats himself facing the water, so she can’t see his face, but she’d recognize him anywhere.

It’s harder than she thought it would be.

Gritting her teeth against the swell of emotion, she waits until a server has brought him a glass of water and a menu before crossing the street.

He’s expecting Omar, so he doesn’t look up when she seats herself next to him, but he freezes when she speaks.

“Peter Biship?  Doesn’t suit you at all.”  She removes her sunglasses and the scarf and meets his gaze.  He looks like he’s been kicked in the face before schooling his face into a blank mask.  Something twinges in her chest. “You’re a hard man to find.”

“And yet here you are,” he drawls.

“Here I am.”

“What do you want, Granger?”

So that’s how he wants to do this.  She swallows a sigh but refuses to look away.  “I need your help, unfortunately.”

Draco snorts.

“I need you to come home.”

“England is not my home.”

“Draco—”

“I have a life here—”

“Fencing stolen goods,” Hermione snaps.  She’s not surprised he’s leaned toward less reputable forms of employment.  He always was an unrepentant opportunist. “What a life.”

“Yeah?  How’s the straight and narrow working out for you?  You look like shit, Granger. When was the last time you slept?”

“About four months ago.”  She sighs now, too tired to play games.  Not with him looking at her like that, like he could take her apart with his eyes, read all the secrets written on her bones.  “I don’t want to fight with you.”

“I’m not going back.”

“The world’s ending.”

“The world’s been ending since it began.  That’s what things do. They end.”

“I don’t believe you buy into that fatalistic nonsense, not for a single moment.”

“Then you’ll be disappointed.”

“I’m used to it.”

Draco flinches, just the barest twitch before he sets his jaw.  “As lovely as this little reunion has been, I think—”

“Sharif’s closing in on you.”  She reaches across the table and steals his water.  “Dubai MLE has a file on you two inches thick, Malfoy.  Help me, and I’ll take care of it.”

That gets his attention.  His expression is blank again, but she can tell he’s considering.  Her heart races as she offers up a silent prayer. Just this once, let him not be a colossal pain in the arse.

“Take care of it,” he repeats, slowly.

“I’m an Unspeakable.  We make things disappear all the time.”

He arches a brow in surprise.  “What could you possibly need my help with?”

Before Hermione can respond, a dozen cracks of Apparition sound, each signaling the arrival of an indigo-clad MLE officer.  They both stand, instinctively shifting toward each other. Draco’s hand dives into his pocket and Hermione’s wand slips out of her sleeve into her palm.  Sharif appears next, popping into existence on the opposite side of the table. He looks unbearably smug.

“What the fuck, Granger?” Draco growls.

“He must have followed me.  I swear—”

“Remarkable,” Sharif says.  “You accomplish in one day what my men failed to do after months of work.  I’d offer you a job, Miss Granger, but I just don’t trust you.” He turns to the wizard on his right, a large man with greying hair and a crooked nose.  “Arrest him, and escort Miss Granger to the Portkey Hub. I believe she’s worn out her welcome.”

It all happens quickly after that.

Draco fires a Stunner at the burly cop while Hermione flips their table on its side, then drags Draco down behind it with her.  A hasty charm reinforces the table.

“Oh my God, you are so stupid!”

“You’re the one who led them straight to me!” he snarls, firing a volley of spells over the table.

Hermione growls, peeking around the opposite side and efficiently disarming two more officers.

“It’s thirteen against two!”

“Technically nine now.”

Then the table vanishes.  Cursing under her breath, she grabs Draco’s free hand and slams her other hand in her pocket, wrapping her fingers around the Portkey she’d hidden there.  The last thing she hears before they swirl away is Sharif roaring in outrage.

They land atop a grassy knoll in Somerset, sun high in the sky and a cow nearby, chewing its cud.  Off balance, they topple into each other, out of breath, adrenaline pumping. They lay side-by-side in on the soft ground for a moment, getting their bearings.

“I hate you so much right now.”

Hermione laughs, overwhelmed and exhausted, but mostly relieved.  “Welcome back, Malfoy.”

Hermione stands first, offering her hand down to Draco.  He eyes her suspiciously before climbing to his feet. She rolls her eyes.

“Just hear me out?  Please?”

“Why should I?  You kidnapped me.”

She plants her hands on her hips and glares.  “You’d be in a jail cell in Dubai if not for me.”

“It’s your fault they found me.”

“It’s your fault you’re a criminal.”

Draco sniffs.  “I’m a businessman.”

“I could always send you back.”  She pulls the used Portkey out of her pocket, wand poised for the spell.  “Shall I?”

This earns her a glare.  Dubai will be off limits for a while and he knows it as well as she.  

“That’s what I thought.”  She turns and heads north.  “Well, come on. There’s an Auror safe house a couple of kilometers away.  It’s safe to talk there.”

She takes a dozen steps before he follows.  

The safe house is little more than an oversized shack.  There’s a bed, a table for two, a closet filled with supplies, a kitchenette, and a toilet.  The room smells stale, uninhabited, but it’s clean and safe. Unplottable. If Sharif does trace them to Somerset, that’s as far as he’ll get.

The interior breast pocket of her jacket grows warm, and she pulls out the metal disk.  A truly clever invention. Fred and George developed them five or six years ago, and the Ministry snatched them up—the Wizarding World’s response to mobile phones.  She flips open the compact with her thumb and looks at the mirror.

“Answer.”

Harry’s face materializes in the glass, his face etched with worry, and the disk cools.  “I got an alert that your emergency Portkey activated. Is everything all right?”

Hermione smiles.  “We’re fine.”

“We?”

“Yes, Potter,” Draco drawls behind her.  “You remember how pronouns work, I hope?”

“There was an incident, however,” Hermione butts in before Harry can offer a snappy response.  They’d never got on at school, and her and Draco’s breakup had done no more to endear Draco to Harry than it had Ron.  “I’ll need to brief Kingsley when I get back.”

“Did you tell him?”

“I didn't have time.”

Harry frowns.  “Good luck. Let me know when you get back to town.  There was another event this morning. It’s not pretty.”

The small high she’d been experiencing at convincing Draco to come with her crashes, a lead weight settling in her stomach. “Where?”

“Leicester Square tube station.”

“Any casualties?”

“We’re still counting.”

Hermione just breathes for a moment, swallowing down the bile rising in the back of her throat.  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“We activated the Apparition point in the maintenance closet.”

“I know it.  Thanks.”

Harry nods farewell, and the mirror reflects her own sad expression back at her.  She closes the compact and puts it back in her pocket.

“What’s going on, Granger?” he says, his tone subdued.  He’d heard every word Harry said. At least it had some effect on him.

“I told you.  The world’s ending.  The fabric of reality is coming apart at the seams.  We’ve some fairly reliable science suggesting there’s a parallel universe, and—”

“What does it have to do with me?”

Hermione takes a deep breath.  There's not a delicate way to say this.  “I think your father started it. That night.  I need to talk to him, see if there’s anything more he can tell us, but I can’t unless you’re there.”  She meets his stormy gaze across the room. “Please.”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

“You don’t even have to talk to him!  Just stand in the room while I ask him some questions.”

“No.”

“You heard what Harry said—”

“The answer’s still no, Granger.”

“God, how did I forget how selfish you are,” she says, balling her fists.  The urge to throw something at him is strong.

He moves for the door.

“Go ahead and walk away.  We both know you’re good at it.”

Draco wheels on her, silver eyes flashing in anger.  “Do not pretend that because we were a thing for about six minutes in school that you know anything about me.

"You’re a coward," she returns, stepping toward him.  “You always run when things get hard.” She pulls her hands through her hair and looks up at the ceiling.  “Why did I think I could talk you into actually helping?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Hermione glares, but tries a different approach.  "You’re angry. And you have every right to be, but you’re not the only one and this isn’t about you and me!  You’re not just walking away from me this time. I’m talking about the destruction of the universe, Draco. The universe.  Where are you will run to? In six months this whole planet will be a black hole." She takes another deep breath, lets her hands flop at her sides.  “Can you think about something other than yourself? Just once?”

Draco spins on his heel and walks out the door.

Hermione wants to scream.  If she could only make him see—

That’s it.

“Draco, wait!”

Draco does not wait.  He’s marching through the knee-high grass toward the edge of the wards, fists balled at his side and his back ramrod straight.  Half an hour together and they’ve already pissed each other off. Fantastic start.

She catches up to him before he crosses the magical barrier, grabbing his hand.  He freezes mid-step, then flicks his gaze between their joined hands and her face.  Hermione’s heart jumps into her throat, but she beats it back down.

“Did you ever trust me?”  Draco doesn’t answer but his jaw clenches and his brow furrows.  It’s not a no. “Five minutes. Give me five more minutes, and if the answer’s still no, then I’ll find another way.”  She swallows hard. “You’ll never see me again. I promise.”

“Deal.”

She doesn’t let go of his hand as she steps across the wards, giving a little tug for him to follow.  He settles himself next to her, and for the first time since she sat down at that table he looks genuinely uncomfortable.  But he doesn’t release her hand.

