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Chapter Text

Nothing ever felt new here. Even when it was, it felt dated and cheap.

The dark wood floor of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was riddled with scratches, dings, and pockmarks. Despite innumerable charms applied, its boards insisted on creaking loudly beneath even the lightest steps. Hermione’s desk chair was just as stubborn, squeaking obnoxiously no matter how many times she aimed her wand at the coils beneath the seat.

“Listen to me carefully, please,” Hermione repeated herself tersely. Her chair gave a screech. “You can’t simply ignore the Muggle-repelling charms just because you think Muggles are cute with your crups. If you continue to flout these laws, your crups will be confiscated. This isn’t a question, Mr. Davies.” 

The older man slouched before her in a wooden chair, wringing his aged hands; blue veins stood prominent on his swollen knuckles. He worked his jaw back and forth in thought, likely trying to come up with another argument for her about the harmlessness of crups to Muggles.

A shadow fell across them from her cubicle entrance. 

“Hermione, can I—oh, sorry,” Thomas’s permanently hunched shoulders rounded further as he pulled a sheepish grin. “Didn’t realise you were busy.” 

She looked sternly at Mr. Davies, “That’s quite alright, Thomas. We’re actually finished here.”

“We are?” Mr. Davies croaked. 

“We are,” she said, gesturing towards the dark wood frame that constituted a sort of quasi-door to her cubicle. 

Mr. Davies hunched over further and scowled. “Fine. I’ll think about those charms.” 

“No.” Her tone brooked no argument. “You will use those charms, or you will lose the crups.”

He shuffled out, muttering something about impertinent girls, a string of foul names following after. Hermione gave a weary sigh and turned toward her desk, a Victorian relic with its angled drafting table top and a flat space in the back for books, her memo basket, and a bud vase with the same sad, dried-out anemone she had placed there to celebrate a successful first month at this job mere weeks before. A set of reference books, new and crisp, sat beside a little placard, somehow already tarnished in the weeks since her arrival that read, ‘Hermione Granger, junior counsel.’

“What is it, Thomas?” 

He gave her a half smile. “Do you know you sound a bit like Professor McGonagall sometimes?” His eyes were curved into half-moons behind his bottle glasses. 

A flush crept up her neck; she tamped down a grin. “Well, I only hope my little lecture will be effective. Didn’t seem to be well received.” 

He tsked. “Never mind that. I need you to look at this and tell me what’s wrong.” She took the case brief he held out towards her. “Penelope says ‘nothing,’” he went on, running a hand through his hair, “but that’s bollocks because Wexford isn’t having it, only he says he doesn’t ‘have the time to explain incompetence’.” 

Hermione’s mouth flattened into a line as she read over it. Mr. Wexford was not her favourite senior counsel on the staff. Pretentious, exacting, and unwilling to explain why he was displeased when work wasn’t up to the quality he preferred. Noticing the syntactic errors, she lifted her wand and tapped, adjusting as needed.  

“I’m sure you could have done this yourself,” she said, raising her eyes to Thomas. 

Leaning heavily against the frame of her cubicle entrance, he sighed, “Maybe, but you do it much faster and better. And I’m desperately short on time.” He glanced at his watch, “I’ve got a meeting with those magizoologists here in a few.” 

“The unicorn?” 

“Yes.” He rubbed his eyes, stifling a yawn. “And Verity’s out, so I’m on my own.”

She hummed in reply. Dark circles rimmed his eyes. Thomas Pickford had been here the full six years since leaving Hogwarts. He was an invaluable asset as a clerk—clever, knowledgeable, and patient—but since the bleak years of Voldemort’s return, the already stretched department had been grossly underfunded and understaffed. In the legal offices, the two clerks suffered the most for it.  

“Where’s Verity?” She tapped the case brief with one last correction and passed it back to him. 

“Hugged a niece with spattergroit, apparently.” The edge of his mouth quivered in amusement that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You know how she is.”

“Oh, god,” Hermione groaned, “how long is St. Mungo’s admitting her this time?” 

“Only five days for observation. Grudgingly, might I add.” He huffed a laugh. “Didn’t hear Ms. Bhatt go on about it this morning?” 

She shook her head, glancing at her docket for the day. Her next meeting wasn’t for several hours, and she had already finished the last two compliance warnings. 

“Want me to meet with them for you?” She asked. 

Thomas stood straighter, his eyes widening. “Would you? Hermione, you have no idea how much that would help. I’ll be able to get home only an hour late; I’d started thinking it would be three.” 

“It’s not a problem at all. Bring me that file, would you? I need to give it a glance before they arrive.” 

He tapped his nose and stepped away. Seconds later, he was back with a slim file for her.

“Right, well, you’ve got twelve minutes, so brush up,” he sighed, a bit of tension easing from around his eyes. “Thanks, Hermione. I really appreciate it.” 

She waved him off with a smile. 

As he turned away, Hermione flipped the file open with fervour. It would be a lie to say she was entirely motivated by kindness. She had only been with the legal offices in the Magical Creatures Department (as she thought of it since ‘Regulation’ and ‘Control’ seemed like brutal words) for seven weeks. While the clerks and at least one of her fellow junior counsels had immediately considered her knowledgeable and ready, the senior counsels had yet to give her much to do beyond dealing with compliance issues. Perfectly fine for getting to know the work, but too dry and tedious to pique her interest. 

Hermione’s eyes breezed over the information hungrily, her heartbeat picking up tempo. There wasn’t much time. Key details only, she reminded herself.  

Ten minutes later, she was perched on the edge of a wobbly wooden chair in a small room used for departmental inquiries. Dark wood panelling lined the walls illuminated by magically powered incandescent bulbs in high sconces; their filaments shone like golden rods, bathing the room in a warm glow.

The two magizoologists in question looked irritated to be there. One drummed her fingers on the table, lips pursed, gaze resting off to the side, and the other leaned forward with his chin on his hand, a scowl pulling at his features.

“Look, there hadn’t been a sighting of one in that area in decades, so of course, it was all surprising,” he explained while his partner drum, drum, drummed. “We cast the usual charms and kept our distance, just trying to determine how best to trap it and move it off to one of the preserves.” 

“Is that the standard procedure?” Hermione asked, jotting notes, her quill scratching irritatingly over parchment.

He sighed heavily. “Yes, of course it is. When the report came in of it—“ 

“Someone in the Cotswolds,” his partner added without looking over. 

“—we investigated immediately, thinking it was probably a mistake. Just a mundane horse catching the moonlight or something. But it wasn’t.” 

“And how far is the nearest preserve or enchanted forest?” 

“Wales.” The magizoologist, who hadn’t spoken much, finally looked at Hermione.

“Alright, so you were pursuing a probable unicorn in a place that unicorns are not known to frequent and casting the usual protection charms, etcetera. Correct?” 

“That’s right.” 

“Then what happened?” 

The first magizoologist sighed and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s when we stumbled into the forest. Look, we all know about it, and to be careful. We knew some of what to anticipate. We’ve read the reports.” Hermione was now leaning so far forward on her chair that she was barely making contact with it. She had read the reports too. Harry had told her a little as well, mere glimpses of information portioned out in crumbs. A thousand questions swirled in her mind.

“So when we crossed its borders, we were alert and cautious but didn’t think too much of it,” he went on. “The unicorn is still within our jurisdiction to pursue, so we did. Only… then the trees started to move. It was like they wanted to shield it or something.” 

“Yes, yes, it’s an enchanted forest. But here’s the thing,” his partner cut in sharply, “it’s still not an officially sanctioned preserve, so we still needed to move the unicorn.” 

He nodded with her and added, “Anyway, so we cut a bit of a path in pursuit.” 

“Cut a path? What charms did you use?” She asked, making note as they detailed the Diffindos they had cast through the verdure. But no matter what they sliced, the forest grew back, obscuring their path. 

“Eventually, by some miracle, we got through and caught up with it in a little clearing by a stream. We cast Arresto Momentum to slow it down, approached and sedated the unicorn, and then sent the signal for an emergency portkey to help us remove the creature. Everything was by the book… until he showed up.” 

His partner scoffed and shook her head. “Don’t know what he thinks he’s about acting like some sort of Lord of the Forest or something.” 

“It is his estate…” Hermione hedged. 

“Oh yes,” the magizoologist said, rolling her eyes. “You don’t need to tell us twice. Gods, I’ve heard that plenty over these last couple of years, and honestly, I’m sick of it. So what if it’s his land or whatever,” she threw up a hand in exasperation, “these creatures are under the jurisdiction of this department to manage and control. So we were there doing exactly that, and we have every right to do that anywhere in the United Kingdom!” 

Hermione tapped her quill pensively against her cheek. “Not necessarily. The problem, as I know you are well aware,” she began carefully, “is that it is private property, and because there are no recent codified laws about the distinction between private forest and public forest, the old laws stand, and that means that any creature that sets foot on that land is in a disputed claim.” 

“For now,” the first magizoologist muttered. “So, what? His claim that we were trespassing and interfering with game on his land is accurate?” His eyes round in disbelief.

Hermione nodded slowly. “Technically, yes. But we’ll work through it. He has dropped most other accusations before—”

“I don’t see why he should have any right to own the land at all,” the man groused.

Hermione’s quill moved methodically over her notes. “We enforce the law as it stands, not as we wish it to be.”

“Yes, but the unicorn,” the second magizoologist interrupted, her voice now fully animated. “That beautiful creature is still there. How can we trust a unicorn—a creature so pure—to a Malfoy?” 

࿐ ࿔*

Crisp grey robes hung from her shoulders. Delicate, blackwork embroidery adorned the cuff of the long sleeves. The motif continued at her throat, where a simple collar rose in the back before tapering elegantly down the front. Hermione twisted her hair up into a top knot, curly tendrils escaping here and there. 

Let them be a little wild, she thought. Let them tangle about the new robes and hint at her recklessness, her unquenchable boldness. 

Grey fabric swished gently about her simple black shift dress and billowed beautifully in the back as she walked through the Atrium at the Ministry of Magic. Elegant and fitted well to her form, one of five she had purchased for herself to celebrate finishing her articled clerkship in August, she wore them like armour as she strode through this place filled with people who, only a few short years before, had sanctioned policies that criminalised her for nothing more than having the audacity to live. 

Her chin tipped higher at the thought. Fuck them. 

The lift dropped, slid to the side, shot backward, and dinged to a stop on the fourth floor. Her jet-black flats tapped gently on the wood, which creaked and groaned beneath her. Paper aeroplanes zinged to and fro about the entrance to the Magical Creatures Department. A door slammed against the wall near the Beast Division.

“It’s the Dragon preserve again!” 

“Which one?” 

“Snowdonia.” 

A maelstrom of magizoologists gathering equipment, pulling on outer robes, and dashing away rushed by her. She navigated through them like a salmon swimming upstream. 

At the Spirit Division, a ghost shot across the corridor from one office into another. Frigid tendrils of air licked about her cheeks as they crossed her path. A beleaguered witch swore and hurled freezing and binding spells at it as she dashed across in its wake.

As Hermione passed through the Being Division, a cacophony spilled from conference room three. The notice outside told her all she needed to know: Goblin negotiations. Penelope Clearwater, one of her fellow junior counsels, along with senior counsel Ms. Bhatt, would be inside. Commanding tones cut through the din; she wondered with a grin which woman they belonged to.

At the end of the corridor stood the last, lonely door, ‘the necessary evils’ as others sometimes joked: the legal department. 

“Morning, Thomas,” Hermione greeted as she walked in. He grunted and held up a file for her. 

“Migraine day, keep it down if you can,” he said softly. 

She patted his shoulder lightly as she walked by. The slight flicker in the filaments of the magically powered bulbs may be a charming feature of the building but must be an awful nuisance to migraine sufferers. Pausing by her cubicle entrance, she lifted her wand and, with a twist, stabilised the room’s light. 

Settling into the chair at her desk, she breathed deeply, savouring the quiet that lingered in the room. It wouldn’t last. It never did. 

She was only three paragraphs into a non-compliance notice when chair legs scraped at the tables in the main room, and voices reached her ears. 

Two long trestle tables dominated the centre of the legal department. Junior counsels worked there alongside the two clerks most of the time. It was more practical to share the space than to shout across cubicles all day. She continued scratching away while listening to the buzz in the room with half an ear. 

“Laurie Pole, Laurie Pole…Why does that name sound familiar?” Asked a tenor voice—likely John Wolcott.

“She’s the one doing that study at the Malfoy estate,” Jude Welbeck replied. Both men were fellow junior counsels, each several years older than herself. 

“Ah, yes, that’s right.”

“I thought that was a team of Unspeakables?” Thomas wondered aloud.

“It was, but that was before whatever he did to get rid of them. She’s the only one Malfoy’s let near the estate to write the report for the Wizengamot,” Jude informed him in superior tones. He scoffed. “As if it should be up to him. Bastard’s lucky to have kept the place, if you ask me.” 

“How long has she been at it now, anyway?” John asked.

“Nearly a year.” 

“Absurd! Would have been less than half that with a good team.” 

Jude hummed in reply, then asked something about the legal memo John had written that morning. 

A blot of ink had stained Hermione’s non-compliance report. With a vexed wave of her hand, she removed the evidence of her distraction. 

࿐ ࿔*

“But I would have been killed if I hadn’t done it!” A short, stout man covered in old burn scars and with uneven hair—likely the result of having it singed repeatedly, stood before her in the conference room, arms crossed over his barrel chest. 

Ms. Bhatt pinched the bridge of her nose. “Can you explain to me again, in detail, why you felt you needed to bring down the wards in that area?” 

Hermione sat beside her, taking notes. The scratch of her quill against the parchment grated on her nerves. She cast a wandless silencing charm over them. Ms. Bhatt, darted a surreptitious glance at her as the noise ceased while her quill’s flourishes continued on. 

“Well, the Welsh Green had been ill for a few days, you see,” he began, “on account of the virus that’s been going around the reserve. And I was out to check up on it. This was pretty close to the boundary wards, which was a bit unusual, but no matter. Anyway, I crept up there all stealthy-like—which I am, mind.” Hermione and Ms. Bhatt looked at him in identical expressions of disbelief, scanning him from head to toe. “I must have stepped on a branch or something because the next thing I know, the beast is rearing up at me and spitting fire, until the whole clearing was alight! Well, I wasn’t about to stay there and be roasted, was I? So I raised the wards and got out.” 

“Did you turn back to check that the wards were secured again?” Ms. Bhatt asked. 

Red splotches mottled his face and neck. “Er, well, not exactly. No.” 

“Right. Mr. Farley, I'm sorry to say it, but it’s a pretty clear case of negligence on your part.” 

“But I can’t lose this job!” He implored, hands thrusting into his ruddy hair. “I just can’t! It’s everything to me!” 

“Is it? You’ve only been at the Snowdonian Reserve for…” Ms. Bhatt pretended to check the file as though she didn’t remember. Hermione tried not to grin at the little affectation she had noticed the senior counsel employing. The woman’s memory was eidetic and flawless. “Seven months,” she pronounced. “And before that, it looks like you were dismissed from the Romanian Reserve.” 

The mottled splotches joined together on his face to form a red continent. 

“And it seems like the reason you were dismissed there was carelessness with wards. Again.” Ms. Bhatt fixed him with a steady gaze. “You were lucky in Romania that your colleagues noticed the problem and sorted it out quickly. Here, however…” 

Here, the Welsh Green had escaped, flown fifty-three miles, and sneezed fire all over several Muggle small-holdings completely obliterating them. 

“You’re quite lucky that no Muggles were harmed. But the damages are severe. Let’s go over what comes next as charges are, indeed, being pressed…”

The red on his face receded first into deathly white and then took on a greenish pallor. Mr. Farley sunk into a chair that creaked beneath him.

࿐ ࿔*

The pile of compliance notices was unending. A constant issue. Cast your wards and your charms, she urged over and over and over. A relentless stream of the same tediousness reminding, cajoling, haranguing. Give it a week or two and nearly all of these people would do it again. 

“Alright, how was the second month?” Harry asked through a bite of coronation chicken sandwich over lunch. “Better than the first?” 

Hermione speared a tomato and fixed him with a grim look, “More or less the same, actually.” 

“Merlin, sorry about that.” 

“It’ll get better. They just have me doing this until they’re confident in my abilities…or desperate…whichever comes first.”

“My money is on the latter,” he said, chewing noisily. “Everyone is short-staffed. One sick person and just watch, your office will be thrown into chaos.” 

“It’s always a bit of chaos.”

“You just need to handle it for a few years, right?” 

“Yes, true. Just a few and then onward to found… to found… oh, blast, I still can’t think of a name,” she sighed and took a bite of salad. 

“It’ll come to you,” Harry assured with a grin, “and probably as something you can make a terrible acronym with.” 

“Shut up, Harry.”

She chewed thoughtfully for a moment, watching him across the canteen table.

“I did get one change of pace,” she said slowly. “Seems a unicorn made its way to Malfoy’s forest.” 

Hermione watched his face carefully. A subtle tightening around his eyes, a pursing of the lips and drawing down of the brows wrinkling his lightning bolt scar. Harry glanced off to the side. 

“You knew already.” 

His jaw tightening. “It’s complicated, Hermione,” he muttered.

Hermione sighed, laying her fork down and crossing her arms. “And?” 

“And nothing.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. 

“Can you at least tell me if the unicorn is still there?” She asked, her voice dropping low. 

Harry sighed and took a last bite of his sandwich, chewing slowly while he looked at her beneath furrowed brows. “Fine. Yeah, it’s there.” 

She let out a breath and chewed her lip. Harry studied her in return. 

“You tell me: will they use this to take the forest from him?” 

She met his stony gaze. It would be easy to say ‘no,’ and trust that was the truth. It’s what she would be told if she asked any of her colleagues the same questions. And yet. What was the Ministry if not a prejudiced chess master ready to press its advantage when it saw an opening? It wasn’t just a question of land or law—it was trust, fragile and frayed, waiting for a reason to break. 

“I honestly don’t know.”

࿐ ࿔*

“It’s official, Verity Blishen has spattergroit,” Mr. Wexford bellowed to the room at large the next morning. His voice was followed by the unmistakable slap of files on a tabletop. The remaining four junior counsels emerged from their cubicles as if summoned. 

“I’ll need all of you to divvy up her cases,” he added. “Ms. Granger.” She stepped closer. He slid a set of files to her down the table. “As least experienced, these will be yours.” 

Hermione scanned each rapidly. More tedious compliance-related items, but amongst the dross was a lone gem: the unicorn. Wexford must have noticed her name was already attached to the legal memo from the interview. 

A case that wasn’t a non-compliance issue. She bit back a grin. 

Likely, it would be handled simply. She would have to write to Malfoy’s solicitor and ask them to drop the complaint. It needn’t escalate further, and Malfoy had dropped most of them so far. 

What nagged at her was the unicorn. 

Need it really be moved? If it chose to live in the strange forest on the Malfoy estate, then what was wrong with that? Was it reasonable not to trust its safety with Malfoy? 

Yes, a voice in the back of her mind told her. Images of his sneering face in Care of Magical Creatures classes drifted before her. But they had only been children then, in that other life. That separate world before all of the rot festered and broke open to make magical society bleed. And now…now she did not know him and looking back told her nothing of the man. After all, she thought, the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. 

Chapter Text

Each post and lintel of Hermione’s life marked a transition—from sleepy bedroom to wakeful living space, from outside to inside. Choice and decision were wrapped in those steps through, beneath, between. The journey begins and ends with a single step across this demarcation. 

Five doors led from her bedroom to her dark wood desk in the legal offices of the Magical Creatures Department. Each door was a transition from one part of her life to another. From waking to washing to breakfast and tea. From the Atrium to the liminal space of the lift. From the corridor to Work. 

But one passage was not like the others. Staring into the flames of her fire, shimmering powder in her hand as her thumb swept back and forth over its surface, she contemplated the mask she donned. 

At home, Hermione curled up on her pillow-stuffed window seat, woollen socks or Crookshanks warming her feet. Her untamed curls cascaded over her shoulders, loose and free. Around her, a scattered array of books lay open—pages filled with arcane spells and intricate diagrams. With a playful wave of her wand, a teacup transformed into a tiny, fluttering bird that perched atop a stack of parchment. The vanilla and almond scent of old books mixed with the faint aroma of tea leaves, enveloping her in comfort. Here, she indulged in every magical curiosity, exploring complex charms and advanced transfigurations simply because she could.

But Floo fire burned that away. 

In tailored robes, she held her chin high and strode through the uninviting halls of the Ministry of Magic with purpose. She dared them to challenge her. She dared them to think of her blood.  

࿐ ࿔*

And why couldn’t they just comply anyway? How hard was it really for a person to read the laws and simply follow them? 

She glanced about, making sure no one could see into her cubicle. Reaching into a tiny bag with a single tassel, her arm disappeared up to her elbow. From deep inside the extended pouch, Hermione removed a fresh new treat for herself: a fountain pen. 

There were only so many little dots of ink one could scrub from one’s skin at the end of the day before deciding that, really, enough was enough. Quills were out for Hermione Granger; fountain pens were in. And migratory birds everywhere would be the better for it. 

The lovely flex nib slid over the parchment like a dream. She finished drafting three compliance notices in record time, without a single scratch to mar the experience. Amen and hallelujah. 

“You don’t happen to know the name of Malfoy’s solicitor, do you?” Hermione asked Eloise Midgen, the other clerk on staff. They sat together at one of the long trestle tables, papers and parchment fanned about them. Jude Welbeck was parked at the far end, one hand gripping his hair, hunched over a four-foot parchment with a stack of archaic-looking texts beside him. 

Eloise blinked up at her as though roused from a dream. “Sorry?” 

“The Malfoy solicitor—do you know the name?” 

“Oh, right! Yes, of course. Honestly, does a week go by when we don’t have to write them? Ryder, Trigg & Warren. Constance Trigg is who you want.” Eloise held Hermione’s gaze for a beat, then returned to her documents. 

Constance Trigg… The solicitor Hermione had clerked for over the past two years had mentioned her more than once in strident tones. She exhaled deeply and began composing her letter. They had dropped most of the complaints before; hopefully, this would be no different. 

The following morning, a response arrived, agreeing to withdraw the complaint, provided the magizoologists promised not to pursue the unicorn further. And therein lay the rub.

Hermione’s lips pressed into a thin line as she walked out of the office and down the corridor to the Beast Division. By far the largest in the Magical Creatures Department, the Beast Division was housed in a cavernous room filled with desks and the constant hum of chatter. Magizoologists roamed about the space. An unruly lot, by and large, with scowls and sighs ubiquitous. All had arrived here for the love of creatures and suffered the rude awakening of needing to regularly write and turn in paperwork. In a government organisation, adventures in the field came third to paperwork and bureaucratic drudgery. 

She walked purposefully to an office whose open door was located on the far wall. Three raps of her knuckles against the dark wood frame were followed by a crisp voice bidding her enter. 

The magizoologist who had tracked the unicorn to the Malfoy forest, who would hardly meet her eye during the interview days before, was sitting, booted feet propped on a half-opened drawer, making notes on a map of Wiltshire. 

“Ms. McLaggen, I think we need—” Hermione began. 

“May as well call me Sorcha,” the woman cut in, leaning back and resting her chin on her fist. “You’re here about the unicorn, aren’t you?” 

“Of course.” Hermione slid into the chair opposite. The office was a shared one with two other desks nearby, but right now, thankfully, they were on their own. 

“I’ve reached out to the Malfoy family’s solicitors,” Hermione began. “They're willing to drop all complaints provided you and your colleague agree not to pursue the unicorn further.”

Sorcha drummed her fingers restlessly on the armrest. “Why would we promise that? It isn’t a recognized reserve. Those are rare, endangered creatures who have dealt with enough thanks to habitat loss and poaching. Why would we leave one unprotected?” 

Hermione shifted, crossing one leg over the other. “I know the Malfoy forest is…unconventional, but it is enchanted, at least, and it does possess the requisite charms to keep Muggles from interfering. Do you think the unicorn could be safe there? Let me put it this way: what if we viewed the forest as an alternative habitat?"

Sorcha’s eyes narrowed, her chin tipped down as she regarded Hermione through dark brows. The woman was a formidable witch if chatter around the department was much to go by. Sitting under her glare, Hermione believed it. She bit her cheeks against a grin. 

“Is this forest a viable alternative? How can we know for certain? It’s a huge estate, I’ll grant you, but the whole nature of its emergence was alarming enough. And we don’t even really know what’s going on with the magic there yet. Is it even stable?” Sorcha leaned forward, elbows resting on her desk, palms spread across the map before her. “How much do you know about the forest?” she challenged. 

Hermione's fingers twisted at the fabric over her knee. “Not much,” she admitted. 

Sorcha’s lips pursed, her eyes narrowing. “More than I do, I’ll wager. I know Harry Potter’s been there often. You two still thick as thieves?” 

Hermione arched her brow. “I know you're as aware as I am how need-to-know the DMLE has been with information. Not to mention how private a person Draco Malfoy is. Anyway, you’re the one who has been to it, not me.” She studied the witch before her. “Would my assurance that the unicorn is probably safe there satisfy you?” 

“No, of course not,” Sorcha scoffed. “Your word isn’t enough for me to feel comfortable trusting that unicorn’s safety there. And even if I did,” she went on, growing more impassioned, “the thing is that I don’t like the idea of such a rare creature being in a place where—what?—any magizoologist who comes to check on it could have the DMLE alerted and be charged with trespassing, maybe even poaching? That’s leaving the creature’s care to the judgement of one person.” 

The distrust of that singular person hung thick in the air between them. 

Hermione nodded slowly. “Alright, so we need to work out a different solution.” Sorcha’s posture relaxed, a flicker of surprise crossing her features. Had she expected Hermione to fight her more on this? “The complaints won’t be dropped unless you leave the unicorn be, but you can’t agree to that. What will make you feel secure enough to reach an agreement?” 

“I want his permission to study the unicorn,” Sorcha said quickly. “He lets that Laurie Pole study the forest, doesn’t he? If he lets me study the unicorn, then I can consider leaving it there.” 

“That’s fair,” Hermione agreed, tapping her forefinger to her chin in thought. “It’s more than just a few random occurrences: creatures are clearly drawn to it in some way.” 

“Let’s hope Laurie Pole can tell us why,” Sorcha muttered, her tone biting. “If the department is ever going to accept that forest as a viable habitat, Malfoy needs to let magizoologists in; we won’t accept it otherwise.” Sorcha met her gaze and stared for a moment. “You knew Draco Malfoy in school, didn’t you?” 

“I did,” Hermione’s voice was flat. 

Sorcha’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think he’s trustworthy?” 

Hermione paused. She sighed and tipped her head back toward the ceiling. Watermarks stained the corner in overlapping rings, concentric waves rippling outward—evidence of years of slow, steady leaks. Each layer had grown into the next, yellows bleeding into browns, shifting with time, deepening, becoming something new until the old colour below was gone entirely.

“Maybe under usual circumstances, a few years past Hogwarts is hardly any time. But for some of us, there is this huge chasm between childhood and now.” She looked back at the other witch, meeting her studying gaze. “He was a little shit in school.” A snort of laughter burst from Sorcha. “But now, I don’t know. So much has happened. A megalomaniacal monster and his war, Azkaban, mandated rehabilitation, this forest…any one of those things would probably change a person, but all of them?” She shook her head, loose curls brushing about her cheeks. “I don’t know him at all now.” 

The two women sat in silence for a moment before Sorcha spoke again, her voice softer than before. “That doesn’t really answer my question.” 

“I don’t think I can,” Hermione replied, her brows furrowed. 

Her eyes scanned Sorcha’s desk making a quick study of the evidence before her: old texts about unicorns, hippogriffs, and other creatures sat between copper bookends on one side. The map of Wiltshire spread across the desk tracked their path from following the elegant creature that fateful night. But what captured her attention was a little tapestry in the corner that hung from a brass stand. On the fabric sat a unicorn chained to a tree encircled by a fence. Following her gaze, Sorcha leaned forward and turned the little tapestry into a clearer view. 

“It’s Muggle,” Hermione observed in surprise. 

“It is,” Sorcha said. “My mum brought it back for me from a museum in New York years ago.” Her fingers trailed the tasselled edge fondly. “We’re all bad for them and have been for centuries.” Her voice was low and laden with weariness. “I’m just—I just want what’s best for unicorns. And a Malfoy…”

“Did you know his wand core is unicorn hair?” Hermione mused. Sorcha’s eyes snapped to hers in surprise. 

“But those aren’t good for dark—” 

“Terrible for dark magic, actually.” Hermione straightened her robes and stood to leave. “I can’t tell you if he’s trustworthy or not; I don’t know. But I know what he’s not. I do feel the unicorn is safe—from him, at least.” 

Her steps back to the legal offices seemed to beat with a single question repeating over and over: Do you?

࿐ ࿔*

She sent her letter off to the owlery, where it would be fastened to the leg of a Ministry-employed bird and flown to wherever it was that Ryder, Trigg, & Warren were. Her fountain pen had left no smudges or blots and only the most crisp, artisanal lines, thank you very much. 

“It’s just bloody exhausting,” Jude’s voice carried into her cubicle. The slap of files onto the trestle table indicated how near he was. 

“Merlin,” Penelope groaned, the scrape of a chair against the scuffed floor following. “I don’t think we’re actually doing anything at all.” 

“Of course we’re not,” Jude scoffed. “They’d rather govern themselves.” 

“Well, they can’t. They are our responsibility, and that forest is under our care, not theirs. No matter what they think.” 

Hermione bit her lip, hot indignation rolling through her. Why did Penelope Clearwater want to be involved with the Centaur liaison offices if she insisted on maintaining such thinking? God, it wasn’t enough that the centaurs had been in the Forbidden Forest much longer than wizards had shown interest in it. 

Jude sighed audibly, “Yes, well, regardless. Generational tiffs like this are better managed within, I should think.” 

“All well and good to think so, but we need to be involved to make sure nothing occurs that would be outside of our interests.” Penelope sniffed. 

Hermione squeezed her pen, her knuckles growing white, and directed her attention back to her own work. 

Within an hour, a response from Constance Trigg was zooming into her basket. She hastily scribbled out a reply. No to this, yes to that, then paused. The smooth metal of the end of her pen slid over the rough grooves of her old desk. She traced a whirling pattern on its surface. 

They would have to meet, wouldn’t they? She could see the necessity of it mounting now—the issue would be circled over these coming letters. Would Draco Malfoy allow this magizoologist to be on his land in his forest for any length of time? Only if he met her. 

Her pen flashed across the paper, crafting a proposal. Why beat about the bush?

Two astonishingly brief hours later, another letter fluttered into her basket with their answer: yes. 

A smug grin curled Hermione’s lip as a satisfied flush crept up her chest. Then, as though with a bucket of ice water, it was doused. 

Oh bugger, she would have to see him too. 

࿐ ࿔*

Doors were passed through. The mask of work softened. She unpinned her hair from its twist, her curls cascading about her shoulders as she made the journey from the fourth floor to the Atrium. 

With the green flash of Floo fire, she stepped into a familiar parlour with original William Morris wallpaper featuring the Strawberry Thief motif, but with the little birds enchanted to swoop about every so often, stealing their precious berries and darting away to feast. Augusta Longbottom was not, perhaps, who Hermione would have expected to join the crusade against the wizarding penal system with her after the dust had settled from the Battle of Hogwarts. She had been even more surprised to learn that the formidable witch had already been part of this fight for many years. 

Then again, perhaps one could only see so many wrongful imprisonments and unchanged wizards before determining enough was enough. 

Meetings of the Order for Reasonable Consequences (ORC for short) occurred once a month, usually in Augusta’s well-appointed parlour. There had been a time when they met more frequently—sometimes many times a week. That was when everything was a mess, and the Order of the Phoenix was seizing the Ministry, and investigations were ongoing, and—gods, while the grief and chaos had flooded in on them—arrests were made, and trials were slated. 

And faces of former classmates, harrowed with fear, backgrounded by Azkaban's stone walls, splashed across the Daily Prophet. And Harry was furious with impotent rage—too low as a trainee to help, yet too burdened with social clout not to—and Hermione couldn’t stand by and watch this onslaught of injustice.

Thoughts of Sirius, head bowed in defeat high in that tower, the look of soul-searing hope in his eyes as they flew to him, memories of Hagrid locked away on a word of bygone suspicion, all swirled in her mind. Where had the Veritaserum questioning been for either man? Where was the sense of justice? It was as ruthless as Tudor England. 

And what hope could the young people she knew who had been involved now expect if Sirius Black, barely a man himself, had been thrown away to be forgotten on conjecture alone? 

She wrote letters calling for criminal justice reform. She railed about wizarding inhumanity against the progressive spirit of Muggle law. Then, Kingsley Shacklebolt quietly gave her a slip of paper with a name. And now…and now here she was. 

“Hermione, my dear, it is so good to see you!” A warm baritone voice remarked as its owner stepped toward her and clasped her hand. 

“All right, Dr. Carter? How is Michaelmas going so far?” she asked with a smile. 

Dr. Carter was perhaps the warmest, most surprising member of this little circle she had joined. An alchemist with one foot in the wizarding world and another in the Muggle one, he taught the history of science with a specialty in Medieval Alchemy at Oxford, all while taking on magical apprentices here and there. 

“Well enough, I suppose.” He gave a little shrug of a tweed-adorned shoulder. She knew he found the cliché funny and enjoyed dressing to it. “Same old, same old, isn’t it? Well, maybe not entirely the same. Theo’s got a new line of inquiry that we’re both getting a bit obsessed about. Wish I could devote more hours in the alchemy lab, but alas, can’t skip my Muggle lectures.” 

Hermione smirked at that. “Isn’t he coming tonight?” 

He shook his head. “But I’m supposed to give you this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a hastily scrawled note on a ripped piece of paper: Leaky after you Orcs meet - Theo. 

“Suppose I’ll join you if you don’t mind,” he said, eyes glittering behind horn-rimmed spectacles.
 
“Don’t be silly; of course, we’d love you to join. Besides.” She cleared her throat and glanced surreptitiously at the three other ORCs (damn you, Harry, for that) tight in rapid conversation across the room. “I’ve got something I’m working on that you have particular ties to. I could use a little advice.” 

He arched a single brow at her, a look of mischief playing about his face. Tapping his nose, he muttered, “Say no more.” 

There was an agelessness to Dr. Carter. As he turned from her to speak to another member just now arriving with a whoosh of the Floo, she studied his face as she always did. Wrinkles creased the edges of his eyes and grey dusted his temples, fading into short dark brown hair. His cheekbones were high and round, and his jaw was wide with permanent smile lines adorning the edges of his mouth. How old might he be? Fifty? Seventy? Ninety-five? With wizards—especially alchemists—it was impossible to say. 

As usual, it was mere seconds before someone else had swept her up in conversation, asking about her job and how she was getting on in the Department. There was no need for artifice here. Everyone in this room found Ministerial ways abhorrent. Wizarding politics existed on a razor’s edge, as the rise of every bloody-minded powerful wizard in the last century showed. Progressive today, draconian tomorrow.

Soon, they were all seated in their familiar circle, discussing progress made and what still needed to be done. Yes, yes, said someone; of course, there was continued pressure to make Muggle Studies mandatory at Hogwarts, but you know how it is? Frustrated murmurs chorused agreement around the room. After all, hadn’t they all seen what horror pureblood ideology wrought in their courts and school? 

Augusta leaned forward in her deep chair and informed everyone of the present state of things at Azkaban. She had visited it herself only the week before. Grim, as always, needlessly dehumanising, as always. But the Dementors were long gone, and now letters would be allowed. A sheet was passed around to sign up for inmates to write to. 

Hermione felt herself stretching a little thin, but the image of Theodore Nott as Harry had described him, sitting on that sagging cot, innocent by any measure yet wan and filled with terror, flooded her mind, and she scribbled down her name next to two slots. 

But we have made so much progress, someone else reminded them all in a hopeful tone, and eyes shifted toward Dr. Carter, who had given much of himself to his guiding belief in the potential for change. Dr. Carter’s sense of rehabilitative justice wasn’t just a philosophy—it had driven him to take direct action, guiding a young wizard toward rehabilitation through his own brand of compassionate discipline.

But had that crucial work been enough? Had Dr. Carter’s charge—and, in some ways, his case study—truly changed? Hermione wondered. 

She would see for herself soon, she supposed.

࿐ ࿔*

Merlin, did the floor at the Leaky have to be this sticky all the time? She flicked her wand at it, casting a quick scourgify. Her charms were excellent, so as her heel separated from the wood below with a nasty squick only a step later, Hermione grudgingly accepted that perhaps this centuries-old floor was beyond the hope of intervention. 

“And where were you this time?” She asked, sliding into a chair at a table in the corner nearest the fire. Three candles hovered in the air above the table, casting strange shadows over their faces. 

“I’m allowed to miss, you know,” Theo protested, taking a sip of whiskey. 

With long, reedy legs sprawled out before him, Theodore Nott regarded her through permanently half-lidded brown eyes so dark as to appear almost black, one thick eyebrow cocked, and a smirk carving a little crease into his cheek. Atop his head was a curly mop of hair that flopped rakishly over his forehead. His clothes were in an affected state of dishevelment. Fine fabrics and impeccable tailoring belied the disenchanted privilege lurking beneath. He rolled his whiskey glass around its base on the table, a damp ring lingering beneath. 

“Of course you are,” she huffed. Theo was one of the few near her age who could be counted on to attend regularly. Harry, she suspected, had worn himself thin on this particular battlefront, pouring himself into it in those early, fevered days when so much more had needed to be done. “You missed a small bit of news: letters are now allowed in Azkaban.” 

Theo’s brows shot up at this. “They got it through. Merlin.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Letter writing then, is it?”

She nodded in reply. “I signed up for two. Gods,” she rubbed her eyes fiercely, “what was I thinking? I don’t have time for that.” 

Glasses clinked on the table, one sliding in her direction. 

“Don’t let her fool you with this,” she could hear Harry’s smile in his voice. “She not-so-secretly loves being up to her ears in projects.” 

“Oh, I am well aware,” Theo murmured. 

“Dr. Carter is coming too,” she said, picking up the glass and taking a sip of whiskey lime. “Hung up chatting with Augusta about something, and he waved me on ahead before I could get sucked into the vortex too.” 

“Figured he might,” Theo said. “I mentioned it before I left this afternoon.” 

Across the table, she watched as Harry leaned on his fist, eyes trained on Theo’s face like he might be the sun. She bit back a grin at them. 

“So, when’s the housewarming?” She asked lightly. 

Harry sighed and took a sip of ale. “As soon as that last awful wallpaper is out, and then it will be completely done.” He beamed. For the last two years, Grimmauld Place had been in the process of serious—desperately necessary—renovation. A small smile stole across Theo’s lips. He sipped his whiskey to mask it, eyes drifting briefly to Harry. 

“Good timing, too,” Harry went on, “Ron should be back from the States by December.” 

Hermione caught Theo’s briefly furrowed brow in her peripheral vision as she listened to Harry. “Is he planning to move back in with you?” She asked. 

“Dunno," Harry said with a casual shrug, "but he might reckon it’s a given he’ll live there again.”

Theo ran his thumbnail along the grooves carved in his glass, his jaw tense, muscle pulsing with his clenches. She sipped her drink; abysmal, bottom-shelf stuff burned in her nostrils. Pulling her wand from her sleeve, she tapped the glass, transfiguring it into wine. A miracle. She pocketed her wand with a grin.

“Shite. I told him to use that bourbon you like,” Harry groaned. 

“Well, he ignored you.” Merlot slid smoothly over her tongue. A chorus of laughter spilled across the room from the far side of the bar. “I actually have something I need to ask you both.” She glanced toward the door. “I was hoping Dr. Carter would be here too, but…” 

Theo waved his hand, “May as well go on. You know how Augusta can be once she’s caught him. We’ll catch him up.”

“Yes, well, the thing is… I think I’m going to have to meet with Malfoy. In person.” 

Harry’s brows furrowed. “And that’s a…problem?” 

“Maybe." She sighed, “I have to convince him to let someone else enter the forest—for an extended period.” Theo drew in a sharp breath as Hermione continued, “This isn’t just the best way forward—it’s the only way. He can’t keep it shut away and expect to be left alone.” 

The two men across from her were quite still, their expressions equally serious. With a shared glance, something passed between them. Theo sniffed and knit his hands together on the table while Harry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose in such a very ‘Harry’ fashion that her lips quivered fondly. 

“The thing is,” Theo started, “it’s more complicated than you might realise.” 

“Broken bones, complicated,” Harry deadpanned. “Trapped in stone for several days, complicated. Scratched badly by bowtruckles, complicated.” 

“I told you I was fine about the bowtruckle,” Theo groused. 

She rolled her eyes, “God, I know it is complicated. Of course, I know. But he wants to let the creatures that are drawn there stay, yes?” 

Again, neither Theo nor Harry moved. A log snapped in the fireplace, sending a shower of sparks up behind the men. A puff of smoke carried the scent of birch to them. Harry’s lips pursed. At length, he said, “Possibly. Yes, possibly.” 

“He does,” Dr. Carter cut in confidently, sliding into a chair, a pint of ale landing on the table with a little thud. “Sorry for the delay. Please carry on, Hermione.” He smiled genially. 

“Well, that’s just it.” She angled slightly toward the professor. “If he wants the creatures to stay, then he has to deal with the Ministry wanting oversight. They are ultimately responsible for those creatures.” And oh, how she hated saying that. Deep inside her, a flame burned with righteous indignation on behalf of all magical creatures. 

“Because what Malfoys have always delighted in is Ministerial interference,” Theo drawled, taking a sip of his drink, ice clinking against the glass. “And this particular iteration of the batch isn’t so different. He doesn’t want it.”

Hermione leaned back with a heavy sigh. A bead of wax from one of the hovering candles landed on the table with a splat.

“Yes, I’m aware,” she replied, barely restraining a snap. “But I must find a way to convince him. He can’t shield himself forever; there’s a balance to be struck here.” She chewed her lip. 

Dr. Carter nodded slowly while Harry’s brows scrunched down, darkening his green eyes. Firelight glowed around all of their edges and danced in their glasses. Theo drained the last of his whiskey and regarded her shrewdly. 

“You’re right. Draco must come to terms with the reality that some partnership with the magizoologists is inevitable,” Dr. Carter intoned, his words hanging with weight.

Harry scoffed. “He hasn’t got a problem with them in theory,” he said, fixing Hermione with a serious look. “The problem is that he can’t let anyone he doesn’t trust traipse about that forest. It’s not safe. And more importantly, really, is that they’ve got to trust him.” 

“Why must they?” She implored. “Why can’t he just tolerate their presence? It’s not forever; no one need become close friends.”  

“It just doesn’t work like that,” Harry said, running his hand roughly through his untidy hair.  

“There’s more to the forest than you likely realise,” Theo added softly, his gaze piercing. 

“I’m sure there is, but since none of you have ever seen fit to divulge any details to me,” she gritted out through her teeth, “then can you at least give me some idea how to convince him of this?” 

Harry gave a resigned sigh and leaned back. A sudden gust from the door opening sent a chill across their table and set the candle flames flickering wildly. She shivered and drew her arms in tight to herself. 

Dr. Carter spoke first. “I assume you have a specific person in mind who would like entry there?” Hermione nodded. “Alright, then, your first step is to make it very clear to them that they must trust Draco.” 

“Why?” 

“It is his forest, and he is its wizard—it’s as fierce and volatile as any heart.” Candlelight glittered in his golden eyes and reflected from his spectacles. “It is vital that this person listens to him at all times and abides by what he says regarding the forest. If they tell him, without prompting by him, that they are willing to do that…well, then that may sway him.” 

She stared at the glass in front of her. Firelight played in the facets and glowed warmly in the amber whiskey. In memory, a conflagration warmed her cheeks, fear burning through her like lava, while roaring flames drowned out the sounds of their cries, save a piercing yell from Draco Malfoy. 

Chapter Text

“Ms. Granger.” Hermione’s head snapped up at the sound of her name from Ms. Bhatt’s sharp voice. “A word, please.” 

With a heavy blink, Hermione rose from the trestle table, her glance flashing across to Eloise, who gave a minute shrug. Ms. Bhatt stood at her office door, arms crossed, her carefully pencilled eyebrows arching beautifully over striking grey-green eyes. An expertly embroidered pashmina wrapped about the top of her plum robes. 

As Hermione approached her, the woman’s face seemed to pinch with an arrow’s aim: lips pursed, brows tightened, and eyes narrowed, focusing entirely on Hermione. She focused on keeping her shoulders from creeping up to her ears as she approached the petite woman. 

“Please,” Ms. Bhatt said, gesturing sharply towards a tufted leather chair before her desk. Hermione slipped into it, brushing her hand once over the embroidered trim on today’s slate-grey robes. 

A soft click behind her, and the door closed. An antique high-back executive chair towered behind the desk, but Ms. Bhatt didn’t make it so far, settling instead in the tufted leather chair beside Hermione.

“Quite the coup getting him in here, you know.” The faint curve of a crescent dimple appeared at the corner of Ms. Bhatt’s mouth. “Draco Malfoy has only been here once before, and even then, it was a battle to get him to come.” Her eyes scanned Hermione’s face. “Don’t let this slip through your fingers.” 

Hermione sat up straighter. “I don’t intend to.” 

“Good. Tell me your plan.” 

Outlining her strategy took mere minutes. As she spoke, she chose quickly to avoid mentioning any advice from Dr. Carter. It was likely that this shrewd woman before her would suspect it regardless—she was quite aware of the networks Hermione moved in—but all the same; better to keep some things guarded. 

“That all sounds adequate.” Ms. Bhatt nodded her approval. “But it won’t go to plan, you know. Are you prepared for that?” 

Hermione frowned. “Yes, I suppose so. I have given the problems surrounding the forest a lot of consideration on my own—” too much, she thought, “and I believe I am prepared for whatever tack Mal—Mr. Malfoy chooses to take.” 

“You knew him in school, correct?” Ms. Bhatt asked. 

“Yes.” 

“And have you had much contact since?” 

In the span of a breath inward, Hermione considered her cards carefully. First, it was likely that Ms. Bhatt knew Harry had some contact with Malfoy over the last several years through the DMLE, at least. Second, it was even more likely that she was aware of the roles she and Harry had played along with ORC in Malfoy’s trial and sentencing. Third, everyone knew she was friends with Harry Potter, which meant there was a sort of public sense that they, with Ron, shared a de facto understanding of everything the other was up to. The Golden Trio, if you would. God, what a label. Fixed firmly in childhood forever by the press. 

“Very, very little contact.” 

“Elaborate.” 

“I haven’t spoken to him since the Battle of Hogwarts, but we did have—” What? Glances—nods? An unspoken understanding conveyed in a single look across a crowded room? How do you describe the sort of eternal connections fire, fear, and battle breed to one who never saw any of it? “We shared limited and brief communication at Hogwarts before sitting our N.E.W.T.s.” 

Ms. Bhatt’s brows arched, almost reaching the soft edge of her snow-white hair. Crossing her arms, she lifted her hand and rested a single finger against pensive, pursed lips and tapped. “Nothing in the intervening two years?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Are you aware of what brought him here before?” 

Hermione shook her head, a long curling tendril escaping her elegant French twist. 

“Laurie Pole—he was arguing for her.” 

“Ah, you mean before the Wizengamot—”

Ms. Bhatt shook her head slowly. “No, before that. The discussion here was about securing our approval as well for Laurie Pole to be the sole researcher permitted into the Malfoy forest for the Wizengamot’s study.” 

“But why would he—”

“Because, Ms. Granger,” she said, “Laurie Pole is a werewolf.” 

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it. The information washed over her in waves. If Laurie Pole was a werewolf and he not only knew, but he came and advocated for her… It was very difficult for werewolves to get regular work in the Wizarding World. Old prejudices died hard, as Hermione knew all too painfully well. But for Malfoy, pureblood scion of two ‘noble’ houses, to advocate for her to be the sole bearer of such a significant undertaking—had Dr. Carter succeeded, then? 

“I can see what you’re thinking,” Ms. Bhatt said, rising from her chair and wrapping her pashmina tight about her shoulders. “It was quite something to watch the son of that malicious man standing in that meeting room and speaking so freely on such a creature’s behalf.” 

“Witch,” Hermione murmured, still deep in thought. 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“She is a witch—lycanthropy is something that happened to her," Hermione corrected softly, her eyes sharpening as she looked up.

Ms. Bhatt’s gaze turned calculating, a chill settling in her eyes. “If the body is altered entirely on a cellular level from its original state, is it even the same body, Ms. Granger?” 

A flush crept up Hermione’s neck. She pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, resisting the urge to retort sharply. Instead, she drew a steadying breath. “A human being is not analogous to the ship of Theseus.” 

Ms. Bhatt scoffed lightly, moving behind her desk with an air of finality. She lifted her quill, the feather catching the light as she turned back toward her work. As she dipped the nib in her ink pot, she said, “Don’t make this case a priority for the Department’s sake alone; do it for your own, too.” Her gaze met Hermione’s. “Make something of this, and the Wulfric Inn may take notice. It’s not often they invite of someone at your stage, but…” 

Hermione drew in a sharp inhale and nodded as she turned to take her leave. Her pulse hammered in her ears. Good Godric, the Wulfric Inn? Her pace increased across the main room to her cubicle. Was looking at this too directly, too simply? There was too much opportunity here to be uncreative. Her fist clenched at her side, jaw setting in determination. That familiar whir of plans spinning and coalescing began. A thrill shot down her spine. 

When the Statute of Secrecy divided the Magical and Muggle worlds, the law split too. Back then, there were three Inns of Court. The split left only one for Magical legal practitioners: the Wulfric Inn. Unlike its Muggle counterparts, Wulfric did not distinguish between barristers and solicitors. Instead, all legal practitioners and scholars took part—by invitation only. 

Chewing her lip, Hermione glanced about the room as she passed the trestle tables. Stretching over a memo, Thomas caught her eye and frowned. She slumped into her cubicle, notes for the Malfoy meeting scattered across her sloping desk. 

“Everything all right? You look a bit peaky,” Thomas said, not unkindly, conjuring a glass of water and holding it her way. 

“Yes, quite all right,” she replied, taking a long sip.

“But?” 

She exhaled, chewing on her lip. “Ms. Bhatt alluded to the possibility this could be noteworthy to the Wulfric Inn—if I don’t muck it up, of course.” She took another sip, the fingers of one hand drumming against the glass.

Thomas let out a low whistle. “Can’t say I’m surprised if I’m honest.” 

“Really? But I've only just started here.” 

He waved this off, giving her an impatient look. “You know that nearly everything here comes back to that forest these days...” 

Hermione’s gaze wandered to the empty bud vase on her desk, where a single shrivelled anemone petal lay on the dusty surface. Who cleaned in here? she wondered, absentmindedly flicking her wand for a quick Scourgify.  

“Right. I just have to ensure that whatever I manage, it's enough for Wulfric to take note.” Vanishing the glass, she tugged at her sleeve, straightening invisible creases. 

Thomas gave a lopsided grin. “Try not to stress. Verity was invited after handling that rather dull centaur legislation. Not even remotely complicated.”

“How long had she been here?” 

He scratched his temple. “Two, maybe three years? Something like that.”  

Hermione nodded solemnly. Her eyes fell back to her scattered notes. Hadn’t she been solving complex problems since she was eleven? She tapped her wand on the notes, sending the papers into their folder with a quick swish.

The Malfoy Forest was a thorn in the side of every office within this department. It enticed the Department of Mysteries, confused DMLE cursebreakers, and now it was hers to untangle. Everyone wanted to claim control. Everyone wanted their pound of flesh from Malfoy. Hermione stood, clutching her folder, and strode toward the conference room, determined to see what she could make of this chance. 

࿐ ࿔*

The end of Hermione’s fountain pen tapped a quiet rhythm against the warm wood of the conference table, where ghosts of old rings looped the surface from decades of teacups. A scent of mustiness, lime, and old water lingered in the margins. Each chair creaked and groaned beneath its occupant. Some wiggled. 

No one sat in this room without becoming aware of Ministerial neglect.

“Nice robes.” Sorcha slipped into the room, her chin dipping in a nod as she settled into her seat. The chair gave a squeak of protest.

“Gift to myself,” Hermione replied lightly, smoothing her sleeve where deep green vines twisted along slate-grey cuffs. “A collection in various shades.”

Sorcha tilted her head, lips curving as her eyes followed the fabric. “They suit you.” Her gaze lingered thoughtfully. “Practical with purpose.”

Hermione smiled warmly at the witch, sitting up a little straighter.

Minutes ticked by in silence. The soft glow of magically powered incandescent bulbs glimmered on the well-worn, dark wood walls, pooling amber light across the table. Sorcha traced the wood grain with the tip of her wand, her gaze lost in the ember glow. Meanwhile, Hermione’s fountain pen glided smoothly over her parchment as she made a few notes, mentally rehearsing words she had already spoken to Crookshanks multiple times that weekend. 

And all the while, questions swirled about the man himself. Had he, too, broadened the way Harry had or taken on the weathered look she’d seen in so many others their age touched by war? Lucius Malfoy’s shadow loomed in her mind—had he followed in his father’s style or made a bid to reshape it?

Father and son had not trod the same road. Not even close. Their paths now diverged too greatly for comparison. 

The hour came. Hermione resisted the urge to glance at her watch as, at precisely forty-seven seconds past, the door swung open, admitting a single figure. 

Draco Malfoy walked in alone. Hermione’s gaze flickered to the empty corridor behind him before snapping back to study his appearance. 

A black cashmere jumper hugged his lean frame, and grey slim-cut trousers ended in laced boots with traces of mud clinging to the soles. Over his crooked arm hung a black over-cloak. Nothing about the man before her said, “This is a wizard,” much less a Malfoy. Instead, he almost looked more like one of the hikers she’d seen in the north, the kind she’d seen striding in and out of Fort William shops before heading up Ben Nevis in Scotland. It was such a departure from what she expected that she hesitated, realising only belatedly that he was waiting for her to greet him. 

“Mr. Malfoy,” she said, extending her hand. 

His brow arched, the barest flash of amusement in his face as he clasped her hand. Elegant, long fingers, she expected, but the rough callouses that slid against her palm surprised her. 

“Ms. Granger,” he replied with emphasis, biting back a smirk. His gaze shifted to Sorcha, “Sorcha McLaggen, I presume?” 

“That’s right. Pleasure to meet you…properly.” She leaned forward, shaking his hand with her usual directness. 

“I knew your brother in school,” Malfoy offered. 

“Gods...don’t hold him against me,” Sorcha said, slumping back into her seat. 

He gave a surprised huff of laughter, settling into the chair opposite. Hermione darted a glance once more at the door. 

“No use waiting,” Malfoy remarked, “My solicitor won’t be joining us today.” 

An off-kilter feeling stole over her. Hermione masked her surprise. “Why not?” 

He shrugged, fingers lacing before him on the table. “I don’t need her for this. Besides, Ms. Granger,” he added, still with emphasis and a faint smirk, “you’re solicitor enough, aren’t you? We all want the same thing.”

Sorcha's eyes widened, and she let out a sharp laugh. "'We do?" she interjected, her voice dripping with disbelief.

“We do.” He nodded, meeting her gaze. “For the unicorn to be safe and thrive.”

Sorcha stared at him for a moment, then gave a curt nod. A surge of curiosity rolled through Hermione and settled in her chest. She had imagined him aloof, combative, or even filled with the old sneering disdain, but this...

“Hang on. Isn’t there another one of you?” He asked, pointing to Sorcha and shooting a questioning glance toward Hermione. 

“My colleague, Reggie, doesn’t specialise in unicorns,” Sorcha stated, straightening. “He was just accompanying me the night we…met…in your forest. I will be the only magizoologist on this project.”  

Malfoy made an understanding hum. 

“Mr. Malfoy, Ms. McLaggen,” Hermione began officiously; she thought she caught the ghost of an old sneer on Malfoy’s face at her tone, “I do believe that you both want what is best for the unicorn. What we are here to determine today is how to make certain of that outcome.” She turned toward Malfoy. Whatever expression had been on his face had vanished, replaced by an eerie placidity. “You wanted to meet to discuss terms of a possible study conducted by Ms. McLaggen. Have you come prepared with a list of those terms?” 

Malfoy nodded and reached into his trouser pocket, withdrawing a tiny square, which he tapped with his wand to enlarge. “I have. This is what I typed up.” He shot a glance at Hermione. “My solicitors did give it a once-over.”

Hermione blinked slowly, absorbing his words as he slid two A4 sheets of crisp, white printer paper in her direction. She knew his post-trial history, but still… Her eyes roved the terms, fingers brushing lightly over the thin, smooth paper. Most were standard regarding time limits, reporting schedules, not to remove plants, et cetera. But a few would surely raise questions for Sorcha. She cast a Geminio on the sheets and slid a copy to the magizoologist. 

Blue eyes flitted back and forth over the pages, glancing up at Malfoy and then at Hermione and back to Malfoy again. “You really had this type set and printed?” 

Malfoy shook his head, casting off the idea with a careless wave. “Muggle printer. It’s not as difficult as you’re imagining.” 

Sorcha snorted, eyebrows lifting disbelievingly.

“Why no wandless magic?” She asked.

“The forest seems sensitive to wild magic,” he answered. “Best to keep to your wand.” 

Hermione leaned forward, elbows resting on the table. "Wild magic?" The term felt unfamiliar on her tongue.

Malfoy shrugged. “It’s what the person helping me with the forest calls it.” 

“I’ve never heard wandless magic called that before,” she said curtly, realising too late that her tone had fallen into that supercilious affectation she’d had as a student. 

Malfoy certainly noticed, his lips pressing into a thin line, something gleaming in his eyes. 

“Well, that’s easy enough to avoid,” Sorcha said, still focused on the papers. “Small issue, though.” She pointed to one of the lines. “I can’t cast a corporeal Patronus. We do have a few options for emergency communication that we use here—“

“Not necessary,” Malfoy clipped, reaching into his trouser pocket again. His shoulders tensed, eyes flashing briefly to Hermione before he leaned across the table and dropped something into Sorcha’s hand. 

“A galleon?” 

Hermione stilled, staring at Malfoy. 

“Yes.” He cleared his throat, a light flush climbing up his pale neck. “It’s imbued with the Protean Charm, you see. Tap your wand here to send a message, like so.” He pulled another galleon from his pocket to demonstrate; the coin in Sorcha’s hand glowed faintly with the received message. 

Hermione bit the insides of her cheeks, stifling a mad grin. Malfoy studiously avoided her gaze, the tips of his ears turning a rich shade of red. A giddy swoop rushed through her belly. Merlin, she was enjoying this much too much. She composed herself, brushing a hand over her slate robes. 

“And you’ll be able to find me wherever I am in the forest?” 

“Wherever you are.” 

“With this?” Sorcha cocked her head, examining the galleon.

“Er, no.” Malfoy dragged a hand through his hair. “I’ll know because I have a… connection with the forest.”

Hermione made a quick note, her pen nib pressing firmly against the parchment: Forest bond? Connection to place or magic?—further inquiry.

Sorcha frowned, her finger tapping the papers. “This says I will follow your direct orders when in the forest. Why should I, besides that you own the land?” 

He exhaled. “I won’t be issuing commands every five minutes. But if I say, ‘Leave now,’ I need you to obey.” 

Tilting her head, Sorcha darted a quick glance at Hermione, then back again. 

“There’s a clearing,” Draco continued, “the entry point I noted. Always return there if you’re disoriented. You will get lost—best prepare for that.” 

“We weren’t lost before.” 

Malfoy scoffed, leaning back and crossing his arms. “Yes, you were.” 

“No, we weren’t,” she replied through gritted teeth. “We followed the unicorn’s path precisely and would have followed that right back out.” 

“Oh? And which direction were you headed?” 

“North-northwest.” 

“Wrong. You were going east, almost due east.” 

Hermione’s eyes widened for a fleeting moment before composing herself, glancing briefly at Sorcha. 

“Impossible,” Sorcha uttered, shaking her head. “We’d have ended up back in the countryside.” 

“Wrong again.” His brow lifted, eyes flashing. “Know why? The little rumours you’ve likely heard about it are true.” 

“The trees move? They try to trap you? Do they blot out the light on purpose?” Her voice edged with sarcasm as her tone rose. 

He leaned forward, enunciating carefully, “Yes. All of it.”

Hermione cut in before Sorcha could argue any further. “Will Ms. McLaggen be safe studying the unicorn in the forest?” 

Malfoy glanced at her, a crease between his brows. “I don’t know,” he admitted with a sigh, leaning back again. “Look, there’s a reason I don’t just let people in, all right?” 

A disbelieving scoff burst from Sorcha, who fixed her eyes on the dark wood panelling of the wall. 

“The forest is safe,” Malfoy explained, a touch exasperated, “but it’s hard to ensure that. I can keep track of you well enough, but not perfectly, and I—" he paused, a shadow crossing his features then vanishing beneath a smooth mask.  “I just can’t give a firm promise.” 

“But creatures are safe?” Concern edged Sorcha’s tone.

Hermione’s eyes moved steadily over him as he watched his subtle shifts. The minute tightening of his jaw, the way heat flickered in his eyes only to be washed in cool calm the next second. 

Malfoy nodded, a tension easing from his face. “The forest seems to treat them as part of itself. Like they belong, so it seems content to let them be. People are the aberration.” 

Hermione tapped the tip of her fountain pen against the few notes she had jotted. “Are there any stipulations about the forest that haven’t been covered in this document that you would like to address now, Mr. Malfoy?” 

He glanced to the side for a moment, pondering. “One thing,” he said quietly, “being in the forest day in and day out, it is inevitable that you will begin to notice its...its ways, but I would like to remind you that the unicorn is your sole focus. I’d prefer you leave anything that doesn’t have to do with that focus out of your written research.” 

Sorcha turned to him sharply. “Understanding the habitat is a part of understanding the unicorn.” She raised her chin slightly. “I can’t guarantee that my research won’t go into some detail about the nature of that habitat.” 

Malfoy ran his hand roughly through his hair, biting out, “Yes, but whose business is that, really?” Sorcha moved to argue with him, but he pressed on, the calm bleeding from his eyes. He swept a hand out expansively. “This whole bloody Ministry wants its hands in the forest. Just because it's exciting magic to them does not mean that it isn’t my family’s private property. I do not owe them an explanation.” 

“Well, tough!” Sorcha barked, her hand striking the table. Hermione’s fingers brushed against Sorcha’s forearm, quelling, but the witch leaned forward, undeterred. “You have a magical forest the likes of which no one here understands. Not only is it wild that it exists at all, but it sprang up over a notorious crime scene—of course, there was initial interest!” 

“Yes, yes, yes, what if the Dark Lord, et cetera,” he waved his hand dismissively. “I understand completely how interest began—”

“Let me be clear: no one in this department gives two figs about that,” she hissed. “We care about the creatures that are, for some godforsaken reason, drawn to your unnatural forest. We care about making sure that they are safe and thriving. We care that they aren’t going to be killed—as is your loathsome, mediaeval right—” she spat, “and sold for parts to interested parties of whom there are frankly too many. We care about that, Mr. Malfoy. Not the magic.” 

Malfoy’s nostrils flared, the rest of him stock still, eyes narrowed. “I don’t give a shit about some right to hunt or whatever archaic allowances exist.” He inhaled sharply. “Why do you think I agreed to this little meeting and never any others in this sham of a Ministry, hmm? Because I bloody well care that you lot see that those creatures are safe—safe from the forest. Safe from…safe from me.” 

Hermione stilled, watching him intently. The tension around Socha’s bright blue eyes eased. Cocking her head to the side, she murmured, almost sadly, “And why should any of us believe you, Draco Malfoy, of all people?” 

His eyes dropped to the table, his face tightening as he folded his arms against himself. Hermione watched, half-expecting his shoulders to tense and his chin to jut out defiantly, just as it had in their school days. In his crossed arms, his hand closed into a fist, knuckles going white, then relaxed. He breathed through two steadying breaths, the tension melting slightly from him as he did. 

“I can’t offer you any reason to believe me,” he said quietly, eyes lifting and meeting Sorcha’s. “If you need proof, then I can give you nothing, and this won’t work. We will go back to the same tired tussle regarding the unicorn and any other creatures that show up there. But I don’t want that.” He angled forward, an arm extended with palm up, beseeching. “I don’t want the forest to be taken away from those creatures. The only thing I can offer is to let you see for yourself.” 

A strange sensation gripped Hermione. The surprising softness of hippogriff feathers beneath her fingers and the hollowing of the stomach as it leapt into the sky. If only Malfoy's younger self could see him now, she thought. Her brows climbed as her pen moved quickly across the parchment, capturing the exact letter of his words.

He drew up straighter, laying his hand flat on the table now. “Are you willing to take the risk, Sorcha?” He challenged gently, eyes taking on a steely edge. “To risk trusting yourself in that forest for the sake of this study?” 

Sorcha regarded him carefully. Warm light from the incandescent bulbs shimmered in her blue eyes like twin flames. A small curve began to pull at the side of her mouth. “Yes, I think I can manage that.” 

࿐ ࿔*

The agreement created, contract signed, copies handed off—thank you, Thomas—to be owled to Malfoy’s solicitors, hands shaken, a start date agreed upon (tomorrow), a time set for review (two weeks from the start date), and Hermione was shuffling her notes and documents as Sorcha slipped from the conference room to sort out some loose ends with her offices.

Malfoy remained, leaning against the wall, looking very much like he had something to say but would rather not say it. His fingers tapped absently against his folded arms. Perhaps it was Thomas’s presence that kept him silent, Hermione mused. But when Thomas stepped out, offering a brief nod, it was just the two of them beneath the soft, golden glow of the bulbs. Still, he lingered.

“It’s gone, you know,” he finally said stiffly, quietly, his head tipped back, eyes staring off into some faraway distance above. 

Hermione paused, a stack of parchments held loosely in her hands. “What’s gone?” she asked, arranging the papers unnecessarily, her gaze darting to him.

“The house—that bloody room—all of it. Gone and forever.”

She lifted her eyes to him. His gaze slid slowly down to meet hers. Eyes like a dreary autumn sky stared from across the room, holding a mixture of relief and something else she couldn't read in them. They had another time too, in another room, another lifetime, but now that place… Her breath caught in her throat.

The quiet hum of conversations in the offices outside filtered through the closed door, but inside this room, time seemed to contract and suspend. 

“I thought you should know,” he added softly, almost a whisper, his gaze searching hers.

She nodded once, her expression carefully neutral. “Harry told me, actually. And Ron.” 

“Ah. Yes, of course, they did.” Perhaps once, there would have been bitterness in that, but now he only sounded tired. A lock of pale hair fell over his brow, and he raked a hand roughly through it. Once, he had seemed so staid, so meticulously composed. Now, with his head bowed, he scuffed the toe of his boot against the floor, dislodging flecks of dried mud that scattered across the worn wood.

“I’m not sorry it's gone,” she said, her voice steady. 

His gaze snapped back to hers, surprise flashing across his features before settling into something more contemplative. “Nor am I, if I’m honest. Awful place." His brow furrowed. "Or it became awful, anyway. It wasn't always,” he added the last almost under his breath.  

Hermione searched his face. A shadow of the gaunt, haunted look that had hovered about him once seemed to reassert itself for a moment. Her heart beat hard against her ribs. “I didn’t see much on my... visit, but it was a bit garish." Confusion clouded his eyes as she spoke. "Cherubs on the drawing room ceiling? Awfully gauche. A rather ironic choice given the occupants' penchant for dark activities.” Her tone was light, almost teasing, but her eyes, which never wavered from his, held a depth and tightness that belied her words.

A startled huff of laughter escaped him, lighting up his eyes for a fleeting moment. He shook his head, a subtle flush colouring his cheeks. A muscle at the back of his jaw ticked and flexed. “Yes, well, perhaps decor was never truly a Malfoy strong suit.”

Silence hung taut between them, tremulous but lighter.

"I’m not sad it’s gone," he said after a moment. "I thought I would be, but,” he frowned, glancing off to the side, “I felt—I feel relieved, actually. Everyday.” 

His eyes met hers again.

“Me too,” she replied. 

For a brief infinity, they stayed like that, simply glad it was gone. Simply glad it was over. Simply relieved. Simply...

Then he nodded once and pushed off the wall. “I suppose I’ll see you again in two weeks, Ms. Granger.” 

“Indeed, Mr. Malfoy.” 

And he swept from the room. 

࿐ ࿔*

“Surprise! It’s lunch. Come on, up, up, up.” Harry tugged at her elbow on Thursday, pulling her away from her desk. 

“Just…let…me…there!” Hermione dropped her pen on the desk and, crooking her forefinger, wandlessly capped it. She turned sharply to Harry, who was busy leading her from the offices. “Did you know some people call wandless magic ‘wild magic’?”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “I have heard that phrase, yes.” 

She scoffed. “From Dr. Carter, I presume?” Harry didn’t answer, but a smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Of course, it was Dr. Carter. Malfoy called it that in the meeting earlier this week, too.” 

“Well, the professor knows a thing or two. It rubs off from time to time.” He gave her a grin, stuffing her into the lift. “Muggle or Wizarding?” 

“Wizarding. I want to stop in—”

“Merlin, again? You bought six books last time.” He ran a palm down his face. 

She smacked him lightly in the arm. “Stop it. You have no idea what I was going to say.”

“Where then?” 

She scrunched her nose at him. 

“Ha! I knew it.” 

“Flourish & Blotts appreciates my patronage, I am sure,” she said with a sniff. 

“I bet they do.” He smiled and nudged her shoulder. 

Soup and jacket potatoes at the Leaky went quickly over a conversation about Harry’s recent Floo call with Ron.

“Official date he’ll be back is now December 15,” Harry said as he held the door open for her, leading them back out into Diagon Alley. 

The cobbled stones were dark and slick with rain. A stiff wind swept down the little lane, nudging everyone left. In came the cooler weather and promises of more miserable dampness and chill ahead. Delightful. Hermione pulled her outer cloak tighter and relished in the dreary weather. Her favourite. What better weather than this for curling up with a book? 

Flourish & Blotts was nearly empty. Without the flurry of school shopping, the little bookshop was a cosy, tranquil place for magical folk to come peruse at their leisure. Hermione glanced at her watch: Twenty-six minutes of leisure. 

“I’ve got to run into Eyelops, actually,” Harry sighed, looking out into the windy chill. “All right if I say goodbye here?” 

“Of course!” She gave him a quick hug. “Leaky tomorrow?” 

He nodded with a smile. “Later, Hermione.” The little bell chimed as he left the shop. Hermione was already tugging a book off the shelf. 

Why was information about magical forests so thin on the ground? Maddening. She stacked up what she could find: three books to add to the little pile she had accumulated on the topic back at home. But three was all they had. She chewed her lip, skimming through the slimmest volume, wondering if it was even worth it. 

“That one is a bit out of date,” a familiar voice said warmly at her side. She snapped the book shut, glancing up into Dr. Carter’s smiling face, his cheeks rosy and hair a little windswept. The shoulders of his robes were freshly damp, with little beads of rain glistening on the dark wool. 

“Heard your meeting went well,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially. 

“You know I can’t really talk about it.” She smiled back, propping her elbow on the shelf beside her. “But has he said anything about Sorcha?” 

“Very little,” Dr. Carter allowed, “But I have seen her myself when I’ve been there. Quite a savvy witch. Certainly knows her way around a stinging jinx, I’ll tell you that much.” He rubbed his forearm. She glanced at him with concern. “Oh, nothing serious. Draco apparently forgot to let her know there would be other people she might encounter besides Laurie.” 

“Ah, yes, he didn’t mention anything about others in the forest during our meeting.” 

Dr. Carter shrugged. “I’m not there often anyway. Regardless, she certainly knows now.” He chuckled. 

Hermione looked at her watch: nine more minutes of leisure. Her small collection was quite paltry. Only two and the slim, undecided volume in her hand. She let out a wistful sigh; what she wouldn’t give for the Hogwarts library again. 

An idea sprung into her mind. 

“Dr. Carter,” she began. He was inspecting the first pages of a new definitive biography of Merlin (there had only been forty-seven before this) and made a hum of acknowledgement. “I imagine the last few years have involved quite a lot of study of enchanted forests in your home. You wouldn’t happen to have anything like old legal texts that might deal with land use, creature rights, forestry, you know…that sort of thing…would you?” 

He gave her a sly grin. “I may.” 

“And would any other residents be present if I were to pop round on, say, a Saturday morning?” 

He pursed his lips in thought. “There’s a possibility. A better time would be Sunday afternoons. Usually have the house to myself then...though, Theo is a little unpredictable.” 

She waved her hand. "I'm not worried about him." He chuckled and nodded. “Would this Sunday be alright?” 

“Would be lovely. Come by half two.”

Chapter Text

There are places to go to discover something new and be amazed, and then there are places to go to remember yourself. 

Sunday mornings were for remembering. Hermione stepped lightly up the marble stairs of the British Museum, curling past the Discus Thrower and making her way to a place so familiar it was like an old friend. She walked through a wide passageway into a room filled with glass cases and lined by light blue walls. Beside the most prominent case, which held an ancient helmet and shield, stood the man she had come to see. 

“Hi, Dad,” she greeted, her curls brushing at her shoulders. He glanced down at her, amber eyes crinkling warmly behind rectangular lenses. 

“Hello, little witch. Fancy seeing you here.” 

“How is he today?” She asked, nodding toward the helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship burial, which stared at them with hollow eyes beneath heavy metal brows. 

“Oh, you know,” her father smirked, “same as he ever was.”

He leaned close to the case to admire the helmet, then moved on to a golden belt buckle adorned with intricate knotwork. They discussed Anglo-Saxons, metalwork, and the early mediaeval, and time seemed to contract strangely between all of the identical conversations they had held in this very gallery before.

The room hummed with visitors, moving in little clusters around the cases. Hermione and her father stepped slightly to the side, leaning against the wall, observing the room at large, waiting for a particularly chatty crowd to move on. 

“I’ve been thinking about when it was found half a century ago,” her father said. “When the initial excavations were done, the wood from the ship was gone.” 

“True, but the rivets were there—”

“—And there was a stain left by the wood in the soil. A near-perfect ghost.” He turned to her; a lightness was in his eyes. A three-day beard graced his jaw, which he scratched at as he spoke. “Isn’t it extraordinary how the wood was gone, but the soil kept the impression of it so well? They could excavate it and see the whole shape of the thing because the earth remembered even when the material was gone.” Silence stretched taut between them for a brief moment. “I just think that’s a bit marvellous, isn’t it? Memory isn’t one thing... as we know.” 

Slipping her hand into her jacket pocket, she felt the comforting press of her wand in her palm. 

“When the war came,” she swallowed hard, “they covered the dig with bracken and pine boughs and buried it again to keep it safe.” Amber eyes lifted to her father, trying to impress upon him how like the ship—how very like it…

“But the memory was still there written in the earth,” he said softly. His brow lifted slightly as he looked at her. 

Hermione tipped her head back, resting it against the wall. God, but it made her think of so much. Of Malfoy Manor, gone but still stained in her, marked deep in the hippocampus. And of her parents—she glanced warily at her father. Her stomach hollowed. How could she have ever…How could she… 

He reached out a hand and gripped hers. Fine hands, strong hands. The hands of a man who did careful work, who built model ships in his spare time. She squeezed, feeling his warmth press back, and knew she’d never really be lost to him.
 

The October air was crisp with a rich blue sky overhead. Hands tucked in her jacket pockets and a burgundy scarf wrapped around her neck, Hermione moved restlessly through the streets of Bloomsbury. Beneath trees in the green squares, she counted the dark, ghostly stains from wet leaves long gone that lingered on the pavement. At a cafe she happened upon, stopping for a latte macchiato, the impression of a faded sticker clinging to a lampost caught her eye. Listening to the fleeting rumble of a train in the distance, she narrowly dodged running into German university students spilling out of a hostel not far from King’s Cross Station. 

At precisely half-two, she climbed the steps of a rather lovely Georgian townhome on Great James Street and reached up to ring the bell as a car drove past. The large black door with an elegant brass knocker swung inwards, revealing Dr. Carter, eyes glittering behind round, wire-rimmed glasses. 

“Come in, come in.” He waved at her hastily. The door shut with a click behind her as Dr. Carter, already several long strides ahead, began up the stairs to the next level. 

“There should be plenty of texts for you to chew over,” he said over his shoulder, the stairs groaning beneath them as they climbed. 

Hermione’s eyes roved over gold-framed lithographs that lined the wall. Not a single image moved. A light switch near the top of the steps caught her attention. A wire from a lamp trailed below a small side table in the corridor as they reached the first floor. 

Three doors branched off from the landing with more stairs upward at the far end. To her right, she peered into an elegant parlour with a stately fireplace, tall windows, and a beautiful Persian rug. Ahead of her, the second door appeared to open to a private office. The third door led to the library which they stepped into, footfalls muffled by a plush, cream rug that filled the room.

In one corner on an angled wall glowed a fireplace, along the next wall a tall window stretched from floor to ceiling with a narrow door leading off to a little study by its side. The remainder of the room was entirely surrounded by books. Tomes, scrolls, treatises, manuscripts, paperbacks, hardbacks, and any other means of binding the written word jostled for space in the high-ceilinged room. Very little furniture joined the fray besides a pair of wing-backed chairs and a Chesterfield sofa. Each seat had a small table next to it. And on every surface were piled books, books, and more books. The very architecture seemed to use literature as a secondary support system. 

“Just ask for whatever you’re looking for, and the library will accommodate,” Dr. Carter explained. “Mind if I disappear into my office? I’ve quite a few things I need to go over…” he trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck with an apologetic look. 

“If I ever mind being left alone in a library, pack me straight off to Mungos to get me checked for dark curses.” She gave him a sly grin and immediately began making herself at home in one of the wing-back chairs. 

Scooping up a book from the sofa with the words Merlin: the Man, the Myth, the Muggleborn? emblazoned on the front, he gave her a little wink. “Pop over if you need me.” And stepped happily across the corridor to his office. 

Left alone in the marvellous room, Hermione scanned the shelves. Rich, warm wood with a cherry finish gleamed. Barely any wall was visible, thanks to the books, but what little there was held a lovely, pale green colour. Warm light glowed from overhead, where recessed Muggle lighting illuminated the space. Deep in her bones, a settled, contented feeling moved through her. 

She slipped off her shoes and nestled into the chair with a satisfied smile. Crookshanks would love it here. 

“Library,” she began with a tentative glance. Several books clapped their spines on the shelves as if to say, Yes, yes, go on. “I need anything you’ve got on magical land use laws.” Several pages fluttered like bird wings through a forest. Spines cracked while manuscripts seemed to cheep and chatter at the thicker works. Two books, a scroll, and three manuscripts slipped from various shelves and flew to her, landing on the little table by her side. “And maybe anything you have on enchanted forests that would supplement that? I don’t want anything too general,” she added as an afterthought. More books, scrolls, and even a codex made their way to her with soft flutters of pages. The pile grew fairly robust. 

With enough to be getting on with, she withdrew a notebook and fountain pen from her little tasselled bag and cracked open the first book. All around her, the books murmured and shuffled, settling on their perches while she read.

Hours collapsed into a timeless blur of pages and words. Soft autumn light glowed, then slanted at an angle with shadows growing more pronounced, until all at once, deep blues had overtaken the room and left her squinting at the page. Hermione flipped frantically between a seventeenth-century treatise on the laws of trespass and a much earlier codex on land concealment magic, muttering softly to herself. The treatise referenced the codex several times, but penetrating Old English was a nightmare. She yanked at her hair, twisting it into a knot atop her head and forcing her wand through it. A single curl drifted back down and tickled her nose. She batted it away with a little huff. 

Someone tromping up the stairs from the ground floor broke her focus. Unintelligible murmuring came from the direction of the professor’s office. Then, “She’s got no bloody right!” rang in bright tones, bursting out into the library. Hermione stilled, her eyes fixed on the text in front of her in case anyone were to peek in. 

“You try going. I bet she didn’t think to add you to the wards,” the voice spat. 

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m up to my ears in these proposals, I’ve got Theo’s notes to go over, and I have—”

“It won’t take long. Just do it, will you, and get her to see reason!” 

“—a guest here.” 

Silence reigned absolute. 

“A—a what?” 

“Hermione Granger happens to be in the library right now—”

She heard the shuffling of fabric and heavy footfalls approaching swiftly. 

Dr. Carter’s voice followed, “Draco! Draco, wait just a moment.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Draco Malfoy demanded through gritted teeth from the door of the room. His shoulders rose and fell in quick syncopation. Vanished was the more staid man from their meeting on Monday. In his place stood a combative, incensed person whose fierce scowl, dishevelled hair, and wrinkled clothing belied the sort of day they were having. 

Before Hermione could so much as open her mouth, Dr. Carter cut in, shoving past Malfoy. “Don’t listen to him, Hermione. He’s been in high dudgeon since morning.” 

Malfoy’s nostrils flared as he levelled an irate, betrayed look on the professor, who simply gave him a little shrug. “You have, m’lad. Why do you think Laurie kicked you out?” 

“She didn’t kick—Now look here,” he rounded on the professor fully. “It’s my forest, and she has absolutely no right to ward me out. And it isn’t safe!” He rubbed the heel of his hand on his sternum as though the very idea was causing him pain. “Didn’t even think it was possible,” he mumbled.

“Tosh. It’s not going to do anything to Laurie. It’s never so much as tipped a branch her way,” Dr. Carter said dismissively. 

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed; he swung around and started in on Hermione again, hand still rubbing a circle on his chest. “What are you doing here, Granger?” 

She raised her chin, looking down her nose at him. “Dr. Carter invited me to use his library.”

Around the shelves, pages riffled, concurring. A few books swooped down from high perches and flew in front of Malfoy before darting to the opposite side of the room.

In two long strides, Malfoy was picking up one of the books from her pile. Hastily, she tried to block him from the rest. A sneer—all too familiar from bygone days—curled his lip. His eyes cut to her in narrowed slits. 

“So,” he began acidly, “learning about enchanted forests, are we? Trying to find out how to snatch the estate away—”

“Nothing of the sort!” She cut in with vehemence. “You have no idea what my interests are here. So back off, Malfoy.” 

“Won’t. These are my books—“

“Only some of them, you know,” Dr. Carter interjected, a playful tone colouring his voice.

“Most of the ones she’s looking at,” Malfoy clarified, glancing icily at Dr. Carter, “are my books. And I don’t recall giving any kind of explicit permission for her to touch them.” 

“Worried I’ll dirty them?” she barked, rising to her feet. 

Malfoy startled back a step, all anger bleeding from his face. His eyes went round in surprise. 

“No—that’s not what I—I didn’t—” he huffed and ran his hand roughly through his hair, then dropped it back to his chest, where he began rubbing circles again. “You’ve got the wrong view of it, Granger. I meant that I don’t particularly prefer you going through my books in my library—”

“My library, but who’s checking the deed anyway,” Dr. Carter chimed. 

“—to find ways to take the forest from me.” Malfoy stood there, pale and bristling, like a thorn pricking at her composure. 

“Now it’s you who has the wrong view, Malfoy.” She aimed a finger at him. “I’m not looking for information to take the forest from you at all. Quite the opposite, actually.”

He stilled, a quizzical expression coming over him. “What do you mean?” 

Hermione inhaled deeply, taking in his agitated state, hand still rubbing circles on his sternum. “No, I don’t think I will tell you.” With a flick of her wand, her notes began sorting themselves, and they, along with all of her other belongings, zipped into her little bag, which Malfoy eyed with naked suspicion. “Maybe some other time when you aren’t being an utter troll.” 

She pulled on her jacket and slipped her shoes back on. “Sort yourself out, Malfoy.” Brushing past him, she reached out to Dr. Carter, resting a hand on his forearm. “Thanks for letting me use your library. This was exactly what I was looking for.” 

He patted her fingers kindly. “You’re welcome any time. And let me know if you think you’d like to borrow anything. I’d be happy to oblige.” 

Malfoy scoffed behind her. 

“I think Smaug here may breathe fire if we remove a single piece from his hoard,” she said. The professor gave her a sly wink. “Have you got a Floo?” 

He nodded and led her towards the parlour without a backward glance at the dragon left fuming amongst the books. 

࿐ ࿔*

A bright red memo aeroplane idly drifted through the legal offices, its colour signalling urgency, though it moved with anything but. It swirled above the trestle table, dipping low over Eloise’s quill as she wrote and jumped up as it glided toward Ms. Bhatt’s office. Before it could make its final, leisurely descent, Percy Weasley, dressed in billowing navy robes, strode in at a fast clip and snatched it from the air before stepping into Ms. Bhatt’s office and speaking low at great speed. 

“Gods, what? Richard!” Ms. Bhatt’s shout pierced the room, and before anyone could blink, she shot out of her office and into Wexford’s, Percy hot on her heels. The door slammed shut, frosted glass rattling violently in its casement.

It was as though a Petrificus Totalus had been cast over the entire room. Every eye was fixed on the door, breaths collectively held.

A tense beat passed before the door flew open again, colliding with the wall with a resounding bang.

“Jude, Penelope—everything on the Forbidden Forest centaurs.” Wexford’s gaze swept the room, his tone sharp. “We have a coalition rep from their younger faction arriving in an hour, and I want all pertinent angles covered.”

The office exploded into motion. Eloise sprang to her feet, pulling files from her area and passing them to the junior counsels. Hermione flicked her wand to summon a few documents she’d spotted earlier in the week, sliding them to Thomas, who gave her a nod while hastily adjusting his slipping glasses.

Chairs scraped, parchment flitted through the air, and clipped voices traded directions— “Not that file, the annotated report,” “Yes, the compliance record,” “No, the blue folio…”—as each counsel scrambled to gather key records.

Ms. Bhatt’s heels clipped the floor as she approached Hermione. “Any new developments with the Malfoy forest?” she asked quietly, as she leaned in close.

Hermione shook her head, lowering her voice. “Nothing yet. Our check-in is Monday.” She tucked the notes from Dr. Carter’s library beneath a stack of non-compliance notices and reports.

“How can they come here?” Penelope fussed. “Why can’t we just send our representatives like usual?” 

Hermione scowled and gripped her pen hard, clenching her jaw. 

“Ms. Clearwater,” Percy intoned with a hint of reproach, “the Ministry is honoured to host a representative from the Forbidden Forest herd in our halls. While it’s uncommon, it is by no means unprecedented. In fact, some years ago—”

“Yes, yes, they’ve been here before,” Ms. Bhatt waved her hand before him, “no time for any of that now. We’ve got to meet with the rest of the liaisons. Percy, has everyone gathered?” 

He gave a clipped nod. “Conference room one this time.” He glanced about the flurry of motion and adjusted his tie with a pinched expression then turned and ducked off down the corridor—presumably to the conference room. 

Within minutes, Wexford, Bhatt, Jude, Penelope, and Thomas, with a box of files floating before him, had swept from the room. 

Eloise straightened a stack of parchment and gave Hermione an exasperated look. “Wednesdays,” she muttered, shaking her head before diving back into her work.

࿐ ࿔*

“Our offices received word that just two weeks ago, a unicorn wandered into the Malfoy forest, causing a kerfuffle in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Our reporters sought comment from Warlock Gamp, a wizard with deep ties to this court, on what he calls ‘the Malfoy forest problem.’

“‘What we’re trying to work out,’ Gamp said, ‘is how to manage an enchanted forest on private land. Since the Statute of Secrecy, land laws haven’t exactly kept up with the times. In the old days, landowners like the Malfoys had to yield to royal privileges. Those laws remain unchanged, so… should the Wizengamot now wield the power of the Crown?’”

Hermione set the Daily Prophet down, pressing it flat with an exasperated huff. Oh yes, let’s leave everything to the Wizengamot. A court certainly known for its impeccable impartiality.

She rolled her eyes and looked back at the article:

“Many readers of this paper believe that not only the forest but the entirety of the estate should never have remained with the Malfoys at all. Frequent calls for…” 

Incendio. The paper shrivelled to ash on the table. 

Her glower softened as she looked at Crookshanks’s untouched breakfast. Gone again. She sighed and walked over to her window, opening it a little bit further in case he returned. His little forays out had grown longer and longer since the end of her eighth year. Hopefully, it was his kneazle blood calling for adventure and not that he was busy establishing a second life with another family who had a softer sofa and who worked less. 

With a huff, she stomped off to her room to get ready for work. 

࿐ ࿔*

A book hovered before her at the canteen lunch table on Wednesday, pages turning when she flicked her finger. Hermione dipped a bit of bread into her soup and paused, bread soaking through, while her eyes widened in alarm. 

“Hermione, hello!” 

“Shh,” she flapped her hand. “One second.” Her eyes scanned over the page frantically, then to the next, until she reached a scene break. With a low whistle, she finited the charm and tucked the book into her robe pocket. 

“Sorry about that,” she grinned. Sorcha stood over her, plate in hand, a gleeful smirk lighting her face. 

“Good chapter?” The magizoologist asked, slipping into the vacant seat across from Hermione. It was late for lunch—nearly two in the afternoon—leaving the noise in the room at a pleasantly low hum rather than the cacophony it usually was. 

Hermione nodded and took a sip of water. “They’ve found the killer.” Her forehead puckered. “I thought you’d be in Malfoy’s forest all day.”

“Yes, I have been,” Sorcha sighed, tucking into her panini with gusto. She swallowed a large bite and glanced up. “Had to come by and ask a few questions— looking for you, actually.” 

“Oh?” Hermione leaned forward, elbows resting on the table.

“It’s…. Draco is…he’s strange with the forest.” Her eyes lifted to something in the distance behind Hermione, then went wide momentarily before her entire demeanour drooped. “Gods, no…” she groaned.

“Sorcha!” A warm voice called out across the room. “And the great Hermione Granger herself.” 

Cormac McLaggen leaned his hip against the end of the table, orienting his broad shoulders in Hermione’s direction. He tossed the golden hair on his forehead to the side, an impeccable dimple formed in his cheek. “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” 

“You mean having lunch at my place of work, Cormac?” Hermione intoned. 

He let out a bright laugh that rang hollow through the canteen. A woman at a nearby table grimaced. “I forgot you’ve just started here. Congratulations, by the by. Listen, Hermione, if you’d like, I would be happy to introduce you to a few of the old guard.” He smirked, his perfectly white teeth gleaming. “From one old Gryffindor to another.” Then winked at her. 

Sorcha’s eyes narrowed at her younger brother. Hermione glanced between them. Where Sorcha was lithe, he was broad. Where she was dark-featured and glowering, he was golden and smiling.

“Still in Games and Sports?” Hermione asked. 

“I am.” His smile broadened. 

“That’s nice. Well, I’m not particularly fond of Quidditch, so…” 

Cormac chuckled. “It’s the Wizengamot, I meant. I know it’s quite challenging to build connections for a newcomer—especially a Muggleborn.” Steepling her fingers before her, she tapped her lips gently, jaw clenching. “And I’m sure Uncle Tiberius could find time to introduce you properly to a few of his fellows.” 

“Cormac,” Sorcha clipped, “how about you run off to your little job now and leave us to it, alright? This is a working lunch.” 

A crease formed between his brows as he scanned the table devoid of notes, his eyes raking up to Hermione’s. 

“Yes, I’m afraid it is,” she concurred. 

His grin faltered but didn’t wholly dim as he gave a little nod and rapped the table, pushing off from it. “Right, I’ll leave you girls to it. Let me know about a meeting, Hermione.” His gait swayed gently as he swaggered off to bother someone else. 

“Gods, sorry about him,” Sorcha moaned. “He’s never recovered from his first glance in the mirror.” 

“Shame he has to look at the rest of us.” 

“Unfortunately.” Sorcha took another bite and sat up straighter. “Anyhow, as I was saying…” she glanced around furtively. 

Slipping her wand from her pocket, Hermione cast a quick muffliato. “No one can hear us now.”

“You’ll have to teach me that one,” Sorcha said, nodding towards Hermione’s wand. “About the forest,” she continued, “I wanted to talk to you before our check-in meeting next week. I’m just,” she cast her eyes about, searching, “I’m just not sure if this ought to be on record or not.”

“We’ve run into each other by chance,” Hermione shrugged, her tone assuring. “This is just a conversation.”  

Sorcha was still for a moment, her eyes flitting back and forth. Then she spoke slowly, “It’s not at all what I thought it would be—the forest. I think it has some sort of connection to him.” 

“He said as much.” 

“Yes but, I mean more than he let on. The wind patterns and the way it behaves...” Sorcha rubbed a hand over her chin. “It’s like it reacts to his emotions or something. It’s making it a bit tricky to assess as a habitat.” 

“Do you think the unicorn isn’t safe?” Hermione’s brows furrowed. “Should we go back to trying to remove it?” 

“No, quite the opposite,” Sorcha murmured. 

“It’s only been a little over a week…”

“Yes, but even so,” Sorcha pressed. “That unicorn is the picture of health, and the forest seems to try to shield it from view…like it’s protecting it or something. Those are very good things—maybe better than anywhere else it could be if I’m honest.” 

“But there’s a problem?” Hermione pursed her lips against her steepled fingers. 

Sorcha sighed and leaned forward, her face drawn. “Look, they haven’t said it outright, but you know the Wizengamot is looking for ways to take the forest from him.” Hermione nodded slowly.

