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Chapter Text

The first time Draco noticed the string was before his first year on the Hogwarts Express. He was sitting, legs outstretched when he felt a tug on his ankle. Thinking it was Pansy being overly affectionate again he went to snap at her only to see a thin red string tied around his ankle. The thread spooled outward, pooling on the floor and snaking under the door leading out of the compartment they were in.

He looked around for the string tying culprit only to find there was no one near his feet. How long had the string been there and how had he not noticed someone tying it on him? Feeling embarrassed to be so oblivious he tried to discretely remove the offending addition. Much to his dismay the string refused to be removed. There was no knot to untie and when he pulled to see if it would stretch over his foot he swore it got tighter in response. He pulled hard enough that it hurt the skin of his hands and ankle but the string wouldn’t break.

Theo was the one who finally asked what he was doing. Now feeling even more self conscious he snapped that he was trying to get the damn string off and he would kill whoever had put it on him. The whole compartment quieted and Theo asked what string he was referring to. He would have thought their lack of ability to see the string as some elaborate hoax if not for his social standing in the group and Pansy’s participation. She was sycophantic enough that she would never try to embarrass him in any way. Their bemused stares were enough to quiet any other comments he might have had.

Thoroughly confused and slightly mortified, he mumbled to forget about it and that he was headed to the bathroom. When Crabbe and Goyle made to follow him he regained some of his superiority and snarled that he was perfectly capable of making it there on his own.

He tried to discretely keep his eye on the string as he left the compartment, watching as it seemed to shorten as he followed it’s trail. Then to his horror he stumbled upon a mass of red thread, knots and spirals littering the floor of the train. No one else seemed to notice the obstruction. After his compartment’s reaction to his outburst he had a feeling that this was something only he could see.

He tried to suppress the dread swelling in him as he looked at the mass of red strewn about the floor. He didn’t want to to try to unravel it to see where it would lead. He knew enough about magic to know that something strange was occurring and his eleven year old self was not yet ready to handle what it might mean.

He locked himself in an empty compartment, tumbling into a seat and shut his eyes tightly. He did not want whatever was happening. He was on his first ride to Hogwarts. He was supposed to be sorted in to Slytherin today. He was supposed to reign supreme over his peers and enjoy being the Malfoy heir. He was not supposed to have some strange magical thread tied to his ankle leading ostensibly to nowhere that no one else could see.

When he opened his eyes, the string was gone. He blinked. It was still gone. No thread around his ankle. No red spooling onto the floor or leading out under the door into the hallway. Not a fiber of red was left. But a small part of him could still feel it. He felt the slight rub of it against his ankle and the small tug to follow it wherever it led.

He shut those precarious thoughts down and decided to ignore them. He laughed at himself for making such a big deal out of what was probably nothing. He chalked the incident up to nerves. He had the weight of two pureblood houses on his shoulders and a father whose expectations were a constant shadow. Rolling his shoulders, he left the compartment to join his friends, to be the pureblood heir his father expected him to be and ignored the small part of him that felt the thread trailing behind him.

Hermione’s first experience with her string occurred in the Great Hall on the same day. She had been explaining, in her best authoritative voice, the magical ceiling and how it was charmed to match the weather outside. She had just reached her left hand up to gesture above her when she caught sight of a thin red thread encircling her wrist. She let out a small shriek, earning the attention of a few of her fellow students. However, like Draco, none of her companions noticed the string and she quickly tried to change the subject to their impending sorting when they started to look at her strangely. She was quite tired of being a freak in her muggle school. She did not want to be different here too.

While the conversation moved on around her, she tried to pull at the string but it wouldn’t budge. With no knot to untie and no way to stretch the circle, she surreptitiously looked around to see where the thread lead to. She caught sight of the thread weaving its way through her fellow students but could not see another end. She looked at her peers again and wondering how no one else was seeing this. She had read every book over the summer for her first year on Charms, Potions, Transfiguration and Herbology and had never stumbled upon something like this.

Professor McGonagall interrupted her silent panic, ushering them along to their sorting. Not wanting to draw attention to herself she pulled the sleeve of her robe down over the string. She observed that no one else seemed to notice it, no one was even tripping over the piles on the floor. She marveled again that she had magic in her life and swore to herself to get to the bottom of whatever was happening to her.

The string followed her to the front of the Great Hall, to the stool where she was sorted into Gryffindor, and trailed along as she took her seat beside the two boys she had shared a compartment with. She hadn’t noticed it’s disappearance until after the Headmaster had finished his rambling speech, she moved to pick up her glass of pumpkin juice, an odd new choice that her dentist parents would absolutely disapprove of. Her small gasp was quickly covered up by exclamations of the quantity and variety of food laid before them.

For the rest of the night she continued to touch the place on her wrist where the thread had been tied. Even though she could no longer see it, she knew it was there. In her bed that night, with the curtains closed, she ran her finger along the thread that she couldn’t see and knew that this indeed was going to be a very interesting mystery to uncover.

Chapter Text

Hermione Granger was not a person who gave up. She was certainly not a person who gave up on something as interesting and important as a reappearing string tied to her person. So she searched the library. Books on magical objects, tombs on curses, volumes on enchantments. She spent hours combing the stacks searching for any mention of a red string.

It wasn’t until her fourth year that she stumbled upon a lead. Her research on the string had taken a backseat to being the third member of an increasingly time consuming trio. Keeping the other two members of that trio alive and passing their classes was more work than one would expect. It did not help that she was doing her research alone and only had herself to problem solve with. But she was used to being the one who fixed things. She was also used to feeling alone.

She had not been very confident that the section of the library she was in would be of any help. However it was as far from Viktor Krum’s groupies as she could get so she was making the best of the situation.

She read the title in her hands again, tracing her finger over the gold embossed words. Futures and Fates. The book was on magical bonds and was old, tattered, and felt oddly sentient. She had gained enough experience with cursed letters following the Yule Ball to know it was not malicious but the book felt like it was calling her. It felt like it wanted her to read it. She shook her head to clear it. After Ginny’s experience with Riddle’s diary she knew to be wary of enticing items.

She came upon the relevant chapter after an hour of diligent reading. She was tucked away in the corner of the library at a table she had claimed as her own. A strong Notice-Me-Not charm kept away any other students who might wonder near her. It had been four years and she had yet to share the mystery that was her red string. She knew why she kept it from Harry and Ron. They would call her barmy and write the whole thing off as a bad joke. Or they would go absolutely mental and claim she had been cursed. They would probably blame a Slytherin and vow to get to the bottom of it then go charging off with no plan whatsoever.

She could not quite explain why she had not told a professor. Looking down at the book she knew Professor Trelawney was not a viable option but Headmaster Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall would most likely listen to her and take her seriously. But this felt too personal. It felt like something she needed to solve herself.

The chapter was titled the The Red String of Fate. It was extremely short and lacking in information. The author described a few occurrences where a red string tied to an individual would become visible to that person alone. Sometimes it was seen during significant, life-altering events. Other times during seemingly random, unimportant occasions. There was also no discernible pattern to the length of time the string was visible. The string was most often tied to the individuals wrist or ankle. The entry ended in making it very clear that the string was always there, visible or not, a constant connection. The whole chapter was a mere two pages long but it did reference another book Unbreakable Bonds written by Phoebe Black in 1845.

Hermione wanted to scoff at the title alone. Divination was a farce. She had dropped the class as soon as she could and thoroughly dismissed anything having to do with fates and destinies. Professor Trelawney and her tea leaves had soured her to all things pertaining to the subject.

But when she closed her eyes and ran her fingers over the ever present, currently invisible thread, she thought to herself about the times she had seen it.

She remembered sitting by the black lake reading with a book in her hand. It had startled her when she turned a page. All afternoon she had felt as if someone else was there. It had not made her feel uneasy but as if they were sitting together in companionable silence. However whenever she checked she was alone. An hour later when she had gone to put her book in her bag the string was gone.

The time last year when she had punched Draco Malfoy for yet another derogatory comment after their Care of Magical Creatures class. She had turned around to see the floor covered in thread, trailing from her wrist into piles that of course no one else could see. As Ron and Harry pulled her away she gripped the line trailing from her wrist in anger while Crabbe and Doyle had hauled Malfoy away, hands covering his face as his nose bled from her punch.

When during the Yule Ball, she had spun out dancing with Viktor to spin back and find her wrist slightly tugged away, a red trail falling to the floor, snaking it’s way though the dancers. It followed her around the dance floor, lingering until she went outside to get a breath of fresh air.

It never appeared long enough to follow and always left her feeling bereft when it was gone.

She shut the book after making note of the referenced text. Fate. For a person who put such little stock in Divination it looked like she would be researching the subject rather thoroughly. She stayed in the library until curfew, wondering when it would next make an appearance.