“If you Splinch me I swear to God—”

“Oh, shut up.”

With a pop, they’re gone.

The maintenance closet is just that: a closet.  There’s not enough room for both of them, and as soon as they get their bearings, Draco jerks his hand away like she’s scalded him.  It stings.

“Five minutes, Granger.”

The first thing Hermione notices when they exit the closet is the scent of freshly tilled earth, rich and brown, and reminiscent of warm summers spent in her grandfather’s garden.  It’s lovely and very, very wrong. She takes in the rest of the scene. The platform is long and narrow, lined with white tile and adverts. It’s bedlam, a constant mass of moving people, but oddly silent.  The train draws her gaze next. There are six carriages total. The first three are wedged cockeyed, derailed and balanced precariously. The two carriages closest to the end are empty, with Aurors and Muggles both working to clear the third, and Hermione realizes where the scent of earth is coming from.  

The carriages are full of dirt.

At the far end of the platform, in a space that seems to be magically enlarged, are rows and rows of black body bags.  

“Hermione!”  Cedric looks worse than she’s ever seen him, skin pale, hair disheveled.  The tired smudges beneath his eyes look more like bruises now. She wonders when the last time was he slept.  There’s dirt on his shoes and trousers, and she realizes he’s been helping to remove the bodies from the carriages.

He looks like he needs a hug, and Hermione decides in that moment that it’s time their friendship reached that milestone.  They are officially people who hug. He squeezes back, and Hermione feels some of the tension leave him.

Cedric doesn’t even acknowledge Draco.

“What happened?”

“Dr Kahtri thinks a tear opened on the line.”

“A tear?  An actual—”

“Yeah.”  

Hermione is nauseated all over again.

“And when the train passed through it… I guess there’s not a tube line on the other side?  So it went through the ground and came out the other side.”

“My God.”  So many people died this morning, crushed and suffocating within moments.  Entombed. She shudders.

“That’s not even the worst of it.”

She barks a humorless laugh.  It’s shockingly loud in the quiet platform.  “How could this possibly get worse?”

“The tear isn’t closing—it’s growing.”

Dr Kahtri is topside with a small crew of scientists and a couple of Aurors, one of whom is Harry, setting up more equipment.  Muggle authorities evacuated the square, and it’s eerie. Leicester Square never sleeps, a bustling hub of commerce and tourism.  A dozen people are the only occupants, and Hermione’s ears ring in the continued silence.

Hermione senses Draco tense beside her when his gaze lands on Harry.  “Two minutes,” he says, just loud enough for her to hear.

Harry meets them halfway.  “Malfoy.”

“Potter.”

“Did the Department of Mysteries send anyone else to do any tests in my absence?” Hermione says before the stony glaring contest begins.

“No.”

“Bloody Rookwood.”  Hermione walks toward Kahtri, Harry and Draco falling in on either side of her.  “I swear—”

“Rookwood?” Draco says.  “Augustus Rookwood?”

“He’s the head of the Department of Mysteries now.”  Hermione chances a glance at Draco. His brow is drawn into a slight, pensive frown.

“Why?”

“I just…I remember him at the Manor at lot when I was a kid.”

Hermione’s not sure what to do with that, so she shoves it to the back of her mind.  As soon as Kahtri spots her, he launches into a very technical explanation of what he thinks happened.  

“Is there anything we can do?”

Kahtri gestures to his team, who are just about done setting up the equipment.  “We'll try to slow the tear’s progress, but it’s all experimental at this point.  We’re still working with the calculations.”

“I’d like to get a team in here to run some tests as well, but I don't want with the magic interfering with your equipment.”

“What happens if you can’t control it?” Draco says, his steely gaze fixed on Kahtri.

“The rip will continue to grow until it’s large enough to compromise the integrity of the universe.  It will not be able to support itself, at which point it will collapse, destroying both sides.”

Hermione watches Draco, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Kahtri, like he knows Hermione’s watching and doesn’t want to acknowledge it.  She’s holds her breath. So much hinges on this conversation and her two minutes have been up for some time.

Harry puts his hand on her arm, flicks his gaze toward Draco.  “I've briefed Fudge. He wants you to go straight to St. Mungo’s.”

Hermione looks back at Draco, who finally meets her gaze.  It’s hard, determined, and not at all pleased.

“Let’s get this over with.”

It takes an hour of jumping through paperwork hoops at St. Mungo’s before they can gain access to Lucius Malfoy.  Draco apparently hasn't carried identification on him in years—not legal identification, anyway—and the staff won't let him anywhere near Lucius without verifying his identity.  

By the time they’re in the lift headed for the secure wards, Hermione isn’t sure which of them is more on edge—her or Draco.  He’s better at hiding it, of course. She wouldn’t even know if she weren’t familiar with most of his facial expressions. Part of her wants to comfort him, tell him it won't be that bad.  All he has to do is stand in the corner. But she’s pretty sure it would just piss him off, and she doesn’t have the energy for another fight. She needs to focus on getting as much information out of Lucius’ as she can, not babysitting Draco.

When Cho Chang whips the door open before she can even knock, Hermione wonders how much of the identity fiasco downstairs was a charade to warn Lucius’ Healer.  She gives them each a critical once over, her gaze fierce and unimpressed.

“He’s having a good day, and I’ll not have you upset him.  Is that clear?”

Hermione nods.  “Of course.”

Cho steps aside grudgingly, and the scene Hermione before her is not at all what she expected.  It’s a decently sized room, furnished with a small table, one arm chair, and a bookshelf. There’s a bed in the corner, neatly made, but the padded restraints tucked beneath it are a none-too-subtle reminder that while Lucius may be a patient here, he is also a prisoner.

There are two windows, charmed like the windows at the Ministry to show a pastoral scene rather than the London skyline.  Natural light fills the room; it could almost be cheery if it weren’t for the writing on the walls. Lucius’ precise handwriting cover every available inch, like a textbook of magical theory.  It’s incredible.

Lucius is at it still, pacing before a small patch of blank wall, muttering to himself and glaring at the unfinished equation.  His appearance is shocking. Hermione remembers him, from before. Remembers how imperious and powerful he’d seemed, seeing Draco off to school at King’s Cross with his cane and bespoke robes.  He looks small now, in plain grey pajamas and dressing gown. His hair is still long, but it hangs lank over his hunched shoulders, making him look much older than his sixty years. And he’s wearing slippers.

Beside her Draco makes a strangled sound of distress and Hermione instinctively reaches back and grabs his hand.  She’s afraid he’ll run, but also she thinks he needs it. And that’s something she’ refuses to dwell on.

The sound catches Lucius’ attention however, his gaze landing on Draco, and there’s a long tense handful of moments where his expression shifts from irritation, to confusion, to hope, to unabashed joy.  It is not an expression Hermione could have imagined on Lucius Malfoy’s face, even in her wildest dreams. He looks like a kid who just got his first broomstick.

Cho shuts the door behind them.

Draco squeezes the ever loving shit out of her hand.

“Draco?” Lucius says, his voice thin with disbelief.  He inches forward, blinking, like maybe he’s imagined this so many times he doesn’t trust it’s real.  “Son?”

“Lucius,” Draco says, his tone as stiff as his posture.  

He closes the distance between them quickly then, a happy giggle escaping as he pulls Draco into an enthusiastic embrace.  When he leans back, hands flitting over Draco’s face, hair, shoulders, and arms, there are tears in Lucius’ eyes.

Hermione is dumbstruck as she watches Draco endure the touching. She remembers, in the beginning, how awkward and uncertain he’d been.  He didn’t know what to do with the casual way she’d hold his hand, or bump their knees when they sat together, revising in the library. Until one day a switch flipped, and then he couldn’t keep his hands off of her.  Like he realized he could, that he enjoyed it. That she wouldn't push him away.

While she watches Lucius handle him like some precious thing, Draco’s eyes wide with shock, she wonders for the billionth time what kind of touch-starved childhood he must have had.

“Are you going to introduce me to your young lady?” Lucius says, his happy gaze flitting between the two of them and their clasped hands.

For the second time that day, Draco drops her hand like it’s made of live coals.  Hermione shakes it out, trying to get the blood flowing into her fingers again. She can feel the blush creeping into her cheeks.

Cho saves them.  “Lucius,” she says, coming around Hermione to remove Lucius’ hands gently from Draco’s person.  She’s all smiles and ease now as she handles her patient. “Why don’t you come have a seat, and you can have a chat?  I’ll put on some tea.”

Lucius allows her to lead him to the armchair, like a child.  Hermione pulls a chair away from the table and arranges it so she’s between Lucius and Draco, far enough away not to crowd him, but close enough she can watch his eyes.  She needs to tell when he’s lying to her.

Draco doesn’t move from his spot near the door.

“Mr Malfoy, my name is Hermione Granger.  I work for the Department of Mysteries.”

A spark of recognition flashes in his silver eyes.  He sits a little straighter. It’s promising.

“I need to ask you some questions.”  She pauses. “About Tom Riddle.”

Lucius smiles, bright and cheery.  “How is ol’ Tommy? I haven’t seen him in…” His expression becomes pensive, then wrinkles in a frown.  