“Well, I think maybe they can’t. Not legally, I mean…something else. Maybe magically. But I’m not sure.” She glanced to the side, chewing her lip. Lifting her eyes to Hermione’s, she asked, “Will you keep what I say next between us? Client confidentiality and all that?” 

Hermione smirked. “You’re not really my client, you know? But yes, this stays between us.” 

The other witch took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Wide, serious blue eyes bore into Hermione. “I don’t trust the Ministry.” 

A bark of laughter burst from Hermione. She pressed her hand to her lips quickly, trembling with suppressed laughter. “I’m sorry, it’s not really funny, it’s just… why would anyone trust them?” 

“Fair enough,” Sorcha laughed, leaning back. “So what now?” 

Hermione shrugged. “Stays between us?” Sorcha nodded. “I’ve been looking into it a little in my spare time. If you see anything else hinting at his connection, let me know, all right? Who knows what might be useful, but I think that could be an excellent avenue to pursue.” 

With a nod and a glance at her watch, Sorcha rose. “I have to get back.” 

“Me too,” Hermione muttered, vanishing the remains of her lunch. “We’ll talk soon.” 

“Excellent.” Sorcha turned away then paused, glancing over her shoulder. “Oh, and ignore my brother, yeah? He’s a dickhead. Obviously.” 

Hermione laughed. “He always has been.” 

Sorcha’s eyes widened significantly. “Always.” 

࿐ ࿔*:･

Hermione absently twirled a finger in the loose spiralling curl that ghosted the collar of her slate-grey robes, her gaze fixed on the notes spread before her. Blue embroidered forget-me-nots wrapped about the edging of it and along her cuffs—a reminder. These were her Friday robes, donned without fail.

She scanned the diagrams detailing the intricate charms work that concealed the forest from Muggle sight, a feat that had dominated headlines for months when initially cast. Articles had described the upheaval and confusion in the nearby Muggle villages, exasperation radiating off every page.

But it was her mother’s reaction that lingered with her most. 

“How lovely,” her mum had said, envisioning English songbirds flocking to nest. A forest where there had been none—what a marvel. It wasn’t just another territory to be hidden or wrangled into compliance; it was a home to a multitudinous array of residents. 

John Wolcott sat down heavily beside her, loosened his collar and tie, and ran both his hands through his long, dark hair. In many ways, the fellow junior counsel reminded her of Bill Weasley. The edges of a tattoo peeked out from his cuff. At his loosened collar, a smudge of black ink hinted at the full extent of the sleeve. A gold hoop hung from his left earlobe with several vacant holes nearby climbing up the shell of his ear. 

All around them, the office was uncommonly quiet, even for a Friday. Problems with the young centaurs in the Forbidden Forest continued to pull focus. She glanced at her watch: nearly three. 

“How’d it go, John?”

He turned dazedly to her. “Oh, you know…brilliantly.” He sighed and stretched his legs out beneath the trestle table, crossing his arms over his chest. “If, of course, you think accidentally insulting one of the Goblins is brilliant and being dismissed from a meeting is a victory.”

“Oh, god, I’m sorry.” She lay her pen down and gave him a sympathetic pat on his forearm. 

“S’alright,” he said. “It wasn’t a big faux pas, but,” he scrubbed a hand down his face, reached into his pocket, pulled out a pinky ring, and placed it gingerly on the table. Warm, yellow light glowed like fire in the gleaming Goblin-wrought silver. 

“Oh no…” 

“Oh, yes. And worse,” he turned to face her, “seems this little family ‘treasure’ has some history amongst the northern Goblins.” 

“Oh, John…” 

“No, don’t ‘Oh, John’ me. I should have known better when my uncle gave it to me last weekend. He hasn’t been happy about Goblins for years, and once he found out I was working with the liaison offices, well…” he shrugged. 

Damned wizard bigotry and its rotten poison. Her anger rose to a boiling point within, forcing out a steaming sigh. 

“Don’t worry about it, Hermione,” he said with a smile. “Wexford isn’t angry. Just had to smooth things over. It’ll be alright. I’ll formally give them the ring in a few days, and the only one who will really be out is my foolish Uncle.” A wicked spark shone in his eye. “Just watch out what you wear if you ever work with the Goblins.” 

“Oh, I never will.” She smirked. 

He looked utterly perplexed. “But whyever not?”

“Mmm, same reason I can’t bank at Gringotts.” She gave him a sly look. “Honestly, you rob a bank one time…” 

John stared blankly for a beat, then let out a bark of laughter. “Merlin, Hermione…You’ll have to tell me that one sometime.” He shook his head, still grinning. “What have you got here?” He asked, tossing his chin toward her notes. She slid them over to him, explaining her thoughts about the Malfoy estate.  

“—but I want to solve for these creatures. They ought to have their autonomy, too.”

“Sure, I agree, but who is your bigger barrier here, Draco Malfoy or…well,” he lowered his voice slightly, “the Wizengamot?” 

She sighed. “I don’t know, honestly.” She tapped the end of her pen against a pursed lip. “With Malfoy, I want him to think of their rights as the Rights of Common. Shouldn’t a unicorn, or hippogriff, or house-elf, or any magical creature have the right to use the forest if they so desire? As they may need?” 

A crease formed between John’s dark brows. “Do you think he wants to allow creatures that latitude?” 

“I think so…maybe.” She chewed her lip. “At least, he seemed to want that a couple of weeks ago when I met with him and Sorcha.” 

“Did he?” A look of surprise crossed John’s features. 

“It was… I wasn’t expecting how much he seemed to care about the unicorn, actually. I’ll admit it has made me even more curious about that forest.” 

John nodded thoughtfully. “And if your bigger barrier is the you-know-what?” 

Her mouth twisted to the side. “That is the real problem. I think,” she leaned in closer and lowered her voice, “It’s a legitimate concern that they might take the forest away from him. And you know how the Daily Prophet leans.” He grunted. “But I don’t know…” her gaze drifted around the offices. 

Decrepit furnishings bore nicks and scuffs. A Dickensian atmosphere prevailed. The dark panelled walls had become slightly warped with time, wear, and moisture. Stains marred the ceilings. Paint behind the sconces was a little darkened from the old days of flame. Now that the lights had been changed to use magical bulbs, that at least wouldn’t grow worse, but the dark stains remained. 

John’s brown eyes followed her gaze. “Neglect is a common occurrence,” he said in a low voice. 

After a moment, he added, “We have managed magical forests only one way. If there’s another, I think, Hermione, that you will need to show us.” 

A stone settled in her ribs. “Unfortunately, I think you’re right.” 

The last hours slipped by. Hermione’s scalp itched where the bobby pins held her curls into a French Twist. She pressed a hand against it, dying to pull them all out and curl up on her sofa where—hopefully—Crookshanks would have returned. There was a bottle of wine and a book about warding charms waiting for her to crack into tonight. 

Precisely thirty minutes after five o’clock, Hermione gave a twist and flick of her wand, sending all of her notes on the Malfoy Forest into an orderly stack. Her fingers brushed the crisp parchment, a slight curl to the sheet’s edges from its time spent rolled in a scroll. Her notes regarding the warding of the forest stared back at her. Layers of enchantments domed above the forest, not so dissimilar from what was often used to hide the Quidditch World Cup every few years. Each spell used was listed in detail—seven in total. 

Hermione tapped her wand lightly against her lip, her gaze distant as she recalled the little lane before the gates, the long avenue that once led to... Well, it didn't matter anymore. The manor was gone, leaving only echoes in her memory. Sorcha's words lingered—perhaps the Ministry couldn't remove him magically. What had she seen? There had to be something within that forest, something beneath the surface. 

A quiet resolve stirred within her.

There was a change of clothes in her tasselled bag; of course, there was—there always was. She glanced at her watch: three minutes had passed. Sundown would still be nearly an hour off. What harm could there be in a quick visit to the Wiltshire countryside? Just to see it from the outside. From a safe distance.

Her sensible black flats clicked against the creaking wood floor as she strode to the loo. Minutes later, her old trainers squeaked slightly against the noisy floor. 

“‘Night, Hermione!” Jude called, outer cloak over his arm, as he dashed by her at a jog. She pulled the last of the pins from her hair as she walked, her curls hanging loose about her shoulders by the time she reached the Ministry Atrium and stepped lightly to the Apparition point. 

With a twist and a crack, she was gone. 
 

࿐ ࿔*

There was a time, long ago, when Britain was a forest. Oak, ash, hornbeam, Scots pine, yew, and alder crowded with many others as they stretched their branches in the glorious light. It was a woodland place long before people made their way to the islands. Over the course of several thousand years, they spread out through the land. They cleared forests for fields and wood. They dragged giant stones over great distances and stood them upright. They built long barrows, tumuli, and dolmens. And over time, the forest slipped away, shrinking and shrinking until it existed in pockets and stands and was sometimes swallowed up by the rising sea. 

By the time the Conqueror sailed with horse and stirrup across the Channel to make Britain bleed and take it for his own, the forests were a fading memory. A fairytale the fae stepped out of and vanished into once more. A mere backdrop to a forgotten story. 

So when Hermione stood roughly where the gate to the Malfoy family estate should have been and instead saw an ancient deciduous forest looming above her, she felt a deep, abiding sense that what had been forgotten may not have truly been lost. 

Dusk filtered through the dense canopy, casting endless shadows below. Branches tangled high above, sweeping down until they brushed the forest floor, where ferns scrabbled over them, nestling into moss beds in the crooks of limbs. Little mushrooms sprung up here and there, with soft bioluminescent glow like faint stars in the deepest dark. 

Nothing should have looked or felt as ancient as it did. It should have been young, mere saplings barely reaching her shoulder. Instead, an older, wilder numen of a primaeval wood, the likes of which made the Forbidden Forest feel like a fresh, young thing, whispered about them. Trees grew together so thick that it was difficult to see far ahead. Hermione’s gaze lingered over all of it in wonder. 

She glanced over her shoulder at the Wiltshire landscape as it was just across the small lane: rolling hills with fields lined with hedgerows and stone walls. A few features stood out against the rise and fall of the land: a copse of trees at the edge of the nearest field, an ancient stone-age dolmen in another, and a Muggle motorway laying like a ribbon through the land. She watched a small, white car drive the meandering lane for a while before vanishing beyond a low rise.

She turned back to the impossible forest. A strange wind swept through the trees, carrying a low groan of heaving old branches with all the frustration of an old man stretching his aching joints. A drop of rain hit her nose, and she frowned, drawing her arms tight against the chill. She whispered a wandless warming charm. 

There was a strange sensation of being at a zoo—the being out and looking in of it all. The odd moments when you peer into an enclosure searching for the promised animal only to be met with dense, obfuscating vegetation. Would some part of the magic reveal itself to her from here? She had cast just the right charms to stay on the proper side of the wards while still being able to see it, and still nothing. Trees stood as silent sentinels guarding the secrets beneath their boughs. 

Hermione pushed her hand into her thick curls, keeping them from her face, and watched as the grey sky slowly grew a little dark, and still, the forest revealed nothing. 

With a little kick at the gravel at her feet, she turned around to glance once more at the rolling hills behind her. 

Her blood ran cold. 

No, this couldn’t possibly be right. She lifted her wand and cast a diagnostic charm on herself. Temperature, normal; cognitive function, normal; heart rate, elevated—naturally. 

All around her, instead of rolling hills and a little lane, was the dense expanse of the forest. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. How could it have? She scrabbled forward, trying to get back to the little lane, but there was nothing save endless shadows and the eldritch glow of bioluminescent fungi in the dark. 

Had she moved forward into the forest without realising? But that couldn’t happen. The wards were extremely robust. Everyone agreed on that, at least. The Prophet had even reported on their continued stability just five months ago. She tried to Apparate out and felt the sickening compression of anti-Apparition wards. Bugger, the clearing was the only place in and out.  

“Oh? And which direction were you headed?” 

“North-northwest.” 

“Wrong. You were going east, almost due east.”

A chill ran down her spine. How would she even know where she was? She took a few tentative steps forward. The loamy earth was springy beneath her step. Small branches and vines brushed against her, catching on her knit jumper. 

Daylight was in its last vanishing glows. An incandescent warmth hummed in the air. All around her was the rich green of spring as though time moved on the forest’s preferred terms here. She shuddered, resting her palm on a thick old oak as she took another step over some yellow flowering St. John’s Wort. 

Hermione’s gaze caught on a towering tree as it gave a low, groaning lurch to the right, its roots clawing through the earth with a sound like a sinew tearing. She froze, blinking, her mind grasping for an explanation—a shift in the wind, an illusion in the fading light—but then the tree slid again, unmistakable, its roots scraping a full metre further. The groan seemed to reverberate through her bones, an ancient presence stirring from slumber.

“What the bloody—”

The drag of roots echoed at her other side. Wood creaked and groaned. A heavy thunk shook the ground as the large old oak she had leaned on not moments ago moved forward. Gripping her wand tight in her hand, she cast a shield and moved backwards as quickly as she could from the shifting trees. When she was two metres away, she turned and ran. 

Branches clawed, stone bruised shins, and roots seemed to rise expressly to trip her. The heavy thumps of the tree following beat an agonising rhythm too close behind. A particularly large root rose before her, sending her flying into the detritus. Thorns in a hedge beside her scraped her cheek with a sting. 

A heavy, painful thwap of something thick and round smacked against her ankle and wound about it painfully. She hissed and glanced down. A root had wrapped around her ankle like a rope. With a squeezing grip that forced her to gasp, it yanked her back, pulling her in. Frantically scrabbling at the bracken, grasping with one hand and casting Diffindos trying to sever the root, but not even a nick appeared in the wood. Before her, the giant old oak loomed, a gaping hollow within its gnarled trunk hanging wide open, darkness seeming to pour forth from its centre. 

“Immobulus!” Nothing. “Arresto Momentum!” Nothing. 

Her eyes widened as more roots shot out from its base and wrapped about her legs in coils, then pulled and lifted until, within seconds, she was standing before the tree being dragged into its gaping maw. 

Roots climbed her legs and constricted around her waist. Her breaths came staccato as she struggled and panted, trying to rip herself free. Her nails drug at the bark, a cry tearing from her as the light around her dimmed, her back hitting something hard and warm. 

“No—” she gasped and wrenched her wand hand up, thrusting it out through the now-closing hole in the tree. Hermione gritted her teeth. “Expecto Patronum!” An otter burst forth, a silver stream of light in the forest’s deepening shadows. Just as the darkness slid over her face, wrapping up to her throat, she whispered, “Tell Harry…”

And then the otter floated alone in a quiet forest, casting a silver glow over the giant oak. The soft rustle of thousands of leaves echoed through the trees. 

Chapter Text

February, 1999

All around the dark courtroom rotunda, witches and wizards sat looking down at him in judgement. The merciless expressions in their eyes taunted him. Draco Malfoy knew not to look at the faces in the gallery: he would find no comfort or compassion there. The cords of his neck and jaw tightened as he held his chin high and fixed his gaze forward. 

Sweat beaded between his shoulder blades and rolled down his knotty spine, slowing as it journeyed over each vertebra. Given this crowd of spectators, someone had gone overboard with the warming charms. Draco wondered idly if he had a fever; his eyes burned in their sockets. 

A packed theatre for his last show. He had recognised many in the gallery. Hadn’t their hands shaken his father’s many times? Hadn’t they shared boxes at Quidditch matches? Hadn’t they laughed with his family at his mother’s New Year’s parties? Too many familiar faces, and not a single one he could now call ‘friend.’ Whispers fluttered around him as they awaited the judge’s return: 

…just like his father, and wasn’t he a slippery eel… 

…never change. Malfoys never do…

…only a boy…

…awful child. Spoiled, arrogant. My nephew says he’s a right bast—…

All quieted in a swift hush as iron hinges on the door behind the judge’s seat gave a loud groan. The stout old judge ambled into the room, glaring beneath heavy brows. His left hand lifted a handkerchief repeatedly to his sweat-soaked brow. With beady eyes, a sharp expression, and a round figure swathed in woollen robes, he looked more like an owl than a man.

Order was called. Fabric rustled against seats. Murmurs and shushes fluttered through the crowd.

“Mr. Malfoy,” the judge’s words rolled steady and deliberate. “You have been found guilty of aiding and abetting in the crimes committed within the Malfoy residence known as,” he adjusted his glasses, “Malfoy Manor, as well as aiding and abetting in the endangerment of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry during your sixth year. Though you were a minor at the time of these crimes, the seriousness of your actions cannot be overlooked or trivialised.”

Draco stood rigid; the chains binding him to the podium swayed faintly against his shackles.

Removing his glasses, the judge folded them with great care and placed them gently on the dark wood podium before lacing his fingers and leaning forward with a fierce glare. Sweat glistened on his wrinkled brow.

“However, this court recognises the necessity of acknowledging shades of grey in such matters, particularly considering your age at the time and the undue influence of those around you,” the judge continued. “The rise of He-Who-Mu—of Voldemort a second time has painfully highlighted our previous failures in reducing recidivism. Time and again, we have seen that punitive measures alone do not suffice to heal our society or prevent the repetition of such dark times…and healing is what we desperately need.”

The susurration of fabric and low whispers filled the gallery; the judge’s words hung heavy in the air.

“In light of this, while you will be held accountable for your actions, this court chooses a path of growth, compassion, and wisdom. You will not be returned to Azkaban. Instead, you are sentenced to six months in Azkaban, counting time already served, and three years of magical probation in tandem with rehabilitation.”

Draco’s breath hitched, a glimmer of relief momentarily crossing his pale features before he composed himself, drawing his thoughts in. The judge rapped his knuckles on the wood, his lips pursing as he observed Draco before him.

“There are, of course, some... delicate... circumstances we must take into consideration,” he continued, his voice even and sharp. “Firstly, in the sentencing of your father, Lucius Malfoy, a substantial portion of the Malfoy estate—both funds and assets—was seized as restitution. Furthermore, the primary Malfoy residence in Wiltshire is currently the subject of ongoing investigation and is unfit for habitation until all further investigation and cursebreaking has ceased. Finally, there is the important matter of rehabilitation…which is paramount.”

Narrowing his eyes at Draco, the right side of the judge’s face pulled up in a menacing half-grin. Draco’s taut body shuddered, rattling his chains. 

“The first two years of your probation will be spent residing with a gracious host who will not only house you, Mr. Malfoy, but will also guide you. This advantageous situation—though unexpected—will hopefully serve to broaden your perspective and rectify your… misguided views.”

His ears were ringing, and his head swam. Malnourished and dehydrated, Draco’s focus began to slip. More was said, giving further details of his sentence. He hardly heard or cared. 

No more Azkaban. No more Azkaban.  

࿐ ࿔*

He groaned, eyes snapping open, cold sweat clinging to his brow. Draco bolted upright, fists knotted in the sheets, breath coming in ragged bursts.

Just a dream. Just a dream.

He let his head drop back against the headboard with a dull thump.

Just a bloody dream.

It’s over, he reminded himself. Azkaban, all of it. He didn’t have to go back.

He let images of dappled sunlight dancing on tree branches drift through his mind. 

Blinking slowly, his eyes met the clock with another groan. Early. Much too early. Four in the morning early; a horrible, liminal time. Only cockroaches should be up at this hour. 

But he was awake now and firmly alert. Heaving himself from his large, four-post bed, he stumbled toward the en suite shower. 

Half an hour later, Draco made his way blearily down the stairs—one level, two levels, three levels, and stopped in the library briefly.  

“I need something calm but not dull. Something that transports me a bit,” he said to the empty room, leaning heavily against the back of one of the chairs and yawning.

Flutters and rustles of paper whispered through the shelves surrounding the room. Books wiggled in their places, knocking their spines against the wood. Draco’s eyes narrowed as a particularly thick tome dressed in nineteenth-century gilding wiggled precariously near a shelf’s edge.  

“And maybe something set outdoors.” 

The thick book tucked deeply back into the shelf with a snap. Some particularly noisy clomps sounded to his right. There was a scraping sound as a slim volume edged out, tipped over, and dropped onto the seat of one of the high-back chairs. Lifting the book, he peered at the simple illustration of a peregrine falcon on the cover with interest. 

Dawn was a slow affair in autumn. Down in the kitchen, Draco hunched over his book, sipping tea and nibbling toast as he waited for morning's gold to touch the window panes. Instead, dark blues shifted to muted greys as dawn slipped into London behind a veil of fog. 

Fuck, he was tired. He rubbed a hand over his jaw, palm dragging across rough stubble he hadn’t yet shaved. Maybe he wouldn’t. Rising, he carried his cup to the kitchen sink and stared blankly out the window into the tiny back garden. 

“And as in uffish thought he stood… Good morning, Draco.” Dr. Carter said, striding into the room with entirely too much cheer for only half past six on a Saturday.  

“A chipper ‘good morning’ at this time deserves a hex.” 

Dr. Carter hummed and made a cup of tea. He settled at the table and opened the Daily Prophet with a snap. 

“I’m not coming today,” the professor announced, taking a sip. 

“Good. Don’t want you." 

Dr. Carter sighed, eyeing him over the rim of his cup. “How long have you been up, then?”

“Since four.”

“Dreadful. Well, don’t take it out on me. And don’t bully Laurie if she's there. She’ll jinx you.”

Porcelain landed with a clatter against the sideboard. “I do not bully,” Draco muttered, glaring into his cup before retreating to his seat. He hid behind the open book, determined to ignore the professor’s condescending looks of friendliness. 

As he tried to focus, Draco’s bones seemed to weigh him down, dragging him into a slump. Words soared before him like the peregrine the book described. In it, a lone figure watched the bird, anonymous and utterly absorbed, until all at once, the language lifted the narrator and Draco into the air with the falcon to ride on the wind. A wave of nostalgia for childhood on his broom rolled over him, washing through his bones and filling him with a deep longing to be borne aloft. 

He glanced out at the little garden. Dry leaves shuddered in a light breeze on the spindly sycamore there. Flat grey filled the sky, illuminating the city like a lightbox. Time was indeterminable in such a muted light. 

Difficult to say what the flying conditions would be like in Wiltshire, but he could feel the ache to do it too strongly to resist. 

A yawn tore from his lungs. 

“Going to lie down in the library for a bit,” he announced, rising and stretching. “Don’t come in there unless you can manage to be dead silent.” 

Dr. Carter shook his head, eyes still running back and forth on the paper. 

The Chesterfield sofa in the library was just a touch too stiff to be considered comfy. Having to remove several piles of books before being able to lie down didn’t help. Draco spread himself out on it, head crooked at just too much of an angle and ankles crossed atop the armrest at the end. Good. If he stayed uncomfortable, he wouldn’t sleep long. Just enough not to risk careening into the trees from exhaustion while flying later. 

His eyes tripped over the pages again, once more drifting into the mind of the peregrine the narrator observed. Did the peregrine understand the symmetries and shapes beneath its watchful eye? The prose pierced him. While the writer remained earthbound, Draco felt his blood pound as the wind roared past. He knew the swoop in the stomach as he hurtled toward a glimmering lake; first, a dark spot and then a vast, looming thing shining like a slab of molten metal, glittering in the sunlight. 

He closed his eyes. How unfair that this Muggle writer could never know how well he’d captured it. He could never know the exhilaration he imagined so flawlessly. 

The weight of his head slipped down, settling. Tension eased in his shoulders as breaths slowed. A wing flashed in the sunlight. His fist gripped his broom handle. The smell of water vapour above and the tang of pine below filled him. And he drifted…drifted…

Mist curled around the forest floor. A clawing, hungry thing that tangled in the roots with its seeking tendrils. Ferns shuddered beneath it and curled back in on themselves. Little mushrooms, glowing in the shadows, pulled into the ground as the mist drifted by. It swirled and twisted under and over roots, wrapping them up in its pall. 

Slowly, so very slowly, it crept about a large oak tree. Beginning at the base, it wrapped around and around, climbing and climbing. Mesmerising little motes of golden magic began to float in the air with it. It twisted around and around until a gap appeared in the oak’s trunk. There it hovered, motionless, before the dark opening. Closer, vision leaned, seeking something in the shadows of the gaping hole.

And then a hand raised feebly, and a voice—a familiar voice—whispered, “Tell Harry…”

He jolted awake, sitting bolt upright. Tiny motes of golden magic shimmered around him on the sofa. 

“Bloody hell…Granger?!” 

He leapt to his feet and Disapparated with a crack. 

With a clap, he appeared in a forest clearing. The whisper of rustling leaves filled the air. Draco’s gaze darted to and fro. His breaths came in staccato, sleep still blurring the edges of his mind. 

Focus, he had to focus. An oak tree. A very large one. That was something, at least, wasn’t it? He paced about the clearing. 

It didn’t feel like anyone was there. He stilled, taking deep, measured breaths, thinking of her, concentrating. A nudge, gentle and with the warmth of life, prodded at his awareness, a mere glimmer but nothing more. She was here.  

Taking long strides, he went to a beech tree by the southern edge of the clearing. Smooth bark undulated gently beneath his palm. His heartbeat slowed as he felt it, thinking of the sap moving through, of water spreading out to its leaves. Gold motes like dust swirled at his palm and sank into the wood. The branches of the beech raised collectively and sagged contentedly. 

A breath in, and the beech leaves above him swayed. A slow exhale, and the tree twisted beneath his touch. Concentrating, he pressed again for life within the forest. Again, only a small nudge, the faint pulse of a heartbeat, then nothing. Wherever she was, she was well hidden. 

Draco closed his eyes and carefully reached into the chambers of his memory where she was stored. A pause before opening, and then… Her wild hair caught on her lip while she scowled at her notes in the library, her indignant huff as she slammed her quill down in Defense Against the Dark Arts, her eyes wide with fear as a fire raged—no. No, no, no. 

His eyes snapped open, breaths coming rapidly again. He looked up into the trembling branches above. The copper beech leaves where the slightest red dusted the outer edges of their green. He brushed his hand gently, bark smooth beneath his fingers.

Stilling his mind, he tried again… Her lips moving silently over a book in the Great Hall, her scowl at him across a courtyard, her screams when—no! 

He jerked his hand back. The beech trembled mightily, leaning away from him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. 

He needed…He needed… 

His spine stiffened. Fuck. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and clenched his wand. No, he didn't need him, of all people. Maybe he could just… “Homenum Revelio!” …well, of course, that was bloody useless.

His jaw clenched tight, teeth squeaking. Gods, was this really the best way? 

A frustrated breath in, a resigned exhale. He raised his wand: “Expecto Patronum!” 

A shimmering silver fox burst forth and pranced before him, circling a rock at the edge of the clearing once and returning to sit at his feet, tail swishing gently back and forth. 

“Find Harry Potter, tell him Granger got herself lost in the forest.” The fox waited a beat, then dashed off in a blur of silver mist.

He ran his hand roughly through his hair and tugged. Leaves above him rustled on murmuring branches. Muted light shifted about the mossy floor of the clearing. Before him was a sea of variegated greens. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply until the loamy smell of earth filled him. A breeze brushed the hair from his brow, carrying the sweetness of honey. Birds chattered back and forth high in the branches. Sparrows picked amongst the ground cover and moss. 

He faced the far end of the clearing where a single great ash tree towered. Like many trees in the forest, the trunk, ridged and knobby, was thick around and impossibly ancient. At about the height of his head, it split into three parts from where the branches sprang forth and cast about. At its base, twisted roots arced over a large flat stone, beneath which bubbled a small, melodic well—a holy well, ancient people had called it. Before it, a shallow pool gathered, water rippling in the gust of wind.

A crack split the calm. 

“What the hell, Malfoy?” Potter snapped, dark robes whipping around him as he Apparated in. He wore a T-shirt and pyjama bottoms under his outer robes—clearly pulled from his lazy morning. His heavy footfalls pounded on the soil as he stalked closer.

Draco inhaled and held it, closing his eyes for a second. Then, with a careful exhale, “I don’t know.”

A muscle at the edge of Potter’s jaw flexed, nostrils flaring. His eyes flitted over Draco’s dishevelled state, doubt edging into his glare.

Draco pressed on, voice fast, “I had a dream—”

“Merlin…” Potter grimaced, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“—one of those dreams again.” 

That sharpened Potter’s gaze. He straightened.

“There was a large oak and a creeping mist,” Draco said. "Granger was in the oak. She said, ‘Tell Harry.’ Then I woke up. And I know—I know —she is somewhere here. I can fucking feel it, but I can’t—” he gripped his hair and pulled at the roots. 

Wind rushed through shaking branches.

Potter pulled his cloak tighter and paced to the clearing’s edge, scanning the gloom. His chest rose and fell as he considered the shadows, then turned back to Draco.

“You can always find people,” he said, voice low. “What’s different now?”

Draco shook his head. “I don’t know. The tree, maybe? I can sense her, but it’s…it’s muted. Very muted.” His hands clenched at his sides. “You can track people, can’t you? Auror spells? Or something?” 

“Not without the Trace. That’s only on underage wizards,” Potter muttered, rubbing his chin.

“How’d you always know where I was at Hogwarts, then?” 

Potter let out a short, humourless breath. “Hogwarts was…different.” His tone dared Draco to drop it.

A muscle feathered in Draco’s cheek. He should know this dance by now. Potter waited, face set until Draco ran out of silence.

Potter finally sighed, voice turning firm. “You just have to tap into it better, Malfoy. You know you do.” 

“Fuck you, of course, I know.” Draco twisted away, glaring off into the shadows. 

A pressure tightened his chest. Trees creaked and groaned around them in a rising wind. To his credit, Potter didn’t fire back any smarmy retorts. Either the man was becoming inured to him over time or concern for Hermione overrode everything else. Possibly both. Instead he stood silently, eyes shadowed, maybe working something useful out or just biting back his judgement—Draco could never tell. 

“Should we get the professor?” Potter asked, voice quieter now. “Or Theo?” 

“What’s even the point of you if you can’t track her?” Draco snarled, the words lashing out before he could swallow them. Potter glared at him, then turned to the clearing’s edge. 

A damp silence hung over the forest. Draco pressed his lips together, heat crawling up his neck. He knew exactly why Potter suggested them. Dr. Carter understood this place better than anyone—even Draco, who bore its magic. And Theo had a knack for unravelling enchanted snarls without trampling through spells like a drunk troll. 

Facing the forest, Potter cast a useless Appare Vestigium, shoulders slumping when nothing was revealed. 

Draco walked to a large boulder and perched on it, drawing his knees and resting his elbows on them. The cold from the stone seeped into his bones. His breaths slowed. Closing his eyes, he breathed in the tang of the humid forest. “Fine,” he said at last, voice low. “Dr. Carter, then.”

Potter looked around quickly at him. Pressing his lips together, he nodded and cast his patronus, sending the ghostly stag galloping to Great James Street. 

A soft patter began in the leaves. Draco watched dark grey spots appear one…by…one on the stone below him. A raindrop hit his forehead and rolled down his face. Potter shuffled through the moss and came to lean against the boulder at his side as they waited. 

Eyes fixed on the mottling grey of the stone, Draco’s mind drifted with the rhythm. The forest’s hush cracked something open in him, and he found himself drawn back to an earlier time…

Nearly three years earlier…

An acrid taste filled his mouth. Everything ached. “Should we try Rennervate?” Potter’s grating voice. Draco tried to curl his lip, but managed only a faint twitch. He returned his attention to the work of opening his aching eyes. 

“No need,” Dr. Carter replied from close by, “he’s coming around.” 

The blurred world slowly began to form, a pounding in his skull increasing with each flicker of light. Draco forced his eyelid open just a sliver, wincing as golden light flooded his vision.

“Just checking your head,” the professor said, and Draco flinched as another bright glow flashed before him. “Not concussed, at least.” 

What could he last recall? Blood twisting in the holy well, palm on the flat stone above it, an oath, a spell…shit. 

“Wrong words, Theo…” Draco forced out, his voice grating like sandpaper. 

Fabric rustled close by, then Theo’s voice, speaking low, “Told you they had different meanings.”

“Mmhmm.” 

There was a rustling of leaves beside him as the professor rose to his feet.

“They’re going to sweep the forest,” Potter announced, his voice dripping with unnecessary authority. “You should get him out of here.”

An image of a Ministerial horde trampling through the forest, firing off spells with the blunt efficiency of bureaucrats, passed before his eyes. A surge of irritation tightened his chest. His fingers dug into the earth beneath him, curling around damp bracken as if it were something alive he could protect.

“What are they going to do, Potter?” Draco ground out, blinking rapidly against the light as he struggled to open his eyes. 

Potter strode to him and leaned over close, a frown pulling his features downward. “I dunno, Malfoy,” he said dryly, “maybe they’re curious about whatever caused the little earthquake and sudden burst of gale-force winds.” 

A shout echoed from somewhere deep in the woods. 

“That will be the Aurors,” Potter stated unnecessarily. Gods, he was irritating. 

Shakily, Draco pushed himself onto his elbows, gritting his teeth with the strain. He was between two roots next to the well pond. Across the water, Dr. Carter was crouched, staring intently at the ash tree, a finger running back and forth across his pursed lips. Dr. Carter withdrew a small box from his cloak and unlatched it with a click that tightened Draco’s stomach. With deliberate care, the professor began collecting samples. The tension in Draco’s chest bloomed, becoming more immediate, more primal. His pulse quickened as Dr. Carter dipped a vial into the well water. An irrational urge swelled in him—an urge to shout, to stop him, to pull him away from the tree. But he didn’t move, swallowing back the command. The professor scraped a bit of moss from one of the roots, and the pressure in Draco’s chest mounted. 

A growl rose unbidden in his throat. His fingers clenched hard, bracken tearing in his grip.

Dr. Carter's eyes rose, meeting Draco’s. For a moment, the professor’s hand hovered over the soil he was about to collect. His expression shifted—curiosity tightened his features, then they smoothed. He glanced down at the vial of earth, then back at Draco’s trembling form.

“Draco,” he spoke gently in a tone threaded with care, “I mean no harm here. May I take some samples?” 

Draco’s breath eased out in short bursts, the tightness in his chest loosening by a fraction. He gave a stiff, reluctant nod.

“And may I take one last sample?” Dr. Carter’s eyes glinted as they darted to the ash tree. “A bit of bark?” 

Draco shot to his feet, wand instantly pointed at the professor. “No—“ 

“Expelliarmus!” 

“Gods, Harry,” Theo groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose, “must you?”

Draco blinked, wide-eyed, his focus locked on Dr. Carter. The corner of the professor’s mouth quirked upward; his brow arched as if he were on the verge of some grand private joke. He tilted his head, observing Draco. A question hung in the air, charging it with a strange energy. 

“Tell me, Draco,” his voice light, a peculiar glint in his eye, “do you understand what you’ve bound yourself to?” 

࿐ ࿔*

A crack heralded Dr. Carter’s arrival. The man stood back to them at first, fastening a garish yellow rain jacket. He turned to them with a friendly smile, seemingly unconcerned that a woman was currently lost in the woods.

“All right, let’s hear it.” 

And Draco told him all there was to know. Dr. Carter’s thick salt-and-pepper brows shadowed his eyes. 

“Like Merlin then,” he muttered absently, tapping a finger against his chin.

“What d’you mean?” Potter pressed. 

“Merlin was trapped in a tree, you know.” 

Potter’s brows shot up in surprise; Draco resisted rolling his eyes at the git. As if he needed further proof that the Boy Who Lived hadn’t been the Boy Who Paid Attention in Class. 

“He’s either dead or still trapped,” Draco said. “How do we keep that from happening to Granger?” 

“You, Draco.” Dr. Carter stared at him with a placid expression. 

He clenched his fists, knuckles going white, and relaxed them. “I can’t find her. I tried.” 

“Did you?” 

“Shut up. Of course, I did. Do you think I would have called Potter here if I hadn’t?” 

Dr. Carter hummed in reply, slipping his hands into his jacket pockets. He was still wearing his casual clothes for the morning. Draco, glanced down at his own legs: trackies, socks, no shoes. He groaned and rested his face in his palms. What had become of him? 

“Draco,” Dr. Carter’s calm baritone began, “what happened when you tried to find Hermione?”

He stared at the raindrops, slowly landing on the stone, their stains vanishing again before another appeared. “I tried to picture her, but…my memories are from school and—and from—” Potter shifted beside him, “...I just couldn’t.” 

A warm palm squeezed his left forearm. He lifted his eyes to meet Dr. Carter’s. No judgement lay there. The professor nodded slowly, patiently, small lines tightening at his eyes—the only outward sign of strain. “You saw her only two Mondays ago. And again at the house last weekend.” 

“I suppose—yes, I did,” Draco hesitated.

“Can you picture that?” 

“I don’t know, I—What if other things also come up.” 

Potter sighed and cut in, “They might, Malfoy. How about if you just deal with it so we can find her, yeah?” 

His lip curled. 

“How did Hermione come to be here, anyhow?” Dr. Carter asked. 

Draco shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. Laurie had finished the last section on her map. He had dealt with the well, those stupid nattering birds, and that gorse bush that wouldn’t stop growing on the southern edge. His jaw clenched. What else had there been? Nothing. There was nothing. Sorcha had gone home; Laurie had gone home. The evening had rolled out before him in a pleasant daze: a walk to the pub, a few drinks, an early night… 

“I don’t understand,” he muttered. “She wasn’t here.” He glanced at Potter. “Did she meet you at the Leaky last night?” 

Potter shifted from foot to foot. “No, we—I stayed in.” He cleared his throat. “There weren’t plans last night.”

Draco scowled. His gaze shifted to the forest, staring into the dappled light and dark shadows all around. Moss lay thick on boulders and over branches as though it had been there for decades. It had looked just the same when he had first walked through after it emerged. An ancient, wild thing where stately gardens, orderly lawns, and a Jacobean house ought to be. All gone. Gone and forever. 

“Do you remember the charms specialist who got pulled in?” Potter asked, rubbing his chin, staring off into the green. 

Draco’s brow furrowed. “Which one? Happened to several, I think.” 

“No, not the ones who were trying to get in; that specialist who was helping to cast the wards.” Potter scratched the side of his head. “Didn’t they say they weren’t actually in the forest, but then suddenly they were?” 

“That’s right,” Dr. Carter said, with rising clarity, “it was while the charms were being cast. He was outside the forest, and then suddenly he wasn’t.”

Draco sat up straighter. Overhead, the canopy murmured. 

“Potter, do you think Granger would have come to the boundary?” 

Potter seemed to consider this for a moment, brows drawing down over shifting eyes. “I don’t know. If I’m honest, she’s liable to do anything she’s decided is a good idea.” 

Slipping from the boulder, Draco drifted to the nearest tree, a young beech that leaned and swayed in a breeze he didn’t feel. Potter jogged up beside him, unruly hair whipped about, brushing into his eyes. 

Lifting his palm, Draco paused for the briefest moment, sorting through memory, Occluding all images of Hermione before, limiting his view of her to two Mondays prior. Clear-eyed, he placed his hand on the smooth bark, fingers wrapping around the small tree trunk, and concentrated. 

Grey robes with elegant detailing and straight posture, hair tamed and twisted back save for a few curling tendrils…the past rattled behind his eyes: fire, screams, crystal shattering… He grit his teeth until his jaw ached. Wild curls brushing against a soft green jumper, wide eyes started and then angry in the library, “Cherubs on the drawing room ceiling? Awfully gauche.” And then… 

A gnarled old oak shook its green leaves and stretched upward in a shrug. A root lifted from the ground and stamped in the soil. He felt the reverberation beneath his feet by the little beech tree. Warmth flooded his palm. The smell of sap and dried leaves mingled in his lungs. His mind wound through the forest; ferns, broken boughs, mistletoe clinging in heights, a hawk swooping for a mouse, a hippogriff—fuck’s sake—landing near the stream; the stream…the stream burbled and splashed; an oak grove, a woman’s voice, “ Tell Harry… ”, a ghostly shape lingering on the edges. 

Grey eyes met green ones. “I know where she is.” 

They stood before the old oak, arms crossed, with stern expressions. 

“How did Merlin get out?” Potter asked, the gormless numpty. 

“He didn’t.” Draco and Dr. Carter said in unison. 

The oak tree seemed to swell with a bit of pride, its branches rising toward the rain where it shook its leaves lightly, dousing them all. 

“Stop it,” Draco commanded ineffectually. Raindrops splattered his face and shoulders. His shirt, cotton and clinging to his back now, was decidedly damp. His trackies weren’t so bad; he could cope. But his socks—Draco wiggled a toe and grimaced. 

“Hold on, I can’t think like this.” He sat on a rock and lifted a foot. “Scourgify. Impervius.” Then repeated the actions on the other sock.

“Really?” Potter snapped. 

“You try thinking straight with damp, muddy socks sticking to your toes,” he bit. “Fucking awful.” He cast the spells on his other clothes until he was dry. 

Dr. Carter moved carefully around the roots of the oak, his lips pursed. “Perhaps, you could try simply talking to it,” he suggested. “Like with the yew.” 

Draco scowled. “She’s different,” he said softly.

“That may be, but this cantankerous old codger might just need a chat as well.” 

The oak shook its branches hard, pelting them with acorns. Potter threw up a shield over them, sending acorns bouncing all around. A large raindrop plonked straight into Draco’s eye. What a horrible morning it had turned out to be. With a sigh, he trudged forward and knelt at the roots running gentle hands over the bark and murmuring assurances to it. 

In his hands, he felt them—thumps: one-two, one-two, one-two. A heartbeat…beating quickly. 

“She’s alive.” The tree gave a self-satisfied shake, its whole trunk rising in a swell then contracting down. The ground shook beneath it. Draco scowled up into its canopy, his lip twisted. 

“Why can’t you just let her out?” He barked. Oak leaves waved fiercely, sending a smattering of more rain. “I don’t want her in there.” His hand, resting on the tree, felt several warm pulses, mimicking the heartbeat he could feel within. He sighed, turning to Dr. Carter and Potter. “It’s reminding me that she’s alive. I think…maybe it’s proud that she’s all right in there.” 

“All right?” Potter spluttered, aghast. “She’s in a bloody tree!”

Draco shrugged. “Might be perfectly safe there. Some people say Merlin is still fine in his.” 

“Shut it, Malfoy, and get Hermione out.” 

“Bloody Granger,” he groused under his breath. “Poking her nose where it shouldn’t be. She had no business coming here.” 

“Well, it’s done now, m’lad,” Dr. Carter said. He stepped to the side of the tree looking around the trunk and peering up into its branches. “Why do you suppose it wanted to trap her?” 

“I don’t know.” He ran his hand roughly through his hair. “It doesn’t make sense. None of the trees have done anything even remotely like this since we got all of those idiots out of here.”

Potter’s lips curled into a wry smirk. "You mean ever since you tightened access and started hovering over anyone who set foot inside?" 

Draco narrowed his eyes and tipped up his chin. “Your point?”

“You don’t know what it does with people in your absence.” 

“Not true.” Dr. Carter leaned around the trunk from the other side where he had wandered and gave Potter a pointed look. “Theo, Laurie, me…we’ve all been here at various times alone, and it’s been fine.” 

“Sorcha has, too, come to think of it,” Draco said, rubbing his temple. 

Potter stepped closer to the tree and placed his hand on a large knot in the trunk. The old oak groaned and shuddered. His brows drew together. “Malfoy,” he said, “what if it’s about Hermione?” 

Draco’s nostrils flared. “How do you mean?” 

Potter’s face twisted in thought. “Could it have sensed something about her it didn’t like?” 

A sneering voice from the edges of his locked memories slithered into his ear: Do not forget, Draco, our blood is as pure as the old magic itself. Do not tarnish it by bending to those beneath us. Hairs at the back of his neck rose. Draco swallowed roughly, his eyes glancing about at the forest. What had been before and was long buried seemed suddenly too close to the surface. 

No, it can’t be that. The stones of the house crumbled away; all of it was swallowed by the forest. All of it. Even that— especially that. 

A warm breeze swept through, rustling his hair and wrapping the scent of sap about him. If only he could be up there where the leaves brushed the grey and the rain would pour through him. Idly, his fingers slipped into the detritus, tracing spirals in the damp earth. 

At the tree, Potter was casting various opening charms while Dr. Carter’s gaze remained fixed on the bark, cataloguing every nob and fissure. Was it tight in there for Granger? She would probably come bursting out of there at a charge, ready to march straight to the Wizengamot with her ammunition: the Malfoy forest swallows Muggleborn war heroes. All the proof and the clout needed to show the forest was a dangerous place he couldn’t handle. 

The contemptuous spring in her step, as she flounced out the library door on Sunday, flashed before him. His hackles raised. 

Pale fingers curled, gripping the root he sat by. Leaves throughout the forest tossed and swayed. Branches creaked and whispered as the wind wove through them. Rain spat down in bursts through the shifting overstory. The oak’s trunk seemed to twist in on itself, tightening. Potter’s gaze flashed to Draco with searing intensity. 

“Maybe it’s you, Malfoy,” he said, his attention lingering on the root in Draco’s grip. Draco blinked, a crease forming between his brows. His fingers loosened. The tree gave a subtle lurch, leaves shaking above. Potter stood straighter, eyes widening. “It is.” 

“I wasn’t even here when this happened,” Draco countered sharply. 

Potter’s jaw set, his gaze flinty. “Do you have a problem with Hermione?” 

Draco shook his head. “No.” Beside the tree, Dr. Carter cleared his throat and gave him a significant look. “I’m just concerned, that’s all,” Draco bit. 

“Concerned? Why?” 

“For the forest.” He blinked rapidly. “She’s looking into it—laws around it. There’s a meeting on Monday to see how this is going with Sorcha, and, well,” he waved his hand toward the tree, lip curling, “and that whole bloody Ministry wants to—”

“She’s not with the Ministry.” Potter cut him off. 

“What? Of course she is, she—”

“She only works there. Her purpose is something else.” 

“And what would that be?” Draco's fist clenched against his thigh.

“Justice. Rights. For creatures, elves, centaurs…prisoners…” Potter cocked his head pointedly. 

Draco paled. He didn't need to be reminded. Every word, every syllable—her weighted lines read aloud in that courtroom—had etched themselves into his marrow.

“I wonder if she can hear us inside there,” Dr. Carter speculated, running his hand over the bark.  

The tension in Potter’s face shifted as he looked back at the oak. He sighed and laid his palm against the trunk, leaning towards it.  

“Draco,” Dr. Carter stepped closer and crouched beside him. “I think Harry is right. Maybe you don’t feel hostile toward her, but it is possible that the forest is misinterpreting your concern and treating Hermione as a threat.” 

Draco scrubbed his hand over his face and left it there for a moment, blocking out the light.  A chirping house sparrow chattered nearby. A raven shouted at them in response. The light patter of rain on the canopy overhead reverberated in the back of his skull like the insistent, soft thumps of the witch’s heartbeats beneath his fingers. 

“It is a serious concern. You know the Ministry wants to get at the forest,” he murmured softly. He raised his voice and looked about the forest, “But that doesn’t mean she is a threat.” All sound from it stopped as it listened with bated breath. “You don’t need to be concerned. Just me.” He squeezed a tree root and looked up into the knotty trunk of the old oak. “Let me carry that worry. Alone.” 

Beneath his fingers, the tree shuddered. The tremble swept up it, shaking its branches. Raindrops splattered into his eyes. A breath in—one, two, three—a slow breath out that curled about the tree like a mist that moved through the understory. It swept up the branches of the old oak tree, which lifted its limbs gently upward, drawing the air from his lungs deep into itself.

“Let her go.” 

The old tree sagged down, down, down, limbs relaxing as it slumped slightly to the side. At last, it seemed ready to rest from its self-imposed guard duties. A groaning sound, like a strange, wooden yawn, echoed from deep within it. A tremor passed over its bark. With a creaking murmur, the old oak seemed to sigh. Beside Potter’s hand, a fissure began to open up. Slowly, at first, then faster, like a weary traveller shrugging off a heavy cloak. 

A thatch of brown curls. An irritated grumble. A mumbled, “Am I dead?” And Granger collapsed into Potter’s arms. 

Dropping to her side, Dr. Carter quickly ran a diagnostic charm over her. 

“Not concussed,” Potter breathed, eyes scanning the gold spellwork above her. His shoulders slackened in relief. Draco felt a tension he hadn’t realised he’d been holding uncoil somewhere in his spine, nearly making him sway where he knelt. 

Soft, dark lashes fluttered against her cheeks, eerily pale from her ordeal. Colour flooded back into them as Granger opened her eyes. “Harry?” 

“Good morning. Did you have fun breaking the rules this time?” Potter smirked down at her. 

“Oh god, Harry.” She brushed a shaking hand against her temple. “I don’t know what happened.” Her legs trembled slightly in the moss. “I was in the lane. Not even very close. Just wanted to see it myself.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Get me home before Malfoy finds out?” 

“Malfoy found out,” Draco enunciated sharply. 

Granger twisted around in Potter’s arms, eyes wide as she took in the scene: Draco kneeling at the roots while Dr. Carter sat beside, looking with extreme interest at the tree. 

“I—I, well…” Granger trailed off, her face scrunching. 

“Yes? I didn’t quite hear an explanation there,” Draco sneered. “Were you going to tell me why you were trespassing?” 

The forest shifted about them in a cacophony of creaking wood, thumping roots, and rustling leaves. 

Granger’s features set with stubborn defiance. “I wasn’t. I was outside the wards. Then suddenly, the forest just—” She gave a squawk as a narrow root shot out of the soil, wrapped around her ankle, and dragged her forward.

The blood drained from his face. Potter yelled and latched onto her. A slithering of something through bracken at the base of the oak cut through sharply while Dr. Carter began casting wordless spells rapidly at the ground.

“NO!” Draco yelled. 

The forest froze.

“I am just annoyed! I am allowed to be irritated by a bloody nuisance!” His wide eyes cut back to Granger, who was kicking with her other foot at the root while Potter gripped her under the arms, trying to pull her away from the tree. 

Draco laid his hand on the old tree’s root once more. “Let her go,” he whispered. Gold motes rose at his fingers and sunk into the wood. The tree root gave a hard tug. Granger growled and kicked harder. 

“Let. Her. Go,” he repeated, barely above a whisper. The tree lurched and stopped. 

“It’s loosening,” Granger gritted through clenched teeth. Potter was muttering something to her, holding on tight, his whole body leaning backwards for leverage. 

“Let her go. Please,” Draco breathed, eyes closing. Don’t make her scream. Don’t hurt her. She isn’t a threat. She’s like Potter. Just irritating. Let her go. Let her be.

The root twisted, slackened, and sank into the earth. 

Granger crawled backwards, knocking Potter over until they were a pile of robes and knitwear. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. Eyes wide beneath thick, tawny brows. She glanced from Draco to the tree. He leaned back on his heels, heart pounding harder than he had realised, and watched her carefully.

Her hair, wild and loose, haloed about her like it had when they were children. Rain fell into it. Curls dipped and sprung where the drops landed. Tremors journeyed through her and shook its strands, which brushed across her reddening cheeks. The edges of Granger’s eyes tightened as she watched him. He tipped his chin down, watching her through his brows, steeling himself for the accusations that would surely follow.

She gripped Potter’s robes. In a prim, incongruous tone, she clipped, “Can we please leave?” Her gaze flitted up into the canopy, then returned to Draco, meeting his glower. “Your forest doesn’t like me very much.” 

Chapter Text

Draco’s palm clapped against the mossy boulder, sending a jolt of pain radiating through his arm. He hissed, shaking his hand out, but the sting barely registered. Behind him, the old oak stood as gnarled as ever, its roots buried in the earth like nothing had happened. 

Bloody forest and its ideas. 

He ground his teeth, knuckles whitening as he clenched a fist at his side. Granger had emerged from the tree shaken but otherwise fine—and already blaming him in that prim, biting tone. Or maybe not blaming, exactly, but that hardly mattered. The entire event had been impossible. Trees shouldn’t swallow people. Forests didn’t pick sides. Yet here he was, bound to one that apparently had opinions.

And now they’d all gone. Potter and Granger had fucked off to wherever they denned. Merlin, what must she think of all of this? How long before she filed a report about it? 

The horrible faces of the Wizengamot, all looking down on him with contempt, if not outright loathing, drifted before him. Ah, so the forest isn’t confined to its wards any longer, is it? One would ask in acidic tones. And what would he say? What could he say? 

He stomped off into the verdure, kicking ferns as he went.

The smell of damp leaves and musty rotting logs filled him. The unsteady patter of rain overhead beat the choppy rhythm of his retreat. Around boulders, over logs, beneath low-hanging boughs—deeper and deeper into the forest, on and on he went until the rain slowed and the shadows covered him like a shroud. 

He leapt across a stream that had appeared at the beginning of this mess. His socked heel splashed into it on the bank, mud squelching beneath. 

The canopy was quite thick here, with larger, more tenacious ferns and grasses crowding around the understory. His pace slowed, his breathing deepening. Stepping around a particularly thick copse of trees, his breath caught in his throat. 

An ethereal shimmer glowed over short hairs on a sleek white back. Kicking at the ground with its front hoof, the unicorn turned up ferns and grasses, making them easier to eat. The forest vegetation bent toward it, accepting it, revelling in it as though leaning forward to suggest, here, me, me, eat me next ! With a soft nicker, the rare creature nibbled wood melick that leaned toward it and seemed to stroke its muzzle with sweeping leaves. A puff of air from its nostrils fluttered the plants, which swayed gently back and then leaned in toward it once more.  

Draco, struck still as stone at the sight, began to lower slowly to the ground. First to his knees and then crawling forward until he was flat on his belly watching the unicorn. His eyes flitted over the moon-white beast as it lifted its head and shook its mane. A tiny beam of light cascaded through the canopy and caught on the pearlescent horn, shimmering in the velvet shadows. 

For a long while, or maybe no time at all, they were simply there, man and unicorn, breathing in the woods while rain pattered lightly above them. 

A small prick of heat bloomed in his pocket. Draco fished out his charmed coin and read the message etched along its edge: 

Coming. Where? - T

Follow blue blazes. Draco lowered the coin. He closed his eyes, flattening his hand on the forest floor, imagining the clearing and a path from there to here. The softness of moss filled him as his fingers curled against the earth. He raised his wand.

“Flamma Caerulea,” he whispered, rolling his wrist in a circular motion before flicking upward. Little blue flames sprang from his wand. With another swish, he sent them darting through the forest, leaving a glowing trail for Theo to follow. He couldn’t sustain it for long, but it would do.

Draco slipped the coin back into his pocket and continued watching the unicorn. His stomach gave a low grumble in hunger. 

Minutes later, the snap of a branch, a crunch of detritus underfoot, and general trampling through the undergrowth heralded Theo. With a muttered curse, Draco swung a wordless muffliato toward the sounds mere seconds before Theo appeared. The unicorn startled. Its head flew up, shimmering mane tossing about its neck, gaze locking with Theo's, who stood frozen, staring back. 

The unicorn blinked slowly, long, white lashes curving elegantly over sapphire eyes. A gentle whisper of its long tail swishing back and forth drifted through the quiet. With a loud snort, it tossed its mane, ambling off into the forest’s darkness.

“Damn.” Theo shook his head. 

“I know.” Draco rolled onto his back, focused on the dappled green above. “No matter how many times I see it, I’ll never be used to it.” He placed his hand on his stomach, his breaths rising and falling in an even, calm rhythm. A rare ease washed over him, lifting the corners of his mouth as he tucked his hand behind his head, savouring the moment of peace.

“Heard you had a little crisis,” Theo said, leaning over him. Tousled, dark curls shadowed his face.

“Granger got stuck in a tree.”

“Like a cat or like Merlin?” 

“Merlin.” He sat up, bracing his arms on his knees. “What’s that?” 

Theo held out a bundle toward him. “Clothes. Dr. Carter said you were out here in your socks.” Scanning him head to toe, Theo tsked and dropped Draco’s boots before him. 

Draco scowled, pulling the bundle to himself and ripping off his other things. "Any lunch in there?" 

Turning his back, Theo scoffed. "I'm not your keeper." He idly picked at a bit of lichen on a tree. “Been a while since anything like that's happened." Draco grunted in acknowledgement, yanking on trousers. "Certainly odd of the forest to do that to her, but that’s what she gets for poking about, I suppose.” 

Draco huffed a laugh. “Exactly what I said.” He pulled on a dark green jumper. “Where’ve you been anyway? Haven’t seen you in days.” 

“Stupid question. You know where.” 

He did. Pulling on a black peacoat, he asked, “And how is Potter’s little remodel?” 

Theo issued a dramatic sigh, throwing his head back. “It’s fine. Just grand, really. Brilliantly done. Everything exactly as I would have chosen if it were me.” 

“Which it was, half the time,” Draco put in. 

“Rather good of me, that. Now, Ron Weasley will be much more comfy there when he returns from MACUSA in December.” 

“Wait…he’s planning to live there? I thought you—”

“I’ll be staying in my comfy, familiar room across the hall from you.” Theo smacked the tree with finality as he said it and turned back, flashing a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. 

“Potter’s an idiot,” Draco muttered, slipping the charmed galleon from his trackies into his trouser pocket. It glowed warmly in his palm.

Clearing - L

Theo leaned in, squinting to read over his shoulder. Before he could react, Draco grabbed his arm and yanked him into side-along Apparition.

“Merlin’s saggy bollocks!” Theo barked as they landed with a crack, stumbling sideways. “A bit of warning, you absolute wankstain!”

Draco ignored him, already striding to the opposite side of the clearing where Laurie Pole sat beneath the large ash tree, legs crossed, a cigarette dangling from her fingers. Her eyes narrowed as she took a drag. 

Wheat blonde hair was caught up in a long braid that hung over her shoulder, threaded through with premature greys. Bold brows defined a narrow face with high cheekbones—a painter’s dream of shadows. The beginnings of fine lines around her feline eyes merely accentuated them. As always, her lips were a bright red.

“I’ve finished the study,” she breathed.  

He stopped before her; a clench in his chest gripped him, then released his heart in rapid pounds. Above, the leaves rustled wildly.

A tendril of smoke coiled about her like a snake. “You won’t be surprised, at least. It’s exactly what I theorised two months ago.” 

“Gods,” he thrust a hand into his hair and tugged. “Is it as unstable as you thought?” 

She shook her head. “Where’s the professor?” 

“Merton offices, I should imagine,” Theo informed, stepping to Draco’s side. 

“We should go there then,” Laurie said, standing and vanishing her cigarette. “Better if I can just say this all once.” 

He searched her face. Dark half-moons hung below her eyes. How many days was it now? Three—no, two days until the full moon. “All right,” he conceded. “Wizarding office or Muggle?” He asked Theo.

“Muggle.” Theo scratched his chin. “I’ll see you at the house tonight, yeah?” 

Draco nodded, his stomach giving another groan of hunger. His gaze slid to Laurie, who stood closer now. Weariness clung to her, pulling her features slightly downward. 

“Shall we?” Draco asked, bending his elbow for her.

She nodded, taking hold, and they spun off to Oxford with a crack. 

The rain had reached the town. Cobbled stones shone in the damp. From the little alley where they stood beside a mass of rubbish bins, Draco shivered and drew the collar of his coat up. Reaching into his coat pocket, he fished a ballpoint pen and transfigured it into a small black umbrella with a white handle. 

The walk from the Apparition point to the professor’s college offices wasn’t far, but Laurie’s brisk pace forced Draco to stretch his stride. Despite her smaller frame, she moved with relentless energy—even this close to the full moon. Clad in black jeans and a burgundy jumper with sleeves pushed to her elbows, she seemed immune to the late-autumn chill. I run hot, she’d told him often.

Rain pattered on his umbrella. His mind’s eye drifted to the forest where that same sound would now be dropping along the canopy with soothing percussion. The water would run in little rivulets amongst the moss, where the mushrooms and roots would drink it hungrily. He took a deep breath filled with the copper tang of the city, the rich scent of wet stone, and the bursts of cigarette smoke from passers-by. 

Slightly ahead, Laurie seemed to weave amongst all with an art. She slipped silently through the world, her keen eyes flashing here and there, missing nothing. A discreet flick of her wand as they turned down Merton Street, and the pair became unmemorable and unnoticed to any Muggle who should chance a look their way.

Through the Lodge, they passed beneath its spanning arches and into the first quad, then beneath another arch and into a second, smaller quad with grass in its centre. 

“Reminds me a bit of Hogwarts whenever I’m here,” Draco observed, closing his umbrella and wandlessly drying it before slipping it into his coat pocket.

Laurie hummed, her lips pressed firmly together. “Wouldn’t know anything about that, would I?”

He grimaced. Clumsy comment on his part. He knew what trouble she’d had after being bitten as a child. Her parents cloistered her away or dragged her to specialists until she came of age and could break free. He followed close behind her as they went inward and upward to the offices. 

Dr. Carter’s door stood ajar, murmured voices spilling into the corridor as they approached. Laurie paused, her brow furrowing as she lifted a finger and pointed toward the door. She tucked against the wall, shooting Draco a sharp look before tapping her ear: listen. He joined her, leaning casually against the wall, both feigning nonchalance.

“…fine experiment, but could we really call it a success?” A pinched, nasally voice asked, his tone sharp. When silence followed, he continued, “Perhaps if there were better signs of integration…” 

The professor’s reply was lost in indistinct tones. 

“Then you should encourage that in our community as well.” 

Dr. Carter scoffed loudly. “That might be easier if there weren’t still a very real possibility of being hexed if he so much as walks down Diagon Alley.” 

Blood drained from Draco’s face. A weight took up residence in the pit of his stomach. He turned over the nasal tones of the man’s voice, trying to place it…

“Keep your voice down, Graham,” the man chided apathetically. “Those incidents have decreased significantly in the last year. At any rate, we would like to see better signs of rehabilitation.” Draco’s hand clenched into a fist. “All we’ve really seen is this defensive, combative behaviour around the estate.”

“Only natural given the tenacity with which the Ministry has pursued it.”

“Perhaps we were a tad over-zealous in our approach. Unspeakables aren’t subtle when they think they’ve got their claws in something interesting.” 

“Nor are potions, wand, or broom manufacturers, hmm?” 

“Careful, Graham,” the man warned. “That sounded quite pointed, and you know how I detest sparring with you.” 

“Imagine how I feel when my old friend stops by and suggests that a young man whose betterment and welfare I’ve taken a vested interest in is unchanged from his troubled youth?” 

Warmth flooded Draco’s cheeks as he listened, his arms squeezing tight where they were crossed over his chest. 

“That’s not a reflection on you,” the man placated. 

“And you think that is the only reason why I wouldn’t want to hear it?” 

A long, drawn-out sigh slithered from the room. “You’ve become far too attached. Remember his father? All those pathetic promises and simpering pleas to the Wizengamot the first time? And what did that get us? Recidivism. A tiger cannot change his stripes, Graham.” 

“But a snake is liable to shed his skin,” Dr. Carter stated. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” the sound of shuffling papers carried forth, “I’ve really got to get back to these.” 

“Of course, of course…” then the shuffling of fabric and squeak of a chair sliding masked whatever else was spoken. “…expected at home soon. Pleasant to see you, as always,” the man added perfunctorily, his voice growing nearer to the door. 

The heavy wood pulled back, and a narrow face with cavernous eyes caught sight of Draco and Laurie from beneath a curtain of long, silver hair. Dark irises tightened as they searched with naked contempt over the pair leaning against the wall. Thin lips pressed into a crooked line like a jagged scar across his face. Draco’s lip curled. He’d never liked any Selwyn, and Alberic Selwyn was no exception.

That gash of a mouth opened, releasing superior tones, “Ms. Pole, myself and the rest of Wizengamot look forward to your imminent report.” His cold attention swept over to Draco. “And Mr. Malfoy.” A twist of his lip pulled at the side of the man’s aged face. “Listening at doors now, are we?” Selwyn’s sneer deepened as his gaze bore into Draco, a persistent spasm in his right eye twitching. “Like father, like son.” 

Alberic Selwyn pulled his dated suit jacket closed and buttoned it, looking down his nose at Draco, then swept past him with a scoff, his silver hair lifting gently at his shoulders. 

Dropping into the chair opposite the professor’s desk, Draco barked, “What was that cretin doing here?” His hand shot out to grab an apple from the desk, biting into it without reservation.

Dr. Carter’s head snapped up. “Laurie!” he said, beaming at her before glancing back at Draco, his gaze lingering briefly on the apple. “Seems my off hours haven’t deterred anyone.” With a sigh, he waved a hand, and the door swung shut with a sharp snap. Leaning back in his chair, the leather creaked beneath him as he pulled off his glasses to clean them, his mouth tugged downward by an invisible weight.

“I wish I could say that Alberic was less vile once, but he was just shy when he was a boy. Turns out that can be a bit obfuscating.” He rubbed the lenses with his tie, meeting Draco’s gaze with his own flinty edge. “I know better now.”

Books lined the shelves against one wall. A stack of papers sat in a box beside the desk. Behind the professor, windows looked out over the quad, where two students ambled by beneath umbrellas. Laurie leaned against a bookcase, her arms crossed, fingers drumming. Dr. Carter slipped his glasses back on, eyes tightening as he took her in. “Two days, hmm?” 

Her shoulder raised in a half-shrug. “And with beasts like Selwyn roaming around, I’ll be sure always to feel it keenly,” she said, her voice tinged with ire. The Selwyn family's apothecary interests were all too well known. 

Dr. Carter’s nostrils flared. “I saw the wolfsbane price increase in the Prophet.” 

She gave a hollow laugh. “Allegedly due to the summer. Bollox. It was ridiculously wet.” 

Draco's gaze drifted to the rain-speckled window. The patter of droplets morphed into the rhythmic drumming of rain on leaves. A sudden ache blossomed in his chest. He rubbed the spot absently.

“Take it from the forest,” Draco said, chucking the apple core into the bin beside the desk. Laurie glanced at him sharply. His shoulders tightened, and he repeated clearly, “Take it from the forest. It’s all over near the southern side and by the stream. Take as much as you need whenever you need it.”

Laurie's eyes widened as she gave a short nod, tension easing from her shoulders. 

He took a slow breath and drew himself to a more poised position. When his gaze lifted to Dr. Carter’s, there was a warmth there that made him glance away.

“I’m glad we came round while Selwyn was here,” she started, slipping into the other chair beside Draco. “Now, I am even more convinced I structured this report right.” 

“You’ve finished it?” Dr. Carter leaned forward, elbows resting on his desk. She nodded, a sombre smile ghosting her lips. “And your theory?” 

“Correct,” Laurie said. “The forest’s disappearance sometime in the past and subsequent re-emergence are the result of someone’s spell. It’s powerful work, obviously.” She rubbed a thumb along her lower lip in thought. 

“And my family’s magic was keeping it concealed?” Draco was incredulous. 

“It seems so.” 

He ran through old family trees, trying to think back, back, back to the first Malfoys he could recall having the estate. William the Conqueror had gifted them the land, of course. But beyond the blunt facts the details were thin—vague. Stories, tales, family legends. Clearances to make way for farming; a yew tree, a few oaks, and a copse of copper beeches remained. And the well, of course… 

“But the forest has its own magic. I can tell that much,” Draco stated. 

“Yes, and that’s what you’re bound to: the old magic,” Laurie emphasised. The heel of Draco’s hand rubbed at his sternum. “But there are other things at play, making it volatile. There are too many factors acting on it.” 

“And my theory about Draco?” Dr. Carter asked her.

“Spooky action at a distance?” 

The professor nodded. 

Draco frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Muggle physics concept,” Laurie explained, turning her assessing gaze on him. “Two particles connected in such a way that what happens to one affects the other—no matter how far apart they are.” She folded her arms. “Entanglement is a better way to frame your relationship. You and the forest react to each other.” 

“Relationship?” Draco scoffed. “It’s a forest.” A sharp tug clenched his chest. He pressed the heel of his hand against it, rubbing in slow circles. Laurie tracked his movement, eyebrow quirking. Heat bloomed along the back of Draco’s neck. “Alright,” he relented, “Fine, a relationship. An entanglement. Whatever. What does that mean for me?”

Leaning forward with a slow exhale, Laurie rubbed her lower lip in thought. “Not completely sure, if I’m honest. We can see what it means in many ways: how it reacts to your feelings—and how you react to it. But I don’t think we can unbind you. Not yet—maybe never.” 

“Never…” he repeated, a strange feeling passed through him. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, a cold shock darted down his spine, the heady, electric thrill of something either grand or terrible and not knowing yet which it was. Deep in his chest, something stirred.

“I have to include the binding in my report,” Laurie said.

Draco spluttered as Dr. Carter rose and turned sharply toward the window, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. 

Laurie exhaled wearily. “I know both of you wanted to keep it quiet, if possible, but I think it’s a mistake. Did you hear Selwyn?” She fixed a stern gaze on Draco. “He wants to find ways to discredit you. Who knows what he and that ruddy lot of his will come up with about it? I must include this in the report because they must know that you and the land are one. There is no separating you.”

“Yes, I see…” the professor murmured. “You’re right, of course.” He glanced at Draco with a little shrug. “I take it you were in the corridor for a while?” 

“Long enough,” Draco said, averting his gaze. “First, they want me out. Live in Muggle London, learn what they want...but of course, it isn’t enough,” he spat “…they don't trust me. None of them ever will.” 

Tilting her head to the side, Laurie regarded him. “Have you tried to earn it?” Blood drained from his face. “That magizoologist trusts you already,” Laurie continued, “and Theo…and Harry.” 

Draco scoffed. “Potter doesn’t. And for Sorcha…I’m a means to an end. It’s the unicorn she cares about.” 

“That may be true,” Dr. Carter interjected, “but she does trust you enough. She's there, isn't she? And Harry does as well. He can see how you’ve changed. He doesn’t like you very much; there is a difference.” 

Draco smirked. “A subtle one.” 

“But a difference, nonetheless.” Dr. Carter turned toward Laurie. “How long can you sit on the study results?” 

“A week.” She sighed and leaned back wearily. “It's the full moon soon; they'll expect me to be a bit unavailable, but they already know from my regular reports that I thought I’d be done soon, so I can’t give much longer than that.” 

“A week…” Draco’s attention shifted around the room. A cold stole over him. He would need to speak with his solicitors and prepare them, perhaps, for the coming Ministry opposition. Gods, and what about how Granger might react to having been kidnapped by his forest? He should probably alert them to likely DMLE involvement. His stomach clenched.

Stretching, Laurie rose with a yawn. “Sorry I can’t offer more help—”

“You’ve done more than enough. Thank you,” Draco said. 

Laurie blinked at him slowly. “Do you know,” she said, voice laced with humour, “that’s the first time I think you’ve ever said that. Did it hurt?” 

“Oh, fuck off,” he scowled. 

Grinning, she said goodbyes to Dr. Carter and promised to owl the finished study that evening then slipped from the room. 

Against the window, rain pattered a light rhythm. Dr. Carter fiddled with the pocket of his waistcoat where he kept his pipe and tobacco shrunken and tucked away. A clock on the wall by the door ticked softly. Draco focused on the books along the wall all lined like trees planted neatly in a row; not at all the sort of wild mess of the ones in his forest. He felt like a mess. His gaze flickered down to the mud clinging to the soles of his boots. His father would never have allowed such a thing on his clothing. To be fair, Draco had never seen his father dressed as simply as he was now. Is that what Selwyn meant about integrating? Gods, he couldn't win, could he? But...perhaps he could adapt a few of his father's ways to suit his own needs.  

“You know, my father,” Draco swallowed roughly, “used to keep all sorts of Ministry dolts in his pocket.” 

Dr. Carter nodded sagely, his lips pursed. “Not a bad habit—especially if you feel you might run afoul of said Ministry.” 

“What if I try to keep a Ministry person in mine?” 

Dr. Carter let out a sharp laugh, kicking his feet onto the desk as he leaned back, amusement glittering in his keen gaze. “Draco, you are many things, but not your father—not in this. Have you got the money to do it? Yes. But you’re not skilled at artifice.”

“But I am an Occlumens. A bloody good one.” 

Dr. Carter shook his head. “Politicking requires finesse, not blank subterfuge. It’s an art. Your father was skilled enough.” 

“Yes, well, maybe I don’t mind not having some of his skills,” Draco ground out darkly. 

Dr. Carter regarded him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. The rhythmic drumming of rain filled the silence. Finally, he tapped his index finger on the stack of papers before him. “I hate to cut this short, but I really must see to these.”

Draco rolled his eyes and let out a dramatic sigh as he stood. Without another word, he stalked out of the office and into the dreary rain, his thoughts churning with games of politics and his father’s shadow.

࿐ ࿔*

An incessant tapping at the window had Draco scrambling over the piles of books in the library. Night hung in deep blue over Bloomsbury, with low clouds scuttling by quickly. The rain, at least, had stopped. 

Two owls swooped into the room as he pulled the window open. A Northern hawk owl who dropped a thick scroll on the sofa before hooting and flying back out, and a tawny owl who hopped in looking about hopefully for treats. He stroked its head until it dropped the letter it held into his hand.

Draco lifted the scroll first. Laurie’s report. He gripped it tightly, then tapped it with his wand, making a duplicate. Turning his attention to the letter, he broke the seal and opened it. Angular cursive sloped across the parchment in elegant lines: 

Malfoy,

Harry explained what happened as best he could, though it seems it’s still something of a mystery for you, too. I’ve already told him, but I want to reassure you directly: I have no intention of reporting anything about your forest to anyone.

My focus is—and always will be—on what’s best for the forest and its creatures. Their rights and welfare are my priority, and I hope you’ll keep that in mind as we cross paths through the DRCMC.

Until Monday,
Hermione Granger

 

Draco looked up at the owl, who regarded him, tilting its head back and forth. She wouldn’t report it—a tension he hadn’t realised had lingered uncoiled in his back. Well, he had hoped Potter would get her to see reason about it, but still…this didn’t exactly seem like Potter’s doing. He glanced back at the letter. 

An idea, a germ of a thing, began to grow. 

Summoning some treats for the owl, he sent the creature winging off into the night. For long minutes, he paced the library, sorting through his jumbled thoughts while the idea took shape. The books in the room clomped on the shelves and fluttered their pages at him in agitation. Finally, he charged off to the parlour. 

“What if I forge an alliance instead?” Draco asked as he burst into the room and stood before Dr. Carter. The man lay on a settee reading a paperback, a glass of wine beside him on the floor. Across the room, Theo was draped over an armchair, his long legs sprawled out before him, while he read The Quibbler of all things.

“Bring me up to speed here.” Dr. Carter adjusted his glasses. “What are you talking about?” 

“At the Ministry,” Draco said, cracking his knuckles restlessly. “You said getting someone in my pocket isn’t in my wheelhouse, but what about an alliance of sorts instead.” 

“With?” 

“Hermione Granger.” 

Theo scoffed and gave him a look of disbelief. Slowly, Dr. Carter laid his book down on his chest and tilted his head to the side. 

Theo spoke first, “So this morning, you were convinced enough that she wanted to take the forest from you that the whole place swallowed her up and tucked her into a tree. And now you’re convinced she would make a good ally to…do what exactly?” 

Dr. Carter eyed him over his glasses. “I think it's a perfect idea.” 

“What?” Theo pitched forward, The Quibbler sliding to the floor. “She just spent a night trapped in a tree!”

“Yes, and she broke a dragon out of Gringotts not many years ago,” Dr. Carter added. "She's who you need."

A flush of victory ran up Draco's neck, then was dowsed as he thought again of all that stood before him.

“I just don’t know how.” He raked a hand through his hair, his nails dragging along his scalp. “She was a bullheaded know-it-all in school, and I doubt that’s changed much. She could turn her bleeding heart on those creatures and take the forest from me. By hook or by crook.” 

The professor’s steely gaze pierced him. “Or she’ll use that heart to protect it—and now that means you, by extension.” 

Draco winced, his expression tightening into a grimace. “She doesn’t know that.” 

“Then tell her you are bound.” Dr. Carter scored each word with a rap of his knuckles against his book. “Trust her with this and see what she does with it.” 

Draco glanced at Theo, who was wearing a rather amused smirk. “Rules don’t apply to her if she feels she’s right, you know?” Theo remarked.

“Good,” Dr. Carter clipped. “You need someone hellbent on that forest.” 

“I have to meet with her and Sorcha on Monday.” 

“Talk to her afterwards, then,” Dr. Carter urged. “No time like the present. You’ve only got a week’s lead on the Wizengamot, you know.” 

He knew—gods, he knew. But how could he convince Granger, of all people, to help him? Why would she even consider him? Their history lay between them like a battleground: strained civility, mutual distrust, and now, a damned night in a tree. The idea of her sharp, assessing gaze twisting into something worse—mockery, refusal—left his stomach knotted tight.

Draco shuffled to the kitchen to make tea, shoulders heavy. The kettle hissed as it heated, filling the quiet with a low, simmering tension. He stared blankly at his warped reflection in the window.

A sharp scratching broke the silence. His head snapped toward the garden door, pulse skipping a beat at the sight of a familiar figure.

With a flick of his wand, the door creaked open, and a large orange fluffball strutted in, tail high and swishing with ridiculous self-importance.

“Of course it’s you,” Draco muttered.

Crookshanks sauntered past him with a demanding meow before leaping onto a chair at the kitchen table.

“Don’t tell me you’ve escaped her again,” he said dryly, already moving to the fridge. The cat answered with another imperious yowl. Draco sighed, pulling out the usual offering.

“Yes, yes, salmon for the Lordling.” He dropped the plate onto the table and slouched into the chair opposite, rubbing his temple.

Yellow eyes fixed on him briefly before shifting to the food. Draco leaned back, crossing his arms. “Got any brilliant suggestions for how to make her help me?”

Crookshanks paused mid-bite, glancing at him with what felt like deliberate judgment. A low purr rumbled in his throat as he resumed eating, the plate clattering softly beneath him. In only a few bites, he was finished. Stretching indulgently, Crookshanks curled up on the chair as though he owned it. Draco dragged a hand down his face.

“Right. Thanks for the counsel, Lord Fluffbum. I’ll sort it out myself, shall I?”

Chapter Text

Hermione leaned into the steaming water, letting it pummel her weary shoulders, but no soap could banish the smell. Oak permeated every curl, every pore, every fibre of her being. She wasn’t a witch: she was whiskey, left to ferment in an oak barrel. Or, in this case, a tree. 

God, had it only been one night? Inside the tree, had felt as timeless as being petrified by a basilisk’s oblique stare. The feeling lingered on the brink of infinity.

The scent of the forest wouldn’t leave her even two days later. Usually, she smelled of honeysuckle and—she picked up the shampoo bottle to read the label—bergamot? Whatever it claimed to provide, it wasn’t overpowering the oaken tang. The hope of smelling like herself again spiralled down the drain with a hundred strands of hair. 

Minutes later, dressed and ready, she emerged from her bedroom. Crookshanks greeted her with a plaintive yowl, his tail a ticking metronome of disapproval.

“Holy crickets, Crooks, calm down. It’s not even five minutes past breakfast.”

Crookshanks circled her ankles, threading through her legs, then padded to his bowl again and rattled it with his paw. A scattering of orange fur dusted her shoes.

“It’s coming—Merlin! There you are.” His face plunged into the catnip with a vengeance. She shook her head. “Maybe you'd be less hungry if you didn’t run off so often.” 

Two yellow eyes regarded her contemptuously from beneath orange tufts. She raised her hands in surrender. 

“Fine. I’ll leave it cracked for you again, but can you at least try to return this evening? It was too quiet yesterday without you.” 

He lifted his head and gave a meow, his fluffy tail lashing gently, brushing her leg. With a twist of her wrist, the window opened just wide enough for him to pass in and out. 

A few blown kisses of affection, which were only greeted with more unimpressed cat stares, and Hermione was dashing through the Floo and off to the Magical Creatures Department. 

࿐ ࿔*

A murmuration of memos flew through the corridor and into the Magical Creatures Department with Hermione. She watched the swirling flock as it funnelled and whirled, then broke into three distinct shapes: one group darted into the Beast Division, a second slightly larger one swept into the Centaur liaison offices, and the smallest zoomed for the open door to the legal offices.

Voices exploded from the Beast Division. 

“They’re getting violent!” 

“—school grounds—“

“—Quidditch pitch isn’t built for this—” 

The floor creaked and groaned beneath the sudden clamour of dozens of hurried footfalls. Chair legs screeched, parchment fluttered, “Accio” reverberated around the room in a chorus. 

A trio from the liaison offices streaked past, pulling on outer cloaks. Hermione pressed herself to the corridor wall, the din reverberating in her ears. Penelope Clearwater darted by, her wand raised to deflect a rogue memo. Jude Welbeck and Richard Wexford were close behind, the latter barking instructions to Jude. 

More yells erupted around her. 

“—can’t do anything about them, they know that.” 

“—Hagrid, his name is Hagrid, you idiot.” 

“Perhaps,” Mr. Wexford boomed, “we can negotiate!”

“You can’t negotiate with spears and arrows, Richard!” 

Hermione fled into the legal offices. The door closed with a rattle. It looked like a whirlwind had swept through. Standing by the trestle table with wide eyes, Eloise Midgen looked a little like a gale had struck her unawares and knocked everything from her hands. 

“I have a meeting with Sorcha McLaggen and Draco Malfoy in room three at one,” Hermione said.

“Right.” Eloise nodded, the line of her mouth setting in firm determination. She tucked her hair behind her ears. A pile of papers and twitching memos lay on the table before her. “Can you help me sort these? Thomas is at meetings all day with Ms. Bhatt and John.” 

Hermione joined her with a nod, arranging everything while the chaos down the corridor migrated toward Apparition points. 

“This one’s for you,” Eloise said, holding out a wriggling memo. 

Hermione unfolded it, breaking the charm. 

Hermione, 

Still don’t want to file a report? 

– Harry

She sighed and rubbed her temple. It would just be trouble for Malfoy. Another small piece to add to the pile the Ministry was likely forming. More proof the forest was a bit rogue. And what purpose could it possibly serve? 

She jotted a note: 

Haven’t changed my mind, thanks.

- H

Shortly after lunch, Penelope Clearwater straggled in, looking haggard and half-collapsed into one of the chairs at the trestle table. Eloise wrinkled her nose as she looked Penelope over, then conjured a cup of tea with a turn of her wand.

“Oh, no thanks, love,” Penelope waved her off. “Jude’s getting some for me now.” 

“Bad as it seemed this morning?” Eloise asked, pulling the conjured cup back to herself and taking a sip.

A line etched between Penelope’s brows. “No. Yes…I don’t know. By the time we got there, it was simmering down. Hagrid has enough of a rapport with them that he and Firenze were able to diffuse the all-out battle. Must have been brutal just before, though…judging by the blood.”  

Hermione’s hand clenched, pressing harder into her notes than intended. A lovely blot bloomed on the page...just like blood. A tiny chill licked up her spine then vanished. Lifting the tip of her fountain pen, she checked it for a bend. Reparo, she thought, wand in hand, and the nib straightened itself. 

“Mr. Wexford and the liaison offices will be at it for hours,” Penelope continued, “hashing it out with Firenze and the elders.” 

“No one from the younger faction?” Hermione asked more sharply than she’d intended. 

“That’s what was odd,” Penelope contemplated. “This was all infighting with the older faction.” She sighed and rubbed her temple. “Gods, can’t they just sort out this pettiness and reunite? If they can’t get along, they’re a danger to the Hogwarts grounds and everything else nearby.”

Hermione’s grit her teeth. “I’d hardly call them ‘petty.’ Their grievances make sense.” 

“Does violence make sense, Hermione?” Penelope challenged, arching a condescending brow.

“That’s not what I implied," she said. A little uptick of her heartbeat pattered against her ribs. “These divisions may look illogical from the outside, but in many ways, it’s a natural reaction to the stressors impacting them.” 

Penelope scoffed, crossing her arms. “I just don’t see what violence ever solves,” she said, though her crossed arms loosened slightly. “But fine, maybe there’s more to it than I’m giving them credit for.”

“I think you’re right,” Eloise chimed with a glance between them, her gaze landing on Hermione. “I was talking with Humphries—” the tips of her ears went pink, and a light blush stained her cheeks, “a curse-breaker who worked with the cleanup after the Battle a few years ago. He says the stains of dark curses cast in the Forbidden Forest have caused serious imbalances. It could take decades for it to level out naturally.” 

“So they can avoid those areas,” Penelope said with a dismissive shrug. “That’s what they’ve been told during liaison meetings when this has come up.”

Eloise frowned. “No, I think it’s deeper than all that. The dark magic residue, or whatever it is, makes it hard for some of the plants the centaurs rely on to grow.” 

“Add that with the stress of losses they sustained in that same battle,” Hermione said. “The younger ones carried the brunt of the loss." Like us. "I don’t think it’s unreasonable that they want more of a say than their elders want to give them.” 

Eloise dipped her head, sipping her tea. “And there have always been a lot of pressures on them, Pen. You know that." Penelope tapped a finger on her bicep, her lips pursed. “You know the problems in the forest are affecting everything. Even that hippogriff Hagrid introduced is gone now,” Eloise added, tapping one of the memos that had arrived that morning.

A chill pricked along Hermione’s spine. There was only one hippogriff in the Forbidden Forest. A flash of black hair and a roguish grin passed through her mind like the subtle brush of a hippogriff feather. 

Penelope sniffed and waved her wand, summoning several files from her cubicle. “Glad they don’t need us there anymore today. Mr. Wexford is plenty for the liaison team to be getting on with. I’ve got enough to do here, anyway,” Penelope said with a tone of finality.

Jude strode into the room, kicking the door shut behind him, his expression tense. “Well, you lot, seems the younger faction has gone missing entirely.” 

“What?” The three witches exploded in unison. Eloise’s teacup clattered on the table.

“Heard just now coming through the Beast Division,” Jude nodded, setting a cuppa before Penelope. “Not a trace in the Forbidden Forest.” He leaned his hip against the table and took a sip from his steaming cup, his outer robes draped over his arm. 

“Merlin’s beard,” Penelope groaned, covering her face with her palm.

Hermione chewed her lip, her pen tapping against her notes, leaving little ink specks. 

“Did you hear any details about where they’d be looking?” She asked. 

Jude pursed his lips and shook his head. “Only caught a bit in passing. But it’s worrying—no one knows where they’ve gone. And with that battle breaking out on the school grounds this morning…” 

On the school grounds…Hermione gritted her teeth, willing her mind not to go there, yet it edged toward it—hoofbeats, shouts, curses, blood—she pulled back, tightening her jaw. Not now—don't think on that now. She turned away, her eyes trained on one of the glowing filaments in a bulb as it flickered ever so slightly. A breath in, a slow exhale. 

The thought of sitting here, listening to speculation, made her chest tighten. Solitude would help her think, help her focus. “I think I’ll go work in the conference room until my meeting,” she said drily, gathering her work.

Eight minutes before one, Malfoy stepped into the room. Hermione greeted him, then paused, her gaze snagging at the sight of him.

Instead of the simple Muggle clothes he had worn every other time she had seen him, Malfoy now wore wizard’s robes. Long, fine fabric hung to his ankles where dragon-hide brogues gleamed in the light. What she first perceived as black robes shifted to the deepest green as he moved through the room. Though, beneath them seemed to lie a cashmere jumper and plain trousers. 

“Mayhem down the hall there,” he observed. “What happened?” 

“Tensions among the Forbidden Forest centaurs are boiling over,” she replied, her tone neutral. 

He hummed, moving to the other side of the room. 

“No lasting effects from the, er, night in the tree?” Malfoy asked cautiously, taking the same seat he had during their previous meeting. His expression was taut and wary. Still not trusting her motives, perhaps. She gritted her teeth and frowned. 

“Only that my hair smells like it was aged in an oak cask.” She pressed her lips together into a taut line. A smirk flashed across his face, then vanished beneath that placid poise he seemed to adopt so well. 

She brushed a hand against the side of her hair, pinning back a curl that had escaped near her forehead. 

Sorcha breezed in seconds later with ruddy cheeks and a wild gleam in her eye. 

“Draco. Hermione.” Hands were shaken, and she dropped into her chair with glee. “Well, I think it’s been excellent—revelatory.” She glanced at Malfoy. “I don’t think we need to change a thing, do you?” 

For the next hour, they reviewed the agreement that had been drawn up two weeks prior, checking that everything was still fine. Sorcha's enthusiasm for the forest made it clear all was going well: the trees were gorgeous, the plants were perfect for a unicorn, the mild climate in the strange woods was exceptional. Malfoy's eyes crinkled at the corners. Compliments about the galleon communication were equally effusive. Hermione bit her lip, unable to stop her grin. 

“It’s just so healthy. I can’t even believe it,” Sorcha effused. “Of course, they always look good, but this one…” She shook her head, a smile playing about her lips. “He fairly glimmers.” 

“Isn’t that how unicorns are supposed to be?” Malfoy enquired, head cocked to the side. “Moonlight shimmering off them and all that?” 

“True, yes, but they don’t always. Depends on how well adjusted they are to their environment or if there are external pressures, do you know what I mean? Have you ever seen one in the wild before?” 

Malfoy paled and cast his eyes down. “Only once.” He swallowed. “Unfortunately, it had been killed.” 

Hermione gripped her pen, knuckles flashing white. Memory flooded her like icy water. Gods, how had she forgotten about that? 

The smile slid from Sorcha’s face. “That’s shit. I’m so sorry.” 

Had so much really happened that a unicorn's slaughter in front of two young boys hadn’t registered in her memory? To Hermione, that had always been something that happened to Harry, but of course, he hadn’t been alone then. Malfoy’s gaze lifted, and silver eyes, cold as a winter morning, met hers unblinking—remembering. 

What strange entanglements this life could weave. 

They wrapped up the meeting with discussions of how to proceed further and projected end dates.

“Well, I’ll be off. Need to check in, see if I’m needed here at all before I go back to the forest,” Sorcha said, pushing up from the table. With a few goodbyes, she dashed from the room. 

Eyes combing over her last notes, Hermione settled them into order. There was something here, she was sure of it, something beyond facilitating this study. A game preserve? No, too contained, too artificial, too impossible when the trees might grab hold of you with their own agendas. Lord… she shook her head, lips moving silently as she thought to herself. Surely, every new arrival couldn’t spiral into this kind of ordeal. Though, it probably would as things stood now. Her stomach turned at the thought. Gods, what a mess. 

Malfoy lingered, fiddling with his cuffs. His eyes shifted all over, clearly avoiding Hermione and yet not making a move to leave or to speak. She tried to ignore him, but he radiated nervous energy that spilt out and filled the room. Was this going to be a regular occurrence after meetings, then? Him waiting around to drop some sort of remark on her? After a few seconds, her impatience reached its threshold. 

“Out with it,” she demanded.

His hands dropped to his sides with a startled look. She snapped her mouth shut, realising how harsh she sounded.

“Yes, I—er—I did have something else I wanted to talk with you about,” Malfoy said. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving a dishevelled mess in its wake. “The thing is, well…” 

Hermione lay down her pen and looked up at him patiently. His lips pressed resolutely together. Pulling out the chair before him, he perched lightly on the edge of the seat, his leg beginning to bounce. 

“The thing is…I need to tell you something. About the forest,” he added hastily. 

She eyed him warily. “All right…” 

His face twisted in concentration, leg bouncing continuously. His lips pushed together until drained of all colour as though speaking was going to take an act of rebellion against his instincts. Perhaps it was. 

He sprang from the chair once more and spun on his heel, beginning to pace. A hand drifted up to massage his sternum in slow circles. 

“What I have to tell you needs to be said in confidence.” He turned, hands dropping to his sides and stared at her, eyes intense and imploring. “Can you give me your word that what I say stays between us?” 

Watching his nervous energy was doing absolutely nothing pleasant for her own. She rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen the stiffness that was building between them. Malfoy's hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. Her curiosity was desperately piqued. But slow—she needed to think, needed a moment to gather her thoughts. As she did, he waited, rigid and wary.

“All right,” she allowed. “Within reason. I reserve the right to go straight to the DMLE if you’re about to tell me something illegal.” 

He waved a frustrated hand. “No, no, Merlin! Nothing like that at all. This is about me. It’s about my estate.” 

There was no way she wouldn’t hear him out now. She straightened, her eyes fixed on him. “Go on,” she said. A curl fell from her pins and brushed against her cheek. 

“Laurie Pole finished the report.” He swallowed. “She’s going to present it to the Wizengamot next Monday. It will reveal a few things about the forest—about me.” 

“I should imagine so,” Hermione said carefully. “Isn’t that the point?” 

“Yes and no.” Malfoy rubbed the heel of his hand into his chest. “About the forest, yes, but about me…I’m…” he faltered, eyes casting about for purchase. He fumbled with an interior pocket of robes; a thick roll of parchment slid out. He stood, staring at it for a moment. A ring on his left pinky made a light rap against it as he drummed his fingers. With a slow exhale, he extended the scroll. “This is the study.” 

Hermione’s heart skipped, her eyes fixing on the parchment before her. Her crossed leg slipped free, planting both feet securely on the floor. “But…the Wizangamot haven’t seen it!” 

“They have not and won’t…until next Monday.” 

She stared at him. Red stained his cheeks. His left thumb worried the signet on his little finger in endless circles. The rough surface of the scroll slid easily over her fingers as she began to pull it toward herself. This was it: the study. Her fingers tingled with the familiar thrill of discovery.

Then she froze. 