Draco Malfoy on the other hand, had no intention of analyzing the annoyance that was the red string around his ankle. He despised it. He ignored it. When it appeared, he looked away as quickly as he could and willed it away until it disappeared from view again.

After a few appearances where he staunchly ignored the offending thread, it seemed to rebel. He began tripping over it. He would find himself with a tangle of red around his foot that of course no one else could see. It seemed to know that he had no interest in the anomaly and did not like being ignored. He would feel it tug him sharply and had caused him to fall on more than one occasion. It was increasingly becoming a pain in his arse.

As he desired to live in blissful ignorance, he tried not to ponder on the times the blasted string had made an appearance.

During second year, after one of the Basilisk attacks, he was strolling by the Hospital Wing when it rather aggressively wrapped around his ankle and made him trip over his feet. He had brushed it off as casually as he could, commenting to a perplexed Theo that it was probably a tripping jinx. Most likely Gryffindors. Theo had laughed and he used the distraction to untangle his foot and led them swiftly away from the thread leading under the Hospital Wing’s entrance.

There was the time in third year that he especially tried not to think about. Granger had punched him because of that oaf Hagrid. He had chalked his graceless exit up to the fact that he couldn’t see through the pain and had avoided looking at the ground by holding his bloody nose. The red was his blood and his stumble was because he couldn’t see. That’s what he told himself anyways.

The Yule Ball was the latest occurrence and one that still caused him to cringe when he thought back to it. Which he tried not to. Because this infuriating, random annoyance was not something befitting a Malfoy Heir. It had almost caused him to make a fool of himself dancing by twining around his legs, making him step on the toes of a very annoyed Pansy Parkinson. He blamed the punch and kept his eyes skyward for the rest of the night. He ignored the red that wound its way through the dance floor.

Draco Malfoy had no intention of speculating on what might be occurring. Because there was nothing to speculate on. No one else could see it. His father would be furious and would most likely blame the Black Family Madness. He could already hear the disparaging comments about his sanity and how it might affect his familial obligations. He would probably be disowned. So he ignored it and looked away whenever he saw a hint of red.

Chapter Text

Luna Lovegood knew she saw things that others did not. She knew that people called her barmy. She was not unaware that her nickname was Looney Lovegood. She was not as oblivious as she knew she appeared. She was a Ravenclaw for a reason. Luna also knew that everything she saw was real. She had known it from the first Wrackspurt she saws crawling over her cousin’s shoulder. It was everyone else who was blind to some of the more discrete aspects of life. Which was okay because for the most part, people did fine without acknowledging them. Or so they thought.

In her four years at Hogwarts, Luna had observed Hermione Granger studying the red string that encircled her wrist with a fixed determination on multiple occasions.

Luna sighed. She knew Hermione well enough to know that her older classmate did not believe in many of the more inexplicable magical aspects of life. She was strict in her belief of what was and was not real. She had seen her roll her eyes as Luna pointed out certain infestations. She did not hold it against her though, Hermione was unflappably logical. This knowledge made Luna’s silent observation all the more interesting.

Making a decision, Luna crossed the library and sat across from her quarry, startling her out of her reverie.

“Hello Hermione.” She said to her stunned friend. After today, she would most certainly consider the other girl a friend if she had not already. Which she was rather sure she did as they often collected a fair amount of Dapperblimps when they talked. Disagreements on reality aside, Luna enjoyed her company immensely.

Hermione shook her head and glanced around, chiding herself for forgetting her concealment charms. Her research was meant to be private. “Hi Luna.”

Luna’s smile grew. “Don’t worry. Your charms are still in place. I just decided to ignore them.”

Hermione opened her mouth to ask the obvious question of how exactly that was possible when something caught her eye that had her snapping her mouth shut.

Her string had been draped lazily across the table, woven between her books and parchment. It had lingered longer than she was used to but she attributed that to the fact that she had not tried to hunt down the other end of it. The last time she had been alone, she had taken the opportunity to try to follow it’s path which had caused it to vanish suddenly, disappearing right out of her hands. It was a skittish thing.

What had triggered Hermione’s alarm however was not the fact that her string was still present, but the sight of Luna Lovegood’s fingers absent-mindedly tying and untying bows in said string.

In five years, she had not once had anyone acknowledge the thread or interact with it in any way. It seemed to avoid all laws of science, as only a magical entity could. It slipped through the world without disrupting the environment around it or attracting anyone’s notice. Until now.

“Luna.” She started but found she had no words. All her questions died on her tongue in her complete state of bewilderment. She could not take her eyes off of Luna’s hands, playfully creating shapes and patterns with her string.

Luna just smiled her serene smile and tilted her head knowingly. “It’s okay Hermione, I won’t tell anyone. I know it makes you nervous.”

Still baffled by the new development, Hermione shook her head again to clear it. “Do you know what it is? I’ve been searching for years and the lack of information is astonishing. I feel like I’ve read every book in the Hogwarts’ library and the only solid lead I found was in a book on destinies of all things and all it did was reference another book which of course was not in the library. I even checked the restricted section. I’ve resorted to thinking I may have to go to Trelawney of all people to find more resources.” Now that she had started speaking, her words tumbled out in a rush. She had never had anyone to talk to about this.

Luna made a humming noise and nodded. “Yes. It appears when there are an extreme amount of Hinkiepinks around.”

Hermione stared, blinked, and said slowly, “Hinkiepinks.”

Luna nodded again. She smiled and began weaving a length of thread as she hummed to herself and added a flower she conjured into her pattern.

It seemed Hermione was not getting answers today.

Luna watched as a frustrated Draco Malfoy tried to discretely untangle his foot from the red string encircling it. She laughed quietly to herself as he tried to regain some of his usual grace.
The Nargles swarming his head told her he was still in adamant in his denial. He brushed off the group surrounding him and stalked away to sit by the Black Lake. She knew he often isolated himself when his string made an appearance. She had also seen the way his string rebelled in it’s dislike of his stubborn indifference. It made her sad to see it so ignored.

She had first seen the thread trailing his ankle during a quidditch game in her first year. For quite some time she had watched, mesmerized, as the string fluttered behind him. That was until Harry Potter caught the snitch, ending the game and inciting chaos. His thread lingered through the argument on the pitch between the Gryffindors and Slytherins which had devolved from words to hexes to fists. She was too far to hear the topic but from the amount of Wrackspurts flooding the field she could only assume it was unpleasant. She had shaken her head sadly as she caught him glancing at his ankle and then jerking his head away as he and his teammates were ushered off the field by Professor Snape.

“Hello Draco Malfoy.” Luna perched on a rock across from her sulking classmate.

“Looney.” His sneer was missing some of it’s usual venom and she felt a pang of sadness knowing his thread caused him so much pain. Pain which he never acknowledged.

The apple that he had been tossing dropped with a thud on the ground as he gaped at her with open mouthed shock. His gaze was fixed on her hands as she had been running the thread through her fingers, paying it the attention it had been so deeply lacking.

Her small smile startled him from his stupor. “You can—“ He started and stopped, blinking hard as if checking that what he was seeing was real. “You can see it?” He asked in a quieter voice than she had heard him use before. She nodded. “How?”

Luna tilted her head, considering. “I’m not sure. I’ve never asked it before.”

His brow furrowed in further confusion and he stared at her for a few long moments. His mind warred between two realities. In one, the girl in front of him confirmed the magical affliction that had followed him around for years. The one that had plagued his thoughts no matter how hard he pushed it to the back of his mind, into the boxes he created for it. She made real what he had tried so hard to ignore and convince himself was nothing. In the other, she was Looney Lovegood and if she saw it, there was a high probability that it was imaginary.

Draco took the second option.

Luna watched sadly as Draco got to his feet and walked briskly back to the castle, his face set in a cold mask that she knew would grow colder and harder as his life wore on. She let the string run through her fingers as it dragged along behind him. It snagged quite purposefully on a rock, causing his pace to falter. He would continue trying to ignore the piece of his fate that was unwilling to be brushed aside. She wondered how long it would remain visible to him today and was even more curious how long he would remain willfully ignorant.

She looked out to the lake as the last of the string slipped through her fingers and hoped that the Nargle calming charm she had slipped into his bag during his escape would help calm his distress.

Chapter Text

Draco never imagined he would cherish the moments when his string made an appearance. He had a long history of willful ignorance on the subject. He spent many hours avoiding thinking about it. Avoiding thinking about when it appeared and what it could mean. Draco could not count the number of times he had looked away as soon as he had seen even a glimpse of red on the ground. He had practically made the thing his enemy by his stark avoidance. He had started to think it was capable of retaliation. The way it tied up his legs and tripped him whenever he ignored it was surely its way of exacting revenge for his attitude towards it.