“Twenty years,” Hermione says, before he can get lost in his own head.  “Do you remember what happened that night in the Death Chamber?”

The frown deepens, and Lucius drums his fingers on the arm of the chair.  He looks at Cho, agitated. “I’ve been told someone died,” he answers uncertainly.

“But you don’t remember?”

He shakes his head.

“Here you are,” Cho says, crouching next to the chair and wrapping Lucius’ hand around the steaming mug.  “Earl Grey, just how you like it.”

“Do you remember anything before?  Do you remember the spell you and Tom were working on together?”

“Can I have a word with you?” Cho says, before Lucius can reply.  It’s not a request. She turns back to Lucius. “We’ll just be a mo.”

Hermione follows Cho to the opposite corner of the room.  Draco joins them, not wanting to be alone with Lucius.

“I thought you knew,” Cho says.

“Knew what?”

“His memories are gone.”

“Gone.”  Draco’s voice is flat.

Cho nods.  “That’s why he’s here and not Azkaban.  He’s had so many memories removed that it’s caused brain damage.  The limbic system is compromised. Two years ago we took him to a Muggle specialist, and they did a scan.”

“An MRI?” Hermione asks, her stomach sinking.

Cho nods.  “Even what he does remember is muddled.”

“Is that why he’s so…?” Draco says, gesturing vaguely.

“Happy?  Yeah. Our memories make up a huge part of our personality.  Without them, he’s essentially a child.”

Hermione's heart sinks like a stone.  “You don’t understand,” she says, fighting to keep the frustration from her voice.  “We need to know.”

Cho shrugs.  “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing there.”

“There has to be something,” Draco says.  “Look at these walls.”

“Oh, his brain is still first rate, but emotionally he's about nine years old.”

“Does he struggle to make new memories?  Can he reason?”

“When he’s calm.”

Draco clenches his jaw, his gaze flicking to Hermione.  Then he spins on his heel and stiffly takes Hermione’s seat in front of Lucius.   “Lucius, I need you to focus for me, can you do that?”

Lucius nods.

“That night, when Lily Potter died and Tom Riddle disappeared—”

“I don’t remember—”

“I told you not to upset him,” Cho says.  She moves like she’s wants to separate the two men, but Hermione puts a hand on her arm.

“Give him a minute.”

“I know you don’t.”  Draco says, ignoring the interruption, and Lucius calms once more.  “But that night, whatever it was you and Tom did, you broke the universe.”

Lucius snaps his head up at that, fixing his gaze on Draco.  He looks like the old Lucius, intelligent. Sharp. “Explain.”

Hope flutters to life again, bouncing around her ribs like a caged bird.  She crouches next to Draco, and, with a deep breath, tells him everything.  Just because he can’t remember, doesn’t mean he can’t help.

“For the record, this is the worst idea in the history of ideas.”

Hermione glares at Cho.  “You didn’t have to come.”

“Yes, I did.”  Cho adjusts the strap of her bag and glares right back.  “Someone needs to look out for Lucius’ best interests.”

“Both of you goody-two-shoes are criminals now, so quit bickering and let’s get on with this.  Draco flicks his wand, and the gates to Malfoy Manor creak open.

To be fair, Hermione’s not too sure if this is a great idea either, but they’re running out of options.  If Lucius says he needs his lab, then she’ll get him his damn lab. She’s desperate, and so far past caring who knows it’s not even funny.

The Manor is stale and silent and a little eerie.  White sheets drape the furnishings; the floor covered by a healthy layer of dust.  It was probably sealed after Narcissa’s death, twelve years ago. Both of the Malfoys are stony and silent.  Lucius seems to have entered a determined mental space, his only focus on the problem Hermione set before him.  

Draco looks like he wants to punch something.  Or vomit. It’s a difficult expression to parse.

“Are you all right?” she asks, falling in beside him as they follow Lucius’ quick, certain steps deeper into the mansion.

“We’re not friends, Granger.  You don’t have to do that.”

Hermione grits her teeth.  “Do what?”

“The mother hen act.  Like you care. It’s bullshit and we both know it.”

Hermione’s blood pressure spikes, and there’s a smart retort on her tongue when Lucius stops dead in front of them.  They almost bowl him over.

“What is it now?” Draco growls.

“Will there be licorice wands?  Licorice wands would be delightful.”

The lab is deep in the bowels of the Manor, and Hermione is certain that if it weren’t for the footprints in the dust, she’d never find her way back.  It looks untouched, and Hermione wonders if MLE had found it at any point during the investigations. She can't recall any mention of it in the reports.  Hopefully there’s something here that they missed. It’s spacious and well supplied, despite being abandoned for twenty years. There are half-complete equations on the boards and implements on one of the work benches, like Lucius just walked away one day and never returned.  

Which is accurate.

But something settles in Lucius as soon as they cross the threshold.  He looks like a man who’s come home. He moves around the lab with purpose, ordering Draco and Cho about like they’re his assistants.  Neither of them seem to know what to do with the changes. It would be amusing under any other circumstances.

Hermione’s compact warms in her coat pocket.

“I’ve got to make some calls,” she says.  “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Don’t forget the licorice wands!” Lucius barks as she walks out the door.

She hurries down the hall, trying to put as much space between herself and the others.  They don’t need to hear this.

“Have you lost your mind?” Harry demands as soon as she answers.

“Calm down.”

“Calm down?  Hermione, you broke a convict out of a secure facility.  Calming down is on the table at this point.”

“I think ‘broke out’ is a little dramatic.  Walked out the service entrance is more accurate.”

Harry makes a strangled grunt of frustration and glares.  “I won't be able to get you out of this one.”

“If this doesn’t work, there’s won't be anything to get me out of, considering our atoms will be scattered across the void along with the rest of everything.  I can’t do this without breaking the rules, Harry. Not fast enough.”

“At least tell me where you are, maybe—”

“Merlin, no.  There are too many of us already.  Besides, you’re on the inside; I need you to stay there.  Stick with Kahtri. If I can't—” she shakes her head, not wanting to go there.  “He may be our only hope. I need you to trust me, Harry.”

“Of course I do but—”

“Good.  I’ll be in touch.”

She closes the compact before he can argue.  Leaving Harry out of her hijinks just feels wrong, but there’s nothing for it.  It's not that she doesn’t trust him—she does, with her life—she just doesn’t trust him to let her do what she has to, which may involve risking that life at a heretofore unreached level of insanity.

Thumbing open the compact again, she says, “Call Cedric.”

He answers on the first ring, sighing with relief.  “What do you need me to do?”

Hermione’s impatient pacing sparked a small shouting match between herself and Draco which upset Lucius, which upset Cho, which is why Hermione is sitting outside on the Manor’s front steps waiting for Cedric.  It shouldn’t be taking him this long, and not for the first time she’s regretting her lack of foresight. But, considering she woke up in Thailand that morning, she tries to cut herself some slack. Nothing could have prepared her for the series of turns the day had taken.

There’s a crack and Cedric appears outside the gate, a shopping bag in one hand and a briefcase in the other, and something tight in Hermione’s chest loosens.  She jogs down the path and pulls the heavy iron gate open.

“Thank Merlin,” she says, taking the bag and case.  “I was beginning to think something happened.”

Cedric smirks.  “You’ve turned the entire Ministry into a madhouse.  And Rookwood’s on the warpath.”

“Rookwood?”  Hermione’s not surprised he’s pissed, but it’s not exactly his jurisdiction.  

“Yeah.  Harry cornered me, too, so I took the long way here in case he tried to follow me.”  He pauses, tugs a hand through his hair. “Please tell me you know what you’re doing.”

“I know what I’m doing.”  She ignores the skip of her heartbeat and hopes the lie doesn’t show on her face.  

Cedric squeezes his eyes shut.  “Merlin’s beard.”

So much for that.  She was always a rubbish liar, anyway.

“Lucius can do this, Cedric.  I know he can. If you can’t trust that, at least trust me.  I may not have a road map here, but my gut’s never wrong.”

Cedric shrugs.  “Not like I could talk you out of it, anyway.”

Hermione smiles.  This time, it’s he who pulls her in for a hug, quick and tight.

“Don’t do anything too crazy, all right?”

When Cedric’s gone, Hermione turns back toward the Manor, just in time to see Draco disappear inside.

Lucius is in a tizzy when she makes it to the lab, every drawer and cupboard flung open, equipment scattered all over the floor.  Cho is doing her best to calm him down, but it’s been a long day and Hermione can tell she’s weary.

“What happened?”

Cho waves a hand toward the board Lucius had been working on, the equation having grown several inches but still unfinished.  The frustration is setting in, but they don’t have time for this.

Setting her bags on the floor, Hermione marches over to Lucius and grabs both of his shoulders forcing him to look her in the eye.  “Unacceptable.”

He glares down at her for a moment before deflating, his eyes darting around the room like he’s not sure where he is.  “I’m sorry,” he says tremulously.

“Don’t apologize to me; apologize to Cho.  Look how you’ve upset her.”