“No,” she said, pushing it back to him with an ache in her chest screaming, What are you doing? Just look at it! “I can’t.” 

His brow furrowed. “Granger, there’s no one—I really think it would be better for me—for the forest—if you read this before it is presented.” 

She crossed her arms and drew back into the chair. “Why?” 

He shifted from foot to foot. Warm light from the sconces quivered slightly, dancing over his hair. She regarded him without moving. 

“I need—it would be helpful if—I need someone in the Ministry who wants what’s best for the forest,” he spilled in a muddled rush. 

“I already do want that,” she asserted. 

“Yes, well,” he leaned back against the wall, dragging his hand slowly along the back of his neck, “I need someone who cares about it as a priority—even over Ministry interests. Do you know what I mean?” 

Did she know…Gods, he was hardly subtle. She studied him closely. Was this how Lucius had been? She had seen that man’s sneer, his malice, the ice in his eyes as he watched them—children all—like bugs to be squashed. How anyone had ever been fool enough to let that man into the Ministry galled her still. But his son, standing across from her, bore little resemblance to that other person. Once, perhaps, but now... she had trouble discerning it in him. Tight eyes beseeched her beneath peaked brows. 

“I know what you mean,” she sighed. “Say I read it now, and I agree to prioritise it the way you’d like. How long do you think they would let me stay here, hmm?”

He scoffed. “Are you serious? You’re ‘Hermione Granger: best friend to the Specky Wonder and heroine of Muggleborns—’” 

“Of Muggleborns—” she cut in, a finger aimed at him. “Do you hear the caveat?” 

He swallowed roughly. 

“That caveat is everything. The Muggleborn witch. Neither of the things you just said about me were me alone: those are the asterixis attached to my name.” She tipped her chin up. “The Wizengamot—no, the entire Ministry, has been waiting for this report, and you would show it to me, and only me, a week before they see it? You are asking me to run a very large personal risk, Malfoy.” She huffed, muttering, “Just having this conversation is bad enough.” 

With a tap of her wand, all of her papers and things stacked neatly together. She scooped them up and rose. 

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get down to the Archives.” 

“That’s all then? You won’t consider it?” 

Hermione looked up at him. She expected to see a sneer or maybe something akin to the looks his father had given Mr. Weasley. But instead, Malfoy was an open book with an innocent disappointment writ plane across his face. Had he ever seemed so guileless?

A clench in her chest tightened. It could be useful; she saw that clearly. Early knowledge about such a landmark thing? And Ms. Bhatt had said to make something of this for herself, after all. But could she keep their trust if she did this? There were other ways to impress the Wulfric Inn. Other things were yet to be done regarding this unicorn and this forest. She could be patient; she didn’t need this particular back door.

Did she? 

Slowly, she shook her head, pressing her lips together. “I’ll see it Monday, won’t I?” 

His eyes slipped down, a descent followed by the rest of his features as gravity tugged mercilessly at them. A deep inhale, then a slow exhale, and he gave a tight nod. 

“Thanks for hearing me out, Granger.”

He stuffed the scroll roughly back into his robe pocket and strode to the door, holding it open for her with all the aristocratic grace she had never seen in his snide youth. Seeing him there with manners he’d never exhibited before, a tepid warmth suffused her. Her tongue pressed into the roof of her mouth as she strode through the door, keeping her eyes fixed ahead, avoiding him. 

She spoke quickly to Eloise, letting her know she was headed to the Archives if anyone needed her before her four o’clock meeting. Malfoy's robes billowed behind him when he swept through the room. Holding her things close to her chest, Hermione followed. 

Malfoy’s gait was purposeful, his stride long, no doubt making for the exit as quickly as he could while still maintaining an air of quiet poise. She watched the fine pale hairs on his head flutter as he moved. 

As they passed through the Beast Division, a larger, older man caught sight of Malfoy, his face crumpling in distaste as he watched the young wizard pass through. In the corridor for the lift, a pair of older witches turned up their noses at him. 

“—belongs in Azkaban like Lucius,” one hissed to her companion as they passed. "Should have gotten at least a decade."

Hermione bristled. He'd been punished. Was that not enough? And where had they been when the whole of Wizarding Britain had broken open? Where were they when stones crumbled and fire surrounded them? She had never seen either witch before. Hermione’s hand slipped into her robe pocket and clenched her wand as she walked, her pace increasing. 

Once in the lift, Malfoy pressed his back to the far wall. His tight eyes fixed on the illuminated floor numbers above the grate. Hermione tucked in beside the buttons. A press of other people crowded in after them, filling the box.

The lift shuddered, then zipped up, to the side, stopped, up again, a stop again. People went in and out, in and out. 

A portly, barrel-chested man with beady eyes marched in, his breathing laboured. He wore fur-lined robes, had a bottle brush moustache, and perfect resembled a beaver. From the moment he caught sight of Malfoy, his attention was fixed on him. Hermione’s fingers drummed against her thigh, willing peace, willing calm. 

“Why, Draco Malfoy, what a surprise to see you here,” the man growled, shattering her hopes. He edged toward the back, but his prodigious girth limited his movements to the centre of the box.  

“Spencer Montague,” Malfoy said, his voice a silky, smooth variation on his father’s old tones. It sounded so strange to hear in his grown voice and somehow incongruous.

Malfoy was behind her, just out of sight. Hermione cheated her head slightly in his direction. Spencer Montague filled nearly all of her vision. The lift shook and rattled around them, stopping once more; everyone else dashed out, leaving only the three of them. A dozen memos flew in and hovered overhead. 

“Your father was always a great lover of Quidditch.” Montague’s deep, grizzled voice drug raggedly over the words. Malfoy sniffed. “Yes, a great lover of the game. And of brooms. Do you still like flying, m’boy?” 

“Perhaps.” 

The lift jolted to the side. Hermione leaned heavily against the wall. Here it comes: another pureblood, another convenient handshake deal. The stop for the Archives’ floor was next; she decided to miss it, discreetly pressing the button with her wand to cancel it.

“Do you know,” Montague said. A stubby finger and thumb plucked at the pocket watch chain dangling from his waistcoat. “It’s very difficult to find trees that still have the old magic. Everything has to be imbued now, you know? Not nearly as powerful as they could be. Imagine if wood with the old magic was combined with our new techniques. Wouldn’t that make a powerful broom?” 

Malfoy was quiet. The subtle fluttering of memos above and the rattle of the lift enveloped them. “It might,” he breathed at length. Hermione's heart sank, visions of Quidditch at Hogwarts and Malfoy's rivalry with Harry swam in her mind. And here stood the most powerful broom manufacturer in Britain.

Montague hummed, his beady eyes raking Malfoy from head to toe, assessing like an auctioneer judging goods. “Your forest is quite unique, you know? Yes, quite a rarity. Perhaps we could meet and discuss a contract regarding—”

“It’s not available,” Malfoy clipped. Hermione’s jaw clenched tight, her breath caught, trying not to look back at him.

“Be reasonable, Draco, m’boy,” Montague soothed in honeyed tones. “I’m sure we can come to some agreement. You know, I’ve just been talking with Warrington and Selwyn. There’s wide consensus that such a rarity ought not to belong to one person. But of course, if that person were amenable to discussion and open to fair trade…” Montague’s lips curled into a malicious smile. “Let’s say we meet on Thursday at ten o’clock. You always did like Effie’s teacakes, you must recall.” 

“Tempting,” Malfoy drawled, “but I’ve been trying to cut out things that leave a bad aftertaste.”

Hermione’s eyes snapped up to Montague’s face. Scarlet stained his cheeks, his eyes narrowed to slits. 

A smooth, magical voice announced the Atrium as the lift stopped. The grate had hardly opened before Malfoy pushed off the back wall and slipped his way through, brushing roughly against Hermione as he went, his long legs carrying him far, quickly.

Without a thought, she pushed out after him. “Malfoy!” she cried.

His head snapped back, face drawn in confusion. A pair of wizards bumped him, scooting past. Hermione half-jogged to catch up, dodging through the crowds of the Atrium. 

Her breaths were quick and short as she stopped in front of him. She had to know. “Are you interested in leasing any part of the forest to private interests?”

A muscle at the corner of his jaw ticked. His hand raised to his sternum and pressed in a circle as his gaze flickered up over her head toward something behind her. It returned to her with piercing intensity. 

“No.”  

Her pulse throbbed in her ears. An errant curl brushed against her cheek. Voice pitched low, she breathed, “Then I’m in. When can I read it?” 

His eyes glittered, a corner of his mouth hitching slightly up, and then a smooth placidity overtook his features. “This evening, seven-thirty?” 

“Yes.” 

He held out his hand perfunctorily, then seemed to falter, hesitation shadowed his face, his eyes widening as if second-guessing the gesture. Before he could withdraw, she clasped it firmly. “Seven thirty, Malfoy.”

His gaze burned into hers. With a sharp nod, he spun on his heel and made for the Floos at a clip. 

The cacophony of the Atrium seemed to come back to her all at once. She had taken only a few steps before Montague was at her elbow, the fur of his robes making a loud swish, swish as they walked. 

“Ms. Granger, I’m so glad to finally have a chance to meet you.” He looked down his nose at her, a curl in his lip that she supposed was meant to resemble a smile. She glanced at his right hand, hanging limply at his side, briefly wondering if an actual introduction was going to be lurking somewhere here. It wasn’t. “Tell me, are you working with Draco Malfoy?”

Hermione drew in a steadying breath. “He has business with the Beast Division, which I‘m sure you’ve heard about.” 

Of course, he’d heard. Spencer Montague wasn’t on the Wizengamot himself, but he certainly held the right connections. 

“That forest of his is a rare opportunity. One that could, with the right guidance, realise its full potential. May I offer a word of advice?” He asked rhetorically. “Never trust a Malfoy. Cunning, self-serving to the last.” 

She blinked slowly at him, her expression an immaculate mask of innocence. “And here I thought I recalled seeing you with Lucius Malfoy at several Hogwarts Quidditch matches.” 

His eyes narrowed. “Circumstances only, my dear.” 

“Ah, yes, I see.”

“It’s exactly that acquaintance which gives me the confidence to advise.” He brushed at the fur lining his robe. “I’m here on business often,” he added with an imperious air. “Do let me know if you should ever need any advice or help or introductions. It can be so hard starting out in such a large office.” His grin was far too wide, pushing his round cheeks up like a mediaeval grotesque. 

“I will bear that in mind.” She nodded and turned firmly toward the tea stand. Gradually, the click of his shoes receded into the bustle of the Atrium. 

࿐ ࿔*

At seven twenty-six, Hermione stood before the door on Great James Street, looking at the brass knocker and feeling like an aching contradiction. Her gut twisted. She chewed her lip and fidgeted with her cuffs. To knock or not to knock, that was the question. 

She could stand here, on the outside of knowing about this forest, on the side of the threshold that didn’t hold answers, on the street like everyone else. 

Or she could lift her hand and knock. Brave it all—like she always did. 

She lifted the brass loop, bringing it down with three quick raps.

The door opened. 

Chapter Text

The door peeled back, and warm light spilt out, haloing Theo. A wicked gleam in his eye and wild grin greeted Hermione, who scooted in at an angle to keep some distance between them. His dark eyes followed her into the entryway as the door shut with a gentle click. 

“Draco’s not here, I’m afraid.” 

“Of course, he isn’t,” she sighed. Why must she be cursed to live in a world full of people who thought nothing of being late? Her empty stomach felt even more cavernous at the prospect of waiting for him.

“He’s usually prompt," Theo defended, "but there are mitigating circumstances.” His gaze swept over her grey robes, his grin faltering. “You haven’t come straight from the office, have you?” 

“I have.” She grimaced. “Any idea when Malfoy will be back?” 

“He won’t.” Theo started down the corridor without further explanation, looking back at her over his shoulder with a wave for her to follow.

The kitchen was a warm space down two brief steps and through a narrow door—the remnants of when servants were present in the house. Warm tiles lined the floors, and buttery yellow glowed from the walls. Theo went straight for the hobs, where vegetables lay sizzling in a pan. The fridge rumbled noisily while a long wooden table filled the centre.

“Theo,” Hermione commanded, “it’s been a long day. Tell me why I’ve wasted my time. And it better be good.”

“Draco is at St. Mungo’s,” Theo said over his shoulder. Hermione froze mid-step. 

“What? What happened?” She stumbled further into the room. 

“Just a stir-fry. Hope that’s alright with you?” Theo asked, a pair of plates floating to him from the cupboard.

“Theo, focus: St. Mungos? Explain.” 

He sighed. “I am focused, Hermy.”

“Don’t call me that.” 

A mischievous smirk dimpled his cheek. “You obviously haven’t eaten supper, and once I tell you, you’ll likely go tearing off to find him. Sit.” 

A full plate landed on the long, plain wooden table in the centre of the room, followed closely by cutlery, which tucked itself under a napkin like a blanket and then nestled in. 

Hermione gave a distracted nod, slipping into a chair. Seeing her seated, Theo proceeded, “I suppose the DRCMC is aware that a hippogriff went missing from the Forbidden Forest, yes?” 

Hermione’s eyes went round. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Notice came today, actually.”

“Delayed news then. Turns out that hippogriff took a southerly journey. Guess who found it in his forest?” 

“Sweet Merlin, no…” she groaned.

“Oh, yes.” He slipped into the chair across from her and shoved a large forkful into his mouth. “Draco had known it was there for a couple of days, apparently, but he went out looking for it this afternoon. And find it he most certainly did.” 

Hermione covered her face. “Oh god, that’s Buckbeak!” 

“Yes, we are aware of that now. Harry has informed.” 

“What did he do?” 

“Draco?” 

She nodded. 

“To his credit, it seems he did as much right as he could. He bowed and acted whatever his version of deferential is. No, don’t give me that look—Sorcha was there and said he did alright. Didn’t matter, though, because it seems like the hippogriff—”

“Buckbeak,” Hermione moaned.

“—him, yes, remembered Draco. I mean, of course, he did. Who could forget such a massive prat—”

“And he was injured?” 

“Hence St. Mungos. Keep up.” Her glare was an icepick. Theo tsked and flapped his hand. “He’s alright. Course, it was a bit worse than third year.” 

“How much worse?” 

“Large rip from shoulder to navel." Hermione held back a gasp. "Sorcha kept him together, so nothing…important… spilt out. They Apparated to the clearing and straight into A&E. He’ll be back in no time.” 

“Gods, what a mess.” Hermione stared at the stir fry despondently. 

“Mm, quite tidy, all things considered,” Theo observed, taking a large bite. 

Hermione pushed her chair back with a screech along the floor and rose. 

“What? Already? But you haven’t eaten a thing!” Theo looked stricken. 

She leaned over and took two large, perfunctory bites. 

“There,” she spluttered around a mouthful. “Had two things.” Then she spun into infinity, the crack of Disapparition masking Theo’s yawped objections. 

St. Mungo’s A&E was in spectacular disarray as Hermione walked in. The zings and chimes of various mending and healing charms ricocheted around her. A cacophony of yells, cries, moans, and irritated cursing competed for attention. The dings of lift doors and squeals of chairs on tiles rebounded in the antiseptic-smelling air.

“Hello,” she greeted an overtaxed receptionist. “I’m here with the DRCMC regarding a hippogriff attack. Where can I find Mr. Draco Malfoy?” 

The receptionist gave her a shrewd look. "Got 'ere awful quick, din'tcha?" The narrow man remarked, peering at her over thick horn-rimmed spectacles. He gave a dramatic sniff. "Din't say noffink 'bout one o' your lot comin' round.”

“I'm not expected,” she bristled. “I believe it is still visiting hours, correct?” She arched a brow. “So it hardly matters why I'm here.” 

He rolled his eyes. "No need to get 'uffy, love." With a flick of his wand, a pair of large doors swung open. "108. Off ya pop."

Hermione’s heels clipped sharply on the stark tile of the corridor. The lift up to the first floor rattled like it wasn’t sure it could bear her singular weight. She gripped her wand, ready to slow the thing in the event of a sudden drop.

Groans and growls drifted from several doors as she passed through the 'Creature-Induced Injuries' corridor. A small handwritten note beneath a brass placard indicated that Hippocrates Smethwyck was still the head healer here. Turning away from the ''Dangerous' Dai Llewellyn Ward: Serious Bites,’ she entered room 108, for ‘Less Serious Bites and Other Assorted Encounters.’ 

The Serious Bites ward had always struck her as dingy, but this was even worse if possible. Fading paint and dim light were hallmarks. A vague, musty smell combining strangely with a chemical scent gave it a miasmic atmosphere. The steady drip, drip of a leak from some unseen source, echoed through the ward. A portrait by the door sneezed and whimpered.

One occupant had the room to himself. A stained curtain obscured the top half of the bed, leaving a pair of socked feet belonging to a restless owner visible. At the foot of the bed, Auror Hestia Jones glanced Hermione’s way and gave her a nod in recognition. 

“I need to go back tonight,” Malfoy barked behind the curtain. “Get me out of here, Hestia. Merlin, fuck! Look at this place! Fucking revolting.” 

Hestia turned to Hermione with a smirk. “Alright, Hermione, how’s it going?” 

“Hi, Hestia,” she gave the older witch a quick side hug. “Haven’t seen you at ORC in a bit.” 

“Been too busy.” Her blue eyes glittered even in the poor lighting. A thick, golden braid draped across her shoulder. “Wizards like this one keeping me on my toes.” 

Malfoy glanced away and sneered. “I need no keeper.” 

“And yet here I am,” she sighed. “Dr. Carter send you?” 

“Theo, actually,” Hermione replied. “Will this be reported to the DRCMC tonight or tomorrow?” 

“A preliminary notice already made it there. Full report tomorrow.” 

Hermione chewed her lip. Her eyes lifted to Malfoy’s, who glared at her warily from beneath his ashy brows. Until Malfoy’s probation ended in January, all of his accidents would be reported through the DMLE. With this, there could be more calls for oversight in the forest, and they both knew it. He watched her with falcon-like intensity; a muscle in his jaw ticked. 

“I’ll be off now,” Hestia announced, nodding once to Malfoy. “See you tomorrow.” His scowl deepened. She gave Hermione’s arm an affectionate squeeze accompanied by a warm smile, then strode from the room, her gait long and purposeful. Hermione’s eyes followed the powerful witch as she went. 

A rustle of fabric pulled her back. Malfoy’s lip was curled while his eyes roved about the room, likely savagely cataloguing perceived atrocities. If possible, he was even more pale than usual. On the small table beside the bed lay a folded black outer cloak and what remained of a green jumper, now shredded and caked in blood. An empty vial labelled “Blood Replenishing” was tipped on its side next to them. 

His left shoulder was thickly bandaged with tight wrappings that crossed down, encircling his torso. A sling held his left arm loosely. Belatedly, she realised he was mostly exposed save for the extensive bandaging. Two jagged silver scars worked up across his chest—the remnants of Harry’s old mistakes. A mint green hospital gown was draped loosely over his shoulders like a robe. 

“Got his revenge, finally,” Malfoy said, lifting his left arm as well as he could, which wasn’t much. 

“Made your bed there, didn’t you?”

He hummed in reply. “Better his revenge than yours, I suppose.” 

Her eyes snapped to him. Malfoy’s Adam’s apple dipped with a hard swallow. Would there be more? Her heart thumped in her chest, a painful, steady beat that seemed to echo in the sparse room. A dozen words hovered in the silence, words he could say but wouldn’t. She watched him closely: the tick at the edge of his jaw, the faint tremor in his bandaged arm as it fell back to his lap. His lips parted as if to speak, but nothing came, only the relentless drip, drip, drip of water somewhere unseen and the faint sound of the portrait sneezing again. His eyes cut to hers—silver, sharp—and then away, the moment gone.

“Bad?” she asked, tossing her chin toward his wound, her tone clipped, her disappointment buried beneath calm efficiency.

He glanced down and scoffed. “Yeah, ‘bad.’ Practically disemboweled me. Thank fuck Sorcha was there.” He shook his head, pale hair falling into disarray over his brow. 

“Do you want him removed? He’ll go back to the Forbidden Forest.” 

A crease formed between his brows. “No,” he said flat and forcefully. 

Her head tilted to the side. “Why not?” 

“Had a reason for leaving, didn’t he?” He adopted a somewhat haughty posture—as best one could in a shabby hospital bed. “Besides, we can avoid each other well enough.”

“This isn’t going to be good, Malfoy. They’ll want to send another magizoologist at the very least.” 

“Fuck, I know,” he groaned, throwing his head back with dramatic flair. “Sorcha said as much, too. This is why I need your help.” His neck arched, throat working with each syllable. 

Wasn’t she helping with the unicorn already? But what if she could carry that further? Would they let her, a junior counsel who only had this opportunity by chance? 

“Request me,” she said. Malfoy's head snapped up, eyes fixed on her. “You know a report is in. Get ahead of it. Have your solicitors send an owl tomorrow. Tell them you’ll work with the Beast Division, but only if I’m working on it too.” 

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed. “Will that look odd, junior counsel?” he emphasised.

She glanced about the room and summoned a wooden chair to the end of his bed. 

“Maybe, but it’s unlikely,” she said, aiming quick scourgify and stabilising charms before sitting. “Me getting you in was apparently quite the coup.” 

His brows flicked up as he nodded sagely. “Don’t like the Ministry much.” 

“You don’t say.” Her tone was bone dry. “Yes, I’m junior, but if you’re willing to work pleasantly with the Department, they won’t want to rock the boat. So request me.” 

“Will a senior counsel want a say?” 

“Likely, but I’d still be there.” 

His fingers traced over his jaw. “Alright. I’ll have my solicitors write tomorrow. In the meantime, are you still open to what we discussed earlier today?” 

A hard thump stuttered in her chest. “Yes, I’ll read it.” She leaned back, her fist curling in her robes.

“In my cloak pocket.” He nodded to the bloodied fabric. 

She wrinkled her nose. “Rifle through those yourself.” 

“I’m wounded, Granger!” He carped, waving his right hand at his bandages. Hermione arched her brow and gave a dismissive shrug. 

 Malfoy stretched ineffectively toward the garments, groaning at the great difficulty of leaning over. With a flick of her wand, the bloodied things jumped up and smacked him in the face. 

“Not very sporting, Granger. I’m completely unarmed.”

“Where’s your wand gone?” 

“With that Valkyrie.” 

“Hestia took it? But why?” 

He gave her a sharp look like she might be an idiot. Oh, yes, of course: “Your probation.” 

“Can’t have a dangerous would-be Death Eater armed in this pristine, sanitary hospital, can we?” 

The mysterious dripping reverberated in the room with heightened clarity. Hermione shifted in her seat, the chair squeaking beneath her.

Malfoy tossed the bloodied and shredded jumper onto the floor. “Vanish that, will you?” She did. After a small one-armed struggle with his folded cloak, he pulled the shrunken scroll free and held it to her. 

Her fingers tingled as they closed around the parchment. This—this—was the long-awaited study of the forest. The very thing the entire Ministry had waited for with bated breath. She slipped her finger under its edge and began to unroll. 

“Before you get going—” he said in a rush, giving her pause, “just know that this doesn’t answer everything.” Mercurial eyes lifted to meet hers. “I know you’ll have questions, but I might not be able to answer them.” 

“But you cooperated during it?” 

“Of course,” he agreed stiffly. 

“And Laurie Pole was thorough? Including whatever you gave her?” 

“Her work is impeccable,” he snapped. “If you’re wondering—”

“All I’m asking—” 

Overlapping one another, they both paused. Malfoy pursed his lips and waved his hand for her to go on. 

“All I’m asking,” she proceeded, “is if there are crucial gaps here. Has anything—anything at all—been left out that would be pertinent to protecting the forest?” 

The corner of his mouth ticked up. “That’s exactly what my solicitors asked.” 

“Doing their jobs then, I see.” 

“Nothing has been left out. But there are a few things…” his right hand drifted to his sternum, the heel of it rubbing a light circle before dropping to the bed, “…that remain unanswered, all the same.” 

“I see.” 

Hermione eyed him for a moment and looked down at the scroll. Her thumb lifted the edge slowly, then quicker, unfurling it in her lap. Tapping three fingers to its surface and dragging them along to the side it lifted, it hovered in front of her. 

“Good at that, are you?” Malfoy asked sharply. She glanced up in confusion. “Wild magic,” he explained, indicating the floating scroll with a subtle lift of his chin. 

“Wandless magic? I suppose I am, generally. Is that a problem?” 

He shook his head. “So long as it’s not done in the forest.” Eyes narrowing minutely, he pressed, “You weren’t using it when the tree…?” 

“No. I was doing absolutely nothing. Standing there minding my own next to a bunch of fields on a rather boring lane.” 

“Until suddenly you weren’t.” His eyes were a dark silver in the dim room.

Hermione held her chin higher. “Precisely.” 

Their gazes remained locked for a moment. The dripping echoed around them. Malfoy glanced away first, drumming his fingers on his thigh. Hermione turned her focus once more to the scroll. 

Her eyes scanned rapidly back and forth. A familiar trance seemed to settle over her where the warmth of the ward wrapped about her and held her close while her vision tunnelled in on the relevant information. 

One thing was immediately clear: Laurie Pole had a brilliant mind. Details about the magic of the forest, graphs and charts that described the various enchantments detected, both known and unknown. Each section was concise, yet the descriptions weren’t cold and lacking. Trees, ferns, grasses, flowers—all were detailed so vividly and with such acuity that Hermione could practically see them before her eyes.

 A tap of her wand on a small symbol at the top of each section brought up a ghostly three-dimensional model of the section of the forest referred to. These enchantments were immensely useful for showing how the trees shifted and migrated through the forest. 

It seemed magic moved through the land. Old magic, Laurie termed it, wild magic, magic inherent to the land itself. She illustrated it with a moving model of gold filaments threading through and beneath the forest, pulsing with life. But there were other enchantments layered on top of that. 

“The estate kept it hidden?” Hermione asked, glancing up at Malfoy. He nodded, picking at the wrapping on his shoulder. “So an ancestor of yours cast the original charms?” 

“That’s not clear,” he clipped. “Could have been that my ancestors weren’t aware of the charms, but were aware of local traditions concerning the erm—” he swallowed, “the place where each heir would claim the estate when it was their time.” 

“Mmm, you mean this holy well?” She pointed to a particular section on the parchment. 

A thin sigh coiled from him. He tipped his head back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I suppose I do,” he drawled. 

Hermione hummed. What good were family secrets when everyone knew your estate had become a feral forest anyway? 

She pressed on through the details. Magic flowed from the forest—thrummed in it. Though Laurie only speculated, Hermione agreed with her assessment that the magic was likely acting practically as a beacon to creatures. Most of their habitats were torn asunder and ravaged; there was little left for them anyway. Such a vast estate suddenly abundant and potent…it was little wonder that creatures were making their way there. Even Buckbeak. 

“Is Buckbeak alright?” She asked softly. 

A short, biting sound escaped Malfoy, his brows lifting in mock incredulity. “You’re joking, Granger. Asking about that vicious harpy when I’m sat in this fuck-awful hell hole?” 

She arched a brow. “And how are you? Permanent damage? Wounded pride?” 

He scowled and adjusted into his pillows, pulling at the sling on his shoulder, which was bandaged so thoroughly it looked a whole size larger. She supposed he really had been clawed badly but kept her sympathy stowed deep.

“Permanent scarring, yes.”

“I’m glad you weren’t hurt worse,” she allowed. Malfoy's eyes flickered over her face, then went back to glowering at the room. She sighed and asked again after Buckbeak. 

“He’s perfectly fine, obviously,” Malfoy groused.

“Not even one hex fired in defence?” She pressed. 

“Hardly had the time, did I?” His eyes slid to the floor, his grimace softening into something deeper, something pensive. “I wouldn’t have hurt him. I’m not like that.” 

Hermione stilled. The sensation of her teeth crawling painfully over her chin filled her, and she had to make an active effort not to run her tongue over their surface. 

“I seem to recall you having very little compunction about hex throwing.” 

Slowly, so very slowly, silver eyes lifted to her. The dim light of the room shadowed them eerily, giving them a haunted look. “That was a long time ago,” he said quietly. “Practically another life.” 

Her gaze traced his features. Had she ever really looked closely at him? Maybe. Possibly. Sixth year, before everything went up in smoke and ash, she had noticed him. Had she really looked, though? Here he sat, hunched and dejected, pride clearly wounded. And yet… and yet he set it aside to be civil while she read the study. 

Had his centre truly shifted? A strange clenching in her chest gripped. She returned her eyes to the study. 

The rest went on with details about the observed enchantments and the forest itself. The trees didn’t only look primaeval; they were. They hadn’t been destroyed, merely hidden. 

What else was hidden, she wondered. 

One thing became abundantly clear throughout: Draco Malfoy was bound very tightly to the land. 

“Malfoy…” He lifted his head from where he had been leaning, lost in thought and looked at her, waiting. “How did you get yourself bound to the forest anyway?”

He shifted his position. 

“It’s only,” she rushed on, “this explains that you’re tied up with it, and you’ve said as much yourself. But clearly, your father being removed from the estate’s magic as its owner or master or whatever you want to call it, broke the enchantment concealing it. It should have been free and wild after that, right?” 

Malfoy ran a finger over his lower lip, and his face contracted. “Yes, it should have been, but I—I am bound to it.” 

She leaned forward in rapt attention. “So it didn’t come about just because Lucius was removed from the estate like everyone thought?”

“Not exactly.” He frowned and let out a long exhale. “The estate is supposed to be claimed within seven days after being passed to the next in line.” His hand gripped his thigh, then pulled up, fingers curling into a fist. “Even though my father told them I would need to be allowed to claim it, they just let it lapse.”

“So on the eighth day…” she muttered. 

“Forest.” 

Hermione’s eyes moved back to the scroll. Did he feel guilty about it? A sense of failure? Here sat the first heir in nearly a thousand years to let the magic of the Malfoy estate lapse. 

“But then, you’re bound now anyway…”

“Yes,” he sighed. “I am bound to it. Not like my ancestors.” He pressed the heel of his hand into his sternum, massaging it. Her eyes tracked the motion. “I got the incantation wrong.” He glanced away sharply, a flush crawling up the back of his neck, staining his ears crimson. His chest rose and fell heavily.

“What?” 

“I got the words wrong, alright?” He bit out. “I wasn’t even being allowed to go there without a fucking watchdog Auror—“ he took a deep breath. “That was my home, my family’s legacy. It was mine to protect and I—I was well within my rights to claim the magic just like Malfoys have always done. So I went. Theo went with me—let Potter know, though, didn’t he?” His lip curled. “We went to the well, but it was different, and I think that threw me off a little.” 

He glanced at her and drew himself up more straight suddenly, his chin tipping up. “I claimed it and misspoke some of the words, so instead of binding the enchantment or whatever the hell it was before my ancestors were doing, I bound myself and the forest together.” 

She looked at him in open astonishment. God, the temerity of young men, just blithely waltzing into whatever they’ve set their minds on. Laurie’s report had implied, but this… 

“Has anyone ever done anything like that before?” She asked. 

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Dr. Carter says Merlin talked about the land and king being tied up together, but it’s not the same. The closest he thinks is the Green Knight. But that’s all just conjecture from stories. Nothing helpful.” He waved indifferently.

“You’d be surprised by how helpful stories can be.” She chewed her lip. “Harry stayed alive because of them.” 

He sighed and said insouciantly, “Did he? Seems like he 'got by with a little help from his friends'.” 

Surprised laughter burst from her. Malfoy's cheek twitched like he was suppressing a grin. 

“Yeah, that didn’t hurt.” She tapped the scroll, watching it roll-up of its own accord and drift over to Malfoy, who caught it and laid it on the thin sheet beside him.

“Laurie and the professor call the connection an ‘entanglement,’” he said. 

“Entanglement?” 

“Mmm, like something in quantum physics,” he explained, fingers pinching the sheet.

A fleeting unreality stole over her. Had he said quantum physics?

“Something they referred to as ‘spooky action at a distance,’” he went on. “Are you familiar?” 

Hermione shook her head. Wait, was she familiar? Her eyes felt as round as saucers. Was he about to explain it to her? Malfoy? Draco Malfoy?

His brow furrowed as he continued picking at his bedsheet, “Well, it’s where two particles share a connection of sorts—an ‘entanglement.’ They’re linked. Whatever happens to one instantly affects the other, no matter how far apart they are. They’re two parts of the same whole, even across vast distances. Of course…” 

He waved a hand and went on about how this wasn’t exactly the same as what he was experiencing and how he and the forest weren’t simple particles. He then ranted for a little bit about imperfect metaphors. All the while, Hermione was completely absorbed in trying to reconcile two parts of a whole in her mind: the Draco Malfoy of her childhood with this revised, unknown version sitting in front of her. 

“Setting the metaphor aside,” Hermione cut in over him, “is your connection why it trapped me in a tree?” 

Malfoy blanched, his throat working roughly. “Maybe…probably.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “It’s just...you’ve no idea, the kind of strain I’ve been under with the Wizengamot and the Department of Mysteries and now the DRCMC breathing down my neck. And yes, you’d been awfully helpful with Sorcha and the unicorn, but then you were in my library looking for information about land use laws, and—”

“And the Montagues, and Selwyns, and Twykenhams, and Greengrasses, and so on and so forth are all interested in that exact same thing.” She gave him a knowing look. 

Malfoy leaned back on his pillows and nodded. “Precisely. So I was concerned. Everyone has been interested in it for their own purposes.” 

Fixing him with the look she levelled on Harry when he needed to confess something, she asked, “Why did you share all this with me?”

Malfoy merely pressed his lips together, studying her warily. Long seconds passed as grey eyes flitted here and there over her while his jaw clenched tight. The drip, drip, drip in the room measured the time. He was all firm angles and hard stares. Then, as though a cloud moved out from before the moon, his eyes softened and cleared. He leaned back, his shoulders sagging. 

“It’s hard, you know,” he blinked rapidly, “to know when people are being genuine. I wasn’t raised to be used to it. It’s not something I’m entirely familiar with.”

And probably particularly difficult when you're not used to practicing sincerity yourself, a scathing part of her hissed in the corner of her mind. She swallowed it back. “And now?” she asked.

His nostrils flared. “It’s a work in progress, Granger. I’m trying.” His chest rose and fell with deep, syncopated breaths.  

Hermione pursed her lips and leaned back, crossing her arms before her. “Do you know, when I finished my eighth year at Hogwarts, Kingsley told me I could work in any department I wanted. The Ministry—the nation—he said, owed me that much and more.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “That’s, of course, the same Ministry that had a warrant out for my arrest for being nothing more than Harry’s ‘Muggleborn’ friend.” 

Malfoy’s pallor took on a ghostly shade.

“I told him to hold onto that offer while I finished an articled clerkship. And now I’m here. Do you have any idea why?” 

“Climb the ladder—become Minister of Magic yourself one day?” 

Merlin, what? A mirthless laugh barked from her. ”You think they would ever make a Muggleborn Minister?” 

“It’s happened before, I’m sure,” he muttered. “Half-bloods, at least—“

“It doesn’t matter. It won’t ever be me. They don’t really want that, and frankly,” Hermione's chin tipped up defiantly, “I don’t want the bloody office. I’m in the Magical Creatures Department because it matters. It’s important to me. Since I was eleven years old, I’ve seen this stupid society tear itself apart left, right, and centre with prejudices. They are the bedrock everything is founded on and the pillars we build with. Bigotry, blatant slavery,” she began ticking her fingers, “prejudice against centaurs, the othering of werewolves, harvesting heartstrings and other vital organs from dragons, prejudice against giants, against Veelas, vampires—”

“Yes, yes, Salazar's sake! I get it, Granger.” He carded his hand roughly through his hair.

“Do you?” Her heart pounded as she leaned forward, emphasising every word. “That Ministry is the only thing standing between all magical creatures in Britain and exploitation, and it is rife with its own prejudices and corruption.”

“So you joined their ranks?” He drawled contemptuously. An icy glare from her wiped the expression from his face. 

“Know thy enemy.” 

“I see,” he said. His hand tightened into a fist. “And is that why you agreed to come tonight?” 

“I’m not your enemy, Malfoy.” She sighed and leaned back heavily, weariness dragging at her limbs. “I never have been.” 

“Oh, sure. We were only on different sides of it all,” he gritted out. 

Heat seemed to roll off her in waves as her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Her arms crossed tightly over her chest, and glowered through her brows. “Do you want my help, or do you want to remind me why, by all rights, I should be ignoring you for the rest of our lives?” 

Malfoy tensed, his eyes widening. 

“I—” he started, then snapped his mouth shut, jaw clenching and unclenching. “You’re right.” 

Her shoulders loosened a fraction. 

“You’re right,” he said softer. “I just… I don’t know how to cope with this, Granger. Alright?” 

His face seemed so open, so earnest. It was a strange contrast to the brittle, judgmental exterior he had affected when they were children, and, as earlier that evening, it was difficult for her to reconcile the two parts of his whole. 

His right hand rose and rubbed circles in his sternum. “Merlin, isn’t this bizarre for you too?” 

“Surreal, yes.” She watched him looking half undone, his hair completely out of order, the sling bunching slightly. His long fingers twisted in the fabric before him.

“It’s not that I don’t trust your motives… not really. I just,” his eyes roved aimlessly over the room. When he spoke again, his voice was nearly a whisper, “I don’t know how to trust that you won’t take something out on me.” 

Her breath caught. “What, like you took out whatever feelings you had about Harry and Muggleborns on me?” She quirked a brow, her head tipping to the side. She could feel her expression sliding into something she had seen McGonagall wear often. Her fist gripped her sleeves; thumb brushing over the delicate stitching there. 

“Unfortunately…yes.” The grey in his eyes shifted as she watched him. Stormy blues, threaded through with gold from the lights, then a flattening, a dimming from somewhere deep within passed across them for only a moment and was gone.

“That was all a long time ago.” Her gaze drifted across the room where a water stain had turned the top of the wall brown. “Practically another lifetime.”

The door swung open with a creak. A Healer in lime green robes stepped in, staring down at a parchment in his hands and not paying a bit of attention where he walked. With a flick of her wand, Hermione slid an errant bucket from his path. 

“Mr… Malfoy?” The Healer hedged, finally glancing up. A brass tag hung over his left breast, reading, “Trainee.” His eyes ran over Malfoy, then drifted to Hermione before widening minutely in partial recognition. She turned away. 

“That’s me.” 

“Right. I’m Trainee Warren. I’ll be looking after you for the evening. Seems like we need to change your bandaging in a few hours. Have you taken your full course of potions?” 

“Yes.” 

Hermione fidgeted. Would it be better if she left now? Her eyes shifted to the door. 

“Look, Warren,” Malfoy clipped. “Can you shift me out of here? This ward is a disaster.” 

“Malfoy!” Hermione exclaimed. He shot her a quelling look. 

“If I convalesce here, I’m liable to catch something dreadful. Can’t you shift me to a private room?” 

“Well, I—I suppose we do have rooms, but—”

“Wonderful,” Malfoy said, scooting off the bed's edge. “Let’s go.” 

“Malfoy! Gods.” Hermione dragged her hand down her face. 

“Granger, honestly, this place is morbidly grim. You know it, I know it, Trainee Warren here knows it.” He glanced over at Trainee Warren, whose lips twisted as if caught between a retort and a gasp, his brows arching high in bewilderment. 

“Look, mate,” Malfoy said, turning to him. “If you move me off to a better room right now, I will donate whatever galleons it takes to give this whole ward a complete overhaul. Granger here can be a witness to my promise.” He glanced at her now. “Granger, can you scribble out some sort of formal note for this?” 

Was he serious? She eyed him briefly, then pressed her lips together in a line. “Only if you donate enough to refurbish both Bite wards.”

A wild grin—one Hermione was confident she had never seen on his face—lit up Malfoy’s features. “There you have it. What do you say, Warren? Shift me somewhere less vile?” 

“Granger? Hermione Granger?” Warren pipped. Malfoy sneered and rolled his eyes. Warren swallowed roughly. “Y-yes, just give me a moment, will you? I’ll arrange something.” He rushed for the door, then paused, looking back. “Both wards?” 

Malfoy nodded with great solemnity. “Both wards.” 

Trainee Warren’s face lit up in a beaming smile as he turned and practically skipped from the room. The portrait by the door began clapping and sneezing through whistles.

“Better draft something quick, Granger.” 

She reached into her bag and pulled out a bit of parchment and her pen. “You’re serious about this, then?”

He gave a shrug. “As a curse from Potter. Rob me blind.”

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

Wind howled through Diagon Alley in the late evening. Signs swung wildly, casting dreadful shadows on the cobblestone below. A great gust swept up, rattling against the window of Hermione’s flat as she looked out over the familiar street. Below, the squeak of the apothecary’s swinging sign permeated to the window bench where she sat with Crookshanks curled over her bare feet. 

Her fingers trailed through Crooks’ soft fur; his gentle purrs a steady undertone to her racing thoughts. 

A book floated beside her, marked in multiple places. The Whomping Willow, Screechsnap… recognition of semi-sentience seemed like something that may be needed for the forest. But did the trees have their own motivations, or were they only subject to Malfoy’s shifting emotions?

The wind howled like a banshee. Crookshanks sat up, golden eyes searching the restless night.

With Malfoy tied to the forest, it wasn’t as simple as land demarcated by a deed; it was bound. What was the nature of it then? An alliance? A guardianship? The thought twisted here and there, blowing between fragmented conjectures.

Were his motives his own, or was he merely influenced by some old magic? His hand pressing those incessant circles into his sternum rose to mind. The motion had seemed unconscious, almost vulnerable—a strange contrast to the sharp, guarded boy she had known. Something was tugging at him. Was it enough? Could a man learn compassion? Empathy? When he said he cared about the creatures and the forest, was it for their sake or his own? 

The question twisted uncomfortably. Wasn’t that her fear, too? That her motives—her life’s work—might be reduced to something selfish, cold, and calculated?

Her head tipped back to the wall with a thump, thump, thump. A sigh drew from her that rivalled the wind.

Another wild gust shuddered down the Alley. The timbers of the old building shook and groaned in protest. Hermione’s free hand twisted a lock of her hair, brushing its ends idly against her cheek. Another blustery evening swept through her mind. 

… NEWTs, mere days away. A late spring chill lingered in the old stones of Hogwarts. Whispers, chatter in the eighth year common room around her about the nefarious boy Death Eater, who was there for a short spell. Just long enough for final revisions and to complete his exams, they said, but why should he be allowed in this castle anyway? Hadn’t he betrayed all of them here? Tucked into a corner at the window bench, Hermione let her gaze drift into the starless night where purple clouds skittered low overhead… Far below, on the forest’s edge, a black-clad figure with pale blonde hair wandered, and at his heels, Crookshanks followed.

Chapter Text

The forest swayed around him in the breeze with a rustle through the leaves that gathered and grew until it sounded like rushing water. He lay on cool moss beneath the canopy, watching light filter through the trees in mottled greens and golds. A scent of damp, loamy soil enveloped him where he lay stretched out. The earth was so soft, the softest bed he had ever felt. From somewhere, in the deep recesses of his awareness came the reminder, ‘This is your bed at home.’

Slowly, he turned his head, his eyes meeting the ghostly outline of his bedroom window frame, now made entirely of tree branches. His gaze drifted closer. Ah yes, there were the posts from his bed, now saplings reaching higher. Of course, this is what it looks like. How had he forgotten? The sharp cry of a peacock cut through the air. 

He woke with a startled intake of breath. 

࿐ ࿔*

Pre-dawn light filtered through the trees; a mist rose thick from the ground, enshrouding the understory. Outside the forest, there would be frost crisp in the fields. Inside it, seasons were nothing. Tinges of red and umber traced the edges of leaves but nothing more. Flowers bloomed unseasonably late for mid-November. A hush cradled the forest in a protective cocoon. 

Wrapped in a dark cloak with his wand thrust into his pocket, Draco stalked through the forest like a restless spectre. He’d barely slept after his dream had left him too alert and drained. Exhaustion and anxiety warred within him in equal parts. Two days ago, Laurie delivered copies of the study to each Wizengamot member. Today, she would face them in session to answer questions. 

A tug in the centre of his chest drew him forward with a radiating ache that left his body shrunken inward. He had no choice in his direction. Every resistance was met with deeper aches and trees blocking his path. He wanted to stop, to turn back, but the pull in his chest refused to relent. His feet crunched over bramble and swished against ferns and grasses. A spotted woodpecker’s black and white feathers with a tufted red cap darted across his path. He paused for a moment to watch. 

Still no broom, sod it all. Apparently, it would take his shoulder at least another week before he was well enough for it. He kicked a fern frond; the whole plant pulled back from him. 

“Fuck, sorry,” he said, running a hand over his face. Merlin, what a life. 

Rumbling, grating, stone against stone, roots dragging through the soil. Draco sighed and stepped left as an oak shifted, forcing another change in his path.

Where the hell was he anyway? He’d left the house before dawn and simply wandered in the dark. Now, the first blues of the coming day were nearly giving way to the golds of morning. 

He plodded on and on; the forest shifted and breathed around him. A breeze kicked through. Oak leaves flapped like little flags, snapping and rustling together.  

A sharper sound joined in the chorus: claws scraping on stone. The drag of a talon through pebbles and earth. Feathers rustled like wings shaking out.

Gods, no. 

Why? Why couldn’t it just let well enough alone? A flash of irritation ran down his spine in a shiver. The leaves above trembled with it. 

“You,” Draco hissed as Buckbeak lifted his head and glared at him with golden eyes. The hippogriff’s head tipped down, his legs loosening at the knee, bending to spring into action. 

Shit, shit! Was he going to charge? 

Draco turned, but several trees now crowded behind him. Traitors, the lot of them. 

He stepped forward, fists clenching. Buckbeak eyed him with keen attention. Gods, why did it have to be this beast of all things? Maybe if he tried to perform the most demure bow he had ever learned as a boy, he would manage. Curse his mother for forcing that tedious instructor on him. If the idiot had been better at his job, maybe Draco wouldn’t be in this mess. 

Frustration swelled in warm waves through him. Boughs above shook as though caught in a furious wind. 

Draco bent at the waist. Buckbeak waited, eyes locked on the motion. Straining over, Draco tipped his face down, his eyes squeezing closed. Deference, complete bloody, deference. He slid a leg forward in the old style, sinking low in the painfully awkward pose. He held his breath, his muscles taut. 

One second…two…three… 

There was a rustle in the leaves. Gods, Buckbeak was getting closer. 

…eleven…twelve…thirteen…

The great flap of wings sent his hair fluttering. He could hear his breaths shuddering out of him. Pathetic. 

…Twenty-one…twenty-two…

His thigh was going to cramp in this heinous position. No Sorcha. No one but himself and his stupid mistakes. It was ridiculous, really, this ceremony for a creature that had nearly killed him. And yet, there he was, spine curved, waiting for judgment.

…thirty…thirty-one … 

The drag of a large talon rustled in the leaves. Draco’s heart pounded. A dark claw and then grey feathers were visible. All was still. The hippogriff was bowing back. Draco let out a sharp breath, his lips curving in a grin.

Bloody hell, it worked! 

But for how long? 

Respect was fragile. He held himself rigid a moment longer, his breaths growing sharper. His heart beat a fierce rhythm. 

Slowly, man and hippogriff rose together. The ache in his shoulder flared as he straightened, but he ignored it. His heart was still racing, his breaths shallow. Buckbeak had bowed. That was all that mattered.

For a long while, they stood there. Golden rays slipped through the understory, refracted by the mist in wild beams. Soft light glowed from grey and white feathers, illuminating one molten yellow iris. A shiver shot down Draco’s spine as he held eye contact. They were so close…too close. His shoulder and side throbbed where the wound had been only a week before.

What came next? He thought back to that lesson in third year. What had Potter done? 

Draco extended his arm tentatively. Buckbeak’s focus was fixed on his lifted palm. One step, then another, and another, and…

Buckbeak lowered slightly. Draco tensed, bracing himself. A feathered head ghosted against his fingertips, so near and yet just out of reach. Then, the beast launched into the air, bursting through the canopy in a spray of green leaves. 

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

Dismal, grey light angled into the Georgian townhome in soft brush strokes, painting the room in a washed-out medium when Draco Apparated back. Dr. Carter’s house didn’t have the sweeping corridors or ancient gravitas of the Manor. Various updates and conversions over the years gave it a quaint and rambling atmosphere. Floorboards creaked. Pipes rattled and clanged in the walls with regularity. Wood swelled in humidity and swung doors strangely on their hinges. Imperfect and entirely human—and perhaps well suited to a young man whose ancestral home had dissolved into nothingness one winter morning. 

It was never supposed to feel like home to him. It wasn’t, not really—it was a sentence. A peculiar, unassuming kind of punishment: live quietly, follow the rules, learn to blend into the Muggle world. And now it was this or the forest. Better than Azkaban, but at times, no less isolating. 

Dr. Carter knew it would be a rough day, and that usually meant pastries. Draco made for the kitchen in search of warmth, tea, and the hope of delectables.

The sizzle and flash of bacon in a pan was his first and only warning. 

“My, my,” Potter drawled, perched at the table holding the Daily Prophet with a disgustingly tousled look about him. Theo stood at the stove, making a fry up. “Had no idea you were so generous these days, Malfoy.” 

Draco sneered and turned to the kettle. “What the fuck are you on about?”

Potter held up the front page for him with a snap of crisp paper. 

Malfoy Family Makes Major Donation to Renovate St. Mungo’s Creature-Induced Injuries Wards

“Unusually noble of you,” Potter needled.

Draco’s jaw clenched on a retort. He breathed through the flash of anger, pulling it from the front of his mind and letting it slip out the back. “Surprised it took them this long.” 

Hot water poured from the kettle over loose leaves in a strainer, swirling as the cup filled. Warmth bled through the porcelain to his fingertips. His momentary anger was conducted into the steeping tea. 

“What’s it say?” Theo asked, summoning some toast to the plates. 

“Apparently, ‘…after a brief stay following an accident’,” Potter began to read, “‘Mr. Draco Malfoy, scion of the Malfoy family and former Death Eater associate, still on probationary restrictions,’…well, at least they left out the forest this time… ’has found it in his heart to take the plight of the beleaguered Creature-Induced Injuries Wards into his concern’… aw, you have a heart.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“‘After a near-fatal encounter with a wild hippogriff’… hmph…’Mr. Malfoy was rushed to St. Mungo’s Hospital, where he experienced the out-of-date ward first-hand.’ It goes on a bit about the grimy ward…ah, then, ‘Could this overflowing of generosity merely be the first glimmers of Draco Malfoy’s reformation and efforts to rebuild his family’s once lustrous name? Only time will tell.’” 

Potter folded the paper neatly while Theo clapped and muttered bravos. 

“That’s one way to spin, having paid over half a million galleons to have a private room,” Potter said with a malicious grin. 

Draco sniffed. “Same result in the end, isn’t it?” 

Potter hummed, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “Where will your generosity lend itself next, I wonder? It certainly hasn’t come out before,” he added under his breath. 

Theo’s muttered curses broke the kitchen’s rhythm as he scrambled, quickly summoning the plates to him. A charm saved the skillet from catastrophe, but smoke still curled ominously from a singed oven mitt he’d tossed aside.

“I can help, you know,” Potter said with a smirk. 

“I meant it: you’ll never have to make breakfast for anyone again.” Theo grimaced at the charred bits on the edges of every item on the plates. 

Potter smiled at him in a disgustingly fond way. His grin only barely wavered when his eyes caught hold of the burnt sausage ends on the plate before him. Theo slumped into his chair in defeat. A tension thrummed between the two of them for a moment.

Didn’t bells on cats help remind people they were there? Draco removed the strainer from his tea with more noise than had ever been required before.  

Mercifully, Dr. Carter arrived and saved them all from whatever was happening between Theo and Potter. Draco looked at him with the reverence of a supplicant awaiting absolution. 

Absolution was a box filled with Danishes and Pain au Chocolat. 

“She says get there by ten,” Dr. Carter said, reaching for the kettle. “Is this fresh?” 

“Just made it,” Draco supplied. 

The professor prepared himself a cup and leaned against the side. “I know an hour seems early, but—”

Potter shook his head. “No, it will be a frenzy. Earlier is better.” 

A frenzy…the gallery full all around…faces looking down from every angle in judgement. He’d scraped through before. It came out alright before. But only after everything was laid bare. Only after everyone knew all about it and could curl their lips and whisper how he deserved something awful. Only after the judge stepped out in complete disagreement with the general spirit of the audience in the room. 

“Draco,” Dr. Carter said gently at his side, pulling him back. 

Draco’s eyes lifted and met Theo’s across the table. Dark eyes beneath dark brows in a pale face bore into him, grounded him. He’d been in that position too. He knew the feeling, too. 

“It’s not a trial,” Dr. Carter said. “Laurie’s the one presenting. The Wizengamot just wants to ask questions.”

“Right, because they’re reliably impartial,” Draco muttered, glaring into his tea.

“You know, professor,” Theo said, contemplating his cutlery, “I’m quite worried about what some of these slimy arseholes will do now that they have all of this information.”

“I thought you and Hermione said they hadn’t really updated laws since the Middle Ages, and those were mostly in Malfoy's favour?” Potter cut in. 

“They haven’t, but don’t you think they’ll have the motivation to start now?” Dr. Carter asked, fiddling with the pocket in which he usually kept his pipe tobacco. 

Potter shook his head. “Dumbledore didn’t trust them much either.” 

“And yet,” Draco drawled, “You’ve all managed to work closely with them for some reason.” 

“Know thy enemy, Draco,” Dr. Carter smirked. 

“Where’s that one from? It’s only Granger—” his glance cut suddenly to Potter’s and away again; heat rushed up the back of his neck “—said it too.” 

“Sun Tzu. Chinese general.” 

“Win a lot, did he?” 

Dr. Carter shrugged. “Oh, probably. Certainly had a lot of rather sage advice. But that was all well over two thousand years ago.” 

Draco’s eyes shifted back and forth. He catalogued time on a wheel in his mind, slotting this information into its proper space. The wheel had once been tighter, smaller, briefer—magical only. And now… now… 

…Now, he had wandered Muggle streets and, grasping for explanations, scanned every sign. History was important here; that much seemed clear. Markers everywhere informing all who passed by whether some person or other had lived at such and such address, monuments to people and events, signs explaining crumbles of brick and ancient walls as mediaeval or even Roman. The latter had stopped him in his tracks the first time. Only the oldest families in Wizarding Britain were very familiar with structures that predated the Statute of Secrecy in the seventeenth century. Yet here, history far older than that lay in jumbles about the city. It was as though having ancient heritage was merely a given for all folk and not limited to an elite few. 

The long memory of history mattered here. The thought dogged him as Dr. Carter stood and gestured toward the door. Time to go. The weight of a hundred judging eyes settled over Draco’s shoulders before he even reached the Wizengamot gallery.

Hermione’s eyes travelled over the round Wizengamot gallery that resembled, to her mind, an old operating theatre from the last century with dark wooden benches surrounding and climbing high up the wall. Across the Ministry, nearly every department had sent at least one person to observe the proceedings. The DRCMC and Department of Mysteries had the two largest turnouts, spreading widely throughout. The strangely void-black robes of Unspeakables seemed like inky blots throughout the crowd. High up in the rear of the room perched Rita Skeeter, the loathsome little bug, quill and parchment hovering at the ready. Hermione was glad to see someone from the Quibbler beside her, though the somewhat moony look while blowing on the quill they were twirling was a little bit troubling.

John Wolcott fidgeted with a roll of parchment on one side of her while on her other side, Sorcha McLaggen argued with a rather brawny magizoologist on the bench below her. The man so resembled Charlie Weasley that Hermione kept sneaking surreptitious glances at him as though double, triple, quadruple checking it wasn’t actually him. 

On the gallery floor, several reporters and clerks sat at desks along the edge with rolls of parchment and copies of the study beside them. Percy Weasley was posted directly beneath the podium the Minister would sit in when he arrived. 

All around the room, glances twitched and darted to the witch in the centre. Brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, chins tipped up, whispers spread from one to another to another until tension could be cut with a knife. 

In the centre of all of them, Laurie Pole sat placidly at a table with a copy of her study report and a glass of water. Nothing about the witch’s demeanour implied anything less than complete serenity. Her legs were stretched before her and crossed, her shoulders relaxed, and she seemed to be taking in the room with only mild curiosity. Her lips were painted bright red and curved in the barest of Mona Lisa smiles.

Hermione’s gaze trailed up from Laurie to the seats across the way. Dr. Carter was leaning over, talking animatedly with an older witch whose pointed hat bobbed every few minutes in agreement with him. Her eyes slid from their conversation to Draco Malfoy. If Laurie was the essence of calm, he was anxiety personified. His brows were drawn together, casting dark shadows over his pale eyes. At his side, Theo studied the room with wary apprehension. Both men seemed shrunken and tight, arms crossed over their chests, each perfectly still.

A hand squeezed her shoulder. “‘Lo, Hermione,” Harry said, sliding onto the bench behind.

She twisted around, giving him a little smile and nodding to Hestia Jones, who was scooting alongside him. 

“Alright, Hermione?” Hestia greeted. 

John turned and caught Hestia in a suddenly involved conversation about a recent raid that recovered a good deal of trafficked Goblin silver. 

Hermione’s attention kept straying to Malfoy, watching as his eyes flitted between observing the gathering crowd and fixing on Laurie. A flood of people in plum Wizengamot robes began pouring in from a door near the top of the benches. Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt cut a path through the sea of plum, shaking hands as he went. Three other Wizengamot members joined him nearest the podium. Malfoy tracked their entries; then his gaze slipped to the side and ensnared hers. 

Hermione’s breath caught, and a tiny electric zing flashed along her spine and settled in her diaphragm. They hadn’t spoken since she had left him nattering on to Trainee Warren while she slipped from the Bites Ward. His shoulders rose and fell in a steady rhythm. There seemed to be a question in that look, maybe a request. It was impossible to tell. She wasn't a Legillimens. Besides, what did he expect from her here? She was as much an observer as he was—more so. Didn’t he know that? 

Beside her, John laughed at something Hestia said. She blinked. The spell was broken—Malfoy’s grey gaze and enigmatic thoughts moved somewhere else. 

Fabric and paper rustled like the murmur of leaves in a high wind. Whispers spread like a breeze, brushing against ears. A hush swept through the crowd and stilled them all in time with Kingsley’s broad, outstretched palm waving gently downward. 

“Thank you very much for coming today,” Kingsley’s rich baritone rolled through the room. “The Wizengamot, and indeed the entire Ministry, has been awaiting the results of this momentous study for eleven months. We are grateful, Ms. Pole, for your work for this governing body. We received the copies of the study shared with us magically on Monday.” 

A general murmur rose and churned in the crowd. On Monday morning, Laurie Pole’s study had appeared magically on every relevant desk in the Ministry. No one could yet quite figure out the charms work behind it, and interest ranged from piqued curiosity to dismay at the idea that random charms could be compromising the Ministry’s security; comments around the latter laced with hostility that it was a werewolf who had done it. Hermione had bit her tongue against her own remarks about teenagers getting into this allegedly secure place with no problem. No reason to incriminate herself, and anyway, when needs must. She straightened her grey robes and sat taller. 

“Would you begin by introducing yourself and restating your qualifications?” 

“Good morning, members of the Wizengamot, Ministry, Minister,” Laurie began, her legs tucked comfortably beneath her chair as she leaned forward over the table. “I’m honoured to have had the privilege to conduct this study. The emergent forest on the Malfoy estate has, of course, been of great interest to everyone. As many of you know, my background is primarily in curse-breaking. My first mastery in curses and runic enchantments was obtained in Prague under the tutelage of Master Žito Brozik. My second mastery in Kabbalistic symbology and ward detection was under the tutelage of Asher Loew. My initial field experience comes from four years spent in Mussoorie, a hill station near Dehradun in northern India.” 

“Bloody hell, and those aren’t even the qualifications that I knew about,” Sorcha muttered in Hermione’s ear. Hermione tried to unstick her eyebrows from her hairline where they had crept.

Laurie detailed her work in Uttarakhand, honing her craft across diverse landscapes—from the Himalayas’ foothills to ancient sites and remote villages. But what truly captivated the room was her experience in Finnish Lapland and the forests of Primorye in eastern Russia.

“Have you read her report about the cursed Amur tigers hunting Acromantula?” The brawny magizoologist whispered back to Sorcha, who nodded vigorously. 

Gods, what drove this woman? Hermione realised her elbows were resting on her knees, watching the witch before her calmly summarise the details of a rather extraordinary life. When she had finished introducing herself, Laurie gave a polite smile and leaned back.  

A very gangly witch to the right of Kingsley began in a high voice, “Thank you for your time today and for the submission of this study, which I read with interest.” Her narrow face tipped down as she viewed Laurie over small, oval spectacles. “You mentioned here that a layer of enchantment had hidden the forest since the Malfoys first claimed ownership of the estate. Were you able to ascertain the nature of this enchantment?” 

“No,” Laurie replied. Murmurs, a few scoffs, and the rustling of robes rose from the gallery. Percy was jotting notes quickly. “It is very old magic. Older than their ownership. More druidic than anything, I suppose, but we know very little about the nature of their magic, and it is so bound up in the magic of the land itself that it is difficult to ascertain age properly. Are you dating the enchantment or the land in which it is anchored? It’s nearly impossible to say. Results are too contaminated.” 

Nods and hums of ascent flowed amongst the Unspeakables. Hermione hadn’t really thought of that since her eighth year at Hogwarts. How do you date a spell? There was no absolute way magic degraded. After all, some things lost their lustre after the witch or wizard who had charmed them died, others after only a short time, while still more never seemed to. The Sorting Hat and its eternal rhyming schemes popped to mind. 

Clarifying questions were asked that weren’t so different from the ones she posed to Malfoy only the week before. She glanced across the gallery at him. He seemed not to have moved an inch since the hearing began. His eyes were flinty, though, as he observed questioners from behind his guarded glare. 

Gradually, the tenor of the questions shifted. 

“And how has being a werewolf affected your ability to complete this study?” 

A sudden hush fell. For the first time that day, Malfoy’s head snapped from its fixed position. In the nanoseconds Hermione watched him, his rigid posture seemed to thrum with tension. He was a bow pulled taut, the arrow of his gaze aimed at Alberic Selwyn with piercing intensity. 

Alberic Selwyn’s mouth was twisted to the side, his eyes half-lidded beneath arching brows. Silver hair hung past his shoulders, and thin lines marked the years of his life on his face. His left brow twitched upward barely as though in a challenge to Laurie, who glanced down at the table before her, mouth settling into a ghost of smile. 

“I suppose the most honest answer would be to say that it has affected me in every way you can imagine—though perhaps not in the way you intend,” she said, her gaze lifting to meet him. Murmurs rose and crested around the room.

“Silence!” Kinglsey boomed. “Ms. Pole, would you mind elaborating on that statement?” 

She leaned back, the middle finger of her right hand tapping gently on the table. “It has affected me in the ways you probably think: days needed to rest and isolate around the full moon. Certain heightened senses at times have made me more attuned with various aspects of the forest.” 

Whispers around the gallery increased, some of which reached Hermione’s ears.

…Animal instincts, aren’t they. 

…can you really trust the unpredictable tendencies? 

Gods, wasn’t it enough that people had to suffer the pain and frustration of lycanthropy? She gritted her teeth, her spine straightening. A stray curl fell into her face, and she blew it away with a huff. 

“But those things were mere foibles to deal with while conducting this research—as they have been with all of my work in the past,” Laurie emphasised, her tone sharpening; a tick at the corner of jaw the only marker of her tension. “What affected me most, in this case, is that, unlike any other place I have been before, the forest recognised my wolfishness and accepted it. For others, moving through the forest means losing track of where they are. It shifts for them, it suddenly encircles them, it acts generally a little bit wary—maybe even hostile.” 

Behind her, Harry and Hestia both scoffed. “More than a little,” Hestia mumbled. No doubt the Aurors had the most experience with this. 

“But for me,” Laurie continued, “it just accepted me and behaved as a forest. I could observe the magic within it particularly well because it didn’t seem to engage with me.”

“Are we to gather,” Alberic drawled with acidity, “that the forest treated you as, by your own observations, it treats creatures?”

Hermione clenched her fist. 

“And does this not confirm what we’ve long known,” he went on, “that werewolves are, after all, creatures?” 

A collective intake of breath was overtaken by a swelling hum of approval. Hermione whipped around to meet Harry’s eyes. His jaw was set like stone, and that look of raw anger at injustice held him. She drew comfort from it, as she always had. They were right… they were right . It was this stupid world that was wrong. When she turned back around, Malfoy was watching her closely. 

“Are you implying that the forest has sentience and can recognise and distinguish different types of beings discriminately?” Laurie challenged back with a calm Hermione was certain she would never achieve under the same circumstances. 

Alberic sneered. “That’s not what—”

“Isn’t it?” Laurie leaned forward. “If the forest can distinguish between people, their roles, their backgrounds, and even the curses they carry, doesn’t that force us to consider its sentience?” 

Cold rippled over Hermione’s skin, prickling it with gooseflesh. 

A timid throat cleared. “In your study,” a witch in plum Wizengamot robes who looked about middle-aged with dark features and curled hair began, “there are implications of this semi-sentience, correct?” 

“Yes, but sentience in flora is hotly contested,” Laurie said, “and this isn’t merely one plant we are talking about.” 

“Precisely,” Alberic cut in. “It’s an entire forest! The very idea of a shared sentience on this level is preposterous. The whole of it is an illusion: it’s just a sum of many parts. Besides, didn’t you say it responds to Draco Malfoy?” He gestured to the young wizard in question. Malfoy’s spine stiffened like a rod. 

“I did. And it does.” Laurie turned to face Malfoy. For a moment, his gaze seemed imploring—beseeching— please, don’t, it seemed to say. “But it isn’t the forest responding to him. As you may have noticed, I also point out that he seems to respond to it.” 

Malfoy’s pale face became ashen. At his side, a crease formed between Theo’s brows.

Harry leaned down over her shoulder, whispering, “I wondered if she would tell them that.” 

Malfoy’s right hand lifted, the heel of it pressing into his chest. His expression drew inward, lips pursing. Was it anger or fear that was dogging him? Hermione couldn’t read him at all like this. 

Kingsley leaned forward, eyes glittering with interest. “So the two are responding to one another?” 

Malfoy’s face had a tight, pained look. Still leaning by her ear, Harry chuckled lightly. She reached over and pinched his arm. 

“Oi!” He hissed under his breath. 

“It’s not funny, Harry.” Gods, weren’t they adults now? She adjusted her steel grey robes and sat a little straighter. 

“Yes, but it isn’t a clear exchange. It’s more,” Laurie seemed to search for the word, “like they are enmeshed or entangled—interwoven. At all times, they are responding to each other, but sometimes the will of one or the other is stronger.” 

Malfoy drew in tight on himself, lowering his right hand slowly, haltingly, until he let it lie on his leg where he gripped his robes. Dr. Carter leaned across him and said something rushed to Theo. After a short exchange, Theo gave a curt nod and rose, shuffling from the crowd. He climbed down from the benches and lifted his eyes, searching until they locked onto Hermione. No, she realised, not her. At her shoulder, Harry stiffened, then leaned back. Something unintelligible was whispered to Hestia. Robes shuffled. Harry was leaving, too. 

Her attention turned back to the room where another Wizengamot member was in the middle of a question. 

“—does this say about ownership?” 

Laurie took a sip of water and carefully placed her glass down. “That seems like a philosophical question better hashed out by lawyers and thinkers, not the purview of this study.” 

Percy Weasley’s attention had been fixed on Laurie throughout her answer. His lips twitched in a ghost of a grin accompanying a minute nod; then he returned to his likely pristine notes. Hermione inched up taller to get a better look. He was always able to flow through notes better than anyone she knew. Maybe afterwards, she could get a copy of them—

“Minister,” Alberic said sharply, his voice much louder than previously, “are we to take the word of only one study? By an outside source? And one who, by her own admission, has animalistic circumstances that make her a bit of an anomaly. How can we know if this is accurate? We can’t be expected to make policy on speculation alone by this lone source.”

The muscle at the corner of Laurie’s jaw jumped; her face otherwise a cool mask. 

“We concur!” Quivered an aged voice from amongst the Unspeakable. 

“Shut up, Wilfred,” another barked. “Not all of us do concur.” The speaker stood and faced the Minister. “Members of the Wizengamot, I am Unspeakable Mayweather. We Unspeakables are somewhat divided, but we hold to the assessment agreed upon a year ago of Laurie Pole’s qualifications. She is immensely qualified to do this research, and has delivered a thorough piece of research here, and we have reviewed and stand by the reported results. They align with what we had begun to observe before our… eviction … from the forest in its early days.” 

The man sat with a few claps on the back and nods of approval from several of his colleagues. Hermione was suddenly jostled as Sorcha shot to her feet. 

“Minister, Members of the Wizengamot,” Sorcha said, her breaths rapid, fingers curled at her side. “I have been granted a rare privilege of making my own observations in the Malfoy forest for the last several weeks.” 

“What?!” Alberic spluttered. 

“Why didn’t we hear about this?” Another Wizengamot member said. More voices echoed the sentiment.

Kingsley turned to face them with an indulgent smirk. “Well, now I know who does and does not read memos. Why do we even have departments send them? Salazar’s sake…” he shook his head. “Ms. McLaggen, please continue. Do you have something further to add?” 

“I do,” Sorcha said. “I have been in the forest observing a unicorn that seems to have been drawn there by the forest’s magic. My purpose has been to observe the unicorn as well as the ecosystem in order to determine if this would be a safe, viable habitat for it. Even in a short time, I’ve made many of the same observations mentioned in this study and agree that it seems to respond to Draco Malfoy.” 

Malfoy’s lips were pressed into a thin line, his eyes, riveted to Sorcha, took on a cavernous, direct quality that reminded Hermione eerily of a look she had noticed haunt Professor Snape at times. She glanced away quickly. 

“Ah, so, Mr. Malfoy is cooperating with Ministry offices now, is he?” Alberic drawled. 

“He has been with the DRCMC,” Sorcha said flatly. 

Kingsley angled his large frame to look back towards the whole Wizengamot. “I would like to remind members of the Wizengamot that we are here today to discuss the results of this study and not Draco Malfoy’s involvement with the Ministry.” 

“And yet, that is a large factor here, isn’t it, Minister?” The gangly witch, who had spoken earlier, interjected. Another voice yelled something about him being an unrepentant welp. Too many agreeing hums rolled around the room.

Kingsley sighed heavily and leaned back. “It is, but it is not the focus of today’s proceedings and it isn’t for Laurie Pole to answer for us.” 

“I should think not,” Alberic spat. His narrow face stretched in a line of derision that tilted his chin up and pushed his chest out. Hermione felt her lip curl at the sight. 

“Are there any other pertinent questions regarding this study for Ms. Pole?” Kingsley asked in his loudest, most commanding tone. 

A flurry of murmurs, shuffles, and chatter rose in a wave, but no one volunteered any other commentary. 

“May I request, Minister,” Alberic said, his tone smoothed and honeyed, “that we schedule a second hearing regarding former Death Eater, Draco Malfoy’s cooperation with the Ministry?”

A rush of anger swept the room. Judgemental glares fixed on Malfoy. His chest rose and fell rapidly beneath their derision. 

Hermione’s hand slipped into her pocket clenching her wand. What right did they really have? Her anger swirled then stilled. Perhaps they had  all the right. What if Malfoy was being awful to the creatures? Then all of this would be completely justified, wouldn’t it? Her hand loosened. 

Still, there was a way Selwyn went after both Laurie and Malfoy that didn’t settle well with Hermione. His barbs had less to do with what was before him and more intent on bringing up ways to tear their social standing down. Images of Undesirable posters flashed through her mind. Her fingers flexed and clenched her wand again. 

“Minister, may I make a comment?” Dr. Carter’s voice cut through the din of the room like a knife. Beside him, Malfoy looked as though the taut bowstring within him was a moment away from slipping the bowman’s grasp and firing a barb or two. His focus fixed intensely on Alberic Selwyn. 

“Please, by all means, Graham,” Kingsley allowed with an open palm. 

“I would merely like to remind the Wizengamot that Draco Malfoy is presently still serving his probationary period and will be until the middle of January. This will be the end of the sentence this Wizengamot chose for him. He is, in all other respects, a free and equal wizard. In all ways—including his property rights.” His gentle gaze swept the room. 

“A good reminder,” Kingsley boomed. He turned once more towards the Wizengamot body. “With that in mind, I suggest that a committee be formed with this focus in mind: determining what the DRCMC ought to do regarding magical creatures on the Malfoy property.”

A chorus of critical sounds seemed to grow amongst the Wizengamot. Hermione clenched her robes in her fist.

“But Minister,” Alberic inserted, “we still don’t know how safe this forest even is. Magic that’s drawing creatures in? An old enchantment somehow hanging over it? And what is the nature of Draco Malfoy’s connection to this?” He drew himself up in his seat and gazed about his fellow Warlocks many of whom were nodding along with him. “Are we to do nothing while a wizard amongst us with a criminal record potentially harnesses heretofore unknown power? Haven’t we been down this road before?” 

Voices broke loose in unrestrained anxiety. Across the room, the taut bow of Malfoy’s anger seemed to be at its last reserves. A flush was rising up his neck, colouring his ears scarlet. His left hand was clenched in a fist, knuckles white, while his right rubbed circles in his sternum. 

“Order! Order!” Percy Weasley began to yell, standing from his seat. 

Laurie sat, legs kicked out before her and crossed at the ankles, observing the rising chaos with an unshakeable calm. 

But inside Hermione, a fire was building. 

Been down this road before? You paved this road before. You laid the foundations before. You ignored the signs before. And this is nothing like that. 

And then she was on her feet, John gripping her robes at her side to pull her back down. 

“This is nothing like before,” she thundered. 

Chaos held its breath in wary apprehension. All eyes fixed on her: Harry Potter’s Muggleborn friend. Undesirable number two. The difficult one. She set her shoulders and stared them down. 

“As someone whose life was targeted before, who actively fought before, let me assure you, Alberic Selwyn, this is nothing like it.” Hermione spoke with cold anger, burning with all of those lost moments, lost friends, and all of her stolen peace. She breathed it in and let it out, then went on, “Do not use baseless speculation and fearmongering to turn this into something it isn’t. Draco Malfoy has been bound to that forest for nearly three years, and in all that time, the worst he has managed is to be a bit of an uncooperative, irritating landholder. That is all. Do not make him into a villain. He’s already been punished for all of that.” 

࿐ ࿔*

Afterward, conversation carried on in little pockets. Hermione remained glued to her bench, her eyes lifting every few minutes to look at Malfoy. He had a stony, unreadable expression. Whatever was there, though, it didn’t seem like kindness. It seemed like hard, unrelenting scrutiny. He was puzzling her out. 

John muttered to her at her side. “It wasn’t a good idea, Hermione. I know you feel strongly about it. Merlin, how could you not?” He ran a hand through his long hair. “But now you’ve challenged them openly, and you’re so junior….gods, I don’t even–” and on and on and on. She knew it. She bloody knew it. She hadn’t thought… But even if she had, would she have changed her mind? For the sake of career? 

Gods, maybe if this wasn't Malfoy she wouldn't be so torn. Was his connection with this forest actually worth the risks she seemed to be taking? It felt like her mind was divided into parts each with their own separate agendas all arguing in their own forum at once. Maddening. And what did it matter, anyway? She had spoken up. Best bear the fallout with grace.

Would Harry have stopped her if he’d been there? She didn’t know. Where had he even gone off to? As though summoned, Harry stepped into the room, a shadow over his eyes. His gaze tracked about then landed on her. 

“Where’d you go?” she asked as he sat down beside her, heaving a sigh.

“Forest. Dr. Carter's had a hunch based on how stressed Malfoy clearly was and sent Theo.” 

“And?” her voice pitched lower, hoping John wasn’t paying much attention. 

Harry nodded his head slowly. “Just what he thought: it was like gale force winds were battering the trees, they were so agitated. But the thing is, there wasn’t actually a breath of wind.” 

Well then, Laurie’s assumptions were right. She thought back to the hand on his chest and wondered again at the movement. 

“I think he physically feels the connection,” she whispered, her gaze lifting to meet Harry’s. He glanced over to where Malfoy sat and nodded. 

“I reckon you’re right about that.” 

For a moment, they sat quietly. John rose, stretched, and, with a half-smile, told her he’d meet her in the office later. Only a few people remained in the chamber now. 

Leaning closer to Harry, Hermione asked quietly, “Did you hear about it? What I did?” 

“Yeah…” Harry sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose. “They’re going to say you’re supporting Malfoy, you know.” 

She lifted her head, eyes scanning the room until they landed on exactly what she sought. Grey the shade of a roiling winter sky fixed on her. The puzzling look remained. Had he stopped staring in all this time? Malfoy’s bow was still drawn tight, his gaze keen. The arrow flew, and pierced her.  

“I think I am.” 

Chapter Text

The paper slapped onto Ms. Bhatt’s desk in front of her. 

“Of all the ways to be noticed by the Wulfric Inn,” Ms. Bhatt enunciated, “this was not it. Negative attention is not what you want.” 

Hermione’s stomach twisted as her eyes caught the headline: Hermione Granger Throws Her Weight Behind Ex-Death Eater. A moving photograph of her leaping to her feet and shouting down Alberic Selwyn had somehow managed to be the dominant image for the story. Had she really waved her finger like that? Gods…

Beneath that ran the headline: Secrets of Malfoy Forest Revealed! The following article promised many tantalising details. 

Ms. Bhatt’s voice sharpened, “Your conduct was impulsive. I understand you are passionate, Hermione, but you’re a public servant—not an independent advocate.” She fixed Hermione with a pointed look. “We work for stability, not for individual cases. If you cannot accept that, then you’ll have a difficult time here.”

“I do accept it,” Hermione said quickly, trying to keep her voice even. Did she? Yes, of course, she did. She tamped down the errant thought. “I care about this Department and its mission—”

A raised palm silenced her. “I’m sure you do,” Ms. Bhatt cut in, “but you seem to have some confusion about what that mission is. Our priority here, first and foremost, is the regulation and control of magical creatures. Their rights must fall within that. Any discussion of greater rights, while important, is secondary to the safety of the magical community as a whole. Is that clear?” 

Hermione gritted her teeth. “Perfectly clear.” A tension thrummed within her. She understood, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Would the rebalancing of her own priorities in favour of the Ministry’s ever truly happen?

“But safety and stability don’t have to come at the expense of those rights,” Hermione added. “They aren’t mutually exclusive.” 

A flurry of commotion from outside the office caught their attention, both waiting for a breath to see if the door would burst open. When it didn’t, Ms Bhatt sunk into her chair, levelling her weighty gaze on Hermione. 

“We received a letter last week from Draco Malfoy’s solicitors,” Ms Bhatt said. “He is proposing arrangements with the Beast Division in order to set up a standard policy for how to handle creatures that turn up in the forest going forward. Creatures like this hippogriff he recently had a run-in with. However, he has a condition—or rather, a request: he would like you to be the counsel here who continues to work with him.” 

“Me?” Hermione spluttered, trying to feign surprise. 

A perfectly pencilled eyebrow arched at her. “Save it, Hermione,” Ms Bhatt sighed and leaned back, drumming her fingers. “I’m not stupid. Let me remind you again that this office is a public one. We do not take private requests. But he has been difficult, to say the least. It’s useful that he clearly trusts you enough. Regardless, you are too junior to handle all of this independently.” 

Hermione had expected as much. Still, the desire to own this alone smarted.

“John will work with you. I will also join you during the meeting tomorrow in an advisory capacity.” 

“Tomorrow?” 

“Yes, John has already contacted Mr. Malfoy’s solicitors. A meeting will be tomorrow to discuss cooperation with the DRCMC moving forward in light of the study’s revelations.” A weary exhale slipped from her. “I had very much hoped it wasn’t actually attracting creatures, but as it is…Ah, well. Forward, forward, ever forward, yes?” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” Hermione murmured. 

࿐ ࿔*

On Friday, Hermione sat at her sloped, aged desk, fiddling with the forget-me-nots embroidered on the cuffs of her slate-grey robes, listening to Anthony Goldstein anxiously splutter. 

“I really didn’t think it would be a problem. My family has been breeding them for ages and ages. Good Godric! What am I going to do, Hermione?” He quavered. 

“Anthony, calm down. It’s going to be alright.” Hermione patted his arm. 

He kept cracking his knuckles as he shifted from foot to foot. 

“It’s just a few forms and a small fine. This was only your first warning, after all.” 

He blanched. “Only my first… How many do people usually get?” 

Hermione frowned, mouth twisting to the side. Too many. “Plenty. Anthony, listen, it takes several before we even threaten the removal of the creatures. And this is only a simple lapse in proper Abraxan permitting, alright?” 

He gave a half-shrug, brows peaked in worry. 

“Listen,” she said, “what if we go down to the permitting desk right now, and I help you sort out the paperwork?” 

A lightness flooded him. “You would?” 

“Of course, come on. Are you in a hurry?” 

“Not at all,” he shook his head. “Bit of a slow day, really.” 

“What’s a slow day like for Unspeakables?” 

As they made their way down the corridor, Anthony filled her in on the minutiae he was actually allowed to speak about. It turned out to be incredibly tedious. A slow day for anyone was exactly that, no matter how interesting the job description seemed. 

“Just over here—and look, only one other wizard in line. See? We’ll have this done in no time.” Hermione smiled at him as they stepped up to the permitting desk.

The Beast Division was relatively quiet that day. Hermione glanced at her watch. Meeting in only an hour. Her gaze trailed around the cavernous room. In the corner, a wizard was attempting to deal with a cage full of doxies. A desk away, a trio of witches conjured a geodesic containment field, watching it hover in place for a moment, then vanished it; each leaned over various parchments, making notes. She rocked forward onto her toes, stretching her arches, then settled back down. 

“Hermione!” A familiar, deep, gravelly voice boomed from the door. Heavy footfalls sped toward her. 

She spun, a grin already plastered to her face. “Hagrid!” 

Then she was caught in a crushing hug until her feet lifted from the floor, toes barely touching the wood, and she felt half her age again. His familiar scent of firewood, rock cakes, and rich earth filled her to the brim, leaking out of the corner of her eye just a little. She pressed her cheek just a little tighter into the rough wool of his vest. 

“What are you doing here?” She asked, then quickly added, “Does Harry know you’re here?” 

A warm laugh rumbled through him, eyes glittering down at her beneath enormous dark lashes. “Bin called down ‘bout those centaurs. An’ o’ course he knows! Jus had lunch with ‘im.” 

The younger faction still hadn’t been located. But to bring Hagrid down here… 

“Is it bad?” She asked softly. 

He shrugged a large shoulder. “Suppose tha' depends who yeh're talkin' ter. The centaurs are worried, but," he said, dropping his voice a little lower, "they don’t like this Ministry meddling."

“Yes, I understand, but for a whole group of centaurs to just disappear like that…” 

“Hermione!” Anthony called from behind her, a frantic edge in his voice. “I’m up now.” 

“Go on,” Hagrid said with a smile. She gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. 

It wasn’t as though Anthony needed any help. Hermione stood to the side to offer reassuring smiles and encouraging nods when Anthony glanced at her to confirm he was doing everything right. Which, of course, he was. Why must brilliant people suffer so much needless self-doubt? 

“Got to leave you here, Anthony: I’ve got a meeting soon.” 

“Oh, Merlin, of course! Sorry to have kept you so long,” he said apologetically. “Thanks for your help.” 

“Not at all. Any time.” 

John sat hunched at the trestle table in the legal offices, tapping a quill against his chin. Across the room, Thomas was busy filing, his wand twisting in complicated patterns while dozens of files floated around him, tucking themselves into drawers. 

How had Dr. Carter charmed his library, Hermione wondered. Would similar charms work for a filing system like this? Before she could venture down that rabbit hole, John caught sight of her. 

“Finished with these.” He slid the duplicates of her notes about the DRCMC and Malfoy’s forest toward her. She pulled them closer. John’s tight hand littered the margins. Marks everywhere—many things scratched out fully. She chewed her cheek. 

“Do you not…like where I was going with this?” 

A genuine look of confused surprise rattled through him. “What? Of course, I do.” 

“It’s just,” her eyes roved the fresh ink, “there are so many notes…” 

A huff of laughter escaped his lips. “Well, yeah, Hermione. If I thought you’d lost sight of the snitch on it, I’d hardly have bothered, would I?” 

She read over a few of the thoughtful points he’d made in the margins—immediately, she could see where they improved or expanded on her thoughts. Not many peers had corrected her work or been so thorough in their feedback. That she was unused to it was an understatement. John was looking at her with an amused smirk. 

Warmth flooded her cheeks. “These are good points,” she dropped into the chair beside him, her brow furrowing as she reread one. “I see what you mean here. I hadn’t thought about that angle.”

Her eyes slipped to her watch: twenty minutes. She cleared her throat, forcing the flush to wash away. “Do you think there’s a viable path here to legislation?” 

“I do,” he said, turning and sliding the notes back to himself to glance over once, then tapped the scroll with his wand, rolling it tight. “Get started on an outline, and I’ll help you draft it.” 

“And for today?” she asked, pointing toward the other parchments before him. 

He carded his hand through his hair. Slivers of ink peeked out from below his cuff. “I think what we’ve prepared here will be enough to make do. And you think he’ll agree with it?” 

Hermione lifted a shoulder. “Wouldn’t make sense not to. Besides,” her eyes met John’s, “he trusts me, I think.” 

“Does he, now?” John’s brow quirked ever so slightly up. “Let me propose it. Let him see we’re a team. Besides, I wouldn’t mind borrowing a bit of the trust he seems to have in you.”

࿐ ࿔*

Not long later, Hermione was seated once more in the old conference room across from Malfoy with John at her side. She glanced at her watch: six minutes early. Both men fidgeted, John with his quill and Malfoy with the cuffs of his robes. They were a sleek, simple cut that seemed to take cues from Muggle tailoring. 

Malfoy noticed her eyeing them, smirked, and plucked the lapel. “Transfigured my jacket into robes. Think it’s to O levels, Granger?” 

“Not especially in step with Wizarding trends, is it?” She jibed. 

He shrugged and flicked invisible lint from the sleeve. 

John set his quill down, examining his own sleeves—thick and bell-shaped as they draped over his shirt. “Wouldn’t mind something with a tighter cut like that, if I’m honest,” he muttered.

Malfoy’s eyes swept over John. “Malkin’s?” 

“Of course.” 

“I’m sure she’s champing at the bit for new style choices by men.” 

John chuckled lightly. “You’re not wrong. She scolded my last purchase for not being ‘altogether uninspired.’” 

Hermione traced lightly over the forget-me-nots on her cuff. Madam Malkin had made no such remarks when they worked together on her slate-grey robes in August. For your parents, the witch had said, running her hand over the stitching. To remember how love doesn’t let us forget. 

Her fingers trailed the petals as her gaze settled absently on Malfoy. His brows pinched briefly in question. She shook her head, trying to dismiss any concern, a quick grin flashing over her face. But his gaze lingered on the floral motif, noticing it in detail now for the first time. Something tightened in the corner of his jaw. 

Shuffling at the door drew her attention. 

“Ready to do the thing properly, eh?” Basil Pickering said, robes rustling as he stepped into the room. Basil was one of the lead magizoologists in the Beast Division, having spent the last forty years there. Scars littered his hands and face like hatch marks. A second magizoologist followed—a younger wizard with recent singe marks at the hem of his robes.

Malfoy stiffened visibly. He greeted the magizoologists succinctly and settled back into his chair, posture rigid.

Heels clicked against the creaking floorboards, and Ms. Bhatt entered the room with another witch close behind. Impeccable grace marked the newcomer’s willowy frame; she seemed to breeze in with power and elegance. Malfoy’s shoulders slackened slightly at the sight of her.

“Constance, these are two of our junior counsels, John and Hermione,” Ms. Batt informed. Both rose to greet her. 

“Constance Trigg,” she said with a quick grip and a flinty look in her eyes. “I represent the Malfoy interests.” 

Introductions flowed briefly as everyone settled. Ms. Bhatt, as she had planned, sat at the far end of the table on the periphery of the meeting.

“Mr. Malfoy,” John began. The corner of Malfoys lips twitched, his glance cutting quickly to Hermione and away again. “Thank you so much for agreeing to the changes in this meeting.”

“Of course,” Malfoy said, his voice clipped. “In light of the report being released and the hearing, it only makes sense that there would be more on the table than Buckbeak.” 

“Buck, who?” Basil asked, looking around in confusion.

“The hippogriff’s name is Buckbeak,” Hermione supplied. 

“Ah, right. Of course.” Basil looked dubious.

“The study has given us much insight about your forest,” John continued. “And I believe most in this Department found it quite reassuring.” 

“And our own Sorcha has spoken very highly of the forest as a sound environment for these creatures,” Basil added with confidence. His colleague muttered in agreement. “In light of all of it, we want to work with you on a path forward.” 

Constance Trigg’s eyes darted to Malfoy, her expression unreadable but deliberate. Her measured calm seemed to absorb his growing tension, anchoring the room when his sharp glances between John and the magizoologists betrayed his unease. His gaze slid to Hermione, holding for a beat. Then another.

What did he want? She couldn’t bloody well nod at him like she was giving permission. Gods, the subtlety. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about subterfuge with him—he’d be rubbish at it.

He must have found what he was looking for all the same.

“Very well,” he said, fingers lacing before him on the table. “What do you have in mind?” 

The next half hour was filled with questions and back-and-forths. Buckbeak dominated the discussion—Was he well? Likely to attack? Dangerous? Hagrid had vouched for him, but... Malfoy rolled his eyes so often that Hermione lost count.

“Look, I had a run-in with him years ago, alright?” Malfoy conceded in a rush, arms crossing. “We didn’t get on then, and there were… fraught feelings. We’re fine now.”

“I’d like to propose something,” John said, leaning forward. Ms. Bhatt shifted in her seat, her sharp attention fixed firmly on her juniors. “Hermione and I have been working on a concept that we think aligns with everyone’s priorities. Based on everything discussed, it seems there’s agreement that the forest is safe for the creatures. What’s needed now is a framework for when and how to intervene, correct?”

“Yes, that is paramount,” Basil agreed. 

“And Mr Malfoy’s autonomy, privacy, and rights as a landowner are also paramount,” Constance noted. 

John nodded. “Of course. What we propose aims to honour both priorities.” 

With a swirl of his wand, several scrolls appeared, landing softly and unrolling before each person in the room. All heads leaned over the documents. 

“Now, as you can see,” he began pointing to a line near the top, “what we are hoping for here is an agreement that establishes a set of guidelines for how interactions should be conducted moving forward. For example,” his finger slid a little further down. He tapped his wand against the spot; the same section on each of the copies glowed around the room. “When a magical creature at an XXX classification or below finds itself in the forest, no immediate intervention will be required.” 

“So this assumes we only intervene with more dangerous creatures,” Basil’s colleague protested. 

“Not quite. That’s the baseline, but there’s a clause for endangered species exceptions,” John explained, tapping the relevant section with his wand so it glowed. “All magical creatures will be reported to the Department for monitoring. Intervention, however, will be case-by-case.” 

“Is Mr. Malfoy meant to report all of these creatures individually to you?” Constance’s tone was sharp. 

“I’m not counting creatures day in and day out,” Malfoy snapped. 

“We could use perimeter tracking spells,” Basil offered. “They’re effective in the Forbidden Forest.”

“Not with centaurs, though, I gather,” Malfoy said.

Basil’s eyes narrowed. “Beings of higher intelligence aren’t affected.” 

“Oh, good. Wouldn’t want to trip the Ministry’s wire every time I stepped out of bounds.” 

Hermione shot Malfoy a quelling look refined over years of wrangling Harry and Ron. It wasn’t quite as satisfying, but he acknowledged it with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. 

Malfoy’s gaze shifted to the magizoologists, his jaw tightening. “You might as well hang a sign for poachers with spells like that,” he said, his voice low and measured. 

Several voices started at once. Basil’s won out, “Not at all, not at all. The information comes directly to the DRCMC offices alone.” 

Malfoy pursed his lips. He turned to Constance, who gave a short nod. Then his eyes moved once more to Hermione; a question hung in the balance between them. 

“No one else would have that information,” she assured. “And it wouldn’t be a revolving door of interference. It would start as a check-in and not escalate further until an assessment has been made,” she explained. 

John described the minutiae of how a check-in might go in theory. Basil and his colleague interjected here and there while Constance Trigg asked the brunt of the questions. All the while, Malfoy’s gaze moved back to Hermione’s with regularity, his hand drifting, every now and then, to his chest to press hard against it. 

Despite his clear reservations, Malfoy agreed with all of it. Only a few minor adjustments were made to accommodate his push-back, but overall, he seemed satisfied enough with the plan. A tension that she hadn’t realised had been coiled in her shoulders released. Hermione leaned over, pretending to fetch something from her bag to allow herself to grin ridiculously. 

Everyone pressed toward the conference room door to exit while Hermione remained seated, finishing some last notes. John knocked gently into her shoulder and flashed a brief grin before dashing out. 

The room quieted, and beneath the flickering filaments of the magical bulbs, Malfoy remained standing against the far wall. 