His relationship to his string began to improve as his life deteriorated. The first time he was truly grateful to see the string he was lying in a pool of his own blood with Harry Potter standing over him looking horrified. Sectumsempra. The word reverberated in his ears. He was dying. He could feel it. It hurt more than Aunt Bella’s cruciatus curses. More than getting the Mark on his arm. The pain was overwhelming, all consuming. Then he saw it out of the corner of his eye, a coil of string. He reached for it. It felt slippery in his fingers, wet with his blood. But it was there. He held onto it as Snape healed him. Listening to the melodic spell and feeling the texture of the string kept him grounded. He gripped it to prove to himself he was still alive as was carried to the Hospital Wing. It was his reminder to keep breathing.

When he lifted his wand to kill his headmaster, the sight of red at the edge of his vision had caused him to pause. It felt like it was begging him to leave as it pulled taut against his ankle and led out of the room. It wanted him to get away. Away from the task he did not want, away from the life that was no longer his. He had lowered his wand, had opened his mouth to ask Dumbledore how he could help him when everything looked so bleak. Then he had watched in horror as the headmaster tumbled over the side of the Astronomy Tower. His godfather stood solemn beside him. His mission was accomplished even though he himself had failed. He let Snape pull him along, out of the castle and to the Manor that would become his prison. His string fought him at every step.

Hermione was a meticulous planner. She had goals. She had achievable steps to make those goals a reality. War certainly got in the way of those plans. Being on the run was not what she had pictured when she thought of her Seventh Year. She was going to be Head Girl. She was going to earn an award for the number of Outstandings she would receive on her NEWTS. Instead she was an unprepared soldier, fighting a war created by hate and bigotry. She was hunting pieces of a madman’s soul and living in a tent. With such close quarters it should not have felt as lonely as it did. She had two constant companions, a shared important mission and yet she had never felt so alone.

Harry spent most of his time staring at the Maurader’s map, watching Ginny’s dot travel the castle. He was barely sleeping. He woke screaming about snakes and wands and death. Whenever she tried to talk to him about Occlusion he would snarl that he was doing what he had to and stalk away. She would not see him for hours.

Ron was somehow worse. He was hungry, they were all hungry but he always did have a thing about food. And he seemed more affected by the locket than she or Harry. He was constantly on edge and consumed by rage and pain. Ron had finally snapped, full of accusations and blame. Then he left. She had run after him, crossing the safety of her wards only to watch him apparate away and she knew he would not be able to find them again. One of her best friends since she was eleven had abandoned them, leaving her even more alone.

The only times Hermione felt grounded and a little less alone were the occasions when her string would present itself. It felt like it was happening more often. Like it knew she needed it. She would sit on watch while Harry slept fitfully in the tent and run the thread through her fingers. She would close her eyes and imagine that she could find the other end of the string.

By the time they had left Hogwarts after sixth year, she had learned enough from her research to know that the string led somewhere. Or more accurately, it led to someone. She was never able to find Unbreakable Bonds, but she had gathered enough information to deduce that a person existed at the other end of the string. The title of the missing book was enough evidence to imply their importance.

Her string became her touch stone when she came close to her breaking point. When Harry was screaming or when she looked to say something to Ron only to find that he wasn’t there, she touched her wrist and felt for the thread. Even when not visible, she could always feel it. She could always picture it, red and leading to somewhere—to someone.

Malfoy Manor had changed over the course of Draco’s life. It had been the place where he and his mother had played in the gardens, happy and free. When at school, the Manor had been one of the assets that added to his superiority over his peers. At home, as he aged, it had held few havens where he could hide from his father’s ire.

For whatever the Manor had been, after the occupants and events of his Seventh Year, he would never consider it home again. If he had his way, he would burn the building to the ground.

There was no safety in any corner of the estate. Death Eaters, Snatchers, and that bloody snake haunted him wherever he went. He quickly learned the sound of different footsteps. He knew if he heard the light, sporadic clacks of his aunt’s heels that he should make a hasty exit to avoid yet another lesson meant to encourage enthusiasm in their Lord’s ideals. The tap of his father’s cane was one he had known his whole life. The man he used to fear was now little more than a shell. And yet he was still full of vitriol and disappointment in his heir. After his failure in killing Dumbledore, the whole family had fallen even further from grace. , the sound of the snake sliding across the floor was the worst of them all.

He had quiet doubts on blood purity for years but it had all truly unraveled after the first muggle born died in front of him. He had seen their red blood. He had seen their wand snapped and had known that magic had flowed through their veins. He thought of the pure blooded wizards that the Dark Lord so casually tortured and killed for disobedience or even boredom. All notions of superiority crumbled as they all became witches and wizards. Tortured. Killed. For blood. For defiance. For incompetence when under crucios himself.

Often times Draco would feel his thread slipping through his fingers as he lay on the ground, willing himself not to scream. He held onto the connection that had followed him for years. Still his reminder that he was alive, that he was breathing.

He lived behind his Occulmency walls. He only let them down in the relative safety of his own room when his thread was present. It felt like a risk. To experience any emotion other than rabid devotion to the Dark Lord was dangerous but he allowed himself those small moments. He would not classify them as hope. He no longer knew what hope truly felt like. Survival was barely attainable. But those times, feeling connected to something were the lightest he felt inside the walls of the Manor. He cherished them.

Chapter Text

In fairy tales, when you find your soulmate, it’s always described as a magical experience that starts with love at first sight and ends in a happily ever after. Any monsters are easily conquered and the hero always prevails in the end.

It is not when they’re bleeding out in front of you on the Drawing Room floor of your family’s ancestral home. It is not when your deranged aunt is cutting into their arm, the red of their blood mixing with the red string covering the floor. It is not that. It is not.

Draco had many life changing experiences over the course of his first seventeen years. Receiving his Hogwarts letter, being sorted into Slytherin, he would even count the first time he saw his string. One of the most defining happened on a day he was violently pulled out of bed by his ankle. His red string was pulled taut under his door leading him out into the hallway. It had acted up before but never like this. He felt it’s panic. After quickly dressing he took off following it, growing more concerned with every step.

The Manor was oddly quiet. It was often full of sound. Bellatrix’s crazed cackles filled the halls. Snatchers haggling for better payment. Random Death Eaters roaming the grounds planning vile and heinous acts. But that morning it was too quiet. The hairs on his arms rose as he picked up his pace.

He had not seen anyone until he followed his string to where it snaked under the doors to the Drawing Room.

In front of the closed doors stood Potter and the Weasel. Potter with his face red and swollen. The Weasel looked haggard and angry, but Draco couldn’t make out his shouts as the roaring in his ears was deafening. Panic was coursing through his veins. He heard the tapping of his father’s cane. He barely stopped himself from barreling through the doors to follow his string.

Draco had learned Occulmency at the behest of his mother starting in his fourth year. By sixth year, he had all but retreated behind walls so high he couldn’t see past them. Everything pertaining to the string lived in a box shut and locked and stored deep inside those walls.

His walls were crumbling around him. The lock was shattered and the box lay open in his mind. The blank mask that his face had become since the Dark Lord returned wanted to twist with emotion. He did not know what was going on. His heart was beating too fast and his mind was racing. Why were they here? Why were there only two of them? Where was Granger? Why was his string pulling him so hard? He tried to concentrate.

With a barely cleared mind, he had tenuously tried to help them. He knew who was in front of him. No stinging jinx could alter Harry Potter enough that he would not know the boy who had been his rival since he was eleven. But he knew if he said yes, if he assisted his father’s fanatical desire to deliver Harry Potter to their master, that everything would end. Harry Potter would die and he would have to live in a world ruled by a psychopath. So he did what he could, as feeble as it was and stalled.

Then he heard her screams. Even if his string hadn’t pulled him so forcibly through the doors he would have followed it anyways.

The taboo. How could Harry have been so careless?

She knew why. He was tired. Hungry. They were all tired and hungry. Hermione was sure they had not had a full meal and nights sleep in over six months. Probably longer. Living in a tent and scavenging for food did not make for level heads. They were also all still emotionally raw from having just destroyed the Horcrux. Spending so much time with that dark of magic around your neck left internal scars that would take time to erase. They were on edge.

She berated herself for not feeling the tug on her wrist before he said the name. For not paying attention. She felt the string’s warning just before he said the final syllable.

Her rushed attempt to disguise Harry would do nothing to hide her and Ron’s identities but it was all she could do in a moment of panic. When they took their wands and bound them, she gripped the string in her hand and let it remind her she was not alone.