Lucius smiles weakly when he looks at Cho, ducking his head in shame.  “I apologize.”

Cho sighs.  “It’s all right, Lucius.  We’re all a little wound up.”

“Now,” Hermione says, forcing cheer into her voice. Lucius perks up.  He really is just like a child, and she’s not sure she’ll ever get used to it.  “I have sandwiches and pumpkin juice and licorice wands, and I think it’s about time we all took a little break.  How does that sound?”

“Delightful.”  He looks around the room, frowning.  “Where’s Draco?”

Hermione looks to Cho, who shrugs.  “I thought he was with you.”

Leaving Cho and Lucius to their dinner, Hermione sets off to find Draco.  His footprints are the only set that diverge from the front door, but the Manor is enormous, and it takes far longer to find him than it should. If she’s honest with herself, she’s just glad there are footprints to follow.  It would have been easy for Draco to simply disappear. And tempting. She only needed him to get into St. Mungo’s, and he has made it abundantly clear that being around Lucius is not his idea of a good time.

So why is he still hanging around?

She finds him in what must be the master bedroom, a lavish suite, with lush carpeting and brocade drapes.  They’re drawn, the late afternoon sun filling the room with warm light. The wardrobe is the only furnishing not protected by a sheet.  It's open, its covering on the floor. Draco is on the bed with a set of robes beside him and a large intricately carved wooden box on the floor between his feet.  There’s a piece of parchment in his hands.

Hermione raps her knuckles against the door frame.  Draco looks at her, stricken and not even bothering to hide it.  It makes her heart beat fast and her palms tingle, and she forgets for the moment she’s still annoyed with him.  

“Draco?” Hermione says, her voice soft.  

Then the wall comes up, barricading all that emotion behind a mask of disdain.  It hurts, that he doesn’t trust her, and, frankly, pisses her off, because of the two of them she’s the trustworthy one and she doesn’t deserve this shit.  

He shoots to his feet, hefting the box.  Glass clinks inside as he closes the distance between them and shoves it into her chest.  It’s heavier than it looks, and she nearly drops it.

“Looks like we found what you were looking for,” he says, voice empty.  He keeps walking, turning down the corridor, back they way she’d come from.

“What?”

“Lucius’ memories.”

Hermione gapes while her brain struggles to catch up to Draco’s words, her heart pounding in her chest.  Kneeling, she sets the box on the floor and lifts the hinged lid. Sure enough, inside are dozens of delicate glass vials, each filled with swirling silver liquid.

“Sweet baby Merlin,” she says, her voice harsh in the quiet room.  

It’s too quiet.  Even the echos of Draco’s footsteps have faded to nothing, and she suddenly knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Draco is leaving.  Even if she survives this, she doubts she could ever track him down again, and the thought of him disappearing without her getting the chance to tell him off is properly infuriating.

Leaving the memories behind, Hermione races through the corridors and out the front door.  Draco is almost to the gate, and she doesn’t miss a beat, taking the stairs two at a time then sprinting along the path.  He’s got his wand pointed at the gate mid-swish when she barrels into it, slamming it shut.

“The fuck, Granger?”  His glare is murderous.

“I might ask you the same thing, Malfoy,” she says, hoping she sounds pissed off through her gasping breaths.  She’d never been athletic. “Where the hell are you going?”

“Anyplace that isn’t here.”

“Why?”

“Why would I stay?  I never wanted to come back in the first place, but you abducted—”

“Oh my—will you come off it?  Sharif wanted to throw you in a tiny little hole somewhere in the desert, and you’d never have breathed free air again.”

“This isn’t any better, trust me.  Get out of my way.”

“No.”

“Granger—”

“I need you to stay.  Help me. I can’t—”

“No, you needed me.  You needed my father, and I got him for you.  You needed his memories, and I got those too. And you’ve been getting along just fine without me.”

The last sentence oozes with bitterness, and, oh, that is rich.  Like he gets to be wounded that she carried on with her life after he left.  

"Are you kidding me?" she says, voice going pitchy.  "Of course I’m getting on fine without you. I didn't have a choice but to move on.  What did you expect? For me to pine for you? To waste away like a fairy tale maiden?"

Draco opens his mouth, but Hermione cuts him off.

"You know what?  Don't answer that.  You’re right, I don’t need you.  I never did" Draco flinches, like she smacked him in the face instead.  "I wanted you. But. You. Left. And you absolutely do not get to blame me for being okay seventeen years later."

“I asked you to come with me!”

“You showed up in my flat at two in the morning asking if I wanted to go to Venezuela with you.  I thought you meant on holiday and I had an interview in the morning! How was I supposed to know you’d never come back?”  

Draco’s shoulders slump, and for the first time since she found him he looks contrite.  “Hermione, I—”

“So now I’m Hermione?  Well fuck you, Malfoy,” she spits, shoving him in the chest.  “Now, I may not need you, but I do need Lucius and he needs you, so get your arse inside and help me wrangle your father.”

Draco looks away from her, fixes his gaze on the Manor.  He keeps clenching his jaw, his grip white-knuckled on his wand. Hermione holds her breath.  Draco is a runner, she knows this, and she half expects him to turn on his heel and Apparate on the spot, wonders how badly she’d get Splinched if she grabs onto him at the last second, and how crazy she must be for even thinking about it.

“All right.”

Then he walks past her up to the Manor, and if Hermione needs a moment to calm the dizzy swell of relief, then, well, she’ll take it.

Draco is in the lab when Hermione comes back with the box holding Lucius’ memories, and she takes a moment to watch them before announcing her presence.  Draco still looks uncomfortable, but Lucius is positively delighted as he attempts to explain to Draco what he’s doing, gesturing animatedly with a licorice wand and pausing occasionally for Draco to ask a question.  Cho is watching them, a soft smile playing at her lips.

Hermione sets the box on the counter next to Cho.  She asks, keeping her voice low, “How long have you been his healer?”

“Almost ten years,” Cho replies, shrugging.  “I worked with his last healer while I was on rotation, and he liked me.  He’s the only patient I’ve ever had, really.”

A wave of guilt crashes into her.  Cho’s career is most likely over, and it’s Hermione’s fault.  “I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”

“I know you are.  That’s why I agreed.”  Cho’s lips curl into a sly grin.  “If you hadn’t cared, you wouldn’t have made it out of the building.”

Hermione smiles back, not doubting for a moment that Cho would be anything less than formidable in defense of her patient.  “When this is over, we should get tea.”

“Let’s try to stay out of Azkaban first.  Then we’ll talk about tea.”

“Good point,” Hermione says, laughing softly.  It feels good, relaxing, and she’s glad Cho is here.

“What’s in the box?”

“Lucius’ memories.”

Cho stills, then slowly reaches for the lid and peeks inside.  Her eyes widen in surprise. “Shut the front door.”

“I know.  I guess Narcissa had them the whole time.”

Cho frowns.  “I always assumed someone took them.  But if they’ve been here—”

“It’s more likely he removed them himself.”

They fall silent, letting the ramifications of that sink in.  

“What are you going to do?” Cho says at last.

“We need to know.  I guess the most expedient thing to do would be to give them back to him.”

“That’s a horrible idea, Granger.”

Hermione barely stops herself from jumping when Draco appears on her other side.  It earns him a glare.

Draco addresses Cho.  “If he gets his memories back will it repair the damage to his mind?”

“I…honestly have no idea.  If anything like this has ever happened before, I don’t know about it.”

“But it’s possible,” he says.

“There’s no way of knowing for sure.  But with magic?” Cho shrugs. “Just about anything is possible.”

“Then we’re not giving them back.”

“Having Lucius’ mind restored is exactly what we need,” Hermione counters, putting her hands on her hips.  “He’s the only one who—”

“You didn’t know him before,” Draco says fiercely.  “Not like I did. He’s cunning and manipulative and the most gifted liar you’ll ever meet.  If the damage is reversed, you have absolutely no guarantee that he’ll help, that what he tells you will be the truth, and you will have squandered the only lead you have left.”

“But we don’t know that it will be, and unless you have a Penseive in your pocket, I don’t think we have another choice!”

“I don’t think this is a decision either of you get to make for him!” Cho interjects, standing up and slamming the lid of the box closed.  She takes a deep breath, visibly calming herself. “Lucius?”

Lucius is watching them, his expression timid, his body language uncertain.  He looks small, fragile almost, as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.  The licorice wand in his hands now has several knots tied in it. His gaze flicks back and forth between Cho and Hermione before settling on Draco.  

“I don’t want them.”

Hermione is stunned.  She couldn’t imagine living without her memories.  With the blank spaces and dark patches and knowing she knew something but not being able to make her brain work.  And Lucius’ most powerful asset was his mind. Sure he had the wealth and prestige, but he’d made a name for himself all on his own, as well.  

“This is important,” Lucius continues.  “And Draco’s right. If I become…him again, I—we may never solve this.”

“That settles it, then,” Cho says, crossing her arms over her chest, daring Hermione to challenge her.

“I guess we’ll need a Penseive,” Hermione says, sighing.  “You don’t really have one in your pocket, do you? Because that would be bloody fantastic.”