“Is this a habit now, Malfoy?” 

“Not Mr . Malfoy? Are you sure? You might still be in official capacity, you know.” 

She lifted her gaze to him through half-lidded eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched. 

“What do you want?” 

The twitch at the corner of his lips turned into a curve that curled at his nose into something snide. “Still can’t decide what to make of your odd defence the other day.” 

“Save it.” She began stacking her notes, getting her things in order. “I didn’t do it for you.” 

“I’m sorry, was there some other Malfoy in the room? Can’t have been my father; he’s rotting in Azkaban, and my mother hasn’t left that property in Avignon since last May.” 

“Gods,” she groaned, standing to leave. When wasn’t antagonism enough of a purpose for Draco Malfoy? Hermione headed for the door. 

“Wait!” 

She didn’t. 

“Does your…do you Orcs meet tonight?” 

She froze, her ire doused. 

“The Order for Reasonable Consequences, isn’t that right? Only Theo calls you Orcs, so I thought…” His throat bobbed. 

“Yes,” she clipped, eyes fixed on him. “Tonight at Augusta Longbottom’s.” 

“Would I be…” he rubbed the back of his neck. Hermione held her things tighter. “Might I come along?” 

She studied him warily. “Why not ask Theo or Dr. Carter?”

“Because it’s not them I’d be trespassing against, is it?”

Tightness gripped her chest and squeezed her ribs. “No, I suppose it isn’t.” Would he say it outright? Or would he only obliquely acknowledge how he’d hurt her forever?

“So?” 

Hermione released a sigh. His question hung there, hovering somewhere between casual and cautious. “You don’t need my permission. Seven-thirty. Just… come if you want.” 

Then she turned from him and strode quickly from the room, heart thudding in her chest. 

With a glance at her watch, she blustered down the corridor toward the Beast Division to drop a few things off. Barely four steps from the legal offices, a large body emerged from the Being Division door and stood in her way. 

“Hermione! Fancy seeing yeh again.” Hagrid smiled. His eyes raised over her head, his expression growing serious. “An’ Malfoy.” 

Hermione stiffened, not realising he had been so close behind her. 

“Oh, yes, I was just in a meeting with Malfoy, actually,” Hermione blurted. 

Hagrid didn’t so much as glance her way. “An' how’s Buckbeak?”

The corner of Malfoy’s eye seemed to twitch. “Tore me a new one—well, not quite: kept the old arm.” 

Hagrid gave him a long look, then rumbled out a chuckle that swelled into a booming laugh. 

“Oh, Merlin! Well, I reckon yeh had it comin’.” 

Malfoy pressed his lips together but held his tongue. Hermione looked between them wide-eyed. 

“Excuse me,” a petit wizard said brusquely behind them. They shifted to the side of the corridor, Hagrid and Malfoy falling into a stilted, but not unkind exchange about the forest. Hermione watched in fascination while Malfoy accepted a short lecture about how to properly look after Buckbeak’s well being.

“An’ he prefers stoats an’ ferrets, yeh know.”

Malfoy gaped, an appalled curl twisting his lip. Final directions were given, and then it was over. Hagrid caught her in a quick hug then made his exit. 

For a moment, she and Malfoy stood, watching Hagrid thunder along the corridor to the lifts. Hermione turned to Malfoy, taking in the flush at the back of his neck. His sharp angles had softened and broadened, but only just. Where he had been a narrow boy, he was now a slender man. Sensing her observation, he glanced down at her. Molten silver eyes traced her face and caught on an escaped curl that brushed her cheek. Memory braced for a sneer, some subtle sign of distaste, but she only found curiosity and a guardedness she couldn’t read. Her pulse thrummed unexpectedly under the weight of his lingering gaze before it darted away. 

“Since when are you friendly with Hagrid?” She asked. 

“Not long after the forest emerged—when I came to Hogwarts those few weeks for NEWTs.” 

“But why?” A stunned edge in her voice. 

He scoffed. “Well, who the hell else has experience with magical forests, hmm?”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that.” 

“No.” His face hardened. “No one did, but he… Hagrid did. Your ridiculous fur—” He halted, lips pressing into a line, seeming to catch himself on the point of revealing something. “Someone unexpected brought me to him.”

She resisted rolling her eyes, but only just. “Don’t be too mysterious, Malfoy.”

“Who says I’m mysterious?” 

“Everyone. You spend your days skulking around an enchanted forest.” 

“Feral, more like. And I don’t skulk.” 

“Fine, you tromp determinedly through the woods in trackies and socks.”

His eyes widened, lips twisting to the side in a grin. “That was one time—to rescue you, no less.” 

"I’ve never needed rescuing a day in my life,” she pronounced with an upturned nose. 

Malfoy scoffed, leaning against the corridor wall. A group of goblins shuffled by, muttering angrily to one another. 

Hermione observed him, hands in his trouser pockets, transfigured robes draped neatly over his arm. All stark lines and simple refinement. What did the Muggle jacket look like? A resisted Finite Incantatem prickled at her fingertips.

“Why do you want to come to ORC?” She asked. 

He shifted, crossing his arms, drawing in tighter. “Seems like a good organisation.” 

“We are.”

“Helping the poor degenerates,” he drawled, arching a brow.

She crossed her arms. “Kept you out of Azkaban, didn’t we?” 

“Sicced Dr. Carter on me, more like.” He grew serious, a crease between his brows. “But, yes, you probably did.” 

She waited, watching him as he stared at the floor, his shoes, the fabric of his sleeves, anything but looking up at her. 

“So why now?” She pressed, softer this time.

“You said it yourself about me not being in step with Wizarding trends. I’m not…” he seemed to waffle for a moment, “I’m not especially in step with anything Wizarding.” He took a deep breath, his hand rising to his chest to press in a circle on his sternum. “The probation ends soon, and I feel like I’m hardly part of anything. I’ve heard it pointed out that this is perhaps not the best sign of being ‘rehabilitated.’” His lip curled over the word in a particularly nasty sneer. “How do you even measure that sort of thing? Anyway, Dr. Carter and I were talking about how the Mungo’s donation looked, and…”

“You thought you could use ORC to look good too?” Her fists balled. Oh, yes, if there was an angle in it to make himself look better… 

“No! No, not that. Well—yes, maybe a little that—but no….Merlin.” His hand pressed harder into his sternum, the other carding roughly through his hair. “Your lot helped me get here. I thought… maybe if anyone could stomach my presence—my participation—it’d be you.” 

The tension drained from Hermione, leaving only exhaustion. Of course, they would. Wasn’t this exactly what they had talked about: rehabilitation, not recidivism? Wasn’t this exactly what they wanted? 

The ghost of a sneer haunted his lips, but perhaps that was all guff. Maybe that was his defensiveness. Certainly, the way he was rubbing his chest made it seem so. 

She sighed, releasing her frustrations into the air to dissipate. “Of course you will be. It’s the perfect place to start.” 

His jaw clamped tight, eyes hard on her. The corner of his mouth ticked up like he was trying to smile in relief. But it was his hand falling to his side that told her the most. 

“When you do that—” she rubbed her chest, mimicking his motion, “is it…is it because of the forest?” 

A flash of something sharp flared in his eyes. As quickly as it had come, it bled away in a smooth mask. His voice was so low when he spoke, that she could barely hear, “I’m tied to the damn forest, Granger—it pulls at me. Always.” 

Hermione’s eyes slid to his chest. “A physical pull?” 

“Yes.” 

She thought of the forest, alive and seething all around her. The rumble of roots, of a tree grasping and tugging. It had seemed to pulse and breathe like it was alive and aching alongside him.

She glanced at the documents in her hand, suddenly becoming aware of the corridor around them. “I’ve got to…” 

“Of course,” he said, pushing off from the wall.

Malfoy moved silently alongside her as she continued toward the Beast Division and he to the department exit. Reaching the Beast Division door, she turned at the last minute to look back at him. The stray curl brushed her cheek.

“I’ll see you tonight?” 

“I’ll be there,” he assured with a dip of his head. 

Turning from him, a warmth flooded her. As Hermione marched to the Welfare Assessment desk and dropped off the documents she had brought—her last task before the weekend—her mind darted between drafting potential legislation with John, her ‘ridiculous’ but unexpected someone who had helped him, and Malfoy. 

Of course, ORC would tolerate him. He had changed, hadn’t he? He was a sign that what they wanted was right, wasn’t he? Rehabilitation required more than growth from the individual—it depended on others embracing that transformation. 

ORC could do that—they would. 

So would she—couldn’t she?

Chapter Text

Draco went directly from the Ministry Apparition point to the clearing in his forest, shaking off the stale air of the offices. The sharp scent of damp leaves and earth hit him immediately. He sauntered forward, the forest’s more decadent air filling his lungs.  

Leaves swung about him, whispering overhead. Darkness was beginning to tint the sky. Soon, an immense vault of stars would glitter in the gaps of the canopy. Draco tipped his head back, tracing the branches’ sways in the falling dark. His nerves prickled all over, tightening the muscles of his back. 

The ORC meeting wasn’t far off—less than two hours away.

He just needed a little while to get his head straight. Just an hour or so walking in the woods, and he’d feel better prepared to face it—he wanted to face it.

The forest drew his breath, wrapping it around the trees and ferns. Crown shyness kept the canopy separate, with small gaps left between each tree’s branches. With the clear sky overhead, it was like little rivers ran between them, glittering with stars in the infinite blue. Sometimes, when he watched the canopy like this, the texture created reminded him of his own skin: the subtle creases, ridges, and pebbled texture that showed when he examined it closely. If he let his mind drift, let his eyes slide out of focus with his hand raised to the leaves, he would wonder at his definitions. 

Where did he end and the forest begin? 

His breathing slowed, and his mind stilled. Above, the leaves calmed, and the gentle murmur of the evening forest took hold. 

It was a crisp, cold night in the wider England, but here in the forest, the weight of moisture and whatever seasonless magic endured enveloped him—warmed him. Draco pointed his wand at his robes, transfiguring them back into his wool jacket.

A sharp cry pierced the night. Buckbeak. 

Draco crouched and backed against a hornbeam’s gnarled trunk. The old tree groaned, leaning into his touch and shuddering from root to branch. 

Movement in the shadows caught his eye. Buckbeak stepped before him, talons raking the earth in slow, deliberate strikes. His golden eyes, blazing with an inner fire, locked on Draco with an intensity that made his skin crawl. Buckbeak tilted his head; wings opened with feathers spread as if to test the air. He let out a throaty call.

Hadn’t they managed some sort of peace? Merlin, help him. Draco swallowed roughly. The hornbeam twisted and shook its leaves with a gentle murmur. 

Wing flaps stirred the understory like a rising wind. Draco’s eyes squinted against the gust. Another cry from the beast. His burning eyes locked on Draco. 

“I haven’t got any stoats,” he yelled, “or fucking ferrets!”  

Buckbeak bobbed his head. Was that a nod? Did he understand? Merlin and Morgana…this wasn’t effective communication. 

“Look, I don’t have any idea what you want!” He swallowed. Buckbeak’s head lowered. “But… but you’re welcome. To whatever—to anything—to the forest. Just…please, back up a little, will you?”

Those fire-like eyes held Draco, enthralled. Raw, potent energy thrummed through them: man, forest, hippogriff. In his mind, Draco was with the Muggle and the Peregrine from his book, standing on the edge of the Blackwater estuary. He could feel the rush of wings against his face, the wild burst of motion as it thrust upward, lifting into the infinite sky. For a heartbeat, he was airborne with it. 

And then, with a press of mighty talons and a surge upward… Buckbeak was born aloft! 

Draco ran into the space where Buckbeak had been, whooping and shouting, his hand thrown up in the air. Canopy and wing blurred into one with the stars. His laugh rang through the woods. His spine curved back in an arc that matched the split of his wild grin. And all around, the forest danced. 

A snap of a branch shattered the calm. Deep in his chest, a tug forced his attention. Draco whipped his head toward the sound. Blood thrummed in his ears. In the blue shadows, something shifted—a glint of movement catching the faint starlight. An equine leg stepped into view, followed by another, deliberate and measured. His breath caught.

"So," rumbled a deep, powerful voice, sounding as ancient as the forest itself, "you are the man of the wood."

Illustrated thrushes darted through the pattern on the wall, stealing strawberries in Augusta Longbottom’s sitting room. Hermione’s eyes trailed one as it gobbled up a berry, only for it to reappear a moment later. An eternal cycle of sated hunger. 

As usual, for ORC meetings, the furniture had been pushed to the edges of the room, a hodge-podge of dining chairs, settees, and wingbacks lining the walls. Though she was early, several members had already arrived.  

“Hermione! Come in, come in; don’t just stand in the door gawping,” Augusta chided. 

Hermione smirked. Neville’s gran was all snide bark—she rather thought the older woman found it fun to be a bit snippy. 

“Honestly, you have no idea how irritating they are,” Augusta was saying to Violet, a willowy witch and the oldest amongst their group. As Hermione approached, the two women angled out, welcoming her into their conversation. 

“You have a cat, don’t you?” Augusta asked her. 

“I do,” Hermione said. “Though he’s part-kneazle.” 

“Ah, well, that will make him an excellent judge of character, I’m sure. I was just telling Violet here how vexing it is keeping cats. They really are the most appalling pets. Willful spirits. You shouldn’t consider them.” 

Violet rolled her eyes, her thin lips curved in a playful grin.

“Mine is perfectly lovely, actually.” Hermione smiled. “He’s a grand companion and has been with me for years.” 

“Doesn’t he have a habit of running off?” Theo asked, walking up to them. He took a bite of cake from a little plate he was holding, eyes twinkling with mischief.

Hermione sniffed. “Crookshanks is an explorer. Always has been. He just needs a bit of room to roam, is all.” She hoped he wasn’t taking advantage of the cracked window again. Couldn’t they have at least one full weekend together?

“Crookshanks!” Augusta barked. “Now there’s a cultivated name for a cat.” She turned a meaningful look on Violet. 

“There’s nothing uncultivated about Turandot,” Violet protested. 

“Muggle opera.” Hermione nodded sagely. 

“Precisely. Anyway, there’s no use lecturing me, Augusta; I’ve already got her.” 

Augusta harrumphed and asked Theo how the cake was, which he answered simply by enquiring if he was allowed thirds. 

Hermione retrieved a slice of her own and claimed a seat. The Floo flared several more times. More Orcs (damn it, Harry) poured in. Dr. Carter smiled at her across the room as he collected his own slice of cake. Hermione’s eyes remained fixed on the Floo.

“Waiting for someone in particular to join us?” Dr. Carter asked, taking the chair beside Hermione. His glance flitted to the fireplace where the last of their usual number had just stepped through. 

“Your—wait, what is he, a ward?—Whatever he is, I’m waiting on Malfoy.” She glanced at the Floo again. “We spoke about it earlier.” 

Dr. Carter hummed knowingly. 

“Draco is coming?” Theo asked, leaning over from her other side.

“Did neither of you see him before?” 

Both men shook their heads. 

“Don’t usually, not before supper. Off in his enchanted forest,” Theo delivered the last in a sort of sing-song, storybook tone. “But don’t worry, if he said he’ll be here, he will. He’s usually quite punctual. Bit of an arse about it if I’m honest.” 

“A complete beast,” Dr. Carter added. 

“Absolute pillock.” 

“Miserably tedious sod.” 

“Oi, wanker!” Theo mocked Draco uncannily. “The lecture begins in six minutes, and it takes four to get there.” He faced Hermione. “Only he would have lied: it would actually be ten minutes 'til, and he would just be padding the time.” 

Hermione found herself grinning at them both. Malfoy had always been early for their meetings. Come to think of it, for classes as well. Though Harry would likely chalk that up to him being an opportunistic prat, waiting for the perfect moment to throw a poorly aimed hex. 

Dr. Carter and Theo continued to chatter across her. Within a few moments, Augusta was shushing everyone and rapping a gavel she seemed to have found—(Merlin, this had better not become a habit)—against the wooden arm of her chair. Hermione’s eyes cut to the Floo again. 

Nothing. Her fingers twisted in her robes.

At her side, Theo knocked into her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile, but glanced at the Floo as well. Had Malfoy gotten caught up in his forest? Maybe he lost his sense of time in there—it seemed entirely possible with all of the reshuffling it did. 

Ten minutes went by. 

Twelve. 

Twelve and a half. 

Hermione stopped glancing at her watch.

The meeting’s focus shifted to Violet, who asked everyone about their letter-writing efforts. While conversation about that flowed, Dr. Carter fiddled with the pocket of his waistcoat. 

“Do you mind, Augusta?” He queried, raising his pipe and tobacco pouch. 

“Go on, Graham, but do cast a smoke-vanishing charm.” 

He lit his pipe, brows drawn. Several times, Hermione noticed his eyes dart to the Floo and back again. When his pipe was lit, he crossed his legs and arms looking altogether agitated. It wasn’t a state she had seen him in often. The sight must have been odd enough to Augusta as well who kept casting hawkish glances through narrowed eyes. 

Why hadn’t he come? Had something happened to him? No, he would have probably contacted Dr. Carter or Theo in some way. Unless of course, he couldn’t. She shoved that thought aside. Far more likely he had lost track of time. Anyway, how often could one person get into scrapes in their own bloody forest?

Concern bled into frustration. Theo was busy answering questions about something to do with his father’s upcoming trial. God, Hermione was being a miserable friend. She focused on his words instead of her own mounting irritation. 

“—and I won’t be testifying against him,” he said. 

“They can’t force you to, my dear,” Augusta said firmly. 

“But you should know that we would all support you if you chose to,” an older wizard across the room assured him. 

“Yes, after what that odious bastard—Violet, stop clutching your pearls, Merlin—did to you.” Augusta pressed her lips into a line. “We are firmly behind you, Theodore. Know that.” 

He gave a solemn nod, eyes shifting about the room as though he couldn’t quite find purchase. 

Hermione reached over and clasped his forearm. He brought his other hand down atop hers and gave a squeeze. Cornelius Nott had evaded Auror capture after the Battle of Hogwarts. When his son was erroneously sent to Azkaban, he made no attempt to reach him or help. Later, after ORC had fought for his release, Theo had spent several weeks living in a room at the Leaky, happy to be neither in Azkaban nor at the ancestral seat with plans to never set foot in either again. 

Until Cornelius hired people to hunt down and harm his own son. 

While Malfoy lived with Dr. Carter as a court order, Theo lived at the house on Great James Street to hide from the cruellest enemy: his own father. 

Apprehended several months ago, the man’s trial had finally come. No one was under any illusion that he would get less than life in Azkaban. He deserved no less. 

The meeting drew to its close. Hermione’s watch ticked while her head wrestled with myriad excuses, reasons, and possibilities. But on her diaphragm, a heavy stone settled. Only one feeling prevailed there: disappointment. 

࿐ ࿔*

As usual, the Leaky was dim, with murmured conversation in the air, mingling with pipe smoke and billows rolling out from the fireplace. Hermione claimed their favourite table near the fire while Theo grabbed a couple of pints. Aiming her wand toward the chimney, she cast a surreptitious cleansing charm. A bit of charcoal plopped onto the crackling birch logs below; the smoke drew up and out instead of backing into the room. A warm, satisfied rush bubbled up inside her and bumbled against her lingering disappointment.

Two pints hovered over the table. Hermione plucked them from the air as Theo claimed a chair, dropping a basket of chips between them. They were only a few chips deep when Harry joined them.

“How was ORC?” Harry asked.

Hermione’s lips twisted to the side. “Fine,” she sighed. 

Harry frowned, glancing at Theo for an explanation. 

“What she’s leaving out is that Draco was supposed to come, only he didn’t show.”

Harry choked on his lager. “What? To ORC?”

Hermione nodded, reaching her hand back and wandlessly summoning all of the pins from her hair. Curls fell loose about her shoulders. 

“Yes, to ORC. He asked me today when he came in for a meeting. Only, I can’t see why he bothered if he wasn’t going to show up.” She stuffed the pins into her pocket trying to tamp down the way irritation was beginning to coalesce into anger. 

Theo released a put-upon sigh. “I told you: something has to have come up.”

“He didn’t send you a message?” Harry asked, glancing at Theo's pocket. 

“No, but I ought to…” Theo pulled out the galleon and tapped it discreetly with his wand, sending a message of his own. He laid it on the table where Hermione could see as well if a reply came. 

Hermione took a pull from her pint and let her gaze drift about the room. Several chess games were underway. At a table nearby, a man seemed to watch them while they talked. Would excitement at seeing Harry Potter in public never fade? But rather than the usual keen looks thrown Harry’s way, this man’s bearing seemed dark and grim. Hermione glanced away, chewing on a vinegar-soaked chip and frowned. 

“I don’t understand,” she said, “It’s so odd. I thought maybe… but then, all he seems to care about is his forest.” 

“That is all he cares about,” Harry deadpanned. Theo shoved his shoulder gently, clicking his tongue. Harry cleared his throat and added, “No, I suppose that isn’t fair. He’s loads better. I just…” he dragged his hand through his hair, “I just don’t think he’s started to widen his scope, know what I mean?” 

“Elaborate.” She chewed another chip. Across the room, the word ‘checkmate’ was barked out, followed by the clatter of an overturning table. 

Harry eyed the commotion behind her as he explained, “He cares about things directly affecting him—like the donation to Mungo’s when he wanted a better room. But something that doesn’t matter to him personally?” 

Theo and Harry exchanged some sort of silent communication. It was clear enough they weren’t in agreement on this, but had a look about them of two people not committed to retreading an old argument. 

Hermione deflated. She stared into the fire, dancing over the logs. Smoke curled smoothly up and out into the night. She was tired of pessimism and mistrust. She wanted hope. 

“But maybe that’s why he’s coming to ORC. Maybe he wants to start thinking broader? It’s all so strange.” She rested her chin on her palm. 

A shadow darkened their table. 

“Never thought you, of all people, would throw your lot in with Death Eaters,” a deep voice snarled at her. She looked up sharply. Looming over, a shadow against the firelight, the grim man who had been watching them stood, broad shoulders blocking the warm glow. His jaw was set like stone, his gaze sharp and cutting. Deep in her belly, a fire lit tempered just as evenly by the feeling of ice stiffening her spine. Across the table, Theo had gone as white as a sheet.

Harry gripped the edge of the table. “Leave off,” he ordered. “She’s done nothing.” 

“Fucking agreeing with this bitch? Backing a scum like a Malfoy—after what the likes of him did to us? To my nephew? You should be ashamed.” The man turned his grimacing face toward the table and spat into the remaining chips.

They watched the man shove through the room and stalk out into the evening. Slowly, Harry turned to Hermione, his face etched in concern. 

“I’m fine,” she said tightly. Theo was picking at a loose splinter on the table, absorbed in some internal struggle. Taking a last sip, she stood abruptly. “I ought to be going anyway.” 

“Hermione,” Harry said softly. She met his bright, sincere eyes. “Don’t listen to that arsehole. Malfoy’s not a Death Eater.” 

In her pocket, Hermione’s hand clenched around her vinewood wand. “I know.” She swallowed hard, her throat dry. “‘The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters.’”

࿐ ࿔*

Tap, tap, tap. 

Hermione turned over and burrowed further into her covers. 

Tap, tap, tap.

She cracked an eye. Morning light streamed in at a harsh angle. Early—too early. The clock read shortly after seven. Crookshanks? He’d been gone when she got home from the Leaky. She lifted onto her elbows and tried to focus on the window.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

A beak poked against the glass. “Bloody owls,” she growled, throwing the duvet fully off and swinging out of bed already boiling. “What the bloody hell do you need to deliver so early on Saturday?” She huffed, wrenching the window open.

The meanest owl she had ever seen—a great horned owl, looked like—thrust his leg at her with a decidedly nasty look and screeched. A small letter was attached with her name written in a very neat hand. Snatching, she turned it over. Sealed with a bit of Muggle masking tape. Well, that was interesting. Not up-before-nine-on-a-Saturday interesting, though. 

Another screech. The owl shook out his wings and glared at her. 

“Demanding, aren’t you?” She frowned, tearing the letter open. 

Malfoy—damn him. 

Granger, 

I’m more sorry than I can say about missing the ORC meeting.

She scoffed. 

There’s no simple way to explain why I missed: I need to show you. Can you come to the forest today? As soon as possible. 

Draco

She dropped to the edge of the bed, chewing her lip. With a groan, she flopped backwards, tossing her arm over her eyes. Why, why must such an irritating person be attached to such an interesting place?

A hiss and snap of a beak was aimed her way.

“Give me a moment, for heaven’s sake!” 

The click of impatient talons against the windowsill was relentless. With a huff, she launched herself from the bed and jotted out a terse note to Malfoy. Yes, fine, whatever. She was still too curious about the whole bloody thing to let her personal disappointments get in the way. Besides, he owed her an explanation. 

He owed her more than that, but it was a start. 

࿐ ࿔*

Shortly before nine, Hermione stepped through the Floo at 16 Great James Street dressed as she would for a hike. Theo lay sprawled on a settee; a spoon dangled from his mouth. An empty bowl lay abandoned on the floor.  

He popped the spoon out and hissed in a ridiculous whisper-yell, “Professor!”  

Dr. Carter slid into the room in slippers and a dressing gown, holding a piece of toast over a saucer. He stared at Hermione, narrowing his eyes. “I thought he might have sent Archibald to you.” 

Hermione bit her tongue against a mean comment about the owl. 

“You have to report back,” Theo commanded, around the spoon shoved back into his cheek. “He won’t tell us anything.”  

She scoffed. “What makes you think I will? If he doesn’t want you to know, that’s his business.”

“Granger, I have never liked you more,” Malfoy said, stepping into the room.

The professor moved to the side, and Malfoy came fully into view. Her face fell as it snagged on his appearance. 

Malfoy had a decidedly wretched look about him. His pale blonde hair was a nest, and dark circles lined his eyes. His grey trousers were muddy at the knees, and a bruise was blooming on his cheekbone. 

“Were you out all night?” She hedged. 

“Yes. So let’s get cracking, shall we?” He bit out. 

Dr. Carter sank into a chair and raised his wand, summoning an aged-looking book with gold foil reading The Prophecies of Merlin.

“Fine.” She proffered her left arm, elbow first, for him to grab. 

Instead, cool fingers reached forward and caught her hand in a tight, unexpected grip. She was too surprised to grasp back as they suddenly spun into nothingness. 

Stumbling slightly on landing, another hand gripped her shoulder to steady her. Hermione resisted startling back at his touch. As soon as she straightened, he let go of her completely and strode to the clearing’s edge. She stood gaping after him. 

With a breath in, he plunged into the greenwood, calling back, “Keep up, Granger!” 

Hermione moved at a fine clip behind him. All around her was a sea of green. Twisted roots straggled over rocks. Ferns brushed against their legs. Golden light poured in misty shafts through the canopy. An astonishing number of songbirds, it seemed, chirped and chattered. Mum was right, Hermione thought, it was lovely…When it wasn’t trying to ensnare you. 

As if for emphasis, a rumbling off in the shadows to her side caught her eye. There, in the dim light, two trees shifted at least a meter over, their roots rippling the earth beneath them. Her stomach hollowed. She turned her gaze to the man before her, focusing on his movements.

Malfoy set a punishing pace. Hermione was by no means out of shape—she enjoyed hikes and kept quite active—even so, it wasn’t long before she felt the heat of effort suffusing her cheeks and was ready to take off her jacket in the humidity of the temperate forest. 

“Malfoy,” she gasped, trying not to, “can we go a little slower?” 

He paused and sighed, running a hand roughly through his hair, tugging at the roots. “Yes, fine. Let’s stop a minute.” 

She leaned gratefully against a large holm oak, conjuring a cup of water. 

A few steps from her, Malfoy was busy prodding at an alder’s trunk, scrutinising its canopy. He leaned in close, resting both palms on the bark and drew in deep, steady breaths. There was a strange sense of the elfin to his behaviour. A breath in, and the whole forest seemed to breathe with him. In, ferns leaned toward him; out, leaves rustled on their branches. She was spellbound, watching. Unconsciously, her own breathing seemed to follow. A calm settled over her, but not placidity—a surety of sorts. As though she were precisely where and when she ought to be.

For several long moments, she bathed in the sensation. At her back, the solid tree. At her feet, the loamy earth. At her lips, cool water. Had that really come from nothing? She examined the conjured water between each drink.

When the water was gone, Hermione pushed off from the tree and stood rooted in the earth, her lungs filling with the living forest. 

Quietly, she observed Malfoy. He circled the alder now, his hands never leaving its trunk. His lips moved, saying something no one could possibly hear. How odd…he wasn’t at all the same in here. There was no tension in him and much less self-consciousness. His shoulders seemed set, his footing light but firm. He seemed lighter. Perhaps he also felt that surety here. 

Malfoy stilled, his gaze settled on her. “They’re this way.” 

He slipped easily into the shadows like a wisp. She plodded after.

“Who is?” 

“I’m not sure how they got here. They wouldn’t tell me last night.” 

“Who wouldn’t?” She ducked below a branch in her path. A twig tangled in her hair. 

“I don’t understand how your lot didn’t notice them. It’s an awfully long way to go without being detected. I just can’t—it doesn’t make sense.” He let his fingers trail along ferns at his side, all leaning toward his touch. 

“Malfoy,” she barked, “who?!” 

He stopped, facing her. “The centaurs.” 

Sound seemed suddenly muffled. A breeze swept about them with the scent of honey and sap. It tangled in her hair, brushing curls into her face. With a sweep, it wrapped around Malfoy and loosened a white-blonde lock which fell across his forehead. 

Hermione blinked at a complete loss. “But that’s not…” 

“Possible? Likely? I fucking know, Granger.” He turned, striding onward. “And yet, here they are.”

“From the Forbidden Forest? But that’s—” 

“Hundreds of miles.” 

“It should’ve taken them longer, I’d think, even at a decent trot.” 

“Well, maybe they galloped.” 

“But that would be exhausting!” 

“Look,” his lip curled as he glanced over his shoulder, the bruise on his cheek presented to her in all of its mottling glory. “I’m more concerned about how none of your lot managed to notice a bloody great herd of them coming through the fucking countryside.” 

Her jaw clenched. “Don’t shout at me.” 

“I’m not shouting,” he bit, lowering his voice. “I’m speaking tersely.”

“What am I even doing here, Malfoy?” She dropped her hands at her sides. “You should have contacted the Magical Creatures Department immediately!”

His nostrils flared as he glanced back and forth between her eyes. “You care about them, don’t you?” 

She paused for a moment, then nodded, holding his gaze. 

“The minute I tell your Creatures Department, they’ll swarm all over.” 

“They are class XXXX…”

“Exactly.” He let out a hard puff of air. It curled before him like a dragon’s breath in the humid morning and dissipated into the trembling leaves. “So even with our little agreement, they’ll still send every bloody person who has been combing the Scottish highlands down here.” 

“And you don’t want them to bother your precious forest, is that right?” She hated her phrasing and the snide edge in her tone the moment she said it. She didn’t want a Ministerial hoard in this enchanted place either. 

Malfoy’s look was a dagger. His shoulders rose and fell with heavy breaths. Leaves flapped madly, branches knocking against one another. A tree beside them groaned and creaked. Hermione stepped back, her hand slipping into her pocket with her wand. Her heartbeat pounded. With a sickening lurch of roots, the tree moved toward her. 

Malfoy’s eyes cut to it, widening. He looked all around, a sudden expression of astonishment sweeping his face. His shoulders slackened. Reaching out his right hand, he pressed it to the nearest tree, closed his eyes, and breathed. Behind his lids, his eyes moved rapidly, seeing some unknown landscape. His breaths deepened, and as they did, the forest stilled. Slowly, he opened his eyes and searched the woods until he turned her way and stopped. 

“That’s not what bothers me,” he said loudly as though speaking for more than just her benefit. “Though, yeah, I’d rather not have half the Ministry here again. The problem is what the centaurs want.” 

Shock must have registered on her face by the way he suddenly sneered at her in reaction and spat, “Oh yes, surprise, surprise, I seem to give a shit.” 

“Merlin, Malfoy! Are you kidding me?” She snapped. “You said it yourself the other day: this is surreal.” She gestured between them. “I’m learning, alright? Just—stop biting my head off.”

“Only if you stop holding on to your preconceived notions about me.” 

“I’m trying!” She flapped an arm in frustration. “I’m trying. But it takes time!”

He paled, jaw clenching tight. Hermione glared at him. He searched her face until their silence vibrated. The understory seemed to swell in towards them with each inhale and lean away with each exhale. Finally, resignation passed over his eyes. He turned, stalking off into the woods again. 

“Come on!” He threw back. 

All was tremulous in the cool forest. Ferns wafted back and forth and the air quivered over the thick moss on boulders and branches. They continued quietly for a little while. Endless shadows beneath tangled, sweeping branches that sloped from high above until they brushed the floor, and ferns clambered over them, nestling into moss beds in the crooks of limbs. Little mushrooms sprung up here and there, glowing softly in the darkest shade. 

Malfoy twisted his head, listening. Every so often, he laid his hand on a trunk and whispered inaudibly. A sharp tang of magic filled the air for a fleeting second. Hermione breathed the scent deep, filled with the sweetness of sap and minerals of damp stone. 

“We’re close,” Malfoy muttered. “I’ve talked with them already; that’s why I came to get you.” 

“I assumed.” 

He cast a confused glance at her. Hermione pointed at her cheek while looking meaningfully at his bruised one. 

“Oh, right, yeah.” He turned around angrily. “Why the fuck does everybody hit me?” 

Hermione had rarely felt stronger than when she didn’t answer that question. 

Rounding a few more boulders and passing an oak that seemed to be taking itself for a walk, they came to a place where the canopy thinned and light poured in, banishing the deep shadows. 

Malfoy drew alongside a large fallen log and crouched, signalling her to join. His eyes were fixed straight ahead. When she knelt beside him, he pointed into a meadow ahead. There, standing in a large ring, were the centaurs. 

Hermione’s breath caught in her throat. Good Godric, this was much more than a small group! How had she not realised the size of the “younger faction” everyone in the Department had been talking about? Crowding into the meadow were nearly twenty centaurs. 

“That’s not all of them,” Malfoy whispered sotto voce, leaning into her. A curl brushed by her ear. She caught the rich scent of oakmoss and cedar wood hanging about him. 

No wonder the Ministry had been in such a panic if there were more. How did they manage to lose such a large group? Centaur herds were often smaller and tight-knit. A dozen living together was a typical number. The Forbidden Forest had housed an unusually robust herd. It made sense that there were rifts and mounting pressure amongst them as their population grew, but for so many to leave…

A breath at her ear imparted, “They don’t know I’m bringing you. You’ve got to listen to what they say, Granger; they want me to let them stay.”

“And you’ll let them?” She turned to face him, but he was so close that his exhale fluttered against her cheek. A strange, electric sensation ran down her spine. She pulled back a little. 

Grey eyes searched hers beneath intense brows. “I don’t—I don’t know.” Trepidation lingered in his tone, but there was an openness to it, too. 

“What do you need from me?” 

“Just listen to them. Figure out what they want. And… and tell me—help me figure out what the fuck to do.” 

His gaze was intense, unwavering, waiting for something from her. From her. Suddenly, they didn’t seem so very old at all being asked to make weighty decisions on their own again. Was she really ready for this? She looked into his light eyes, wide and somehow, despite everything, trusting. 

“All right.”   

A tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth pulled into a grin. The lock of hair falling over his forehead had curled slightly in the humidity. Heat suffused her cheeks as she watched him. 

Malfoy rose abruptly and clambered over the log. Gaining his footing on the other side, he pulled himself up to his full height. His shoulders set, steeling himself. A single glance was darted back to her, and then he faced forward, his gait firm. 

“I’ve returned,” he yelled loudly, his voice was even, though his fists clenched at his sides. 

“Ah, the man of the woods,” a large, tawny centaur trotted toward him. The herd moved about Malfoy, fanning out in a semi-circle. He looked around at them all. 

“You have come to agree with our terms and make your forest ready,” the centaur said like a foregone conclusion.

Malfoy’s fists clenched tighter, his knuckles going white.

“Aegis,” Malfoy addressed the centaur, “I have come to continue our discussion.” 

Several centaurs stamped the ground with their hooves. The thump of it reverberated in the earth where Hermione knelt. 

“We have spoken all you need to hear,” Aegis said. “We have spoken all that was needed for your liaisons. We have spoken all that is needed for your Ministry. We will not waste more words in ‘discussion.’ Now is the time for action and decisions.” 

“The Ministry won’t see it that way,” Malfoy argued. “Like I told you before, they won’t understand. They will want you to go back north.” 

“Why should they?” Aegis challenged. A murmured agreement rumbled through the herd. “This is an ancient land; we can feel it. The stars told us it would return, and the Earth called us to it. Who are they to stand in the way of what is written?” 

Malfoy ran a hand roughly through his hair. His face angled to the side, and Hermione wondered if he had almost looked back at her for reassurance. 

“They hardly trust me with the other creatures here; why would they let you stay?” 

Hermione bit her lip. No, oh no, that wasn’t—

“‘Other creatures’?” Aegis hissed, his affront palpable. His nostrils flared. All around the half-circle, the centaurs stamped and thumped chests. 

“Am I not communicating with you clearly, keeper? Creatures…classification...This is the language of your Ministry,” Aegis spat. “We choose where we live. Unless they are now saying that the northern forest is our prison.” 

Hermione gripped the log before her, knuckles turning white. What had the Ministry told the younger faction?

“It’s not for him to decide, Aegis!” A cinnamon-coloured centaur yelled from the semi-circle.

“This has been foreseen! He has no power over it,” another cried. 

Malfoy’s fists clenched and unclenched, his spine rigid. All around, the forest stirred. Great creaks, groans, and the snapping of branches filled the air. Hooves beat the earth wildly in response. 

“Careful, keeper,” Aegis cautioned, eyes hard on Malfoy. “The old wood doesn’t know how to read you well yet.”

“I’d say it’s doing a fine job,” Malfoy ground out. But he looked around at the trees swaying. His shoulders rose and fell, his fists loosening. The forest became subdued. 

“Better, keeper,” Aegis said. He raised his voice louder and spoke to the herd. All the while, his eyes remained fixed on Malfoy. “This is no ordinary man. He is the forest, and the forest is him. We must seek mutual understanding with him.” 

“No!” A centaur with hair as black as night galloped forward, swinging a bolas above his head. He rode in a tight circle around Malfoy and Aegis, then stopped beside the latter. “Another of these will not govern me. They are base and cruel, and I am tired of it, brother.” 

“What would you do? Make enemies of all of them, Niht?” 

“I am enemies with whoever stands between us and what has been promised. We saw this, brother.” Niht raised his voice, looking to the rest of the herd. “We all did. And we would let this reed of a man command us? Force us into his confines?” Niht rounded on Malfoy, the bolas dangling from his fist. “No. You will aid us as the forest wants you to. Or do I need to warn you a second time?” The bolas swung menacingly. 

Malfoy had been growing increasingly rigid with each word. The restless forest trembled around Hermione. Branches squeaked and rubbed against one another. A tension thrummed through the air, taut as a bow. 

“I am with the forest, and I am telling you, it’s not so simple!” Malfoy barked, incensed. “I can’t just tell the Ministry what to do. It will do as it bloody well pleases. Now, look, I can help. I can talk with them if you’ll just tell me—”

“Words! We have had enough of them!” Niht swung the bolas. 

Malfoy stepped back, his hand slipping toward his pocket where his wand was tucked. Niht tracked the movement. 

“No, reed. Do not use your magic against me.” He galloped suddenly around Malfoy, who drew his wand and took several stumbling steps toward the tree line. Shouts erupted from the centaurs—encouraging, cajoling—but also tempering and cries for patience and peace. Aegis’ voice yelled a ragged “Stop!” above them all. 

But Malfoy was moving, and Niht was behind him. Niht reared back, his black coat flashing in the light, and brought his foreleg down onto Malfoy’s back with a sickening crunch. 

Malfoy fell forward into the grass, hidden from her view.

Wand in hand and fire in her belly, Hermione leapt from her position and ran. “DRACO!” 

Chapter Text

Wind swept over the trees. A sea of green leaves moving in the bellowing gale waved below him. He was high above, his wings spread as wide as he could stretch them. Heavy, dense air pressed against the underside of his feathers, lifting him up. He couldn’t fall; the wind wouldn’t let him. He belonged here. 

Grey, molten clouds roiled. The rumble of thunder rolled over the forest. Tucking his wings into his sides, he dove down, plunging for the violently surging greenwood. It was like an ocean tossed by a storm. His dive was impossibly fast, careening to the earth. Wind whipped around him. A roar muffled his hearing. The trees grew sharper, their definitions more pronounced. He could see individual leaves. He was diving, diving, diving! Would he go through the trees? Pierce the roiling canopy? 

“DRACO!” 

He couldn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe!

“Draco!” Granger dropped to his side. 

Her knee bumped into his left arm, and—Merlin, fuck!—the jolt radiated through him like a wave. He hissed in a breath—a wretched, ragged, stabbing breath. He was aflame with molten liquid between piercing ribs that were more like knives than bone. His right hand grasped a bunch of grass and squeezed. 

Granger was saying something, muttering a spell, maybe, but he couldn’t be sure. The clashing of other voices rang over them. Hoofbeats reverberated through the earth. Yells and shouts erupted in the meadow. All the while, the furious sounds of the thrashing forest overlaid. A mad fusion of fighting and wind-whipped trees.

Fingers glided over his back. A voice—her voice—was saying something. Then, the tang of magic, so soft and delicate anyone would miss it if they weren’t paying attention, brushed against him. 

“Granger…” he wheezed. Fuck, it hurt to breathe! 

“I’m here, Draco, stay calm. It’s going to be alright.” 

Was it? There was a ripping of fabric, then a chill bite of air as his jacket and shirt were peeled back. 

“Bugger,” she muttered. 

He tried to speak, but the dry words came out as a wheeze. Sharp stabs pierced him in the right side of his back and chest for his efforts. His hand spasmed—his back spasmed. 

Something firm grasped his left hand and squeezed. “I’m here, Draco; it’s going to be okay. It will be.” 

Shut up, you can’t know that, he wanted to say, but all that emerged was a gurgling rattle. He could hardly take in air. The short gasps felt like punctures each time. 

The fingers of his right hand tangled in the grass and pulled as though his arms could physically drag the air into his resistant lungs. She gripped his hand tighter, and something in her touch—in her muttered assurances—grounded him.  

A whooshing and crashing of leaves and branches echoed in his head. Great heaves and groans rolled from the trees to his ears. He felt flattened as if all the breaths he’d ever drawn had been pressed out of him at once.

“Expecto Patronum!” A burst of silver light erupted over him.

A distant feeling of safety seemed to flow into him with the glow. He’d learned that spell. Dr. Carter’s voice echoed in memory: The cold of Azkaban can’t reach you anymore, Draco, see?  

“Tell Theo there’s been an accident—”

“Wait!” 

The drum of hoofbeats. 

Granger muttered a finite incantatem, banishing the silver glow. 

“Let me,” a voice like a river rolling over smooth pebbles said. 

Grass rustled. Something large and warm moved close beside him. Mottled hair, streaked with greys and whites, wavered in his watering eyes. Strong, warm hands glided over his back. 

“Ribs, they are loose,” the gentle voice said. 

“How bad?” Granger pressed. 

He tried to feel through the pain and focus on breathing. Strong fingers squeezed his. He clutched back. The tug in his chest was a fiery stab, as if a lance pierced him through. 

“Very bad.” 

“Right,” Granger’s no-nonsense tone was firmly in place. “I need to Apparate him—”

“Calm—slow,” the gentle voice willed. “There is this—” fingertips brushed the right side of his back, high where it was particularly painful. “His hepar is wounded. There is bleeding. If his hepar is damaged, perhaps that is why the forest is so anguished.” 

The thrashing of the trees echoed in his ears. He breathed—tight, painful, wet—and the forest flowed through him. Moss below his cheek. The sweetness of wildflowers in the blush of spring. The damp of dew on hellebores in late winter. Draco’s fingers knit into the grass and squeezed.

“Yes, keeper,” the gentle voice urged. “Grasp hold of it.” 

Then, a song poured forth. Music, melodious and deep, resonated in his bones. It moved through his blood. Whispers of flanks galloping against tall grass through the steppes—the wind sweeping from high mountains with the sharpness of frost on its breath—a hum of bees swarming at their hive, all intermingled and spread through him. 

The song was achingly familiar. He could smell the mineral dank of that horrible lavatory again. Severus kneeling over him. Potter’s ashen face above. Only this song felt older. An age older like when he rested against the yew tree—his yew tree. 

He could feel his nerves reaching out, meeting the magic the centaur was weaving until he was stitched back together as with the expert tailoring of a spider at her work. 

The singing stopped. Draco tested a breath—“Fuuuuckkk,” he exhaled through the pain.

“Is he healed?” Granger asked, her warm hand gripping his. 

“No. Only his hepar—that is out of danger now, but he needs more.” 

Yells and the pound of hooves stamping shook the air. Trembling leaves rustled with the groans of trees like a wild wind battered them.

“Draco,” Granger said, “I’m going to Apparate you to the clearing and then to St. Mungo’s—”

“No,” he managed through a gasp. 

“What? But you’ve got to—”

“Not Mungos….They’ll…report…” It felt like the whole side of his chest was in motion while he spoke. 

“Merlin, of course they will! But we have to get you—”

“No.” He lifted his head as much as he could—which was barely. Turning his face to the other side, chin dragging through the dirt, he tried to eye the centaur with the gentle voice. “Can you… heal…rest?” 

He heard the swish of a tail against the tall grass. “I can. But we should move. It’s not calm here. Can you make him ready? Good. Give me a moment.” 

The centaur beside him rose and galloped off. Granger leaned close. 

“I don’t like this. Please, please get over it and let’s go to St. Mungo’s. What if your back is broken? Or your heart is damaged? I don’t even know what a hepar is!” A hysterical edge had begun to creep into her voice.  He squeezed his eyes shut. 

With all he had, he clenched her hand back in three short pulses. She grew still. 

“Not…yet,” he croaked. “This…then Mungos.” 

She was warring with herself, he could tell. He wondered how long it would be before she would ignore his wishes and take him anyway. There wasn’t much he could do about it if she did. He gripped her fingers. 

He felt the warmth of her charms over his back again; then, a sigh curled down to him. 

“Alright,” she agreed. 

Letting go of his hand, she fumbled with something in her pocket. 

“Accio,” Granger murmured. Something flew into her hand. A small book was dropped on the ground beside his face. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, though not to him. The book was transfigured into a stretcher. 

Hooves neared them. 

“Let us go at once,” the gentle voice urged. 

“Draco, this may hurt,” Granger said. “Immobulus. Levicorpus. Wingardium Leviosa.” 

Blinding, stabbing pain. He careened, he fell, he dove. He was prone on the stretcher, face twisted to the side. An arm was tucked onto it; the other hung partly off. A warm hand gripped his firmly. They were drifting, walking, trotting—he could hear the gentle centaur at his back. 

“Do not take him, Eirene!” A deep voice bellowed from a distance behind them.  

Galloping hooves charged. Granger’s grip squeezed painfully hard. A mad riot of bird calls, boughs cracking, and tree trunks groaning rose. 

Draco screwed his eyes shut and turned inward, then pushed outward, beseeching: Help. Safe. 

Above them, the branches screeched, leaves rattled as a gust howled through. A ripping, shredding in the earth. Granger gasped. 

And all at once, the shadows of the greenwood enveloped them. 

A hush settled over like a warm blanket. The burble of a stream was close by. 

“Enough, keeper,” the gentle voice soothed. “Rest.” A hand brushed his forehead, and the world vanished with sleep.

࿐ ࿔*

Wind rose around Draco. He licked his lips, tasting sap and honey. Giant thorns stabbed his side. They slid in deeper every time he tried to draw a breath.  

He was in a dimly lit room with high ceilings. No…not ceilings: the arc of tree boughs. This had been home once, hadn’t it? Where walls had once been, trees now stood.

Somewhere far off, he heard crying. He drifted toward the sound, moving down corridors strewn with leaves and carpeted in wood anemone. 

He passed through an ornate door, and the forest fell away. Plunged into the cold, harsh drawing room, all colours became muted. The thorns pierced his lung. He shuddered and stumbled. 

Before him, a familiar girl—Granger—lay on the floor, crying softly. He went to reach out to her, but as he did, his Aunt Bellatrix caught him and twisted one of the thorns deeper into his flesh. 

“Mine,” she said, but her voice wasn’t right. It wasn’t the shrill thing it had been; it was the hiss of a snake. 

He was shrinking, shrinking, so small now. Helpless. Helpless to the pain in his side, making it hard to breathe. Helpless as his Aunt rounded on Granger and hissed out her horrible spell. Helpless as Granger thrashed with pain. Her screams echoed in his memory across time. 

No. No, this wasn’t right. 

He stared at the thorns in his side. Each was the size of his palm and as thick around as his thumb. One by one, he withdrew them. They dropped to the floor. Where they fell, red campions grew. The red buds burst into bloom through the tiles until there were no tiles, only moss and campion. 

The window blew open. A sweet breeze wound about the room. The loamy fragrance of earth filled his nostrils. His lungs expanded with the rich, wild scent. He could feel his mouth lifting at the corner.

Draco looked at his hands and found them veined with green. His wand lay heavy and warm in his palm. The hawthorn wood called to him; the unicorn core sang. 

He lifted his eyes to his Aunt, who sneered and raised her wand. He was taller now—much taller than her. Draco’s lips parted, and when he spoke, his voice was the murmur of wind rustling a thousand ancient trees. His breath of sap and honey filled the room. 

Draco’s voice rose in a maelstrom of leaves, ash, and soil. It swept about his Aunt Bellatrix, wrapping her in her hair and robes until she swirled into nothingness.

Freed of her, he moved forward. With an outstretched palm, he helped Granger to her feet. Suddenly, she wasn’t a girl: she was the woman he had been working with these last many weeks. Her eyes trailed over him. Lifting her hand, her fingers gently brushed his lips and stopped his windswept voice.

A warmth flooded him. It settled in his belly and tightened his chest. 

He tipped backwards and fell on the soft earth. The slithering, crawling, shifting sound of a multitude of tiny movements buzzed. Detritus undulated, pulsed, and wove into itself as spider-thin mycelium slipped across his skin, hyphae tendrils wrapping like a bandage. 

His lips parted, and he drew a long, deep, perfect breath. 

࿐ ࿔*

He woke slowly, face down, shirtless, on a mat. An unstoppable yawn demanded entrance. His diaphragm ached like a tightened belt around his abdomen, but that was all: the stabbing was gone. Sweet, merciful Merlin, he could breathe again! He drew a deep breath, tasting the forest’s tang. 

As his eyes adjusted, pink autumn cyclamen came into view, bedded half hidden in the shadows of a root. Ah, he knew this tree well. Above him, an ancient yew tree towered. Its trunk was extraordinarily wide around—so big that it might have stood there for a thousand years. Sunlight cut in shafts through the canopy. 

He was lying on a slope that arced from the tree to a little stream. Reaching branches stretched in twists and turns outward, bending low near the water, forming a particularly protected hollow beneath the tree’s broad expanse.

A crow cawed noisily nearby. Its throaty calls mingled with the babble of the stream rolling across the rocks. Overlaying all was the soft, inexpert singing of a familiar voice. Her gentle alto lilted along with a tune he’d never heard. No surprise, that. He still felt foolishly inept with the breadth on offer in Muggle music. Listening to her, images weaved in and out of his mind: his dream crossing with the feel of her hand gripping his in the meadow.  

Beneath his face, the stretcher seemed to have been transfigured again into a soft mat. He twisted slightly onto his side, still aching terribly but able to move. 

“Double transfiguration, Granger?” He said. The soft singing abruptly stopped. “Goodbye to that book, then.” 

Footsteps crunched in the bracken. Granger settled herself on the ground, staring with burning intensity at him. 

“How are you feeling?” She asked, her hand coming to rest on his bare shoulder.

His eyes flitted to where she touched him. She pulled away. 

Wiggling, he tested his muscles a little more and pulled himself entirely onto his back with a groan, gazing up into the yew’s arching branches. 

“I imagine this is how bludgers feel at the end of a match.” 

“Eirene said you’d still have significant pain.” He gave her a questioning look. “The centaur who healed you. She’s gone to fetch some plants but will be back soon.”

“Ah.” 

“How’s your breathing?” Concern etched her face. 

He inhaled deeply for show. “Aches, but I don’t feel like my chest is loose and knives are stabbing me anymore.” 

“It was loose, apparently.” 

“What?” 

“Mmhmm. Four of your ribs were flailing completely free, broken both front and back.” 

He stared at fluttering leaves above. Light dappled between them. Layered greens on up and up until white took over.

An over-loud sigh beside him broke his reverie. 

“I still think you ought to go to St. Mungo's,” Granger said with an edge.  

He clicked his tongue. “And have Hestia Jones show up in minutes—the forest overrun with DMLE and your lot seconds after? No, thank you.”

“You’re just going to have to accept that,” she snapped. “How long do you think you have to sort this all out, hmm?” She propped her fists on her hips. It may have been a more intimidating stance were she not sitting cross-legged on the ground. “I can’t just keep this secret come Monday.” 

“Take a sick day then.” 

“No.” 

“I just need another day or two,” he implored, twisting painfully toward her. “I can work this out…tomorrow, I think.” 

She scoffed, shaking her head. 

“Did Eirene say how long I would hurt like this? I feel like I was stomped on by an erumpent.” 

“Nearly! A centaur kicked you. Merlin… people die from that sort of thing.” 

“Yes—my life is a bit of a miracle.”  

“And what makes you think it won’t happen again?” She spat, her volume rising. “Niht hit you, didn’t he? Last night.” 

His jaw worked back and forth. “Maybe.” 

“God! How can you think you’ll sort something out with them?” 

“I don’t know! But I have to try, don’t I?” 

“Why?!”  

“How can you ask that? You, of all people!” 

“Because you never would have before!” 

“Well, I’m not that person anymore,” he roared. Blood pounded in his ears. 

She clamped her mouth shut and glared at him. 

“I have to try,” he went on. “They aren’t wrong about the forest wanting them. It let them through the bloody wards! I didn’t even know they were here, which means it was so comfortable with them that it didn’t think to alert me. I’m just—I’ve got to—” he growled, a deep ache blossoming along his back. “This is all I am, do you understand? When they called me ‘keeper,’ are they wrong? No, they aren’t. Once the Ministry gets involved, they will want to do what they do best, and you know what that is, don’t you?” He sneered and gave her a pointed look. “What are the two words you leave out whenever you mention your Department?” 

Granger inhaled sharply. “Regulation and Control.” 

“Precisely. Do you think that involves allowing a restless, fledgling herd to set up house in Wiltshire?”

“I don’t know.” 

“With a Death Eater?” 

“You’re not.” 

“I was.” Her lips pressed into a firm line as he spoke. “I was. I can’t escape that fact, so let’s not pretend for even a moment it isn’t true.” 

His eyes closed. With a wrenching pull, he hauled himself up to sitting and fell back against the tree. He slipped a hand to his side and let it press against the bark. 

“What happened after the stretcher?” Draco prompted, rolling his head to face her.

Light glowed around the edges of Granger’s curls, soft and almost ethereal. A crease formed between her brows as she focused. 

“It was like when the forest grabbed me,” she began slowly. “We stepped out of the meadow, and the forest just…rearranged itself, and we were suddenly here—not like Apparition. It felt… I don’t know. Like nothing, really, I suppose.” 

The crease had deepened as she talked. 

“There was this moment,” she continued, “where these gold motes sort of shimmered around you. Does that happen often?” 

“Sometimes,” he muttered. 

Granger hummed, her eyes trailing around the shelter of the yew. Rising, she dusted off her jeans and walked about the trunk, examining it. Her eyes were alight with curiosity.

“Why here?” She asked. Her hands ran over the bark. With his fingertips at its trunk, he felt the mildest tremor pass through it into him as she caressed it softly.

He cast his gaze up into its branches. An incandescent warmth hummed in the air. 

“This yew was here before the forest,” he said.

Granger tipped her head back. Ambers and even reds gleamed at the edges of her chestnut hair in the halo of sunlight around her.

A warm breeze moved through the ferns, swishing them together. Though it was well into November, the air felt perfectly mild. Draco sat comfortably enough, if just a little chilled, still shirtless on the mat.

“I think…I think this yew knows me,” he said quietly. The branches swayed and nodded above.

Granger loosed a heavy sigh. Her steps rustled softly around the roots, echoing beneath the yew’s sheltering branches.

“It must," she said. "The forest brought us straight here—not to the clearing.” 

“I feel like I can… Merlin, this will sound mad…like I can understand this tree the best of all of them. And it understands me, maybe. Do you think it’s possible?” Draco asked. He could feel a flush crawling up his neck. “That a tree can remember? I mean, even before all of…” He waved his hand around, gesturing at the forest at large.

Her amber eyes shone with something he couldn’t read, but it reminded him of a type of sorrow he knew in his bones. 

“I think memory isn’t what we assume it is,” she said. 

He hummed in reply. The ghosts of his dream slipped around the edges of his thoughts, overlaying deeper, darker memories. They stayed like that for a little while, letting the noises of the forest keep them company. The warmer-toned light that managed to slip through belied the lateness of the afternoon. A grumbling in his stomach grew insistent.

“Fuck, I’m hungry,” he moaned. 

“Mmm, if you were at St. Mungo’s they’d bring you a tray,” Granger sniffed, settling back on the ground. 

“Shut up about that. I’m not going.” 

“Mister ‘it nearly took my arm off’ over a scratch, refusing to leave when seriously injured—god, what dimension have I been teleported to?” 

“Tele-what?”

Her lips parted to reply, but the crack of a branch intruded. 

“Hail,” Eirene greeted, stepping as lightly as the unicorn did. “How do you feel, keeper?” 

Eirene was majestic. A tall, sweeping centaur with mottled grey and white hair on her body. Thick silver hair on her head was twisted into three braids: two hanging over her front and one draping down her back. Eyes of the richest cobalt stared at him from her youthful face.

“Sore, but better,” he said, pushing his back off the tree as though to prove it. “You can call me Draco.” 

Eirene hummed—a rich sound that seemed to rumble through her body. “Named for the stars?” He nodded. A knowing smile crossed her face. “Ah, it is a sign then.” 

Draco resisted rolling his eyes.

Lowering to the ground, legs folded beneath her body, Eirene placed the things she carried in her hands before her. 

“Hermione,” she said. Granger shuffled closer. “Will you start a small fire just here?” 

Granger leaned to the space on the moss Eirene indicated and pointed her wand. A small, bright flame hovered there. Seeming to know precisely what Eirene needed next, Granger reached into a little bag he noticed she had at her side. The tasselled thing wasn’t much larger than her palm, yet when she reached in, her arm vanished nearly up to the elbow before withdrawing with a small metal stand and a little teapot. 

“That’s clever of you,” he remarked.

The barest pink stained Granger’s cheeks. “It’s not strictly legal.” 

“You don’t say,” he drawled. “Haven’t got any food in there, have you? Maybe, I dunno, a tray?” 

She wrinkled her nose at him. He bit his cheeks to stop a grin. 

“I do have some things,” she admitted. Her arm plunged in again. Out it emerged with some apples and a loaf of bread. “Er… these haven’t been here long—I only added them this morning.”

“I’ll trust you this time,” he said, accepting an apple and a hunk of bread. 

Granger turned to Eirene and offered her some. The centaur nodded deeply as she accepted a bit of bread.

They chewed, tea steeped, and Eirene glanced at the two of them with an indescribable look of wonderment. 

“Mark this day: it is momentous,” she said, her steady voice rolling like water through him. “On this day, a witch and wizard shared a meal with a centaur.” Her lips parted, and a radiant, infectious grin spread across her face. He felt his own cheeks pull and glanced over at Granger, who was beaming. 

His heart lurched, then skittered into a brighter tempo. A patch of sunlight beamed through the trees. It caught her just so in its warmth. Words clamored in his head—brilliant, beautiful. 

He blinked once, twice, then looked away, eating his apple, trying to sort out his thoughts. 

Eirene and Granger were talking about the tea, but he couldn’t focus. His mind was tightening on the words and molding them into an inarguable fact: Granger was quite pretty.

Had he never noticed that before? Was he an idiot? No, it was best not to honestly answer that kind of question about oneself. 

“Drink this, Draco,” Eirene commanded, passing him a small stoneware cup they had procured from the depths of Granger’s bag. 

Tentatively, he sipped. A pungent tang swirled down his throat and settled in his belly with an acidic burn. He grimaced, but within only a moment, some of the aching in his muscles lessened. 

“What the bloody hell is in this tea?” He spluttered, staring into the cup.  

Eirene granted him a patient smile. “It is my grandame’s recipe.” She gestured for him to drink more with the sort of finality that told him he would not be learning its ingredients and better do as he was told. 

A few short, burning gulps had polished off the rest of it. 

“Now, this.” Eirene leaned over the little fire and lit a bundle of plants she'd wrapped together. 

“What’s in that?”  

“Hyssop,” Eirene said, holding one end to the fire. 

There was obviously more than just hyssop wrapped there. Draco exchanged a look with Granger, who flicked her eyebrows up meaningfully at him. Yes, yes: he was the one who chose not to go to St. Mungo’s. The message was clear enough. 

The bundle began to smoke. Eirene fanned it gently. When a steady billow was flowing from the end, she leaned toward him. Her long torso, covered only by her braided silver hair, was tall enough for her to reach well over his legs. 

“Breathe this,” she commanded. 

He leaned forward, grateful that the tea had gone a long way to soothing his back muscles. With a darting glance at Granger, who wore a deeply sceptical scowl, he held the bundle beneath his nose and breathed in the smoke. 

Familiar scents from potions and herbology slithered into his nostrils and rolled in a cloud down the back of his throat. Maybe a hint of mallow root was there, perhaps a taste of skullcap. As it filled his lungs, the last aches and tightness within seemed to be pushed out. Granger was staring at him with an intensity she once gave to particularly difficult potions assignments. With a long, audible exhale, he let his pain roll out in smoky tendrils. 

“Fuck,” he whispered.

“Better?” Eirene asked. 

“Yes, better.” He took another deep breath of the clean forest air. “Sweet Salazar, I can breathe almost normally again.” 

Eirene’s lips curved in a pleased smirk. “Yes, this is an old restorative we have created just for such injuries to the lungs as you have suffered. Our herds are not as violent as your stories may assume us to be, but we are known to clash from time to time.” She rose with a powerful grace, stretching out her hind legs. Blue eyes traced the yew tree. 

Feeling much better now, Draco became cognizant of a few things at once. First was his bare torso and arms with scars (and other marks) exposed. Second was how restless he suddenly felt after having lain down most of the day. Third, and finally, was overwhelming thirst and hunger that some tea, bread, and a single apple were doing nothing for. 

“Granger,” he began, “what happened to my shirt and jacket?” 

“Oh!” Pink tinged her cheeks. “They’re right here; I had to cut them off you, but did repair them.” 

He grunted. “Well, if it had to be anyone faffing about with repairing charms on them, at least it was you. Can’t imagine you settling for merely good enough.” 

The color in her cheeks deepened; her lips twisted to the side to hide her grin. A fluttering sensation tossed about in the hollow, hungry cavern of his stomach. His gaze lingered on her as he pulled on his shirt and jacket. 

“This is a magnificent tree,” Eirene pronounced. Standing beside one of the large branches that arced to the stream, her head was tipped back; an arm flung outward with hand outstretched as though taking in the full magnitude of the tree. 

“You are a marvel!” She cried into its branches. 

Pride bloomed in his chest unexpectedly as she stood in awe of the yew. “It was here before the forest emerged,” he explained, though she hadn’t asked. 

“Mmm, it has kept your dead well.” 

“Kept your dead?” Hermione asked, moving closer. 

He cleared his throat. “Yes, I buried Apollo here a year ago.” A look of confusion crossed her brow. “One of my father’s peacocks." 

“One of them? There were more?” 

“Only one other: Hermes. That twat is off in the forest somewhere right now, but I rarely see him. We hate each other.” 

The corner of Granger’s lip twitched. “Bad experiences?” 

“You have no idea how mean peacocks can be, Granger. They’re brutal and conniving.” 

“Fair enough.” She shrugged. “Bit ironic, your father using those names.” 

Draco scoffed. “Isn’t it just? Prick.” 

“Why? Those are noble names,” Eirene remarked. 

A chill dart dove down his spine. He swallowed roughly, an awful clawing beginning in his gut.“It’s ironic because the names had Muggle origins, and my father, he… well, hated Muggles.” 

“Ah, yes,” Eirene nodded slowly. “The battle not long ago.” 

Not long ago… or a lifetime. Maybe yesterday. Maybe just an hour. Time had twisted somewhere between him and that battle.

His gaze drifted to Granger. Fire and blood lay between them — wreckage he couldn’t walk back through.

And yet, he looked at her anyway.

Her focus pierced him. He held her eyes as he spoke, “Yes. Some people—my father amongst them—believed that Muggles were trying to steal our magic. They believed that Muggles and Muggleborns were a threat to us and our way of life.”

Granger’s chest rose and fell too quickly. Her lips paled. Still, he didn’t look away. Regret twisted like a knife in his belly.

“I held those beliefs too…" he said, "for a while. I was… afraid of Muggles.” 

Granger suddenly scoffed. “Of course you were, you daft man! I know that. Anybody would know that. Thought they might steal your magic, did you? Lord, I can imagine the stupid stories you were fed. What would happen? Someone would seduce you in a dark alley and suck out your magical essence with a vacuum cleaner?” 

A startled laugh burst out of him before he could stop it. Still staring at Granger, he laughed so hard suddenly that his stomach clenched and his eyes watered. Somehow, it broke something loose in her, too, and then she was laughing as well. 

“Mmm.” Eirene was listening while she observed the yew closer, unbothered by their ridiculous behaviour behind her. “But you don’t believe that any longer,” she stated simply as a fact.

He sobered. Air rushed from his lungs, leaving him a hollow, empty thing. Granger wiped a palm across her cheeks.

“No," he murmured, "I don’t believe that anymore.” 

Granger’s eyes glistened. Her nostrils flared, her breathing picked up again, brows peaking in the middle. Was she angry with him? Waiting for something more? He knew there should be more. How else would they cross all that lay between them? 

“Gran—Hermione,” he said softly. Salt was in the back of his throat. A swallow, then another worked it free. “I’m sorry.” 

Her whole body stiffened. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, not entirely sure much sound had actually emerged. He drew in a breath. “For everything. For school, for the war, for all of it. You didn’t deserve it—not any of it. And I—I don’t deserve your time or help at all. I don’t even quite understand how I got here—how we got here. But—gods, if I could change—”

“You have changed,” she blurted. “You don’t have to change the past.” 

“Don’t I?” His heart boomed against his battered ribs. 

Granger lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “It doesn’t matter; you can’t.” The golden halo around her hair shimmered as she tilted her face up toward the tree. “The past is… it’s a memory.”

He closed his eyes. Resignation settled over him like a layer of earth.

“I forgive you, you know,” she breathed. Their eyes met once more. “I did a long time ago.” 

When? How? 

“The letter at my trial?” 

She shook her head. “Before that.” 

His brow furrowed in confusion. 

She glanced at the ground. “You didn’t do anything that made it happen. Not really.” 

He stared into the fluttering leaves overhead. If he pushed all the air from his lungs, could he move even one of those from here? 

A huff slipped from him. “Not even powerful enough to be an instrument in my own forgiveness.” 

“That’s the thing, really,” she said, guilelessly, “you’ve never had any power over me.” 

Granger’s face was shadowed while light glowed softly about her. She wasn’t the bossy, know-it-all girl he had known when they were children. She was something else. Something much more secure in herself. She had faced the wolves and howled back. 

Her shoulders lifted and heaved, settling lower as if she had released something significant she’d been carrying. She turned and walked down the slope to the stream. Splashes of cold water hit her face. After, she sat, staring off into the woods. He looked away, granting her the meager solitude.

“Do you know, Draco,” Eirene said softly, “a man who can own his past is a brave man. We are haunted by ourselves, the worst of all, are we not?” 

His chest tightened. 

Her fingers stroked one of her long, silver braids. “My herd, we have been haunted by the past of our elders, and so we forge a new path—like you. Will you be patient with us?” 

Deep in his chest, a tug pulled sharply at him. The heel of his hand raised to it and rubbed. He bowed his head to Eirene, and she returned it. 

“I think you are well enough now,” she said, a little louder. “You should return home. Give us a night for heads to cool, and then return. Tomorrow, I shall stand by you.” 

Granger came to his side; damp curls clung to her neck and cheek. She seemed charged with something electric just beneath the surface, and it sparked through him. His eyes found her, caught as if by a magnet, refusing to look away.

“Malfoy, now, can we go back to the clearing?” She asked with a smirk. 

“Alright.” 

She held out her hand. He stared at it as though he’d never been properly socialised, glancing between it and her face until her brows rose almost in a challenge. He reached out and took it, letting her pull him to his feet. 

He was taller than her—of course. She dropped his hand, her lips tightening into a thin line as she glanced up at him. Without another word, she turned and began packing up, making the scattered items beneath the yew disappear.

Draco's head tipped back. With his eyes closed the sweet tang of the forest flooded him. It rushed through his veins, warm and vital. He drew in a breath, and leaves danced above him. 

“Tomorrow, keeper!” Eirene bid with a wave. He raised a hand in goodbye, but she was already turning from him blurring into the deepening shadows. 

“Merlin, I’m starving,” Granger moaned. 

He glanced down at her and crooked his elbow. With a smirk, she grasped it. 

“Hang on,” he said, “You called me ‘Draco’ before.” 

Colour stained her cheeks. “I did.” 

“But not now?” 

She arched a brow and faced forward. “You can be 'Draco' when I’m not irritated with you.” 

A warmth suffused his chest and swam up his throat. For a wild moment, he wondered if perhaps he wouldn’t like to irritate her just a bit more.

She gripped her wand. With a crack, they were gone, the sound of their departure reverberating through the woods. 

The kitchen at Great James Street was warm and smelled of sauteed vegetables. The last of the golden hour shimmered through the window into the room. The refrigerator hummed softly. Draco lowered his elbow and looked down at Granger. 

Could she stay for supper? Could they talk a little while longer? He didn’t really know what about, but they’d find something, wouldn’t they? 

But her brows were furrowed, and her eyes fixed on something straight ahead. 

“Malfoy,” she started, “is that my fucking cat?” 

“Ah, bugger.” 

Chapter Text

“How long has this been going on?” Hermione demanded. 

Malfoy's eyes darted to Crookshanks, whose tail swished back and forth as he sat at the table.

“I don’t know…not long after you left Hogwarts.”

“That’s over two years, Malfoy!” She smacked the back of a chair. “I knew you were getting friendly when you came for NEWTs. I saw you with him.” 

“It wasn’t my fault! He kept bothering me!” 

“He’s a cat.” 

“No, he’s half-kneazle."

“How dare you notice that about him.” 

“What the fuck! He’s obviously not normal. Look at him.” Crookshanks sat, licking his paws. “He’s got this freakish way of just turning up places, doesn’t he? And he made me go to Hagrid.” 

“Made you?” 

Malfoy dragged his hand down his face. “He’s very compelling when he wants to be. Those claws aren’t just for show, you know.”

“You could have at least told me!” She pushed her hand into her hair, shoving it back from her face. “Do you know how upsetting it’s been? He just vanishes! I thought he was just off on some grand adventures.” 

She rounded on Crookshanks. Slowly, with the attitude of indulging a nuisance, he turned to her and blinked.

“Sometimes," she said, "you’re gone for days! And I’m worried and lonely.” 

Malfoy grimaced and closed his eyes. A flush worked its way up the back of his neck and over his ears. A fire burned in her belly. Fuck Malfoy for hearing it—but even more so for letting her feel that way. 

“And you never thought to say anything?” 

“Well,” Malfoy rubbed the centre of his chest, “not… really. I just never thought it was a problem! Potter certainly never said anything. And Lord—Crookshanks is only ever here for a night or two anyway.” 

“Harry knew?” She stilled. “Hang on—Lord? What?” 

Hermione had observed the reddening of Draco Malfoy’s pale complexion many times since their adolescence. He came in a variety of shades: an angry red, a mortified maroon, a blushing pink that sometimes stained his cheeks and the tips of his ears. This particular flush sat at the crossroads nearest maroon. He stared at the table between them.

“Lord Fluffbum.” 

Hermione blinked at him. The refrigerator hummed. Crookshanks rasped his tongue through his fur, steady and unbothered. Malfoy seemed to cringe inward.

“Thank fuck, you’re back! Thought we heard you railing down here.” Theo burst into the room. “Oh, hello, cat.” 

He crossed to the fridge, retrieved a small container, and with a lazy flick summoned a saucer. Hermione’s eyes widened as he filled it and set it before Crookshanks, who hopped onto the table and began to eat. Theo dropped into a chair and stroked the orange fur.

“You’ve known he was coming here the whole time,” Hermione seethed, “and you said nothing?” 

Theo shrugged. “It’s his business where he spends his time, isn’t it?” 

Malfoy surged forward. “Exactly! That’s right. My position as well.” 

“It’s not so very far, my darling,” Theo said, batting dark lashes. “Barely a mile from Diagon to here.” 

“Oh, you’re in Diagon Alley, are you?" Malfoy queried. "Was it easy to find a flat?” 

“Shut up, both of you." She clenched her fists. 

Theo smiled benignly while Malfoy tried on some penitent, wide-eyed look. God, she wanted to smack him. Or Crookshanks, whom she glanced at with a withering, betrayed glare. As usual, he bore this negative attention with taciturn disregard. 

“Oh, hello, Pangur Bán,” Dr. Carter greeted Crookshanks as he came into the room, making straight for a bottle of wine that sat on the side. 

Malfoy bit the insides of his cheeks, clearly stifling a grin. 

“So you all knew?” She fumed. 

A puckish smirk played about Dr. Carter’s face. He gave a little shrug and a wink. 

“Alright, we’ve waited all day,” he said, holding his hand above the bottle to summon out the cork. “You’d better tell us what’s going on.”

Suddenly, the enormity of all that had happened since that morning crashed in like a wave. Her eyes raked over Malfoy afresh. Details that her ire had blocked out returned with a vengeance: his face still bruised from the night before, hair completely dishevelled, circles under his eyes, a sort of hollow exhaustion clinging to him.

The irritation bled from her entirely, along with whatever reserves of strength she had. With a heavy thunk, she dropped into a chair, startling Crooks, who shot her a baleful glower, then returned to his salmon. 

“Oh, god, Draco,” she groaned, dropping her face into her hands. 

“What happened?” Dr. Carter pressed, settling at the table with his glass. 

“How much do you know about the Forbidden Forest centaurs?” Draco asked. 

Dr. Carter shook his head. “Just that they’ve had some in-fighting.”

“What you may not be aware of,” Hermione supplied with reluctance, “is that they split into two factions. Recently, the younger faction went missing from the Forbidden Forest.”

“What, entirely?” Theo chimed. 

“Doesn’t matter.” She rubbed her temples. “They’re found now.”

“In my forest, obviously,” Malfoy drawled. 

Draco explained what happened, neither aggrandising nor downplaying. Niht had merely let anger govern him. Eirene had merely healed him. No mention was made about Hermione pressing him to leave for St. Mungo's. As he related the tale, Draco was careful to emphasise that all the violence he experienced had been from Niht alone. As he spoke, Hermione found herself puzzling over these subtle changes from a boy who would have jumped at any chance for playing up his part to a man who was, maybe, a part of things larger than himself. 

Draco, she considered his name. A barrier in her mind seemed to slide away like a curtain drawn back. The divide between them felt smaller. A drawing inward—moving near—was pulling at them. 

When Draco could have fled, he hadn’t. Yes, he’d tried to turn from Niht. Yes, his temper could get the better of him. But he had stayed. He would stay. And he would go back to face it again.  

The two men peppered him with questions while exhaustion whittled at him. All the while, those molten silver eyes of his kept flashing to her, holding her gaze for a beat and then darting away, leaving tiny smudges of pink on his cheeks and ears. 

Dr. Carter brought out a steak and ale pie and gave them each a serving. Draco’s complexion looked a little better as he ate. His demeanour relaxed more and more with each question posed to him. It was curious how comfortable Draco was here. A kitchen with Muggle appliances, in Muggle London, but then… the exposure of all that was supposed to be a part of the whole thing, wasn’t it? 

Hermione began to stroke Crooks’ fur. She wanted to lean in and ask him, What do you see in Draco Malfoy that keeps you coming back? Her memory wound back to years before, when this clever half-kneazle had once attached himself to another Black heir.

“…and now I’ve got to try again with them tomorrow,” Draco groaned, reaching the end of it all. The ball of his hand massaged his chest. Hermione poked at a few of the last pieces of crust skittering around her plate. Through her brows, she watched Draco’s face twist, chewing his cheek.

“Well,” Dr. Carter said, swirling the remnants of wine in his glass. “It’s all very tangled, isn’t it?” 

“You’ll come with me, won’t you?”

Draco’s chin was tipped up. Vestiges of the haughty boy peeked through, though the meanings had been supplanted. She couldn’t look for the same signs there, could she? Not without misjudging him. On the table, his palm faced up, open—imploring. 

Dr. Carter sighed. “Of course. Laurie and I were going to be there anyway.”

Curiosity nudged at Hermione. “Are you and Laurie Pole still studying the forest?” She asked Dr. Carter.

Draco angled himself toward the professor, propping his chin on his palm. There was something in his expression that glittered with amusement. 

A boyish glee spread over Dr. Carter. His glass settled with a rattle on the table; his fingers laced together before him. With glittering eyes, he leaned in and said, “Laurie and I have a pet theory about the forest. We’ve been trying to work it out. Do you recall that someone in the distant past placed the enchantment hiding the forest?” 

“Yes, of course.”

“Well,” he shuffled forward on his seat, “we have a theory as to whose enchantment that might have been. Actually, your recent imprisonment in the tree encouraged us further.” 

“My recent…” she combed through a fog of stories, legends, and her history of magic for a moment. “Hang on, you can’t mean Merlin.” 

She glanced at Draco, who flicked up both of his brows with a Cheshire Cat grin. 

“But that was much more than a thousand years ago—well before the Normans,” she reasoned. “And the Malfoys have only had the estate since—”

“William the Conqueror gave it to us after the Battle of Hastings,” Draco supplied. “But, the tradition of swearing fealty and claiming the magic at the sacred well—”

“What he bodged and got himself bound to the forest with,” Theo threw in. 

“Yes, that,” Draco shot him a scowl, “was probably not a tradition that originated with the Malfoys. Likely, we were carrying it over from what the people before us were doing. The words aren’t even Latin—they’re Anglo-Saxon or something.” 

“No, I think it’s Brittonic,” Theo said. 

“Regardless,” Dr. Carter cut in, “we don’t think Merlin cast the enchantment. We think it may have been sorceress Nimue when she trapped Merlin in the tree.” 

Hermione chewed her lip. “But, I thought there was some debate about that—”

“Sweet slithering serpents, don’t get him started,” Theo groaned. 

Crookshanks gave a loud mrawr and leapt from the table to the floor. Not a moment later, Draco’s eyes widened and fixed on Hermione. Orange fur fanned out above his lap, and a conspicuous tail swung up to bat him in the chin. Draco’s head jerked from side to side as he stared at her. She glowered, hoping the burning fire in her chest was hitting him square in the eyes.

“Yes, yes, there’s debate,” Dr. Carter said. “Was he trapped in a tree, or a rock, or a rock in a cave? Did this all actually happen in Brocéliande Forest in France? Although let’s be serious for a moment… of course, it wasn’t there. Anyway, that’s why it’s our pet theory, and now that she can devote the proper time to it, we’re going to keep poking around the forest until we can see what we can find.” 

“The Malfoy family funds this quest,” Draco drawled, his hand running over Crookshank’s back. At least Crooks’ tail was batting him right in the bruise. Hermione allowed herself the satisfaction of enjoying that.

“Their benefactor here just wants them to break his bond,” Theo added, rising from the table and stretching. “Well, I’m off. It was lovely hearing about your ridiculous day, Draco. I’m glad you survived your most recent trauma.” 

“Where are you going?” Draco frowned. 

“To go cuddle up to one of your former assailants.” 

Draco’s nose scrunched.

“Oh! Give Harry my love!” Hermione chimed as Theo left the room. He tossed a little wave over his shoulder in acknowledgement. 

The sun had long since set, and creeping darkness filled the vacant spaces of the room where the warm kitchen light couldn’t permeate. Hermione stifled a yawn. 

“Malfoy, pass me Crookshanks. We’re going home.” 

He handed the great mass of fur and personality across the table. 

“Will you come tomorrow, Granger?” 

Her heart clenched around a single word: Sunday. She pulled Crooks closer. “No, I—I can’t. I have standing arrangements.” 

“Ah.” Draco's eyes cast down, scanning the table. “But surely that won’t be all day, will it?” 

“That’s not your business,” she snapped, then relented. “No, it won’t last all day. But, Mal—Draco, I can’t be there for all this. You’ve got to report their presence to the Magical Creatures Department and let the proper people handle it.” 

“Handle it… yes, they’ll ‘handle it.’” He raked his hand through his hair, tugging at the roots. He sagged heavily, the full exhaustion of the day bearing down on him. 

“I wish I could do more,” she sighed. Why did she have to be so hamstrung? “I’m still new. Do you know that? Do you realise how junior I am? I have very little clout, and it’s honestly a bit of a miracle I’ve been able to work with you so much as it is." She shifted for a moment in thought. "Look, John and I have an idea…I’m far too tired to get into it now, but I think it will help.”

She hoisted Crookshanks higher from where he was slipping in her grip. Draco's grey eyes were as unreadable as a sky that could rain or stay dry with no telling which. 

“Will you report the centaurs tomorrow morning?” She pressed.

His lips thinned, but he nodded. 

“Alright, well, I’ll be seeing you then.” 

“Wait!” He called. Rummaging in his pocket, he pulled out a galleon and pressed the tip of his wand to it. “Here, take this.” His ears went scarlet. She took the charmed galleon, not even bothering to hide her smirk. He rolled his eyes. “Fuck, it was a good idea, alright? Obviously, I stole it.” 

Dr. Carter chuckled lightly beside them, covering it with his fist. 

“Use that,” Draco said, nodding towards the galleon, “if you decide to come tomorrow. Just stay in the clearing, and I’ll come get you or make a trail.” 

Her fingers closed over the heavy coin. “Alright. Get some rest.” 

And she twisted around, spinning through space until she reappeared in her own dark flat. The sounds of a bustling Saturday night on Diagon Alley below drifted up in a gentle din through the glass. 

࿐ ࿔*

Sundays were for remembering. Sunlight glittered on the damp cobblestones of Diagon Alley. Cold, November rain had pelted the lane through the wee hours of the morning and now came in fits and spurts. The brief reprieve with sunshine wouldn’t last. 

Hermione tightened her scarf, pulling it up over her nose, which always seemed cold and runny the second damp chill hit. The bustle of witches and wizards out for a day in the high street moved in a comforting, familiar hum. Standing in front of Weasley Wizard Wheezes, George Weasley yelled hellos to her while he charmed Muggle Piñatas hovering over the door. One already in place spat candy and confetti on passersby. Percy emerged moments later and helped finish. Since the war, he’d spent most of his weekends helping in the shop. 

Snitches were being demonstrated at the Quidditch supply shop. An ORC member, Violet, stepped from Madame Malkin’s with a smile and nodded to Hermione as they went opposite ways. Near the Eeylop’s Emporium, a great snowy owl rattled its cage vexedly. 

If she simply breathed and closed her mind, focusing on the bright activity all around her, she could see it all only as it was now: vibrant and alive. No sense of what had been would leak in. No thoughts of the past. But two steps into the Leaky, the past collided with her heart, jarring it to a stop and then kicking it into a roaring gallop. 

“Hello, little witch."

“Mum! Dad!” She pulled off her hat and leaned in for hugs, pressing kisses to their cheeks. “Have you ordered already?” 

For a blissful hour, they ate and caught up. Perhaps their hands reached across the table and clasped more often than most would. Silences lingered a little long. It was possible that flashes of anger and resentment infused their serenity, but Hermione wondered if she wasn’t imagining those. She had before. She’d assumed and imagined a lot of things. And now… now they were walking out into the street, all linked arm in arm to go to Flourish and Blotts. 

Amongst the higgledy-piggledy shelves, they grasped titles that were strange and esoteric. Manuals for charms glittered. Romance books sighed as you turned the pages. Hermione’s mother gravitated towards history books and memoirs, stories that gave her context and helped her situate her daughter and themselves in this other land. 

“Oh, here! Bathilda Bagshot," Hermione said. "You really should read anything by her you can get your hands on.”

A photo on the back of Bathilda caught her eye as she spoke. A small shudder ran through her. Her mother caught her wrist and searched her face. Hermione’s breath came quick, her heart pounding.

“Tell me,” her mother insisted warmly enough, though worry edged her tone, as it always did with these things.

And Hermione did. 

They drifted outside, hands in pockets, and she told them about Godric’s Hollow. God, what a nightmare. The past was a living wound that constantly needed debridement. Would the poison ever be fully extracted? But mum held her elbow, and dad wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed, and together they helped cleanse it. 

They parted ways at the Leaky. Books in bags charmed to be feather-light, hooked over her parents’ arms. 

Hermione trudged back up Diagon Alley, head bent, her fingers flipping Draco’s charmed galleon in her pocket over and over. The sounds of the shops seemed dimmed now. A strong gust bore down on her, along with a misting rain. Curls clung to her cheek. Her nose was maddeningly runny. Faces glanced at her with suspicion and doubt. Narrowed, scrutinising eyes evaluated her as she passed.

The street sloped slightly up from the Leaky Cauldron on a gentle incline. Her legs lifted heavily up, up, up toward the apothecary near the end of the lane, where a narrow flight of stairs would lead her back to Crookshanks and comfort. 

With a flick of her wand at the door, her wards enveloped her with a feeling of having passed through particularly dense air. Her footfalls on the stairs echoed. A book, Crookshanks, tea, a blanket; Hermione gathered them all to her and curled on the window seat, looking down onto Diagon Alley. 

If she simply breathed and closed her mind, she could see it all only as it was now—she could be only as she was: a witch who was exactly where she belonged. 

She closed her eyes: the variegated green of a forest fluttered before her. The sense of rightness that swam through her veins as she had leaned against the tree the day before curled around her heart and squeezed. Crookshanks nudged her leg with his nose, and she buried her tear-streaked face in his fur. 

࿐ ࿔*

The Ministry lift on Monday morning was atrociously crowded. A visitor from her personal hell was currently pressed into her arm. Why were the lifts so small? God. She could even picture the page on which salvation was written so clearly: The steps to cast an undetectable extension charm are as follows …  

“...scored an own goal, which is ludicrous at this level, you know?”

Visualisation is an essential component of intent. Picture clearly the shape you suppose the target object to have on the interior, including the dimensions you perceive it will need…

“…have a third injury this year, the tossers. I shouldn’t speak ill of Ron’s team, but you know what rubbish the Cannons are.” 

“My team too, Cormac,” she sniffed. “I follow them quite closely. Warwick is a legend amongst beaters.”

“Oh! I had no idea you—” Cormac swallowed, stricken. He fidgeted with his robes and leaned toward her, his voice taking on that particularly condescending tone common to a particular type of obtuse man, “Hermione, honestly, I know you haven’t quite got your head around the intricacies of the game, but you can’t possibly think Warwick is one of the best—”

“Here’s your floor, Cormac.” 

Several people disembarked.

“Yes, but—Tell you what, I’ll pop by over lunch—”

The grate closed over his words. With a rattle, the lift whizzed off to the side. 

A familiar drawl carried to her from the other side of the box, “I had no idea you were such an avid Chudley Cannons fan.” 

Slowly, she turned to Draco, who stood once again in his dark green robes, leaning on the wall at the far side of the lift. The bruise on his cheek had clearly been treated by spellwork: only a light brown smudge on his cheekbone remained. 

“I’ve never watched them play a day in my life,” she said.

His sharp laugh rang through the box. 

On the fourth floor, the heels of his shoes clicked against the floor. The rhythm infected her. Hermione’s steps weren’t quite two to his one, but as his long stride carried him forward, she found herself trying to match it. Click of heel, step-step from Hermione, and so on until she was sure she looked like she was skipping a little. She bit down on her lip and forced herself to focus on the gathering memos hovering around the ceiling instead. No new injuries seemed to plague him. Yesterday must not have gone poorly, then. 

As they opened the door to the Magical Creatures Department, Draco leaned down to her, his breath ghosting her cheek. 

“I’m about to create chaos here.” 

A wild, electric zizz grew at the base of her spine. “Afraid there’s nothing for it.” She looked up into his silver eyes. “Disturb the peace, Mr. Malfoy.” 

His lips quirked to the side. He flicked his brows up once at her, then turned into the Beast Division. 

“I’m not quite sure where I ought to report this…” she heard him announce to the room at large. She rushed on to reach John before all hell broke loose. 

In the legal offices, John was standing by the trestle table with Eloise and Verity Blishen. 

“Verity! You’re back!” Hermione greeted warmly. 

“Good to see you again, Hermione,” Verity’s honeyed tones skipped. “I can’t believe it’s been so many weeks. This is exactly why it’s a bad idea for me to make contact with my nieces,” she said with wide, warning eyes. “Children carry all sorts of pestilence, and you never know when it’s going to rub off. I’ve told my brother I won’t hug them again until they’re about fifteen. They should be less virulent then.” 

“Good thinking, Verity,” John said with a serious mien. 

Verity cast a quick scourgify on her palms for good measure.

“John, can I have a word?” Hermione cut in, nodding her head toward one of the conference rooms. 

His brow furrowed, but he nodded and followed. The door clicked behind them.

“Two things: first, here is the draft,” Hermione said, handing him a scroll. Her fingers trembled a little; no amount of magic or caffeine could solve staying up until four in the morning in a pique of productivity.  

“Magical Creatures on Private Lands Act,” he read. “I like the sound of that. Alright, I’ll get to work on it. Second?” 

Hermione swallowed; she gripped the embroidery at her cuff. “Second,” she repeated on an exhale. “Draco Malfoy is here right now to report that the younger faction of centaurs from the Forbidden Forest has been found.” 

John’s eyes went round as saucers. “What?” 

“And that they are currently in his forest, where they would like to remain. To live. Permanently.” 

John found the edge of the table and sank onto it, his jaw tight, eyes shifting.

“And he’s out there now?” 

“Yes.”

“And you knew already?” He arched a brow. “Did he tell you?” 

She paused for a beat. “Yes.” 

“Hermione…” 

“I’ve known since Saturday morning,” she admitted. 

The lights hummed softly in the silence that stretched between them. John pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. 

“I think,” he began slowly, “you’d best not repeat that.” 

Her fingers welded together at her front, her left thumb massaging her right palm. “What will happen with them?” 

“Merlin, who’s to say?” He kicked out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. 

A burst of noise from the office outside was followed by the sound of chairs scraping. 

John nodded toward the door. “That’ll be the news reaching them, then.” He sighed. “Pen, Jude, Wexford…they’ll all be gathered to determine where to start.”

“I imagine the Minister will be in on it.” 

“Likely.” John tapped a finger against the table. She waited while he seemed to work something out. “This could be good timing for us,” he continued. “Everyone is going to be distracted by this. It’s happening already.” He gestured toward the door where the commotion was drifting through. “I can push off the other things I needed to do today and work on these edits. Let’s get this to Ms. Bhatt as soon as possible. But Hermione,” he bit the side of his cheek, “I think you ought to be careful about how entangled you’re getting with the Malfoy Forest. It’s not our only priority, you know.” 

She sighed and leaned against the table beside him. Her eyes locked onto one of the glowing filaments. A dark smudge on the wall behind it remained from the days of flame. Nothing was new here, she reminded herself. How it had been, it would be…unless she could change it. 

“I know,” she breathed. “But there’s so much… I don’t know.” 

“There’s potential there, I know.” He knocked into her shoulder. “Just be careful about showing preference, alright?” 

She nodded. It was good advice. It was. It would be easier if her thoughts weren’t straying to the forest over and over again. A flash of white blonde hair catching the sunlight, surrounded by a sea of green, lingered in her mind’s eye. 

࿐ ࿔*

The flat was dark when she returned home. A breeze knocked a curl loose from her pinned hair as she stood before the Floo. The sitting room window was ajar. She clenched her jaw. Why even bother calling out for him? She knew Crooks had left. Tears threatened. 

No, not that. Not now. 

Robes were shucked, pins removed, and shoes kicked off until she was dressed in her comfy clothes for the house. Not a single light had been turned on throughout her whole routine. Let her wallow for a minute before she had to face her own empty flat. 

A flash of green glowed from the sitting room, followed by a distinct cough and a thunk. 

“Harry?” She called as she went towards the sitting room. 

Another cough. “Draco, actually.” 

“What on ear—” 

“Returning this recidivist.” He dropped Crookshanks to the floor. With a glance at the open window, he flicked his fingers, snapping it closed. 

“Right,” she slumped on the armrest of a chair. “Thank you.” 