Finding herself in Malfoy Manor was an experience of contrasts. The grounds were beautiful in the morning light. Being dragged through them by Snatchers looking for payment showed just how corrupted that beauty had become. The Drawing Room she was taken to was grand and flooded with sunlight from floor to ceiling windows. However the insidious magic that permeated the walls made the room feel darker and lifeless.

The Black sisters were their own contrast. Narcissa was icy and regal. She was a pillar of stone as she stood along the wall. Bellatrix was crazed, waving her wand in violent arcs, ranting to call the Dark Lord, raving that he would be so pleased. So very pleased. They had been separated. Bellatrix wanted to have a girl talk. Hermione could only pray that the boys would get away. She did not care what happened to her if they got away.

She tried to count of the number of times Bellatrix’s crucios hit her. Pain does funny things to time. Stretches and shrinks it. She lost count. She just held the string in her hand and reminded herself she was alive. She was sane. She had something to believe in. Something to hold onto. She was not sure when she started screaming. When Bellatrix knelt on top of her and started carving, she began to lose hope. Her vision swam. She lost sight of her string in the red of the blood. Her string was slipping through her fingers as her grip weakened.

The doors banged open revealing another contrast. The elder Malfoy was a shell of a man, cold and lifeless. His hair limp and his face drawn. Draco however radiated emotion. Her pain addled brain registered facts slower than normal. She cataloged it all in stages. She took in the fear on his face. The red around his ankle. The way his eyes darted from her to the floor to his feet and back to her. The desperation. Her understanding came to her in waves of grief and pain and hope and longing.

Draco could not breathe. His thoughts were not coherent. He did not blink in case it disappeared. Because the red string that haunted him for the last seven years was tied around a wrist that was being held down by a mad woman. That string was tied around the wrist of Hermione Granger. A girl he went to school with. A girl he bullied. A girl he had secretly admired for her intelligence and her fire. A girl who looked like she was bleeding out on his Drawing Room floor.

In the small functioning part of his brain, he knew if he did the wrong thing or said the wrong words that she would die. That knife that his aunt held would kill her. He did not have the skills to fight her nor the words to stop her. The situation was too precarious, his aunt was well past insane.

So he stared into Hermione Granger’s eyes and did nothing. He had no shields left to hide his emotions from her. He could not read the emotion on her face. Pain. Fear. But there was something else there he would agonize over for months in the future. His mouth parted, he did not know what he was going to say but he knew he had to stop—

A loud crack filled the air. Chaos erupted as a small house elf delivered Potter and Weasley into the Drawing Room. Later, he could only thank Merlin that the only person to see him toss his wand to Potter was his mother. In what must have been less than a minute, they were gone.

He had one last glimpse of her eyes, saw hers shift to his ankle and back. He saw her mouth part and then watched her disappear with another crack.

Chapter Text

Draco Malfoy was not a fighter. He wanted no part in the war that raged around him. He had truly never wanted a part in it. He may have boasted about his family’s name and believed in pure blood ideals that now seemed irrelevant but he never wanted this. He never wanted to see his classmates tortured. To see people killed. He never wanted the Mark that was forever burned into his arm.

After watching the destruction and hate and fear that had taken over the place that was once his home for a full year, he never wanted to step foot in the Manor again. After seeing what had happened to her there, he would gladly see the building torn down. The war and the hate had ruined so many things and so many lives.

Finding himself at Hogwarts, a place he had once called home, had once found friends, had once felt safe, holding a Death Eater mask in one hand and a borrowed wand in the other felt like someone else’s life. He spared a moment to think that maybe it really was a dream, a nightmare. He would wake up in the Slytherin dorms with a bare forearm and his biggest problem would be his next potions essay or the fact that Pansy would not take a hint and leave him be.

A curse crashing into a nearby wall scattered the castle’s stones and startled him out of his stupor. This was real. He looked down at the silver mask in his hand. The mask that his father had shoved at him when he told him to “make his family proud” and “bring glory to the Dark Lord". The man whose beliefs and failures led to forced markings and impossible tasks was telling him about pride and glory. Like those things mattered anymore. He hated it. He hated all of it. He dropped the mask to the ground, muttered incendio, and watched it burn.

Footsteps gave him just enough warning to turn and see a masked Death Eater turning the corner, headed towards him. Without hesitating he flung a stunning spell and followed quickly by a binding spell and sent his once-comrade to the ground. Moments later, Neville Longbottom, consummate Gryffindor, rounded the same corner, wand raised. He hated to admit it but the boy who Draco had spent years making fun of looked every bit the hero in that moment. Where had the boy who lost his Remembrall gone? The war had taken everyone’s innocence. He watched Longbottom take in the scene in front of him. He took in the burning mask, the bound man on the ground, and looked at Draco with such piercing intensity he wanted to uncharacteristically fidget. Then the Gryffindor lowered his wand, nodded at him once, and kept running. Draco let out the breath he’d been holding and considered what to do next.

His ankle burned. A violent tug pulled him in Longbottom’s direction. He looked down to see his string, red and vibrant against the castle’s stone floor and all the breath left his lungs. Now he knew what it meant. He had not known what had happened to her after the Manor. He had sat in his room after the Dark Lord’s punishment after their escape and waited, hoping to see a flicker of the string. Hoping to see a sign she was still alive. He wished he had done something, anything else to help her. But he never saw even a flicker of red. All of the times he had hated it, ignored it, wished it away, he never thought he would be so desperate to see it.

He took off running. He let it pull him faster through the corridors and down the steps. He felt it’s urgency. He sprinted past duels between students and Death Eaters, professors and all manner of magical creatures. He tried sending a spell or two of his own when he had the presence of mind to help. But mostly, he just ran.

When he saw her, she was facing down Bellatrix alone. She had blood on the side of her face and was favoring one of her arms. Her clothes were torn and she looked thin and pale. But she was alive. She was alive and she was fighting. She was fighting the woman who tortured her on her own.

And she was tiring. Her eyes were still full of fire and magic sparked through her hair but she was draining fast. He could see the fatigue weighing on her. Her spells were slowing and her steps beginning to falter.

Later, he was never sure that he had made the decision consciously. He wondered if his string had made the choice for him and pulled him to her. When he saw her wand fly out of her hand and heard Bellatrix’s gleeful cackle, he lunged toward her.

The crucio hit him as he hit her. His body shook under the pain of it. He had felt Bella’s crucios countless times before but this was different. Meaner. Wilder. He felt the hate that she had directed toward Hermione in every second that he was under the curse.

The curse was still running through him as he barely registered Hermione’s hand slipping his wand from his own. He was trying to catch his breath, their bodies tangled on the ground. The absence of Bella’s manic laughter and the thud of her body hitting the floor and the breaking of the curse let him take in the witch still under him.

Her eyes were a rich hazel he had never taken the chance to really look at before. They were staring at him with such intensity. They were glassy, filled with unshed tears as she held him while the last of his convulsions stopped. “Thank you.” Her words were barely a whisper but he felt them in every part of his body. He could not speak. He could only watch her as she tucked his wand back into his hand, found her own and with one look back at him, ran back into the fray.

It would take years for him to fully learn the details on how the battle ended and the Dark Lord fell. Everything was chaos. He spent his own final moments of the battle fighting his father. His stunning spells were doing little against Lucius’ killing curses. It was Arthur Weasley who had taken in the scene, stepped to Draco’s side, and helped him bring down the man who raised him. He had looked at Draco after, his father lifeless on the ground, and without saying a word, laid his hand on Draco’s shoulder and let him cry.

Not five minutes later, he was being arrested by Aurors. Condemned for the Mark he never wanted and the role he had unwillingly played in the Dark Lord’s regime. He passed his mother, standing over the body of her husband with an unreadable expression. He looked around the Great Hall searching. The string was tight against his ankle, he knew at least that she was alive. He tried to follow the red string still covering the floor but did not see her again as they led him out of the Hall and off the grounds.

So many things changed in the instant that Draco Malfoy blocked her from Bellatrix’s curse. She had never killed anyone before. That changed. She had never looked at Draco Malfoy with anything close to affection. That changed. In the time since she’d seen him at the Manor, she had thought of him often. She thought of who he had been in her life. He was the bully from her childhood. He was a bigoted prat. He was a Marked Death Eater. She had not let herself think of him as her soulmate. That too changed.

He was the first thing she looked for after everything ended. She followed her string through the Hall and out onto the grounds, holding in her tears for the people they’d lost. She did not see him before it vanished.

Chapter Text

Hermione had argued with Harry and Ron for weeks. She had finally convinced Harry but Ron was steadfast in the belief that Draco belonged in Azkaban. She wasn’t sure when he became Draco instead of Malfoy in her mind but sometime between the final battle and her last shouting match with Ron over the upcoming trial, it had changed.