“No.”  The corner of Draco’s mouth curls up in a mischievous smile.  Hermione is not reassured. “But I know someone who does.”

“Who?”

“Zabini.”

“Oh, Merlin save us.”

Cho snorts.

“And, lucky for us,” Draco continues, ignoring them, “I have something he wants.”

“I’m pretty sure luck has absolutely nothing to do with anything that’s happened today.  At all.”

“I’ll be back in an hour.”  

Hermione’s heart lurches, and he’s halfway to the door before she can make her mouth work.  “How do I know?”

Draco smirks.  “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” she mutters when he’s gone.

Hermione’s with Lucius, going over the new data sheets Cedric brought and trying not to watch the clock.  It’s been one hour and four minutes and Draco isn’t back yet, and she’s starting to get antsy. How stupid was she to let him walk out the door?  He’s probably on the other side of the globe by now. Laughing at her.

“He’ll come back.”  Lucius doesn’t look at her, continues scratching out equations on the chalk board.

“That’s what I said the last time.”

Lucius pauses mid-scribble, brows pinched in a frown.  “He’ll come back.”

Cho is asleep, head cradled in the crook of her arm on one of the work tables.  She’s snoring, and it’s a nice counter point to the grind of chalk on slate. It’s still early, but it’s been a weird day and if Hermione didn’t have the fate of the world hanging over her head, she’d go for a lie down, too.

It’s been three hours since Draco left.

Three.  Hours.

The stick of chalk crumbles in her anxious grip, and she suddenly wants to scream.

Lucius slaps her across the chest with a licorice wand.  Cedric brought half a dozen packages, and they’ve done wonders keeping Lucius happy.  When she doesn’t take it immediately, he wiggles it until she does.

“Eat.”

Hermione obeys, biting off a length at one end, savoring the burst of anise.  It’s been ages since she had one. As the only child of two dentists, she’s never been keen on sweets, but as she chews, she takes the first deep breath she’s had since Draco left.

Maybe Lucius is onto something.

“Why don’t you want them?” Hermione blurts.  Taking into account the different time zones, she’s now officially been up for twenty-four hours.  She’ll be embarrassed by her candor after she’s had a few hours sleep, but for now she'll roll with it.  Besides, she’s curious, and is not in the habit of denying her curiosity.

Lucius doesn’t stop.  He’d slipped back into that hyper-focused headspace hours ago; the only thing he cares about is what’s on the board in front of him.  In fact, he takes so long to answer, Hermione almost forgets she asked a question.

“Because this is my second chance.”

Well then.

“I remember, you know.  What I was like before. I don’t know what Tommy and I got up to, or what happened to that poor woman, but Draco—I should have done better.” Lucius swallows hard and sets the chalk down.  His hands are shaking, the barest of tremors, and he fiddles with the tie of his dressing gown to hide it. “I never thought I’d get the chance to make it right. I can’t do that if I’m him.”

Hermione’s breath catches.  She remembers all too clearly how damaged and angry and alone Draco was in school, how Lucius’ fall from grace had set him adrift.  He would have given anything to hear this from his father eighteen years ago, and she can’t help but wonder if he still does or if he let the bitterness poison it right out of him.  Would it mean anything to him now?

She thinks about the way Draco held onto her like a lifeline when they first met with Lucius and how devastated he’d looked after finding the memories and decides that it would.  He’d fight it, because he’s a stubborn bastard, but yeah. She hopes it would, anyway. He deserves it.

Maybe Lucius deserves it, too.  Hermione will be the first to admit she’s having trouble aligning the Unspeakable whose career she’s studied for the past weeks with the man in front of her.  She knows if she broke the universe and destroyed her relationship with her only child, she’d want the chance to make amends, too.

Going up on her tiptoes, Hermione wraps Lucius up in a tight hug.  He doesn’t seem to know what to do with it at first, but he doesn’t push her away and when he hugs her back, tentative and awkward, it reminds her so much of the first time she hugged Draco that she thinks she might cry.

“He’s a pain in the arse, so be patient with him.”

Lucius is smiling when she steps back.  “You’d know something about that, wouldn’t you?”

“You know we’re not…together.”  Hermione looks away, not sure she wants to see the disappointment on Lucius’ face.  He’d been so happy to meet her, and neither one of them had corrected his assumption that they were a couple.  “Not for a long time, anyway.”

“Perhaps not, but I see the way he looks at you.  It’s obvious he cares for you very much.”

Hermione snorts.  “He’s got a funny way of showing it.”

“He comes by it honestly.”  Lucius’ smile softens, and he nods his head toward the door.  “Perhaps I’m not the only one who would like a second chance.”

Hermione turns in time to see Draco stumbles through the door, arms laden with an enormous hexagonal case and looking like he picked a fight with a blast-ended skrewt.  His hair is in disarray, his bottom lip is split, and his shirt is singed in at least three places. It’s also been almost seven hours since he left, so her sympathy levels are lower than usual.

“Took you long enough.”

“Yes, well, turns out Zabini wasn’t quite as pleased to see me as I’d hoped.  But, here’s your bloody Penseive,” Draco says, setting it down on the nearest work table with a heavy thunk.  “I’m going to have a shower now.”

“Malfoy!”

He ignores her.

“I told you he’d come back.”

These Malfoy men are going to be the death of her.

The memory-watching marathon is slow going.  Not only are there dozens of them, but she has to take notes, even re-watch some of them to make sure she copies things down correctly.  And she’s doing it on her own. Lucius hadn’t wanted to, and she’d agreed he’d be more useful if he kept working. Cho had backed this once they woke her up.  She said the memories might upset him, doing more harm than good if he spiraled, and she didn’t have quite the supply of potions with her as she did at St. Mungo’s.

Draco flat out refused when he returned from his shower, looking enviably refreshed and more chipper than anyone ought to be at half-one in the morning.  She was glad he declined, honestly. Her conversation with Lucius was still too fresh in her mind for her to be anything less than awkward around him and she needed her sleep-deprived brain to focus on the task at hand and not him.

The memories are hard to watch.  Lucius is exactly as she remembers him: cold, aloof, calculating.  He’s brilliant and driven, and his determination is single-minded, even if he is somewhat enamored of Riddle.  Rookwood is in many of them as well. He doesn’t seem to have been directly involved with the research, but he’d definitely taken an interest all those years ago, and it makes Hermione’s copper’s nose twitch to think about how much help he could have offered once she’d made the connection, about how he’s not mentioned in a single report following the incident.  Something fishy is going on, and it throws a whole, new, suspicious light on his outrage when she’d brought up what happened in the Death Chamber.

But the worst part is Tom Riddle.  He’s handsome and charming and ingenious and always knows just what to say to get his way.  There’s a darkness to him, all sharp, shadowy edges and undercurrent of power she can feel even in the memoryscape.  It makes her skin crawl. He makes her skin crawl.

There are only a handful of vials left in the box when she finally gets to the night Lily Potter died.

A knot of dread twists in her stomach the moment she realizes she’s in the Death Chamber.  Riddle has talked about it often, shared his theories with a feverish intensity, but none of the other memories have taken place here.  

“Are you excited, Lucius, to see years of hard work come to fruition?” Riddle asks, gesturing grandly around the empty chamber like it’s a throne room.  When he looks at Lucius, there’s a wild glint in his eyes. “The world will never be the same after tonight.”

Lucius smiles, a small, cold thing.  He’s less expressive than Riddle, but no less anticipatory.  “We should begin.”

They set to work, then, painting runes in a circle around the Veil before imbuing each figure with power.  It’s tedious, careful work, each brush stroke precise, and Hermione takes her time walking between them, examining each rune.  There are many she doesn’t recognize, and they make her skin crawl, too.

Just as they’re finishing, the door to the Death Chamber bangs open behind them, and Rookwood enters, Lily Potter floating along behind him.  She’s bound and gagged, but looks more angry than scared. She’s a lovely as Hermione remembers, but she can’t look at her, not like this. She knows how this night ends.

“Augustus,” Riddle greets with unsettling cheer.  “You’re just in time. Did she give you any trouble?”

“A bit,” Rookwood growls, “but I handled it.”

“What is she doing here?” Lucius asks, one eyebrow arched.  

“A spell of this magnitude, Lucius?” Tom says, his tone patronizing.  “All great things require sacrifice.”

“That, and she’s too nosy for her own good,” Rookwood adds smugly.  

Hermione’s stomach turns.  No one could ever explain why Lily had been there that night.  After reading the reports, Hermione imagined Lily had been trying to stop them.  It never occurred to her that she’d been kidnapped and murdered.

They’ve begun the spell by the time Hermione snaps herself out of it.  Lily is floating in front of the Veil. She’s terrified now, and fighting even harder against her bonds, screaming behind the gag.  The three men have arranged themselves equidistantly around the ring of runes, wands pointed toward center. They’re chanting in tandem, a long, complex thing that feels old, arcane.  Powerful.