He shrugged. “It would be bad form to let him stay after you yelled at me.” 

“I did not—” she snapped her jaw shut. “I was just speaking tersely.” 

Draco smirked. He wasn’t in his robes any longer, now in the simple black jumper and grey trousers ensemble he seemed to favour so often. He glanced about the room, taking it in, neither entering more fully nor grabbing a fistful of Floo powder and turning back. 

“Why aren’t you in the forest?” she blurted. 

He sighed, rubbing his hand against his sternum and moved toward her large window that overlooked Diagon Alley. Leaning against the wall, he stared out at the street below. 

“A small team from the Ministry went to confirm my story. They’re busy now sorting out what their position will be.” He leaned closer to the glass, looking sharply down. “I suppose it’ll be a day or two before they have that sorted completely out. No need to even meet with the centaurs, is there? They’ll have all their decisions made, nice and tidy, before they even arrive.” A street lamp below caught the bitter twist to his lip, casting a strange, curved shadow up the side of his face. 

“They may just be sorting out their position before consulting with them—”

“Come on, Granger,” his head rolled back to her. “You know they function unilaterally. What are the words?” 

“Regulation. Control.” 

“Not a lot of room for 'treaty' and 'understanding' in that, is there?” 

Hermione slid into the chair fully, her legs draped over the armrest. Draco continued to watch the street. He didn’t seem particularly interested in leaving. Crookshanks lapped his water in loud, rapid splashes, more storm drain than cat.  

“Why don’t you live in Muggle London?” Draco asked suddenly. 

“Why should I?” she said, too quickly.

“No reason, I suppose. Only that Potter lives there—and your parents, I’d imagine.” 

Her breath curled into her lungs like smoke and settled heavily there, drying her out and thinning her ability to think clearly. “They—yeah, they do.” 

“And you didn’t want to live near them?” His face was open, guileless. The innocuous question of a man who had expected to live in the same house with his family. Her experience was a foreign concept to him.

“Does it bother you not to live with your mother?” She tossed back. 

He slid down onto the window seat. “Yes. It bothers me.” A muscle at the corner of his jaw ticked. “I always—I thought—before I was sentenced to Dr. Carter’s house,” he glanced out the window again, “I’d always expected that, even if I were freed from Azkaban, I’d be at the manor with her. Forever. There wasn’t any alternative in my mind to consider. And now…she’s so far away.” His eyes roved the skyline, glowing faintly orange in the night. 

“Do you see her often?” 

His hand massaged his sternum in slow, gentle circles. “No.” 

Hermione tipped her head back, examining the crown moulding. “I suppose she can’t stand you living in Muggle London.” 

A steady exhale slipped from him. “I think she’s just relieved I’m living, if I’m honest.” He dropped his hand and turned to face her. Unspoken expectation hovered: your turn. 

“I’m a witch.” She held up her hand, and with the waggle of her fingers, several of the lights turned on. “This is where I belong.”

His eyes were fixed on her with an intensity she couldn’t read. “Yes,” he agreed, “you do.” 

Chapter Text

Snow lay very thin on the ground in Wiltshire. It was a fine dusting that left stalks and weeds visible. Beneath trees, there was none at all. 

Draco stood on the border of the forest. The mist from the field before him rolled at knee height, blanketing the morning in silence. Across the way, down a long slope, two menhirs in an ancient stone circle stood dusted with snow. Beyond them, the pitched roofs of a village rose amongst the trees. A church spire reached above, its bell tolling the hour.

“You haven’t slept well, Keeper,” Eirene’s voice rolled to him like a soft breeze. His eyes closed as he pulled his cloak tight about him. 

"Too many dreams," he murmured. 

A run of stormy days had seen November out the door. December rushed in like a blur with rain, rain, and more rain until, finally, a dusting of snow. The forest, which had held a timeless sense of spring, summer, and early autumn all collapsed into one, had decided to let tendrils of frost drift beneath its sheltering limbs. In the morning, frost-webbed leaves crunched with each step. 

His peacoat was warm enough, but his old winter cloak and robes were better for days like this. A spell had shortened them to knee length. 

Eirene stood just behind the trees, shadows sliding over her like bars keeping her back in the forest. 

“When those stones were first raised,” she began, jutting her chin toward the menhirs, “there was no division between us. No need to hide.” 

The grey of the two stones was stark against the white and green of the landscape. There were more; he’d seen them from his broom as a boy—followed their mysterious arc, largely unimpressed. 

“We were already slipping deeper into the forests then,” Eirene mused softly. “Reclusive, perhaps, but not secret. Not hidden.” She was quiet for a moment, the swish of her tail a metronome. “I sometimes wonder…Are we still remembered in their stories?”

࿐ ࿔*

“But you can’t stay here!” The yell echoed through the cold meadow and rolled like thunder into the trees where Draco stood. 

Branches swayed above until he pressed his palm against the beech tree he leaned against in a silent request for calm. A hush fell over everything. 

Aegis’ voice was the smooth of a deep river, carrying well over the swaying grasses, “And why can we not? Have your people not told us time and again that we must remain in magical lands? And is this not a magical forest?” 

Hooves stamped. Three centaurs stood in the centre of the meadow. Aegis was in the middle, flanked by Niht and another centaur Draco didn’t yet know. For every one of Aegis’ sentences, six were spoken by various Ministry members who swarmed before him. Magizoologists, several liaisons from the Being Division’s centaur offices, two of Hermione’s colleagues, and—surprise, surprise—a pair of Aurors.  

Niht clenched his fists. The cords of his arms hardened.

Draco drew himself up swiftly, his tired body tense and alert. A whisper ran through the leaves overhead. 

Already, he was at enough distance and hidden beneath dappled shadows. Draco spread his palm against the beech tree again. His fingertips ached with magic until, with a gentle nudge, it suffused him. It rolled through him in pulses that shuddered through the tree. Calm, deep breaths filled his lungs. A branch swept low, forming a barrier between him and the meadow. 

“Yes, of course, it’s a magical forest,” the liaison said, exasperated. “But we’ve no notion how stable that magic is—”

“Ah, but that is not entirely correct, is it?” Aegis cut in. “The keeper of this forest, Draco, has told us of the study. We have spoken with Laurie and learned for ourselves. We have spoken with the trees, and they have told us. But most of all, it is written in the heavens that this place should return from its slumber. It has awoken. It won’t be forgotten again.” 

There was a murmur amongst the Ministerial group. They turned to one another and shared agitated whispers. One of the Aurors, a large man who, with a pang, reminded Draco strongly of Goyle, stepped forward, hooded eyes fixed on Niht. 

“Not today,” Eirene muttered just behind Draco's shoulder, as though she could will Niht to be peaceful from here. “Stay calm; you must be calm.” 

Niht surged forward two steps, then stamped back, his fists drawn up at his side. Aegis cast him a withering glance, but seemed unconcerned. He stood as if carved from marble. The Auror before them remained focused, wand held in a deceptively loose grip.

If he wanted to, Niht could kill the man in a flash. To Draco’s mind, there wasn’t much evidence that it hadn’t been his purpose with that kick two weeks before. Perhaps Draco’s life right now was an accident. 

The hot-headed centaur’s hoof dug into the soil. Not an encounter went by where Draco wasn’t aware of the unbridled power within Niht. Blood pounded in his ears. One hand stayed with the tree; the other slipped to his wand. His shoulders were drawn in, the muscles of his legs coiled with an urge to move, to get away. 

Ferns rustled beside him. 

“He won’t harm you,” Eirene assured, her voice close at his shoulder. “We won’t let him.” 

“Perhaps I misspoke,” the liaison allowed, facing Aegis again. “The magic is fairly stable, but there are lingering questions about it. This area is also bordered entirely by Muggle lands. Doesn’t that trouble you? In the Forbidden Forest, it was easier for you. Much less likely to be seen.”

“Ah, yes: not being seen. I assure you, we are as familiar and adept at this as you are,” Aegis intoned. “But this is an expansive forest. Nearly four thousand acres, I am told.” 

Draco’s lip curled in smug satisfaction. His father had always boasted of the estate’s vast, ancient sprawl. Perhaps not the largest in the area, if you took into account some Muggle ones, but even so. 

The liaison’s shoulders sagged as he agreed. “That’s part of the problem, Aegis, surely you see that? I understand how desirable a place like this seems—” 

Trees groaned and creaked as they swayed in delight. 

“—but maintaining the wards and charms around it is complex. The fewer variables, the better.” 

Draco stiffened. 

Aegis took a single step forward. Voice unwavering, he spoke, “We are not mere variables.”

“In those times,” Alberic Selwyn explained, “the rights of the commons gave access to places such as this forest, and I don’t see why—”

“Those laws were meant to protect poor farmers and local residents,” Hermione countered swiftly, “not for private business interests. Are you planning to harvest timber or keep a herd?” 

Selwyn's glare was jagged ice. 

The conference room bristled with bodies, parchment, and the quiet clink of teacups. On one side of the long table, Alberic Selwyn sat at the head of a cluster of Wizengamot members, his thin fingers curved over the armrest like a spider.

Hermione sat beside John, with Ms Bhatt on his other side. To Hermione, the three of them felt like a small band standing against the oppressors...but of course, they weren’t; just colleagues from another part of the Ministry.

At the far end of the table, Percy Weasley and a young intern represented the Minister’s office. The intern looked fresh out of Hogwarts, and her nervous glances toward Hermione were frequent enough to be distracting. Hermione angled herself slightly to keep the girl from her peripheral vision.

“Alberic,” Ms Bhatt interjected, her voice firm, “this is a conversation for another time and not within the purview of this Act.” 

“I disagree. Is allowing creatures to enter the forest and use it as they need not invoking those very rights of the commons?” 

Hermione tilted her head, fountain pen tapping once against her parchment. “Interesting,” she said. “So you believe creatures should be considered to hold the same rights as wizards?”  

Selwyn’s eyes narrowed to slits. 

Something pressed against the side of her foot, drawing her attention closer. John, beside her, subtly tapped the parchment before him. She glanced down as a bit of handwriting appeared in the margins with each tap of his fingers.

Careful with S.  

A small pulse of irritation rose—she was careful. But she said nothing as his finger slid across the note, vanishing it. 

“I am not," Selwyn said. "What I wish to convey is twofold. One is that the laws of the commons are in play regarding all private land, including the Malfoy forest, and that’s been true for every potioneer out gathering mugwort by moonlight for generations. For centuries, potion ingredients have been foraged under implied allowances, especially for minor uses. If one were in need and ambled in there to gather mallowroot, for example, they would be legally within their right. Except that’s impossible now—the wards prevent it.” 

“It’s not a safe place, Alberic,” Percy Weasley inserted. “The wards are for protection as much as anything.” 

“A fair point,” Selwyn acknowledged, “which brings me to my second: is Draco Malfoy a valid custodian for a place of such power? Should we not have greater oversight regarding this unprecedented forest?” 

“That is a broad question,” Ms. Bhatt replied. 

“Too broad for the scope of the Magical Creatures on Private Lands Act,” Percy added. 

“While this Act is not simply about entering the forest,” Ms. Bhatt continued, “its primary purpose is merely to clarify and codify the parameters our Beast Division magizoologists and Mr. Malfoy agreed upon weeks ago.”

“But this is a pertinent question,” one of the other Wizengamot members asked with a huff, “can we even be certain this young man should be responsible for such magic? And if we aren’t certain, isn’t it better to err on the side of caution and ensure these laws will enable greater oversight?”

“That’s a different question entirely, Roland. This Act is not only about the Malfoy estate,” Ms. Bhatt drew her petite frame up. Not that she needed to. At only five feet tall, she still managed to feel taller than everyone else in the room. “While the Malfoy forest’s emergence has highlighted some serious gaps in our laws, it is not the only location that will be affected if this passes. It is, however, an ongoing situation and will remain so. It demands decisive action. We need laws that give us guidance on how to move forward. These endless meetings with Draco Malfoy are tedious and draining.” 

Approvals and agreements rumbled through the room. The DRCMC was stretched far too thin as it was. Everyone knew it. The flickering golden light from the sconces on the walls constantly reminded them. 

Pots of tea slid along the centre of the table. Selwyn waved his wand. One lifted and filled his cup. 

“As you say, it is an ongoing situation,” he drawled, levitating a lump of sugar into his tea. “Are there not provisions we can add to this Act to allow us greater potential for oversight should we deem it necessary?” 

A chill crept stealthily over Hermione’s skin. She watched Alberic Selwyn carefully stir his tea; his silver spoon never touched the porcelain. A serene smile curled at the corner of his mouth, his lips so narrow they seemed more seam than flesh. He had the sort of affected nonchalance to his demeanour that implied a cold calculation underneath. She didn't trust it at all. 

Hermione gathered her things in her cubicle with all the sluggish speed of a cold flobberworm. The meeting had ended a half hour before, and the end of the day was upon them with the weekend looming. Papers rustled everywhere as her colleagues prepared to go home. She glanced at her watch, desperate to be curled up on her window seat with her book and Crookshanks.

But a conversation nearby held her captive.

“This is precisely my concern, Amina,” Selwyn told Ms. Bhatt, “He is completely outside our community. What proof is there of rehabilitation? I’m for Graham, of course, but can we really expect him to work a miracle with so errant a young man?” 

“I thought his behaviour during probation had been exemplary?” 

“It has...But with what signs of integration? Graham had him sitting for Muggle university lectures at one point, along with some other activities, but nothing within our world.” 

“Wasn’t that part of the point? Expand his view?” Ms. Bhatt’s voice was low and steely. 

“And has it expanded? What are the proofs of that?” 

Gripping the back of her chair, Hermione’s lips twisted. Parched, she conjured a glass of water, sipped until it doused the fire in her belly, then vanished the rest. 

She wanted to march out there and set Selwyn straight. Excuse me Mr. Selwyn, but I could hardly help hearing the remarks you made … Bad. Pardon me, but did you just manage to insult both Graham Carter and Draco Malfoy in one sentence … Worse. May I interject for a moment … 

“Hermione, may I have a moment of your time?” 

“Percy,” she yelped, “yes, what is it?”

His brows were drawn, with lips pursed in a particularly pinched way that narrowed his whole face to a point. “Have you heard from Ron recently?” 

Her lips parted; had she… “No, I haven’t. Why? Something wrong?” 

“Not really,” Percy sniffed and looked off to the side, “It’s only that he hasn’t said where he’ll be living when he gets back and, well…Mum is wondering…” He cleared his throat. 

Hermione’s shoulders slackened. “I think he’ll live with Harry.” 

“Are you quite sure? Even with...” Percy paused for a moment, “Theodore?” 

“Yeah.” Much to Theo’s chagrin. 

Percy’s face pinched again. He aimed his scowl at her tarnished nameplate. 

“He hasn’t brought Theodore to the Burrow yet,” he said softly. 

“I thought he—” Oh, Harry…could she smack him? No. Too old for that now. Technically. She sighed. “I’ll give Harry a nudge about that.” 

“Please, do.” Percy’s shoulders sagged. A quick smile flashed over his features. “Ginny is gone for the season, and anyway, there’s no bad blood there at all, you know?” 

“I know.” 

There had never been. Not even for a moment. 

Percy remained, asking after her Christmas plans and bending her ear with the kind of inane small talk usually reserved for mild acquaintances. Yes, I’d be delighted. Oh, I’ll have to let you know. Thank you ever so. 

Hadn't they known each other for eleven years? 

By the time he was gone and she was making her own escape, it was twenty-six minutes later than she preferred. The corridors were clearing out, filled with creaking floorboards and muttered fragments of conversation. 

A door opened ahead of her in the Being Division, and out spilt a dozen people. Trailing in the rear beside a witch with a sour expression was Draco. 

Hermione’s step slowed for a beat, then picked back up. His eyes flashed over the witch’s head and caught hers. He pressed his lips together and nodded, a lock of pale hair slipping over his forehead.

She followed closely as the whole crowd made their way down the passage. He slowed, falling back until he was beside her. He was swathed in dark blue robes this time—the colour of midnight, barely brushed by moonlight. As she walked, they swung softly against her ankle. 

“Granger.” 

“Draco.” 

“What’s it been—ten days? Thought you might’ve finally washed your hands of me.”

She wanted to ask him about the meeting—about all of them. How were things with the centaurs? With Niht? With the Ministry now poking about again, coming and going as they sorted it out? But there were too many people all around. 

Draco’s brows knit, his attention wavering between her and the corridor ahead. Questions of his own seemed stuck in the set of his jaw. She glanced up to catch a flash of silver eyes with a little crease between the brow. A muscle at the back of his jaw ticked as he glanced behind them with the wariness of someone expecting an ambush. 

Sweet Morgana, this was ridiculous. 

“Draco,” she said, and slowed as they stepped through the door, leaving the Department. She motioned him to step to the side with her, and he followed. Tucking in against the wall while others bustled by, she turned to him. “This isn’t a good place to talk.” 

He glanced around, jaw tightening as someone walked by and took an exaggerated step to the side as if proximity alone to a Malfoy was contagious. Hermione looked down, realising only now that his folded arms pressed against hers. Did he notice? Should she pull away? What a stupid predicament. She opted not to move. Not yet. 

“No, I should say not.”

“But we—” she paused. What was she planning to propose, anyway? It spilt out of her: “Come to mine.” 

His brows shot up into his hairline, never to be seen again. 

“I mean, can you? This evening?” 

“I—” he glanced around the corridor, “Yes, all right.” 

She gave a sharp nod. “Brilliant. Give me two hours and then Floo.” 

Draco exhaled a short laugh, but something in his gaze caught, held. “Yes, my liege. Anything else?” 

His smirk was too smug, the set of his shoulders too amused. Her pulse flickered. She tipped her chin up. “That will be all. You’re dismissed.” 

His lips twitched. “Merlin.” 

࿐ ࿔*

Green Floo fire whirled before her and deposited her in the sitting room at Grimmauld Place. A magical Wireless was playing something awful—a half-hearted attempt at grunge but with none of the angst. The Wireless sat on a sideboard next to an assortment of books and plants. 

The whole room was much lighter than it had been a few years ago. Carpets had been pulled up, wallpaper stripped, screaming portraits unstuck… Over time, the house had shed its darkness, breathing easier with each passing month. Buttercreams, rich yellows, and blues all softened the walls. It seemed like the ceilings stretched higher and windows were more open, as though the house had been stooping under the weight of all that darkness and hatred but could finally stand tall and breathe again. 

“Hiya, Hermione.” Harry grinned, leaning into the room. A three-day beard clung to his jaw—a new look he had been trying out to distance himself from being the “Boy Who“ anything-ed. 

“What’s that playing?” Hermione winced.

“Dunno. Pretty awful. Let’s try to guess who they’ve stolen from.” 

They listened silently for a moment, then in unison: “Pearl Jam.” 

Harry’s smile slipped to an abashed look. He scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry, but I need to kick you out in a few.” 

“Completely fine.” The scent of candles burning in another room reached her even here. “I’m busy, too. Just wanted to pop by for a mo: Percy chatted with me earlier.” 

“Oh?” 

“Ron hasn’t told Molly where he’ll be living when he gets back.” 

“I think he’ll be here, but I’m not sure.” 

She fixed Harry with A Look, but he only pushed at his glasses, feigning ignorance. Maybe if she just took him by the shoulders and gave him a bit of a shake…

“Does Theo want that?” Pink tinged Harry’s ears. She relented, “Look, I’m not here about that. Percy mentioned something else: you haven’t taken Theo to the Burrow yet.” 

With a slow exhale, Harry spun on his heel and dropped onto the sofa. She wasn’t about to ask why, but she would glare at him until he confessed. She crossed her arms and checked her watch. He had eleven minutes, by her reckoning.  

It only took one. 

“I don’t know why I haven’t.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “We were just friends for a long time, you know? And there was Ginny…” 

“I thought everyone was perfectly decent about the whole thing. It’s not as though you immediately jumped in with Theo after the split.”

 It had been nearly a year before their tension had boiled over into something more. Into what was quietly, inevitably, becoming them. 

“I know.” He picked at pills on his maroon jumper. “It’s just that…I worry Molly…I don’t know.” 

Her arms fell to her sides. She knelt beside the sofa. “Harry,” she said, placing a hand over his, “you’ve been their family since they first met you. Wouldn’t you like them to know Theo too?” 

He was quiet for a moment. Wizard punk-rock was giving a valiant attempt on the wireless. “You know how Molly was about Sirius…she was always clashing with him, remember?”

“That was very different, Harry.” He was reckless, Hermione wanted to say. He had grown up fighting, so it seemed natural to him that they would want to fight, too. And maybe the wanting was natural, but wasn't it also right to want to protect their childhoods? From this side of it all, it felt strange: Molly had been the only one fighting for them to just be children. A chill settled into her bones.

“I guess it was different,” Harry breathed. “But remember how Theo had been in Azkaban and that little room at the Leaky Cauldron he was living in? He was sort of on the run for a while, and… I dunno.” 

The image of Theo, sitting so happily in a rented room over-looking Diagon Alley and seeming, for all the world, free for the first time in his life, swirled before Hermione. He’d seemed so entranced by the most mundane acts of kindness. It reminded her of Harry when they were younger. 

“What if Molly doesn’t see Theo like we do, or thinks this is ridiculous, or…fuck, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I just... I remember what it was like, you know? Feeling like you didn’t quite deserve to be somewhere. I don’t want him to feel that way with them,” Harry admitted.

She squeezed his hand. “He won’t. They love you. They’ll love him too.” 

࿐ ࿔*

The cold in her bones didn’t leave when she stepped into her flat. She slipped into her room, pulled on a cardigan, and wrapped her arms close. A ritual of tea-making commenced, anchoring her. 

A whoosh from the Floo sent a burnt anise scent curling into the kitchen. Crookshanks leapt from his seat on the window bench and padded over to the fireplace. 

“Tea?” She called without turning. 

“Hello to you, too,” Draco drawled behind her. She could feel him crowding into her tiny kitchen. She glanced over her shoulder. He leaned against the doorframe between the rooms. The glow from the sitting room light behind him gave his silhouette a golden lining. His hand drifted to his chest, thumb pressing briefly against his sternum before dropping away. “Yes to tea, thanks.” 

They moved into the sitting room, cups in hand. Socks brushed against carpeting. She noticed his boots slipped off by the Floo. Crookshanks tugged at the laces of one. Hermione perched on her window seat while Draco stood awkwardly by a chair rather than using it. 

Tall bookshelves dominated the room. There was hardly space for the two comfy chairs she’d put there, but she’d made it work anyway. An ottoman sat before them with a little tea table between. Sconces glowed with warm golden light, adorning the burgundy walls, casting soft shadows about the room. The window bench was her favourite place to sit: as wide as a settee and quite deep. She’d lined it with plush pillows and loved sitting there watching Diagon Alley bustle on below, unaware of her. 

“Ever considered more furniture?” he jibed, sweeping a glance around the crowded little space. “I’m sure if you got a shoehorn, you could manage another shelf.”

Draco sat stiffly in one of the chairs, his leg bouncing. 

“How is it going with the liaisons?” she asked. 

Elbow on the armrest, he tapped a finger against pursed lips. “To be perfectly frank, Granger, the liaisons are a pack of bigoted, arrogant sods who wouldn’t know the first thing about diplomacy if it bit them in the left testicle. And that’s being generous. Worse—and far more likely—is that they do understand and just don’t care about employing it with Aegis.” He let out a rough exhale and shook his head. “Fucking pricks." 

All of that out, he seemed to relax a little, leaning back into the chair and sipping his tea.

Hermione’s eyes widened, a knot in her shoulders loosening. “Well, that certainly tracks with their past behaviours.” She bit her lip, considering. 

Draco tapped the ring on his little finger against his cup in a slow, measured rhythm. “Niht’s a nightmare—always rearing, scraping his hooves, straining for a fight. Fucking Bucephalus.” He bit the inside of his cheek. “Hasn’t hurt anyone else, though.” 

Worry prickled in her belly and nestled under her ribs. “And you?” Draco’s eyes met hers. “Has he threatened you again?” 

His eyes searched her, narrowing slightly, then dropping to his cup. “No,” he said softly, “he’s left me alone. Eirene, she’s—well, she keeps close. I think there might be something between her and Niht. I don’t know. She’s always watching him.”

They each sat with this for a moment. Little shreds from Crookshanks’ teeth on laces melded with the distant murmur of voices outside on the street below. 

“How about yours?” he asked.

“Better. Positive.” She drew up her legs, crossing them and rested her elbows on her knees. “I think the Act will pass.” 

“And Selwyn?” 

“Keeps trying to slip things through the back door, but nothing’s stuck.” 

“I think that nasty shit of a man hates me,” Draco sneered. He lifted his wand and sent a tiny stinging jinx at Crooks, who snapped his head back to Draco with fury. “Tss, tss, tss,” Draco chided, then wiggled his foot until the little criminal marched over to him and jumped on his lap. 

Hermione watched all this from some strange distance—probably another plane of being entirely. She twisted a curl absently. Crookshanks was usually considered enemy number one by any of her friends. This was… a startling shift, to say the least. 

He asked her something about Selwyn. She gave a robotic reply. Yes, the man seemed to have something out for Draco, but what good would confirming that to him do? Though it was something to watch for. Moody’s words echoed in her mind: Constant vigilance! Yes, yes, all right. 

The thought lingered. She took another sip of tea.

“Say, Granger, are you free tomorrow morning?” 

Draco's long fingers idly glided down Crookshank’s back. His hands were elegant—graceful. The silver of the ring he wore caught the light and glinted.

“Why?” 

He shrugged, eyes fixed on Crooks’ fur. A pink tinge worked its way up his throat. He glanced up at her, then quickly away. “Laurie, Dr. Carter, Theo…they’ve all got this notion about going out and gathering decorations for Christmas.” She leaned forward, interested. “Cutting pine boughs and holly or something, I think. It will probably be very festive, with much too much declaiming on Dr. Carter's part. Traditional Yule things, and I don't know what else...probably singing," he muttered, with a curl of his lip. "Anyway...seems your sort of thing.” 

A charged sensation like the course of magic grew in her belly. It rushed from her heart out to her fingertips and into her cheeks. She glanced backwards out the window, her fist brushing against her lips to hide her wide grin. On the street below, a wreath swayed on a closed shop door. Biting her cheeks, she turned back. 

“I’d love to.”

Chapter Text

That night, Hermione dreamed of the forest. 

When she woke, her fingers stretched, looking for the texture of moss, only to be surprised by cotton. The fragrance of honeysuckle, sap, and oakmoss wound through her lungs as she made tea. Under the shower’s spray, she felt the cool drip of rainwater sliding down her spine. Whispers of a sweet breeze and the gentle cry of a nightjar filled her ears as she whooshed through the Floo. 

The house at Great James Street bustled with activity on the ground floor. 

“Shut the fuck up, will you?” Draco’s voice snapped from below. “That’s probably her now.” Footsteps bounded up the stairs.

“Granger,” Draco greeted, leaning through the door. “We’re just finishing breakfast.” He paused, gaze flitting over her from head to toe. “Do you want anything?” 

She shook her head. “I’m all set.” 

“Right.” He tried and failed to straighten out his hair. A certain disordered air clung to him this morning. A bit of white-blond stubble glinted on his jaw in the morning light. 

“Mind if I just finish…” he gestured vaguely toward the stairs.

“Oh! Of course not.” 

The kitchen was warm and inviting, as usual. Theo looked like a mess, leaning against the fridge with dark circles below his eyes, clutching a cup of tea like a lifeline. Draco dropped into a chair before a partly eaten plate of eggs and sausages. Across the table, Dr. Carter was bent over the Daily Prophet, singeing off various pieces with taps of his wand. 

“Unhappy with the reporting?” Hermione remarked. 

Burning off a line, Dr. Carter said pleasantly, “Not overly fond of blatant fabrications.” 

“May as well cancel your subscription then.” 

“But where would I get my morning irritation and anxiety from?” 

She slid into a chair, crossing her legs. Then uncrossing them. Then crossing again. She read bits of the paper upside down where Dr. Carter was scorching. Her name smudged into a bit of charcoal. 

“What did that say?” she asked. Her own copy was still in a roll in the owl box outside her window. 

“‘Hermione Granger spotted once again with Draco Malfoy (currently serving a three-year probationary sentence for crimes committed as a Death Eater)'. And then something, something, something… not particularly kind and all speculative.” 

Draco exhaled sharply through his nose but said nothing.

She pressed the knobs of her spine into the chair. 

Familiar. Expected. Her hands smoothed over her trousers. At least there hadn’t been an accompanying picture if the tiny singe was anything to go by. 

“Don’t worry yourself, my dear,” Dr. Carter said lightly, tapping ash from the scorched page. “They cast aspersions on me as well.” His smile was warm, his eyes crinkling behind his glasses.

“Oh, I’m not worried.” Hermione sniffed. “They’ve been trying it on with me since I was fourteen. Hasn’t buried me yet.” 

“That’s the spirit.” He bit into a piece of toast with gusto and burned the entire next page of the paper to ash. 

࿐ ࿔*

Laurie, a cigarette perched between her red lips, hoisted herself into the branches of a great oak like an agile cat. She climbed, legs thrown over broad limbs, arms striking upward while her fingers found unseen grooves, pulling her higher. Leaves rustled around her with the kind of nick and scratch of dried ones in autumn, but the green of them remained. 

“Why the white cloth?” Hermione asked, watching Draco and Theo, who were stretching a stark linen between them like a net and angling into position under the tree. 

“Dunno,” Theo said. “Just how it’s done.”

Dr. Carter pulled out an elegant calabash pipe and began packing it. “From what I’ve gathered from pedigreed fellows like these,” he nodded at Draco and Theo, “magic folk have done it this way since time immemorial. Pliny the Elder even described Celts gathering mistletoe like this in Gaul.”

“No animal sacrifices anymore, though!” Laurie yelled down. 

She edged out onto a large limb, holding another branch above for balance. Her prize hung before her in a ball of green leaves and white berries. She sliced it free with a quick snick of her knife, sending it tumbling into the cloth below. Draco passed his corners to Theo, who tied it off. 

Laurie swung herself down from the branches with ease and landed on the ground with a gleam in her eye and colour in her cheeks. While the rest of them were bundled well enough, Laurie had only added a loose scarf to her usual style. Her sleeves were rolled as if it were merely a slightly chill spring day and nothing more.  

Daylight filtered to them in a white haze. A mist rose out of the ground and rolled down from tiny hillocks into the hollows. All about them were oak branches with leaves that refused to drop or even appear too affected by winter. Hermione reached out a finger and touched one. The softness and tenacity of life were still in them.

“What are your theories about the timelessness here?” Hermione asked Laurie, who killed the last of her cigarette and wandlessly vanished the remains.

Hermione’s eyes widened. “But wasn’t that—?” 

“Wild magic?” Laurie said, her red lips quirking to the side. “Aye, it was.” 

Hermione searched the trees, half-expecting a ripple of disturbance. All remained still.

“But I thought in the forest…” Damn the racing feeling in her chest and rising sense of dread, moving up her throat like lava. 

“You’re right—no wild magic,” Draco said, approaching them. His cloak was wrapped warmly about his shoulders. A pink tinge on his nose gave his cool features a hint of colour. “It’s different for Laurie.” 

Hermione's brow furrowed, but Laurie spoke before she could ask more. 

“Different for the centaurs, too, Hermione.” Laurie pulled a peppermint stick from a pocket and popped it into her mouth, rolling it around with her teeth. Her sharp canines flashed visible for the briefest moment. 

Gods, but she could put her foot in it from time to time... 

“Peppermint stick?” Laurie held one out to her. The woman’s lips curved into a grin that crinkled the corners of her eyes as Hermione took it. Dr. Carter walked up and held out a hand. Laurie dug into her pocket and pulled out another, slapping it into his palm.

 “Your question about the timelessness,” she said, “I never could ascertain. I don’t believe it’s the natural state of the forest to be out of sync with its own time. Perhaps it’s a residual effect of the enchantment that hid it? I’m not certain, but that’s my assumption.” 

Hermione rested a palm against a large branch that hung low beside her. “Makes sense.”  

“This oak grove wasn’t here until a few days ago,” Draco said, leaning toward her. Dr Carter perched on a particularly large root that rose from the ground like an obliging bench.

“They moved here on their own,” Draco continued, gaze trailing over the trees. There was something in his countenance that she couldn’t quite place. He had the appearance of a gardener happily appraising his work. 

“Did you want them to gather?” 

“I don’t mind what they do—so long as they aren’t grabbing people and stuffing them inside.” He turned to look at her. “But no, I didn’t want them to. They have their own minds, I suppose.” 

“Is that how it feels? I mean, you’re—what did you say—entangled with it somehow. Does it feel like you’re just thinking for the forest, or does it feel mutual?” 

Draco rubbed his chin—the grit of his fine stubble against his fingers audible. 

“It’s not thoughts,” he murmured, head lifting to the canopy. “It’s more like—” He hesitated. “Have you ever just known something? Like walking into a room and knowing someone’s there before you see them?” He exhaled, rubbing a thumb over his knuckles. “Or when you’re across a room and know they aren’t paying attention to you, but then they look up, and your eyes meet?” 

...Like his met hers now.

Nerves tingled at her fingertips, echoing through her diaphragm. Her breath came short.

“It’s like that,” he said. “Except all the time.” His silver eyes bore into her with a strange intensity.

A twig cracked behind her. Hermione startled. Ambling over with the bundle of mistletoe, Theo begged a cigarette from Laurie. To the side, Dr. Carter took a crunching bite of his peppermint stick, his pipe held in the other hand. 

She turned back. Draco hadn’t looked away. His fingers ghosted over a low-hanging branch as if testing the texture of something only he could feel. The leaves barely stirred, yet the forest itself seemed to breathe with him.
A breeze passed through the grove, cool and sharp with peppermint.

For a moment, she had the uncanny sense that they weren’t the only ones observing.

࿐ ࿔*

Stopping for lunch, a thermos was passed around. Cups were conjured. Steam curled from mulled wine as it poured, perfuming the air with cloves and citrus.

“Here, it’s better with this.” Laurie waved a little bottle of brandy. It cut through, rich and sharp, turning warmth into something golden.

Hermione could feel the heat glowing like a fire in her belly and seeping out to her fingers and toes. 

Dr. Carter began whistling, a high, pure whistle that seemed to arrive from somewhere otherworldly. 

“Remember Greg trying to get Daphne under the mistletoe?” Theo took a deep drag, smoke rolling from his nostrils. “Bloke had no game. ‘Come over ‘ere, Daph! I’ve got somethin’ to show yeh.’” He smirked, imitating Greg’s voice.

“Every year,” Draco murmured, amused.

“Stupid git charmed it so fucking high up on the ceiling that you'd get a crick in your neck looking for it!” 

“Not a strategic planner, that one.” Draco grinned. 

“Who, Greg? Top of our class, Greg? Brightest golem of our age, Greg?” 

“Took him a whole day to notice she’d hexed his eyebrows off in fifth year.” 

The two of them laughed.

Hermione sipped slowly and felt haunted by it in the loveliest, strangest way that seemed right for winter. Laughter—easy and unguarded—mingled with the resonant whistle. She wasn’t part of it, not really. But she could feel its shape and familiarity. 

Midday light glowed, softened by mist, tangled in branches that never seemed to be still. Solstice was soon. The woods, deep and knowing, groaned, stretching. Their whispers wound through the trees. And all the while, ethereal little lights twinkled in the darkest shadows. 

࿐ ࿔*

They gathered as they walked. A box hedge yielded some greenery; an evergreen had dropped cones she collected; in a birch grove, they took pieces of bark and fallen branches. 

“No, not there,” Draco directed, pulling Hermione back from a hedge with a larger pile of detritus below. 

She startled, wrenching her elbow free and scowling at him. His lips twisted to the side, stopping a smile. 

“Hedgehogs," he said, and turned away, continuing onward. 

They trudged on, stopping and starting. Shadows shifted about them unnaturally. The sound of trees moving and walking seemed ever-present. Only a little way, Draco had said, to a good place to gather pine boughs. Theo, carried the bundle of mistletoe and kept knocking playfully into her side every few steps. Behind, Laurie loped along, pausing here and there to cast spells of some sort. The sounds of muttered incantations slipped to them now and then. Ahead, Dr. Carter gripped his pipe in his teeth. Puffs of sweet smoke drifted from him as they went. 

“I mean, you told me they label all of it as myth and folklore now,” Draco said to Dr. Carter as they walked, “but the way dragons are depicted or how Egypt’s magicians were mentioned…it’s strange that they could just ignore the reality of magic, isn’t it? Where do Muggles think it all went? Don’t any of them wonder why there was suddenly just a time when no one told stories about things like dragons anymore?”

“They still tell stories about dragons,” Hermione cut in. “Fantasy books, for one.” 

Draco threw a flat look over his shoulder. “Not the same, Granger.”

“There was a time,” Dr. Carter puffed three tight smoke rings, each rolling through the last, “when it was just a given that the world was mysterious, magical, and spiritually imbued. So happens that the Statute of Secrecy lines up nicely with the beginning of what they know as 'the Age of Enlightenment.'"

“And that's when they started to think magic wasn't real—or at least, many don’t think so.” Draco’s brow furrowed.

"Magic isn't rational." Dr. Carter shrugged.

Draco shook his head. “Why doesn’t it concern the Muggles that their world is now missing all that?” 

“Why didn’t it concern you?” she challenged, watching him carefully. 

“How do you mean?” Draco asked. 

“You were raised with certain beliefs about Muggles. Didn’t you ever wonder how the majority of people lived?” 

“You have no idea what I thought.” 

“All right, fine. But I do know what nonsense you were spouting when we were kids, don’t I?”

“She’s got you there—ow! Fuck.” Theo hopped and rubbed his shin when a stinging jinx collided with it. 

“Please,” Dr. Carter said, with another puff, “no hexes. To your question, Draco, I think you made an interesting point. It’s one I’ve pondered many times: why don’t the Muggles seem to notice that there was a shift?” 

Draco’s back seemed straighter as he listened. Hermione studied him closely. They were in a more open part of the forest. Grey mist swirled about them in the green. An embankment slid up alongside with large boulders poking out here and there. Draco’s cloak brushed against roots that curved outward from the earth into their path. Every so often, he reached out and grasped small trees or branches.

Maybe it hadn’t been quite fair to bring up how he used to think. Her fingers flexed and tightened over the bundle of pinecones and sticks she had gathered. 

“I think,” Dr. Carter continued, “that it's strange how the Muggles these days often look at the past. When they consider people of the ancient world and their ‘mythical’ beliefs, its often looking down on them and judging them as lacking knowledge. They see themselves as superior to the past because now we have scientific understanding, and those poor fools of the pre-modern world with their witches and magicians, and dragons, and divinators, and alchemists, and rituals, were all blinded by their spiritual and magical thinking.” 

Theo rubbed his chin. “The absolute irony,” he muttered. 

“Indeed,” Hermione breathed.

“Yes, it is ironic,” Dr. Carter agreed, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets. “Wizarding culture thinks itself so superior to Muggles that it often deems them filthy and Muggle-borns as aberrations. Yet simultaneously, the Muggle world looks at the time when magic was intertwined with their own with contempt and pity. Poor ignorant fools of the past—if only they had our knowledge. Granted,” he emphasised with finger raised, “many of them assume the magic, spiritual, fantastical is all hyperbolic and not reality.” 

“They clearly think we’re fantasy and that magic is non-existent—just belief,” Draco said.“But, it’s not their fault, I suppose. We decided to go into hiding and separate our worlds.” 

“Is there some sort of magic—an old magic, maybe—that makes the Muggles more likely to ignore us?” Theo asked.

Dr. Carter shook his head slowly. “Not that I’ve ever found. I wondered the same thing when I was your age. I was especially alarmed that it didn’t seem like the memory of magic was expunged from Muggle history."

"Exactly," Draco interjected.

"It just stopped being included," Dr. Carter continued. "I think magic was involved in the initial disentanglement—a kind of mass forgetting by contemporaries—but nothing that should have extended down through the years.”

“Which would explain why secrecy laws need to exist,” Hermione pointed out.

“Maybe,” Theo speculated, his tone measured, “when the Statute of Secrecy went into effect, how fast the Muggles were willing to dismiss magic stunned the witches and wizards of the time. I imagine that would feel especially dismal after all that persecution of witches going on. Maybe that’s part of where the bigotry comes from. Maybe it began as hurt and morphed into a kind of defensive superiority that was passed down and grew into something worse.” 

A shiver sped down Hermione’s spine. Could that have been the genesis of it? Her thoughts turned to the forest—forgotten at some point and now back again. If Muggles remembered magic, would it change things?

Ahead of her, Draco's gait was firm, posture straight. Not proud, not haughty, just settled, perhaps, in himself. As if sensing her observation, he lifted his head and turned to meet her scrutinising gaze unblinking.

“It could be.” Dr. Carter nodded at Theo. “Though, I think some of the Sacred Twenty-Eight dross existed before.” 

“It did,” Draco added flatly. “At least, to a degree. My father,” he swallowed, “used to talk about the dilution of magical power through the thinning of blood. If we kept our blood consolidated amongst purebloods, we kept the magic potent—more powerful. And that was fairly old thinking—if marital records amongst the Malfoys are anything to go by.” 

Hermione scoffed.

Theo leaned toward her. “You should read some of the professor’s lecture notes. Most wizarding blood purity beliefs flow from the same Pre-Mendelian ideas about heredity. Royal lineages and the like, hmm? Same thing, really.” 

“Well, if you’re equating it to that, then alright, I see what you mean,” Hermione acquiesced. “But it spun out of control, didn’t it?” 

“Obviously,” Theo said, giving her shoulder a friendly bump.

Dr. Carter pursed his lips, holding his pipe to the side. “It wasn’t so very long ago that the only way to determine heredity was by focusing on observable shared traits. Like magic.” 

“We all judged Potter when he showed he was a Parseltongue,” Draco said quietly. “Maybe the heir of Slytherin based on that alone.” 

“And yet you also knew plenty of capable witches and wizards around you who were Muggle-born. After all, I got better marks than both of you. Is my blood less magically potent?” She raised a challenging brow.

But Draco wouldn’t take the bait. He turned to her, the corner of his mouth twitched, and he ran his thumb across his lower lip as though to stop a grin. “You don’t have to prove anything anymore, Granger. Everyone here knows you’re the most powerful among us.” 

She bit her cheeks to stifle a satisfied smile. Draco didn’t look offended or irritated with her line of conversation. Instead, his eyes seemed alight with something else—something keen and alive. 

࿐ ࿔*

“No, don’t. Granger! Stop!” Draco lurched forward, shooting his arm out, barring her from the tree. 

Theo laughed over her shoulder as Hermione pulled back from the pine she was about to cut from. 

“You should’ve seen this prat right after he bound himself,” Theo grinned.

She glanced up at Draco in time to catch the flash of a curled lip receding into a placid, flat expression. His gaze was fixed on his work, cutting the small limbs she’d been reaching for. 

“Dr. Carter was going to gather a few samples to test in his lab—just a little bit of bark or what-have-you. But then this protector-of-the-sacred-well or something jumped up and pointed his wand right at him.” 

“Couldn’t help it,” Draco muttered, passing her small branches. 

“Harry hit him with the trusted favourite, though, and his wand went sailing. No harm done.” 

She catalogued every reaction Draco had to the brief story. His jaw clenched, but his expression stayed otherwise flat. His shoulders were taut.

A long bough was passed from the tree to Theo, who took it and began sizing up the clutch he held. 

“Looks good enough, I think, for Grimmauld Place, doesn’t it?” Theo asked. 

“Needs more colour,” Laurie supplied. She was perched on a boulder not far from them, smoking and weaving a wreath. As if to emphasise, she waved a small bunch of dogwood branches, the reds fiercely warm against the greens behind her. 

Draco stepped further into the tree, branches shaking around him.

“I couldn’t help it, you know,” he said softly to Hermione, almost as if he weren’t speaking to her at all. “I wouldn’t have hurt him, I don’t think. It was just…just…It didn’t feel right. Like I had to stop him.” His face screwed up, pink staining his neck, and then again, the placidity washed over. 

All around, the forest swayed and rustled. Draco’s hand drifted fleetingly to his chest with a press and a rub before returning to his task.

Hermione glanced around for Dr. Carter.

The professor was standing by a rather large tree with a swooping branch, which had the inviting look of an ideal spot to sit and read. It hooked down and flattened out, making a back and seat in its crook. Clearly of that mind, Dr. Carter tested it out, leaning back with a groan and closing his eyes happily with a long exhale. Digging in his coat pocket, he pulled out a lovely, small, leather-bound book with Nimue’s Tale embossed in flaking gold leaf across the front. He licked his finger and turned a thin page. 

“I wish they still printed them that size,” Hermione said, nodding to his book, the perfect shape for slipping into a pocket. 

Dr. Carter glanced up at her and grinned. “Me too. Even wizarding ones are bigger now. Good for the eyes—terrible for the constant reader.” He clicked his tongue. 

“Why can’t they think of our needs?” She shook her head. “At least Muggle paperbacks aren’t heavy.” 

“Feather-light charms, Granger,” Draco called from inside the evergreen. A small pile of boughs were building up at his feet. He shifted off to another tree. 

“All well and good,” she replied, “but it’s partly the unwieldy size.” 

“You could shrink them a little,” Theo offered, spreading his gatherings on a handkerchief he’d transfigured into a blanket. He began arranging them into a circle. “You’re right… needs more colour.” 

Laurie nodded, passing him a bit of dogwood branch and a lit cigarette. 

Dr. Carter and Hermione exchanged a knowing glance, and all of the irritations of the constant reader—unwieldy books not propping open conveniently, heavy tomes, and paper whose texture felt wrong—passed between them. 

“This one was published in 1909,” he said, wiggling Nimue’s Tale. “Little publishing house run by a remarkable pair of witches.” 

“Really?” Hermione leaned in closer, curls swinging loose about her. “Is the press still in business?” 

“Oh no, not for a great many years.” His fond smile held an edge of melancholy. “One of those that just didn’t make it through the war.” 

The war. Singular. Several ran through her mind, and the pulses, fire, and fear of a particular one hurtled through her blood. 

“Just one of so many not to make it through the Blitz.” He brushed his fingers over the cover with a kind of reverence. “Still, it had served its purpose by then. And we all lived; that, as you well know, is what matters in the end.” 

Hermione settled back on her heels, arms crossing over herself. Faces swam before her—faces time would not diminish. She looked over at Draco, his white-blond hair shining through the green of the tree; his jaw was clenched tight. Dr. Carter was staring off into the deeper woods. What faces swam before his eyes, she wondered. 

“Were you there?” 

He turned to her with his puckish grin and gave the briefest wink. “I was,” he whispered low. “But don’t let these chaps catch wind of it. If they get an idea that I’m as old as the hills, they’ll try to pull the wool over my eyes before I can blink.” 

“Doubt they could manage that,” she smiled. 

He tipped his head back and stared up into the trees for a time. His face softened as he stared at some distance, much further than Hermione could see. As if speaking to the trees instead of her, he murmured, “What a marvel she was.” 

࿐ ࿔*

The mistletoe was divided into bunches between each of them. Theo left with a thick bundle of boughs, his wreath, and the rest wrapped in twine. Laurie leaned against a tree, talking in hushed tones to Dr. Carter about something to do with his alchemy lab. 

Afternoon light slanted in through the canopy with a promise of creeping dark murmuring in the shadows. Hermione knelt on the cold ground, turning her gatherings into a wreath. To the side, watching attentively, was Draco. 

“Do you do this every year?” Hermione asked, her hands moving steadily as she tucked holly leaves into the circle.

“No,” Draco said with a slight shake of his head. “Well, Laurie and Dr. Carter gathered mistletoe last year. But that’s about it. No winter here the year before that.” He kicked at a rock, his gaze following it as it skittered across the ground.

She cast a few sticking charms. “What do you think? Will it ward off dark winter magic?”

Draco crouched beside her, inspecting her work with a critical eye. He laid a finger against it, making a hum of mild disapproval. “Shoddy,” he said, eyes narrowing. “I didn't feel a thing.”

A laugh bubbled up from her, and she caught his eye. Draco looked fairly pleased with himself.

"You're not a very good test subject. Hardly dark at all."

His smirk faltered, and for a moment, there was something more serious in his gaze. His face grew guarded, but there was a subtle, almost imperceptible softness in his features—an expression Hermione hadn't expected to see.

"Can I show you something?" he asked, his voice quieter.

Hermione nodded, watching as a subtle change overtook him. His eyes softened a little; his posture shifted—shoulders rolling back, his stance becoming slightly more open. It was all small, minute enough that anyone would have missed it if not looking closely. Her chest tightened in surprise.

They said goodbyes to Laurie and Dr. Carter. Hermione gathered her wreath, shrinking the bundles and slipping them into her bag. Draco watched with a subtle smirk.

The light shifted again as they moved deeper into the forest, the shadows lengthening, soft shafts filtering through the canopy in thin streams. Darkness seemed to be a moving shape around them, ducking behind trees and hiding just past boulders. 

A few branches seemed more bare here. On the forest floor, dead leaves lay thick, crunching underfoot. Draco’s cloak drug against the saplings and ferns with a soft swish. Besides that sound, the forest was still with the hush of winter.

“Was all this dead stuff here when the forest first emerged?” Hermione asked, gesturing to the fallen branches and scattered leaves. Despite the heavy green canopy above, the forest floor had a desolate, wintery feel.

“A lot of it, yeah,” Draco replied, slowing as he glanced around. “Do you think there are thousand-year-old buried leaves in there?" 

"And here we are, just mulching them up?" She ground her heel down and twisted.

“What stories they could tell us,” he mused, stomping his feet hard enough to send a small shower of leaves skittering across the ground. “I just destroyed millennia of history, Granger.”

"Callous." Stomp. "Arrogant." Stomp, stomp. "Have you no respect?" She scraped her boot on a small pile.

He clicked his tongue. "Vanished with the old ancestral pile, I'm afraid." 

They stamped and kicked leaves for a few minutes, their laughter mixing with the rustle of the branches above. Thoughtlessly, Hermione nudged him—just a small bump of her shoulder against his arm.

Draco stilled. It was barely a pause, but she felt it like a held breath. Her stomach tightened.

Before her mind could turn it over, he nudged her back, just as light, just as fleeting. The tension in her chest curled tighter.

She glanced up at him, a flicker of surprise in her eyes mirrored in his. He held her gaze for a beat longer than he might have before, and then—just like that—the hesitation between them cracked.

She turned, kicking up a flurry of leaves, and he did the same, their steps falling into sync as they moved on.

“Isn’t it mad,” she said, breathless and panting, “that a whole forest could be hidden away by a spell? I still can’t quite wrap my head around it.” She tucked a few curls behind her ear. “She must’ve been something else.”

“‘She’ now?" He breathed. "Are you buying into the professor’s theory?” 

“Well, I think I might,” she said, then paused, looking up at him. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Draco scoffed, a gentle curve to the edge of his lips. “How very un-Granger-like.”

She shot him a sideways glance. “Oh, shut up. You haven’t a clue what I’m like.”

Draco’s smile faded a little as he shrugged. “So you mean to tell me you’re good at entertaining wild theories based on nothing but legends? You know better than that, surely.”

She hesitated and stopped. Draco leaned against a tree, crossing his arms. She glanced at him with a flicker of uncertainty before her resolve took hold again. “I’m not so sure I do.” Her voice softened as she went on, “Do you know about the Deathly Hallows?”

“The Dea—oh, sure, every kid knows about those.”

“Every magical child," she corrected, feeling the air thicken between them.

“Fair enough. Go on.” 

How much should she say? Was it even a secret anymore? Hermione’s teeth tugged at her lip as she glanced up, trying to gauge Draco’s reaction. “They were what Voldemort was after, in the end...the wand, at least.” 

A heavy silence settled, so thick around them that the mist might have been turned to wool. Draco’s face sharpened, his features falling into something distant and unreadable. He drew in a harsh breath, letting it out slowly. Two trees behind him seemed to lean in, their branches bowing toward him. Hermione took a step back, her pulse kicking up as she tracked their movements. 

“Anyway,” she rushed on, “We—Harry—had them. They helped us, I think." She glanced to the side, her pulse quick. "So if I can believe in the truth of that story, can’t I believe in the truth of this one?” 

Draco’s hand moved up to rub at his chest, his gaze distant for a moment, lost in thought. Above them, the leaves rustled softly, barely making a sound.

“You mean Potter has all the Hallows? They’re real?”

“Had. And yes.”

He turned, pressing his palm to the trunk of a thin tree, his fingers lingering on the bark. The ferns by his boots brushed against his trousers as he shook his head with a huff of laughter.

“Merlin and Morgana… well, that certainly puts a few things into perspective.”

He looked back at her then, his expression lightening, the familiar smirk tugging at his lips. At the sight of it, the tightness in her chest eased and slid away.

He tossed his head to the side and led them on again.

The forest around them felt strangely familiar now like they were wandering through her own dream. It felt enchanted—well, it was, wasn’t it? A tree in the distance shifted, its roots curling before it crept sideways, as though to prove the point.

“I dreamed about the forest last night,” she said; the memory of the smells haunting her through breakfast felt so strong. “It was so vivid. So real. It lingered all morning.”

He turned sharply to her, lips parted, but then humour rolled back over him. “On your mind that much, is it?” 

“Probably."

She could feel him watching her but kept her gaze forward, moving carefully around a patch of nettles. 

“Oh, of course, you’re the one dreaming about the forest now. I can barely get any shut-eye without being dragged into it.”

She ducked under a low branch. "You dream about it?"

“Sometimes,” he admitted quietly. “But not like normal dreams.” 

“Like what, then?” 

Draco shrugged, throwing his leg over a large fallen log and stepping past it. Hermione had to scramble a little to cross it.

“Potter mentioned he had dreams…before.” He swallowed roughly and turned his face away. 

She glanced down, digging through her thoughts. Harry had told him that? 

“Mine aren’t the same as those,” he went on, “but there does seem to be some sort of…connection, maybe? I don’t know. Laurie and Dr. Carter aren’t sure either. But it’s like the forest is communicating with me, I think.” 

“Are they clear? Lucid?” 

He paused and straightened, twisting his ring. His fingertips and knuckles were red with chill. 

“Not exactly lucid, but yes, very clear. Sometimes more symbolic and others more direct. They’re still dreams. Still a bit strange and…confusing.”

He began to walk again, slower now than before. She kept his pace, noticing their steps rising and falling in time. 

“When you were in the tree,” he said carefully, “I knew it because I dreamed it.”

Hermione’s breath caught. “You knew? What—how did you see it?”

Draco hesitated, his fingers curling into a loose fist. “It wasn’t exact,” he admitted, “not like a memory. But I felt it. I saw flashes—and heard your voice: ‘Tell Harry’.”

She studied him, her pulse quick. “And this happens often?”

His mouth pressed into a line before he exhaled slowly. “Enough.”

A small shiver traced down her spine. She chewed her lip, considering the forest's sentience. And what about Draco? The connection went both ways. How did it listen to him?

Draco had stepped to the side, his view directed somewhere over her head, scanning the forest. He moved past her quickly, glancing back and forth. Then, with a wave for her to follow, he stepped into the shadows. Her pulse thrummed as she followed. She kept close as they moved beneath several low branches, crouching to get through. The trees grew dense here, warped and wrapped around rocks and one another. Mist rose thick from the ground. 

The dark cloak swung about Draco, melding into the shadows. His white-gold hair glowed in the softening light. Leaves crunched beneath his sure footing. 

They passed through two broad trees so vast that only many centuries could have wrought them. Hermione had the sensation as they stepped through of having crossed a demarcation—of crossing over into a story.

Wasn’t this a fairytale somewhere? Maybe, shrouded in these mists, was a Green Chapel where a knight waited for his challenge to be met, or would she find a great black dog bounding along only to vanish into the darkness after fixing her with its cold gaze? Perhaps, if she listened, there would be bells tinkling in the trees or the laughter of Merry Men somewhere off at a camp in the distance. The romance of old stories swirled through the pale green mist and seeped into her pores. 

“Here,” Draco whispered and reached out, grabbing her elbow to pull her closer. He dropped to a crouch, brought her down beside him, and nodded ahead. As she followed where he’d indicated, he lowered until flat on his belly. Slowly, gaze transfixed before her, she did the same. 

The unicorn tossed its mane and nickered. Light seemed to glow from its gleaming coat. Iridescent, sapphire eyes glittered beneath white lashes spun from pure starlight. She was hollowed out, mesmerised, emptied of all thought. Before it, a pool of water moved slowly, fed by some unseen spring. Perfect crescents ripple out from the water's edge. The unicorn lowered its magnificent head and drank; the soft lapping echoed in her bones. 

Leaves moved in a chorus. A groan from an old oak was answered with a whinny from the unicorn. Back and forth, the tail swung over ferns and against powerful legs. 

Books and stories from childhood poured into Hermione's mind. The sound of pages turning seemed to overlay the forest’s noises. Her mum hummed in her memory, pointing to a favourite illustration of a unicorn on a lonely ledge, mountains green and lush in the background. 

If only her mum could see this now. She would be awestruck by the sight. Breathless with wonder. A wild fantasy brought to life.

But that’s what it had been and what it mostly was to her, like any Muggle: fantasy. How she wished...she wished...

A tear rolled down Hermione's cheek.

Then another. 

“Granger,” Draco breathed. She turned her face to him, moss brushing against her chin. A deep crease cut a groove between his brows. His silver eyes glanced back and forth between hers, searching. 

The corner of her mouth twitched into a quivering little half-smile.

Beautiful, she mouthed. 

Slowly, his hand lifted—then paused, hovering there. The unicorn’s tail brushed gently against its legs. All around them, a strange, old romance tangled through the mist. Draco’s thumb rubbed against his forefinger in circles over and over. Half his face was shadowed in velvet green reflected from the moss beneath him. His eyes lowered, sweeping along her face, then rose back to hers. With a soft exhale, he turned to watch the unicorn—fist sliding beneath his chin. 

They were silent for a long moment.

Then he whispered, “Can I ask… what were you thinking about?” 

Maybe someone else wouldn’t have dared. Maybe he was bold because he had been spoiled once, long ago. But she hadn’t hidden her tears, and he hadn’t hidden himself here in this place. 

“My mum,” she answered. 

His lashes swept down, brushing his cheeks. 

“I wish she could see this. A unicorn in real life. Or Buckbeak. Or any of it.” She paused, realising her whisper had been coming more fierce. Gathering herself, she began again, softly, “What you asked earlier, how could the Muggles forget the magic so completely…I think…I think it’s easy to forget. Somehow. I think it might be.” 

࿐ ࿔*

The clearing was lovely as the daylight fled from it. A breeze swept over the well, rippling the water. Draco went to stand above it, staring in as if some answer might be found in its shallow depths. She should go now, she knew, but the mist curled about her and begged her to linger just a moment more. She tipped her head back, letting the sounds of the woods wash over her.

“Might be a while before we see each other again, I suppose,” Draco said almost absently, but a hint of a question hung there. 

“Likely. Too much to do at work.” 

“Unless I have to bring the deviant back.” 

“Yes, unless that.” She blinked, tilting her head down to meet his stare. “Or unless you come to ORC. Like you’d asked before.” 

He glanced off into the forest, fingers drumming on his thigh. Trees swayed roughly above. She bit back a grin. Hard to keep your feelings close to the chest with such a forest. 

“All right. I will.” 

And her grin escaped her, curving across her face and reverberating in her chest. 

“All right. See you then, Draco.” 

“Granger.” 

“Oh.” She paused, looking off into the inky dark dotted with the last throes of the afternoon. “Thank you—for today. It was lovely, and I…” She met his gaze.

A breeze lifted the wisp of hair that hung on his forehead, fluttering it gently against his brow. Her fingers curled around one another. In the quiet of the moment, something uncertain unfurled inside her, light as breath but pressing tight against her ribs.

“It was just lovely.”

He watched her for a moment as all the leaves about him swung. The hem of his cloak shifted against his leg. A lock of curls swept across her face, covering her lips. 

His mouth curved at the corner. “It was, wasn’t it?” 

With a last goodbye, she turned on her heel and reappeared in her familiar flat. 

The room was still, with only the dull noises of the street filtering up. Last daylight glowed into the window. Hermione stood for a moment, chewing her lip and wondering why a simple Apparition had jumped her heart rate up. Reaching into her little bag, she pulled out her gatherings and brought them back to size. She laid them all out on her little table by the kitchen and lifted the wreath. Holly and ivy intertwined in a winter dance shot through with red and white berries. A sprig of mistletoe hung from the centre.

“I let Crookshanks out.”

Hermione turned around abruptly, the smile wiping from her face. Her wand was in her hand in a trice.  

“Ron! Fucking hell. You nearly got your arms hexed off!” 

Ron raised both hands in a mock surrender, grinning widely. “Rather you didn’t.” 

“What are you doing, sneaking in here?” 

He scoffed and moved to a chair, throwing himself into it. Suddenly, details snapped into view: a large bag tossed by the fire, shoes near it, and Auror robes hung on a hook by the door. 

“Hardly snuck in, did I?” he drawled, slumping back into the chair with exaggerated ease. “Your Floo was wide open to Grimmauld Place. Anyway, Crookshanks was about to tear the place apart. Wouldn't stop yowling at the window, scratching like he was going to break it.” 

“I thought you weren’t getting back until the fifteenth.” She slid her wand back into her pocket.

Ron stretched, arching his back like a lazy cat. “I wasn’t. Got finished a week early. Ran into a bloke from the Portkey office, whined about waiting around, and next thing I knew, holiday spirit got me a new one right there.” 

She narrowed her eyes. “But why are you here?”

He hesitated, the smile dropping a bit. His shoulders hunched. “Well… I walked in on—” He grimaced. “I don’t think I was supposed to walk in on what was going on at Harry’s.” He gave her a pleading look, eyes dark with exhaustion. “Can I crash here, just for the night?” 

His face carried the drawn look that often accompanied his stress. Her shoulders sagged.

“Go on then,” she said, tossing her head toward her study. “But I’m not fixing your transfiguration, so don’t ask.”

“It’s gotten better, promise.” Ron jumped up, grabbing a throw blanket from the window seat. As he passed, he gave her a quick grin before striding off toward the little hallway that led to her bedroom, bathroom, and study.

Hermione stood still, looking around the sitting room with an odd sensation. even though it was clean, the wreckage of her peace must be strewn about here somewhere.  

A thought jolted through her. “Wait, you let Crookshanks out?”

Chapter Text

Orange light from a street lamp glowed through rain on the window, casting eerie, molten shadows that slithered down the wall. On the bureau, the clock read just past three in the morning. Draco lay on his stomach, his covers thrown partly off in the overheated room. 

Warm softness pressed gently at his leg. He twitched away, but it reached out and nudged again, a brush over his skin. 

“Merlin, fuck, let me sleep,” he hissed, flipping over to glare at his bedmate.

Crookshanks’ golden eyes glowed at him. His bottlebrush tail swung idly back and forth as though this were merely a long afternoon nap, and he was pleased to have aroused some attention. With a dramatic display of stretching and a show about pawing the blankets for the perfect location, the little lordling wandered up the bed until he was closer to Draco’s chest. Marching in a circle, his tail batting Draco’s face at every turn, Crookshanks settled in flush against his ribs. 

Draco sighed against the purring weight and scrubbed his hand over his face. 

He should have taken the bloody beast back when he showed up. But it had been late, and he had been about to go to bed. And anyway, something in his stomach had clenched at the idea of bursting through Granger’s Floo near midnight unannounced. Even at a more normal hour, it felt overly familiar. No doubt she’d have had it blocked, anyway. 

He stretched out an arm over the orange menace. His fingers ploughed furrows into the lordling’s back; an ear twitched, and whiskers tickled against his armpit. The hot, quick puffs of breath melted into his side. Draco stared at the moving shadows on the wall, listening to the rough drag of a small tongue at work, ruining his perfect sheets. 

Something tangled about his little finger and tightened like a noose. Slowly lifting his hand, Draco felt Crookshanks let out a great sigh before settling back again. Wrapped in a knot was a single, curling strand of Granger’s hair. 

He rolled onto his back, the streetlight catching the auburn in the brown fibre. Pinching the other end, he pulled it taut before him like a tightwire and held it up against the window’s glow. 

Without the curl, the hair seemed twice as long. He imagined that wild mane now, cascading about Granger’s shoulders. Always more of a fluffy, moving mass that seemed to bounce when she walked. He recalled it flaring out at the sides when they were children as she sped down stone corridors, her body angled forward as though the momentum of her head were propelling her on. 

Merlin, but he had disliked the sight of her then. All forward motion, muttering to herself, ink staining her thumb and forefinger as though she’d never learned how to write with a quill properly. 

Of course, now… now that Dr. Carter had forced him to use pens for a time. Now that he knew what it felt like to be the fish out of water. Now, his stomach roiled at the remembered thoughts moving through his head. 

He twisted the hair, allowing the curls to return, then stretched it out again. Light glinted through: molten gold with fiery red, then browns, then black as night as he lowered it into shadows.

In his mind’s eye, dappled light filtered through cloister arches in a Hogwarts courtyard. Granger sped by, books in hand, without a glance his way. The sun caught her hair glowing gold in its strands. He turned his face out to the courtyard, eyes fixed on a tree at its centre that waved in the highland wind. 

But it hadn’t happened like that. There was never a tree in that courtyard. And yet his mind refused not to see it—refused to imagine any place without a touch of the forest. 

Watery shadows sluiced along the wall; heavy raindrops drummed against the glass. He closed his eyes. The sound became a patter on a leafy canopy high above. His blankets became moss, covering his weary, unburdened bones. Water ran along him in rivulets and seeped into him until he was a part of the soil: a rooted thing. His roots dug deep and anchored him. He drifted to sleep, and in his dreams, the arched windows of his family home became a birch grove that swayed freely in the evening wind. 

࿐ ࿔*

“They’re regrouping,” Draco announced. A letter landed on the desk with a slap, a corner curling slightly.

Dr. Carter flicked it out of the path of his pen, his voice flat: “Why, no, Draco, I wasn’t in the middle of anything particularly consuming. Please, do come in and throw my morning into utter disarray.” 

Draco, already pacing by the fireplace at the other end of the professor’s study, glared. “Just read it,” he snapped. Then, slowed and relented, softening, “Please.” 

Dr. Carter’s pen stilled before he sighed and dropped it. He picked up the letter with an incredulous eye.

“Who sent this?” 

“Centaur Liaison Offices.” 

“But it’s Sunday.” 

“Yes, well, I haven’t opened mail for a couple of days, all right?” 

Dr. Carter made a soft hum. He glanced at the bottom of the parchment.

“Penelope Clearwater… do I know her?” 

“Doubt it. She’s one of Granger’s colleagues in the legal offices.” 

Dr. Carter’s mouth shaped a silent ‘Ah’ as he adjusted his glasses. 

Draco’s restlessness crawled through his shoulders. A faint din of thunder and the roar of waves drifted from a painting hanging above the mantel beside him. Three ships were tossed in an eternal storm while lights flickered to them from a distant, rocky coast. His eyes followed their wild, doomed path as he prowled with his own frenetic energy.

Dr. Carter tapped his finger against his pursed lips. 

“Well?” Draco barked.

“Negotiations delayed…” Looking up, Dr. Carter’s expression was measured.  “Yes, I think you’re right.”

“I knew it.” Draco stopped mid-step. “But why is this such a bloody problem? Why can’t they just make arrangements about secrecy and be done?” 

The professor set the letter down and folded his hands. “Yours is a privately owned forest as opposed to the Forbidden Forest, which they manage.”

“I know, I know,” Draco moaned, dropping into the chair in front of the desk. He crossed his legs, fingers tapping at his knee. “Too many unknown quantities, I suppose.” 

“That, and all the wandmakers, potioneers, and god-knows-who-else knocking at the Ministry’s door over it...”

“They can forget about that stupid dream,” Draco scoffed. “I’ve no intention of signing any deals for extractive purposes.” 

“There are interested parties in the Ministry who would like you to soften on that stance.”

“Hassling me over the centaurs isn’t the way to get that.” 

“What if it were?” Dr. Carter’s gaze hardened slightly as his hands steepled. “What if they intend to offer a deal with the centaurs only in exchange for your cooperation about some sort of resource gathering?” 

Draco stilled, his fingers curling slightly against his knee. “But they don’t want the centaurs in there regardless.” 

“Don’t they?” Dr. Carter challenged. “I’m not so sure. There’s nothing inherently risky about them being in the forest that isn’t already a nuisance about such a large magical place anyway. But, if one were to want to go into the forest to, say, harvest wand wood, for example—that task might be much easier without having to avoid a herd of young, hot-blooded centaurs.” 

“They prefer to be left alone,” Draco said. And he should know, he preferred to keep clear of them just as much as they—besides Eirene—preferred to give him a wide berth. The phantom ache of Niht’s kick to his back nudged at his bones and lungs. 

“Precisely. Which means the liaison offices usually work with them to ensure solitude, correct?” 

“I don’t honestly know.” 

The hinges of the study door creaked, and in sauntered Crookshanks, who stretched by the fireplace and proceeded to work on coughing up a hairball. 

Draco glanced at a clock on the wall: not too early to return Lord Fluffbum. Last time, he’d lingered for conversation. Perhaps, if he mentioned tea…

“Do you think Granger would have some idea about it?” He asked, picking at invisible lint on his trousers. 

Dr. Carter tipped his head and observed him with a sly sort of grin that Draco immediately loathed. 

“Why don’t you ask her and find out?” 

࿐ ࿔*

Floo fire engulfed them with the licks of heatless green, and suddenly Draco, clutching Crookshanks, stumbled out of Granger’s fireplace and into her sitting room. 

“Hey Harry, we need—” Ron Weasley stopped short, glaring from the kitchen entrance. A mug hung loosely in his hand, and his casual clothes—joggers, a t-shirt, socks—gave the impression he’d been there for a while.

Draco’s spine stiffened, his chest juddering to a nasty stop. A sharp urge to turn and step right back through the grate hit him. His grip tightened instinctively around the stupid, ruddy cat.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Weasley demanded, low and with a flinty edge. Crookshanks wiggled in Draco’s arms. Weasley’s eyes flashed down to the cat and back, narrowing. “Put him down.” 

The command had the opposite effect on Draco. Was Crookshanks presently digging his vicious little claws into his arms? Yes. Did his grip on the little bastard loosen? Not a chance. 

“Not your concern, Weasley.” 

A sense of the earth shifting slightly pulsed dimly at the back of his mind. An impression of a tree wrenching its roots up and shuffling off nudged at him. A grip in his chest beckoned.

Footsteps neared from the hallway door. Hermione rounded the corner in a whirl of brown curls. The very air about her seemed like a dry wind that crackled. Her gaze catalogued all the details before her. Within a second, her shoulders were thrown back, and a look of defiance and strength etched across her face. She was like a goddess, ready to rebuke with a word. Draco couldn’t have looked away from her if he’d wanted to. 

“He’s bringing Crookshanks back, Ron, that’s all.” 

In three quick steps, Hermione had reached him, gently taking the cat from Draco’s arms and petting those scruffy ears. She turned toward Weasley, positioning herself slightly in front of Draco.

“‘That’s all? ’ Malfoy?” Weasley barked. “How the bloody hell did he come to have Crookshanks, Hermione?” Red spread across his ears and bled into his jaw. 

The man was a little larger than Draco remembered. His hair was clipped short on the sides, and a scruffy red beard was growing in, giving the impression of someone still undecided about his grooming.

Weasley stood there, easy and familiar, like this was just another row between him and Hermione. A dart of something poisonous shot through Draco, constricting his breath. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation. Hadn’t he been seized by this countless times, staring at Potter and his little band across the Great Hall? His eyes cut to Granger, whose mouth was pressed into a line. No, this felt different—more acidic.

“Apparently, that’s where Crooks goes when he gets out,” she huffed. 

Ron blinked, his brow furrowing. “To Carter’s house?” 

“Yes,” she clipped.

“Can’t Carter bring him back?” 

“It’s me he comes for,” Draco asserted. 

Weasley rolled his eyes. “Oh, fuck off, you arrogant tosser. You asked him, then, did you? Got his exact intentions spelled out? Or did you divine that in a hairball?”

“Ron!” 

“It didn’t start at the house,” Draco said coolly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Hermione set Crookshanks on the floor, and straightened. “Crooks has been seeking out Malfoy since he came to Hogwarts for NEWTs.” 

Weasley shot a quizzical glance at the cat, now lounging at Hermione’s feet, licking his paws. He tilted his head to the side as though working something out.

“Must be drawn to him or something, like those creatures with the forest, yeah? Maybe it’s just him,” Ron mused, waving a hand toward Draco like he were some sort of statue.

The pull in his chest gave a twist. He closed his eyes; the forest danced before him.

“Of course, it’s not me,” Draco sighed, the breath of the forest expelling from him. “If it were, Great James Street would be lined with magical creatures, wouldn’t it?” 

But Weasley didn’t look at him. Instead, he shot another scowl at Hermione, then turned back to the kitchen, refilling his mug with coffee, steam rising from it.

“Best spell your windows shut then, I reckon,” Weasley said before a slurped sip. Draco’s lip curled reflexively. 

“He likes to go exploring,” Hermione argued. “I think his kneazle side needs it.” She glanced back at Draco, taking him in quickly. A faint crease formed between her brows.

His hand slipped into his pocket and clenched the letter from the DRCMC folded there. He should leave. This wasn’t a good time to ask anything. 

“Doesn’t matter what his kneazle side thinks it needs if he’s decided to lark about hunting Death Eaters.” 

The letter was crushed in Daco’s fist. Gods, he didn’t need this. He didn’t need this at all. His other hand drifted toward his chest before he realised what he was doing. He dropped it quickly, but Hermione’s sharp gaze had already caught the movement.

Her jaw set as she turned back to Weasley.  “Not on, Ron. It’s not your business anyway, so just leave it, will you?” 

Weasley shrugged with nonchalance. “Just looking out for you, Hermione, that’s all,” he muttered. 

It was like a flint struck against steel. The spark lit Granger’s fuse in a flash. She fired into Ron with charges about respecting her decisions, and she could look after herself well enough, thank you very much. 

Their volley flew around Draco’s ears like it was reaching him from the other side of a canyon. 

He glanced away out the window. It was still raining; a drizzling damp hung over the city like a sponge slowly wrung out. The quiet burble of water in a forest brook filled his ears. That familiar relentless ache gave a little pull. Then another, more insistent.

He stumbled, “Granger, I—”

“—no idea what I’ve been up to—”

“That’s abundantly clear!” 

Draco squeezed the letter in his pocket tighter, his pulse quickening. 

“—don’t have time because I’ve got to be at the Leaky in an—”

“Granger.”

“What?” She barked, the fire glowing in her eyes. And he was caught for a half second. Trapped in that blaze. Mesmerised until it burned at him. 

A huff from Weasley doused his thoughts. Draco swallowed roughly.

“See you, Granger,” he muttered. 

Her brows pinched, lips parted, a single “Draco…” 

But he had Apparated away before he could hear a word.

࿐ ࿔*

Landing in the clearing always felt like a whirlwind had deposited him. His shoes scraped the soil, brushing away moss and leaves. A crow leapt up with noisy flaps and landed in a nearby tree, cawing at him. 

He closed his eyes and felt the thrum of hoofbeats in his bones, but they were somewhere farther off on the north side. The scent of damp leaves curled in his lungs and lingered. Rain pattered gently on the canopy above. Draco set off at a clip.

There was a pounding on the door at the back of his mind. A relentless thump, thump, thump of memory demanding to be taken out and examined. 

No. It could fuck off and leave him alone. He wouldn’t. 

He would leave the door shut on that day when Hestia Jones had brought him here to see what had become of the legacy of Malfoy. He wouldn’t stand in the ruins again with nothing left that had been. Nothing except a mantel. That loan fireplace and the ruined tile floor beneath it. He would keep his mind from crawling over the feel of weathered lime, leaving dusty white film on his fingers as they held it—gripped it—while he tried not to fall over as his world tilted off its axis. 

Even those scant remains had been engulfed and gone within days.

He wouldn’t examine the moment when, while tears streaked down his face, Ronald fucking Weasley had yelled to someone that he was off to take a piss and ran into him instead. 

He wouldn’t remember being told he ought to still be in Azkaban while he stood there in the wreckage of his childhood, frail from having just come from that fuck-awful nightmare of a place mere weeks before. 

His chest heaved with exertion as he pressed relentlessly forward into the green.

No. He wouldn’t dwell on any of that. Goodbye to all that and the rot that came before.

Instead…

A breeze lifted the branches around him in a chorus of leaves that flowed almost like the sound of a waterfall rushing some distance away. It wrapped around him with chilled fingers and squeezed, compelling him to look. 

The trees were gnarled and knotty here, their branches twisting and moss-covered. Large rocks were strewn beneath them. Roots bent over them as though merely using each as a stepping stone.

He slowed his pace and began to breathe easier. 

The density of the woods thinned a little here in the understory, though not above. A thick canopy in this part sheltered him from the rain well enough. He became gradually aware of how damp he was getting. He shook wet locks of hair from his forehead. 

Stumbling once on a root, he approached a tree that seemed to erupt like a miracle from a niche between two boulders. Both stones were giant, grey slabs stretching like beds that rose to the middle of his thigh. The cleft between spread them apart like the pages of a book folded open, and from that space sprung the twisting tree. 

It must have fought awfully hard to scrabble into being like that. Its seed, in whatever little soil was between those, somehow nestled in well and found enough nutrients to make the adventure of sending out a probing taproot. Deep, it would have delved. He hoisted himself onto one of the stones and leaned closer. 

“Lumos.” 

Paltry wand light couldn’t give him many clues about what was happening down there. He leaned back on his heels and looked up into the tree’s branches. Stubborn thing.

Letting his focus slip just a little into the edge of unclear, the world blurred about him in a sea of watercolour. Everything merged and moved together without definition separating them. The grotesque shapes of unearthly faces sprang to life in the warped and cracked tree bark patterns. Weathered faces that sneered at him and reminded him too much of ones that looked through the little window in his cell door. There had been faces swirling in the wood of that, too. 

He blinked away the fog, bringing his world back into focus, and the horrors shrank away. It was just a tree again. A hardy tree that had grown here on the windward side of the forest where storms and gales shaped it after it had fought its way up from the stones below. 

He smoothed his hand across the boulder. Pixie-cup lichens decorated the surface a little further from the tree. He didn’t know the name for whatever grew beneath the pixie-cups, but Laurie had said it was a pair of organisms living and growing in tandem. The tree needed the soil, needed the fungi, needed the water that dripped gently from the canopy to the ground below. 

Maybe the rocks anchored the tree. Maybe it hadn’t had to fight them as he imagined. 

What were you thinking about? He had asked her. My mum, Granger had replied. He gazed into the crevice between the rocks and the defiant tree emerging from them. What did she mean that forgetting might be easy? 

“Keeper!” A gentle voice cried. Hoofbeats drummed the ground. 

Draco twisted about and sat with his knees up, facing Eirene. Propping his arm on his knee, he twirled his wand loosely in his fingers. The dark hawthorn handle gleamed like new even after all these years.  

“How goes the day?” She asked. A loosely woven satchel was slung over her shoulder.

“Fine,” he sniffed

She unhooked the satchel and swung it into her hands. “I’m glad you’ve come. I asked the forest to tell me when you returned today.” 

He rolled his wand between his hands. “I don’t always come.”

Eirene tilted her head and gave him an indulgent hum but didn’t push back on this lie. She ambled closer at an elegant trot. The painted whites and greys of her coat gleamed even in the rainy dim. Holding out the satchel toward him, she shook it until he reached out and grasped it himself. 

“For your friends. There is a stone there that will interest the dark-eyed one.” 

“Theo?”

Her cheek curved in a half-grin. “Theo.” 

Peering in revealed mushrooms, holly, pieces of bark, bits of lichen and moss. Some things should have been out of season, while others felt and smelled of December. He gave a nod and slipped the strap over his head, settling it on his own shoulder. 

“Heard from the Ministry,” he informed, laying a hand over his pocket, the crushed letter’s angles protruding there. “Seems they won’t be trying again for at least a few days.”

“It is for the best,” she sighed, shaking out her legs. “We need time to settle without questions.” 

A fat raindrop fell from a leaf above onto his neck and rolled mercilessly down his collar and along his spine. His back arched at the cold. 

“The humans want us gone from here,” Eirene said, her voice more flat than he had heard from her. 

Draco bit his cheeks and looked off into the woods. Idly, he waved his wand toward some scattered stones, sending them floating in a lovely spiral and then settling into a little cairn. 

“Tough,” he said firmly.  

Eirene made a thoughtful noise low in her throat and stamped her hind legs. “Yes. It is hard to remove what has already rooted.” 

Draco’s wand spun in an arc; little twigs rose from the forest floor and whirled in another circle, settling in a mandala around the cairn. 

“Niht does not trust your silence,” Eirene informed him. “He claims you let the humans take your home before—that you will do it again.” 

Yellow leaves fading to brown lifted and followed the twigs, laying themselves out in a sunburst pattern. 


“Wrong,” Draco bit out. “Dead wrong. Those pillocks tried to take the estate from my father. Removed him and everything. The magic—whatever the fuck this enchantment is—stopped them by taking it over first.” 

He paused, his wand turning round in a circle. Bits of hairy lichen rose and joined the mandala, landing between half of the yellowing leaves. He lowered his wand.

“But I am not my father. And I bound myself.” A raindrop landed on his forehead and rolled down along his cheek. “They can't take it even if they want to. I am the forest.”

The tree behind him between the stones creaked and gave a mighty groan. Its branches swayed heavily. With a tremor through the rocks, it bent down, swept its leaves across the crown of his head, and settled a branch on his shoulder for a fleeting moment. 

Eirene tilted her chin up. Her lips held the curve of a grin that wanted to burst into a beaming smile. 

Her gentle voice was a rain-swelled stream: “Then let them hear you say it.” 

࿐ ࿔*

Draco returned to a tawny owl resting outside the library window tapping on the glass. 

Draco,

I won’t pretend to wonder why you left so abruptly, but I’m sorry you felt like you needed to. Still, I didn’t want to let it go unsaid—I know Ron was an arse to you, and I’m sorry about that. Remember how it was between us when you first came to the Ministry? He’s still there at that place—or further from it, even. I won’t make excuses or apologise, and I don’t think his attitude surprised you at all. 

I did have something I wanted to ask you, though. Two something, now, actually: 

1. Will you still be coming to ORC on Friday? (Please, come)
2. Will you please encourage Theo to put his foot down with Harry? Ron can’t stay here! 

Hermione 

Granger,

1. Theo isn’t the problem. You need to grip your spectacled hero by the shoulders and give him a good shake. If it doesn’t take the first time, try it again and add a slap. (I assume you’ve only gotten stronger since third year.)
   
   
2. Yes, to Friday. 

Draco 

 

“I really don’t think he realises what a nob he’s being.” Theo speared an olive with a cocktail stick and flicked it onto his plate with unnecessary force. Already crackers and cheese sat there beside a little mound of olives. 

“Feeling salty?” Hermione asked, eyeing the selection. 

He offered her a flat stare and popped an olive into his mouth, chewing with exaggerated patience until she cracked a grin. 

“George doesn’t mind Ron staying there, honestly,” she said. A green flash and a whoosh drew her attention—but it was only Violet. Theo followed her gaze and smirked. 

“‘Course he doesn’t. It’s Ron who minds. The bloody lab’s right underneath.” 

Hermione chewed the inside of her cheek. “I can’t spare the space.” 

Theo tsked and patted her arm. “Hermione, you’ve got to stop thinking you’re even an option. Your flat can barely contain you and all those books.” He made a little moue of mock sympathy, then picked up a cracker and crunched into it, crumbs dusting his cuff. “Not to worry.  We’ll handle it like the fully functioning adults we supposedly are.”

A flash of green flared. White-blonde hair glinted in the lamplight. A brightness filled her as though the room had somehow grown a little lighter. Theo grinned and jostled her arm. “Oh, who must that be?” 

She shot him a warning look. He squeezed her once and let her cross the room. 

Draco edged away from the Floo with the posture of a man about to lay his head on the guillotine. Stiff, starched, wearing wizarding robes in a deep green with sleeves that belled ever so slightly and gold buttons running down the centre, they gently toed the line on the edge of being too fine in that easy, elegant way some people had. 

She’d gotten used to him not demonstrating it, and the sight caught her breath for the barest moment. His gaze found her as she crossed the room. He took her in, brow furrowing. 

“Draco.” 

"Granger." She felt his attention flit like a moth over the forget-me-nots embroidered on her grey robes and up to her hair, still twisted back, where it lingered. His pale brows pinched together. "Did you come directly from the Ministry?” 

“I did. You’ll never guess what happened today.” She clasped her hands. “It passed—the Magical Creatures on Private Lands Act passed.” His eyes widened, and suddenly, she was beaming at him. 

“What, already?” His cheek curved. “That was awfully quick, wasn’t it? Hardly time for a second reading.” 

She shrugged. Her nonchalance didn’t quite reach a small room in the back of her mind where a part of her was hard at work sleuthing for ulterior motives. “Simple legislation like this moves through quickly.” 

“Simple?” 

“Because of the agreements with you. The general feeling was that we were merely codifying what’s already department policy.” 

“Ah.” His brow furrowed. “Will the details be printed in the paper?” 

“Of course,” she said, filled with the satisfied sensation of knowing that a part of him would be doing precisely as a part of her was: reading between any and every line for nefarious intent. 

He pressed his lips together and nodded, glancing about the room. The stiffness in his posture hadn’t relented a jot.

“Well done, Granger,” he murmured. 

She glanced up and met his grey eyes. That lightness that had settled in when he’d arrived roved all about her ribs now. A corner of his mouth ticked up into a soft smile that seemed so wholly unfamiliar on Draco Malfoy’s face that she simply observed it for a moment, taking in the view, which seemed only to deepen the smile further. 

“Do you usually sit at these things, or…”

“Oh! Yes, of course.” She spun about and led him toward a pair of chairs along the wall.

 Dr. Carter was on a settee across the room, deep in conversation with Augusta, who was using very firm hand gestures while keeping her voice pitched low. Theo ambled over and perched on Draco’s other side. 

“Olive?” Theo brandished one on a pick like a prize. 

Draco sneered. “Don’t be disgusting.” 

Augusta’s attention flitted across the room and caught them. Her shrewd focus narrowed to a point. Hermione’s stomach hollowed as she felt Draco stiffen beside her. With a wary fascination, she watched Augusta rise, lilac robes trailing against the fine rug beneath her, as she came to stand before Draco. 

It wasn’t the best vantage point, sitting and looking up into the face of a determined Augusta Longbottom. Draco’s hand dropped to his seat momentarily as though debating whether to push himself to stand, but the woman stepped too close too quickly, and he was trapped. Augusta, who didn’t stand any taller than Hermione, had clearly intended exactly this. Hermione tucked the tactic away for later use. 

“Draco Malfoy,” the older woman drawled, pursing her lips as she swept an imperious look over him. “Welcome to my home. We’re glad to have you this evening.” 

Whispers swirled around the room, mingling with the continued whoosh of the Floo as more ORC members arrived. 

“Thank you, Madame Longbottom; I’m glad to be here.” 

She pulled her wand from her sleeve and plucked her slim reading glasses from the bridge of her nose. “I imagine you are,” she said, tapping the frames once, leaving the lenses gleaming. “We certainly went to a good deal of trouble here to ensure you could be.” 

Draco’s hand lifted from his side, then paused. Hermione thought he might press it against his chest. Instead, he made a fist and gently crossed both arms, tipping his torso backwards into a more relaxed pose. 

“And I’m exceedingly grateful for that,” he enunciated with a slight lift in volume. The murmurs of the room lowered to a hush. 

Draco inclined his head. “I appreciate the trouble, truly. Not every day one gets to attend a gathering that once debated whether they ought to be locked up forever.”

Augusta gave him a slow, assessing look. “It was a lively discussion.”

“I imagine,” he murmured. “Glad I made the cut.”

Augusta hummed in response, her thin fingers tapping along her wand. His eyes tracked the movement.

“And how have you found Graham’s home?” Augusta asked. 

He pursed his lips briefly, then replied, “It’s a fine house in a good part of town. Dr. Carter insists it has ‘character.’ But I think that’s just the rogue books that escape the library.” 

She smirked and clicked her tongue; her wand twirled in her fingers. 

“Madame Longbottom,” he said, a little softer than before, “the wood of your wand… is that yew?” 

Lifting her wand before her so he could see a little better, she turned it slowly for him. “It is,” she replied. “Are you interested in wand lore?” 

“Not at all,” he said. “But I know a yew that it reminded me of.” 

Augusta’s keen gaze homed on his face and scanned it rapidly. “Do you now?” 

“They’ve been great protectors in Wiltshire for a long time, or so I’m told.” 

An image of the great yew swept through Hermione, and she was filled with the flashing green of its leaves. Its branches twisted in her mind, sheltering her thoughts, wild thoughts that galloped into her lungs, forcing her to draw tighter breaths. She turned to face Draco, who was watching Augusta carefully. 

The older witch was quietly observing her wand. She slipped it into her sleeve and tipped her chin up. 

“Call me Augusta,” she said, turning to go back across the room. Draco seemed to deflate slightly at Hermione’s side. Before Augusta reached her seat, she turned back to Draco and barked, “Oh, and use some of those Malfoy funds to make a generous donation to the Kernow Herbarium. My grandson has just been taken on there.” 

Draco gave an emphatic nod. The trembling of Theo’s suppressed laughter shook their chairs. 

࿐ ࿔*

“Eradicate all of the houses then, but that’s beside the point," one of the members emphasised. "Perfectly ordinary witches and wizards come from Slytherin all the time. It’s not some guarantee of evil."

“It certainly doesn’t help anything to have a house where that ideology festers,” another replied. 

“And you think it isn’t in Hufflepuff? Ravenclaw? I assure you, we had it in Ravenclaw,” Violet added. 

“Please,” Dr. Carter cut in, pipe in hand, “the houses are simply dormitories. I understand they build animosity, but this is not our topic at hand. We would be better to focus on safety nets for the children. Places and ways for them to seek help and ways out of bad situations. What is there for them? Where do they go if the worst happens with their families and they are turned out? There is nothing now.” 

“They have professors.” 

“Did we?” Draco said dryly. The room stilled. A muscle at the corner of his jaw ticked. “Do you think Dumbledore was available to all of his students equally? McGonagall? Snape?” There was some flutter of protest, but he leaned forward and pressed on. “When I…when I was at the worst point…I was sixteen. Look, I know I’m not so much older now, but,” he paused, pressing his hand into his chest in circles, “shouldn’t young people be protected from their worst impulses? I was told later that Dumbledore knew what I was about the entire time. Did he confront me? Did Snape forcibly stop me? Did anyone offer me a path out? No.” 

He breathed heavily in the silent room. 

“I know what I did. But I’ll tell you right now, I couldn’t imagine a different path. I couldn’t picture any alternative. And neither Snape nor Dumbledore offered one. Snape only said, ‘Let me help you.’ He never told me how he could.” 

His jaw moved back and forth almost in time with the palm at his sternum. Hermione’s breath felt caught in her throat. A great ball of injustice and anger for Harry, for herself… for Draco…was lodged there, immovable. 

“Dr. Carter says it’s like a cave—you think the shadows on the wall are real. They aren’t, but that’s all you’ve known. You can’t imagine the sky or grass or the fucking wider world because all you know is the cave. Why did they let me keep looking at the shadows? So, I agree with Dr. Carter: there need to be options so that these kids raised on blood purity dross know that it’s not merely a choice between their families or homelessness or worse.” 

࿐ ࿔*

Afterwards, as everyone was catching up and saying goodbyes for the evening, Hermione drifted from conversation to conversation. Always, her focus kept slipping back to Draco. He stood rather rigid near the wall, bent a little to listen to Violet. Something in his demeanour made her think he wasn’t quite pleased by what the witch was telling him. After a little while, she said goodbye and, parting, gave his left forearm an absent squeeze, which caused a reaction in him that looked a bit like he’d been electrocuted. 

Hermione meandered to him through the thinning crowd.

“I agree with you,” she leaned in and whispered. 

Draco faced her sharply, his left arm now tucked into his side. At his shoulder, a patterned thrush plucked a strawberry and darted away. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, looking more relaxed than he had at any point that evening. The room was dim enough, and the lighting warm enough that his hair took on a fiery quality at the edges like gold had been leafed over him. 

“I know you do,” he said. “You wrote as much in that letter for my trial.” 

She chewed her cheek for a moment, watching people depart through the Floo.  

“Listen, Granger.” She looked up at him. His shoulders shifted and his face was pinched, grey eyes focused on the wallpaper. “When you—that is to say—” He breathed out heavily, looking about the room. 

A current ran along her spine, jolting her into action. 

“Draco.” His gaze snapped to her. “Want to get out of here?” 

He stared at her for a moment. “Yes.” 

࿐ ࿔*

“It’s just up here, I swear.” 

“You said that on the last street.”

“Yes, but one can only be wrong so many times.” 

“God, Malfoy, you can be eternally wrong.” 

“Malfoy again?” 