The Wizengamot was out to make an example of the Death Eaters that had been arrested after the battle. Draco’s was the fifth trial and so far the lightest sentence was 20 years in Azkaban. She was unsure how she felt about him, about everything that had happened, about their string but she knew that he did not deserve that. She had seen the pain in his eyes and knew a great deal of his circumstances thanks to Narcissa.

The Malfoy’s majestic Eagle owl had delivered her note a few days after his arrest requesting Hermione meet for tea in Muggle London of all places. Ron was irate and stormed off at her decision to go. While Harry was cautious, he agreed to go with her. After all, Narcissa’s actions at the final battle had saved his life. Tea had been uncomfortable at best. Seeing the Pureblood Lady Malfoy in a Muggle Tea Room was strange enough but hearing the regal woman nearly beg for them to testify on Draco’s behalf was heartbreaking. Hermione agreed immediately. Harry promised to think about it. Hermione’s resulting glare had communicated to Narcissa that he would be there.

Hermione had felt confident prior to the trial. The list of witnesses on Draco’s behalf was long. But sitting between Narcissa and Harry, feeling the chill of the courtroom, unnerved her. It left her gripping her thread tightly in her hand, staring at the back of Draco’s head as he sat in front of them, the red string trailing from his ankle over to her.

Luna Lovegood watched as Neville spoke concisely about the brief encounter he had with Draco during the final battle. She knew he was only there because she had not given up until he agreed. She was afraid for her friends what a lengthy stay in Azkaban would do to their shared string. She looked at it as it curled between them. Hermione’s thread was trailing down the same hand that was clutching his mother’s. A coil of Draco’s had managed to find it’s way up his chair and he was running it through his fingers. She was glad he had finally acknowledged it but sad for him the circumstances it took to get there.

When it was her turn to testify, Luna described her brief stay in the Malfoy Manor dungeons. She described how Draco’s elf always brought extra food and even blankets when the guards weren’t around. She felt it was all very simple however the prosecutor was particularly irritating, which given the amount of Wrackspurts around him, made sense.

“Miss Lovegood. You say that you were kept in the Malfoy’s dungeons. Surely Mr. Malfoy—a fellow classmate—could have helped you get out?” He asked her.

“Well they would have killed us both.” She stated simply.

“But it was his home. He would have had access and opportunity to aid in your escape.”

She looked at the man with pity in her eyes. It hurt her when people chose to not understand. “Draco was as much a prisoner as I was. Maybe more so.”

Harry Potter did not want to testify for Draco Malfoy. He did not believe Draco Malfoy to be anything other than a self serving git who was eternally up to something.

However, he had promised his best friend he would. She had worn him down. A small part of him acknowledged that as she was the smartest person he knew it was probably the right thing to do. It did not make it any easier.

He described Malfoy’s reluctance to identify him at the Manor. He knew it was bloody obvious it was him when it was his long time rival he was in front of. Hermione’s stinging jinx was good but it hadn’t been that good. He grudgingly recounted how Malfoy had tossed him his wand willingly and without explanation right before they had escaped.

“Do you believe Mr. Malfoy deserves to go to Azkaban?” One of the Wizengamot members asked him at the end of his testimony.

Harry had not expected that question. “Honestly? I think everything he did was out of self preservation. He’s a selfish prat and while he may never have killed anyone as a Death Eater, he still has that Mark on his arm. So life in Azkaban? No. But does he deserve to walk free? I have to say no to that too.”

Harry did not know it then, but that statement would condemn a friendship he had since his first year at Hogwarts.

Draco watched his trial in relative apathy. He had a small glimmer of hope as Neville Longbottom, the Man-Who-Killed-The-Snake, testified on his behalf. It wavered slightly as Luna Lovegood’s testimony did not seem to be received well by the Wizengamot. It crashed and burned as the Boy-Who-Lived-Twice basically declared that he should be in Azkaban. Any hope he had fled at the Chosen One’s statement.

He knew his mother’s testimony would be suspected at best. No matter that she had willingly taken Veritaserum. The word of the wife and mother of a Death Eater did not carry much weight.

He had to close his eyes and Occlude during her description of his Marking. The way the Dark Lord had threatened him with her torture and death. He knew her Pureblood Mask of Stoicism was cracking as she spoke of the countless times he had been tortured in front of her for his failures. For his lack of enthusiasm in the cause.

By the time she was done speaking, he could tell by the faces of those in the Wizengamot that they did not believe her. She was a mother trying to save her son. She had already lied to the Dark Lord himself during the battle to save him. Veritaserum or not, they didn’t believe her.

Hermione’s nerves were torn to shreds by the time it was her turn to testify. She had taken two calming droughts prior to her testimony and she hoped it was enough to get her through.
She tried to keep the right amount of emotion in her voice as she described the events at Malfoy Manor and Draco’s actions during the final battle.

One of the Wizengamot members spoke up, clearly not believing her stance. “Are we really to believe that you want Mr. Malfoy to go free when he stood by and watched you get tortured? He may have saved you later out of guilt but what about his prior actions? He did nothing.”

Hermione took a deep breath. It was an argument she had had with Harry and Ron already too many times to count.

“And just what would you have done?” She asked back.

The man sputtered. “I am not on trial Miss Granger.”

“No? But you are making judgements. Were you there? Tell me sir. What would you have done had you been in Mr. Malfoy’s position?” She could hear the harsh edge in her tone.

Before the man could continue his excuses she carried on, growing more angry by the minute. “Do you believe that you, a full grown, trained wizard would be faster with your wand than Bellatrix was with her knife? Because you’re expecting someone who should have been a student to have been more skilled than one of Voldemort’s most feared followers.” She enjoyed how the man flinched at her use of the name.

“Or do you think he could have talked her out of what she was doing?” Her rhetorical question was met with silence. “A mad woman, who was his aunt, who we now know enjoyed torturing him as well, was one breath away from stabbing me with that knife. The actions you seem to believe are possible that could have stopped what she was doing clearly are not. If he had done anything I would be dead. He would be dead. So tell me, would you do anything differently?”

Her statement was met with stunned silence. After a few moments another member asked in a much more careful tone, if she had anything else to add.

She looked at Draco for the first time since she had started her testimony. She had avoided his gaze because she did not know how it would affect her. “I do not blame him for the events at Malfoy Manor. In fact, his not identifying Harry and Ron saved our lives that day. If he had, the war would have ended very differently.”

She looked back at the members of the Wizengamot. “Draco Malfoy did not know when he pushed me out of the way of Bellatrix’s curse at the final battle what that curse might be. Knowing the curses that she had been using prior to that, most of them were lethal. There was no self preservation—“ She glared at Harry. “When he did that. He risked his life for me. How many of you were at that battle? How many of you can say you would do the same?” She stared down the panel that would decide Draco’s fate and hoped her words had been enough.

“The esteemed members of the Wizengamot as representatives of their Ancient and Noble Houses find Draco Lucius Malfoy guilty on the charge of being a Death Eater and being involved in crimes contributing to Voldemort’s regime.” Draco felt the air leave his lungs. He had not held any great hopes in his verdict but it still affected him to hear it so plainly.

“Given the circumstances surrounding his Marking and the coercion involved in his participation in such crimes—“ The representative paused and Draco wanted to roll his eyes. Coercion. That was such a tame way to say threat of torture and death. “This Wizengamot sentences Draco Lucius Malfoy to six months in Azkaban followed by two years of house arrest with mandatory weekly wand checks and Mind Healing sessions.” Draco barely heard the rest. Six months in Azkaban. Six months with Dementors. Six months. Six months. Six months.

He felt the string slipping through his fingers as he was pulled from the room by Aurors. The last thing he heard before the door close was her voice. Full of fire.
“—won’t get away with this! This is wrong! He was a child! What did we fight for if this—“

He held the string as tightly as he could until it faded from his view.

Chapter Text

Azkaban was cold. The stone walls pulled any heat that might be in the air and leached it from the prisoners’ bodies. It was dark. Eternal night. The torches on the walls were mocking as they stayed unlit. Tracking time was nearly impossible. Draco spent days counting stones. Counting breaths. Counting screams from prisoners in adjacent cells. Counting seconds of silence.

Counting meals did not help. They were sporadic and often inedible. He had thought his body frail after his sixth and seventh years but after just a few weeks his bones began to hurt no matter how he lay on the threadbare cot.

There was no color in the prison. The cold lifeless walls of Azkaban never saw a red string during his six months there.
As he lost count of everything, he lost hope.

“Harry I won’t argue about this again.” Hermione smacked down the top of the last of her moving boxes. Her whole life looked so small when packed into cardboard.

“Mione—“

“No.” She tried to keep the tremble from her voice. Staying in anger was easier. “I’m done. You and Ron and the rest of the family have made it quite clear. Merlin, all of England has made it quite clear. I am done. I can’t do this anymore.”