It takes her a moment to realize the vibrations.  It’s starts faintly, the barest whisper of rock shifting but it grows quickly, becoming more violent the louder they chant.  It’s a miracle they didn’t bring the whole of the Ministry down on their heads.

Hermione can’t look away from Riddle.  He’s exultant, eyes fever-bright, half mad, which really explains quite a lot.

Abruptly the chanting stops, the echoes lost in the reverberations, and arcs of lighting-bright magic shoot from their raised wands, coalescing around Lily.  The light swells until it encompasses her completely and Hermione has to turn away or be blinded. Then it’s gone.

There’s a heavy thud, and despite she can’t see past the orange and black dots peppering her vision, Hermione knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it’s the sound of Lily’s body hitting the ground.  

“Tommy?” Lucius says.

Hermione knows he’s gone; doesn’t even bother looking for him once she can see again.  Lucius and Rookwood at talking, voices filtering in like she’s underwater. She should be paying attention to them, she knows she should, but she can’t, not with the ringing in her ears and the way Lily’s eyes seem to be fixed on hers, green and wide.

The memory isn’t over yet, but Hermione jerks herself out of the memoryscape.  She stumbles off the stool onto her knees, limbs numb and stupid, and vomits on the floor.  It’s dry heaves mostly, but every time she closes her eyes she sees Lily’s pale face rigid with terror, then slack in death, hears the sound her body made hitting the stone floor, and another wave of revulsion hits her.  She’s never watched anyone die before, let alone someone she cared for. Lily had always been so kind to her. No one deserves to die like that.

Except Tom Riddle.

She draws a deep, ragged breath when her muscles stop constricting enough to allow it, and clumsily pushes her hair away from her face.  Then Draco is there, Vanishing the sick with a flick of his wand and crouching beside her with a glass of water. He looks concerned, alarmed even, eyes wide as he places one of his hands on her shoulder.  It's warm, even through her shirt, and has to fight not to lean into it. She’s cold, and wonders distantly if she’s in shock.

“Drink,” he commands, pushing the glass into her hands.

She doesn’t bother to argue.  When the glass is empty, Draco fills it again with his wand.  Hermione drinks that down too, grateful for the distraction—from what she witnessed, from Draco, from everything.  

Cho crouches down in front of her, and Draco removes his hand from Hermione’s shoulder, balls it into a fist on his thigh.

“Are you okay?”  She tilts Hermione’s chin up so she can examine her eyes, then gently presses two fingers to the inside of her wrist.   She must look awful for Cho to be checking her vitals.

“I know what happened that night,” she says, voice hoarse despite the water.  “I know how they did it.”

She made herself watch it three more times, creating a diagram of the runes, each meticulously copied, their position in relation to the Veil noted.  She took extra care transcribing the spell and describing what happened, so Lucius had the most accurate data to work with.

Then Cho made her go to bed.  Well, Draco made her, really. She’d argued with Cho, who could be every bit as intimidating as Hermione suspected, but it was Draco who’d ended the conversation by bodily dragging her upstairs to the nearest guest room, saying he wasn’t above Stunning her if he needed to.  She didn’t put up much of a fight after that.

It’s morning when Hermione wakes, early still but the sun is fully risen.  The window is east-facing, and the warm light is relaxing. She’s still exhausted, but her mind is clearer.  All she needs is some form of caffeine and she’ll be ready to go. She takes a moment to stretch out in the obscenely comfortable bed before tidying up in the en suite.

Draco is stepping into the bedroom when she comes out, tying off the thick plait she’s wrangled her hair into with an elastic.  He has coffee. She can’t imagine where the hell he got it, but it’s dark and sweet with just a splash of cream, exactly how she likes it, so she honestly doesn’t care.  

“Thank you,” Hermione says happily, taking the mug.  She almost leans in to kiss his cheek, some traitorous muscle memory rearing its long-forgotten head.  Because that is what she used to do. The heat rises in her cheeks even as she thinks about it, so she hurriedly raises the mug to her lips, hoping to hide the blush.  It’s scalding hot, but she swallows down half the cup, anyway.

Draco looks scandalized.  “That is single origin Kona, Granger.  Have some class.”

Hermione stares him down over the edge of the ceramic and takes another large gulp.  Draco rolls his eyes and walks away, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like heathen beneath his breath.

It’s hilarious until she realizes he remembered how she takes her coffee.  

The lab is silent when she gets there, which is bizarre.  Lucius talks to himself when he works, a near constant stream of thought escaping through filterless lips.  The room feels vacant without it. The boards are considerably fuller, however, which makes something settle in her chest.  They’ve still got a ways to go, but knowing that there has been progress is enough to ease her mind.

Draco is at the farthest one, staring at the theorems while sipping his coffee.  Hermione joins him.

“Where is everyone?”

“Sleeping.”

“Did you?”  Draco shakes his head.  “You should.”

“I’m fine.”

“Draco—”

“Don’t.”  His tone is flat, dismissive, and it makes Hermione’s blood pressure spike.

“Don’t what?  Be nice?” Draco grinds his teeth together, jaw flexing, and Hermione’s had enough.  And the morning had started out so well. “Look. I’m not going to act like I’m not upset, but I won’t act like I don’t care about you, either.  If I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t have anything to be upset about. So deal with it.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I think that’s for me to decide.”

“I see you still have no sense of self-preservation,” Draco says, huffing a laugh.  Just like that, the tension is broken. “It’s good to know some things never change.”

“I’d be offended, if it weren’t so painfully true.  I think yesterday is proof enough.”

“You’re a veritable force of nature, Granger.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“You would.”

Hermione shoves him playfully, amazed at how easily they fall back into rhythm when they’re not being combative.  “Git.”

Draco almost smiles.

“Why did you do it?” she says after a beat, the question slipping out before she can check it.

For a long time, Hermione thinks he won’t answer, that he’ll shut her out again, and each second that the silence stretches out between them makes her heart beat faster until she fears it might leap right out of her chest.  Merlin, how had she ever convinced herself she was indifferent? That she’d moved on? She’s never been more invested in the answer to a question in her entire life.

And she deserves an answer.

“Because I was suffocating.  It wasn’t you,” he adds, before she can respond.  “So don’t let that big brain of yours go down that track.  It was…everything else.”

“You could have told me,” she replies.  “You should have told me. I would have understood.”

“I didn’t know how.”  Draco meets her gaze, his expression solemn.  “And for what it’s worth, I wish I had.”

That might be the closest to apologizing he’s ever gotten.  About anything. Ever.

“Draco—”

“I’VE GOT IT!” Lucius bellows as he storms into the room.  He looks wild, his fine hair disheveled from sleep, his dressing gown flapping behind him and one fist clenched victoriously before him.  He’s grinning like a loon, his eyes fierce. Before they can react, Draco and Hermione are both swept into a crushing group hug. Lucius is vibrating with excitement.

“It came to me in a dream!”

“Stop shouting, Lucius,” Draco sighs.

“What did?” Hermione says.

“The solution, of course, my dear.  The solution!”

The next handful of hours pass in a blur of chalk dust and licorice wands.  Lucius has worked out exactly what Riddle’s spell did and how, but now they must re-craft it to do the reverse of its original function, which is…delicate.  They will only get one chance at this, and even a single mistake could have disastrous consequences. And it’s not like they’ll get to put it through a trial phase.  

Magical Theory is Lucius’ wheelhouse, but Hermione has always excelled at spellcraft and she’s the one who watched all the memories.  Now it's her turn to prove what she can do.

She finds she genuinely likes working with Lucius.  His enthusiasm is infectious and he never questions her capabilities, which, after a lifetime of fighting for her place, first at school and then within the Department of Mysteries, is a novel thing.  They exchange ideas with ease, occasionally finish each other’s sentences, and at least twice she catches Draco watching them with an expression of utter disbelief on his face.

Which is understandable.  Not only is Lucius nothing like the man Draco grew up with, but it’s also unlikely that man would have given Hermione the time of day, let alone treated her like an equal.  Whatever happened in the past, or will happen after, Hermione is grateful she got to know this Lucius. She hopes Draco feels the same.

When Draco interrupts them with food and a change of clothes for Lucius, she thinks maybe he does.

Hermione eats her sandwich with Cho, and nearly chokes on it when Draco and Lucius return.   It’s amazing what a set of bespoke robes and a hairbrush can do for a guy. But for the uncertain expression on Lucius’ face, he is now indistinguishable from his former self.

“Well, don’t you look handsome,” Hermione says, smiling.

Lucius blushes and looks down at his feet.  “I haven’t worn shoes since—they’re strange.”

“You’ll get used to them,” Cho says, crossing to him and straightening his lapels with a grin.  “And Hermione’s right. You look absolutely dashing.”

“Thank you.”  Lucius smiles back.

Cho leads him towards a table and his lunch.  Draco joins Hermione, leans against the table next to her.  He looks tired, a little frayed around the edges.

“That was kind of you.”

Draco shrugs it off.  “He’s trying to save the world.  We could at least give him the dignity of doing it in proper clothing.”

Hermione won’t argue with that.  “He's trying to make it right.”

“I know.”  Draco takes a deep breath.  “He apologized. For everything.  What the bloody hell am I supposed to do with that?”