“Annoying again.” 

“Aha!” He stopped and waved an arm triumphantly. “Told you.” 

Golden light poured out from a narrow pub door onto the path. Patrons stood with collars turned up, smoking and talking while glasses perched on the window ledge. Most seemed quite a bit older than the two of them were. 

“Shit, Malfoy—” 

“It’s Draco now; I found the pub.” 

“We’re still in robes!” She glared at him. “I’m not transfiguring these.” 

He sighed. “Have you got a dress on under there or something?” 

“Obviously.” 

“Right, so, just take them off and fold them over your arm like a coat. No one will think a thing.” 

The night air nipped at her skin where her fairly simple black dress left it exposed at the boat neck and three-quarter sleeves. She pulled her wand from her robe pocket and slipped it into one in her dress. Her skin pricked with the sense of being watched. She glanced up, but Draco was busy messing with the drape of his robes over his arm. 

“Ready?” She asked. He swept his hand out invitingly before her.  

A malty, stale beer scent hit her as they walked into the pub. At one end of the room, a fire burned, crackling loudly, throwing deep shadows across the floor. Here and there, small groups of people sat at tables carrying on conversations and sharing bowls of nuts.

An older fellow with knobby joints and sunken cheeks hobbled stiff-legged to the bar. “Two more lagers, Joe,” he called, rapping his knuckles on the wooden bar top with a genial smile. At the taps, a younger man, shorter and scruffier than Draco but likely not much older, nodded and pulled two pints. 

Hermione spotted a cosy-looking spot in the back corner, not far from the fire and made for it. Draco, noticing her purpose, stopped for the drinks. 

He returned with two lagers. 

“I somehow took you for someone with more of a cocktail taste.” She remarked while taking a sip. “Maybe wine.”

“Oh, I very much am, but you see, this is the first Muggle pub I ever came to and that man,” he pointed across the room to the older fellow she’d noticed before, “name of Martin—here most nights—ordered lagers. I was panicked enough being in a Muggle pub alone, so I just repeated what he said.” 

Hermione laughed, her cheeks warming. “So these are sentimental lagers?” 

“For auld lang syne, my jo.” 

“God, Draco, that’s too endearing for words.” 

“Isn’t it just,” he said, sipping his pint and grinning. 

“You know, the first time I tried pumpkin juice, I lied and told everyone around me I liked it.” 

“You don't like pumpkin juice?” 

She leaned across the table like she was telling him a secret. “It’s disgusting. I was nearly sick all over the table.” 

He threw his head back and laughed. “I bet everyone knew. Your feelings go dancing across your face—yes, just like that. Excellent glower, by the by. Turn that on Selwyn some time.” 

She leaned back, taking a deep drink before setting it down heavily. “Wouldn’t make a difference. I’m just a young upstart girl to him.” 

“Don’t be so modest: you’re a young upstart heroine with her own public clout. Much more threatening.” 

A loud crack came from the fire behind him. The sound of logs tumbling was followed by a shower of sparks flying into the room. She looked about, taking it in. Moss green walls with warm wainscoting and glowing sconces that looked like lanterns—several of which were slightly askew.

“You know,” she mused, “this doesn’t strike me as much of a Draco Malfoy sort of place.” 

He huffed a laugh. “And what is a ‘Draco Malfoy sort of place’ exactly?” He set his pint glass down with a clatter.

“More grand—posh.” 

“I strike you as grand and posh these days, do I?” He took another drink. It was almost all gone now. Her pulse kicked up. Would he want another round? 

“Yes and no.” The pins in her hair had started to ache. She raised her hands behind her head. “I doubt many foresters are out there wearing cashmere through the woods.” She summoned the pins into her waiting hand. 

“It’s just good sense,” he said, watching her movements. “Warm and soft on my…delicate…skin.” He lifted his glass and drained it as her hair cascaded about her shoulders and she shook it loose. 

“Merlin, finally,” she breathed, massaging her scalp with her fingers. 

“Hurt to keep it up?” His ring tapped against the empty glass. 

“Mmm, by the end of the day.” 

“Why not just wear it down? You always did in school.” 

She gave him a flat stare. “Yes, in school . I prefer to be a bit more professional at the Ministry, and besides—” but she clamped her mouth shut suddenly thinking better of it. 

“Besides what?” He leaned forward, elbow on the table, ring still tapping at the glass. 

A twisting began in her diaphragm, making it a little harder to breathe. The room was warm, and her cheeks felt warmer. She took a sip and realized it was the last. Draco reached across the table and slid her empty glass to himself. 

“Besides,” she continued slowly, “I like to think of myself—this is going to sound silly.” 

“Won’t know until you’ve said it.” He stopped tapping and angled fully toward her. “Go on.” 

“I think of my hair up as part of my Ministry persona—like I’m going incognito there. A different Hermione...from the one at home, I mean.” She was parched. Why was the drink all gone? 

He propped his chin on his hand. “Is that what all the grey's about?” 

“What? Well, I—yes.” 

He nodded slowly, eyes casting down to the table. “Clever. Costumes are powerful things." A pause. His thumb dragged absently along the rim of his glass. "That’s why I wear cashmere in the forest." He smirked. "Want another?” 

She bit the corner of her lip against a grin. “Go on then.” 

As he stood, she found herself watching him— really watching him. The easy way he moved—the sharp cut of his shoulders in the warm light. It wasn’t quite the same as in the forest. A sense of incongruity shifted through her as though something was out of joint—time, herself, the world as she knew it. Because here she was, having drinks and a lovely time with Draco Malfoy in a Muggle pub, and somehow, he seemed more at home here than in the wizarding world.

Chapter Text

A glowing filament slowly flickered out in one of the sconces as Hermione arrived early to the office. With a half-turn of her wand, she mended it, golden light blooming anew, steadier and more rich than the rest. A second charm scrubbed away the old soot that clung to the wall behind it.

Two charms. It took only two charms to erase the eye sore. Her grip tightened on her vinewood wand. The floor beneath her gave a weary creak.

Nothing was ever new here, after all.

She hung an outer cloak on a tarnished brass hook and turned toward her desk. The holly she’d placed in her bud vase the week before still looked freshly gathered—dark green leaves, firm and glossy, as though the forest had only just let them go. She reached to touch it, then stilled.

A large envelope sat in her mail basket, wax seal unbroken, thick with pomp and reeking of old-world elitism—everything that seemed to make up a certain set in this magical world she had awoken to at age eleven. With a thought and breath of magic, the wax seal broke neatly in half.  

The Wulfric Inn.

As with its Muggle counterparts—the Lincoln and Gray Inns of Court—Wulfric had existed well before the Statute of Secrecy; its members had been divided, arguing hotly for and against the separation. The old debate was still dusted off now and then, bandied about in strident tones that echoed through dark-panelled halls.

The invitation had come sooner than expected. Her fingers spread across her lips, hiding a mad grin. Alone in the legal offices, she danced a little at her desk.

The fastest junior counsel in office history to get an invitation. Ha! Take that, you warped-wood, stuffy old establishment. A curl sprang loose at the base of her neck—then another.

For the first time, she could walk those halls not as a pupil at moot court or public readings but as a member.

No longer merely striving: she could belong. She could slip in, consult a text or two in the library, and become part of the furniture.

࿐ ࿔*

“There’s a demiguise living in Draco’s forest.” 

“What?” Hermione blinked at Sorcha. Books lay scattered across the table between their lunch trays. The canteen hummed with the scrape of chairs and the drone of conversations spilling into the edges of the hour. 

“Mmhmm. He reported it this morning.” Sorcha picked up a paperback and turned it over. “Surprised you haven’t heard. You think I’ll like this one?” She tapped the cover of The Moon-Spinners.

“Yes, I think you might. And if not, it’s short.” Hermione sighed, rubbing at her temple. “Of course, I hadn’t heard—I’ve been utterly swamped.”

“That explains the ink smear on your cheek.” 

“What?”

“Here—better let me take these off your hands.” Sorcha gathered the stack of books. She examined one, then passed it back. “Give that to Eloise. She likes Egypt.” 

Hermione clicked her tongue, tucking The Crocodile on the Sandbank into the pocket of her robes. A loop and tap of her wand conjured a little mirror to vanish the ink smudge. “You let me walk around like that?” She mumbled, wrinkling her nose. 

“Also, in case you missed this—two of us are being sent to Draco’s forest to ‘study the environment for the centaurs,’” Sorcha added, lip curling.

Hermione felt herself go rigid. “That’s a horrible idea. You’re going?”

Sorcha nodded.

“It’s bloody infantilising.” 

“Of course it is,” Sorcha clipped. “Deeply insulting. It’s not going to warm them to us at all.” Her expression sharpened. “You know, it’s been nearly a hundred years since anyone even attempted a centaur study. And that one only looked at their borderlands—plus, it was actually collaborative with the herd. Which almost never happens.” She settled back. "I wish it wasn't me going, but then...better me since I'll just tromp around the forest in quiet protest and do fuck all." 

"And your report?" 

"Better be ready to protect me, Hermione." 

"Always," she said with a half-smile. Slipping her fingers into her pocket, she clenched her wand. “They will fight it.” 

“The centaurs?”

Hermione nodded.

“They will.” Sorcha absently thumbed at a corner of one of the books. 

“Has Draco pushed back about it?”  

“Course he has,” Sorcha replied. She pulled the tie out of her hair and transfigured it into a book strap that fit snugly around the lot. “What have they got you buried under anyway?” 

“Advising, guidelines…and then we have a few landowners trying to bypass the new laws. Implementation is gritty work, I suppose.” 

Sorcha snorted. “No one, and I mean no one, in this entire country, wants their property regulated.”

Hermione dropped her chin into her hand. “Why do we even have a Ministry? Everyone hates rules.”

“I have no idea. Something, something, something secrecy.” Sorcha reached across the table and squeezed Hermione’s wrist. “Anyway, will you tell me where you find all of these?” She tapped the stack of books.

“Oh, a secondhand bookshop I like. Not far from the Leaky.” 

“Take me this weekend?” 

“Saturday morning, then we get lunch?”

“Saturday afternoon,” Sorcha grinned. “and then we get drinks.”  

࿐ ࿔*

Outside, a few flurries danced, trying and failing to make a proper winter of the evening. Inside, parchment curled across the floor of Hermione’s flat like fallen leaves, rustling in little drifts around her. 

The new standards of the Magical Creatures on Private Lands Act were gradually rippling outward, and it was her task to undertake many of the situations where confusion abounded. 

Do I need to register the acromantulas if they only pass through my land? 

What if the grindylows refuse to leave—even when I asked nicely? 

No one ever needed to come check on the thestrals before…

Parchment littered the floor in curling arcs—notes, draft forms, case summaries passed down from the Beast Division... and more and more and more.

With a flourish of her wand, Hermione duplicated several of the forms, making minor adjustments with a few taps here and there. A pair of enchanted quills were enlisted to write letters to landowners regarding XXXX-level creatures on their properties. She charmed another to edit. 

The room hummed with the scratch of nibs and flutter of pages. Above it all, a yowling had begun, accompanied by the relentless clawing by a pair of kneazle-sized paws at the window. 

“Leave off, will you, Crooks!” She huffed. 

Crookshanks turned and blinked slowly at her, then angled his rump directly into her line of sight as he lifted his tail—charming view—and went back to his merciless ministrations. 

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake!” She cried, marching over to him. It was now the third time she’d removed him from the window. Dropped onto one of the chairs, he gave her a low growl and leapt down, sprinting back to his post by the window with a vengeance. 

Hermione flopped on the window seat, lying on her stomach in defeat while he repeated his agonised cries. 

The world below the window was a magical wonderland. Greenery and lights had been enchanted to float gracefully between buildings, hovering above Diagon Alley. Shoppers out hunting for perfect Christmas gifts shuffled up and down, usually in groups. She’d need to do her own shopping soon. Mum and Dad’s were easy—she'd had theirs planned for ages. But everyone else…

Flurries swirled intermittently around, catching on the boughs that hovered. One hit the glass in front of her. Its fractals spread wide for the briefest moment before curling inward and shrinking into a drop of water that quivered in suspense on the glass. The clouds seemed to stretch over London like a blanket pulled low overhead. Lights glowed against it in a soft orange that melded to a purple haze higher up. Off in the distance, the light faded away, and somewhere, the clouds blanketed the hills and dales that went rolling on into the night.

Perhaps snow swept all over now. Maybe Godric’s Hollow lay beneath a dusting—she shivered at the thought and fixed her eyes more firmly on a group laughing in the street just now.

Crookshanks’ relentless attack on the window paused as he looked at her for effect, then went on. Something tickled at the side of her hand. There, a sprig from the pine bough above had fallen loose and lay brushing against her wrist. She lifted it, holding it tight between her fingers. A strand of resin stretched, then snapped. Light flickered through its needles as she turned it, green catching gold.

Did flurries land in Draco’s forest?

Her pine boughs and bunches of holly hung about the room—pieces of his forest suspended around her. The sprig of mistletoe had been tucked prettily into the wreath that hung on her door downstairs. A woodsy scent pervaded the room. A breath in, and the forest swirled in her lungs. Did the aroma cling to him too—woven into his coat, caught behind his ears? A slow exhale and her breath fogged the glass, creating starbursts of light. 

Thoughtlessly, she brushed the little branch across her lips with a tingling touch. 

Was he there now, or did Draco stay in the forest only in daylight? She’d never asked. It had seemed strange to her that he knew the pub the other night. Somehow, though she wasn’t quite sure why, she’d begun to imagine him only in his forest. Surely, he did other things with his time, didn’t he? Not in Diagon Alley, of course, but even Theo had only recently grown comfortable with that—and he had nowhere near the notoriously recognisable features Draco had. 

Did he walk to the shops? Had he stepped out of Bloomsbury and wandered wider London? Had he ever found himself in the secondhand bookshop she liked on Charing Cross Road? 

Perhaps once, not long after she’d left, he had stepped in, hands thrust into the pockets of his peacoat. Maybe he thumbed through the books she had leafed over, pored over titles she had read. 

Crookshanks gave a plaintive mewl. 

Hermione rolled over to face him. Bright, yellow eyes studied her through orange, seething brows. 

“It’s too cold out, you know?” 

He blinked slowly and swished his bottle-brush tail. If the window were cracked, he’d skitter along the ledge to the roof a few feet over and make his mysterious way off. Memory of long, pale fingers stroking through Crookshanks’ fur seemed to catch in her mind. Not such a mystery any longer, really.

Crooks’ tail swish, swish, swished like a metronome. 

Leaning forward and hardly thinking of what she was about, Hermione gripped the handle on the window and gave it a turn. A blast of cold air invaded the room. Crookshanks swept out like a phantom into the night. 

She closed the window gently, sealing out the cold. The air carried frost and forest. Her breath slowed while her pulse beat as soft as footsteps on snow.

࿐ ࿔*

The old Rookwood estate had been systematically disassembled and sold off in parcels following the war. First, cursebreakers went in. The Ministry didn’t trust its safety and sent two Aurors with them. The Department of Mysteries trusted the spymaster even less and sent a whole team. 

One of Augustus Rookwood’s most unfortunate hobbies had been establishing a sort of magical menagerie for himself. It hadn’t worked in the least. The old idiot had spent far too much energy wrapped up in as much obvious symbolism as his favourite, the (dis)honourable D.L., Tom Riddle. 

Most creatures within couldn’t acclimate to the climate and were transported back to their regions of origin. But a herd of thestrals had been left with a small woodland to range in. The property had been sold to a private industry specialising in wand wood and potions ingredients owned by none other than—

“Mr. Selwyn, you were in the committee—”

“I am well aware of where I was and wasn’t,” Alberic Selwyn drawled with a tilt of his chin that nearly pressed into his narrow neck. “All I am saying is that there is hardly reason to send magizoologists out to reassess the thestrals.” 

“Yes, but that’s just the problem,” Hermione said, flipping through some of the parchments before her, “there is no record that the thestral herd has been assessed at all. Completely understandable, given how chaotic everything was two years ago—”

“Quite.” He ground his teeth. 

“—but now that we are aware, it is high time that a study be made to ensure their habitat—”

“Yes, yes, all right.”

She passed him the form for a signature. With a twist of his hand, a quill appeared. The “s” of Selwyn scratched and swooped ostentatiously across the parchment. Hermione bit the insides of her cheeks as she settled the papers amongst her other forms and rose to leave his office. 

“Thank you so much, Mr. Selwyn.” 

“A moment before you go,” he said as she turned for the door. The fine hairs along her arms bristled. She turned with a benign smile plastered on. 

Alberic steepled his fingers as he leaned back in his tall leather chair. The sconces burned brightly in his office, their light catching on enchanted glass snowflakes drifting along the ceiling. Rainbows refracted over the upper edges of the dark green walls while eerie shadows danced across the narrow planes of his face.

“I imagine you have great plans for your career,” he said. “Perhaps even aspire to a Wizengamot seat someday?” 

Hermione inclined her head lightly. Plans and dreams were best kept close—especially from a man like Selwyn. He’d see them glinting on the floor and rend them to pieces.

“You’ve done well with this Private Lands Act…” He pursed his lips and raised his brows in a very drawn-out expression that smeared all his features. “And become friends with the Malfoy boy, I hear.”

Boy, indeed. “It's helpful to become acquainted with the landowners.” 

"Hmm, quite." He tutted. “So much promise, yet some people never quite escape the weight of their upbringing.” 

“I believe Dr. Carter’s had a good influence on him,” Hermione defended gently, aiming for idle observation. 

“Graham? Yes, Graham is a brilliant man. Always drawn to…unconventional projects. Shame the Time Room ever lost him.” 

A spark of curiosity flared. She shifted the papers in her grip, tucking it away for later. 

Selwyn continued, “I do hope you will be strategic in the connections you cultivate. Such a promising career,” he sighed and looked toward the stack of files and papers in her hands. “It would be a shame for attention around your achievements to become…diverted.” 

Hermione pulled her shoulders back. “Thank you so much for the advice. I’ve always valued the kind of connections that hold regardless of where opinion blows.” 

He nodded, a cold smile playing about his lips. Anger simmered in her belly, leeching her energy. These weren’t the kind of games she’d ever preferred, and playing them—even briefly—was exhausting. Meanwhile, Selwyn was adept and seemed to be having a marvellous time. He could keep it.  

A rap of knuckles on the door frame drew both their attention. 

“Spencer, how are you?” Selwyn drawled. 

Spencer Montague’s dark, beady eyes cut to Hermione, then darted back to Selwyn. His moustache lifted as he spoke, “Hullo, old boy. Not interrupting, am I?” 

“Not at all, not at all; we were just finishing up here,” Selwyn said, nodding to Hermione. 

She gave him a tight, polite smile. “Thank you for your time.” And turned from the room. 

Montague shuffled in behind her, and she caught his first booming words—Merlin, the man couldn’t modulate his volume: “Getting everything sorted with that bloody forest, are you?”

A cold frisson raced up her spine. 

She glanced around the outer office. It was a smaller space with a few assistants at desks. Lining the walls were multiple doors leading to Wizengamot member offices. Not all were occupied daily. This close to the holidays, several were closed with notes and calendars charmed to their exteriors. No one was looking at her or seemed to notice her at all. She slipped a hand to her wand and, aiming it through her pocket with silent apologies to the poor pair currently at work in the room, tipped a precariously balanced stack of files to the floor. 

“Gods! No!” Both leapt up to deal with the mess, and Hermione pretended to look through the papers in her hand as though she’d lost something, scooting herself a little closer back to Selwyn’s door. 

“—applying pressure where we need.” 

“Hmph, think that if you want, Alberic, but what does a Malfoy care what happens to the ruddy centaurs?”

“Curiously enough, he seems to.” 

“And the girl? That one’s got teeth.” 

A mirthless chuckle quivered in the air. “She’s ambitious, but she’s still a Ministry junior. She won’t bite the hand that feeds her.”

Hermione gripped her wand until her fingertips tingled. The mess beside her was nearly cleared and one of the assistants glanced over with a puzzled expression. Gripping the papers tightly, she strode from the room, loose curls tickling the back of her neck.

࿐ ࿔*

“Did you know Dr. Carter used to work in the Time Room?” Hermione dipped a spoon into the sauce and tasted it, then winced. “You’re right—it does need the onions.”

The gentle burble of the pot filled the warm kitchen at Grimmauld Place, blending with the steady rhythm of Theo’s chopping. He paused and tipped the onions off the board into the pan with practised ease. 

“Obviously, I know that,” he said. “I was apprenticed to him, after all. Think I just did that without his credentials?” 

“Yes,” Harry said from the kitchen table. He sat in a haphazard sprawl that looked like gravity had given up. A book on Quidditch tactics was propped open before him while his wand, angled lazily from his hip, directed a miniature Seeker through a series of manoeuvres beside him.

Theo shot him a dark look. “All right, so I didn’t ask many questions at first—”

“Any questions,” Harry corrected.

“—but I did once we were working together. The Unspeakable business was a long time ago, apparently.” 

“That’s how come he’s familiar with so many of the older ones Malfoy groused about,” Harry added. His charm work slipped up, and the little seeker went careening into the wall with a crunch. “Bollocks.”  

Hermione hummed in thought, her stirs slowing to a halt. Huffing impatiently, Theo took the wooden spoon from her and nudged her with his hip until she moved. 

“Did the Unspeakables do anything to the forest?” She asked.

“Oh, sure,” Harry drawled, “they touched things, looked at others, and prodded some leaves. And naturally, that worked up Malfoy until he was a stroppy cow.” 

The sight of Draco with his hand pressed to his chest, and his face pinched in discomfort rose unbidden and lodged somewhere behind her ribs. Her heart folded around the image like a cocoon. 

“It was more than that,” Theo said. “They weren’t careful at all. More intent on ripping out whatever the magic was by brute force or something. Draco hardly did anything.” Harry snorted. Theo amended with a smirk, “Well, he didn’t do the worst of it, anyway.” 

“I heard the forest threw a few of them out,” she remarked—literally, in some cases. One headline had even included an illustration of a tree launching an Unspeakable like a sack of potatoes.

“And trapped some in roots,” Theo said. 

“Legs in rocks,” Harry added. 

“Oh, yeah, and that one who was so confused you thought he’d been Confunded.” 

“Tough to tell idiocy from charms sometimes.” 

“Your idiocy charms me every day.” 

“Thank you; I got a NEWT in it.” 

“You got exactly zero NEWTs, you flagrant celebrity hire,” Hermione smirked. 

Harry gasped and clutched his shirt. “Excuse you! I fought and technically died for this lot—least they could do was give me a sodding job.” 

“How has that been working for you?” She shot back with a grin. 

“At least as well as it’s working for you.”

“So,” Theo interjected, “when are you quitting to start that dream-whatever-it-is again?” 

Hermione dropped into a chair and massaged her scalp, loosening her curls. “Gods… I don’t know. Soon? Couple of years?” 

“Fuck, do you really need to be there that long?” Theo remarked. “I thought the Wooley Inn made you part of the Old Boy’s Club or something.”

“I know you know the proper name, Theo.” 

He hummed and gave a little half-shrug. She watched him move comfortably by the stove. He was all ease there now, the nervous energy gone. No more anxious knuckle cracks or furtive glances at Harry for guidance; quiet confidence and muscle memory moved him. 

The room’s cosiness seeped under her skin, relaxing her muscles. Warm wood of the cabinetry shot through with reds seemed to glow beneath the pendant lighting. New magical tools hung from wrought iron hooks near the stove, the pots clapping lightly against each other, trying to catch Theo’s attention while he cooked. 

Hermione felt a pull to be lighter, freer than she normally was. What if she didn’t have to don masks any more? What if steeling herself for the Ministry could be an odd occurrence here and there? It would be soon enough, but not yet. 

“Soon, I hope. Once I’ve got the funding… and a few more names in my pocket. Or achievements, maybe...” 

“I said I’d help, Hermione,” Harry tossed in. 

“I really appreciate that, Harry, and will absolutely be cashing in on that promise. But I need more connections than just you. I’m already the youngest one in every room!” 

“What about that old battle-axe, Augusta?” Theo added.

“Yes, or Andromeda?”

“And McGonagall. You know she’ll support you.” 

Harry tapped the little seeker with his wand, fixing his broken broom. “Not to mention Kingsley. You’ve got the bloody Minister of Magic wrapped around your finger.” 

“Hardly,” she scoffed, but an unburdening stole over her as each name's face rose to her mind. “But I need more inroads at the Ministry. Still… maybe I could leave sooner. I don’t know. I could get more things like the Private Lands Act through, you know?” 

“Yes, more laws that don’t really ruffle any feathers,” Theo said, beginning to plate up spaghetti for each of them. “Imagine how much more radical you could be if you were outside the Ministry and could gather public pressure behind you to shove down their throats.” 

Hermione drew her arms around herself. A leaden feeling slid down her throat, nestled in her stomach, and made her feel sluggish and tired. She was that driven, pushing witch, even now. A warm hand landed on her shoulder and squeezed. Hermione glanced back at Theo, a breath releasing from her lungs. He gave her a crooked smile. 

“How much do you think you’d need?” He asked. 

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. 

“Well, let’s start there, then, shall we? We’ll find you someone with a head for figures and get them on it. Timelines and all that.” 

“Theo, I—” 

“Shush. Please, sit back and let the remaining part of the Nott fortune help you.” He grinned. “This isn’t altruism. My father’s solicitor can send him a notice about it and absolutely do his head in. Better than a dementor, that.” 

The whoosh of the Floo sounded from the next room, followed by Ron’s yell, “Oi, where are you lot?” 

“Kitchen!” Hermione and Harry chimed together. 

Ron rounded the corner with a pink nose and cheeks, his scarf tucked tight around his neck, and his hair stuffed under a knit beanie. “Bloody hell…wind is brutal tonight.” He dropped a bag of parcels on the floor and began chucking gloves and the rest. “Didn’t miss food, did I?” 

“Not at all.” Harry beamed.

A winter nostalgia flowed in Hermione’s veins, suffused with all the magic of December's past spent draped over soft furniture, talking and being ridiculous.

They ate and talked until plates were clean, a bit of cake was had, and wine ran low. Gradually, they made their way to the sitting room, where they talked about Ginny’s career with the Harpies and debated the merits of season tickets for a box versus seats in the stands. Harry showed Hermione a new jinx he’d learned. Ron regaled them all with a story of chasing someone through New York without being noticed by Muggles. Theo complained about the portrait that wouldn’t stop flirting with him in the alchemy lab, though he had to give the debonair credit: the creep had some good ideas about alchemy. 

The Christmas tree twinkled merrily in the corner. A little fairy that had been trying very hard not to be seen—and which they were all pretending they hadn’t noticed—sneezed from deep inside. An absent “bless you” was said, followed by a little gasp from in the tree. 

Conversation wended around bends and curves like a meandering stream. It babbled on for a long time, neatly dodging difficult things that seemed to crop up like hazards trying to dam them up: names that caused hearts to stutter, dates that felt too heavy, places it was easier to simply skip over. 

“You live here! I don’t know why you’re going on with this rubbish about staying with George.” 

“After what I walked in on—”

“You surprised us! That’s hardly a standard.” 

Theo snorted. “Actually, very standard.” Harry’s face grew pink as he nudged Theo’s knee with his own.

Ron scrubbed his hands over his face. “Of course it is.” 

“Besides,” Harry pressed on, “this house is too big for only two people. It’s ridiculous! What do we even do with all these rooms?” 

“Throw wild parties, have a hundred hobbies, keep loads of pets, run dangerous experiments on floors we forget about…” Theo mused. 

“It just feels selfish,” Harry said, crossing his arms tightly. “There’s all this space—more than the Burrow—and I just…” he exhaled sharply, lips twisting. “I feel like a right idiot having all of this.” 

“Well, do something about it then,” Ron countered. “You’ve never liked it here.” 

“The whole place was just redone!” Theo yawped.

“That just makes it better for selling.” 

Theo paused, eyes flitted from Harry to the ceiling as if re-evaluating every beam and bannister. “That’s… actually not terrible,” he said, wonder curling at the edge of his voice.

With an indulgent smirk at Theo, Ron returned to Harry. “Look, Harry, you hate it here. Sirius hated it here. What are you doing? Why would you stay in this mausoleum to the Most Grim, Old House of Black?” 

A sudden yawn tore out of Hermione’s throat. She tried to cover it, but it was too late: three pairs of eyes looked at her fondly. A glance at her watch had her screaming a little inside. 

“I think I should probably…” she pointed at the Floo, rising from her chair.

Goodnights were wished, and Harry rose to give her a tight squeeze. “Lunch tomorrow? Good, I’ll stop by and grab you.” 

Floo fire spun around her in dizzying, vibrant greens. She closed her eyes as she landed in her flat. The quiet of the room pressed in with the weight of unfinished plans. But the greens of the flame lingered, and in her mind’s eye, bright leaves swayed unseasonably overhead. 

࿐ ࿔*

Papers lay scattered about—inefficient, disorganised, and maddening. She felt stifled. Stuck. Rising from the trestle table with a little 'back in a mo’ to Thomas, whose hand was thrust into his hair and gripping it like that might be the only way to keep his head on, Hermione made her way to the Ministry Archives. 

Her heels clicked along the creaking corridor out of the department. Passing the Being Division, raised voices carried. A particularly sharp, familiar voice caught her ear, and she slowed listening for him. 

“—plan exactly?” Draco’s biting tones rolled out through the cracked door. “I didn’t realise the Ministry was in the business of forcibly relocating centaurs.” 

Someone said something unintelligible to him, and she heard his loud, familiar scoff.  

“Mr. Malfoy, we are concerned both for the centaurs' welfare and our community's continued secrecy. That is imperative, as you are well aware.” 

“You don’t even know by what magic they were able to get all the way down here completely unseen and undetected,” Draco countered. “Surely that matters for—“

A scuff of shoes behind her made her straighten. “What are we listening to?” John murmured, stepping into view with sly grin.

Hermione jumped and turned, backing up a step. He raised an eyebrow and took in some of the conversation for a few seconds. 

“Off to the Archives?” He asked.

“Yes.” 

“I’ll walk with you.”

It was a quiet journey through the corridors and in the lift. When they finally reached the correct floor, the gate shuddered as it opened, spilling light from the lift into the dim, empty corridor that stretched out before them. A few memos drifted out above them and fluttered on ahead. 

With no one else around, John’s long stride finally slowed, and he spoke, “This is rough work. You’re holding your own, you know?”

She glanced up. “Is this a remark of surprise?”

“Not at all.” He grinned. “But you've managed more than most, starting out.” His shoulders lifted and dropped heavily with a slow exhale that seemed to be absorbed into the passage walls. “Though, I’m not sure the Ministry's the right cage for someone who actually gives a damn.”

There was a buzzing in the corridor that increased each time they passed one of the dim, recessed lights. Hermione searched his face. “You care, John. It’s why we’re all here.” 

“First off, you know it isn’t. Don’t pretend to be naive. Second,” he stopped and turned to her, plunging his hands into his trouser pockets. His crisp robes draped around him in long billows. “You want to be an advocate for creature rights, don’t you?” 

“Well, I—” His look was hard, penetrating. She drew herself up straighter. “Yes, I do.” 

A smile curved his lips. “Good. So,” he started walking again, “you won’t stay here, then. But, Hermione, I mean this truly as a friend: be careful about how obvious you make that. All right?” 

“I’m doing my best.” 

“You’re not one for subterfuge,” he observed. She curled her fingers, gripping her embroidered cuffs. The swish of her robes brushed reassuringly at her calves as she walked. “Unabashedly yourself is a good thing. That’s not what I mean.” 

He reached for the door handle to the archives. Big, brass handles that curved down like bent wands, their middles worn to a shine from being gripped so many times over the years. Pulling the door open and gesturing for her to enter, he added, “And Malfoy—well. Just be aware of what people might see, yeah? Even if it’s not what’s there.” 

Her head snapped back to him, a fire licking at her diaphragm. “Warning me off, are you?” She hissed. 

“On the contrary,” he said and started to whistle, stuffing his hands in his pockets.  

The fire flickered into a cold burn that sank like ice through her. Her jaw clenched, and she strode on ahead into the archives.

Back in the legal offices, Hermione’s chin rested on her left hand while her right twirled the fountain pen over the parchments. Regulations…old laws…old cases… ancient. She would need a dictionary.

The office door was propped open, swaying gently each time an urgent memo zipped past. Down the corridor, Hermione watched people come and go—staff darting between the many rooms that made up the Ministry’s vast, subterranean maze. It was a warren of departments within departments.

From one emerged a ghost weeping a fountain of translucent tears. A witch walked alongside, keeping up a pretence of trying to pat their back consolingly. From another, a trio of goblins stormed out, gesturing forcefully. From the last, several Wizengamot members, Percy, Jude, Penelope, and Mr. Wexford spilt out, stopping almost immediately in several smaller groups as they continued their various conversations. Jude and Wexford returned shortly after, while Penelope lingered with Percy. 

Then, as though he had been waiting for everyone to leave and had finally given up, Draco emerged behind them. 

Hermione’s pen stilled. 

He was rigid and tense, with an edge that carried into his expression. A magenta colour stained his neck—oh, he was not pleased. With two short movements, he brushed the light strands of hair from his forehead and turned, catching her blatant stare. 

Everything went silent between them. Light and color all around collapsed to a tunnel, her at one end, him at the other. He was still—carved from marble—watching her. Then her eyebrows, without consulting her brain once , flicked up together at him. 

Slowly, a devilish grin spread across his face. His glittering gaze held hers for a beat before he turned away and strode out. 

Hermione looked back across the table and, unfortunately, met John’s wide-eyed stare. He was suppressing a laugh. He flicked his brows up mockingly at her, eyes sparkling. 

She scowled fiercely and looked down at the page in front of her. Twin pricks of heat bloomed on her cheeks, and she propped her hand over her forehead to shield him from her view. 

The quiet snicker of his laughs reached her anyway.  

࿐ ࿔*

Floo fire diminished, and she was home. The comforts of her life surrounded her. She flicked her wand to her right, milk flew from the fridge, and with the commotion of several items hopping to it, a pot started rattling on the hob in her kitchen. With a swish of her left hand, the curtains drew back on the window. She toed off her shoes and hung the unused outer robes on a hook by the front door. Then off she went, past the kitchen into her bedroom to change and freshen up. 

She didn’t bother calling for Crookshanks or wondering where he was. She knew. And wasn’t that strange? A splash of cold water on her face knocked any further rumination on that clean out of her. She summoned the pins from her hair and let them tink, tink, tink into their dish by the sink. 

Curled up in one of her chairs, reading, a knit blanket stretched over her legs, and a cup of cocoa hovered beside her. She waited and pretended she wasn’t. 

Less than an hour later, with a whoosh like the roar of wind through an open door, the room flared bright green. Draco stepped out of the flames, holding an armful of Crookshanks and a scowl dragging at his mouth. He stared at her, gaze roving over where she sat, no doubt taking in her grin, and pressed his lips into a line. 

“You did this on purpose,” he accused, setting Crookshanks on the floor. 

“Not really,” she said, flicking her wand toward the kitchen. A steaming cup of cocoa drifted out and toward him. Draco arched a single, ashy brow as he followed the mug’s progress. 

“The evidence,” he said, plucking the cup from the air, “would suggest otherwise.” 

Taking a sip of her own cocoa, warmth pooled in Hermione’s belly as she watched him stand there. He looked undecided, fingers fidgeting around the mug. She decided to prod.

“Care to sit?” 

He leaned forward as though he might move, then pursed his lips and looked about the room, taking in the holly and pine boughs she’d hung. With a resigned exhale, he settled in the free chair. 

Staring into the cocoa as though in deep thought, he asked, “Is there something in this?” 

“What? No!” 

“Reasonable question since this was a part of my entrapment.” 

“Entrapment…more like Crooks planned it. He was a complete arse last evening, pawing and howling at the window…and I had so much work to do.”

“So you sicced him on me.” He took a sip. “As if I don’t have enough to worry about.” His legs stretched out, ankles crossed, and he scowled down at Crookshanks, who was playing with a bit of pine that had fallen to the floor.  “You should know that he didn’t show up until this afternoon, apparently—Theo let him in. No idea where he’d been before that.” 

“Adventures, I suppose.” 

He gave a little shrug and gingerly sipped the cocoa. She shifted in her chair. This was what she’d hoped for, deep down, after all. Was the mood of a good conversation repeatable? 

He held a drink, and it was a Friday again. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

“I heard about the environment study—Sorcha told me.” 

Draco’s knuckles went white around the mug handle. His lip curled. “Fucking disgraceful. They acted like they wanted to work this all out with Aegis: negotiations, liaisons, meetings, whatever the fuck. But sending magizoologists to fucking study them like—like specimens?” His fist clenched on the armrest. 

“It will only be more study of the forest, right?” There wasn’t any way Sorcha would violate the centaurs like that, Hermione hoped—no, she knew.

He glowered. “I know you agree with me about this—don’t try to soften it. Niht is furious, and honestly, I can’t blame him. There are more now, agreeing with Niht. The trees are helping, at least, thank fuck.” 

“Helping?” She imagined a lurching oak dragging its roots across the forest. “How?” 

“Hiding them, moving them...I don’t know fully. I’m trying to…” he paused and ground his jaw, his eyes squeezed shut. “I’m trying to stay a little in the dark about it.” 

“So the Ministry can’t question you?” 

His eyes flew open, hand moving to his chest where he pressed circles. “What? No. Because they want privacy, Granger. The absolute least I can do is give it to them.” 

Her lips parted, and it felt like the wind had been slightly knocked out of her. Draco was breathing a little heavier. One hand gripped his mug of cocoa; the other was pressed into his sternum like always. His eyes drifted up to the boughs and holly draped around the edges of her room. She’d hung them from bookshelf corners and the moulding on the wall. Sticking charms and some conjured ribbons pinned them in place. The lines of his face softened as he took them in.  

“I can’t win here,” he said wearily. “I'm fighting the Ministry every step of the way and seeming like this difficult person, ‘Oh, that Draco Malfoy, wasn’t it such a mistake to keep him out of Azkaban where he really ought to be?’” His tone was snide and mocking. “Everyone thinks it. I can’t go anywhere without knowing that. Well...anywhere magical.” His face pinched tight with some inward twist of pain. “But if I don’t fight them. If I capitulate and just let them have at it…then I’ve let everything else down, including myself. And they’ll still think all that anyway.” The ball of his hand made circle after circle. 

At his feet, Crookshanks crept closer and brushed against his leg, lifting a paw to place on his shin. Hermione’s breaths felt caught in her throat. 

“Dr. Carter asked me a long time ago,” he went on, reaching down to run a hand over Crookshank’s head, “who is Draco without the Malfoy.” 

Hermione felt on the edge of a precipice as he spoke. 

“I suppose this is who I am.” 

And then she tipped over the ledge and fell into some unknown new place. Some different understanding. She was in freefall. Her heart stuttered, then started again, watching while Draco Malfoy stroked Crookshanks’ chin.

“Draco,” she said softly. His head lifted, gaze seeking. “You’re in the right.”

He stilled utterly, shoulders sagging down deeply until his whole body folded a little as though he’d laid down a heavy burden he had carried for a great many miles. 

You’re doing what’s right,” she said, leaning forward. “I overheard Selwyn with Montague the other day. They’re trying to pressure you with centaurs, I think.” 

A huff of laughter burst from him. “I know.” He drank the last of his cocoa and set the mug on the little table between them, pushing a few books out of the way for space. “It won’t work.” 

“It might. What if they mistreat them in order to get at you?” Her fingers were squeezing the armrest tight as she angled toward him. 

His nostrils flared. “I’m not—I won’t—” He ground his jaw. “I think this blatantly disrespectful way they’re pretending to negotiate is mistreatment.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m just worried.” 

“Then do whatever you can to speak up for them…and the trees too. Fuck’s sake, they may as well be creatures. They move—they… Merlin…” He pressed his thumb into his sternum. “There’s this way it feels. I can’t describe it exactly, but…it’s not quiet, do you know what I mean?” 

“I think so,” she chewed her cheek in thought. “You mean it seems to have a will—senses—of its own.” 

“Yes, only I don’t know what constitutes sentience. Laurie has implied that it has it, but she’s also talked about that being the magic.” His eyes moved behind pink lids. “I feel it has it.”  

“What do you have her doing in there all day now that the study is over?” Hermione had been wondering since they’d gathered Yule trimmings. Something about the way Draco talked to Laurie, it was like she was simply a part of the forest as much as any of the trees were. 

“Trying to break the spell and find Merlin, of course,” he said with such lightness that his mouth quirked up at the corner. 

“Ah, yes, of course.”

Draco angled toward her, propping his elbow on the back of the chair, brow pinched slightly. A fine line appeared on his forehead when he looked like this. She found herself paying attention to it, watching the way his face moved as thoughts drifted and fluttered in his mind. The action of them was writ in his countenance. It was all subtlety and minutiae. A study in the inner workings of a mind that pondered much and tried very hard to reveal little if he could help it… Which, it seemed, often he couldn’t. 

He plucked at his trouser leg with the other hand. “They’re both very taken with old lore.” 

The firelight swirled around them, casting deep shadows about the room. Hermione tipped her head back, her curls cascading about her shoulders and getting caught a little between the chair and her back. She reached her arms up and stretched wide. 

Draco inhaled sharply. As she sat back up, she glanced at him. His fingers drummed along the back of the chair, a light pink staining his neck as he glanced about the room with a look of deep thought. 

Her stomach grumbled loudly, and he smirked at her. 

“Hungry, Granger?” 

“I could make us something.”

“You already made cocoa.”

She rolled her eyes. “One cannot live on chocolate alone.” 

“That’s never been proven.” 

“We could order in.” 

He stilled, chin tilted down, looking at Crookshanks by his legs. “We could?” 

“If you’d care to stay, of course. You don’t have to. It’s only, I wouldn’t mind discussing this Merlin business a little further and—”

“All right.” 

She glanced up. “All right?” 

He nodded. “Where do you normally order?” 

“I—the Leaky. Is that fine?” 

“Perfectly adequate.”  

“Perfect.” She squeezed her eyes shut—gods, not repeating him. “I’ll just—I have a menu pinned in the kitchen…” 

She dashed past him and into the warmth of her little kitchen, dropping her mug into the sink. The creak of his chair and a few shuffled footsteps sounded behind her. Scooping up the menu, she slid her finger over it and turned to go back.

“I can just Floo ca—Draco?” 

He was standing by a bookshelf, one hand gripping the wood, another his chest. His breaths seemed heavy, ragged. He lifted his face, and silver eyes pierced her. 

“I—I have to go.” 

“Why? What’s wrong?” She edged closer, scanning him. 

“I don’t know.” His brow furrowed deeply. “Something’s wrong." His fingers flexed over his sternum. "I’m—I’m needed elsewhere.” 

He drew himself up to his full height and pulled out his wand. 

“You haven’t got a cloak,” she said and felt rather silly for it. “Will you—you'll be all right, won't you?”

He paused, his face suddenly open in naked surprise. Then a shift slid over him—a softening, a settling. His brows knit together, and he studied her. 

“I’ll try.”

She gave a firm nod, casting about for purchase. “Tomorrow morning—I’m going to a bookshop with Sorcha. You should come... if you want, I mean—it’s 72 Charing Cross Road. One o’clock.”

He met her eyes. “Granger…”

Hermione shrugged, trying to play off the current she could feel winding through her limbs. “I’ll be there. And if you’re fine—then you will be too.” She swallowed. “If you want, that is, of course.” 

His hand slid from his chest and brushed against hers so softly, she might have imagined it. “I’ll be fine, Granger.” 

"If you're not there, I'll hunt you down in St. Mungo's."

His lips quirked, an eyebrow raised. The lightest brush against her knuckles was there again, pressing. A finger slipped between hers, then pulled away. 

And he was gone. The scent of damp earth and a mineral tang lingered behind him. 

Chapter Text

Cold, steel grey skies draped London with a uniform soft white. A sharp breeze hurried people on the path as Hermione walked briskly toward the second-hand bookshop. Her hands were thrust in her pockets—partly against the cold and partly to keep her watch out of her view. 

Don’t worry about him. Try to trust. 

With a huff, she wrenched her hand from her pocket and glanced at the time. 

Not even a quarter til. There was time. Plenty of time. And, anyhow, he was punctual, wasn’t he? 

The flurry of Christmas shopping hummed about the city. Her shoes clipped along the pavement. A bus rumbled by. Several tourists jostled into her as they stopped suddenly and turned in the middle of the path, ploughing in a new direction with Confunded looks on their faces. Hermione was swept briefly into their midst as they thoughtlessly shoved and pressed. Finally, with a squeeze through, she burst to the other side. 

And there he was. 

Pale, wind-swept hair fluttered as Draco Malfoy paced restlessly before the second-hand bookshop. He looked exhausted and yet electrified with a manic energy. Four steps forward, pivot, fingers pinching his lower lip; five back, pivot, eyes lifting and…

A wild grin broke across his face. He had a mad look halfway between the sort of evil glee he wore as a boy and something much more adult—something rarer. She moved toward him with a matching smile. 

“You’re all right then,” she breathed. 

“If being exhausted beyond all reason is all right, then I s’pose I am.” His smile didn’t falter as he looked down at her. “You’re early.” 

“So are you.” 

A brow arched. “Worried about me, Granger?” 

“Of course I was. Don’t be a prat.” She glanced down at her shoes, her curls falling around her cheeks. “You attract injury, Malfoy.” 

“Malfoy again?” He tsked. “And here I thought being in fine health would be a positive.” 

She looked up at him and scrunched her nose. A giddy fluttering was roving around her ribs, catching on her lungs with every inhale. Yes, he was fine. Good. But dark circles hung beneath his eyes. And shadows seemed to be trying to carve him up around the sharper edges of himself. His coat was pulled tight, nose and jaw a little red from the chill. And his gaze never wavered from her, flitting over her hair and hat and cataloguing her in some way she couldn’t quite understand. 

“What happened that called you last night?” 

“Things… wondrous things.” His face glowed, and then a scowl marred it. “And then some fuck awful things that I’m not really sure how to handle. Listen, Granger, you can’t—” 

His eyes shifted to something over her shoulder. 

“Hello, Sorcha,” he said, suddenly straightening more. It was as though a whole other Draco had snapped into place. The Draco of their meetings at the Ministry. The one who attempted to rein in his temper when it flared and worked to be a placid presence. 

Hermione turned. “Sorcha, hi!” 

“Hiya, Hermione. Draco. Getting started without me, were you?” Sorcha asked, elbowing her lightly. 

“Hardly, just waiting for you, actually,” Hermione said. “Hope you don’t mind Draco tagging along?” 

“Course not. But Draco, and I mean this seriously, if there’s a good-looking detective novel, don’t even think about snagging it. I claim them all carte blanche right now.” 

He held up both of his hands in mock surrender. 

The bookshop was crowded with last-minute shoppers. Christmas music played softly beneath the buzz of conversation and turning pages. A vanilla aroma of old book glue lingered in the air.

The minute hand on her watch slipped too quickly around. Cold air curled beneath the shelves and around the books. A small pile grew between Hermione and Sorcha on the floor where the latter sat. Draco, who had plucked a slim volume from Sorcha’s pile, leaned against a shelf, bouncing his foot and trying to hide his increasingly large yawns. 

“…but it’s so much more than that, I promise you. Mystery and then some.” 

“And then some romance?” Sorcha challenged. Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes. Sorcha tutted, shaking her head. “That was my whole problem with Sherlock Holmes, and you know it.” 

“No, there’s no romance, but there’s more to it than on the surface, and the mystery is quite good.” 

“It better be if it’s that thick. This is a tome, Hermione.” Sorcha hefted The Name of the Rose like a brick.

“You know she prefers those.” Draco’s cool voice slid between them. “The weightier the better, I’m sure.” 

Hermione sighed and plucked a title she’d been eying from the shelf. “That’s such a tired caricature of me, it isn’t even funny anymore, Malfoy.” 

His lips quirked at the corner. “And here I thought you were recommending an epic. Must’ve been seeing things.” 

“You were. You have that tendency.” And then, because she knew it would probably needle him, she added, “Just like Harry.” 

The squawk that erupted from Draco’s mouth sizzled in her chest like a firework. He straightened himself, his hands in motion, ready to emphasise whatever point he was about to make regarding Harry, when suddenly it all fizzled out as he searched her face. He scowled, his lips turning down. “Oh, shut up, Granger.” 

“Blimey, the pair of you,” Sorcha muttered, glancing between them. 

Hermione retreated a half step back, heat blooming in her cheeks. She began fussing with the books in her hand like they needed sorting. 

Draco cleared his throat. “Granger, read this.” He held the little volume he’d been reading out for her. One finger tapped at a particular paragraph. 

“Starting where?” She asked, taking the book from him.

“Just… here.” His index finger touched the page lightly, then slid away, crossing ever-so-briefly over her thumb. Every nerve there lit like a match and burned with awareness. 

Her eyes flashed to the top of the page. “The Living Mountain,” she read aloud.

“Ooh, that’s the one you grabbed, eh?” Sorcha remarked from the floor. “Even just a few paragraphs, and I can tell this Shepherd woman gets it. Have you been to the Cairngorms?” 

Mum in front of her on a foggy path, dad behind, his breath puffing into the morning mist. The light shifted, and the clouds moved off from one side. A quick look, little witch! And the shadowy form of a Brocken spectre walked along the mountain beside her. 

“Years ago, on summer hols,” Hermione said softly. 

Her fingers brushed the pebbled texture of the paper before her. 

“So you know how wild they are. Had an assignment there not long ago, and it was quite something. Had to make an escape from a sudden storm, but otherwise…” Sorcha’s voice faded into the background as Hermione’s mind tripped along the lines beneath her fingers that Draco had pointed to:

“So simply to look on anything, such as a mountain, with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain of being in the vastness of non-being. Man has no other reason for his existence.”

Leaves in the greenwood of the forest moved before her eyes. The oak grove that wasn’t, and yet impossibly became when it decided to when the trees decided to gather. A shock of pale hair, soft as feathers, catching the light for a moment before disappearing into the shadows. 

“…and there’s this wildness to those mountains too,” Sorcha was saying. “Of course… makes sense that the acromantulas enjoy scrabbling out of the Forbidden Forest up them.” 

“Acromantulas? Really?” Hermione closed the book, her finger crooked between the pages. Her eyes lifted to Draco. He was studying her guardedly, his chin dipping low, letting his face soften.  

“Don’t tell me they frighten you,” Sorcha bemoaned. “They’re just big spiders.” 

Holding Draco’s gaze, Hermione’s lips twitched into a little half grin. He glanced down at Sorcha and back to her with a flick of his brows. You simply can’t expect magizoologists to think like everyone else. 

“Are you getting it?” Hermione asked instead, eyes still fixed on Draco. 

“Not sure,” Sorcha replied, shifting some books in her pile. “Why, want to borrow it already?” 

“Mind if I take it?” Draco asked, hesitation lingering on the edges of his words.  

“Might as well.” Sorcha shrugged, surveying her pile. “I’ve probably overdone it.”  

Hermione passed the little volume back to Draco, who took it—all of his slender fingers brushing against her hand as he did. 

There was a strange constriction near her diaphragm—a flicker of tension that climbed her ribs and left her oddly breathless. The room felt too warm, too narrow. She watched him peel himself from the shelf and yawn again, head bowed over the book. His hair, still wind-tossed, caught against the raised collar of his coat. She stood still, every instinct crowding forward, and not one of them reasonable.

With a slight stretch of his shoulders, Draco stepped around the corner to make his way to the till. Hermione bit her lip and looked down as he moved out of sight. 

“Do not just stand there like an idiot,” Sorcha hissed through her teeth. “Take your books and go follow him.” 

“What if he’s ready to leave?” Hermione protested. “I thought we were getting drinks?” 

“Good Godric, he’s just going to buy it.” Sorcha ran her hand down her face. She looked up at Hermione with a pitying sort of sigh. “We’ll get drinks later, alright? Eight at the Leaky.” 

Hermione nodded and moved to follow him. 

“Wait!” Sorcha whispered loudly.

“What?”

The witch wore a cheeky grin. “You look well fit.” 

Hermione pressed her lips together and turned away quickly, biting back a smile. 

Draco stood ramrod straight by the till. She watched as he fished out some notes and handed them across without hesitation, worry, or confusion. Smoothly, he slipped the book into his coat pocket and turned, catching her eye as she brushed by him to pay for her own. 

Her gaze kept slipping to him while her books were rung up. 

“Are you quite certain your shelves can take the added weight?” Draco asked, nodding down to her little stack.

A sudden image flashed before her eyes of her bookshelves taking on a weight she hadn’t considered before. She cleared her throat, heat rising in her cheeks. 

“It’s only four—and all paperbacks. Besides, I’ll probably give them away after.” 

“What? Hermione Granger doesn’t jealously guard her hoard of books?” His eyes glittered. 

“I’m not a dragon.” 

He clicked his tongue and grinned. While she paid, Draco’s glance flitted to the windows, scanning them while a little crease grew between his brows. As always, it seemed, his hand began to rise to his chest, rubbing soothing circles. 

Taking her books, she stepped closer to him.  

He looked down, searching her for a moment. “Can we walk a little?”

She nodded. His attention flickered toward the shelves Sorcha had last been ensconced behind. “Do you need to—”

Hermione mumbled a reply and shuffled over to Sorcha, who gave her a pointed look.

“I heard the whole thing,” Sorcha whispered. “Leaky. Eight.”  

Outside, Hermione tucked her books into a canvas tote bag she had folded into her pocket. With a slight twist and tap of her finger, the bag became as light as air. 

“Ah, ah, ah, Granger,” Draco murmured, his breath hot against her ear, “right out where Muggles can see?”

She turned and stuck out her tongue. He was so close, his next breath ghosted along her cheek. A startled laugh broke from him, illuminating his tired face. 

Their hands were stuffed into pockets, arms pushed tight against their sides. Draco wove deftly through the sea of people with the kind of grace afforded to slim men of a certain height. Not particularly tall, perhaps, but tall enough—elegant enough. His shoulders were tight to him, making up for the lack of a scarf about his neck. Hermione lifted her palm and, with a moment’s hesitation, brushed three fingers along his back, sending a warming charm burrowing into his coat. Draco’s spine snapped straight with her touch. 

“Not necessary,” he said through his teeth, but his shoulders had unbunched. 

“Bunched up like that, it’s a wonder you could hear a thing.” 

Draco grunted, the ghost of an old sneer curling his lip. A gust swept through, lifting his hair, which caught the light with a shine. Hermione glanced away, her cheeks no longer cold at all. 

“Can we get wherever we’re going a bit slower, please?” she asked, skipping a step to keep up with his pace. 

Draco glanced down at her, his lips parting. He tossed his hair from his forehead. His stride shortened. “Your legs are too short, Granger.” 

“They’re perfect, actually, thanks for noticing,” Hermione said, nudging up alongside him. He drew in a shuddering yawn and shook his head a bit. 

“So, last night,” he began. Hermione angled just a little closer to him. The wool of their coat sleeves brushed against each other with a swish, swish, swish. “It’s all rather extraordinary, and I might be too tired to make heads or tales of it yet, but before any of that, I need to ask you something.” He turned to face her as they walked, his expression grave. “Can you promise not to share anything I tell you with your colleagues—with anyone—at the Ministry?” 

Hermione chewed her lip. “Is it that serious? Draco, I don’t want—”

“It’s nothing harmful. Does that help?” 

She scanned his face carefully. A cold breeze tossed a lock of curls across her lips, his eyes following it. 

“Fine. Yes, I promise.” 

A flash of a grin ghosted the corner of his lips. He faced forward, continuing, “Good. Then hear me out before you shove in with any questions. No, don’t even start with that now—hold on. 

“Last night, I was called away, as you recall, and I know I didn’t explain, but I hardly knew what to make of the feeling myself. It wasn’t like normal…Merlin, not that any of this is normal…at any rate, it wasn’t like I’m used to when there’s a sense of being needed in the forest. No, hold on. I said no questions. But to clarify: with you—I mean, when you were stuck in that tree—that was more typical of what I feel; I had a sense of what had happened—I knew you were there—and there was a pull, but that was all.” 

It was hard to keep her eyes on the path. Afternoon light filtered through the clouds in a hazy winter glow. Draco’s hands were in constant motion as he talked. The signet ring on his little finger caught glints in the Christmas lights from time to time. 

“But last night,” he said, a crease forming between his brows, “it was like this desperate insistence begging for help. I don’t know how to explain it, Granger. Even still. When I got there, everything was in a fucking uproar. Roots were shredding out of the ground, branches shaking, leaves everywhere—fucking disaster. And Buckbeak wasn’t having any of it! He was shrieking at me from the moment I got there.” 

Gods, but she wanted to ask about that! She started to open her mouth, but Draco waved a hand before her. 

“Just wait, will you?” He said. They came to a busy intersection and stopped to wait while traffic crossed before them. “Then I went to figure out what in the name of Merlin had happened to cause it all and…and it was unbelievable.” 

The light turned, and a firm grip clutched her elbow and moved her forward. They crossed the street quickly, Draco’s hand bracing her, startling all thoughts right out of her. For a moment, Hermione wondered if this was what meditation felt like: a complete blanking of the mind. 

“The centaurs started this ritual,” he said, dropping her elbow as they reached the other path and turned. “Rare ritual, apparently. Only use it when they find somewhere they want to live.” 

“Like claiming the land?” She asked. His lips pressed into a thin, white line as he stared at her. She bit the corner of her lip and mouthed ‘sorry.’

“Not a claiming. That’s too…that sort of implies hierarchy, doesn’t it? More like a homecoming ritual. Home finding? That.” 

His heels clipped along the pavement. She wondered briefly where she was following him to. At this rate, they’d be at his front door in no time. Was he taking her back to the house with him? Her heart matched the quick rhythm of his footsteps. 

“All of this should have been perfectly alright. The forest fucking wants them there. They should have all been able to have some great bloody orgy together, loving each other and the trees and been done. But no.” He sighed roughly. “Whatever enchantment is on the forest—the one that hid it for so long—that won’t let them complete the ritual. Maddening.” 

He fell silent for a moment. The path was wider here, and they could have walked a little further apart, but still the brush of their arms anchored her. She waited a beat, wondering if he was done now. 

Draco slowed and turned to face her. His expression sparked with the same energy she’d seen when she first spotted him that day. He practically glowed with it. “There’s a reason they needed to perform the ritual now and didn’t wait for everything to be sorted. Eirene is pregnant.” 

“What?!” Hermione stared at him, flabbergasted. “But—but that’s—”

“Rare. Gods, it’s so rare, Hermione.” She jolted at her name on his smiling lips. He radiated excitement. Incandescent. “That’s why they came,” he emphasised, his open hands tensing before her. “They wanted this new home for this new life.” 

“Oh my god,” Hermione murmured, pressing her hands to the sides of her face, “then…do you think that’s why Niht’s so—like he is?” 

“Fuck, I hadn’t thought about that, but yes, of course that’s why: he’s protective.” 

“Bloody hell, Draco!” 

He beamed. “I know. And to think…on Malfoy land.” He threw back his head and laughed. It was so rich and golden. Hermione could feel it pumping through her veins. “What I wouldn’t give to see every old fucking ancestor’s portrait now,” he crowed. “Sweet Merlin! Father would throw a fucking fit.” He shook his head, laughing once, a little breathless. “Mother’ll never set foot in the place again.” He swallowed and looked at her.

Hermione watched him, windblown, half mad with it. Her nerves seemed to light with it all at once. The thought blazed through her how very much she liked seeing him like this. His energy was summoning her forward. 

She took a step closer. 

“Fucking hell, Hermione, they’re changing everything.”

࿐ ࿔*

They rambled on through the streets. At a cafe, they stopped for tea and biscuits, sequestered at a little table by the window. Draco probed about Muggle primary school. Did she have friends she kept in contact with? No. Did he? And then she screamed internally at the inanity of her question. 

Draco scoffed. “I mean, you’ve met everyone I ever knew.” 

She stared into her tea, running her finger around the rim of her cup, and carefully asked, “Have you stayed in touch with Goyle?” 

Draco set his cup down and stared out the window with a pinched expression. “No… He did write once. I’d sent him a letter.” He rubbed a finger along his taut lower lip. “It wasn’t a good reply. Goyle never did get the hang of charms, you know.” 

“Oh, Godric, no,” Hermione groaned, biting her lip. 

“Yes, well, it takes a precise charm to make a howler work properly.” He bit the insides of his cheeks. “So what reached me was this quivering red envelope that kind of hiccoughed smoke and just sort of shook like one of those fuck-stupid tiny dogs—have you ever seen those?” 

She nodded, laughing. 

“Yeah, well, that’s what Goyle sent: the trembling tiny dog version of a howler.” 

“Did it yell?” 

“Unintelligible. Too badly spelt in every way.” 

“Oh, poor Goyle!” 

“‘Poor Goyle?’” He yawped. “Fuck off. He’s fine. Fled to his aunt’s in Belgium and then biffed it to Argentina. He’s lost no money, no assets besides that decrepit hovel in Dorset, and he gets to utilise the one skill he mastered during tuttillage: mumbling Spanish.” 

Laughter peeled from Hermione, and she felt so mean for it. Hadn’t Goyle lost Crabbe? But then… so had the man in front of her, and maybe he was making light of something that sat heavily on him, too. 

She stilled, smile twisting to the side and posed, “What about anyone else? Zabini? Pansy? Millicent is in the Ministry these days, you know?” 

Draco leaned toward her on his elbows. “I’m going to let you in on a secret, Granger,” he murmured. “People didn’t like me very much in school. You might remember?” 

“You seemed to have plenty of admirers,” she replied, her voice a hum. It was an empty remark anyway. 

“True enough. ‘Malfoy’ clout certainly helped.” He shook his head slowly, a wry smile tilting his face. “The plain facts are these: I am a coward and the enemy to part of our community, and a coward and a traitor to the other part. And now, I’m the strange idiot who bound himself to a forest after that woodland obliterated his family seat. Who would want to know that man, hmm?” 

A dip of cold flurried through her chest. She leaned closer. “I would. I do.” 

His eyes widened for a moment, the smile slipping from him minutely. “Why?” His gaze flitted between her eyes. “The forest?” 

The shadows on his face seemed to deepen. His hair, somewhat dishevelled in a devil-may-care sort of way, draped over his brows. There was a look about him that somehow rested on the line between guarded and open, as though whatever she said might push him one way or the other. A slight flush stained the tips of his ears red. 

“Not the forest. It was at first, but it isn’t anymore. All, that is.” She swallowed; her nerves felt raw and exposed, ready to jolt at the slightest brush. “I’d want to know you even if the forest were gone.” 

Draco watched her carefully. The openness she had glimpsed began to take hold. His focus seemed to narrow in on her to a fine point. “Those things people think of me: they aren’t wrong.” 

“Yes, they are.” He started at her words, lips parting to fire back, but she rushed ahead, “You were both of those things in a game of chess we all played once. Is life going to keep being that game? Black and white? Good and bad? Traitor or not?” Hermione licked her lips. “The way I see it is this: if we keep thinking those things about past selves are still true, we’ll never be free of them. You have to let it go, and fuck everyone who won’t.” 

Draco leaned even closer, his expression severe. “Easy for you to say, Hermione Granger, hero, Order of Merlin recipient, beloved witch. If they hate you, it’ll only be because of proximity to me. You’re blameless. You can’t possibly understand the level of…of atonement I have to reach for constantly.” 

Her heart was running so rapidly it felt like the tick, tick, tick of a race timer. “You have no idea, Malfoy—no idea what my past is like. I have things to atone for, too. Things—Merlin, I don’t even know how to—where to…” She shoved her hair back and looked out the window. 

Their tea was gone. The cups sat cold and still before them. She wanted to leap up and leave, maybe break into a run once she’d rounded the corner. 

“Gran—Hermione.” Her name pulled her back. “You’re right. I don’t know.” His hand inched forward along the table. “But I’d like to. Very much.” 

They ambled slower, then, in the fading light. Hermione pulled her coat tighter, casting warming charms over herself and Draco. They strolled past green squares and on through neighbourhoods filled with Georgian architecture. 

She glanced at him every so often, just catching sight of him in this setting. Somehow he seemed more fit for mediaeval cloisters, dark Tudor closes, and Jacobean manors…but then, Christmas lights would catch his hair and cast a shadow over his brow and he looked windswept and wrong in the city altogether. As though architecture resisted his presence. 

His brows bunched in a peevish look. “What the fuck is it?”

“What?” 

“You’ve got that Granger-is-solving-an-Arithmancy-problem face on.” 

“Oh.” Gods, please, don’t let that be the constipated-gnome expression Harry teased her about. “If you must know… I was thinking about how you seem a little out of place here.” 

His nostrils flared. “I know,” he said lowly. “Don’t belong here in Muggle London, not in the wiz—”

“No.” She gripped his arm. His head snapped to her. “No,” she eased, letting go. “That’s not what I meant. I only meant that architecture doesn’t seem right for you now. It’s too rigid. Too confined. Bollocks, I don’t know what I’m saying, don’t look at me.” 

She turned her face toward the street as they walked on—a large car rolled by, stuffed with laughing people. Draco’s silence echoed in the noise. 

“Not in architecture…but amongst the trees?” His inflexion tilted up until he had climbed out of whatever thoughts he’d been in. They reached a corner and stopped. 

“Yes,” she exhaled, facing him again. “You belong perfectly in your forest.” 

His attention was fixed on her, riveting her to the spot. Slowly, he reached out; her heart stuttered against her ribs. Long fingers gripped her elbow and… steered her across the street. 

White stripes beneath her feet; a firm, warm grip at her arm; a breath, a glance, a furrowed brow beneath stray blonde locks, and she was loose again, untethered, somehow. 

A feeling of breathlessness wrestled with the urge to squeeze her diaphragm and get it moving properly. His hand climbed back to his chest and didn’t leave this time. A giant yawn tore from him, sending a single tear tracking down his face. 

“Draco! You’ve got to go home and sleep.”

“Where do you think we’re walking?” He asked, pointing toward the sign for Great James Street. 

“Oh, I hadn’t…” She never got turned around. When had they made it here? 

Only a short way on, they were at the steps to Dr. Carter’s house. A sudden density seemed to shroud the air around them, and neither could breathe quite properly, which might explain all the shuffling that was presently going on. 

“Would you—”

“I’ve got to get back and feed Crook—oh, what?” 

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and shook his head. “Nothing.” He rubbed his lips together. “Just going to ask if you need to use the Floo.” 

Her cheeks warmed. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“S’no problem,” he said through an exceptional yawn. Merlin, but he was done in. 

They shuffled awkwardly through, and Draco led her up to the Floo. Another moment of strange, dense air encircled them. Draco yawned once more and slumped against the door frame. 

“Well, night, then, Hermione.” 

“Oh! Wait, it’s Christmas in only a few days…will I see you soon? To hear about Eirene and the forest? It’s only, I’ll wonder like mad until you’ve told me.” 

He extended a placating hand. “I’ll tell you. You—” he cleared his throat, “you can come to the forest if you’d like. Sometime. Let me know first, of course. After this, Laurie and Dr. Carter will likely be combing over it in a fury.” 

She nodded with a grin. “I’d like that.” 

It was like a string had been pulled, releasing any last tension in his shoulders at her words. He sagged even heavier against the door and covered another yawn. 

“Off with you, now.” 

And she vanished in a swirl of green flame and anise scent.

Draco wandered through a greenish mist that seemed to roll down from large boulders, peeking beneath tree roots and embankments. The air was cool with winter. His breaths swirled before him. Reaching out, his hand veined with green staining his fingertips, grasped an oak branch as he passed.  

Movement caught his eye, and he stilled, tucking into a hollow in the oak. Before him in a clearing, a familiar woman walked. Her footsteps were light on the soft earth, which gave beneath her like a sponge. Her wild hair was knotted atop her head, with ivy winding through it and wrapping around her. 

With every step, a blue flame burst beneath her, heatless and fleeting. A warm breeze swept through and filled him until the whole forest was flush and verdant with spring. 

A bush rustled, and a white hart stepped before the woman. Opening her mouth to speak, golden birds burst forth instead. They lit on every branch, and where they landed, beautiful blossoms burst open, flowering. 

For a time, she walked alongside the white hart, her hand lay lightly on its back. Gradually, it led her to a stream, and Draco followed, always out of sight until he realised he was at his yew tree. His green-fingered hands rested on its trunk. 

 The woman knelt to take a drink. When she lifted her eyes and looked up the little slope, their eyes met. A curl slipped free and brushed her cheek. The white hart leapt across the stream, and suddenly, she was there beside Draco as well. 

He held out his hand, and she took it. 

His lips parted, and he breathed, “Has the Healing Maiden returned?” The words felt strange in his mouth—like something ancient spoken through him, not by him. The woman before him squeezed his hands tightly. 

Draco blinked awake. Pale dawn crept stealthily across the floor. He rolled onto his back, rubbing a hand over his face. Echoes of the dream lingered vividly.

Hermione.

Oh, fuck. 

A cold shower slapped a little sense into him. He stood in the frigid spray for all of two minutes, rubbing his chest before switching to hot, while he leaned against the tile wall and wallowed a little in the steam. His head hurt, his chest felt like his heart was being lassoed and tugged from a distance, and his joints all protested not being in bed any more. 

Had the dream been him or the forest? ...Were any of the dreams the forest? 

He turned off the shower and dripped miserably on the mat, catching sight of his ghostly reflection in the fogged mirror. Scarred, marked, living in the attic of someone else’s home…what a fucking catch. 

The empty house echoed as Draco trudged downstairs and made his breakfast. Cedar and oakmoss fragrances filled his lungs, though they weren’t there. Pressure in his chest, which had been persistent for two nights, squeezed his heart. He leaned against the kitchen table, closed his eyes, and let his mind turn to the forest. 

Rich greens and a thin mist wove behind his lids. A copper beech shifted, lifted its roots like pulling feet from being nestled in sand, and ambled off toward the western border. In the shadows just on the edge of his awareness, there was a restless pacing. 

His eyes opened. The warm kitchen was spread before him.

He couldn’t focus on Niht and the other centaurs right now. Without the enchantment broken, it was just an endless cycle of disappointment and frustration. He made tea and sipped it, wallowing in feelings of helplessness for a moment, adding a few sighs for good measure. 

He dashed a note off to Dr. Carter, charmed it to fold into a paper bird, and sent it flying off to find the professor’s study. With a last sip of tea, Draco summoned his cloak, spun on his heel, and arrived in the forest clearing.

࿐ ࿔*

The forest was restless. Wood groaned and creaked as trees bent and ached against the enchantment. Mushrooms rose and shrank back over and over. Ferns unfurled, curled inwards, died away—only to do it again. 

Draco lay on his stomach, his palm pressed into a root of the great ash tree, the other sunk into the well's frigid water. All his focus was on calm, stillness, and rest. Please, rest. Please, be calm. 

Fucking Niht. If he hadn’t insisted on trying again, this wouldn’t be happening. The bloody-minded oaf was too close for comfort at the moment. He gritted his teeth at the crunch of hoof steps behind him. 

The ash shuddered at his irritation.

He needed to tuck it away. Fold up those thoughts and slip the parchment into the recesses of his mind. 

A breath in. Hold. A breath out. The tree trembled.

It was like trying to soothe a child without a common language. 

Gold motes swirled in the air about his hands. Behind him, the underbrush rustled. A deep-throated voice whispered to Eirene. She hissed back and galloped away. A restless pacing began, snapping twigs and crushing ferns. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Somewhere in the shadows behind him, the shape of Niht moved. 

“Draco!” Laurie jogged to him from the other end of the clearing. The buckles of a wand holster she wore at her side jostled. “We think we’ve got it,” she said, crouching beside him. 

Laurie’s eyes flickered up for the briefest moment, noticing the presence beyond the clearing. An irritated snort followed a hoof scrape. She arched a sardonic brow, her red lips quirking to the side and sat more fully. 

“Graham’s just over at the boulder using it to brace his map,” she said, lighting a cigarette. She took a drag and then held it down for him. Draco eyed the smudge of red lipstick on the end. “You look like you could use it.” 

He shook his head, continuing his rhythms of slow, steady breaths. 

Niht’s pacing behind him felt oppressive. Maybe if the fucker would just leave, he could relax properly; focus properly. 

“Unless the oaks change their shapes too, we think we’ve finally got all the largest ones,” Laurie said, her eyes following Niht’s movement in the shadows. She dropped to an elbow and leaned in closer to Draco, nodding her head once toward the centaur. “Been like this long?” 

“Off and on since the second attempt,” he murmured. 

“Draco,” she said softly, “I think, unless you want to exhaust yourself, maybe you ought to just let the forest be upset for a while. Yes?” 

She squeezed his shoulder. Her words sank into his weary limbs. Withdrawing his hand from the water, he let out a shuddering exhale and shook his pale, frozen fingers. 

“Give me that,” Laurie demanded, grabbing his cold hand. 

He let go of the ash’s root and propped himself on his elbow. Pressing her wand into his palm, she muttered an incantation he’d never heard. Warmth spread through his fingers, but not with the prickling pain that usually accompanied having been this cold. Instead, it was as though warmth was chased immediately by a healing balm. It flowed down his knuckles and into his wrist until it crawled up his arm to the edges of a red snake’s forked tongue. 

She dropped his hand and took another drag. “There, no frostbite for you, idiot.” 

He mumbled something like thanks. 

Crunching footsteps neared them as Dr. Carter ambled their way, staring vexedly at a large parchment he held. 

“Trouble, Graham?” Laurie asked, sitting up straighter. 

The rustle of pacing continued. A hoofbeat stamped hard. Draco rolled onto his back, staring into the roiling canopy and listened. 

“I don’t know…Not one tree felt particularly different from another.” 

“It’s probable her spell covered evidence of trapping him, yes?” 

“Mmm, yes, that’s quite possible. You know, Theo has mentioned that we ought to look into other physical anchors.” 

“Not the well? I thought—”

“No, I still think the well is the primary one. No change there. It must be.” Dr. Carter sighed. Parchment crinkled as he rolled it up. “If the Malfoys simply used local tradition—and I’ve no doubt they did—”

“Or Nimue was a Malfoy,” Laurie added. 

Draco snorted. “Would anyone in my family have let that little ancestral gem go if she had been? Not a chance,” he drawled, tucking an arm behind his head.

Dr. Carter continued, “I suspect we’ll have an easier time finding his tree when the enchantment has been lifted.” 

“What if he’s a mouldering twig in there?” Draco tossed back. “Do we cart him out like a relic?” 

A match was struck. Dr. Carter lit his pipe. “Morbid, Draco," he said around the stem of it. “But possible. I suppose if that is the case, we will just hope the Ministry doesn’t decide to parade his remains around like a saint and accuse the Malfoy family of murdering the great Merlin.” 

“Fucking fuck! I hadn’t thought of that.” He stared into the branches. Maybe if he just lay here for a little while, the roots would pull him into the ground and let the leaves slowly bury him. 

“Don’t worry about that nonsense,” Laurie threw in. “Hermione was fine.” 

“That was one night.” 

“And? A forest is suddenly here after over a thousand years. Seems whole and hale to me.” 

“Fair enough.” Draco rolled over and pushed himself up, brushing dried leaves and dirt from himself. His stomach roiled with the unease of the forest as it whipped around him. Beyond its borders, the day had been still. Above him, branches thrashed. “What do we do now?” He glanced between the professor and Laurie. 

Dr. Carter puffed on his pipe with a furrowed brow. “Now, I go back to the alchemy lab and keep working on the binding done here, and then we undo it.” He paused, looking wistfully about. “What I wouldn’t give to have a Time Turner again.” 

“Gods, wouldn’t that just make all of this easier?” Laurie mused.

“Quite. Ah, well, a lesser cost of war.” 

A shiver slipped down Draco’s spine. He let the thoughts swirl—of his father, of the stories he heard about the Ministry and his failure there, of what that outcome led to for himself—then folded them up neatly and pushed them away, too. 

At his back, Niht’s prowl continued. 

“No idea. Haven’t seen him,” Theo answered Hermione. 

She was perched on the armrest of a chair in the sitting room at Grimmauld Place. “Has he been in the forest the whole time?” She tried to tamp down a restless agitation burrowing into her lungs. 

“I don’t know. I’ve been here for days. Here, the solicitor’s, the lab. Oh, the shops as well,” he added, snapping his fingers. 

He was dressed nicely, but still managed an artful dishevelment that brought elegant clothing into a more casual realm. The sleeves on his simple emerald robes were cuffed, and his hair flounced forward with a roguish curl on his forehead. He shifted back and forth, pawing at things on the mantel, pulling his wand from his pocket, then putting it back.

Hermione eyed him with some sympathy. 

“It’ll be lovely, you know?” She assured him. “There are so many people and everyone is going to be talking at once, and, look, I know that sounds completely mad, but I promise you: it’s rich and warm and you’re going to be swept up in it in no time.” 

Theo had paled as she talked, but was nodding along with a determined set to his mouth. 

Footsteps pounded down the stairs. Harry flounced into the room wearing a wide grin. “Shall we?” 

Christmas at the Burrow was as tranquil as ever—which is to say, not at all. 

Yells and shrieks from the little ones rang through the room as Teddy and Victoire careened around on chubby little legs. George chased after them, making monkey noises and firing off sparks that made them squeal with delight at each one. Clangs and clatters erupted from the kitchen along with rich aromas and billows of steam. At least four conversations were happening at once. By the fireplace, a rotating cast of Weasleys greeted Theo, clapping him and Harry on the back until Ron got hold of them, manhandled them into chairs, threw peppermint sticks at them, and forced mulled wine into their hands.

Hermione slipped around the edge of the room, hoping for unobtrusiveness, until she tripped on a charmed ottoman galloping along after the tots like a dog. 

“Careful there,” Percy said, steadying her at the elbow.

Strange how one touch recalled another and suddenly she was wondering again if Draco was alright. She’d heard nothing from him for days. Which was normal; perfectly, utterly, totally normal. Merlin. 

“Any word from Malfoy?” 

“Pardon?” Hermione choked. 

“About the centaurs,” Percy said, with a sniff. “Wasn’t sure how well you kept abreast of the developing situation.” 

“Quite well, but hang on,” she said, an uneasiness building, “developing situation? You mean the study the Beast Division has been asked to conduct?” 

“More since the negotiations with the Forbidden Forest herd.” 

Hermione’s pulse jolted. Her mind started turning over conversations overheard and participated in, memos she’d read, but came up short. “There’ve been negotiations?” 

He sighed. “Of course. After all that mess for months, things needed to be smoothed over with them.” 

“And…I take it they have been?” In a way, she’d assumed the split had been mutually agreed upon after their conflict, but maybe, knowing now about Eirene… She chewed her cheek. 

“Somewhat. The herd would like to see the others return. They are willing to entertain peace talks with them.” 

Had the elders known? Would they tell a delegation? Hermione tread lightly, “Did you ever find out what had caused a rupture between them before?” 

“No,” he sighed and rubbed his chin. “It’s all very vexing, really. They’re so private. Impossible to really help heal what’s between them if we don’t understand the rift. But they are entitled to their privacy.” 

“Yes. They are.” Her brow furrowed. “Don’t you think…” she hesitated. How could she ease into this? “Don’t they have the right to relocate to new regions if they believe it’s for the health and safety of their herd?” 

A deep groove emerged on Percy’s broad forehead. “Yes,” he said slowly, “but within reason. Secrecy is, of course, of highest import.” 

“Highest. Yes.” She slipped a hand into her pocket, running her fingers along her wand. “Well, at any rate, I haven’t heard from Malfoy in a bit.” Not long (a perfectly normal, ordinary amount of time not to hear from someone), but Percy hadn’t specified, and that was his problem. 

Lunch was warm and festive and tightly packed. Everyone scrambled. Ginny was busy telling Charlie all about her season. Bill was jiggling a yapping Victoire on his knee. Fleur kept trying to press Hermione about her career and the offices, and did Hermione think she was too old to transition into law? Being a homemaker was not in the brilliant Fleur’s wheelhouse, it seemed. 

Theo looked dazed. He sat beside Harry, wearing a paper crown and looking wild. Baffled amusement was written all over him. George had caught his attention and pressed him with what’s-this-I-hear-about-selling-Grimmauld-Place and how-soon-are-you-wanting-out, a glint in his eye. 

Just what that strange townhouse needed: George Weasley. 

By the time Hermione was saying goodbyes, clutching a new goldenrod jumper from Molly, Theo seemed to be settling in perfectly. 

She hugged Harry as she moved toward the Floo. “Merry Christmas, Harry. Do you remember 'what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted?’” 

“‘He lived happily ever after,’” Harry replied, beaming. “See you soon, Hermione.”

Ron was her last, looking a little rosy-cheeked from wine and brandishing the bucket of Floo powder.

“Still letting that tosser come round?” He mumbled. 

“None of your business,” she clipped. “But yes.” 

He scratched the back of his neck. “Reckon this is all Crookshanks’ fault.” 

“Probably. We’re all at the mercy of his machinations.” 

“And he likes him? Really?” 

Hermione shook her head, trying to loosen some of the curls that had begun to static cling to her neck. “Isn’t it wild? Apparently, Crooks has been seeking him out and pushing him around since the NEWTs.” 

“You know, that cat knows things…must see something in that pillock that’s not visible to the naked eye.” 

“Mmhmm.” Hermione leaned in closer to whisper. “Probably wrackspurts.” 

Ron’s eyes widened, then he threw his head back and laughed.

A slightly awkward sideways hug was attempted and aborted before she finally said goodbye to him and slipped through the Floo. 

Her flat was warm, and carols drifted up from Diagon Alley below, where a quartet of ghosts drifted up and down, singing since the day before. Crookshanks stretched on the window seat and rolled onto his side contentedly. All was hushed and still and lovely. 

But Hermione’s eyes were fixed on the green boughs that hung as a restlessness grew inside her. 

What was he doing for Christmas? Was the forest still in turmoil? Were they near to breaking the enchantment now that they were rushing? 

Her curiosity tangled around her limbs as she got ready for bed, crawling in beside her with Crookshanks. She slept with a hand in his fur and dreams filled with green mist and ancient trees.

Boxing Day dawned beneath a dark cloud. Draco watched the light make a valiant effort to illuminate the room from where he lay, fully clothed, across the foot of his bed. He’d managed to get his shoes off, at least.

His chest pulsed with pulls and tugs, beckoning relentlessly. It had never calmed down after the second attempt. Why? What was it about the centaur magic making this so fucking miserable? 

The street lamps switched off. He chose to take that as a sign: get up. 

Simple ablutions, a moment staring at himself in the mirror wondering what the fuck he’d done to deserve this, and then feeling pitiful for himself about his own choices. Salazar’s sake, get a fucking grip! 

He plodded down to the kitchen, where he shrank and pocketed some food. With a weary exhale, he wrapped himself in his cloak, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and Apparated away. 

Draco was pacing just beyond the oak grove, wearing a rut into the soft earth. 

“I’m trying everything I can,” he said, a hand fisted in his hair. “I don’t understand what’s happening any more than you do!” 

“Easy, Keeper. I am not accusing you,” Eirene soothed softly. “The forest cannot be at peace if you are not at peace. Be at peace.” 

His chest rose and fell rapidly. Easily said, wasn’t that, but when had someone saying ‘stay calm’ ever actually helped? 

He was utterly ragged, completely spent. Days of this. Nights of restless sleep. If he could just sit down for a moment, maybe, and have a little rest without the forest crying out to him, mucking around in his dreams, maybe that would be enough. He drew in a deep breath and tried to steady his mind. 

All around, the forest pitched and swayed. In the middle of the oak grove, Laurie argued with Aegis about a test she’d tried that morning on the enchantment. Draco had been dealing with something like heartburn since then. Not a good sign, he imagined, but they had to do something, didn’t they? 

Behind Aegis, Niht and two others with him were growing restless. A fourth tried to reason with them, but Niht’s face was stormy and dark as he watched his brother. 

Laurie glanced toward Draco, pressed her lips into a line, nodded once, and then turned to Apparate away. He reached into his pocket and ran his thumb over his galleon. She likely wouldn’t wait long to communicate her next plan with him. 

Aegis galloped to his brother on the opposite end of the grove from where Draco and Eirene stood. They spoke in low tones. Niht gestured forcefully. The air felt brittle as though even the slightest provocation would break the fragile tension. Not far behind them, two centaurs had begun to circle each other with bared teeth, scraping their hooves, their hands tensing into menacing shapes ready to reach out and grasp, and hit, and hurt. 

“Maybe you should go back to your mentors and their empty prophecies,” one said.

The other spat something back that Draco couldn’t hear. 

The first slid a bolas from a bag he wore over his shoulder. 

“Imbreus!” Eirene yelled. “Leave this quarrel!” 

But he waved off her words with a sneer, then waved the bolas and struck. The sound of it was awful. A clash of hooves, the smack of flesh. A guttural yell reverberated beneath the swaying trees, then a clump of beard was thrown viciously to the ground. Aegis and Niht rounded on the pair and entered the fray. A fifth joined, and the fight erupted.

Bolas swung wildly, cracking against bone. Kicks and punches were thrown. It was mad to watch.

But Draco couldn’t look away. He backed up, placing a hand on the oak behind him. The trees were in a frenzy, too, swinging and lashing their branches like a gale was on them. Across the clearing, one of the younger oaks began to lift its roots and slam them back down. A great rumble in the earth shook him where he stood. 

The centaurs, hardly registering anything besides their own fury, noticed nothing. 

Beside him, Eirene yelled for them to stop. 

From the trees nearer her, another centaur emerged from the shadows, this one holding a bow and wearing a quiver. She drew an arrow and—oh, fuck, fuck, fuck! What the fuck was happening? What was this even about? Why did everything feel like it was trying to shatter? 

“Just a warning, Selene, nothing more,” Eirene bid the centaur beside her. 

A sudden constriction pulled at his heart, beckoning. Someone was here. Draco pressed harder into the oak, turning his mind to whatever the forest was giving attention to. A ripple seemed to pass through the remaining leaves all at once. 

Hermione. 

His heart thudded painfully against his chest. He gripped the bark tighter: an image of her at the clearing, moving to the edge—no—then… 

“Granger!” He yelled, looking wildly around. The fucking forest moving people. Fuck! 

His eyes stopped on the other side of the now bloody brawl. Across the grove, mere meters from the fight and directly across it from him, Hermione stood, steadying herself against a tree, looking confused as hell. 

Bloody fuck! No, no, nononono. 

“Should I light it?” Selene asked. 

“Yes. Draw their attention.” 

Draco’s gaze snapped to Eirene, had she not seen? Selene was drawing her bow, aiming a now-flaming arrow toward the fight. Hermione stepped into the clearing’s edge, unnoticed by anyone else, just as Selene readied the shot over the heads of the fighting centaurs. Over their heads but straight toward— 

His vision tunnelled to see only one thing. 

“Granger!” 

He started to run. Branches moved for him. 

A plucked bow thrummed, and his world stopped. The trees seemed to tremble with shock, though a mere second passed. Fiery gold shot through the air, flying low through the centaurs, jarring them apart, and went straight to—

“HERMIONE!” 

He didn’t see. 

Only green. 

Ferns parted. 

A root sank. 

He ran. 

He rounded the grove to where she had been. She was on the ground, head in her hand, but moving. He dropped to his knees and grasped her shoulders. 

“Hermione!” 

His hands were frenzied, gripping her arms, sliding over her shoulders, back down to her wrists. Was she hurt? There was no blood. He searched her—couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Not because of him. Not here. Not her.

She tilted her chin and looked at him, her amber eyes blown wide. 

He gripped her face, thumbs pressing into her round cheekbones—so soft, so warm. Was she saying something? He couldn’t hear. Only a dull beat pounding and a sharp ring in his ears. 

“—not hurt. Draco, I’m not—” 

And he pulled her to himself in a bruising kiss. His lips crushed into hers—fervent, wild—fuck, she wasn’t hurt. She wasn’t hurt.  Her warmth rushed through him. A hand reached up and grasped his, threading nimble fingers through his own.

He pulled back, realising himself all at once, panting. But barely a breath passed before her other hand tangled in his hair and dragged him down again into a savage, chaotic kiss. His thumbs skimmed her jaw. One hand slid into her hair, cupping the base of her skull. She moved with him, her mouth parting, drawing him deeper. He followed, tasting her.

His whole world narrowed to this: her. This place. This moment. Her scent filled him—cinnamon and honey, tangled with earth and green. 

Her fingers flexed in his hair, drawing him closer still. Their hands, interlaced against her cheek, slid down until his palm pressed to her chest and curled about her hand, so small, so easily enclosed in his. Her thumb brushed against his in circles. 

They broke apart, gasping, their breath skating over each other’s flushed skin.

“Hermione—I’m—you’re—” 

She shook her head, her curls soft against his face. “I’m not hurt.” She rested her forehead against his. “The tree. I think the tree. It moved me.” 

He looked up and there, in a branch that swung much lower than perhaps it had before, stuck the arrow, its fletch still quivering. Reluctantly slipping his hand from Hermione’s hair, he reached up and rested it on the oak branch. The oak swelled, as if drawing a slow, proud breath. 

Turning back to Hermione, without breaking contact with the tree, he asked, “Can I take us somewhere else?” 

Hermione’s hand squeezed his in answer. He held on as the forest exhaled around them.

Chapter Text

The world was off-kilter. Swaying branches blurred before her. Crackling, dry winter wind swept through the frenzied trees and into her eyes.

And at her knuckles, the pad of a warm thumb drew circles on her skin.

A stream beside them flowed in the opposite direction Draco led her. She watched its movement in a strange sort of drift. Travelling over distance in a blink disoriented her. Magic made everything feel nearer than her parents’ garden from the kitchen window. As though the whole world collapsed into folds, and she could simply step from one place to another without much thought. 

The forest moved her in ways that stood beyond even portkey or Apparition. She was in the clearing, and then, she simply wasn’t. Hermione glanced at the back of Draco’s head as he led them on. 

“Where are we going?” 

He angled back, his fingers gripping her tighter. “The yew tree.” 

“Why didn’t we go straight there?” 

His shoulders heaved, but he didn’t answer. Instead, his free hand raised and gestured choppily around at the forest, still in wild motion all around them. 

She hardly had time to dwell on whatever his movements were meant to convey before they were ducking beneath the low branches of the yew and moving up the slope from the stream to its trunk. 

Draco dropped her hand and grasped the tree, looking up into the canopy. 

“What the fuck was that?” He spat. 

Hermione felt that in her bones, and it rattled on through her sinews to the tips of her fingers. She took a step back. 

What was what? Her presence there? That they had… Her teeth brushed over her lower lip. 

Draco was huffing and staring into the tree. “Was it a fucking accident? Who did you think you were trying to help, hmm?” 

The yew groaned and creaked. Its trunk, cracked and open and gloriously wrought with the centuries, pulled in and up, then sagged down, spreading out like an old man sighing wearily. Draco’s fist pressed hard into the rough bark. 

Her stomach twisted like a portkey was pulling her away. Where was her head? Oh, right here, where her curls were being gripped by her clenched fist. 

Gods, what was this day?

Draco didn’t look back at her. He paced around the tree, fingers grazing the bark, muttering under his breath. His face was tight, jaw clenched, voice low and uneven as he muttered to himself. There was a coiled urgency to the way he moved—sharp, halting, as if the ground itself were unsteady. It unsettled her more than shouting would have. She shut her eyes and began reciting the steps of her day.

Awake, through the door to the bathroom, down the hall to the kitchen, a cup of tea, and an Apparition to her parents. How many thresholds had she crossed there? No, she couldn’t count that. The warmth and tension in equal measure still swirled in her blood from lunch with them. And she was frustrated, irritable, seeking something—solace? A friend? Then an Apparition to the clearing had led her to this… 

“Eyes open, Granger.” 

Draco stood before her, fists clenching and unclenching at his side. Stormy eyes swept over her like a roiling sea. “I’m sorry.” 

Her throat burned. Gods, here it was. She’d thought they were—well, something had shifted, but her presence seemed to twist him tighter, not ease him. Hermione drew in a deep breath and braced for impact.

“Stupid fucking forest,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair. “Don’t know what the fuck it was thinking bringing you there.” 

Oh.

He sighed wearily. One of his hands lifted toward her, then dropped. A stern look settled over him, all pinched and coiled. His jaw worked side to side. 

Was it all the forest? Was any part her? “I know I should have let you know before—”

“It’s fine,” he cut her off. 

She pressed her lips together and tried again. “But you’d asked me to tell you before I came, and then I didn’t, and at the clearing—”

“Granger.” 

“—I shouldn’t have gone so close to the edge.” 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

“But it just moved me! I didn’t mean for it—I wasn’t trying—” 

“Granger.” He gripped her arm. “I said it’s fine. It’s not your fault. I don’t bloody care that you didn’t tell me.” 

His nostrils flared as he stared at her. 

“But I—”

“Are you trying to tell me that somehow the forest putting you right beside a centaur brawl was your fault?” 

His grip was tight. The grinding of branches against one another overlaid the rough snaps of roots as the forest heaved and strained. 

Draco’s lip curled. Every part of him seemed tense and wild. Red stained his jaw and all along his throat. His eyes sparked with something raw and ready. 