Harry took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was a gesture she knew so well and for a moment it pulled at her heart as she saw an eleven year old boy on a train in front of her, then the memories of their last few arguments came flooding back.

It had been a month since Draco’s trial. A month of her trying and failing to make someone, anyone, understand why she felt so strongly that his sentencing was unfair. Because of Ron, the press was ruthless. He had given interviews that ranged from claims of her being imperiused to her being fed Amortentia. She had realized quickly it stemmed from his ugly jealous streak and made her more grateful she had kept her connection to Draco a secret. To everyone, she was just the justice seeking warrior for the downtrodden as always and Draco was her new S.P.E.W. However, it did not make them any less ruthless. Rita Skeeter vilified her. Ron and the Weasleys, Molly especially, provided ample content. Harry stayed mostly silent, but had quietly agreed with them.

It was Narcissa who finally told her it was time for her to stop. She had held her hands, tears in her eyes, and thanked her for how hard Hermione had fought but told her firmly that she needed to stop. If anything the press was getting worse and the Wizengamot had stopped accepting appeals from her all together. Narcissa had faith that Draco would get through his sentence and there was truly nothing more Hermione could do.

It was also Narcissa who had helped Hermione with her next steps. She had confided in the older woman her troubles with Harry and the Weasleys. How viciously they had turned on her after her rejection of Ron’s romantic advances and her adamant support of Draco. Narcissa had gotten her in touch with the Headmistress at Beauxbatons and arranged for her to take their version of N.E.W.T.s and start a Charms Mastery if her scores were acceptable.

Both women had teared up on their final goodbye. Narcissa had insisted that she write her often to keep her updated on her new journey. She had also not told Narcissa of her connection to Draco but Hermione was sure she had seen a glimmer in Narcissa’s eye when she talked of her son.

Hermione shrunk the boxes and pocketed them, ever grateful for magic. She turned to her oldest friend and searched for some hint of support. She had sacrificed so much for him. He had once been a boy she was willing to die for, had almost died for. She had never dreamed he would take her side over Ron’s but for him to not even consider staying neutral, to agree with him and give her no support, it was too much. Too much after what she had given.

“Goodbye Harry.” She disapparated from her flat with a crack.

Mandatory Mind Healing sessions with Healer Miller were more tolerable than Draco had imagined. After Azkaban, anything was tolerable. He had no idea how anyone survived more than a year there. He had barely survived six months.

He had spent the first two weeks home on house arrest in bed. He had barely been able to do more than swallow the small amounts of food and potions his body would take. His family’s private healer had confided to his mother that the damage to his body was not permanent, but much longer there and it would have been. Thanks to magic and nothing else to do but recuperate, his body recovered fairly quickly.

His mind on the other hand was more complex. The nightmares plagued his sleep and the Manor haunted his waking hours.

It was Healer Miller who suggested a relocation after his house arrest was over. He had described enough of the horrors that had gone on in the house for the man to understand it no longer held any good memories. It was also Healer Miller who had gently encouraged him to look outside of England after they had talked of the Malfoy’s status with the public. Narcissa rarely left the Manor and they never had guests.

They had talked at length about his upbringing. His relationship with his father. His views on blood purity. How they had changed over the years. It took a year of sessions but Draco finally broke down and told him about his string. The string he had not seen in over a year and a half at that point.

He knew she was alive. His mother kept him vaguely informed. He knew she lived outside of England after a falling out with her friends. He felt slightly guilty for that guessing the reason. However knowing what he did of them, he did not feel too bad that she had moved on from them. She deserved better.

He and Healer Miller had talked at length over what she deserved. Draco believed she deserved better than him. After a year and a half of sessions, Healer Miller was still trying to convince him that Draco deserved to be happy and that she should be able to choose what she deserved if he saw her again, even if that was him. They disagreed on this point. Healer Miller held the opinion that he should trust in magic. Magic had connected them for a reason.

After two years of not seeing his string, he wondered what magic meant by the lack of red in his life.

He applied for Potions apprenticeships outside of England and spent hours brewing to distract himself from thinking about it too much.

Hermione spent the better part of her post-Hogwarts schooling studying soul bonds. It had not been her original intention when she began her Charms Mastery. She had thought she would specialize in something more practical. However, after years of researching bonds, she found she did not want to stop. Her Charms Master also enthusiastically encouraged the study as it was a fairly obscure and not well documented branch of magic.

They had discussed Hermione’s own experience with her string a year into her studies. She and her Master had gotten rather close and the older woman had told her of her own soul bond with her recently deceased husband. While a different experience to Hermione’s, it gave her the confidence to share the secret no one but Luna knew of.

She did not confess that she spent many nights alone in her flat with her fingers around her wrist, praying to see the string that connected her to him. She was enjoying the life she had built for herself. She had made new friends through her schooling, saw Luna and Neville often as they were the only ones to support her when she left, and wrote Narcissa frequently, keeping her updated on her life and studies. She cherished the connections she had in her life. They however did not lessen her desire for the one she knew was missing.

Chapter Text

Draco looked around his new flat and marveled at his surroundings. He took the three deep breaths in like Healer Miller instructed when he began to feel overwhelmed. A new country, a new flat, a new academic venture. So many changes so quickly required three more breaths before he let himself think of the opportunity to live in a city where he would be relatively unknown.

He had ventured out to Diagon Alley only once the day after his house arrest ended. He had dodged no less than five hexes, had been shouted at by countless other patrons, and had been called everything from a Death Eater to scum. He had apparated on the spot after dodging a potentially dangerous curse, knowing his trip was a failure. If he hadn’t been sure of his move before that he absolutely was after.

Waking up somewhere other than the Manor had been a revelation and he had never been more grateful for Healer Miller than in that moment. The courage to move and start over was not something he would have had before. Accepting a potions apprenticeship from one of Snape’s old contacts was daunting but exciting. For the first time in his life, he felt truly hopeful for his future.

Paris. He had been to France with his family plenty of times growing up but had never considered it a potential home. Paris was somewhere he had briefly visited but not truly explored. Not truly enjoyed. He had never been allowed to enjoy somewhere before. It was new. He told himself he deserved to be happy. After two years of Mind Healing, he had begun to believe it.

Three more breaths in to center himself. Hope. It was new. It was overwhelming. Three more breaths out. He could handle it.

He opened his eyes on the last breath out and caught a glimpse of red.

He purposefully did not have any red furniture. No red clothing. He had even charmed a few book covers to avoid any false sightings. They were just too painful. It had been two years, six months, and five days since he had seen the red reminder of everything he lost. Since he had last seen her.

But there it was. A thin red thread. It was not knotted or piled or wrapped around his feet. It was headed in a straight line out his front door. For the first time it did not feel aggravated or panicked. It did not feel as if it were angry with him. It too felt hopeful.

He broke out of his reverie and raced to the door, grabbing a coat and hastily pulling it on while he made to follow the string.

He was down the stairs and on the street in a flash, seeing a red line trailing down the sidewalk. He took off after it without a second thought.

Later he would think of the last time he had raced along it’s path. The panic and fear he had felt then were such a stark contrast to his emotions this time. He could not begin to catalogue all of them. Excitement. Curiosity. Anticipation. But most prevalent, hope.

He sprinted for blocks, weaving through crowded streets and deserted alleys, always keeping his eyes on the string praying to Merlin that it would not disappear again. He could not lose it again. He could not lose her again.

He was panting, his breath coming out in cold puffs in the chilled air when he saw the string had slipped under a door that read Lire à Paris. He barely slowed before pulling open the door and stumbling gracelessly through the door.

Sitting at her favorite table, Hermione thought about her reason for being free on a Wednesday morning. Normally she would be researching. However she had just recently turned in a first draft of the first few chapters of her book and her mentor had insisted she take time for herself. Demanded it really. A new concept for someone so passionate in their work.

She had come up with the idea of writing a book after her own research experience had left her so frustrated. When she had finally found the elusive Unbreakable Bonds, she was disappointed in her find. Rather than a guide on bonds or even a book of experiences, it was a fairy tale. A simple one at that. The hero and his love interest—her feminist heart had frowned at the one dimensional nature of the female character —had experienced very little conflict after they met. Once they found each other through a mystical connection, fell in love and lived happily ever after.

Even given her distaste over the book, she believed in Happily Ever Afters. But she also believed they did not come easy, magical connection or not.

Hermione stared at her book, reading the paragraph for the third time. She was having trouble focusing. Something was niggling at the back of her brain. As a war veteran, she had learned to trust her instincts. She did not feel danger, there was just something there.