Hermione takes a couple of steadying breaths, a little overwhelmed that Draco is talking about this with her.  Willingly. “Do you want to forgive him?”

“Would it even matter?” he asks, bitterness tingeing his voice.  “That man isn’t even the same person who—”

“He may be different, but he understands what he’s done.”

“Different?  He’s essentially brain damaged.”

“I think he’s proved his brain is still what it needs to be.  And the guilt he feels is genuine, Draco.”

Draco arches a brow at her.  “You’ve been chatting.”

“You left us alone together for seven hours.  What else were we going to do?”

“You think I should forgive him.”

Hermione takes Draco’s hand and squeezes gently.  “I think you’ve suffered enough. Maybe this is your chance to move on.”

Draco looks down at their hands and squeezes back.

Hermione stares at the finished spell and waits for the wave of satisfaction to come at a job completed, but it doesn’t.  Lucius is having a similar experience if the look on his face is anything to go by. This is the spell, she’s confident—they both are—but there is something lacking.

“We haven’t accounted for the sacrifice,” she says, keeping her voice low so Cho and Draco, who are half-heartedly playing chess on the other side of the room, won’t hear.  “Lily Potter wasn’t just caught in the crossfire that night. Riddle sacrificed her to enhance the spell’s effect.”

Lucius’ lips press into a thin line as he scowls.  He looks at Draco before meeting Hermione’s gaze. She sees nothing but resolve there.  “We will have to be enough. No one else will die because of what I’ve done.”

“Hermione!”

Startled, she spins toward the door, wand in hand only to find Cedric, flushed and out of breath.  The acrid scent of magic wafts into the room with his arrival, and it sets Hermione’s nerves on edge.

“Thank Merlin,” he says, crossing the room and gripping her shoulders.  “You weren’t answering your—” He waves his hand, brushing the topic aside.  “Are you finished? Did you figure it out?”

Draco appears at her side.  “What’s happened?”

“It’s Rookwood.  He’s doing something to the breach, and he brought friends.”

“What?” Hermione says, a stone settling in her gut.  This is her fault. She should have let Harry know something was off with him.

“If he’s been working with Tommy this whole time,” Lucius says grimly, “he’s probably attempting to accelerate the process.”

But why? Hermione’s brain insists.  Why would anyone want to destroy the universe on which their existence relied?  It doesn’t make any sense.

Cedric nods.  “Harry is there, trying to stop him, but there’s some kind of shield charm in place.”

Hermione turns back to the table for her jacket, only to find Cho, bag strapped across her chest, holding it out to her.

“You really, really don’t have to do this with us,” Hermione says, shrugging into the jacket.  “It’s not too late, you know? I could stun you, and you can tell them I forced you.”

“I appreciate your concern, Hermione, but you’re stuck with me.  I’ll not leave him now.”

Hermione nods.  “I had to try.”

Cho smiles.  “I know.”

“All right.”  Hermione fetches a stack of paper from her briefcase and spreads them out on the table.  With a flick of her wand, she copies onto them from the chalkboard. She hands one to each of them, then folds the rest in half and puts them into her jacket.  

“What’s this?” Cedric asks, reading it over.

“The spell to repair the rift.  At least three of us are needed to properly cast it, but more definitely wouldn't hurt."

Hermione Apparates into the maintenance closet in the Leicester Square tube station first and finds it deserted.  Shouts echo down the stairs from the Square, along with the whoosh of spellfire, and she’s grateful to not have arrived in the middle of the fray.  The longer they can go without being noticed the better.

Cedric and Cho arrive just a moment behind her; Draco and Lucius after them.  Lucius doesn’t waste a single second. As soon as he regains his bearings from the side-along, he marches up the stairs, robes sweeping dramatically behind him.

Topside is chaotic, worse than she imagined, and it makes her heart race, adrenaline coursing through her veins.  Glass litters the pavement, sparkling like diamonds in the afternoon sun. Kahtri’s equipment is destroyed, but there’s no sign of him or his team of Muggle scientists.  Harry and a handful of fellow Aurors are dueling against at least a dozen black-cloaked men.

The rest of the scene falls away when Hermione’s gaze lands on the tear.  It’s enormous, wide and high enough to fit two houses inside, and the gauzy effect present at the scene if Brixton is nonexistent.  Looking into the breach is like looking through sparkling glass. The threadbare curtain is gone.

Rookwood is standing before it, wand raised high, spherical shield shimmering in the afternoon sun.  In front of him, just on the other side of the tear, is Tom Riddle. He’s standing in a field, mirroring Rookwood’s pose.  Bright white magic streams from both of their wands up to the edges of the tear. Behind Riddle Hermione can see people dueling, and it gives her hope that someone on the other side is trying to stop this, too.

“Fucking hell,” Draco says, stopping close enough to Hermione to put a protective hand on her back.

“What’s the plan?” Cedric says.

“We must focus on casting the spell,” Lucius says, already moving forward again.  “We don’t have long.”

Lucius is right.  She’s surprised that the whole thing hasn’t collapsed already, and Rookwood and Riddle have a serious head start.  They need more time.

Everyone follows Lucius, but Hermione grabs Draco’s elbow as he passes.  “Make sure Lucius gets everything set up. I’ll catch up.”

“Where are you going?”

“To buy us some time.”

“Hermione—”

“Go.  Lucius needs you.”

Draco’s expression twists into something she’s never seen before, soft and desperate and raw, and it takes her breath away.  “And I need you.”

“Draco—”

He kisses her then, lips pressing into hers fiercely, strong fingers gripping her hips and pulling her flush with him.  Her hands find his shoulders as she leans into him, knees going wobbly as her heart tries to beat out of her chest.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he whispers, looking into her eyes like he’s trying to memorize them.

Hermione nods, not trusting her voice before dashing off, trying not to think how much it felt like a goodbye.

Harry is easy enough to find, and she Stuns two unsuspecting bad guys on the way, but they’re not the problem.  Rookwood is.

She skids to a stop next to Harry, just in time to block a curse.

“Thanks,” Harry grunts.

Hermione takes the extra copies of the spell out of her jacket and presses them to Harry’s chest.  “Hand out as many of these as you can. Draco knows what to do.”

“All right,” Harry says, shaking his head in confusion.  

“Good.  Tell me about the shield.”

“It’s repelled every spell we’ve sent at it.  I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She’d expected as much.  Harry is a superb Auror. If he could have gotten through it, he would have.  “Have you tried physical attacks?”

“We’ve been a little busy.”

Hermione glances around, hoping for inspiration, when her gaze lands on a row of cars parked on the curb on the far side of the square.  Okay. She can work with this.

“I have an idea,” she says.  “Cover me.”

She takes off again, making a beeline for the cars.  There are four of them in total, and the second one from the left is the oldest, and probably her best bet.  A flick of her wand opens the door, and a burst of magical electricity into the ignition has the engine cranking to life.  Tucking her wand into her jacket sleeve, she buckles the seat belt, puts the car in gear, and allows herself two, deep bracing breaths, because this is possibly the dumbest thing she’s ever done.

For the first time in her life, she’s grateful her grandfather insisted she learn to drive his old farm truck.

Angling the car out of the parking space, she makes a u-turn in the road, and aims for the breach.  She takes the car straight through the square, over the grass, dodging trees and lampposts, and makes it to fourth gear before crashing headlong into the shimmering shield surrounding Rookwood.

The impact is brutal, like driving into a wall, and the airbags deploy, scaring her half to death and filling the car with the noxious odor of burnt chemicals that burns her lungs and makes her eyes water.  But it’s enough. The shield jolts and blinks away, and Rookwood goes flying through the breach as though the vehicle had struck him and not the shield. The barrier wobbles like gelatin as he passes through, and she barely has time to slam on the brakes before the whole car goes through after him.

He doesn’t get up.

Riddle screams his outrage from the other side, eyes flashing murderously, before he stops casting his spell and crosses over.  

“STUPID GIRL!” he bellows, raising his wand and aiming it at Hermione.  The tip glows green.

Scrambling out of the car, she stumbles to her knees, the adrenaline dump making her limbs stupid and uncooperative, and she can’t get her wand out, and—

“Oi, Riddle!”  

It’s Harry, striding past her and sliding over the hood of the car like an action film hero to land right in front of him.  Riddle freezes, his gaze calculating and cold enough to give Hermione gooseflesh.

“So you’re the bastard who killed my mum.”

“Harry Potter,” he drawls, smiling now, and it’s somehow worse than the murderous outrage.  “You have her eyes, you know.”

Harry attacks first, furious and terrible, and Hermione is so focused on the duel before her she almost punches Draco in the face when he drags her to her feet and away from them.

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t do anything stupid,” he growls.

She’s steady on her feet now, but Draco doesn’t let go, his arm still wrapped around her waist as he guides her around the car and away from the breach.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

Draco rolls his eyes and points his wand at the breach.  “Let’s do this.”