It was the forest. He was angry with the forest. 

“Why did it bring me there?” She asked.

He let out his breath in a gust. “I don’t know. Because I was there? Salazar’s sack, though, why in the thick of it of all places?” 

He let go of her arms and spun around to have another go at the yew, stalking back to its trunk already muttering as he moved up the slope.

Hermione wrapped her arms around herself and turned to the stream. 

It babbled over rounded stones, their smooth backs gleaming through the clear water. Barely wide enough to need more than a broad step to cross, and hardly deeper than her elbow, she knelt beside it and studied the little channels carved into the silt at the bottom. 

The water was frigid as her fingers plunged in to feel the silt. She held them under, watching them grow more white while water dragged around them. She was mesmerised by the distortion. She flexed her fingers, but they were stiff already with cold. 

A rustle of hurried steps neared her.

“Granger, what—” 

With a tug at her sleeves, he pulled her hands out and pressed them between his own. Draco’s knee brushed over her thigh where he crouched beside her. His brows were furrowed as he stared at her hands, rubbing them roughly. Blood surged back into her fingers, sharp as needles. 

“The water’s too cold,” he murmured. 

“I’m alright.” 

He scowled, but kept rubbing at her hands. The forest around them swayed and rasped. 

His voice softened, “Why did you come?”

Her parents’ house flashed through her mind: the fire crackling, her mum’s voice from the kitchen, singing ‘Good King Wenceslas’, pausing now and then to yell out a stray thought to Hermione. A strange sense had lodged in her chest—that she was both at home and not. It was just a house now—her parents’ house. The war had expunged something of herself from it. Dad hugged her close, mum kissed her cheeks, and she had felt…what? Distant… Like watching her life happen from inside a memory instead of the present. 

And then… the impression of trees swaying gently brushed against her thoughts, and a pale head with hair glinting in the sunlight.

“Well, it’s Boxing Day,” she began lamely. “I hadn’t heard from you in a few days, and I don’t know. I kept thinking about the forest—about Eirene—” 

His brows tightened. He muttered a warming charm, and heat flowed from his hands into hers.

“—about you.” 

His eyes snapped up. 

The air seemed to thicken and contract. He was awfully close, wasn’t he? In the corner of her eye, the yew’s branches moved. Wind curled around them and through them. A lock of pale hair dropped over Draco’s brow, falling across his eye. 

She slipped her hand free to brush the lock aside. Her fingers trailed along his cheek, rough with a faint trace of stubble. He reached up, capturing her hand in his. Turning his face, he brushed his lips against her charmed fingertips. 

“Hermione,” he murmured. 

“Yes?” 

“Is this alright?” 

Her breath caught. “Yes.” 

Draco’s eyes met hers with steely resolve. “And this?” He pressed a kiss into her palm. 

“Yes,” she whispered. 

“I can’t—” His breath was warm in her hand. “I don’t understand why you were brought there—right fucking there. You could have been—were almost—” His gaze lifted, scanning the trees through narrow slits.

The feeling of being shoved to the ground by the branch crawled through her. She pulled her hand free to withdraw her wand. Draco watched her movements, his expression pinched. 

“Did you know I was here?” She asked, twisting the vinewood between her fingers. 

“Yes.” 

She bit her lip. The forest did have its own whims...

“Could—might that have had something to do with it?" She asked. "Did you bring me by mistake?” 

He moved in closer, his fingers hovering over her wand hand. “I didn’t.” A tremor passed through him as though he wanted to lower his hand, covering hers, but couldn’t bring himself to. “But I—” he paused. 

The din of the trees flowed about them. 

“Fucking busybody forest,” he muttered through clenched teeth. 

Understanding crept in, quiet but confident, and nestled into Hermione. She studied him: every inch of him looked ransacked by worry, dragged through unrest. His eyes darted about the trees with mistrust. 

Gods… he was surprised! The forest had shocked him. Whatever the nature of their bond, it wasn’t one in which he was in control. After all, he hadn’t wanted her caught in it all those months ago. She remembered the panic in him—the fury.

But he had been thinking of her then. He had been worried about her involvement with the forest. And the trees clearly had their own agenda—whatever that was. 

“Were you thinking of me, Draco?” 

His eyes widened as he faced her; his features sliding into a strange sort of blankness. 

“Just…when I was in that tree, you’d said it had been because of your own misgivings about me or something.” Her throat was dry. She twisted her wand in her lap. “And maybe you don’t have any misgivings now, but if you were thinking of me at all…it might be that. Because—” in for a penny, in for a pound “—that’s why I came here. I was thinking of you…at my parents’ house…all week, really, and I—well—I. Bugger. Say something, won’t you?”

The breeze stirred his hair as he stared at her, unmoving. He blinked once, slowly. Then, with deliberate action, he leaned forward. His hands landed on the ground on either side of her hips.

“Alright,” he said, moving closer. “I was thinking of you today.” His eyes roved her face. “And yesterday.” He leaned in closer. “And maybe more than I remember.” His breath skimmed across her lips. “Satisfied?” 

A flush rose in her chest. “Hardly.” 

She tilted her chin and kissed him.

In the oak grove, it had been madness—her heart pounding, ears ringing, held fast by adrenaline, relief, and, and, and… she didn’t know. Thoughts hadn’t been a part of it. 

But this was different—slower, deeper. Clarity, not chaos.

She couldn’t say where she was anymore, but she was choosing. The stream, the trees, her own body—all blurred into a pinpoint of focus where his lips moved against hers.

Draco angled himself over her, his knee sliding along her thigh. Their kiss deepened, hungry, exploratory. He adjusted her with a slow, coaxing pressure until her back arched beneath him. Her wand hand braced against the earth, fingers sifting through cold leaves. Thoughts scattered. His hand traced her ribs and settled just above her navel. Her tongue swiped against his lips—he gave her entry, groaning softly, and she chased it. 

He broke the kiss, eyes burning as they tracked the rise and fall of her chest. She laced her fingers in his hair and tugged him back. The damp edge of his mouth caught on her lips, and gods, fuck! His teeth nipped her with a sting, pulling her lower lip to him. 

His stubble scraped her cheek as his mouth wandered to her throat, heat blooming wherever he touched. Onward he moved, pressing her back until her arm gave way and she braced on an elbow. Her back arched, heart pounded with the steady cry for more, more, more. She shifted her hips just so and felt his answering press. Just there, but not enough—not enough by half.

His fingers on her belly curled into the fabric of her shirt. Buttons, wool, cotton—too much between them. But she didn’t move to reach for them. 

A tree behind him creaked and snapped as it swayed. The yew branches groaned and moved as though caught in a stronger wind than what blew through the forest. 

Draco’s hand flexed and then relaxed, smoothing the fabric of her shirt again across her stomach. 

The retreat began slowly. She pushed back upward, and he pulled her closer, the fervency of their lips warming and drifting in a syncopation of calm and ease. Her fingers slid from his hair, resting on his shoulder. He rocked back onto his heels, breaking their kiss, resting his forehead against hers.

A harsh, ragged wind tore through the woods with a whistling howl. Water rilled upstream, pushed by the wind. Hermione’s curls flew about Draco, snaring in his stubble and hair. His forehead lingered against hers, long nose, brushing hers as he turned slightly, but his eyes weren’t on her. They were scanning the trees, reading something she couldn’t.

She drew a breath to settle. His scent filled it—oak moss, salt, earth—and she held it in her lungs too long. Her hand hovered, unsure, then stilled against his ribs.

Draco’s grip slipped from her belly to his chest, rubbing firm circles over his sternum. His eyes squeezed tight, head still resting against hers. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Draco’s nostrils flared, his eyes squeezing shut. “It hasn’t been right since they tried their ritual again.”

“They tried it a second time?”

He nodded, eyes still screwed shut. His fingers splayed over his chest, not clenched but resting, like a man catching his breath.

Branches lashed in the canopy as though whipped by a gale. Trees bowed over, wood popping under the strain.

“Draco,” she murmured.

“Hmm?”

“How much is it hurting you?”

He shook his head against hers and pulled back a little, straightening. “I’m alright.”

“Are you?” She scanned him all over. “You look—well, quite frankly, run ragged.”

Blue smudges under his eyes. A sag to his shoulders that she hadn’t noticed in their haste away from the oak grove now seemed to occur to her. He looked a bit undone. He wasn’t the wan sixteen-year-old she’d watched waste away through a school year—but he was a man being hollowed, just the same.

“Have you slept at all?” She asked gently. 

“A little. I've tried a little.” 

“Draco,” she started, then paused, biting back all the words she was about to throw at him, telling him to sleep, and what he should do. Gods, don’t nag. How many times had she been told that? She drew in a breath. “Can’t you rest now?” 

Weariness clung to him. He seemed to sink into her a little. “Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t leave. It feels—it feels rotten being elsewhere.” 

A chill was seeping into her. She shivered against him. Draco’s gaze flashed over her. 

“It’s too cold. You should go,” he said, pulling back. In a quick motion, he rose and helped her to her feet. 

Hermione gripped his forearm. “Wait, I—” She reached for her little bag, tucked in her coat pocket. “What if you could rest but not leave?” 

He watched through a hooded gaze as she withdrew a small square of fabric wrapped in strings from the bag. 

“Is that meant to be something helpful?” 

“Ever since—” she swallowed, “I’ve carried this for a few years, now. Just in case.” 

“Just in case…” he repeated softly, watching her as she placed the square on the ground. 

She scrutinised the yew’s branches, her mouth twisted to the side. “I think there’s enough clearance here for it. 

“For your tiny wafer? I should think so.” 

“Engorgio.” The small square expanded into a lumpy packet with pegs and ropes. A swish of her wand and the ropes pulled, unfurling canvas and stretching out to stake into the ground. Overhead, the yew quivered. 

With a twist of her wrist, the staked canvas grew into a low-slung tent, barely shoulder height. A pair of flicks and it would sit level inside rather than mirror the slope it was on.

“Cosy,” Draco said, tone arid.

Hermione ignored him, ducking into the flap. 

Inside was larger than it looked: a studio flat with a kitchenette, lounge space, and a little en suite bathroom. Nothing remarkable, but then she’d only bought it as an upgrade from the horrible experience of her teen years. 

If she ever had to run again, she’d at least sleep in a real bed and sit in more comfortable chairs. 

Draco ducked in behind her, eyeing the space warily. 

“Don’t you dare judge it,” she said. “I know it’s small, but it’s enough for me.” 

“Wasn’t going to say a thing, Granger.” 

He stalked to the sofa and draped himself along it. 

“There’s a bed, you know.”

He closed his eyes. “Not my tent.”

She raised an eyebrow. “No, but you look like you’ve been dragged backwards through a hedge.” A beat. Then, gently, “Take it, Draco.”

It turned out that Draco Malfoy’s narrow nose meant snores if he got comfortable enough. Not loud or obnoxious, just a soft snuffling from beneath the coverlet. A tuft of pale hair stuck out above the rise and fall of the blue sheets and blankets. 

Hermione sat on the sofa, jotting notes and sipping a cup of tea that had gone cold. A small fire burned in a little iron stove in the corner. Outside, the noise of the forest in turmoil persisted.

Merlin, but this couldn’t be good.

She cast about, picturing the study scroll. Her mind shifted to her notes—to the things she’d observed. Laurie knew the forest deeply, that was clear, but perhaps there were competing factors in play. 

The forest saw Laurie as one of its own; Draco and Laurie had said as much. What if that connection meant that the enchantment didn’t appear the same to her because she was viewing it from a different lens—an angle more akin to what the forest itself experienced? 

What the forest experienced… She tilted her head back with a soft thunk. 

Dappled light cast a strange, spiderwebbing of shadows through the branches on the tent’s roof. There wouldn't be much daylight left now. Only a few hours, and Draco was sure to sleep through them. 

The yew listened to him. All of the trees did. Not only listened, but seemed to take his words and measure them. The forest leaned into him. And he leaned back. Neither controlling the other, but both acting freely. And didn’t that mean the forest had agency? What was sentience if not agency?

She hunched forward and jotted arguments for sentience in the margins of her notes. A half-formed idea that already skittered around her mind grabbed hold of the list and began to turn it over. 

Was that why it had moved her? Had it sensed some thought in Draco—some desire—and acted on it for his benefit? The thought came unbidden—and slipped away just as fast.

A slight hitch of breath from the bed caught her ear. Tiptoeing carefully in her socks across the wooden floorboards of the tent, she crept to Draco. 

Hardly peaceful in sleep, a deep crease lay between his drawn brows and arms were crossed over his chest. Behind his lids, his eyes flickered—seeing what? Landscapes she couldn’t imagine. Or maybe just the ones right outside the tent flap…

In his sleep, he seemed younger. Deeply vexed by something, but younger all the same. Here lay the man, the idiot boy had become. The boy had been too fixated on prestige, on illusion. Until the golden life he’d thought was in his grasp was revealed to be tarnished brass. 

The sounds of the forest hummed within the tent like the noise of a raging river in the distance. But inside of him, it must feel close. It must be constant. 

This was his forest, and he was its wizard. 

A lock of hair hung across his brow. Tentatively, she reached out and brushed it away. 

Her heart stumbled. What could it be between them when one was tied so irrevocably? Rooted, as it were. 

Though perhaps he had always expected to be anchored here. Maybe it wasn’t the familial ties he had anticipated, but he was anchored all the same. Was she like the birds her mum loved? Free to move around and come and go, while here was someone for whom life had a defined centre. He was like a tree, in that way.

Merlin, what a thought for Draco Malfoy. 

“Hermione,” he whispered, rolling to his side, lashes fluttering. She knelt by the edge of the bed to meet his bleary gaze. He blinked several long, slow blinks, ashy lashes brushing against the bedding. 

“Go back to sleep,” she said softly. 

He closed his eyes, the crease between his brows deepening into a canyon of discontent. “I’m failing it.” 

“Of course you aren’t, don’t be silly.” She slid her hand out across the sheet a little way, then stilled. 

Poised at the edge of the bed, she waited. His breaths were deep, eyes moving behind his lids as his face constricted. Beneath his blankets, she suspected a hand might be massaging that tender spot the forest pulled at. 

“No, honestly,” he murmured. She wondered if he would go on. If he were more awake, maybe he wouldn’t. Was his guard down enough? Was it the in-betweenness of being half-asleep, or was it her? A fluttering, rising sensation of nerves in motion wriggled in her diaphragm and pressed against her heart. It was hard to breathe quite right, leaned against the bed as she was.

“I know I need to do something about this enchantment—curse—whatever the fuck it is, but I can’t. I haven’t. And I think it’s disappointed in me.” A weary sigh drifted from him.

“Can it really feel that, Draco?” She asked, ever the pragmatist. He cracked an eye open and peered at her beneath an arched brow. 

“Maybe not in so many words, but it just feels—I feel—there’s a sense of wanting. Like it needs something and I’m not sufficient to the task,” he said on an exhale. An unspoken ‘again’ seemed to hang in the balance between them. 

She tread carefully. “I don’t know, I think you’re doing alright, you know?” 

His eyes opened fully at that, boring into her. Merlin, but he had an intense glare. 

There seemed to be a challenge here, a what-do-you-know-about-it sitting on the bed next to him. His lips parted, and he said, “I want to believe you.” 

“But?” 

He yawned dreadfully. “The evidence suggests otherwise. Just listen to it howl.” 

Hermione angled her head and listened to the roar of the trees as they moved. Their pitch and yaw reverberated in creaks like storm-tossed frigates. The flap of the tent fluttered minutely in the breeze. It was windy, but not the gale-force winds the trees acted as if they were moved by. Some invisible storm held them in its sway and lashed them. 

“The evidence only tells me that the forest communicates some sort of strife. That’s all.” She turned to face his glare again. “Here’s a piece that goes against your theory: not four hours ago, the forest brought me to you.” 

“No, it moved you into danger. It gambled with you. And I don’t know why.” 

“That’s not fair,” she said, sharper than she meant. “It didn’t place me right beside you, no—but it didn’t let me get harmed either.” She sighed. “I think it reads you, but, gods Draco, you’re assuming some rather devious machinations on its part. And it’s never had those. Remember when it stuffed me into a tree because you were a little petty prat?” 

The corner of his lip twitched. “Maybe.” Another deep yawn struggled loose from him. “You don’t know the half of it, Granger. I don’t know if you can understand what it feels like to have been such a disappointment.” 

She was still for a moment. “Do you mean your parents?” 

He closed his eyes and nodded once. “I don’t think it’s the forest and the loss of the house that let them down. It was me binding myself—however inadvertently it happened.” He was still for a moment, and she wondered if he was drifting off again. With a soft yawn, he continued, “But that was nothing to how much I liked Dr. Carter…and started to trust him. I didn’t live up to what they wanted for me. I never seem to want what they want, so I stopped answering their letters often. Mother always thought I was bad at writing anyway, so it hasn’t been some great leap. I’m just—I can’t be what they want—and now I can’t even be what the forest wants. And that cuts me to the fucking quick.”

He shook his head, seeking her gaze. “And you—you’re—well, what you set out to do, you do it right. If people think less of you, it’s for all of those utter bollocks reasons you’ve said before. Not because you failed them.”

Oh, so this was how he would know then…

Her finger traced spirals into the bedspread. 

“Before seventh year…” she began carefully, “before we cut loose to go on our mission with Harry, I—I used a memory modification charm on my parents and sent them to Australia.” She sighed heavily. “I tried to anyway.” 

“Tried to?” 

Her hands tangled in the thin fabric of the sheet, twisting and pulling. “Seventeen-year-olds don’t know much about how memory works. There’s this accretion over a lifetime. Indelible in the mind.” Her heart contracted, then settled. “Mum says she knew right away that something was wrong. She felt like they’d forgotten something vital. I—I knew to remove myself, but how could I know to remove from her all the wanting for me she had? The years they tried and tried for a baby. The joy of finally realising she was pregnant. And I—I didn’t know.” 

A branch brushed against the tent wall with a rough scrape of bark against canvas. 

She plunged on, “I didn’t know about how powerfully smells would trigger things. So when mum sat beside a young mother on the flight to Australia and smelled that new baby for all of those hours, she knew . She knew exactly what she had forgotten—even if she couldn’t find my name or my face in her mind. And my dad knew. He couldn’t figure out why he was suddenly crying on the flight.” The twists she made in the fabric created spirals she traced with her finger.  “Memory is more than a narrative recalled; it’s impressions, and feelings, and smells, and tastes, and I—I don’t think a memory charm on that scale for something so deeply entangled in the hippocampus—etched in your very bones—is possible. Not really. I cast the charm cleanly. It wasn’t messy work. But clean and correct aren’t always the same thing.” 

She stared at the shadows on the canvas, watching a branch progress up and down. Time stretched. The weight of her wrongs settled between them.

“How did they find you?” he asked softly. 

A wry exhale escaped her. “Well, that was the tricky bit. You see, the memory charm worked to cover up me and their identities, but it wasn’t right. Have you ever heard that the best lie contains mostly the truth? Well, that’s what I was trying to use when casting the memory charm. My parents didn’t remember everything I wanted them to forget, but I couldn’t expunge what I didn’t know—and who really knows their parents at seventeen, anyway? So they went to an old friend from uni, who helped them as best he could. It’s just sometimes, I—how could I? How did I do that? Why did I—”

She ducked her head, curls slipping forward to veil her face. The back of her hand brushed across her cheek, wiping an errant tear from its path. Another slipped down the other cheek. A warm, rough thumb brushed it away. When it was gone, her skin missed his touch. 

“I’m so sorry, Hermione.” 

“You didn’t—”

“No. I mean, I’m sorry it happened. I hate that you were backed into a corner enough to need to do it. I hate it now, anyway. I wish I’d hated it more then.” He studied her for a long moment. “Do they remember you now?” 

She nodded. “They do, but we’re always slightly off, you know? Just slightly out of sync somehow. I can’t explain it.” 

“I think I understand,” he murmured. Sleep was beginning to drag at him again. She could read it in his heavy blinks. “We’re like that now, my parents and I, since the forest. Since all the shit in Muggle London.” 

“Maybe more than a few steps out of sync there, yes?” 

He hummed in agreement. Another yawn stretched his features. 

“Sleep, Draco.” 

His eyes were already closing again. A thought moved through her as his breathing evened: if memory could bleed through magic like that… maybe the forest’s memory was bleeding, too.

Blue filled his eyes—soft cerulean, sea-washed and pale. Light filtered through the canvas, hazy and low…

The canvas. 

He jolted upright, throwing back the coverlet. 

Embers glowed in an iron stove in the far corner. The tent flap waved gently in the morning breeze. Damp, frost-tinged forest air reached him, even through the charms meant to keep the cold at bay.

Otherwise, the tent was empty. 

She had been here. It didn’t quite feel like it.

He scrubbed his face with both hands, blinking around the tent. On the bedside table, a note lay pinned by a cup of tea, a bit of steam curling from the top frozen unnaturally in place by a stasis charm. He patted the covers for his wand, which he’d stuffed somewhere—under the pillow, it seemed—and muttered a finite . Taking a sip, he read. 

Draco, 

Sorry I didn’t wake you when I left, but you desperately needed sleep and you looked more peaceful than I’ve seen you. And I needed to feed Crooks. There’s a cupboard with some food under a stasis charm if you’re hungry. Use the tent as long as you’d like. 

Hermione.

He blinked at it for a moment and read it a second time. Something about the impersonality left him wanting. His chest clenched. She had been there, and he found he wished she still was.

That unfortunate ache of long-delayed rest pulled at his shoulders. Why couldn’t one simply wake up feeling rejuvenated? He shuffled out of bed, feeling like he’d aged a hundred years, and moaned his way to the bathroom in search of a hot shower. 

࿐ ࿔*

Draco leaned against the doorframe to Dr. Carter’s study, his arms crossed. Fresh clothes made him feel like himself again. The professor was at his desk, hunched over some papers. Three books hovered in the air beside him, unnatural light perfectly illuminating each.

Draco rapped a knuckle against the wood. 

Glancing up, Dr. Carter smiled. “Oh, hello there. Didn’t hear you come in last night.”

“I slept in the forest.” 

Dr. Carter set his pen down and removed his glasses, rubbing them with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. 

“My lad, there is nothing restful about sleeping for twenty minutes hunched up in a tree like Puck.” 

“I didn’t,” Draco said, drifting into the room and running his hand along the mantel. The ships in the painting above it rolled on the storm-tossed sea. The fire below threw strange shadows against the painting. “Granger leant me a tent.” 

Dr. Carter stilled, his eyes shifting slightly. “Did she?” 

“Mmm.” He pinched his lip. That ache in his chest—relentless. He resisted rubbing it. Fuck, it was irritating having everyone notice. He picked at a rough patch in the mantel’s paint. 

“When did she give you the tent?” 

“Yesterday.” Draco dug his thumbnail into a hairline crack. “She came to the forest unexpectedly.” 

The clock against the wall tick, tick, ticked. 

“Was that a… problem?” Dr. Carter hedged. 

Draco shook his head. “Shouldn’t have been.” He sighed. “But some of the centaurs got into a brawl.” 

“Because of her?”

“No, they were fighting before.” 

“Well, tensions have been running high…” 

“Yes,” Draco sighed. “The forest brought Her—Granger quite close to the fight.” His nail dug until the crack and lifted a paint chip at an angle. “Eirene and Selene decided to fire a flaming arrow over the brawlers—get their attention and break it up or something.” 

The paint chip popped up, standing vertically.

“The forest put Hermione right in line of the arrow,” he grit out, ripping the little chip free. 

“Good god!” 

“She wasn’t hurt,” Draco added. “An oak tree pushed her out of the way.” The memory of her, soft and hard at once, warm and alive in his arms, filled him. He ran a hand over his jaw. Merlin, he needed a shave. Her little tent hadn’t been kitted with a razor that he’d noticed. 

“But is she alright? My god, after all you’ve both been through… Was she shaken?” 

Draco scratched at his chin. “A little, I think.”

“You think?” 

The professor had risen from his chair and was moving to a sideboard. With a few taps of his wand, steam curled from a teapot. He poured two cups, then stilled.

“Care for a bit of brandy in this?” 

“Please,” Draco breathed, sinking heavily into one of the chairs before the professor’s desk.

Dr. Carter passed him a cup and sat opposite him in the other chair. Birch logs crackled in the fire, hissing and spitting. Draco gazed into the dancing flames. Memories of other dangers, other fears, loomed in his mind. 

“Good of her to lend you the tent.” Dr. Carter sipped his tea, watching him closely. He ignored the professor’s regard. “Was it easier to sleep there, after all?” 

“Yes,” Draco muttered, lip curling, “you were right. But I fucking hate tents. Woke up without feeling pulled, but Merlin, at what cost? I always feel grimy and odorous when waking up in a tent. And this wasn’t one of the better models.” The scent of the wood stove lingered on him. “Just a simple affair.”  But hers.

“Well, you can buy a better one for yourself.” 

Draco hummed, his eyes still on the fire. Another might be better, but what would it lose if her fingerprints weren't in it?

Fuck, he needed to think. 

“Something else happened.” He paused. Wait, maybe he’d rather not say. Some things were for yourself only. Still, he could use… what the fuck could he use? A good shake? Likely. 

A log popped and rolled in the fireplace. “With the centaurs?” Dr. Carter prodded. 

Draco took a final sip of his tea. The brandy burned as it slid down the back of his throat. He set the cup down with a tinkling of porcelain. 

“Between Granger and I… we might be—I might—things are changing between us, I think.” The ring on his little finger twisted around and around and around. 

Something was unsettling about Dr. Carter’s silence, so Draco chanced a look at him. The professor was tapping his forefinger to his lip and wearing a little smirk—gods, insufferable. 

“Change is good.”

Draco scoffed, then swallowed.

“Maybe…” he admitted. 

But there was so much between, wasn’t there? Too much. Enough surrounded only him. In the forest or a Muggle pub, maybe that was different. But the rest of life? Glares in the Ministry or the way Weasley had ignored him rose to the surface of his mind. 

He closed his eyes. Couldn’t anything in life be simple?

The feel of her shirt under his hand, the soft skin of her jaw, how her tongue tasted on his, all raced through his blood. 

“So the forest moved her again,” Dr. Carter mused at his side. “Curious.”

Draco faced the man. “Don’t read too much into it.” 

“I absolutely will. Wither Draco, thither the forest.” Dr. Carter’s smirk deepened mischievously. Draco hated it. “Changing between you, indeed. Maybe the Healing Maiden has returned.” 

Draco blinked hard. The wind had been utterly knocked out of him. “Healing—what?” 

"Hmm?"

"About a maiden?"

“Oh, that—I was just teasing,” Dr. Carter said, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s nothing. Just one of those old prophecies I told you about.” He flicked three fingers, summoning several sheets of parchment, and began sifting through them. 

Draco gripped his knee with one hand, the other pressed into his chest against the ache tethered there. “Kindly elaborate, because your phrasing was very fucking uncanny.”

“How so?” 

“I mean, I had a dream recently. Weird dream—Granger was in it. And at one point I said…I might have called her… I said something about the Healing Maiden returning.” 

Dr. Carter’s gaze bore into him. “Tell me this dream.” 

The fire crackled on the other side of the room as Draco recounted the dream in as much detail as he could manage. The flames, the white hart, all of it. By the time he finished, Dr. Carter had moved behind his desk again, looking through a fairly aged-looking book he had. 

“The prophecies I mentioned,” Dr. Carter explained, “aren’t very reliable. And most who believe them think this particular character was Joan D’Arc.” 

“Fine. Good. Probably was.” 

“Perhaps.” He tilted his head side to side. “The phrasing is vague.” 

Draco’s lip curled. “Isn’t it always?”

“This: Geoffrey Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae.” 

Dr. Carter held out the old tome with bindings that gave off a distinct vanilla odour. Draco lifted it gently. It felt terrible, with a texture he used to hate in the library at home, particularly on medieval manuscripts. 

“Eugh, this feels four hundred years old.” 

“Bravo! More like five hundred.”

“Disgusting.” He opened the book carefully, then glared at Dr. Carter. “Why did you even hand me this?” He asked, passing the volume back. “I can’t read all these squiggly Middle English lines. Not without some lunch first.” 

“Fair enough.” The professor paged carefully through until he found what he was looking for. “Alright, this could translate as ‘something, something, a damsel will be sent from the city of the forest of Canute’ —that’s Cnut, Draco.” 

“Means fuck-all to me.” 

“In Cornwall, maybe Devon? Could be Dartmoor.” 

“No, by all means, don’t be too specific.” 

Dr. Carter waved him off and continued, “ '…to administer a cure, who, after she has practiced all her arts, will dry up the noxious fountains only with her breath’ — she’ll heal what ails Britain— ‘Afterwards, as soon as she has refreshed herself with the wholesome liquor, she shall bear in her right hand the wood of Caledon—’ ”

“Hang on, like a wand?” Draco leaned forward. 

“Could be. ‘…and in her left…’ something about London. ‘Wherever she shall go, she shall make sulphureous steps, which will smoke with a double flame.’ ” 

With a flourish, Dr. Carter closed the book and set it floating near the others. “Do you see why I’m fascinated by your dream?” 

“Yes, but,” Draco sighed wearily, “I just think that’s all rot.”

“Oh, indubitably.” Dr. Carter grinned. “Geoffrey Monmouth wasn’t telling some deeply accurate history. And yet… this suggests your dream a little, doesn’t it?” 

“Barely.” 

Draco shifted uncomfortably. He fucking hated prophecies. Damned his father, and by extension himself, hadn’t they? A phantom burn scorched his forearm. 

“Don’t think of it as if it’s true,” Dr. Carter emphasised. “We suspect the forest influenced the dream, yes? We’ve noticed as much before. So, this is merely a motif it’s using, possibly from Merlin. Well, doesn’t that feel like further proof that it’s Nimue’s enchantment on the forest?” 

The ache in his chest was awful. A sound of brittle branches scratching on bark filled his ears. He pressed his hand firmer into his chest. Dr. Carter’s grin wavered, eyes fixing on Draco’s hand.

“The forest?” He asked. 

“Of course it’s the bloody forest,” Draco bit out, rubbing circles. “Can’t get a moment’s fucking peace, can I?” 

“Draco,” Dr. Carter said carefully, easing into his desk chair. “Try not to let this prophecy nonsense get to you. It means nothing—signifies nothing. All it tells us—me—is that I’m more sure than ever that Merlin is trapped there.” 

The clock on the wall ticked. A shower of embers flew up from a log. In his chest, the forest’s pull grew tighter. Draco needed food and to be back in the trees—back at Hermione’s quaint tent. 

The thought of her soft curls brushing his face rose unbidden. All her vibrancy, all the things that tried to box her, to label her…he had been one of them before. He wouldn’t be one of them again. 

“The prophecy isn’t real,” Draco murmured, watching the glow of the logs.

“I quite agree,” Dr. Carter affirmed. “It’s only a motif the forest is using to nudge you.” 

He twisted the ring on his little finger. His father’s ring. Dropped into his palm while they sat huddled in the Great Hall. 

‘They’ll come for me, Cissa,” his father had whispered. “We’re traitors to everyone now.”

“So it’s only a matter of time?” His mother muttered. 

“I’m not sure which will be worse: the Aurors or the others.” 

His father sighed then, reaching across his mother to grip his upper arm like a painful vice. “Draco, you must prepare yourself to become the head of this house.” Draco’s hand had been wrenched forward, and the signet ring shoved tightly in his palm. Sweat, grime, and ash all mingled on his skin, drowning the symbol of legacy. 

He turned it over and over, now, catching the light on every half-turn. An old thing, styled after the medieval fashion from whenever it was made. 

Who defined his family now? His father? His ancestors? Himself? 

Trees swept about his mind. Green, so green it stained his fingers and filled his blood. Bird calls and wind and the tapping of a thrush against a stone echoed in his bones. 

The name of Malfoy—the lands of Malfoy—were what he made them. 

Hermione was the same, wasn’t she? A witch. A witch. A witch. Nothing—no one—could change it. She was a witch if she lived or if she had died in that stupid, pointless war. She belonged to herself. She made herself. Prophecy couldn’t have her. The forest couldn’t have her. She was not a thing to be claimed. 

She must know that. And if she didn’t… 

“Is Archibald out?” 

Dr. Carter glanced up from the notes he’d become reabsorbed in. “Hmm? Oh, no, he’s on the roof being a terror.” 

“Right, I’ll go face him.” Draco patted his pocket just to be sure of his wand. 

“Take him treats or he’ll claw you again.” 

He rose, already composing the letter in his head, half of him still caught in the trees.

Before the Statute of Secrecy, the separation between Knockturn and Diagon Alley was less stark. Though now it seemed that one was the darker shadow of the other, one old establishment stood just off from the jettied floors that crowded Knockturn Alley, forever elevating its dealings. 

Hermione skipped through a shining puddle in her new boots—a Christmas gift from her mum. Her water-repellent charm was working a treat; not even a puddle was a barrier to her now. 

The path to the Wulfric Inn’s commanding edifice curved down a slope and passed through an alley between two buildings. Well, commanding gate to the edifice, she supposed. A brick gatehouse from the sixteenth century stood with one of its large oak doors propped open. 

She passed through it, and another demarcation was crossed. The Hermione of the outside world became the Hermione who belonged here. 

Inside, she moved through the halls with a pleased grin plastered to her face. It wasn’t her first visit there, of course, but it was the first time she was simply here to use the library. Just another member going about their day. What was belonging if not settling into the mundane? 

The Old Hall, a large room with dark timbered ceilings painted with English roses and vines that moved along, growing and contracting, was being outfitted for an event—likely a holiday party as the year wound to a close. A short, broad wizard smoked a cigar and flicked his wand around, shifting chairs and tables. He coughed, and a skeletal person near the door Hermione passed, sighed dramatically: “Must you, George?” 

A few turns—one wrong one—and a quick dash through a small square housing a single tree, and Hermione was there: the library and archives. It was a single level, rather tightly organised, and smelled just a bit musty.  Floating candles and torches on the wall cast flickering light that, as it had been when she was at Hogwarts, was a little hard to read by. A pair of ghosts drifted through the stacks, arguing about the dissolution of the monasteries. 

Hermione squared her shoulders and began.

An hour…two…three slipped by as she searched. Sentience in plants…the rights of centaurs…Royal Forest laws…on and on and on. Texts dated before and only slightly after the Statute of Secrecy tended to reflect more Muggle legal standards, with exceptions made only where needed. Perhaps a jaunt to the Lincoln Inn wouldn’t be amiss. Surely no one would be bothered by a stray Confundus or two in the name of research? 

Who would notice anyway? 

When the shadows in the room were deepening, and her stomach was just beginning to nudge her about supper, she felt fortified. There wasn’t something directly here, perhaps, but the pieces were there—the scaffolding just needed a bit of bolster work. Gathering her notes, Hermione made her way back out. 

The passage near the Old Hall was overflowing with conversation that reached her before she’d even turned the corner to the room. Only a few steps and…

“Hermione!” 

Her gaze followed the voice, her heart in her throat. 

“Ms. Bhatt—lovely to see you. Beautiful robes,” she said, admiring the deep reds and golds threaded through the woman’s attire. Ms. Bhatt scanned her from head to toe, a tiny curve forming at the corner of her mouth. 

“Hermione, such a surprise to see you here.” 

“Just a bit of personal research,” she said. The notes in her hand felt like glowing beacons.

“I see.” Ms. Bhatt’s eyes flitted over the parchments, then back up. “Well, so long as you’re here, let’s use it. May I introduce you to a colleague and very old friend?” 

Hermione was steered into a circle of witches and wizards who outpaced her age by a generation or two. All were dressed impeccably in robes and peaked hats that bobbed as they spoke to one another. Thanking every god she could think of that she’d worn a sweater dress at least and looked sharp, Hermione shook hands, gave bises, and steeled herself against the awful sensation of a drop of anxious sweat trailing down her spine. 

As she spoke about the Magical Creatures on Private Lands Act to a pair of them, she noticed Ms. Bhatt, focusing on her notes. A few more words were exchanged, and the woman’s small hand gripped her elbow. 

“Do excuse us—I just need a quick word with Hermione,” Ms. Bhatt said, pulling Hermione toward the cloak room. 

Ms. Bhatt cast a silencing charm by the door as they entered the smaller room crowded with outer cloaks and robes.

“Hermione,” Ms. Bhatt said on an exhale, drawing close, “May I speak candidly?” 

“Please do.” 

“I know you mean well,” she said, “and this Malfoy Forest is fascinating—I’m intrigued myself—but I feel the need to remind you once again that we are public servants. Not activists. Not private advocates. Public. Servants. We serve the community’s interests at large. Do you understand what that means?” 

Hermione drew in a measured breath.  

“I do.” 

“Good.” Ms. Bhatt’s look was sharp and flinty. “Have you been spending more time with Draco Malfoy?” 

“Some, yes.” 

Ms. Bhatt hummed, her eyes narrowing. Her pencilled brows arched delicately. “Be careful of conflict of interest, my dear. You are young—he is young. It is natural. But when you represent the Ministry, Hermione, you don’t get to choose whose story feels more compelling.” 

Hermione’s cheeks grew warm, her fingers clenching around her notes. 

“Don’t let a good-looking young man distract you from your career aspirations.” 

She bit her tongue against a thousand things she would like to say—against things her mother would rail about. With a cool air, she said only, “Personal affairs and a career aren’t mutually exclusive.” 

Ms. Bhatt clicked her tongue and turned away, straightening her pointed hat. “They can be. For some of us, they can be.” She cut a last look at Hermione, then added over her shoulder, “Enjoy the holiday. I’ll see you in the new year.”

࿐ ࿔*

Her walk home was more of a stomping trudge—shoulders hunched, head angled forward. She knew she looked every bit the half-crazed witch who used to startle Ron into doing his homework.

How dare she? How dare she! 

Wasn’t she allowed personal cares? A personal life? So what if it was Draco? 

Her pace slowed. Draco’s forest, she amended. But that wasn’t quite right. Maybe not at all. She bit her lip and trudged on.

The mistletoe in the wreath swung wildly as she wrenched the door open. Pine filled her nose—sharp and earthy, like the forest. Hermione threw back a locking spell and stomped up the stairs to her flat, shaking the little tchotchkes on her bookshelf as she slammed her door.

Buggering fuck! 

“Of all the sexist, ridiculous—Crooks, you’ll never believe it,” she chafed, rounding on the cat. 

Crookshanks yowled and batted his tail against the window where a large, great-horned owl was casting malevolent looks into the room. 

She went to open the window for Archibald, mindful of his nasty claws. 

A thumbprint of blood marked the envelope’s corner. She quickly snatched the letter, then slammed the window against Archibald, who fluttered his wings, glared again, and took off without waiting for a reply. 

Lowering onto the window seat, she opened the letter. Crookshanks crawled into her lap, prodding her thigh with a paw. 

Hermione, 

Did you ever feel, with that git Potter, like you were walking through someone else’s story? I don’t know if I can explain it, but sometimes, I feel it with the forest. 

I need to tell you about a dream I had—a very strange dream. I have many of those these days, but this one was particular. 

You were in it, and so were many things about the forest. I was there too. And at the end, I called you “Healing Maiden.” 

Don’t roll your eyes. I know how it sounds: ridiculous, and especially pathetic. I don’t need you to heal me. But Dr. Carter knows about a prophecy….maybe from Merlin… we aren’t sure. It’s attributed to him, at any rate. This prophecy says that a damsel  (read: ‘healing maiden’, because that’s what he called her) or what have you, will come and heal Britain. There’s probably more to it, symbolically or otherwise. 

It sounds even more ridiculous written out.

I thought you ought to know. And I thought…Maybe you’d want to yell at me about fate and prophecies. 

You should know that I don’t think anything of the sort is trying to act on you. Or me. I think, maybe, there’s some half-remembered story buried in there, and it’s using that to talk to me. 

But it does seem to talk to me, and that’s unsettling, isn’t it?

What does it mean if it wants you?

And if it’s only acting on my feelings—what then? 

 

Yours

Draco 

Hermione walked through her flat for a long time, nibbling a sandwich. The questions rolled through her mind like water over stones in a cold stream. She flowed through her flat, touching familiar objects and staring out the windows. Her thoughts drifted and meandered from London to the wide world to a forest in Wiltshire. 

In and out of rooms, she went. Each post and lintel marked a transition. Every door, a journey from one part of her life to another, from waking to washing to breakfast and tea. Choice and decision were wrapped in those steps through, beneath, and between. The journey begins and ends with a single step across this demarcation. 

But one passage was not like the others. Staring into the flames of her fire, shimmering powder in her hand as her thumb swept back and forth over its surface, she considered the choice before her. 

Would he be at the house? Was he in the forest? Was this only blood running hot, or something else, something deeper? 

Seeds had been planted in her belly, and roots were growing now. 

Could she stop the budding if she tried? Would she want to?

Floo fire whooshed around her, purging her thoughts. She stumbled into the Great James Street sitting room and blinked in the darkness. What was the protocol when you Flooed into someone’s home unexpectedly? A wave of doubt seemed to crash into her and slosh around her belly. Gods, what had she been thinking? It was only an owl, after all. 

Shuffling footsteps rounded the corner. 

“Oh, hello, Hermione,” Theo greeted. He wore a quizzical grin, but was otherwise unfazed by her. 

“Hi, Theo.” 

A bag hung at his side. “What are you doing here?” He asked. 

“I was looking for Draco.” 

His left brow inched steadily upward. “Looking for…unexpectedly?” 

“Is he here?” She huffed. 

“No.” Theo clipped, moving toward the Floo and grabbing a scoop of powder. “Where he always is. Where else?” He threw the powder into the flames, stepped in, and looked at her with green licking at his shins. “Number twelve Grimmauld Place.”

She stood still for a moment alone in the darkness of the room. Blues and greys pervaded everything except a shaft of orange light that glowed across the floor from a street lamp out the window. Evening golds and grey braided through the Persian rug. 

There was a chance to go back. Through the Floo to her window seat, a blanket and Crookshanks would warm her. She might wonder at possibilities, but little would change. 

Slipping her hand into her pocket, she gripped her wand, spun, and vanished.

A sharp tug seized his chest as a pale blue otter swirled through the tent’s flap. Draco clutched his sternum and leaned back on the sofa, breathing hard. 

Hermione’s voice rang out, “I’m in the clearing.” 

Night hung thick in the woods when he appeared. Mist crept low through a silver haze. The trees murmured around him—electric, restless, but not thrashing quite like the day before. Cold sank deep, blooming through bone. His breath puffed in clouds. 

Standing beneath the ash tree by the well, Hermione waited, facing into the forest’s shadows. 

She hadn’t noticed him yet. The sound of his Apparition must have been drowned out by the wild whispers of the branches overhead. The ash groaned and swayed. Hermione turned to it, her loose curls fluttering in the night air. When she laid her palm against the tree, he felt it in his own skin.

A shudder ran through him and passed to the tree. Hermione pulled back and turned, her gaze sweeping through the clearing until it landed on him. 

Draco took a step and then another toward her. He felt it in the tightness of his back drawn as taut as a bow. 

“What are you doing here?” He asked, lowly. 

“I got your letter." Her fingers twisted together in front of her.

He took a step closer. “At least Archibald manages deliveries even if he maimed me.” 

“Just a scratch, I’m sure.” 

“Just a scratch.” Another step. "Why are you here, Hermione?"

“To yell at you about fate and prophecies,” she said lightly, “obviously.”

“Of course.” Another step. His heart thrummed against his ribs.

“I think you’re wrong about the forest.” She glanced around at the chaotic overstory, then back to him. “It doesn’t want me. But I do think it’s talking to you.” 

He was close now—so very close. Her chest rose and fell. She stood slightly above him on a root. His chin tipped up to watch her. The waning gibbous moon spilt drops of light that clung to her skin like dew. A small glint glistened on her full lower lip.  

“Obviously it is. It has its own plans and desires,” he said. “How else do you explain the centaurs?” 

One elegant shoulder lifted in a half shrug. “They decided to come on their own.” She rested her hand against the tree again. “But I suppose it knew they belonged…or wanted them to.” 

He drew in a deep breath. Words rolled on his tongue. Maybe you could too. 

“But it doesn’t want me, Draco.” The words rose in a pale cloud. “You do.” 

He froze. 

A single curl brushed her cheek. His heart juttered back to life. Moonlight spun through her hair. The ash tree gave a mighty creak. 

Draco reached up, tucking the stray curl behind her ear. His knuckle brushed her cheekbone. Her warmth seeped into him, flooding his veins. The familiar pull in his chest flickered dimly against his pounding heart.

“I do.” 

Her eyes glinted as if she’d already made a decision and was watching him catch up. Steady hands—sure hands—reached for his chest and glided upward, her gaze never wavering from his. 

Her touch set him alight, stoking heat beneath his ribs. The flames hummed through him as he watched—felt—her deft fingers slide along the folds of his cloak…and pull. 

Chill night air rushed in as his cloak parted, exposing his front. He only had an instant to feel the relief of it before she was on him, dropping down from the root. One hand dove into his hair. The other swept around his waist and gripped him, plucking the thread of tension snapping down his spine.

His arms closed around her as he drew her into a kiss.

So often he lived in his head. If Draco had been a star orbiting somewhere far away, he was dragged to Earth now by her relentless gravity. He fell from his thoughts into his body with a crash. 

Nails scraped his scalp. A flick of tongue darted across his upper lip. He opened for her, coaxing her in as she drew him out, and the sound that left him was a plea. At his waist, her fingers traced arcs along him. Draco slid his hands over her, cupping her, pulling her into him until she threw her head back and sighed a glorious breath, steaming into the cold night.  

“Hermione,” he whispered, trailing her name along her jaw, flicking his tongue against her skin to taste her. 

“Take me home,” she said, pressing her hips into him with quiet insistence. 

He tipped his head against hers and held her close and still for a breath. If he moved, he might break this, but he had to move.

His fingers tensed against her. A blink, a crack of Apparition, and they were inside the tent.

Hermione looked around, dazed. A dark knot of uncertainty twisted in his belly. What the fuck had he been thinking? She must have meant—

But then her hands were in his hair again, and he stopped thinking. Hermione’s kisses peppered over him, warming every last inch. She held him firm, brushing and nipping with lush caresses. She kissed like someone both patient and desperate—teasing, but claiming. He didn’t know what to do but follow. He learned her by touch, by answering. A swipe of her tongue, and he replied with his own. 

Her hands moved from his neck downward to his shoulders, pushing his cloak until it fell in a heap on the floor. 

Draco pulled back, gaze flitting over her in wonder. She was here. They were here. Staring at him, she removed her coat and threw it on the sofa. 

He reached for her, then stalled, a hand on her hip, thumb stroking circles against her. Warmth braided with the cool of the night that curled in a thin vapour from the tent flap. 

“What do you want, Hermione?” he asked through ragged breaths. This, please, this. 

“You,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Her delicate hand covered his, threading her fingers through his own. She squeezed once, then slid up his forearm—slow, deliberate—before tracing the line of his torso down again, her finger hooking at his belt. 

Their eyes met in silent question. He gave a nod, and she tugged it loose, letting it clatter to the floor. He grasped his jumper behind his neck, pulling it over his head in a fluid motion. The cold of her hands sent a breathless shock through him; her mouth followed, all heat and focus. She kissed him like she meant to rewrite every memory of the scars that marred him. He gripped her, pulling her up in a searing kiss, arms wrapped tight about her. Purpose dragged his eyes toward the bed.

He was made only of motion then, unbound. A scrape of teeth, a stumble—Hermione’s laugh against his throat—everything now, only now. 

Fabric bunched and squeezed and pulled until Draco rid her of her dress, tossing it—who the fuck knows where—behind him. His hands caressed her luminous skin, mapping the planes of her. He dropped to his knees. Gods, she was—she was—he pressed his lips to her silken skin. His mouth trailed lower. A nip and burrowing his nose into the heat of her thighs. Kneeling like a penitent, Draco removed her boots slowly, deliberately. His gaze climbed to hers, where lust pooled and darkened.

The tent’s light was soft, flickering gold from the stove’s fire and a single lantern near the bed. It shimmered on her now, sculpting her in shadows. He followed them hungrily to the dark crescents cast by the swell of her breasts. 

Lithe fingers traced over black lace trimming the top of her knickers. She gave a short nod and a breathy, “Yes.” He slid the lace down. She stepped free, and his hands dragged upward. The backs of her thighs, the dip of her waist, the rise of her ribs—he grazed his nose through her soft curls—then up, over her belly, along her chest until he was standing, lips pressed once more to hers. His fingers found the hook of her bra and released it just as he felt the familiar unclasping of the button on his trousers. 

He swallowed hard, pressing all his desire into the softness of her; licking it onto the velvet of her tongue. The grate of his zipper echoed in the tent. A branch scraping along the edge of the canvas outside joined in. Hermione’s thumbs hooked into the bands of both his trousers and pants and pushed. 

A sharp hiss broke from him as his cock sprang free, brushing against her. 

He kicked everything away and pulled her to him. They were against each other now—bare. He moved with her—a clumsy tango, breathless dance of knees and hips, of needing and not stopping, purposes in tune—until she hit the bed and folded beneath him.

“Further, Hermione,” he murmured, his voice strange and dreamlike. She slid up the bed, her curls fanning wild beneath her in the sea of blue. 

Gods, she was magic—aglow with it, aflame, a marvel to behold. 

“You’re… Fuck, look at you,” he whispered, crawling to her. “Beautiful.”

She looked at him openly, taking in all of him. “So are you.”

Instead of letting him press her into the mattress—as he wanted desperately to—she tugged his arm, pulling him beside her. Chests pressed together, hearts beating wildly in sync, she watched him. A hand caressed his cheek. Her ring finger slid over his lower lip, coaxing him open. He caught it—soft, warm—pulling it into his mouth, his tongue curling slowly around the tip. Her delicate, coral lips parted, the tip of her tongue seeking at the edge. 

Pulling her to himself, he devoured her and let himself be consumed. He needed her close—a pull—then closer and closer until there was nothing between them. Her hand slipped to his hip, feeling the dip where his leg folded. She followed the line of him inward until he felt her fingers—fuck, too good, too much—wrap around him. 

“Wait, wait,” he hissed, pulling her hand away. 

“No?” She asked, eyes wide and full of wonder. 

He brushed his nose against hers. “Too much—I’m…I won’t last.”

Her leg lifted and squeezed against his thigh. He grasped it firmly, his hand curved around her slender, taut calf and brought it over his hip. He trailed upward, cupping her backside before sliding down again. Reaching below her thigh, he felt the velvet of her sex. A gasp broke from her lips, and he swallowed it greedily. 

“Please,” she poured into his mouth. 

His thumb twisted upward pressing just where she needed him—another gasp rose in her throat—raw and perfect. He licked and sucked along the arch of it, his tongue flicking at her pulse point. 

He circled her gently with two fingers, steady, watching her, learning her, having difficulty knowing where the definitions between his body and hers were. Gods, she was molten. He was delirious with her. His own need pulsed against her. He pressed closer, chasing the heat.

Hermione’s fingers curled into his bicep, her other hand at his jaw. Slipping his fingers inward, he crooked them and watched her come undone—parted lips, breathless, golden light on her skin. He moved his thumb again—“Yes—fuck, yes! There, just—just—”

He slowed, and she whimpered at his shift in tempo, but he couldn’t—he had to—while she was—

“Is this alright?” He dragged himself against her until his tip was poised right at the precipice. 

Hermione opened her eyes. She was wild, open, fierce. His hips trembled.

“Yes,” she breathed.

And he shifted. Slowly, but only just, and then, thumb still pressed to her, he was there. 

“Draco,” she sighed. His lips collapsed against hers. Eyes squeezed painfully tight. Her, her, her. 

He moved, deeper, closer. He was unmade. Gone, lost, swept away. She cried out, spine arched, and he gripped her close, holding her through wave after cresting wave. Hermione in his hands. Hermione all around him. He was entirely undone—drowned, consumed.  He needed—he needed—

“Hermione,” he begged.

The yew trembled overhead, branches quaking in the dark night.

They moved together—closer, faster—until her pull unravelled him.

And he shattered into her name.

Chapter Text

A dream of spring lingered on the edge of memory in the morning glow. Hermione blinked slowly out of a green haze that swirled around her mind and into the blues, creams, and golds of the tent. She arched her back, stretching on the soft, warm bed. The body pressed alongside her moved too. Her vision cleared and…ah yes, right where she left him. She rolled closer and brushed her lips against his shoulder. For a little while, she lay with her lips and nose against him, in a fogged state of wonder.

Hermione was not the sort to believe that sleeping with someone meant the foundations of the earth had been rearranged. She’d certainly had her fair share of fun and exploration since the fading end of her and Ron as her eighth year began. Some experiences existed entirely in the physical: wonderful, rolling, fucking great times. But occasionally, a few crossed into something else; something that had a promise of more.

For all the wondering and wanting she’d felt for a while now, Hermione expected a dizzying shock at who was beside her, or even the pain of regret, both signs she knew from before. Either was normal, she’d found, when you’d built up a lot of tension between two people and then let it ignite.

Why didn’t it come?

She turned her face to the ceiling of the tent, watching the yew tree’s shadows painted there. Instead of what she'd known before, a new feeling crept in. There was a sublime quality to the edges of her. A steady pulse to the easy morning. 

The man beside her breathed softly through gently parted lips. He lay on his back, one arm thrown over his head. A bit of pale fringe crossed his forehead. The sheet had pulled down until its edge rested lightly on his hip bones, leaving him exposed.

A network of scars etched his life in his skin. Two jagged ones lay in pale strands across his chest. The tail of one bisected his collarbone neatly. Tiny nicks were on the side of his neck and the back of his left hand. Several burn scars bloomed along his forearms. On his left side, a fresh scar, still raised and pink, ran jaggedly from his shoulder to his navel. Hermione followed the line with the tip of her finger. Down, down, down over the gentle ripple of his muscles. Not the definition of some she had seen, but the subtle tightness of a man who spent his days always in motion. A trail of white gold hair guided her along. She swirled her fingertip in his belly button. He shivered and gripped her finger.

“Ticklish,” he murmured, eyes closed.

Holding on, he shifted onto his side. “Don’t say it.”

Hermione’s brow furrowed. “Say what?”

“The traditional lie,” he grumbled. His lashes fluttered against his cheek.

“‘Good morning?’”

He groaned, sliding his arm over his eyes. She bloody well knew it was a good one, so he could get over himself.

A smirk slithered onto his face. “S’pose this is alright… as mornings go.”

Oh, that’s how he wanted to play it? Fine. She pushed herself up to sitting, the sheets falling to her waist, and scooted to the edge of the bed. A strong arm looped around her middle.

“Oh no, you don’t.”

“Hmph. I’ll do as I like.”

“You’ll like this better.”

“Oh, will I?” Her voice lifted in mock outrage. She turned to look at him just as he yanked her backwards into his chest.

Draco’s hand slipped beneath the sheets, gliding down her stomach until... She arched into him with a gasp and melted.

A while later, the sheets tangled about their ankles as Draco’s foot dragged up and down Hermione’s calf. Her whole body felt supple and sated. An abiding warmth hung over the pair of them like a spell. She imagined it wrapping around them like a cocoon. They were both molten liquid in this strange chrysalis. What would emerge, she wondered, watching the shadows of the yew branches dance along the canvas of the tent. She raised a hand into the air, pointing a finger, and traced them.

“What are you doing?”

Hermione didn’t break her focus, her hand lazily following the sweeping line of one of the larger branches. “Following the shadows.”

Draco hummed beside her and slid a hand up her forearm to grip it and follow while she traced.

“If you’d invested in a better model, the walls and ceiling wouldn’t let light in like this.”

She scoffed. “Bloody hell, Malfoy, is this a hardship for you?”

He was quiet for a moment, his nose rubbing against the curls by her temple. “Hardly.”

࿐ ࿔*

Draco had fallen back asleep. Exhaustion had caught up with him again. Hermione traced her finger along one of the dark half moons below his eyes, then pushed out of the bed. Wrapped tight in a blanket, she made a cup of tea, slipped on his over-large boots, and shuffled out into the morning cold.

The sharp sting of winter bit her nose. High above, Buckbeak cried. She threw her head back to watch as he circled lower and lower, then pulled his wings in tight and dove. A crack of branches was all she heard as he broke through the canopy.

Mist rolled through the forest, undulating like the surface of a deep river. It swirled about her legs and swept on through the trees, creeping toward the lowest dips in the earth. There was a particular way that wood creaked in the cold—a sort of squealing squeak like rubber on a tile floor. As though the wood had contracted from the chill, and said sharply, “Oi!” every time it was forced to rub against anything.

Hermione listened to this little forest fretting as it rattled and railed, swaying about her. It wasn’t quite as distraught today—certainly no thrashing—but it still seemed stubbornly vexed by the enchantment on it. She could hardly blame it.

The tang of frost chilled her lungs. Her skin pricked with the cold, but the blanket was thick and warm. Browns, reds, and blues of winter filled the scene, while lingering greens scattered through the undergrowth. Flowers that had no business asserting themselves clustered here and there. A few mushrooms sprang up near a fallen log, then shrank quickly away, only to rise again.

In the bark of trees strange shapes arose. If she let her imagination wander and her focus go soft around the edges, faces emerged. Hags, trolls, and ghouls watched from all around. A knot became a nose, a crack became a jagged scream. The shaking timbers of the trees became something eerie and grotesque.

Hadn’t she imagined them just like this in the Forest of Dean in another life? Back then, fear came easy, always lingering in her throat.

But now… It was only her, and the dangers were gone. She had beaten them. Now, it was only Hermione in the woods imagining the strangeness of herself, maybe. And for the forest, there was only the fact of its being. The trees were what they were. And maybe that’s why they hated the enchantment so much. In its thrall, they couldn’t just be.

What about her? Could she just be?

Fabric snapped from the tent flap behind her, swaying gently in the air. Perhaps the man sleeping inside felt the same—or perhaps he had felt it before and simply recalled the oppressive sensation.

She swallowed the last of her tea. Late December nipped and stung her warm skin. Bending, she placed the little cup carefully on the ground and straightened again. She stretched her arms out wide, opening the blanket and baring herself to the brisk air.

One, two, three…the burbles of the stream seemed to grow louder…nine, ten, eleven…a slight breeze caught her curls and swept them across her lips…fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…a rustle of fabric moved behind her…twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four…warm hands enveloped hers. They pulled her arms in, wrapping her up. Soft lips grazed her ear.

“I thought you might have gone,” he whispered, nipping her, “until I noticed my boots had been stolen.”

“Only borrowed,” she said.

His arms were bare around her.

“Aren’t you cold?” She asked.

“Freezing my bollocks off at this very moment.”

“Oh my god, Draco—” she turned to face him, and he slipped his arms inside the blanket, his cold naked skin suddenly pressed against hers.

He pulled her closer. His lips twisted in a wicked smirk drenched with self-satisfaction. “I’m famished. Breakfast?”

࿐ ࿔*

A flick of a wand, and the fire was rebuilt. Hermione sat on the bed under fluffy blankets, all loose-limbed. Not far off, Draco stood in only his boxer-briefs, grousing as he opened up cupboards. So long as they weren’t wearing much, the spell that had cocooned them earlier persisted. She breathed it in; the fire’s scent and sounds of Draco’s fussing filled her with the kind of timelessness that this space between Christmas and New Year was always meant to occupy…a gentle laziness, a pause, a burrowing in and denning down with bellies full. Draco growled—actually growled like a little animal—from the kitchenette.

Maybe not such full bellies, she amended.

“Problems?” She asked, fighting a grin.

A long, drawn-out sigh unwound from him. “You pretended there was food in here, but all I can find is disgusting components of food and nothing really edible.”

“What are you talking about? There’s everything you need there for some breakfast or sandwiches.”

“Granger—”

“Not Hermione?”

A pause. A scowl. “You can be Hermione when you’re not ridiculous. Listen, Granger, I don’t know how to make you understand that a man cannot live on tinned soups and beans, or Weetabix.”

“There are some almonds in there as well.”

“What do I look like, a weasel?” He squeezed his eyes shut, his mouth pressing into a line. She lost the battle with her grin. “No, don’t you bloody answer that with—” Her shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. He stalked toward her. “I swear to Merlin, you insufferable, witch.”

A wicked gleam lit his face. At the last step, he pounced, diving onto the bed and tackling her. She let out a squeal and rolled away. He caught her by the thigh, wrenching her back.

“No! Don’t you dare!” She laughed, a hand braced on his chest.

He nipped at her shoulder and growled a little, kissing and tickling her until she was fully beneath him.

And then… it turned into something else entirely, and she wasn’t sure how they’d ever survive.

࿐ ࿔*

The crack of Apparition rang through the kitchen in the house at Great James Street. Draco dropped her hand and moved to the fridge.

The room was cold, and the cavernous spaces of the house above seemed to bear down. A clock ticked against the wall. It was mid-morning. She tugged at the cuff of her sweater dress. A quick scourgify had done what it could, which wasn’t much. The stale feeling of being in yesterday’s clothes clung to her like cigarette smoke after staggering out of a club to find dawn already creeping up the lane.

“Can I help?” She asked.

Draco shook his head, examining the contents of the fridge. “It’s just a fry-up.”

Muted light filtered into the room through the city haze. A single tree in the back garden swayed out the window, a spindly branch reaching out like a finger that wanted to tap at the glass. A hob ignited with a click.

Was the magic of their night broken? She’d pictured them in a chrysalis, but what emerged now? God, it was hard to know when you’d overstayed. She felt like a schoolgirl after a slumber party, wondering when Mum would be by to retrieve her.

What was she thinking? This wasn’t like that at all. A beautiful man was standing over there right now, and she held the secret knowledge of what he looked like beneath that jumper of his. A flush spread through her chest.

Awkwardness was a choice, same as anything else, Hermione decided. Her fingers uncurled from her sleeve. She slid into a chair at the table and leaned on her hand to observe the rare sight of Draco Malfoy serving a fry-up in a Muggle-equipped kitchen.

A familiar dance was tread near the stove. Bacon was tossed in a pan. Bread plonked in a toaster. Ingredients laid out. A knife was charmed to slice mushrooms. The sleeves of his jumper were pushed up, his back curved forward in focus. He cracked a pair of eggs that sizzled in the pan. A moment later, he threw in some of the mushrooms.

A breeze outside kicked up, tapping the spindly branch against the kitchen window. Draco’s gaze turned to it, focusing on the movement. She watched as his shoulders swelled, then his breath slipped from him in a slow stream. The branch tap, tap, tapped a little rhythm as though imparting a message. Draco raised his hand and pressed the ball of it once into his chest, his head tipping with a look of such utter longing she could hardly breathe for seeing it. Then he turned placidly back to the pan and flipped the bacon.

Two steps, that was all, and then her arms slid along his sides. His movements slowed.

Was this alright?

Her hands spread across his stomach.

Was this too much?

He stilled. She slid her arms up his front until her hands pressed into his chest.

Let me help.

Her cheek rested between his shoulder blades. Slowly, like a man returning to life, he drew in a deep breath and went back to making breakfast.

The wind curled around the old tree in the little garden out back. It swept through the city and rolled along the river. It moved beyond until it rustled the shaking branches of a forest in Wiltshire.

In a Georgian townhouse in Bloomsbury, Draco Malfoy felt soft fingers press into his chest as the tug there ached and called him back to his forest. But her hands held him firm.

“When do you go back to work?” He asked quietly.

“The second.”

“Plans before then?” He plated the bacon and summoned the toast that had sprung up. A flick of his wand and a little wooden knife began spreading butter over the bread.

Her nose grazed against his back as she shook her head. “Just a New Year’s party.”

His face turned to the side, brushing her curls. “Alright.”

Hermione stepped through the Floo into her flat. The ghost of a kiss lingered on her cheek. Crookshanks, her whole reason for returning, stretched in one of the chairs before leaping down and weaving in and out of her legs, purring. Then, with a pointed scratch to the top of her boot, he manoeuvred himself to his food bowl and sat there expectantly.

Crookshanks fed, Hermione slipped off to the bathroom for a shower. Cold from the tiles seeped into her skin, and she thought again of morning. Her fingers touched the crook of her neck, and with a thought and pulse of magic, she healed a little love bite. Then another. And another. But left the last on her right breast, her fingertips tracing over it softly. Steam rolled around her in clouds. Hermione slid her hands along her throat beneath the hot water. Echoes of how his fingers had traced her skin reverberated. He was embedded in her. Soap and water could only do so much, and that was alright. More than, really.

Later, wrapped in a thick knit sweater her mother had made her, Hermione tucked her lips beneath the high neck of the thing and read her notes from the day before. Sentences swam together and merged in ridiculous ways. Her fingers drummed against her notes. She picked up her wand, put it down, picked it up again. A note she’d scribbled in the margins came to life, rearranging in the shape of a gnome and started hopping around the border. Noises from the street drifted up sporadically. The kettle was started—it clicked off. Tea was poured. Tea was finished. She draped herself over the chair, her hair hanging over the armrest, where Crookshanks batted at her curls.

Green boughs still hung about the room. Twirling her wand, she considered for a moment which charm would achieve it with a subtle effect—oh, yes, of course—with a flourish, the scent of the boughs swelled like a rich perfume through the air, hovering lightly without suffocating. Just enough to imagine for a moment she was somewhere else.

Hunger and a poorly stocked kitchen drove her out, hands stuffed in pockets, to the Leaky Cauldron. She hurried back with the takeaway box under a stasis charm. Her breaths puffed before her in clouds that drifted off to join more clouds and maybe eventually make their way to a Wiltshire forest. A gust zoomed down the lane and needled into her coat just as she opened her door and slipped inside.

Papers fanned before her while she sat on a pillow on the floor, eating the Leaky’s special for the day: a curry. It wasn’t as good now that the papadum was gone.

The afternoon slipped by as she pored over her notes, adding more and writing lists. The deeper she pondered it, the more confident she felt that none of this would quite dovetail with her work at the Ministry. Buggering fuck.

Shadows were deepening when Crookshanks hissed and darted across the floor, startling her out of her thoughts.

The fluffy tail of a silvery, translucent fox materialised before her, swishing back and forth. Crooks dove through it, scattering its form that then resolved back into the fox.

“Hermione,” it said in Draco’s voice, “I’m making soup… too much soup. Come back, will you?” Then the fox sighed ridiculously. “Bring Lor—Crookshanks, if you’d like.”

࿐ ࿔*

“I’m only saying that colleagues shouldn’t talk to you outside of work. Period.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Alright, colleagues are fine,” he allowed, shoving his sleeves up his arms, “but superiors never should. It’s bad form. You’re out there trying to live your life as a free agent, and suddenly there they are butting in on your private business.”

Hermione smirked and bit her lip against another retort.

“Why don’t you use magic for that?” She commented as he peeled a third butternut squash.

He glanced up at her with an arched brow and a devious grin. “Why don’t you get off your arse and come over here to help instead of watching the show.”

“Can’t,” she sniffed. “Crookshanks is asleep on me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Wouldn’t dare disturb the little lordling.”

“He’s not used to it here.”

“Certainly looked put out, what with his prance around and testing out the bed. Already covered those jumpers I brought in hair,” he groused with little steam in it.

Hermione ran her fingers through Crookshanks’ orange fur, relishing the way his back arched into her pets. He hardly looked or acted much older than when she was a third year, which seemed a marvel, really.

“Was there something specific about your notes that upset her?” Draco asked.

“Bhatt?”

He hummed, charming a knife to slice the squash with a snick, snick, snick.

“Oh, she probably caught sight of some of the things I’d jotted in the margins about the forest…about you.”

He smirked, his fringe hanging over his forehead. “Doodling me, were you?” He lifted a teacup for a sip.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, positively lurid stuff. Little penises with hearts around them labeled Malfoy’s Cock, that sort of thing.”

He choked into his cup, sending a splash over the edge

She grinned. “I didn’t at all guard my thoughts on how protections for your forest might clash with DRCMC policies.”

“I thought we were limiting those clashes?”

“In a way,” she sighed, “but obviously there’s interference.”

He snorted, swirling his wand to send the diced squash into a bowl. A flick of his wrist sent some onions he’d chopped earlier into a pan. The hob lit, and a spatula was charmed into motion while they sautéed.

After they’d parted that morning, Draco had moved a few things to the tent to make it a little more comfortable. Just until he could sort out this bigger disturbance, he’d assured her. But there was a calm about him that only existed here in the forest.

“Colour me shocked,” Draco feigned, his hand over his heart, “not the Ministry—our Ministry of Magic finding ways to interfere? No. That can’t be right.” He clicked his tongue. “Did you know that Montague and Twykenham have sent me numerous owls about the forest? Apparently, I’m being wildly irresponsible not letting the struggling economy take advantage of resources right here on our native heath.”

“Of bloody course they have,” Hermione ground through her teeth. “If this weren’t private property, I’d be terrified for it.”

He let out a sharp laugh. “Privately owned, maybe… but by a criminal.”

“Your probationary sentence is nearly done.”

He gave her a flat look. “And that means what to them, hmm? They’ll find a way. They know what they want, and they’ll bend things to their will if they need to to get it. Sure, it may take agonizingly long, and maybe they’ll accidentally accomplish a few things you’re hoping for along the way. But it is economic interest that’s running the circus.”

He moved to the side and opened a bottle of wine, pouring two glasses.

“It’s the way of all governments,” she said with a resigned shrug, resting her chin on the back of the couch. “But the thing is, their ways aren’t the way of all change.”

His glance flashed briefly over her. The second wine glass came floating in her direction and bumped against her knuckles. Draco returned to prepping his ingredients, adding the squash to the sauté pan.

“I grew up with talk like that, you know,” he said softly. The vegetables sizzled behind him. He sprinkled in spices as he stared down into the contents. Steam curled up and tangled with his hair.

Hermione shifted Crookshanks from her lap, who protested with a low rumble, then curled around himself, facing the back of the sofa.

Coming to lean against the side near Draco, Hermione said, “Well, it’s true that something like that is one path to change.”

“Fucking awful path to it.”

Tread lightly, Hermione. She sipped her wine, then said, “What your parents wanted—how they chased it—yes, that was an awful path. And ineffective, yes?”

“This time. For them,” he said carefully, chewing his cheeks. “Sometimes it works.”

“But look,” she pressed on, “you’ve changed. You took that route, and it changed you.”

“Don’t,” he warned, a muscle at the corner of his jaw jumping. “Yes, alright, I changed because of that… and Azkaban…and Dr. Carter. Gods, what a mind fuck it’s all been. But yes, I’ve changed. Through fire. Through some sort of shit alchemical experiment of the soul or something. It’s not easy, and it’s only changed me: singular.” His eyes flashed. “So tell me, Hermione, what’s a path besides through the Ministry that you want to tread? Does it involve some dark night of the soul?”

“Not at all.” He pressed his lips together and nodded once as though that was that, but she went on, “Think of Dr. Carter. Everything you’ve done with him these last three years, when you weren’t being broody amongst the trees. Was that ‘dark night’ you went through really where you changed, or was it here?”

He was focused on the vegetables, testing if they were soft enough. “Hand me that broth, will you?” She passed him the little pitcher he’d set out earlier.

“Fine, let’s be alchemical,” he said, as the mixture simmered. He leaned his hip against the side, crossed his arms, and met her gaze. “No, the dark night of the soul isn’t where the transformation happens. Not at all. That just sort of starts the whole process. Some pathetic existential crisis or what have you.”

“Sixth year?” Her voice was low.

“Then. And during…and after, in Azkaban. That place is nothing but an endless night with no stars and nothing to guide you through. Just cold fucking misery.”

She wanted to reach out for him, but didn’t think, by his demeanour, that he’d appreciate that just now. And anyway, it was difficult. On the one hand, she hated that he’d gone through it all, and on the other, she wouldn’t be talking with him here if he hadn’t. Though Azkaban, anyone could do without.

“So what was the catalyst? The forest?”

He shook his head, his brow furrowed. “Acceptance.”

Branches outside rattled together and scraped against the tent’s canvas. Crookshanks purred on the sofa. The vegetables burbled softly in the pan.

“And more,” he went on, pinching his lower lip between thumb and forefinger, “he gave me another version of the world for me to step into.”

Her mind whirred. That was just it, wasn’t it? You couldn’t go where you couldn’t see. The dark night of the soul was just the endless black of a closed cave: no telling where you were or where you might go. You needed the light to show another path.

But it was more than that. A little light was good, but a map showing alternate routes was better.

“Maybe we can only see something new flourish when we stop expecting old structures to carry it.” She watched him, thinking of his world shifting. “Like all of this. The forest didn’t grow around the house—it just changed it. You’re changed.”

“In some ways, yes.”

“Maybe in all ways, Draco.” She pushed her hand into her hair, shoving the thick curls back off her shoulders. He tracked the movement. “Bugger all, I’m going to keep waiting and waiting at the Ministry for that change.”

He smirked. “Patience, witch. You’ve not been there six months.”

“Doesn’t matter—the writing is on the wall. Everywhere.” In every water stain, every old bit of legislation, every pureblood with an ancestral seat in the court, it was the fabric of the very building. “But maybe that’s not where it will happen. Not really. Your forest didn’t ask for permission. The centaurs didn’t wait for legislation. Even Dr. Carter didn’t.”

“What do you mean? That was court-ordered.”

A choked laugh caught in her throat. “Yes, but you should have seen how he was. He’d been away for a while, apparently, sabbatical or something. But he was determined to prove rehabilitation mattered. That it wasn’t a fantasy, but rather an imperative.”

“Yes, yes, and I’m his bloody little experiment.” Draco flicked his wand, sending the pan to a waiting stock pot where it dumped the contents with a plonk. A smooth turn of his wand, and everything inside was pureed.

“Don’t reduce it to that,” she pushed back, an ache pressing at her chest. “You were always his primary focus.”

His lips twisted, jaw working. Then he rubbed a palm along his face and said nothing. The rough scrape of branches outside knocked against the tent.

“I know that.” He gulped his wine. “I know. Gods, we’ve only talked about it countless times.” He glanced to the corner where a fire crackled in the iron stove. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “Alright, Hermione, so that’s what it was for me, but what does that mean for everything you want?”

She was still for a moment. “I think what I want… is what you want for the forest. And maybe what the forest wants for itself, too.”

“Alright.” He turned to her, an openness in his face. “Tell me what we want.”

࿐ ࿔*

It rained in the morning. For hours, a steady patter lulled them, keeping them in bed. It sluiced down the edges of the canvas and splashed in puddles outside. They pinned back the flap to watch it, a barrier charm holding back the cold. By mid-morning, a soft white beam of light painted a streak across the warm interior. Crookshanks watched the forest from the entrance, his tail swishing back and forth. A little beyond the length of his shadow, Draco stood, twirling his wand absently between his fingers, observing the dwindling rain.

Hermione watched them both from the bathroom door while she worked a drying charm through her hair. Draco and Crookshanks were marvellous and still, neither moving except for the small rhythms of tail and wand. There was something in this rain; it was casting another spell over them. This one was stillness. Her heart, beating away a lot faster than it ought to, asked her, Are you sure, are you sure, are you sure? Draco was a man focused on something beyond this little tent. His own heart would pull him away, led by a forest. Was it tugging him now?

Hers might be tugging her.

Something tugged, anyway, at her scalp.

Bugger. Her wand tangled in some of the curls. Good lord, it was getting long. A lock was pinched between her fingers as she unwound it from her wand. She pulled, holding it out and testing the length against her chest. Nearly past her navel—goodness.

“Is that my jumper?” 


She looked up to find a cocky expression directed at her.

Hermione smirked. “Yes, but since I didn’t bring any clothes…”

“Thief.” He stalked closer, pocketing his wand. Ah, so maybe not focused entirely beyond this little room. “What else of mine are you wearing?” He asked, voice low and rumbling.

She tipped her chin up and arched a brow. His eyes glittered and set something feverish alight within her. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He hummed, then bent and caught her lips in a kiss. Now there was no stillness. They moved together, and her tightening heart felt like a spell, too. His fingers bunched the jumper at her lower back.

It rained all day. Every time Hermione thought of leaving, Draco suggested something else. And so she lingered through several games of chess, a lengthy conversation about wandlore, some distracting moments on the rug, and Draco reading ‘The Peregrine’ aloud to her while rain drummed on the tent, eventually lulling them to sleep.

By morning, it had stopped, leaving the forest bathed in a grey palette. Clouds hung low overhead, brushing the treetops. Twisting bare branches swayed into the mist like grasping claws. There was an eldritch quality to the woods today, an eeriness that settled into Hermione’s flesh as she moved through the damp, cold air. Draco wrapped his cloak tighter over himself and cast quick warming charms on them both.

An orange streak dashed past their ankles.

“Crookshanks!” Hermione lurched forward. But he was already bounding over the stream. His nimble steps vaulted him over a log and off into the brush.

“He’ll be alright,” Draco assured. An irritated scowl crossed his face as he added, “Besides, he’s probably already met half the residents before.”

They walked side by side, occasionally brushing against one another. The trees were restless, their branches and trunks creaking harshly. A deep moan rose from a large Wych Elm as it twisted upward, drawing thinner and taller, then settled downward in a slump.

“It’s like being around a bunch of grumpy old codgers isn’t it?” Draco tossed to her with a wry smirk. He reached out and laid a palm tenderly on a thick branch until the trembling stilled with his touch.

She pictured the bark of the Wych Elm twisting into the sagging face of a sad old man. His nose would droop, his lips gape at an angle. Hermione bit her lip, saying, “Yesterday, I imagined there were faces in the trees.”

“Frightened of it, are you?”

“Not at all,” she scoffed, tossing her hair from her face. He held out a hand and helped her over a large fallen log. A little flash of golden brown caught her eye: a small line of trumpet chanterelles.

Draco followed her gaze.

“Shhh,” he said to the mushrooms, pressing his finger to his lips. “The witch might scoop you up for her potions.”

Immediately, two of the little mushrooms pulled themselves back into the rotting log. While a third raised itself higher, preening.

“You have to pick that one now,” he said with a flick of his brows.

“How did you do that?” She dropped to her knees, examining the little happy fungi. “You’re not even touching it.”

“Do you think I have to?”

“Well, no, I suppose not…but you do so often.”

He stilled and sat on the log beside the chanterelle that rocked back and forth, desperate to catch attention. Pulling her wand from her pocket, she leaned over, ready to cut it with a spell, but slowed, her fingers tingling against the wood. What if...

“May I cut you free with magic?” She murmured, leaning close to the little mushroom.

Draco made a sort of breathy sound that she couldn’t parse. Before her, the little mushroom bent to reveal its base to her. She glanced up at Draco, who was staring fixedly at the chanterelle, his eyes wide. Sliding her wand tip against the mushroom, pouring all her intent into visualising a gentle, simple slice, she murmured, “Diffindo.”

Maybe she imagined it—likely she did—but the little chanterelle seemed to give a pleased gasp as it fell into her open palm. She looked around the log. Passing her wand to Draco, she gathered a cluster of twigs and fallen leaves, all cold and damp. When she had formed a small circle, she took the wand back.

Hermione thought of the baskets her grandmother once had hanging by the garden door, the open shape for irises, the round for mushrooms. With a murmured incantation, her much younger self had stowed away; she transfigured the little cluster into an elegant basket. The joyous chanterelle lay nestled inside.

“Now you’re surrounded by familiar smells too,” she said.

Hermione looked up and found Draco watching her with a curious expression. Her skin prickled. A droplet that had clung to a branch high above chose that moment to plop down onto the crown of his head and roll through his fringe along his forehead. He blinked, seeming to come back into himself, and wiped away the water as it reached his brow.

“Just a bit of elementary transfiguration,” Hermione said, with a half shrug.

“It’s not that—” He pursed his lips. With a jutted chin, he insisted, “Hand it here.”

“Don’t eat my mushroom, Draco.”

“Fussy witch.” He took the basket with a sniff, examining it closely.

Draco held it carefully, its basin propped on his fingertips. His brows furrowed, an intake of breath, and…nothing. Then… a tiny tendril from one of the transfigured twigs crept out, green and fresh. Then another. And another. Until Hermione realised that it was being woven even tighter by fresh green shoots. Tiny gold motes began to rise from Draco’s fingertips and sink into the basket. Leaves sprouted from the ends of each shoot. In its bowl where the little chanterelle lay, moss began to grow. A thin blanket of it, soft and supple—a bed for whatever else she might collect from the woods. Hermione’s heart kicked up until it was pounding against her ribs.

“Et voilà,” he said, passing it back to her with a rather pleased look.

Along the handle, a vine had wrapped itself, making a softer grip. Hermione raised it to eye level and pulled her wand from her pocket.

“What? Don’t like it?” He yawped, plainly affronted.

“S’not that,” she muttered, casting a few charms. “It’s…. Draco, how is this alive?”

He shrugged.

She turned the basket in her hands. “You’ve coaxed it all to grow. I don’t understand how you did that. Especially not after already being transfigured.”

He looked at her with a blank expression. Had he not considered this before? She ran her finger over the chanterelle and stood up, dusting off her legs.

“I suppose,” he started, tipping his head back to look at the swaying canopy, “it’s just because it’s all part of the forest.”

Their pace was a rambling one when they started walking again, stopped often by questions from Hermione and a few from Draco about some of the smaller magical creatures he’d seen there. They gathered juniper berries, which, for some reason known only to the forest, were still blue and purple. In a clearing, Hermione found chestnuts freshly scattered on the floor. In a dense grove, small buds were already beginning to form on some of the branches.

“Is it odd that it’s acting like winter?” She asked.

Draco shrugged. “It acted like winter last year, too, but there are a lot of things off about it.”

“The flowers and buds?”

“And the temperature. It’s always a bit warmer here than beyond. But the trees seem to wander less. Like they’re resting.”

Draco stopped and turned on his heel, suddenly looking back where they’d come from, his focus sharp as an arrow.

“What?” Hermione asked, following his gaze.

He was so still, only his eyes moving, searching for something much too far off to be seen. Then he turned to her.

“Care to find out?” Draco held out a hand to her.

An old familiar feeling shot down her spine like lightning. That electric zing of curiosity satisfied. The call of questions yearning for answers. She laid her hand in his, letting him pull her through space to somewhere else.

࿐ ࿔*

A little family of thestrals whinnied beside a large bellied oak. It was a squat thing with draping branches that sagged like an old woman’s tired limbs against her table at the end of the day. Most of them rested an elbow on the ground. All of them rustled and shook. Hermione and Draco sat on its fat roots watching the newcomers sniff and scrape about the forest.

“I didn’t know they pulled the carriages at Hogwarts until seventh year,” Draco said quietly.

“I didn’t know until the end of fifth.”

They sat quietly with their memories.

“Is it creepy of me that I think about the family graves that vanished when the forest appeared?” He asked her suddenly. She gave him a confused look. "Before the forest, there was a small plot with old Malfoy graves. Not so far off from the yew, actually."

"It's creepier that we have the tent there," she muttered. Then, considering, added, "But not really creepy that you think about it. I would, too.”

“Would you?”

She shrugged. “Of course. All those ancestors’ graves vanishing while the yew remains…”

He hummed in thought. “Here’s where it does get creepy: I think about them feeding it. About them becoming part of the forest now. The mushrooms working their way down, the roots wrapping around them. I dunno, it feels better, somehow, than the miserable gravesites ever did.”

Hermione watched the dark thestrals moving like shadows in the deadened winter. They didn’t feel strange and creepy…they felt like memory.

She murmured her reply, “Sounds sort of wonderful, actually.”

࿐ ࿔*

“That’s one of my favourite charms.”

Draco held a bluebell flame in his palm, ready to send it off to blaze a path. Hermione lifted her wand, and with a thought, the flame hopped from him to her.

“Oi!”

“Let me send it. I’ve got a bit of a trick for you.”

His lips quirked. “Go on then.”

She spun her wand in a circle over it, murmuring the incantation, then held the flame out toward him, aiming her wand his way. A shiver passed over him as though he could feel what she was doing. With a flick, she sent the little bluebell flame racing off into the forest.

“It’ll find her and lead her like a will-o'-the-wisp.”

“Wherever we are?”

“Straight to your magical signature, yes.”

Draco tipped his head to the side and started walking again. “How’d you do it? I always blaze a trail with multiple flames and just wait, feeling like a nob.”

Hermione pushed her hand into her hair. The winter air was making her curls frizz even more than normal and they kept tickling distractingly across her face. They walked on, side by side, through the bramble.

“You know how Patronuses find people to deliver a message? This sort of operates on that principle. Imbue the container—the flame, in this case—with enough of myself and then send it off to lead them back.”

“And you imbued it with a bit of me, I take it?”

“Yep,” she said, popping the p at the end.

“When did you think of this?”

“Thought of it during the war and worked on it in eighth year.” She watched her feet moving over the reds and browns of the bracken. “A weird thing happened with Ron while we were on the run.” Draco glanced at her sharply, scrutinising. “It gave me the idea that it might be good to have a way to guide people to one another. Particularly not something so identifiable like a Patronus.”

Draco was quiet as they walked for a while. Eventually, Laurie would be led to them. He’d felt her in the forest and wanted to ask her about her progress with the enchantment. For now, though, it was just the two of them, and Hermione relished the space.

The winter woods were broody and distressed still, but the promise of spring murmured everywhere. Little green shoots poked up unseasonably early, and buds clung to the trembling branches. She kept her eyes peeled for crocuses, but had so far only seen snowdrops and hellebores, and even those only in the smallest clusters.

Eventually, Draco turned back to her with an unreadable expression. “The centaurs are close.”

A ripple of something passed through her, leaving gooseflesh on her arms and the back of her neck. Draco stepped closer, his hand hovering at her elbow.

“We can turn back,” he murmured. “There’s no reason to keep going this way.”

She searched her feelings, sifting through all of them like they were leaves layered on a forest floor. “Would you turn back if you were alone?”

“No.”

“Then we won’t.” And without a thought, she held out her hand for him. He glanced at her open palm then upward, lingering on her lips. His own parted slightly as he slipped his fingers into hers.

“Alright,” he said softly.

“Keeper,” Aegis boomed, his sleek tawny coat glistening as he approached. Draco held her hand tightly against his side. “And this…” Aegis turned to Hermione, his dark eyes roved over her unruly hair, “...ah, we know you. We have known you for some time, companion of Harry Potter.”

The three others who were with him grew quiet. They held bows and spears, and Hermione wondered if the bags slung at their sides contained some of the birds she heard that morning. She looked for Niht or Eirene, but found neither. The absence of Eirene sent a fresh wave of gooseflesh prickling over her skin.

“I count Firenze and your own Eirene as my friends,” she said, keeping her back straight and gaze fixed on Aegis.

“And well you should,” Aegis said. “Count us also.” He swept his hand to the others, who each gave a single, solemn nod.

“I speak for Eirene,” one of the centaurs said, riding forward to stand beside Aegis. Draco sucked in a breath and angled ever so slightly in front of Hermione. “I am Selene,” the centaur told her. “It was my arrow that flew to you. Though you were never its intended target.”

“I know,” Hermione said, giving Draco’s hand a quick pulse. After a brief pause, he moved minutely back to her side. “It seems the forest has plans and desires for us all, regardless of our wishes.”

The trees swayed wildly. The two centaurs behind Aegis shuffled and stamped their hooves, looking about at the canopy. Draco’s fingers tightened on hers.

Selene’s lips curved into a cat-like smile. “So it does.”

For a little while, Aegis asked Draco about the enchantment. Questions poured forth that he could only answer with an increasingly exhausted repetition of ‘I don’t know’ until Hermione wanted to pull him away. With a weary sigh of his own, Aegis accepted that nothing had changed, gave a curt nod, and led his little band off into the forest.

Draco was still as he watched them go, the breeze stirring his hair. When he turned back to her, Hermione could see the weight of all of it hanging from his shoulders. Their eyes met, and she felt suddenly caught by the silver spinning there. There was searching and wanting and, and, and…what? Her heartbeat sped up. She could hear it pounding in her ears and feel it in her fingertips. Surely he could, too, where he held her still.

She knew the forest didn’t like wild magic, but maybe with her hand in his, it would make an exception. She raised her right hand, the basket hanging from the crook of her elbow, and conjured a bluebell flame. Draco’s eyes shifted to it, inscrutable and deep. His chest rose and fell rapidly. He lifted his left hand and laid it over hers, the flame cupped between them.

Hermione didn’t know what to say, but her throat worked with the desire to say something. A thousand words and feelings and songs and memories dashed through her mind in a blur. If she could press her thoughts into him, maybe he would understand them… maybe she would.

Small sounds drifted around them in the forest. The trees swayed wildly, leaning in the direction the centaurs had gone. Roots rumbled in the earth.

In the centre of it, Hermione and Draco held the little flame.

࿐ ࿔*

Laurie found them examining a hole beneath a large beech tree.

“—and I made three marks in the soil, like Arnie Saknussemm, of course…”

“As you will.” Draco shrugged, clueless.

“...and started to shimmy in for my journey to the centre of the earth. But my mum can be so fast—wickedly fast when she wants. She grabbed me by my overalls and hauled me back.”

Draco was laughing as he leaned against the tree. It was a rich sound that warmed the air around them.

“They’re not nice, really,” he chuckled.

“That’s what mum said. She insisted on explaining how ‘The Wind and the Willows’ wasn’t a basis for understanding badgers. As if I were stupid enough to think that anyway.”

“And to think,” he clicked his tongue, “the wizarding world nearly lost one of its most brilliant witches to a badger sett. Hullo,” he said to Laurie as she perched on one of the roots and cocked a brow at Hermione.

“I see you’re both busy,” she said, pulling a cigarette from her pocket and lighting it with a finger snap. “The blue flame was rather clever. Your idea?” She asked, nodding to Hermione.

“Yes. Glad it got you here fine.”

“Meandering trail.” She took a drag. “On the move for a bit, were you?”

Draco shrugged. “Any luck cracking it?”

“Not really,” Laurie said easily. “Was mostly just mulling it all over again. I feel like I’m missing something. The language doesn’t feel right. ‘Break,’ ‘crack,’ ‘undo’... they feel destructive.”

Hermione’s thoughts weaved through the history of magic. “And Nimue wasn’t.”

Laurie shook her head. Smoke curled up from the cigarette between her fingers. Her red lipstick shone bright against her skin in the cold.

Healing maiden…Draco’s letter, a few days before, returned to her. Hermione glanced at him, leaning against the beech tree. He was already watching her. He arched a challenging brow, his lips quirking to the side as though to say, ‘Maybe you want to yell at me about fate and prophecies, now.’

And maybe she did. Merlin, but she wished she had all the time in the world to sit in the alcove seat in the Hogwarts library and pore over every old Arthurian text she could find.

But there were other libraries…and maybe she could borrow a little of the Keeper of the forest’s time.

࿐ ࿔*

Hours later, after conversations, after more walking, after food, Hermione stood by the tent flap, her arms crossed, looking out into the deepening night.

“He’ll be alright,” Draco soothed from somewhere behind her. “Honestly, he’s probably assuming his rightful role as Keeper right now.”

Hermione tried to smile, but couldn’t help her concern. The trees moved here. It wasn’t the same. What if he couldn’t find his way back?

“I just don’t want to leave without him,” she said.

“...Then don’t leave.”

They lay tight together in the deep of midnight. Blue sheets rippled around them like water. The shadows that lay across them were brushstrokes of indigo.

The old year was vanishing around them. Time contracted to this point, this blue sphere holding them on the bed.

“Where’s the party tomorrow night?”

“George’s place.”

His fingers trailed up her shoulder and nestled in her hair.

“Wear this down.”

“What does it matter? You won’t be there to see it.”

“I’ll be thinking of it.”

She held her breath, her chest squeezing tightly.

“What will you wear?” He asked.

“I have a dress.”

“Like the black one?”

“More of a party dress.”

“Shorter?”

“A bit.”

“Tighter?”

“Yes.”

“Mmm.” His nails scraped along her scalp.

“If Crookshanks isn’t back—”

“He’ll be back. He can see in the New Year with me here. Just two boring fellows reading on the sofa.”

That sounds marvellous, she thought.

“Might get pissed and fly out over the forest to toast midnight when the bells ring in town,” he said.

“Exciting.”

“Can’t imagine they’d welcome me at a Weasley party.”

She traced his collarbone. “No, I don’t think they would.”

Not yet.

“You work again in two days.”

“Yes.”

Hermione raised her hand, her finger tracing the darkness where she imagined the fragile edge of their cocoon. Draco's hand slid up her forearm and grasped her wrist.

“Tracing shadows again?”

“In a sense,” she said.

“You’ll have to come back.” She turned to face him. Their foreheads nearly touched. “You haven’t yelled at me about prophecies yet.”

His breath hitched. Her eyes dropped to his mouth just as his hand skimmed her waist, pulling her close again.

It wouldn’t be the same when she came back. She would be busy again. She would be tired. The week would press in. Obligations. His and hers.

Across the room, the chanterelle lay in a basket nestled among hellebores, juniper berries, chestnuts, and other findings.

In the morning, Crookshanks still hadn’t returned.

Hermione dressed in her old clothes from a few days before. Draco sipped tea just outside the tent in the cold. She stepped out to join him. His pale complexion was stark in the winter light.

His lips brushed over hers in a soft kiss, a strange kiss, a kiss that seemed like it was all already slipping away. Like the forest was vanishing into the mist as the year turned over.