She had healed considerably from the trauma of war, only having the occasional nightmare and only seeing her Mind Healer when needed. She would always have scars, physical, mental, and emotional, but she felt more sure of herself than she ever had in her life. She was secure in her decisions. She enjoyed her life.

She was confident in her professional pursuits. Her research after her Mastery Program was fascinating. She had a topic that intrigued her and a mentor that believed in her. She had gained friends who appreciated her for more than what she could provide to them in homework help and constant life saving. She still did not have much contact with anyone from England, but most days she did not feel that absence like she had feared when she left. She truly enjoyed her life.

Still a small part of her was left wanting. She knew what was missing. Or rather, who was missing. Her research reminded her often enough but most of the time she was able to find an intellectual separation. But not always. She absently reached for her wrist, feeling for the thread she had not seen in over two years.

Her breath caught as she glanced down and saw it. Tied around her wrist as if it had never left. She ran trembling fingers over the thread and let out a shaky breath, unable to believe her eyes.

The bell on the door pulled her attention and she glanced up as a gust of cold wind entered the cafe.

He was breathing hard as if he’d been running. His bright blond hair was disheveled and his cheeks were pink from the exertion and the cold. He came to a stuttered halt as he caught her eyes. His widened and she could see so much emotion in them. She had never seen him so expressive. They were bright. Hopeful.

He took a step toward her and then hesitated, seemingly unsure if she would welcome his presence. Nervous. She had seen many sides to him but never nervous. Her lips quirked up into a small smile.

He gained a measure of confidence and walked to her table. She could see him taking in her appearance as she did the same. He had always been good looking but he looked different. Obviously healthier than he had been the last time she had seen him. Taller, if possible but now his frame held the muscle that spoke of consistent meals and an active lifestyle. His hair was short and messier than she had seen it before. She was mildly surprised by the muggle clothing he wore but seeing as they were in a muggle cafe she was glad for it. It also looked good on him. She could not deny that he was handsome.

And there it was. The red string that trailed off his ankle. The floor around them was littered with it. Loops and piles of red. She looked back up and saw he was staring at her with that open, hopeful expression.

“Granger.” His voice held none of the malice she had heard over the years. It was such a short word but in it she heard hope, longing, and something deeper.

“Hermione.” He said it quieter but with no less emotion.

She let out the full smile that had been wanting to escape since he stumbled through the door.

“Draco.”

Chapter Text

The air off the Seine was cold but not biting. They had found a bench that looked out over the water and had stayed until the last of their coffees were gone and their fingers were numb. The sun hadn’t quite set but the light had taken on a golden hue. Loops of red string stood out starkly against the stone pathway. It wove itself up the bench legs, twined around wrists and was held between fingers.

They had spoken more words to each other in a few hours than they had in all of their years of schooling. Not one of them was filled with the hate that used to coat so much of their language. Some of them had however been accompanied by tears.

Draco’s apology to her had been thoughtful and more detailed than she had expected
ed. He told her how often he and his Mind Healer had discussed her. He explained the resentment he had held towards her for breaking down so many of his fundamental beliefs. That she eroded all of the ideals that had been drilled into him since birth. That had been drilled into his entire family line since it’s very beginning.

She had not interrupted. Her silence began to make Draco nervous. Maybe he was doing it all wrong, saying it all wrong. She was usually so opinionated and was never one to hold back.

But she had stayed quiet through it all. Her shoulder pressed to his while they both looked at the river and he spoke. He spoke until the words ran dry. Then she slid her hand into his and entwined their fingers. She looked at him with the hazel eyes that he thought of too often and said, “Thank you. I forgave you a long time ago but thank you.” He could only nod in response, unshed tears choking back his words.

Draco held his string tightly as he described his condition after Azkaban. Tear drops slid down Hermione’s face as she listened.

“Why did you leave?” He asked her after a long silence.

“A number of reasons.” She blew out a breath and shut her eyes. “Watching your trial and what happened after it, I realized so much of what we fought for hadn’t changed. The anger and hate was just directed differently. The resentment and the corruption were still there.”

“I’m sorry.” No number of hours with a Mind Healer had helped him with the guilt of his next statement. “I’m sorry you lost your friends because of me.”

Her head whipped around to face him. “I did not lose them because of you.” She said it so firmly. “I did not and I can see on your face that it isn’t the first time you’ve been told that.”

She took a deep breath and he suppressed a smile. He could tell there was a Hermione Granger Rant coming along. He had seen and heard many of them, sometimes directed at him but this was the first time it felt like one was for him.

“My friends—” She ground out the word. “Chose to stay in a prejudiced mindset that I do not agree with. What Harry said during your trial—” She squeezed the hand she had not let go of, he had not realized that it felt like a permanent lifeline. “It sealed your sentencing. We all knew it. He as The Chosen One” The words came out bitter. “Had more sway than anyone else in that court room. And he knew it. He knew the kind of impact his words would have. Harry may not have known everything about you. About us—” She looked down at the red string that had wrapped itself around their wrists and a small smile crept across her face, cutting into her anger. It faded quickly. “I never told him about this. About the strings. But he knew how I felt about you going to Azkaban. He knew it was wrong too. He just let that old hate and rivalry take over.”

Draco tried to let his own resentment of Harry Potter roll off his shoulders. He took three deep breaths. “I don’t blame him.” He huffed out a laugh at her disbelieving look. “Okay, I did blame him.”

He thought back to his outlook just after Azkaban. “I blamed Potter for Azkaban. I blamed my father, for so many reasons. For instilling his beliefs in me, for my own Branding.” He took a breath to steady himself. “I blamed Dumbledore. He knew what I was tasked with, knew I didn’t want to do it and didn’t offer to help me until literally the last moment.” Hermione made a sound of agreement. She had many feelings on the old headmaster and not many were positive.

“But after two years and all of the Mind Healing, I finally accepted that I don’t necessarily need to blame anyone. It all happened. I did terrible things.” He cut her off as she tried to interrupt, an outraged look coming over her face. “I was forced to do some terrible things yes, but I still did them. I hurt people. People were hurt because of me. I have to own my part in that.” He was quiet for a moment, absently running his thumb over her hand, brushing up against the string wound around them. “I wrote a lot of apology letters during my house arrest.”

She looked at him quizzically. “Did you send them?”

“I did.” Then he quickly added as he saw her face begin to fall. “I wrote you so many but I didn’t want to say it all in a letter. It didn’t feel like it was enough.” He looked into her eyes and hoped he conveyed everything he felt. “Hurting you feels like the most terrible thing I’ve done. I know I apologized and you said you forgive me, which I honestly cannot thank you for enough. But it doesn’t change the fact that it happened”

They were both quiet for a long while. The waves from the boats passing through the water the only sound to be heard.

“So what now?” She finally asked the question that had been swirling in her mind.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. False confusion written across his face.

She pushed through. She was a Gryffindor for a reason. “Well is this your in person letter that you’re finally sending so you can get closure?” She unconsciously gripped his hand tighter. “Or is this—“ Her heart stuttered. Bravery. She could—

He got there before she did. “I hope it’s more than that.”

His eyes were like liquid silver. She saw that same hope from the coffee shop swim in them now.

He took a breath and looked away from her, gathered his own courage.

“Would you like to have dinner with me?”

“Yes.” The word was out of her mouth before he had finished the statement.

A beat passed between them before a smile broke across his face. It was breathtaking. She had never seen that smile on him before. Smirks. Sneers. The quirking of his lips when he’d successfully brewed a potion. But never this smile. It captivated her.

“I can cook for you, if you’d like?” He was trying to hold onto his confidence.

“You cook?”

Hermione looked at him with such a look of shock that he laughed. A full, beautiful laugh. “The elves taught me.” His smile stayed. “Mother freed them after someone— convinced her.” He looked at her with a mock accusatory glare, she met his gaze with a level one of her own. She had no issue debating House Elf rights. “They decided that I needed to learn to fend for myself. I think they were also bored. And enjoyed bossing someone around rather than being given orders themselves.” Her heart warmed at his words and the grin that never left his face. “It was a lot like potions. So yes, Hermione, I cook.”

The way he said her name, the way his eyes shone with a levity she had never seen in them before and that beautiful smile stole any response she might have had.

“What?” He finally asked as the silence stretched between them.

The look she gave him left Draco without words as well. She looked so focused, so intent. He had seen her with that look so many times. Absorbed in whatever she was reading. It had never been directed at him before.

“You have become a good man Draco Malfoy.” Her voice was soft but strong. Her words gave him a courage Godric Gryffindor would have been proud of.

He reached with his free hand and tucked a curl that had been lazily flying by her face behind her ear. He heard her breath catch and saw her eyes flick to his mouth. He leaned in slowly. He wanted to give her the chance to pull away. It would hurt, but it had to be her choice too.