Hermione glances around the square.  There’s no sign of Lucius, but she spots Cho and Cedric, who already have their wands aimed at the tear, thin lines of white light extending from the tips.  Three more join them, and Hermione smiles. Harry must have spread the word, even though there wasn’t much time.

Taking Draco’s hand, Hermione raises her wand and they begin chanting.

Just like in the memoryscape, the vibration sneaks up on them, low and barely perceptible at first, but becoming violent enough to set off car alarms and shatter glass around the square.  A powerful wind blows around the square, swirling around the tear like a vortex and forcing Hermione to squint against the debris. The light from the magic brightens steadily, gaining strength the longer they chant, but—

But the tear isn’t closing.

Its edges flutter and twitch and the barrier between the worlds undulates, but ultimately remains the same.  With a sinking heart, Hermione knows the truth of it: they need a sacrifice. Even with twice as many people performing the spell, the tear is just too big, too damaged to repair without it.

Hermione looks at Draco, memorizes the sharp line of his jaw, the jut of his chin, the way the wind whips his hair around his face.  She looks at their hands, clasped together, the elegant yet powerful length of his fingers, the way the veins of his hands pop out over the corded muscles.  Her chest aches, thinking about the years they lost, how much time they wasted, how easily they slipped back into each other's orbits once reunited.

She thinks about how wildly unfair life is, and lets go.

“I’m sorry,” she says, knowing even as she speaks it that the wind will steal it before it reaches him.

Then she runs.

The light surges, just like in the memory, but suddenly there’s an unforgiving arm around her waist, lifting her off her feet and hauling her away, and she screams in frustration.  The earth then gives a violent shake, pitching them to the ground. Draco lands on top of her and she struggles out of his grasp, climbing to her feet just in time to see Lucius tackle Riddle, forcing his body toward the breach and wresting his wand from his grip before they’re both engulfed in the blinding white light.

Hermione shields her eyes, her heart breaking, because she knows what happens next.

“No!” Draco screams behind her.

And then the light vanishes, the wind dies, and the ground ceases its rumbling.  The atmosphere is unnaturally dark, and it takes a moment for her vision to clear.  When it does, all she can see is Leicester Square. It’s a little worse for the wear, and it looks like a tornado went through, but the tear is gone.

“Lucius?”  

It’s Cho, her typically calm voice high and frightened as she rushes to one of the two tangled forms in the middle of the road.  She kneels, shoving one off the other, and presses two fingers to his neck. She bursts into tears.

Hermione turns to Draco, finds him standing half a dozen paces behind her, staring towards Lucius’ body with an expression so unsettlingly blank, so completely broken, it makes Hermione’s heart skip a beat.  Without a word, he turns and walks away.

She chases after him this time, unwilling to let him disappear again, to deal with this loss on his own.  Spinning him around, she throws her arms around his neck and doesn’t let go.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, her voice tight.

Slowly, Draco curls into her, slipping his arms around her waist and burying his face in her neck just tightly enough for her to feel the tears when he finally breaks.

Three weeks later…

Three Weeks Later…

“Auror Potter, are you suggesting that the ends justified the means?” Fudge says, gazing imperiously down from his seat at the head of the Wizenagamot.  He’s trying to appear commanding, in control, like the universe nearly unraveling hadn’t happened on his watch. An event he’d hardly lifted a finger to prevent it.  

Hermione isn’t the least bit anxious for that exact reason.  Everyone knows what happened in Leicester Square, and that she’d played an integral role in stopping it.  An anonymous tip was called in to the Daily Prophet, apparently. She’d bet her pension it was Draco, but when she’d asked him he’d suavely denied having anything to do with it.

Fudge’s hold on his position is tenuous at best.  The chances he’d risk it making an example of her were slim.

“In this case?” Harry says, drawing Hermione’s attention back to the hearing.  Her hearing. “Absolutely. As you can see from my report, we found conclusive evidence that Tom Riddle and Augustus Rookwood were attempting to destroy the universe in order to create a new one—one without Muggles or Muggleborns.  Without Unspeakable Granger’s decisive actions, we wouldn’t be standing here. There wouldn’t be a here to stand.”

“I understand the ramifications of—”

“Do you really?” Harry interrupts, his voice tinged with annoyance.  “Because it sounds to me like you’re considering imprisoning the woman who saved the world.”

Hermione blushes.  Harry makes her sound like a hero.  She doesn’t feel like one, and it wouldn’t have been possible without Lucius, Draco, and Cho.  Not to mention Dr. Kahtri, Cedric, and all of the Aurors who fought at the breach.

But he also just talked to the Minister for Magic like he was an idiot in her defense, so she’s never loved him more.

Fudge huffs, flustered, and Hermione has a hard time shaking the mental image of an over-sized rooster whose feathers had just been ruffled.

“Thank you, Auror Potter, for your testimony.  The Wizenagamot will now take the issue under advisement.  You’re all dismissed.”

Hermione follows Harry up to his office to await the verdict.  It’s cozy but disorganized in a way that makes her teeth hurt. He insists there’s a method to the madness, that he knows exactly where everything is, but Hermione will remain doubtful until he proves it.  

“Thank you,” she says, sinking into the chair.  

Harry snorts, but smiles as he kicks his foot out under the desk and pokes her shin.  “I should be thanking you.”

Hermione glares, but there’s no real heat behind it.

“I’m serious, though.  I finally know what happened to my mum.  I’ll never be able to repay that.”

“You’ll never have to,” she replies, poking him back.  “How’s your dad?”

“I think he’s still in shock, you know?  It’s a lot to wrap your head around.”

“I can sympathize.”

Harry frowns, shoves his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose.  “How are you? Really?”

Hermione thinks about the nightmares, about Lily’s blank stare, about Lucius’ prone body, about how very close she came to dying at the end of Riddle’s wand and—she shrugs.  “I’m just ready to put it all behind me.”

“I heard St. Mungo’s sacked Cho,” Harry says.  It’s an obvious change of subject, and Hermione is grateful he doesn’t push.  

“They did.”  But Hermione’s having a hard time feeling guilty about it.  She and Cho have met for tea twice since Lucius’ funeral, and she’s never been happier.  “But she got a job with a private firm researching memory loss and rehabilitation. Apparently they considered her experience with Lucius Malfoy highly desirable.”

“That’s brilliant.”  Harry pauses, then, “Any word from Malfoy?”

“Since when has he ever let me know where he is?” Hermione replies, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.  She really is a horrible liar. “I haven’t seen him since the funeral.”

Harry is unimpressed.  “I just want to talk to him.”

“Let’s just say he has an profound allergy to law enforcement.”

“You’re not really doing much to improve my opinion of him, Hermione.”

Hermione does smile now, touched by Harry’s concern.  From anyone else, it would be patronizing, but Harry always has her best interest at heart.  Even if he’s wrong.

“Are you saying you won’t give us your blessing?”

“Not if he’s going to drag you into a life of crime!”

“You’re adorable.  Like Draco could drag me anywhere.”

Harry wants to argue, but she’s got him there and they both know it.

An interdepartmental memo zooms into the room, and Harry expertly snatches it out of the air.  It only takes him a moment to unfold the paper airplane and read it, his eyebrows climbing high onto his forehead.

“They’ve reached a verdict already.”

Hermione is exhausted by the time she leaves the Ministry, and it’s only ten in the morning.  But there’s a weight gone from her chest, and she feels like she can breathe for the first time in months.  

“How did it go?” Draco says by way of greeting.  He’s standing outside the women’s lav that serves as the employee entrance, holding two large cups of coffee.  

She’d be surprised except he’s taken to showing up without warning with astonishing regularity.  It’s almost like he enjoys her company. Luckily, the feeling is mutual.

Hermione accepts the drink with a grateful smile and chugs half of it in one go.  Draco rolls his eyes at her, but his lips are threatening to curl into a smile of his own, so she’ll put it in the win column.  They haven’t had much to smile about these last couple of weeks, what with the funeral, and dealing with the estate, and the media fallout of the universe almost collapsing on them.  Bloody Rita Skeeter. It’s a good thing the world knows, but if Hermione ever gets her hands on that little insect—

“Six month suspension, for the St. Mungo’s thing.  But they’re not going to dock my pay so there’s that, I guess.”

“Six months, with pay?  That’s practically a vacation,” Draco drawls, throwing an arm around her shoulders and steering her away from the toilets.  It warms her from the inside out, how casually he touches her now. “What ever will you do with so much time on your hands?”

She can think of a couple things.  “I hear Venezuela is nice this time of year.”

Draco stops and looks down at her, surprised.  Hopeful. “Yeah?”

Hermione grins and pulls him in for a proper kiss, threading her fingers through the silken hair at the nape of his neck.  She feels silly and alive, snogging like teenagers in the middle of the sidewalk, but she honestly couldn’t care less.

“Yeah,” she says, breathlessly.

Draco places one last kiss on the tip of her nose, and doesn’t even bother to hold back his smile.  It’s brilliant, and it’s moments like this she still struggles to believe she gets to be the one to put it there.  After everything they’ve been through, it doesn’t always feel real. But it is, and it’s theirs, and she’ll fight for it until they day she dies.

“Let’s go, then.”