She did not pull away. When his hand found the side of her face and his thumb ran along her jaw she leaned into it.

When his lips did finally meet hers it did not feel like an ending. Hermione would think later how so many stories ended with a kiss and a Happily Ever After. But this kiss did not feel like an ending.

It was a beginning.

When they finally broke apart, she felt breathless but managed a question.

“So, dinner?”

Their string tugged them from the bench and his smile was answer enough.

Chapter Text

December 2003

He was late.

He was never late.

Hermione swirled her spoon in her tea that had long since gone cold. If Narcissa had been there she would have scolded her for fidgeting. She could remember another time when she been too unfocused to read in this same cafe. A different book. A different year. She sighed and looked again at the red door across the cafe. She tried to push her irritation down. He was never late, there had to be a reason.

She knew there was no reason to panic, she would have felt that. Their string often conveyed strong emotions. She closed her eyes and could feel a small amount of nerves from him and an almost overwhelming sense of excitement. That quashed any irritation with curiosity on what exactly had him feeling that way.

She felt a tug on her wrist and a smile pulled at her lips.

She glanced down and saw her string pulled tight leading away from her, it’s brilliance reflected as it caught the light.

The bell chimed as he entered. He was more graceful this time. The air around him was not full of anxiety but anticipation.

Draco Malfoy strode toward her with a confidence that his younger self would hardly recognize. Gone was the self important prat who looked down on everyone around him. He had also left behind the damaged man who thought he was not worthy of love and happiness. Instead, he walked towards her with a smirk on his lips that spoke of a deep contentment she knew he had never thought he would deserve or achieve.

“I know I’m late.” He started before even greeting her. “I promise there’s a good reason.”

She lifted one eyebrow. A skill she was proud to have learned from him. “And that is?”

His smirk turned into a smile full of promise. “Let’s take a walk.”

With a small laugh she shook her head and took his hand. She would follow him anywhere.

She was not too surprised to find he had led them along the same path that followed the Seine that they had walked three years ago. It was a path they took often but she realized it had been a few months since they had last visited.

The contented silence was broken by her small gasp as they came to where their favorite bench had been. The entire area had been recently renovated. While the new seating had been updated from it’s predecessor, it lacked the same charm and familiarity. It also was a piece of their history.

She turned to Draco, her eyes full of a loss only he would understand and was disappointed to find his expression had not dropped as her’s had. Instead he was smiling.

Before her disappointment could turn to anger, he squeezed her hand and dropped a kiss to her forehead, an action that always calmed her.

“Do you trust me?” He asked, a spark of mischief in his grey eyes.

She squinted at him. “Always.”

His smile widened. He tugged her around a corner and disapparated on the spot.

They landed in the garden facing their Parisian town home. They had argued over whether a five bedroom house could really be called that but he insisted. When his comparison was a Manor with more bedrooms than could be counted, she had decided his view was slightly skewed.

With a grin on his face he turned her.

There, under a cluster of trees, was their bench.

She could tell there had been some magic involved. The wood looked restored and it had been repainted. Red.

“Do you like the color?” For the first time that day she heard nerves in his voice.

She spun in his arms and kissed him. She felt him smile against her lips as he got his answer. He tugged her toward the bench and pulled her down so she fell across his lap.

“Not quite the same arrangement as the first time.” She said with a laugh as she settled herself against him.

“Not quite.” He agreed with a chuckle that vibrated through her.

She intertwined their fingers and wrapped the string that was often present around their linked hands. The gold glinted in the dying sunlight, matching the shade of the rings that adorned their fingers.

December 2002

The day had been cold. Not the biting cold that comes with a deep freeze but cool enough to require heating charms. The snow had cooperated and was a light dusting over the garden.

The ceremony was held in the gardens of Narcissa’s home where she resided just outside of Paris. Even in winter, magical roses were abundant.

Unlike the expected production of a Malfoy wedding, it was small, intimate. The only attendants were their friends made in France, the few still in touch from England and a handful of colleagues and mentors from their chosen fields.

Draco was the one to watch as Hermione made her way through the garden. The usually stoic man, only readable to those closest to him, was an open book in those moments. His face full of love and devotion for the woman walking towards him. Her dress matched the season with its long lace sleeves. His breath had caught in his throat as he saw the slightest glimpse of red in the layers of her skirt, matching both the roses she held and the one pinned to his lapel. And most importantly, matching their string.

Her mentor had been their bonder. After countless hours of searching, Hermione had found a spell that made their string visible to the guests for the duration of the ceremony. The red was vibrant against the snow and pulsed in anticipation.

Declarations of love were said, vows were made, and the last step was one no one present had previously witnessed. Their string was wrapped around their joined hands, and through magic and time and space their souls were bound eternally. The red enveloping their hands shone too bright for the eye to see and when the light faded their string glinted in the sun. It was no longer red but a brilliant gold.

“Any lifetime, I will find you.” Draco said low enough for only Hermione to hear.

With tears in her eyes she kissed her husband, surrounded by a sea of gold connecting them.

Present

“Where did you go just now?” Draco asked as the sun sank further into the horizon. The winter air nearest to them was tempered by heating charms but the rest garden still held a light layer of frost.

Hermione smiled, “I was thinking of our wedding.”

Draco kissed her temple. “One of the best days of my life.”

“Not the best?” Hermione’s question was teasing but real.

Draco gazed at their house. Their home. Full of red coffee mugs and picture frames, red rugs and throw pillows. Their home was filled with far too much red for any respectable Slytherin. However, since their wedding and the change in the color of their string, they both liked the reminder. He had lived so long avoiding it, only to have it bring him to her. Of all the places he had lived, this town house had felt the most like home. But he knew that was because it was where she was. Wherever Hermione was would always be home.

“No.” He said with a small smile and tightened his arm around her. “The first time you told me you loved me, the first time you told me I was your home. That was the best day.”

Hermione felt his voice resonate through her and laid her head on his shoulder. “I do love you and you will always be my home.”

May 2001

Ending up on the velvet grey couch in Draco’s flat had become their regular routine for most Sunday afternoons. Breakfast was often a drawn out affair, Draco experimenting with recipes and Hermione reading various papers and correspondence aloud for them both. Some weeks involved culinary disasters and difficult news stories while others involved creative delicacies and tales of Luna and Theo’s latest creature hunting adventures.

Those mornings were enjoyable, a time Draco looked forward to all week and mourned on the rare weekend they had conflicting plans. However, Sunday afternoons were his favorite. After all the morning’s indulgence, Hermione would curl up on his couch to read with her head in his lap. It never took long for her book to drop from her hands as she fell asleep while he ran his fingers through her curls.

On one May afternoon, Draco watched Hermione’s habitual waking up routine. The stretching of her back, the wiggling of her toes, and the slow blinking that brought her to awareness.

She looked up at him, not fully awake. He couldn’t help but to smile down at her, the actions so familiar to him and said in a teasing tone, “How do you always end up falling asleep? I would have thought Jane Austen would have kept you up this time.”

“I can’t help it, you just feel like—“ She paused, searching for the right word. “Home.”

Draco felt his chest compress and expand all in the same moment. The emotion running through him too powerful to name. He closed his eyes and let the words sink in.

“You are my home Hermione.”

Now fully awake, she pushed herself up on her elbows to bring her face closer to his. Her smile was blinding. “ Draco Malfoy, I love you.”

That was the emotion that was overwhelming him. Love. He dropped his forehead to hers.

“I love you too Hermione Granger.”

He kissed her until he couldn’t breathe and it still didn’t feel like it was enough. He didn’t think it would ever be enough.

He looked down to see the floor was littered with loops of red thread spiraling through the room.

He wrapped a length of it around her left ring finger and promised himself he would marry her one day.

Present

“That was also the day I knew I was going to ask you to marry me.” Draco was not sure if he had ever told her that before. “I walked around with that ring in my pocket for three months before I found the nerve to ask you. Theo thought I would either end up proposing to you in the middle of an argument or just blurting it out accidentally while drunk or during sex.”

She laughed and looked up at him with a knowing smile.

“You knew? For how long?” He demanded incredulously, not quite believing that look on her face. But she was Hermione Granger.

“About two and a half of those three months. For a Slytherin, you are not as sneaky as you think, love.” Mischief danced in her eyes with her teasing tone.

He let out an indignant huff. “Just for that I think you owe me dinner.”

“But it’s so much better when you make it.” She kissed him slowly, her hand carding through his hair.

He nipped her bottom lip playfully. “Fine. But you have to tell me how you knew.”

She laughed, pulling him up with her and gave him a contemplative look. “Deal.”

He threaded his fingers through hers and led her towards the house, golden thread trailing behind them.

Red string had brought them together and gold would follow them through lifetimes.