Hermione gripped the basket in her hand and, with a last, lingering look, Apparated to her flat.

Chapter Text

Goosebumps prickled over Hermione’s skin as winter air greeted her on the threshold of Diagon Alley. A blue satin and lace dress hugged her thighs, flirting with indecency and sophistication. Beneath, her wand was holstered to her leg in a garter she’d transfigured from a ribbon. Her curls tumbled loose at her back.

She looked fucking fantastic.

But also a little too… confined. Tight. Like a glove too snug to let you bend your knuckles properly.

If only the right person could see her now. She pictured Draco stepping from the shadows across the street, pale hair catching the streetlights. He’d make some quip, eyes roaming over her, and then they’d walk together as…

As what?

“Hi, Hermione.”

Glass bottles clinked. She jolted back to herself. Ron’s lopsided smile greeted her as he tugged her into a half-hug, pulling her inside George’s building.

“Perfect timing. Just got back myself.” He nodded to a shrunken wooden crate filled with bottles under one arm. “Bar emergency. Lee panicked we’d run dry. Dunno what he’s on about—bar’s loaded.”

They bumbled upstairs and down a hall, reeled in by mesmerising bass thumps.

Ron toed the door open, guiding her with a hand at her back. Not too low, nothing dodgy, and yet… it suddenly occurred to her that it was happening. A familiar touch—a normal, casual, thoughtless touch between them, really—and yet...

Draco…his long fingers gliding over her, ghosted over her skin. A sudden urge to turn, run, go—to find those arms and throw herself in them—raced through her and lingered. Her belly tightened. She drew away a step.

The room was filled to bursting with more bodies squeezed in than the space should have allowed. She looked up, and startled.

“Merlin! How is it…?” Hermione trailed off, pointing at the ceiling. Raised ceilings soared high above them, displaying the night sky like the Great Hall in Hogwarts, but filled with a dazzling display of fireworks.

This was usually a three-bedroom flat. Large enough, but a little pokey, the evidence of the building being four hundred years old writ in every wonky angle. But now…

“Oh, you know George and charms,” Ron said in casual gross understatement.

“Hermione!” George yelled from somewhere across the room.

There was a jostling through the crowd and then: “Bloody hell, look at you. Marry and divorce me spectacularly, won’t you?” George scooped her up tight and spun around like she was a doll. “Don’t you fucking mention permits for this,” he hissed in her ear. “I’ve got the sodding things—anyway, Perce already had a go before he left, so don’t you start.”

“Not my circus, not my monkeys,” Hermione said, holding her hands up in surrender as he set her down.

“That’s right.” George waggled his brows. “Anyway, I hear your circus monkey has looked a little more like a pasty ferret recently.”

God, that was fast.

“Malfoy,” Ron ground out. He drew closer. “He still bothering you?”

She scowled up at him. “Bothering? No. But yes, I’ve been—” The door bumped into her back, knocking her into George.

“Oi! Watch it—oh, hullo, Harry. No, it makes sense this was you,” George said, righting her.

“Get out of the door if you don’t want to get trod on," Harry said, sidling in. Theo followed.

When Theo saw Hermione, his eyes glittered with some knowing glee. Hermione shook her hair about her and turned to examine the opposite side of the room. Her cheeks burned.

The four men fell into conversation about a broom Theo had given Harry for Christmas, allowing Hermione the perfect opportunity to seek sanctuary at the bar.

There were strangers and familiar faces and hello after hello. She grabbed a drink. She had a second. Excuse me, yes, no, that’s marvellous! What was she even saying? Little familiar phrases poured out of her like a fountain that had been running for a long time, cycling the same water. She was bored, but couldn’t stop.

Drink in hand, she dove into the madness of the dancing crowd. Bodies surged about her. The music was loud, pulsing with her blood so hot and heavy that it was operating her circulatory system for her. The crowd pressed in. Hot, tight, confined. She’d completely lost Harry and the others and now wondered where the hell they’d all gotten off to. A few elbows and a little wandless zap at McLaggen’s back for good measure, and she burst into freedom on the edge of the swell.

The wall was a different kind of gathering place—an anchor point for leaning and grabbing. Cho Chang was propped against it, looking dazed and gorgeous. A fit brunette with Quidditch Beater build laughed at something and gripped Cho’s arm, then let her fingers linger.

An ache, an emptiness clawed at her. Would it have been so bad if she’d brought him? Her colleagues seemed to have gotten over it. Harry had. Or maybe that was just for Theo… She couldn’t think with the music so loud in her head.

Hermione took a breath, a new drink, and plunged back into the fray.

“Hermione!” Harry yelled, grasping her shoulder. A sticky mix of Benedictine and vermouth splashed over the rim and down her hand. Harry was sweaty, dancing, and looked somewhere between his Snitch-catching face and his manic-Malfoy-hunting one. “What time is it?”

Hermione grabbed a random wrist wearing a watch.

“Thirty minutes to midnight,” she yelled back. The unknown wrist was jerked back with a shake.

Theo thrashed wildly beside Harry in a frenzied delirium she supposed was a dance. Colours streaked and blurred. She was in the voom, the verve, the vigour, clutched by the last dying embers of the year that burned around and through them.

The song changed and Theo reached out, grabbing her arm.

“Air,” he gasped, dragging her off the floor.

They crashed into the bar, both yelling for signature cocktails. A booming announcement in George’s voice floated over. Hermione’s head was spinning too much to grasp whatever he was saying. Drinks in hand, they rushed for the window.

They were panting as they both staggered to it. The glass was thrown open, revealing the city beyond. Tucking themselves behind the drapes, cold air blew over flushed skin. Dark curls stuck to the sweat on Theo’s forehead.

“So,” he said, “a bit late the other night to be running about looking for Draco, hmm?”

“Is there an actual question in there?”

Theo shrugged and turned to face the glittering night. Colored lights from the room were eclipsed by indigo shadows against his pale skin.

She faced the city, too. It seemed distant and odd and not where she was. Her fingers brushed over her wand beneath her dress. Wood against her skin and humming with magic…like the trees and the chanterelle and…A strangeness washed over her: the forest felt more present to her than this party did.

“You were right after all,” she admitted. “He was in the forest.”

Hermione felt Theo’s assessment flitting over her.

“Have a bit of a sojourn in the woods, then?”

A flush rose to her cheeks. “Maybe.”

Theo hummed. “He can’t really leave it, you know?”

A breeze curled around them.

Her tired heart gave a little thump. “I know.”

She stared out at the cold night. Somewhere beyond these buildings, there was a river that rolled through Wiltshire and would roll along still until it emptied into the sea. The water had places to go. Maybe the rain from the other day had trickled down, filtered by the trees until it joined that river.

Sappiness welled in her, fizzing with her drink. The party was too loud. Her saccharine thoughts closed in begging her to go, be alone, let them wash through her like the river.

Maybe not to be alone.

Maybe just be someplace else.

With someone else.

The party roared on. Theo clinked the ice in his glass against the side of his cup, raising his wand to blast cool air on him. He looked so content, so happy. Hadn’t she felt like that only this morning? Only yesterday? Just… rooted in her contentment. Was that strange? Was that too soon?

“Can I ask you a weird question, Theo?”

“My favourite type.”

“Do you ever feel… hang on, let me think...” She chewed her lip and took a drink. “Do you ever feel like you didn’t realise how happy you were in a good moment—a perfect moment—until you thought of it later?”

Theo tipped his head back and knocked it against the wall, as if shaking loose a thought. “Sort of. Yeah, maybe happiness is just the afterglow of something else. Like it comes from having lived the way you always knew you ought to. Even if only for a moment.”

Hermione looked out over the distance. Her hand slid under her curls, lifting them off her overheated neck.

“But what if you can’t always live in whatever the moment was?”

The music struck up with something gentler: ‘Kiss me out of the bearded barley…’

Theo downed the rest of his drink with a wry grin. “I dunno know, Hermione.”

He twitched back the drape and caught sight of Harry, who was laughing with a few old classmates. Red and gold lights flickered over him, and he looked so vibrantly alive.

‘...Lead me out on the moonlit floor, lift your open hand, strike up the band and make the fireflies dance…’

Then Harry turned and caught Theo’s eye. Hermione watched as Theo both swelled and softened, leaning forward as though drawn in, yet settling with a deep ease. Tension and calm at once.

“I think,” Theo murmured. “Just fuck it and be brave and live in it. If you can, of course.” He turned to look at her. “What else did we suffer the war for anyway?”

Then he vanished his cup and strode to Harry, clasping the man’s face between his palms. The din of the room swallowed his words, but Hermione watched, her heart pounding, as her old friend’s smile deepened, his hands gripped Theo’s forearms and slid up, interlacing their fingers.

She glanced away, feeling like a voyeur. A tendril of cold air chased her back into the room.

A few unsteady steps later, and she stumbled into the kitchen. It was quieter in here, less densely packed. George was perched on the sideboard, tendrils of cigarette smoke curling around his head. His other hand held his wand, guiding tiny glass balls filled with colored smoke as they floated toward the rest of the party.

“Whatsinthose?” She spilled.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” His grin rivalled the Cheshire cat’s. “Totter back out there for the countdown and see for yourself.”

She rolled her eyes and followed a ball with green and yellow smoke that hovered above her.

“ONE MINUTE!” Lee Jordan’s sonorous voice boomed.

She was jostled. Where had Harry and Theo gone? Ron had found The Wall. He leaned over a witch she’d never seen who was talking animatedly. A dreamy look was painted on his face. A pang of jealousy stabbed through her—not for him at all… for something else, someone else, someplace else… A moment against the wall of her own.

Draco would probably be arching a brow at the room, his hand drifting to his chest. He would lean against the wall, and she would find him there. And they would stay together talking as…

As something? Maybe.

She closed her eyes.

“Ten! Nine! Eight!”

The seasons would turn over. The year would loop again. Another spring, another winter, over and over. The earth was round with a false horizon forever out of reach. Forever already there.

She brought her fingers to her lips and brushed across them, remembering. Only just that morning. Already too long ago.

“Four! Three!”

Her eyes snapped open.

“Two! ONE!”

Draco.

Corks popped. Cheers swelled. Auld Lang Syne played in her head. The ceiling burst into brilliant light with thousands of fireworks. And then… the glass balls popped.

Smoke spilled into the room, seeping low like mist curling through a forest.

Her breaths came staccato. George was a menace. The green swirled to her. Green like the forest, like the boughs in her flat. An endless green, slipping into her lungs, soft and sweet.

Why couldn’t he be here?
 Would a little conflict really be so bad? 
Would it be alright… to hold onto the happiness?

The green smoke filled her,

and then—


and then—


and then—

Draco was crouched in the hollow of a tree. It was like being in the belly of a creature. The tree swelled with his touch as though breathing around him. Since Hermione left that morning, the forest had chattered in disquiet.

He went to the clearing and laid his hand on the ash, trying again and again to impart calm. Nothing. Just the same exhaustion that was slowly wearing him thin.

Now, he watched the figures before him as the shadows deepened. Buckbeak was curled on the ground while Crookshanks lay on his back purring so loudly it could be heard even in Draco’s tree. Bloody lordly fluff-bummed gremlin. No use trying to get at him like this. Better to fuck off back to the tent and wait for the cat to come to him. Did he have a tentative peace with Buckbeak? Yes. But you can’t just go ripping a cat off of a Hippogriff it's decided to bed down on. That seemed a sure way to get clawed. And he already had a hole in his jumper to repair.

He began his miserable trudge back to the tent. Mud was everywhere. He’d cast an Impervius charm over his boots, but it couldn’t fix the true horror: the squick, squick underfoot. Awful.

Wouldn’t have mattered if he’d gotten Lord Fluffbum. He couldn’t very well take him back to her flat, could he? What use would that be? ‘Here’s your cat, Hermione. You look ravishing. Have fun at the party looking like that without me. See you later, bye.’

He grimaced, curling inward.

Anyway, the cat seemed to prefer being on wanders. Always did. Happy to just trot off to any place, any threatening-looking tree, any terrifying creature. The lordling could hold his own.

A root in the distance thumped and dragged with a sound that pulled him backwards to another forest, another night over two years ago, not long after he lost the manor.

Not long after it all began...

Draco wandered along the edge of the Forbidden Forest. A brilliant gold shimmered over the lake when he’d first set out. Now, the green-blue of twilight painted the sky.

His stomach grumbled.

Only three weeks. Two to revise and one for NEWTs. That was all. He’d also been provided a measly little cell of a room and a solitary table designated to him in the library, like he was a leper.

The Wizengamot certainly were creative with their prisons.

Stares followed him. Hexes dogged his steps. Whispers stopped suddenly short when he neared. Faces passed in a blur, turning away.

Only the girl Weasley met his eyes, and he’d been forced to drop his own if he wanted to be able to remember how to breathe.

His stomach ached like it might cave in on itself. The Great Hall was not a fucking option, though.

He’d nearly cracked and given toast and marmite a go at breakfast, but the shimmer of a glamour caught on the candlelight. A ghost of nausea haunted him. Being held hostage in the bathroom for several horrendously cramped hours while his body emptied itself in horrifying, glittery, rainbow shades was enough to know: trust no food. At least a small stash of nicked cheese and crackers back in his cell meant he wouldn’t starve to death in the remaining two weeks.

Just lose some weight. He could cope.

His little cell adjoined a weird, close-knit situation. Eighth years, they dubbed themselves. Salazar… degrading. Those few who had decided to come back and redo their clusterfuck of a seventh year. Miserable sods. If he’d had the option, he was sure he wouldn’t have done it.

He rambled on, kicking rocks and glancing at the trees. They were the only comfort he could find….and wasn’t that fucking odd.

Something weird was happening to him. He longed for home—no, ached for it. Not like in Azkaban, curled on that cot. Not like those beginning days of first year, thinking of mother and balling his blankets over his mouth to mask his sniffling.

This was different: a pull rooted somewhere in him and tugging. Insistent. Real.

He dragged a hand along the bark of a very large, knobbly tree. Sticky shite met his fingers. He wiped it off on his robes. Stopping, he stared into the dark of the forest.

Summer rolled in with humidity. It was a balmy night. Mist curled off the lake and crept toward the trees. The barest breeze stirred his hair, fluttering leaves overhead. Draco tipped his head up and watched them—really watched as he never would have before all this rot with the fucking estate and forest.

It was strange how it crawled under his skin. The pull in his chest dulled slightly as this forest’s murmuring swelled. Boughs creaked deep in the velvet shadows.

Something very large crunched through the understory. Ice flooded his spine.

Crunching, dragging, breaking, and then…a sneeze and groan. “Bloody well sick of all this wiffle-waffle for some mushrooms,” a deep, gristled voice rumbled somewhere far off. The sounds of expletives and grousing dwindled with the large footfalls until silence returned. Draco remained stiff until a nightjar stirred on a nearby branch.

Was this what the estate would become? Some horror place like this ‘Forbidden Forest’ where unicorns were killed and hostile spiders roamed and ogres or trolls or giants or or or Salazar knew what else looked for mushrooms in the dark?

His fingers twisted in the fabric of his shabby, borrowed robe. Merlin forbid they get him his old things. These too-short cast-offs had been waiting in that pitiful room when he arrived.

Room…a broom cupboard, more like. A single slit window that looked out on nothing but a ruined courtyard. And his room back in London looked out on the fucking neighbourhood.

He dropped into the damp grass, tugging his hair at the roots.

Fuck! What was the point of all of this? What did it matter if he got his bloody NEWTs or not? No one was going to talk to him. He lived in Muggle-fucking-London of all places. And worse… worse… the estate. What was even happening? What was even normal or real about this life?

He swiped a hand under his nose…and then again. Fucking relentless. It was all relentless…

The trees whispered to each other. Malicious, conniving tones. It was the sound of the Great Hall when he entered—the library right before a hush fell, and he slunk back to his little assigned table.

Alone. Alone. Alone.

The tug in his chest pulsed out through him like a second heartbeat. A rush of wind through leaves gusted through the corners of his mind and the chambers of his heart. He glanced at his hands, suddenly expecting…Well, he didn’t know what he was expecting. For some reason, there’d been this odd idea that they’d be green. He closed his fists and curled in on himself, elbows on his knees and head in his hands.

Breathe. He had to breathe.

At least it wasn’t Azkaban.

He could do this.

Something small pushed against his side. It wasn’t a soft, friendly pass. This was a solid nudge that rocked him slightly to the side. He lowered his hands and turned to face the interloper. Maybe it would be merciful and kill him quickly so he could get it all over with.

Two golden eyes stared up at him with such naked judgment that a huff of laughter juttered from him. He wiped his nose again. A large, orange cat was sitting there with its paw on its knee. As he stared into its merciless eyes, it pushed its paw like it was shaking him a little, as though to say, ‘Pspsps, get a fucking grip.’

It hardly befitted the dignity of the name Malfoy to be spoken to like that by a cat. But then Draco didn’t imagine much of anything that had happened to him in the last three years befitting the dignity of the name Malfoy.

The cat didn’t move. In fact, it almost looked like it was scowling. A long bottle-brush tail swayed back and forth.

He raised his hand toward the orange beast. Moonlight glinted from the ring on his finger. He pressed his lips into a line and reached for the cat anyway.

Soft, thick fur met his fingers. He froze. How the fuck do you pet a cat? Millie had always had that horrible fiend in the common room, and she would… What did she do? She stood by the window, sighing like a buffoon and stroking—stroking!—her white Persian monstrosity.

He dragged his hand down along the creature's back. A low rumble sounded from deep in its chest.

“Like that, did you?”

He tried it again. And again. And again.

Long minutes went by. The damp sank into his robes until it reached his trousers. He was going to look like he’d pissed himself out here, and he didn’t bloody care.

The cat had clambered up into his lap.

He lay back in the grass right on the edge of the grim forest. The orange beast crawled up to his chest and lay itself right over the tight pulling place, easing it a little. All around, the trees softened their whispers.

For days, it went on like that. Wandering on the edge of the forest, and then, oh hello, cat, and the cat led him where he needed to go.

There was no one and nothing for him in the castle. Cold stares. Cold stone. Cold memories. A hollowness as complete as a closed tomb.

But in the gold of sunset and beneath the stars… he spun his wand in his hand and walked alongside an orange cat with a bottlebrush tail who led him each day and rested on his chest, soothing the ache each night.

One day, though, he saw them.

Across the ruined courtyard out his slit window she yelled, “Crookshanks!” and scooped him up, holding the fluffball to herself like he’d been missing. Perhaps he had been, to her. Those sharp golden eyes had turned and met his. Draco’s heart had sunk through his stomach and melted out of his trouser legs.

Even so, Crookshanks would find him again and again and again… and on the train… and somehow, impossibly, in town.

And it was easier then.

Now…

He trudged through the forest, wishing for the orange fiend to maybe not pick the large feathered menace over him today. The trees murmured, swayed, creaked, and generally made a fuss. He let out a harsh puff of air from his nose.

The tent swam into view through his fog of self-pity. He hopped across the stream, running a hand along a yew branch as he went, and slipped through the flap.

Hollow. The vacant halls he had wandered his whole life seemed to be revisiting him. Ghosts of footsteps echoing on stone, on tile, on parquet. Relentless.

His chest gave a tug as his gaze drifted to the bed, all rumpled from their morning. Hermione. Hermione in the soft light of the forest’s morning. Hermione in his arms. Was it normal to want to find her again so soon?

He walked to it and held a hand over it for only a moment. His fingertips barely brushed the sheets. Finding them cold now, he pulled back. It had only been a few hours. Merlin. He needed to get a grip.

Something nudged his ankles. Glancing down, all of his tension and self-pity unspooled.

“Followed after all, did you?”

A bottlebrush tail swung idly back and forth. Did Crookshanks want to go back to her? Something fluttered in Draco’s chest. A feeling, an idea, maybe, a flash of wildness.

“It’s New Year's Eve, you know?”

An electric zizz shot up his spine. He crouched before the cat. “Should we be reckless?”

A single orange paw tapped his knee. That’s a yes then.

࿐ ࿔*

They appeared in the house at Great James Street with a crack that echoed off the walls. The kitchen was cold and empty. Immediately, the pulling and nagging of the forest resumed. Draco ground his teeth against it. He could cope. He could.

Crookshanks pounced to the floor and made a beeline for the library—chasing fluttering pages, no doubt. Draco bolted to his rooms at the top of the stairs, yanking his jumper off as he went. New clothes were thrown on. A quick check in the mirror, a few charms, a little water. He stared at his left forearm for a moment. The thing beneath the fabric—faded now to a pale red, like the last of a healing wound. There’d always be a way to know him by his sins, but it was hidden at least. His muscles corded, then relaxed.

He slipped his robes over his shirt. Useless to think of all that, anyhow. As if his hair wouldn’t give him away immediately.

He clattered down the stairs.

“Oh, hello,” Dr. Carter said, startling back against the wall as Draco plunged past him by the library. “Where are you off to?” He called after.

“Diagon Alley!”

Dr. Carter’s eyes bore into him. “Are you sure?”

Draco gripped the bannisters, breathing heavily. He had to do this. She was magic. She was part of this world. She wouldn’t be trapped in the forest. But maybe… if he could only…he drew himself to his full height.

“May as well find out what the New Year promises, eh?”

“Fair enough,” Dr. Carter said. “I’m with the lads tonight.”

“Still lads?”

“Once a lad...” He winked, then grew a little serious. “But look, if it turns out it’s hexes, send a Patronus, won’t you?”

“If I’m conscious.”

“Now, that’s the spirit.”

࿐ ࿔*

The Apparition point near Gringotts was thankfully quiet. Most people were heading elsewhere, too busy to notice him. Draco adjusted his collar and strode off at a clip, directionless but determined. Where the fuck he was going, he couldn’t say. But Theo had mentioned that there were decent places here, and Draco had to do this. He had to try.

The mineral tang of damp cobblestones swirled in the cold night air. He shoved his hands into his pockets, one gripping his wand. The forest was tenacious. It was like a vine was clutching his heart and giving it a yank every few seconds. Whether that was entirely the forest or his own feelings about being there, he couldn’t guess.

Coloured lights, laughter, and music spilt out of an old window. He hovered outside, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“Goin’ in, are ya?” An extraordinarily scrawny fellow wheezed from the shadows. The man lit a cigarette with a finger snap and eyed him from head to toe. “Reckon I seen you before, somewheres.” He took a drag, his entire face puckering to a point, eyes locked on Draco’s hair. In his pocket, Draco clenched his wand. The glow from the cigarette lit the man’s face just as the spark of recognition alighted. “Malfoy, innit?”

“Draco.”

The man grunted and glanced back through the door. “Piss off then.”

Draco squared his shoulders, or some approximation of that. “Why?”

“You know.”

The vine coiled tighter and gave an almighty squeeze. His hand drifted to his chest and pressed in. He and the man stared at each other for a moment, then Draco glanced away. There would be other places. Maybe fewer gatekeepers.

He walked a few doors further. Another crowded place brimming with chaos…and guarded by an irritating-looking ghoul hunched at the door. He curled his lip and moved on.

Inky purple light spilt from an open door, carrying a bluesy piano riff he’d heard before on Dr. Carter’s record player. There was a cork pop and tinkling of laughter—smaller, lighter than what he’d imagine for the end of the year.

Maybe that’s what pulled him in.

The room was narrow and dark, with a long bar taking up most of the front. It hummed with witches and wizards of varying ages enjoying a more mellow kind of celebration: pockets of conversation, swirling smoke, bottles of wine and ashtrays scattered on little tables surrounded by velvet chairs. In the back corner, a baby grand, glowing slightly green, was played by an alluring ghost. Her hair was swept up into a full bun, the waist of her robes corseted tight, and a bloom of blood stained her from chest to chin.

Couples filled the floor before her, swaying, all tangled limbs and cheeks pressed together. A tower of champagne coupes stood on a table with glasses being plucked and summoned.

What did a Weasley twin party look like, he wondered? Was it bedlam? Did wild colours riotously paint everything?

His imagination conjured something that felt too Hogwarts-Quidditch-pitch oriented: boisterous, raucous, a bit aggressive, even. Good thing he couldn’t go. Not only would they have hated him, he’d have been sick from the lights while trying to ignore the ache of the forest that was grasping at him with increasing desperation.

He leaned against a dark wood bar and plucked a champagne coupe from a tray that sat there. The bartender, a wizard only slightly older than himself, flicked his gaze over Draco, then pressed his lips together and pulled out his wand. Draco’s heart stuttered to a halt. The wizard conjured a small jar with a sign reading “Three galleons entry” in neat script.

Draco dropped in the necessary coin and made his way to the back while his pulse picked back up.

Sweat dampened his palms. Was he shaking visibly? The frisson of electricity racing up and down his spine made it feel like it. All the while, the forest begged and tugged. He sipped his champagne and sank into a burgundy velvet chair not far from the piano.

His gaze was fixed ahead. Could he actually feel the stares of everyone in the room, or were his nerves simply too raw?

The tune lilted and shifted to something in a peppier tempo. Dancers adjusted their positions and continued, many holding coupes as they manoeuvred about the little floor.

Someone tottered over toward him. He froze: a rabbit caught in a snare.

“Mind if I…?” The person lifted an empty chair to carry it away.

“Of course,” Draco said, feeling like his whole skeleton might rattle apart from the sudden release of tension.

One song went by. Then another. And another.

Slowly, when no one came near again, he eased into his seat. A tray of coupes floated by, and he took one.

“Well, well, well…Draco Malfoy.” He looked up sharply into the smirking face of John Wolcott. “What a curious place to run into you.” Dark robes hung from him. A green shirt was unbuttoned far too low, exposing a network of tattoos across his chest. His sleeves were rolled, revealing more ink on his arms. “I’m going to join you for a drink.”

Draco raised his glass. “Already got one.”

“Have another.” John snapped his fingers and then flashed two toward the bar. A pair of whiskey tumblers suddenly appeared on the low table in front of Draco.

“This is ten-year-old Laphroaig,” John said, holding his tumbler up to the light. “See that red? Sherry cask aged. Hold onto your seat: it’s peaty stuff.” He slid the second tumbler to Draco.

Draco gave it a sniff and reeled back, glaring. John laughed.

“It won’t kill you,” he said with a grin. “Pretend I owe you for the tip about Malkins.”

“Was it a bad tip?” Draco muttered, sniffing the Scotch with distaste.

“Apparently I’m no longer uninspired, I’m sartorially adventurous.” John raised his glass. “To the New Year, may we have more well-cut robes and fewer centaur squabbles. And to your forest.”

Draco gritted his teeth and breathed in the peaty bouquet until his sinuses felt scorched, then took a deep drink.

“Delicious, yes?”

“If you like licking burnt moss,” Draco said through a grimace, but took another drink all the same. The burn felt glorious in his painful chest.

“Muggles know how to do it better, don’t they?” John sighed.

Draco shrugged, swirling the Scotch in his glass. “There are a fair few more of them. It’s worse than complaining that the Tate in St Ives isn’t as big as the one in London.”

John stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. “My god.” He took a drink, shaking his head. “I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about, but I’ll take your word for it.”

Draco studied the man. The interactions he’d had with Hermione had seemed close—colleagues who got on quite well. How well, Draco wondered, an unpleasant serpent slithered through his belly. Before he could stop his stupid mouth, he’d spat out, “Why aren’t you at that Weasley party Hermione’s at?”

Fucking bell end, idiot, nobhead. He’d dunk himself under the sink when he got back.

John’s lips quirked to the side. “Not my scene.”

“And this is?” Draco asked in disbelief.

“Nope. Only stopped by to give Dominic his cloak.” John jutted his chin toward the wizard tending the bar, who was staring back with a kind of feral gleam in his eye that really didn’t bode well for Draco—or anyone else, for that matter—being around.

John set his empty glass down with a clatter. “Let’s get out of here.” He stood and looked back when Draco hadn’t moved. “Well?”

“Why?”

John shrugged. “Hermione likes you.” Then he turned on his heel and made for the door.

Draco threw back the Scotch, suffering an almighty burn in his oesophagus, and dashed out after him. He half-jogged to catch up to John’s long strides and match them. They weren’t so different in height, and both seemed to walk with a similarly crisp gait. The same that had consistently earned Draco a ‘Stop running everywhere’ rebuke time and again as a teenager.

Where John was leading him was a complete mystery. Draco considered the man’s long black hair for a moment, and again his bleeding mouth ran away with him.

“Don’t happen to be an Animagus, do you?” Draco asked.

“What in the world makes you ask that?”

“You strike me as a black cat.”

John ran a hand through his hair. “Known a lot of black cats, have you?”

Draco shrugged. “You’ve been a bit demanding with me, and now I’m following you fuck knows where. Cat behaviour.”

“Is it? Follow a lot of cats?”

Draco pursed his lips and shrugged. “Enough.”

“Huh… anywhere good?”

Hermione’s curls lying on his shoulder...his lips against her skin...a blue flame in her hand covered by his own. Heat crept up his neck. “Yes.”

࿐ ࿔*

Bodies were draped over divans and couches all around the packed courtyard. Charms flooded the space, giving the entire area the feel of a warm, summer night. Hashish smoke rolled around and through him. He was sprawled on a bunch of cushions, his robes unfastened, brushing a finger lightly back and forth over his chest, revelling in the delirious disorientation that flooded him. In his other hand, the last of a spliff.

Gods, if he could feel like this more, maybe he could manage it out of the forest for longer, even with things in such turmoil.

The pillows beside him crumpled. Someone batted his hand from his skin.

“Stop that, you look like a weird, love-sick vampire.” Sorcha snatched the last of the spliff from his fingers and killed the thing.

He thought he sighed, but it could have just been smoke. “Maybe I am.”

“On Merlin’s tomb, I’ll have to stab you if you say something like that again.”

Draco grinned and rolled toward her.

“He’s not in a tomb,” he mock-whispered. “He’s in my forest. But shhh, don’t tell anyone.” He tossed his hair off his forehead, drumming his fingers on a pillow. “Probably not real, anyway.”

“I can see I’m going to have to tend you, my lamb, or you’re going to spill all sorts of secrets,” Sorcha said.

“I’m not that far gone.” He rolled back over, squinting at the blurring fairy lights overhead. Fat chance of spilled secrets. No one had talked to him besides Sorcha and John. He thought about it for a moment and said, “No hexes, so tonight is a success.”

“Mmm, rather a low bar.”

“Not really.”

“Get hexed often?”

He shook his head. “Not anymore.”

She flopped further down into the pillow nest. “At least, it’s not like it was a couple of years ago.”

He hummed in agreement. It had been awful for a while in that first year after the war, when most of the trials were underway. Wounds that had just begun to scab over kept getting picked at. Tension was high. Tempers higher.

“One place let me in,” he said slowly. “Bit surprising.”

“The jazz bar?” Sorcha snorted. “Miracle John had been shagging that bloke or you’d still be marinating in the panache and champagne.”

“Instead… I’m a… I’m a fog.” He spun his hand above him.

“You’re absolutely off your head, is what.”

He brandished his finger like a wand. “Ridikulus! Pssht!” She didn’t even look his way, all messy and flopped there in a shimmering silver party dress. He wondered about the blue one Hermione said she had. Was it similar? Bet it was shorter. His blood rushed.

“Didn’t go to the Weasley party, did you?” He asked.

“What? Percy’s over there.” She pointed to a corner where a few people stood holding drinks and talking. Sorcha tipped her head back and closed her eyes.

His head was all sugar smoke and he knew it. But it didn’t stop him from sinking in. The fairy lights were swaying, or maybe it was just him—difficult to tell these days.

“Feels like I’m just drifting through smoke,” he muttered.

“Hush, baby lamb.”

“No, I mean,” he shoved himself up and leaned against the courtyard wall behind him, “outside the forest doesn’t feel as real to me now. It’s like… it’s like it’s this temporary thing I sojourn in.”

“Sojourn, hmm? It’s your life, Draco.” He could sense she was drifting. All around were younger people he’d seen in the Ministry. Plenty of unfamiliar faces, too, and he didn’t know a lot of names, but the many of the faces he’d spotted before.

“Why isn’t Hermione here?” He asked.

This roused Sorcha a little. She looked at him with a quizzical expression he couldn’t translate, then pushed herself up and summoned a glass of water. She took a drink, giving him a long look, then summoned another and shoved it at him.

“Hermione,” she said with a strange emphasis while suppressing a smile, “was invited. She’s just got other places to be.” She watched him over the rim of her cup. “Maybe she’ll turn up here.”

A fluttering, giddy sensation raced through him at the idea. What if she did? What if she saw how no one bothered him? What if she saw him there—out amongst everyone—and maybe…Well, he wasn’t sure.

He looked around for John. The man had foisted the spliff on him, shoved him into some cushions, then prowled over to a rather devastating-looking witch. Where they’d gotten off to now, Draco wasn’t sure. Without him, he didn’t know how he’d get back. He’d gotten his directions entirely tangled on the way there.

It was odd that he couldn’t orient himself here now. It made sense, he supposed. He had mainly explored Diagon with his parents at his heels. He’d need to build new mental maps, now, find new place markers. Maybe Hermione’s flat.

And he could prowl from Muggle London to her window over the rooftops, following the path of the mysterious Lord Fluffbum. On the roofs of the world, tiptoeing across everyone’s sleeping heads until he’d tumble onto her window seat.

“Morgana’s knickers, Draco, shut up,” Sorcha groaned.

He must have been saying that bit out loud.

“You are.”

He sipped his water, trying to keep his mouth occupied.

“I’ve never done this before,” he admitted, leaning in.

She arched a cheeky brow. “You don’t say.”

Time was spinning away. He watched it slip by, with couples pulling each other into shadows. He felt it vanishing as he slowly sobered a little. Sorcha got up, patted him on the head and wished him Happy New Year. Did he seem young to her?

He felt strange, rooted and swaying all at once— an ancient oak groaning under wind, or a young reed bending too far. Neither and both.

“Ten! Nine! Eight!”

He pushed up from the cushions, hands sinking into pockets. The year was folding closed around them. Eyes shut, he wished aloud for something that might grow steady. Could he wish for what he wanted to grow the way the forest did? 



“Two! One!”

“Hermione,” he whispered as whoops and cheers slipped into songs and kisses and the heady feeling of the night.

࿐ ࿔*

Too sloshed to Apparate safely. Too far from a Floo. Wanderers filled the streets. They ambled, steadying hands on walls. Breaths bloomed in the cold night. Laughs and tears mingled. Someone sang.

Draco drifted through the dark streets around Diagon Alley, or wherever John had dragged him. Hands in pockets, he rambled. A few insults and dirty looks had lazily met him since leaving the courtyard party. He drifted closer to the shadows.

His long fingers trailed along the old timbers of buildings, but the wood gave back nothing—too cold and inert. It filled him with a bone-deep longing for his forest.

The call of it, its need for him, roared through his veins. He’d put it off, and maybe he could a while longer. His heart was squeezed in reply. If it would only let him wander a little further. Just until he could find…

And there it was: her building.

He’d only been here through the Floo, but he knew the apothecary’s sign that swung below her window. Draco tipped his head back and stared into the dark glass on the second floor, picturing her sitting room. He backed up and leaned against a shadowed doorframe across the street.

He wouldn’t stay long—only a few moments. Nothing strange.

And anyway, she probably wasn’t home. Maybe she wouldn’t be there all night.

He wondered at that—at her life—as he often seemed to these days. At the shape of what it must be when she wasn’t at the Ministry. She saw her parents; he knew. Did she visit other people? She must. Where were they? What was the map Hermione inhabited? What paths did her mind wander when no one was watching?

Gods, he was insufferable, but the drink and smoke twisted through him, turning all his better judgment into some dreadful, sentimental rot.

He closed his eyes and rested his head against the doorpost.

High heels clicked, stumbling nearer. Some drunken person on their own, no doubt. He opened his eyes just to make sure no one bothered them.

Hermione.

Blue clung to her. Satiny, smooth, lace overlaying. As short as he’d imagined. He wanted to bunch it in his hands and drag it off of her with his teeth.

But what if she didn’t want him here? She hadn’t asked for him. The pull at his chest grew wild and ached. He ground his fist into it. Trees thrashed in his mind like a rough wind shook them.

He was still as she raised her wand to her door. She froze. Slowly, Hermione turned.

Her pupils were fully dilated, eyes as black as coal. She held herself strangely, sleepily, and looked into the shadows like she wasn’t fully seeing.

“Draco?”

His heart collided painfully with his ribs. He took a step forward, letting the street light bathe him.

She came to him. He was so foggy, he couldn’t remember the space between — blink, and there she was. Her eyes narrowed as though she couldn’t quite make him out even up close.

“Is this real?”

His head was fuzzy, and his chest ached horribly. “Feels like it.”

Her hand lifted and slowly brushed against his face. “Yeah, it feels like it.” She blinked slowly—heavy blinks that followed fogged thoughts. “It wasn’t real before.”

Yes, it was. What do you mean? He swallowed.

“When wasn’t it real?” He asked.

“At the party…we were in the forest, but not—it wasn’t right…" She pulled away and looked about dazedly. "We aren’t there now, are we?”

He shook his head, his hand gliding up her arm. She was so warm, movement and magic thrummed beneath his fingers. But she wasn’t all here. Maybe he wasn’t either. His fingertips made dimples in her soft flesh.

Hermione grinned. “Am I soft?”

Fuck, was he thinking out loud again?

“You are,” she whispered, bringing her face closer. “Draco?”

His eyes met hers. Glorious eyes. Dark pools, he was going to fall in and get a little bit lost, maybe.

Could he make maps of her?

“Yeah?” He managed.

“I think this isn’t real either. I think I’m imagining you again.”

He shook his head, but she only smiled in a strange, sleepy way.

“We didn’t kiss at midnight,” she said.

He drew in a breath. The air around her smelled of the forest. That wasn’t quite right, was it? “We didn’t.”

Noise swelled as a group of other wanderers passed around them. There was something he should remember about being out here with her. Something… He couldn’t think. He was fog.

A little crease dimpled between brows. “I don't want to leave the moment"

"What moment?"

"And if you kiss me, the spell of it might break,” she murmured.

“What spell?”

“The one we made in your forest.” The last syllable lingered like a breeze through leaves.

The tug in his chest loosened, uncoiled, curling around his ribs and settling. It wasn’t pulling him apart now—it was vibrant and alive, but steady. If it was sentimental rot, he didn’t care.

“Let’s not break it then,” he whispered, leaning close until the air they breathed was shared.

She brushed hair from his forehead, then lay her hand softly against his cheek.

A cough and a click of something registered dimly to him. A bright light seemed to burst in the street, then vanish. He blinked as darkness wrapped back around him.

But Hermione was already gone, already at her door, already holding her wand out, making a shaky figure eight over the knob.

She looked back at him. “I like to imagine you,” she said, as she slipped inside and closed the door with a soft click.

Her teeth had grown fur. Plush carpet pressed into her cheek. Her carpet?

She cracked an eye. Oh fuck, the light! God. She crawled like a dying lizard on her elbows up into the penumbra of her bed.

Her stomach lurched. The scratch of rug on knees. A rush to the toilet and… there were no words. She vanished the evidence of the crime.

A strange woman looked out from the mirror. Dark circles: bleak, mauve highlights. A true tragedy staring her down. A portent of doom, really.

“Welcome to the New Year, Hermione.”

She retched into the sink.

It was truly a mistake and a half to have something with so much sugar when in the middle of an existential spiral. The hangover potion had slithered down her throat like tar, blech—bad recipe. She’d rewarded her bravery with some French toast and treated herself further to a lot of powdered sugar and maple syrup.

It was raining again. Water smeared down the window, thick and molten. The walls swam. She was drowning in syrup.

Visions swirled on the edges of memory. Trees, a stag, barefoot on moss, Draco. But nothing solid, nothing to really grip hold of. Everything was smoke and mist... and a threatening headache.

“What the fuck was in that stuff, George?” She mumbled.

“Alright if I come through?” Ron’s voice tumbled out of the fireplace. Hermione nearly jumped through the ceiling.

“Yes! Fine! Sure!”

She retreated to the kitchen, her hand over her pounding heart. Shit, shit, shit. She wasn’t really ready for another human just yet.

The Floo’s aroma turned her stomach a little.

Ron was clutching a chunk of his hair like it was the only thing keeping his head from falling off. His voice had the fried scrape of having yelled over loud music while drinking. “Got any hangover potion? George is fresh out.”

“I think I’m looking at you twenty years in the future,” she said, summoning another vial.

“Oh, har har. As if you haven’t seen your own self in the mirror.”

She reached for her curls, but gave it up as a lost cause halfway there.

Ron threw back the potion and grimaced, eyes watering. “What the bollocking fuck? Why?!” A coughing fit overtook him.

“I know.” She shook her head, vanishing the offending vial. “My recipe is bad. Came from this old potions book. Victorian era, I think… need to look at the print date. Bit of a shock that something meant as a curative is so foul, but maybe it was designed to double as a punishment for intemperance.”

“Tastes it.” Ron slumped into the kitchen door frame. “You should get Theo’s recipe. Tomato juice flavoured.”

“Bother Theo, then,” she clipped. She wasn’t really in the mood for Ron right now.

“Tried. He wasn’t there.” He glanced around with no impression that he’d be leaving. Hermione braced herself for it. “Smells good in here. Making something?” And there it was.

“Ron,” she said, flatly, “did you need something more than a hangover potion?” He opened his mouth, but she drove on. “Because I don’t really have the time.”

“Haven’t really had a chance to catch up properly, have we? Just us, I mean,” he said softly. Oh, well…that was perfectly true. “Tried to find you the other day, but…where were you?”

“Not your business.”

He scratched the back of his neck, leaving his hand resting there, rubbing it. “I know, I just… I dunno, Hermione. I was just thinking. Maybe we could grab lunch or something. Drinks.”

She eyed him warily. “You don’t mean…as in…”

His brow furrowed, then his eyes went round in realisation. “What? Gods, no! No, not a date or anything. Merlin, no I—” he glanced furtively around the kitchen. “Actually, I’m—I might be seeing someone. Just a couple of dates so far...”

Hermione shuffled the information. “A blonde?”

“What? Yeah.” His lips quirked in that oh-so guileless ‘Ron’ way he had. “How’d you know?”

“She was there last night, right?”

“Oh, yeah, she was.” The tips of his ears went red. “Anyway, that’s what I was going to tell you over lunch or something.”

“That’s great, Ron,” she said with a tight smile. And it was. “I’m really happy for you. But today isn’t a good day for anything. Merlin’s sake, and we’re both hanging!”

“No, I’m cured now.” His eyes landed on the dry, empty cat bowl. “Where’s Crookshanks?”

Her heart stuttered. “I’m not quite sure, actually.”

Ron’s nostrils flared. “Malfoy, right?”

No, this was not going to happen. She drew up to her full height. Fine, couldn’t rival his, but it was enough with her hands on her hips. “That’s also not your business.”

“So he is, you mean.”

She ground her teeth.

“Is something going on with him?” He asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” he said in a low, tired voice. “Don’t make me spell it out.”

“Then don’t ask me questions you don’t really have a right to,” she clipped. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

He pushed off the door frame, looming before her. Backlit as he was by the window in the sitting room, he seemed like a dark shadow in the shape of Ron, scowling down at her.

“What?” He spat. “Your friends don’t have a right to know if you’re involved with somebody?”

“No. They don’t. And certainly not when they hang around overstaying their welcome and angling for breakfast.” She pressed her lips together tightly.

“Bollocks, I was not!”

“You were! You smelled my French toast—”

“French toast!” He blinked. “Got any left?”

“And your stomach is running away with you.”

He scowled. “No, I’m wondering about Malfoy.”

“No, you’re not! You're hungry and trying to make my already nauseating morning worse.” Hermione stomped over toward the fireplace and gestured toward it. “Happy New Year, Ron. I’d love to see you in a few days when my head doesn’t feel awful, I’m not mad about whatever George drugged us all with, and you’re ready to understand my personal boundaries. Calculate for yourself what that date may be.”

He breathed heavily, working his jaw back and forth. “How about lunch on Saturday?”

“Grand. Now,” she waved her hand at the Floo powder jar.

He grabbed a fistful. “Just, let me say this.”

“Don’t, Ron,” she growled.

Of course he did.

“Malfoy’s not a good one. I like Carter, but some causes are a bit hopeless, you know?”

The bottom fell out of her stomach. She stared at her mother’s little raku-fired pot sitting on the mantel, swaying where he’d scooped the powder. Whatever smouldering fire had been burning in her belly roared to life.

“That’s an awful thing to say about a person.” She stepped closer. “And you’re wrong. You’re dead wrong.” She looked him up and down like she’d weighed him and found him wanting. “Wrong about Dr. Carter, who has been the most generous bloody person I’ve ever known, wrong about Draco, and wrong about me.”

“Never said anything about you,” he bit back.

“Oh, yes, you did. What do you think you’re saying about my judgment, hmm?”

Ron chewed his lower lip, looking down at the Floo powder in his palm. “I didn’t mean—”

She sighed, pushing her hand into her dirty hair. “I know, but you didn’t think, Ron. And I need you to.”

He nodded. “Alright.”

They stood in a stalemate, the same old tension a frisson between them. Not romantic. It never had been. Not really. Just years of arguing, bloody-mindedness, deep loyalty, and not seeming to read that mixture right.

“I’ve got to get back,” he finally said. She nodded. “See ya, Hermione.” And green flames swept him away.

Hermione covered her face with her hands and sank into her chair. Her legs sprawled wide as she slumped down with a groan.

Why did he have to be so Ron about everything? God! What a way to start the year.

She peeked out through her fingers and caught sight of one of the hanging pine boughs. An uncanny sensation crawled along her. There had been a sort of drunk feeling—no, bugger that, she’d been smashed—alright, on top of that there was…a dreaminess. A lightness. It had wrapped around her, sinking into her pores. She’d felt like a raw bundle of nerves held together tenuously by the flimsy fabric of her dress. And Draco…it was like she had really seen him and felt him, but it was all so elusive. Her hands burned, ached with the feel of him. She clenched her fists, shoving them into her eyes.

“God, what was in that, George?”

She rubbed her eyes as if that could actually help. As if that could scrub away the feeling of the forest lingering under her skin. As if it could clear the fog that hovered in her mind, casting a green pallor on everything.

And nothing could clear the wanting.

Come through the Floo. Come through the Floo. Come through the Floo.

Bring Crookshanks home. Bring yourself. But come.

God, it had only been a single night on her own. She would count to twenty, make some tea, and drag her sad, addled mind to her parents’ house for lunch.

The rush of flames built again in the Floo. She looked up sharply.

As if she had summoned him, Draco stood there with Crookshanks in his arms and stared at her with unwavering intensity.

She was a mess; she knew it. But not enough of one to deserve a stare like that, good grief. Still, she rose, drawn to him.

The sight of Crookshanks uncoiled a knot of worry she had been carrying since the day before.

“Where was he?” She asked, scooping Crookshanks into her arms.

Draco looked exhausted, serious. Shadows lingered under his eyes. Whatever his night had been, it hadn’t been that restful. Was something wrong in the forest? With the centaurs? Eirene?

“He was claiming the forest,” he said. He reached out, running a hand along Crooks’ swishing tail. “Came and found me himself.”

Something clearly gnawed at him. She wanted to lean in closer, wanted to touch him, wanted to drag him to her. It wasn’t broken yet, whatever had held them all those days.

He turned to glance out the window, and a shadow fell across his face. Just then, the image of him—under the street lamp’s orange glow…Dark shadows casting him in relief… And her…half in the forest in her mind and…

“Last night...outside...were you—”

“Yes,” he said, cutting her off. He worked his jaw, a grimace sliding onto his features. “That’s the problem.”

“Problem?”

The Daily Prophet unfolded from his hands. Large, repeating over and over across the page was a photo: Hermione reaching out to touch Draco’s face, while he stood inches from her, looking at her with naked longing.

He arched a pale brow. “I think your boss might budge into your business again.”

Chapter Text

Breakfast plates scattered with crumbs lay on the floor, remnants of an old argument. Boots kicked off haphazardly, the paper—partly singed—was crumpled beside them, a pair of socks, an outer cloak.

Questions had been slung like arrows: what were we thinking? What will be said? Will this ruin everything? The last hung in the air like smoke.

Answers were not forthcoming; neither was agreement.

“I need this position, Malfoy!”

“Malfoy, is it?”

“Don’t. I need this, and these could bury everything.”

“You think I don’t fucking know that?”

The photograph lay between them; the questions lingered.

He deflated. Desolation rounding his shoulders. Would she rather he leave? A sigh wrapped around pine boughs that still hadn’t been brought down after Christmas: No, stay.

And then, breakfast.

Two voices, now subdued, rose and fell against one another.

The new year’s light was scattered with dust motes.

“Those are magic, actually,” Draco said, tucked behind her on the window seat. He raised a hand, swirling a finger through them. “Stray magic that hasn’t got anywhere to go.”

“Or…they’re dead skin cells and other little organic bits.”

“Disgusting. You breathe that shit in.”

“‘The cosmos is within us,’” she murmured. “We are made of star-stuff.’”

His lips grazed her temple. “You know what else could be within you?” He licked the shell of her ear.

Conversation became kisses. Kisses grew restless. Restlessness burned until they had to pull off all their clothes or burst into flame.

He pressed her into the cushions. All her pillows, all her blankets, were shoved to the edges and floor. A wandless charm fogged the window. Draco knelt before her, his lips leaving a searing trail along her legs, on up, up, up to—

“I haven’t showered,” she gasped.

“Don’t fucking care.”

Her legs trembled—breath staccato. A hand roved and gripped her breast. His tongue painted a stripe up her and— “God. Draco.”

She gasped and tugged his hair. Silken strands slid through her fingers. Heat pooled in her; it steamed from her. She was a being of fire. Hermione the dragonesse, laid out over her gold. His eyes lifted—no, silver.

He crawled over her, bringing them closer.

Afterwards, he whispered against her temple, “Magic.”

The room grew dark around them. They stumbled to the kitchen for more to eat. Sitting on the floor with legs outstretched, they wondered.

It may be bad at work, he admitted, rubbing his chest as always. It may be bad in the forest, she replied, wishing she could spend just a few more days enveloped there.

He dressed. She stayed in a T-shirt and knickers. Her hair still smelled like smoke and hangover, and now a third scent: him. At the Floo, he turned to her, intensity etched across his brow.

“Tomorrow?”

She shook her head. “I imagine I’ll have too much to do.”

“Right. Of course.” Pink stained his cheeks.

A strained thinness stole the air between them.

“Have you got your coin?” she asked. He plucked it from his pocket and spun it between his fingers. “Wait for my message,” she said, chewing her lip. “It might be a few days.”

“I’ll wait.”

࿐ ࿔*

Hoofbeats shook the earth. Pound, pound, pound, a miniature thunder, drawing him from the tent. Trees whispered and urged: go, go, go!

Draco ran, boots unlaced. He hit them with a tying charm. His breath puffed from him in bursts. He ran until his legs burned.

A flash of coarse black hair whipped around a tree. He saw, or thought he saw, streaks of grey, of black, of brown dashing past—shadows blurring against the mist.

He darted around a mountain-troll of a boulder and slid on old leaves, landing hard on his hip. The flat of his palm smacked against the earth.

Fucking centaurs.

He slapped the ground, pressed himself up, and sprinted. His cloak snapped behind him like a kite caught in the wind. The storm of them grew nearer. Restless stamping. Beating hooves. The bark of a laugh and a shout. The air thrummed like a bow string plucked.

Thestrals had astonished Draco with their skeletal grace. Their movements, not shambolic as he had expected, but smooth as silk rippling in the wind.

He had seen the unicorn move like quicksilver—elegance and simplicity fused with a dancer’s raw muscle. He could watch, hypnotised, until time spun into infinity.

But the centaurs ran with hot passion that roared through their muscles and beat into the earth. Their bodies screamed with life as they dashed through the woods, shouting, calling, revelling.

Draco heard their music now: a song that twisted on the breeze at first, minor and melancholic. Then a major lift swelled with a rising force. The bass hum of masculine voices rolled through the earth.

He stopped in his tracks and shrank into the shadows.

Song flowed about him. Layers of language sung in a round in words unfamiliar to his ears, but he caught the snag of something old and half-remembered. The shape of sounds he knew from binding the land—or rather, himself.

“Eorþe,” was sung, and he knew that word. Their faces tilted to the canopy and sky. “Beorht,” was uttered, and he knew that one too, or thought he did. The brightness of the sun was veiling the stars from them. Maybe that’s what they were saying? It was hard to know.

A fallen tree leaned against a large rock. Draco crouched and eased back onto his heels into the shadowed hollow there. He wrapped his cloak around himself and stared through the winter-thin hedge at the wonder before him. In his pocket, the coin was cold.

The centaurs wheeled and danced through the trees. A band of seven were the locus of the herd. They moved in a circle, hands outstretched. Their voices rose and fell in rhythm. Several long paces away, a centaur nearest to him seemed to begin the round. Then the voice next to him joined and so on, all of the voices cascading in warm, rich harmony.

Before them, in the centre of their gathering, was a large tree; one of the oaks, he thought, Dr. Carter might’ve noted already. A part of him wanted to jump up and demand of them what was so important about this oak in particular? But the larger part of him kept him still and watchful.

Was this another attempt at the homecoming ritual? Draco’s jaw clenched so tight he heard a click. For days now, the forest had been calming. They hadn’t broken the enchantment yet—it was still too early for another attempt. But he wouldn’t put much past Niht. It was too bloody late to stop whatever they were up to, so it better not be that.

The dancing picked up pace. Aegis flashed by—barely a blur of flanks and tawny hair. Niht as well. The circle spun around the tree, gaining motion to a steady trot.

Eirene stepped from a thicket, much further away from Draco. Her full belly hung heavy. Merlin, it was a wonder he hadn’t realised before that she was pregnant. But then, it hadn’t occurred to him before.

Her time was drawing nearer. Not until the blossoms fall, she’d said, or something to that effect. Spring, then, he assumed.

She was glorious. He couldn’t look away. None could. The centaurs slowed their dancing and stilled to watch her, their voices never wavering from their song.

She walked forward with a white wooden bowl in her hands until she was amongst the oak’s roots. Speaking up into the crown of the tree, she said something in that old language they were singing. Then, the song dipped to a soft hum. All of the voices joined in the humming. It buzzed deep in Draco’s chest, sending gooseflesh up his arms.

Eirene raised the bowl, nodded to the tree, and poured out a rich liquid, splashing it over the tree’s roots. When the bowl was empty, the centaur voices fell utterly silent. Draco held his breath, eyes round. Then, they all cried out and laughed and danced again. Eirene grinned and stamped a circle around the tree, arms thrown wide.

Joy radiated from the forest. It was warm and fresh with the promise of spring and longer days. It surged through his veins like hot sap. He didn’t understand a bit of it, but found himself grinning, half drunk on whatever Eirene had given the tree, half mad with an ache for the sunlight and digging roots in.

࿐ ࿔*

A fresh latte was set in front of her empty cup and plate.

“How’d you find me?” Hermione asked, folded inwards. Arms crossed, legs crossed, she was as tightly drawn in as she could be without sprouting a turtle shell—which would’ve been helpful, actually.

“Was it meant to be a secret?” John drew the chair across from her and took a seat, placing an espresso cup before him.

Hermione sniffed. What she wouldn’t give to be an animagus and just transform and run for it.

She pointed to the latte. “For me?”

He nodded. Hermione took a sip. Vanilla. Excellent.

“Nice job hiding in a Muggle cafe. Maybe next time shoot for one a little further away and maybe don’t sit in a window,” he said, pointing out to where the phone booths that led to the Ministry of Magic stood, directly across the street.

“I rarely see Ministry people here.”

“Bollocks. Pucey is right over there.”

John took a sip of his espresso. The din of the cafe was a comfort. Bustling, boring piano music, the steamer sending a cloud up with a loud whir…who could have thoughts in that kind of ruckus?

“Want to talk about it?” John asked in a flat tone, not at all promising comfort.

“Not even a little bit.”

“Too bad.” He braced his elbows on the table, leaning in. “Wexford and Bhatt both think you have enormous potential.”

“I’m supposed to take a dressing down as a sign they care, am I?” She held her cup in both hands like a grounding source.

“No one would spend a minute on someone not worth it. They’d politely ask you to leave instead.”

God, it would be so different if it had been something less personal. A weird concave sensation kept swooping through her chest.

“It hasn’t affected—It’s not—I know how it looks in the paper—” she stammered.

The steamer hissed like wind through winter branches. She shut her eyes.

“You’re involved with him, aren’t you?”

She stared at John with the blankest expression she could conjure. His lips twitched.

“Hermione Granger,” he said, biting back a grin, “I need you to know for your very own future safety that every feeling you have registers on that face of yours. Anyhow, thanks for the confirmation.”

“I didn’t confirm a thing.”

“Didn’t you, though?”

‘Fuck off,’ she mouthed; then took another sip of the latte.

“Serious?” he asked.

She watched bubbles pop on the surface of the foam. “I don’t know.”

“Mmm, well, better sort that out. The papers already can’t get enough about the mysterious Malfoy forest. This is all they need.”

She sighed heavily, sending a ripple through the foam. “Not enough happens in our little hamlet of a community if this is what constitutes front-page-worthy information.” She clattered the cup onto its saucer. “Doesn’t matter anyway. I won’t be working on anything related to Malfoy's forest.”

John eyed her, tapping his thumb against the table. “You know perfectly well how lucky you are that you’ve been junior enough that this isn’t immediately jeopardising all we’ve worked on these last few months.”

Her stomach flipped over. “Oh God, John, I’m so sorry— I didn’t— of course I thought about—” She stopped, mortified by her own rush to make amends. She rubbed two fingers against her temple. “I never intended any of this to reflect poorly on the work we’ve done together—or on you.”

A huffed laugh slipped through his lips. “Good Godric, Hermione, don’t worry about me. I appreciate that, but don’t worry. But listen,” he leaned closer across the table, “I don’t take you for a wildly impulsive person. It’s not my business, but, well, let’s pretend this is on the basis that your actions might have affected me and also as a friend: is he worth it? Is this worth it?”

Worth my career? She wondered. But the Ministry wasn’t everything—this was just a step, and alright, so she’d stumbled.

“I’m used to being stared at in the Atrium,” she admitted softly. “I’m not used to averted eyes and whispers instead.”

“No one ever is,” John said with warmth. “It won’t last. Give it a week, or Potter and team catching another old Death Eater and it’ll be forgotten.” He paused and gave her a serious look. “Hermione, you knew what it could mean if you got involved with him. You’re not even remotely stupid or naive, so you knew.”

“I did. I just…I don’t know…” Her hands framed her cup again.

At the counter, someone dropped a glass which shattered on the floor.

“Do you know something,” he said, his tone measured, “During the war—”

“Conflict, John, you know the language.”

“Right, right.” He clicked his tongue. “During all that nonsense, most everyone we work with hunkered down or went abroad. You were the revolutionary.”

Hermione ran her finger over the cool porcelain handle of her cup.

“I don’t believe you stopped being that person.”

She glanced up sharply. “Of course I didn’t.”

“Revolutionaries don’t usually find themselves fitting in with government offices.”

“That would rather defeat the point of the word.”

“Quite.”

“I’m not a revolutionary, John.”

“Aren’t you?” He leaned nearer, a sharp intensity to him. “You want to see change. I know you do. Gods, I want to see change. I’m hungry for it, but you’re ravenous and tenacious. I know you’re junior and that makes things precarious in some ways—or it would normally—but your situation is not normal. You forget what people see when they look at you.”

“Please. Muggleborn is what they see first.”

“So what? That hasn’t stopped you. You’re not someone who only wants change—you’ve already made it happen. And they know it.”

She shook her head gently. “I do want change. And I want—” She held her tongue, chewing over thoughts. A cool tendril of air drifted from the door. The scent of pine and loamy earth seemed to waft into her lungs. She glanced around the room, wondering. The front door swung closed, cutting the fragrance.

“There are some obstacles still,” she said.

Taking a last sip, John watched her over the rim of his cup. “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe there isn’t something standing between you and any goals you’ve got. If you’re waiting for permission, bad news, darling, it’ll never come. Or aren’t you the same person who wrecked my bank with a dragon?”

࿐ ࿔*

“What was it?” Draco asked, walking alongside Aegis near his yew tree. “This morning.”

“Ah, I thought I caught your scent, Keeper.”

Draco glanced away into the depths of the trees, chewing his cheek. He reached into his pocket and rolled the cold coin between his fingers.

“The longest night has passed. It was time to sing to the trees and wake them up.”

“Sing to the trees,” Draco repeated. The branches murmured to him softly overhead. “Whatever it was, it’s gone a long way to calm them all down.” The relentless tug in his chest had mellowed to something patient and tremulous. A sense of bated breath, of anticipation, trembled just beneath the surface.

Aegis hummed, a rich, deep, satisfied sound. They followed along the stream until it forked and turned into a trickle one way and more of a babbling brook the other. In the early days, he’d dreamed it: the fountain cracking in the rose garden and spilling out, unleashed. A stream that had been caught, released once more to go home where the water wanted to be.

The image of the oak sat vividly before him. He wanted to ask, but didn’t quite know how. What drew them to that tree seemed somehow too forward, or something.

A subtle shift rippled through him. Draco glanced back.

“They have come,” Aegis acknowledged. Draco nodded. “Go, Keeper. We will break it soon. I have no doubt or worry. It is in the stars.”

In the stars, but here was Draco, feet rooted firmly in the earth.

Light glowed in the clearing as though through frosted glass. Dr. Carter stood with Hestia Jones, only a few feet from him. Here it was then. Draco swallowed a great lungful of air.

“‘The time has come!’ The walrus said, ‘To talk of many things…’” Dr. Carter said as they drew near each other until they met in the middle of the clearing. The air was damp with the mist of winter. Draco fidgeted with his cloak, adjusting the clasp at the neck.

“‘Lo, Hestia,” he said, tossing his chin.

“Hello yourself,” she replied. “Ready?”

“Is one ever?”

“Oh, I’d say you’re ready.” She grinned. “Three years is a bit, isn’t it?”

He gave a sharp nod. A trembling began in the leaves. It wasn’t him, he hoped. Let it be the wind.

Hestia held out a gloved fist. He placed a hand on her forearm. As always, the quickest way to the DMLE was straight through the wards with an Auror. Dr. Carter lay his hand near her wrist and gave a nod.

With a tug in his navel, and a sharp pang in his tight chest, they were squeezed through space from the forest to the Ministry.

He hadn’t seen her in two days. Nearing three, if he was feeling whiny and wanted to be picky about the hours. And maybe he did. His heartbeat skipped and drummed a wild tattoo.

Sneering looks, judgmental glances, arched brows, backs turned to him: all of this was normal, familiar even for a journey to the DMLE. He thought he heard Hermione’s name slip in there sometimes. His pulse stuttered in those moments while his eyes darted, trying and failing to find the source.

Even without all of that, this wasn’t normal. With any luck—and he begged the stars for it—his probation would end today.

The corridor to the Wizengamot chambers echoed like a cave. Dark, gleaming walls polished to such a shine they looked almost wet in the light. One door, two doors, they were nearly there. His fists tightened at his sides.

A heavy door stood propped open. Hestia paused before it and murmured something to Dr. Carter, who went in first. In the brief eternity that lasted thirteen seconds, Draco restlessly scanned the corridor until his gaze lighted on something marvellous.

Hermione stood wide-eyed, lips parted in the corridor with a clutch of files in her arms. She gave him the briefest nod, but before he could think to return it, Hestia hooked him by the arm and guided him into the chamber.

How was she? What had they said to her at work? A thousand questions he’d been quelling for nearly three days rushed in an agonising torrent to the surface.

The heavy door closed behind him, reverberating through the stone.

The chamber was smaller than where his trial had been. Terrible, cold, the austere tiles and marble meant to evoke some gravitas under a rotunda. Designed for hearings, perhaps, but even so, the benches he, Dr. Carter, Hestia, and Constance Trigg sat at were lower than everything else, forcing them all to tilt their chins uncomfortably to meet the eyes of the Wizengamot and DMLE members presiding.

The calm of his trial wasn’t present. Memos zoomed in and out through a cracked transom window, flapping and hovering around nearly everyone present. Sometimes, red ones were plucked out of the air by assistants scattered in the upper benches.

A faint breeze brushed a lock of his hair out of place. He squeezed his eyes shut, tugging air into his lungs’ tight passageways. A tremor passed through his hands like quaking leaves. Another breath, he felt the little breeze as if it might be the wind, and maybe he was beneath a tree, and maybe he could reach out a hand and touch the forest. He turned inward and felt it anyway.

“Mr. Malfoy, can you answer the question, please?”

Constance nudged his arm.

He blinked—dappled sunlight dancing through tree branches drifted before him; a pull in the strings of his heart—he cleared his throat. “Yes, of course…”

There were questions. His hands clasped together on the table top, under the table, on the table again. Dr. Carter spoke for a long time until it devolved into a bit of a tiff between him and Selwyn—no, maybe a full-blown row. Draco saw the trees. They were holding up the ceiling. The sky was above him. He could simply not be here. Not be watched. Not be judged.

Constance squeezed his arm once.

More questions.

Then chairs were scraping. Hands were shaken. His hand was gripped once, twice, again. Did he say words? His jaw certainly moved. It felt like all that came from him was the murmur of leaves.

They emerged from the horrible cavern all at once into the corridor. Constance and Dr. Carter said something to each other. Constance shook his hand. He was grateful. He’d owl her. Thank you, yes, of course. Ta!

He was led—walls, tiles, the lift, the Atrium and…light.

“This one’s alright, but they burn the coffee, so…” Dr. Carter clicked his tongue and pulled open a cafe door.

Draco was planted in a chair by a window. Across the way, telephone booths that led to the Ministry held shifty-eyed magic folk. Merlin, did any of them really go incognito anywhere? The steamer hissed like wind through winter branches. He shut his eyes.

A macchiato was set in front of him, and slid beside his hand. Dr. Carter pulled up a chair and took a sip from a cup of his own, then grimaced.

“Knew it. Burnt again. More’s the pity.”

Draco lifted his macchiato and drank. “S’fine,” he said. The cup rattled in the saucer. “So that’s it then?”

Dr. Carter smiled, the apples of his cheeks ruddy and warm. “That’s it. You’re free now, Draco,” he said softly.

He was a leaf fluttering in the breeze, but still gripped by the branch and anchored. Brown curls swept through his mind. He slipped his fingers into his pocket and brushed against the coin: still cold.

“The centaurs did a thing this morning,” Draco said, leaning back.

“Interesting. Anything to do with the forest being calmer?” Dr. Carter took a drink and curled his lip.

“Yeah,” Draco’s brow furrowed, “at least partly. It’s been calming gradually.” He described the centaurs running through the woods and his own chase to the oak tree. Dr. Carter leaned forward with interest as Draco told him about the song, the bowl of something, and the way it had seemed calmer. “Then I Apparated back to the tent. Aegis came and found me not long after, and we talked.”

“And did you ask him why they chose that tree?”

Draco shook his head.

“Ah, well,” Dr. Carter sighed. “But this is quite something.” He combed his beard with his fingers.

“Aegis said they were waking up the trees.”

“Mmm, sounds a bit like wassailing, you know?”

“No.”

“Going out and singing to the apple trees to wake them up in winter. Old thing, not done much anymore.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Draco, did you feel anything particular about that oak?”

“Maybe. I can’t—I’ve been turning it over since then. Something felt present with it. Full.” He met Dr. Carter’s gaze. “I think we should try it tomorrow.”

The professor beamed.

They talked for a while more about the forest and enchantments. The conversation shifted to the practical. Anxiety threaded through Draco.

“Somehow, I expected they’d extend it,” he admitted, staring blankly out the window. “And now what? Do I live in a tent in the forest?”

“No one’s kicking you out, Draco,” Dr. Carter assured. He yawned deeply. “Besides, I quite like your company. Stay as long or short as you want. I’m in no hurry to get the room back.”

Half of the tension in him eased. Draco slipped his hand into his pocket and gripped the coin. It burned hot against his skin.

࿐ ࿔*

The past was beating in Hermione’s temples. Freedom pulsed on the edge of the moment like a telltale heartbeat: These are your sins. Have you done enough, changed enough, been enough to overcome them? Can you ever?

It had been enough. He’d done nothing to justify extending the probation. Draco was free.

It was her third trip down to the bowels of the Ministry. Forgetful of her. Files just kept slipping her mind each time she made it back to the legal offices. I-could-have-sworns and must’ve-left-that-one-on-the-tables were murmured. Eloise and John had given her a bit of a look this last time, but it really was the LAST time. And if on the way back she stopped into the second floor to check on… things, what was the harm?

And he was free.

Harry pushed up his glasses with a sly look that told her all she needed to know. Her steps clipped a clack, clack, clack through the marble halls past the empty Wizengamot chamber Draco had visited, past a narrow man walking the opposite direction whose eye she wouldn’t catch—or so she hoped.

“Ah, Miss Granger.”

Blast. Hermione closed her eyes for a half-second, calming beat. “Mr. Selwyn,” she greeted, stopping with a weird little bob of her head. Lord, where did that manoeuvre come from?

“I’d like a word with you,” he said.

She nodded and stepped to the side of the wide corridor. The passage, high-ceilinged and lined with lustrous, dark marble, was mostly empty besides them. A few Wizengamot chamber doors were opened, and the muttered curses of one put-upon clerk drifted out.

“You’ll likely be pleased to know that your friend the young Malfoy has completed his probation.”

“I am,” she said. “He’d done nothing out of line; his time was up. Well done by our justice system, I’d say.”

“Indeed.” A scroll was gripped in his hands, which twisted back and forth, tightening it further. “Lucius, his father, had rather a flair for waxing connections here in the Ministry,” Selwyn said. “Draco hadn’t seemed interested in exercising that particular skill—until recently.”

Her nostrils flared. “To my mind, Draco has been quite cooperative with the DRCMC and—”

"More so with some members than others, I gather.”

She pressed her tongue into the back of her teeth. “If you mean to say something, I’d really prefer you be blunt.”

“Would you? I don’t really think so, Miss Granger, because in my blunt opinion,” he took a step nearer, poise perfectly straight, observing her down the length of his nose, “you, as a member of the DRCMC specifically working with the Malfoy forest and legislation that has a serious effect on it, have stepped out of bounds.”

Goosebumps prickled her skin.

“Ms. Bhatt and I have—”

“I’m well aware that Amina has spoken with you.” His voice remained measured, clipped, but not raised. “Even so. To my mind, this calls into question much of your work these past few months.”

“Nothing untoward has occurred.”

“So you say, but it doesn’t matter, does it?” Selwyn leaned back with a curl of his lip. She’d expected as much, but the weary, almost sad look that danced across his face caught her off guard. “You are too clever not to realise the precarious position your work is now in.”

She was. Her fingers curled over the embroidery on her cuff.

“We here in the Ministry can be forgiving. The public eye … less so.” He inhaled sharply, his fingers drumming on the scroll. “But scandals of this rather tepid variety tend to blow off quickly. You needn’t worry too deeply about long term attention.”

He slipped the scroll into an interior pocket on his robes and seemed, for a moment, like that was that. This was concluded. She could go on. She took a hesitant step.

He spoke again. “What we must now consider, Miss Granger, is if, perhaps, the son is more like the father than we have observed. Perhaps the apple didn’t roll so very far from the tree, as it were.”

“Mr. Malfoy is nothing like his father was and shares none of his interests.”

He arched a narrow brow. “And you are qualified to say this with certainty?”

“Only from our interactions in a professional capacity.”

“Mmm, for what your word on this is worth,” he said. “There are questions to be asked, as you well know. After all, there is a large magical forest to consider, with many creature inhabitants who are under the protection of the Ministry. It would be irresponsible of us not to ask these questions. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Hermione inclined her head lightly. The pins in her hair were beginning to prick her scalp. A dull ache settled into her skull.

Sewlyn gave her a soft, cordial good day and departed for whatever irritating queries he was allegedly going to make. As she turned toward the lift, she thought she heard his voice call out for Hestia far behind her.

࿐ ࿔*

Draco slipped into her flat late in the evening. The street was already fast asleep. Shops shuttered, street lamps glowing orange with pools of light collecting on the cobblestones.

Hermione was a blur of motion from the kitchen to the sitting room to her bedroom down the hall.

He froze on the Floo hearth when he saw her. A tickling rush of leaves fluttered in his chest. The forest didn't pull him, but he wasn’t left alone either. And yet…

She burst into the room with a breathless air. “You came.” She smiled.

“You called.”

I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured.

Lamplight splashed a golden glow across her cheekbone. Her lips curved gently.

“You’re free, Draco.”

That was all the invitation he needed, and she was in his arms. It had only been a pair of days: nothing in their young lives. But maybe the war had made him desperate. Maybe death and its nearness had made him more conscious of time’s slippery nature. Maybe he didn’t want to let good slip through his fingers if he could reach out and grab it.

“Draco,” she breathed against the stubble on his jaw.

She was still in the things she wore to work. Merlin, he hoped that the black dress was under her robes. His hands climbed to her hair and began plucking pins, dropping them to the floor as he went.

“Do you remember in the pub? After ORC?”

She hummed.

“You summoned all the pins out of your hair.” Two pins were pulled, unfurling a cascade of curls. He met her gaze. “You have no idea what that did to me, do you?”

Her pupils darkened. “You’d better show me.”

A while later, sprawled completely nude atop a green coverlet and pale purple sheets, he watched Hermione pace back and forth in his shirt.

“God, he was such…” She shook her hands in front of her in tense, clawlike shapes and growled.

“Ignore Selwyn. He’s an up-jumped arse.”

She gave him a flat look. “Hardly, Draco.”

Her shoulders sagged a little. She wandered to the footboard and flexed her fingers over the dark curl of wood the sleigh bed made. He lifted a foot and tapped it next to her finger.

“I like this bed. It feels ready for a journey.”

Her face lit up. “Doesn’t it? I thought so too when I got it.” She ran her hands back and forth. Her expression grew more sombre. “The problem is that Selwyn’s right.”

“Fuck off.”

“He is,” she insisted.

Draco tapped his toe against her fingers until she grabbed it and gave it a shake.

“Be serious for a minute, will you?” she implored.

He sat up, pulling a corner of the purple sheet across his lap. “Alright,” he said, “let’s be serious. Selwyn is going to find a way to declare me unfit or unworthy, or I don’t even know… but he’ll take the forest from me.”

“He can’t, really,” she said, nibbling the corner of her thumb.

“He can. Maybe not in name exactly. And of course I’m bound to it, so there’s a problem for him. But he’ll find a way. It might start as excessive oversight: ‘Ah, look at how the Malfoy heir has manipulated poor, naive, Granger!’ And then your Magical Creatures on Private Lands Act will get called into question, and someone will say, ‘Merlin and Morgana! We must go further!’ Stop me if I’m wrong.”

“You’re not. There may be another way…” She rapped her knuckles on the wood of the bed, swaying back and forward. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking—and reading, of course.”

“Of course.” He rolled his hand in the air.

“And Theo has suggested…well…” She chewed the edge of her thumb again.

“Quit that, please,” he snapped. “Don’t give me that look. Nasty habit. If you want something to do with that mouth…”

“Draco! I said serious. God!”

“This is serious.” He leaned back on his elbows. “I’m being serious. Or as serious as I want to be now that I’m a free man.”

She softened, her lips curving up on one side. “I’m glad for you, you know?”

“Come show me.”

Later still, as the shadows in the room grew darkest, Crookshanks stomped between them and on them before finally nestling down as near to Draco’s chest as he could reasonably manage while still also touching Hermione. She reached out to give him a pat, and he swatted her away.

“I’ve been thinking,” she whispered.

“Mmm,” Draco half hummed into the pillow. His eyes were closed in some attempt at sleep.

“I think—hang on, are you awake?”

“Sure.”

“I think I know what to do to protect the forest.”

“‘Course you do, ‘Healing Maiden’.”

“Shut up, nothing like that.” She wiggled about, pulling covers and jostling him until his eyes popped open.

“Granger.”

“Not Hermione?”

“Not at…” he peeked at a clock, “half four in the morning. Can you wait until after seven at least to tell me?”

An irritated sort of huff came from her side of the bed.

“That’s a no, then,” he groaned.

“It’s just,” she scrambled to sit, “I keep thinking about that idea I’ve had, you know?”

“Mmhmm.”

“What if I put it into motion earlier?”

“Good shout. Let’s go to Gringotts in the morning and get it sorted. Now, come here.”

“I can’t go to Gringotts.”

“Whyever not?”

“I’m not allowed into the premises.”

“What on—What is this shite?” He pushed himself up, knocking Crookshanks out of place. A scathing hiss was directed at him before the little lord stomped up and nestled into his pillow directly where Draco’s face had been. “You little shit.”

“Well, I robbed it, so…”

“Oh, fuck!” He started to laugh. “How did I forget that? Fuck’s sake.”

Laughter caught between them; the easy, incredulous kind that breaks when something has passed. A sleepy tear welled in the corner of his eye. She reached out and ran a hand over his knee.

“A lot has happened in the last few years, hasn’t it?” she said.

He nodded, sliding his fingers along hers.

“I hate being at the Ministry,” she whispered. He threaded their hands together. The rough, wand-calloused skin at the base of her forefinger rubbed against his own. “I hate it there,” she repeated. “I could change things, certainly, but only after I’ve been there for ages and only after I’ve contorted myself ridiculously. And how much will be left of me by then?”

“It can’t diminish you, Hermione,” he murmured back.

“It can. It already does. I—I don’t feel right, so I wear those grey robes and I twist my hair up. The costume, remember? But how long before that becomes my skin, do you know what I mean?”

“I think so.” He squeezed a pulse into her hand.

“It was hard enough before, only now there’s—there’s—”

“This?”

She nodded. “And I don’t—I’m not—” She swallowed, “I’m not sure I care if it’s very ethical or not. I’m not giving this up. I’m tired of giving things up for other people.”

Her eyes were dark, intense pools. Oceans of depth lay behind them. If he stared at them long enough, he could step through them into another world. Her fingers gripped him so firmly he could feel her pulse through them. “I want this. Is that alright, Draco?”

He surged into her, crushing her back into her pillows with a kiss. “What do you think?”

Chapter Text

The couch was broken in perfectly, with little hollows their bodies had carved while reading. A page turned across the room.

“Listen to this, Hermione,” Dad said, then read a passage aloud to her. Hermione stared out the window as she listened to the rise and fall of his voice. The garden, surrounded by a brick wall, was a tangle of brambles beneath a grey sky. A raven hopped into view and cawed loudly before snatching a berry from a hedge and darting away.

“You know,” Mum said, following Hermione’s gaze. “I quite like the garden at this time of year.”

Mum lay at the other end of the couch, an afghan thrown over her legs. A serene smile graced her face.

“It’s just so nice when it’s all crisp and brown!”

“And dead?” Hermione laughed.

Mum nudged her with her foot. “Not dead, just sleeping. It’s like it’s waiting for the perfect time, and then the snowdrops…then crocuses…then daffodils.” She pressed a palm to her cheek. “Spring is magic.”

A cold draft whistled through the old windows. Hermione burrowed into the cushions, and Mum tossed the end of the afghan to cover her legs, too.

“I keep meaning to fix those,” Dad said, nodding towards the drafty window. His face brightened. “Bet you’d know how to do it properly, Hermione. There must be spells for it, eh?”

“There are,” she said, edging a tender place with caution. “Do you want me to fix it?”

“Of course I do! Go on, then.” He gave her a wink. “Show me up, little witch.”

Hermione pulled out her wand and set to work with a few deft swishes.

“I like watching you do that,” Mum said, following Hermione’s wand-work. “Doesn’t seem like you’d need magic in your line of work, though.”

The windows sealed properly. Hermione turned back. “No, I s’pose I don’t really need it there, but I use it all the time.”

“Oh? What for?”

“The sort of things you’d use a computer for, generally.”

Dad clicked his tongue. “That’s rather dull. Didn’t you say dragons are real?”

“And centaurs, and unicorns,” she supplied gently, “and all of them need someone to protect them. To speak for them. It may be dull in some ways, but—”

Mum’s hand squeezed her wrist. “You’re perfect for that, my darling. So I suppose you practice magic in other ways.”

“Well, yes, I mean, I use it all the time.”

“Not often when you’re here,” Dad said, with a wistful sort of sigh. ”I wish you would more. You look so alive, do you know it?”

She flushed with pride, only to feel it choked by frustration. Lack of opportunity, lack of space, just lack.

“I suppose I could do more here at the house,” she said. “But it’s so irritating anywhere else. Thank you, Statute of Secrecy.”

Mum pressed her lips together in a thin line. Familiarity tingled through her nerves. When Hermione looked in the mirror, she had trouble seeing a resemblance to her parents. You look so much like your mother—You have your father’s nose—Those are the Granger brows, alright. She looked for them, but couldn’t see them past her own self.

But every so often, it struck her. A flash of a grin, a wrinkled nose, and it was like she could feel the expression on her own face as if those same thoughts and feelings had crossed her mind and caused her own lips to curve just like that. It was a deeper kind of familiarity than the mirror could provide, maybe. A familiarity in how emotion moved muscle.

Mum was bottling in frustration.

“I wish that it wasn’t always one or the other,” Hermione ventured. “I don’t like how you both feel so apart when we’re in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. And I don’t like hiding all the time when we’re anywhere else.”

Mum squeezed her wrist again. “Me either.” She released a long, measured breath. “I don’t like that you need to hide. It doesn’t feel different enough from when you were in school—no, no, let me finish—I know it’s not really the same as before. What I mean is that the distinctions, the divisions, those are still there. For us, we’re still kept apart, just the same as ever.”

She withdrew, meeting Dad’s gaze. He pursed his lips and shrugged.

Hermione stared out the window at the garden. Magic, Mum had said. Where was the magic that would make this flourish again?

No matter how fiercely the winds battered it, nor how terribly the rain lashed, the old beech refused to let go of its leaves. It stood just outside the bounds of the forest, a little way into a field. Draco leaned against an elm, letting nostalgia roll through him thick as sap. He’d climbed the beech once while bragging continuously to Blaise, Crabbe, and Pansy, who’d been brought over for some dinner or other. The adults conspired, and they roamed until they were outside the Malfoy grounds altogether.

An odd dissonance clanged in him. Inside the forest, a winter that hadn’t quite committed to the bit swirled, while outside, a regular, miserable January dripped. Outside, three years had passed since the war, and that was that, hands dusted. Inside…

Inside, he had to deal with a wizard who may or may not have been trapped for a thousand years.

Gods, what a fate.

Wind shook the branches. Did the beech tree know about the forest? Did it wish for the other trees here? Could it talk to them?

He scoffed at himself. Merlin, what a stupid thought.

But the trees swayed, and a thin limb, narrower than a wand, twisted down and patted his shoulder. He was the young one here, and they would indulge his naive thoughts.

Laurie was draped on a thick root in the clearing, drawing something in a little notebook and periodically pausing to stare into the tree’s crown. Draco begged a cigarette the moment he neared her. It was a cold morning, and he wouldn’t be fussed trying to justify anything to himself. Let a little smoke kindle in his lungs.

They started off together on a meandering path to the oak.

“Where’s Graham?” she asked, footsteps crunching in the bracken.

“College.” He sent a puff of smoke before him. “He says, and I quote, ‘If you open that tree and meet Merlin without me, I will never forgive you.’”

“Ah, so we’re just scouts, are we?”

Draco took a shallow drag and shrugged.

They trudged through the forest for a while. They walked in a rhythm: talk, silence, breaths of smoke, crunching leaves, another thought. Laurie could be taciturn when she wanted, but under the right moons and moods, she opened up. Catching a sense, he took his chance to ask questions.

“Don’t you think it’s odd that Nimue’s enchantment hasn’t faded in all this time?”

“Depends on the power of the intent behind the caster,” Laurie replied. “You know how the spells haven’t faded in Hogwarts?”

Did he know? The horrible scrape of shifting stone stairs would never leave him.

“But still,” he pressed, “over a thousand years seems an awfully long time for the forest to just stay hidden, doesn’t it?”

Laurie’s fingers twitched. She rubbed her lip, then gave him a sideways glance. “Give that here, baby man,” she said. A flick of her fingers summoned the smoldering cigarette to her hand.

“Oi! I wanted that!”

“Not as much as me. You’re letting it burn down in the air.” She took a deep drag. “And anyway, these were expensive.”

“Don’t I pay you enough?” He sneered.

She shrugged. “Waste not.”

The trees shook as he stomped along. A few ferns swished into her path in solidarity. Laurie cut him a warning glance.

“Feeling a little vengeful?” she chided.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “It’s cold out’s all.”

“Mmm, I knew some tigers who were a little vengeful once.”

“I know of a witch who was—hence the forest,” he said.

“You know, that’s not a bad parallel—those cursed tigers and this.”

“How so?”

She began to detail her time in far eastern Russia, in Primorye where the tigers roam. The population was sparse, especially away from the towns. People and animals lived in a different kind of entanglement with one another—an older kind with echoes to some bygone era. She began to detail a particular tangle between a trapper and a tiger. The trapper had taken the tiger’s quarry, and, well, that just wouldn’t do…

“And that’s all it took—some scrap of meat?” he asked, sliding his hand against a hedge and asking it to move a bit.

“Yep. It was creeping into the hut through a window, to lie on his bed waiting,” she said.

“Was it there when he got back?” He paused, gripping a branch. The tree leaned into his back for a moment.

Laurie picked at a bit of ash caught in her lipstick. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know what I think! I had no idea tigers fucking stalked people that methodically. Merlin alive, they’re not even magical!”

“Doesn’t take magic to be an apex predator,” she said. “But to your question: no, it wasn’t there when Sergey got back. He came home and found the hut entirely ringed in pug marks, coated in tiger hairs, and reeking of cat piss.”

“Fuck. What then?”

“I saw him a day after that. Sergey had no plans to leave, though—poor idiot. I pressed on, following the acromantulas. When I returned six days later…”

They climbed over a large fallen tree. When he glanced over, she had a grim set to her mouth and shook her head, cutting a hand along her throat.

“Fuck…” Draco murmured. A cold breeze snapped through his coat. He pulled it tighter. “Shit way to go. And they hold their own against acromantulas?”

“Only the ones who get involved with people like that. That’s how they become cursed.”

They’d reached the oak the centaurs had sung awake. Draco wandered around the tree, his fingers trailing the bark. The old oak shifted and groaned beneath his touch. Was there a wizard in here, then? He pressed his palm more firmly against the ancient ridges. Lichens bloomed beneath his fingers. He could feel the tree swell against him. But anything more? It held its secrets.

Laurie approached with her wand already in motion.

“How’d the curse work anyway?” he asked, stepping back. “With the tigers.”

She began casting a complex series of spells, her expression pinched as a shimmering net of magic appeared around the tree trunk.

“It’s when they get into some sort of vengeance cycle with a human—does something to them.”

Gooseflesh rippled over Draco’s arms. “A vengeance cycle?”

He glanced at the tree. What else was it to trap a man in a tree and hide the forest, but vengeance?

“Mmhmm.” She muttered a few spells in a language he’d never heard, which poured from her melodically. The net around the tree shimmered with an array of colours. “A human does something to the tiger, the tiger gets mad and goes to get even, and if they aren’t successful, well…a vengeance cycle begins. All this vengeance, it does something—I’m still not entirely sure what—that creates a magical signature within them. But it’s not right. It makes them insatiable. They can’t stop hunting after that.”

“Even acromantulas.” He clicked his tongue, shaking his head.

“When I was working in Primorye, there were three like that.” She stilled and looked up at him with a wide grin, exposing her sharp canines. “The acromantulas certainly presented a challenge for them.”

“Gods, that sounds foul.” He shuddered. A cold dread began to work its way over his spine. “You don’t think—they wouldn’t—would acromantulas show up here?”

Please, for fuck’s sake, say no.

“I don’t think so. It’s not cold enough. I’m surprised they like the Forbidden Forest so much.” She stared off into the middle distance for a moment and shrugged. “Must be some special circumstance.”

She went back to work, turning from him fully. He got the message and moved farther away. She never preferred for him to watch her work, anyhow.

Maybe magic was personal or something for her. It was hard for it to feel like that when you’d gone to boarding school and learned it all uniformly with others. But perhaps, if that hadn’t been the case—if you were on your own—there was a sense of personal artistry to it. He turned his hand over in a circle and watched little golden motes gather at his fingertips, then drop into the soil. Moss drank the magic up—a little cluster of snowdrops emerged.

Perhaps some magic was personal. In his palm, the memory of blue flame held there flared to life. He closed his fist and slid it into his pocket, where a coin lay.

“Draco!” Laurie cried. “Oh, I thought you’d wandered off or something.”

He shrugged and leaned against the boulder he’d hidden beneath during the centaur’s ritual.

“I think,” she said, studying her spells over the tree, “could you bring Hermione back?”

For some inexplicable reason, the Ministry lifts had suddenly gone decrepit. A loose thread on a leather handle that hung from the ceiling tickled Hermione’s hand. The whole box shook like a car over gravel. There was a distinctly musty odour that wafted around.

It can’t have always been like this, could it? Surely she’d have noticed before.

And of course, it was crowded after lunch. Cormac was wedged too close, darting furtive glances her way. His every motion sent notes of patchouli and tobacco drifting, the scents of an older man—too much older. Hermione rubbed her nose as discreetly as she could, but honestly, strong scents like that should be considered harassment.

Relief at reaching her floor was immense. The odour dissipated as she breezed through the Beast Division.

“Your brother smells like a cigar shop,” Hermione said, dropping a file onto Sorcha’s desk.

Sorcha plucked it up and began rifling through it. “You’re quick.”

Hermione waved her off. “I’m good at research.”

“Careful, they’ll stick you on it forever.”

“Oh, I’m well aware and feeling that keenly.”

“Ah, getting comfy in the archives?”

“Making a nest and moving in for the rest of winter.” Hermione scanned the mess of maps and charts over the desk. “These all for the forest?”

“Mmhmm.”

There was so much here, more than a few creatures, just more. “Are you putting in overtime?”

“Not paid as such,” Sorcha said, pulling out one of the files and scribbling something in the margin. “That’s the magizoologist’s lot: come in, get underpaid, but we do it for love. We’re special like that.”

Hermione’s fingers twisted in her cuffs. “Don’t think the bleeding hearts all belong to you.”

Sorcha laid down her quill and glanced at a clock on the wall. “You haven’t happened to see Alberic Selwyn lately, have you?”

“A few days ago, why?”

“He’s signed off about that assessment, but there’s some sort of warding around the place, and he won’t answer anything to let us get in.” She flipped her braid from one shoulder to the other, playing with the end. “Gods, I’m tired of this. In what world is a Malfoy the easiest to work with?”

Hermione smirked. “It’s like we stepped through the looking glass, isn’t it?”

“Err, like a mirror door?”

“Never mind.”

“Well, anyway, it’s bloody annoying. I’m sure we could crack them, but I don’t want it to come to that. The paperwork, Hermione. The paperwork!”

“I’m leaving a bit early today, by the way—got something to check on,” Hermione said.

“Good for you. But if you see Selwyn, tell him to get his shit together, will you? But diplomatically.”

“Of course!”

࿐ ࿔*

Oxford’s streets were slick and shiny when she arrived. White light pooled in the trembling puddles, waiting for the rain to start up again. Hermione splashed through a few on Merton Street for the hell of it.

As she entered the quad, a group of students shuffled by, murmuring to one another. She ducked out of their way. A few phrases drifted to her, and some remark about phonemes and allomorphs in Gaelic. Glancing back, two of the students had their hands entangled. Her gait slowed with thoughts about mum and dad and the romantic story of them she’d learned by heart as a little girl.

Dr. Carter’s door was closed when she reached it. A single word in an elegant script hung from it: Out. But seen at a slight angle, the words “Alchemy Lab” appeared instead.

She crossed Mob Quad, then slipped through the old library until she reached an empty aisle. Strange light streamed in from a stained glass window at the far end—slightly dimmer than it ought to have been and at an uncanny angle that wasn’t quite right, if you paid close attention, which no one did. If there was one thing that would never cease to delight her, it was hidden, magical doors. This one was one of her favourites.

A glance around confirmed her isolation. Lifting her wand, Hermione tapped it against a sun in splendour on the stained glass. The window faded away, revealing a narrow passage lit by torches that descended a spiral stairwell.

The soft burbles of several cauldrons grew louder as she neared. Hermione stepped around the corner, shoes softly pattering against the dark grey tiles on the floor.

Time collapsed in the alchemy lab. Gothic tracery shaped a vaulted ceiling, dark wood workbenches from the nineteenth century filled the room, a storage cabinet at one end was made of stainless steel, and on the furthest wall was a bank of thoroughly modern, industrial sinks.

Portraits of former alchemists adorned the walls. Several frames were presently empty as the subjects crowded in one to deliberate over Theo, who stood below them, stirring a crystal rod in a copper cauldron.

Hermione made for the corner, where Dr. Carter was leaning over a drafting table. Deep focus was etched on his face, and a compass and pencil moved in his hands. A flat surface beside him was strewn with parchments, open books, and a little pile of leaves that seemed to wriggle and flutter. A small brass weight pinned them in place.

“How are those still moving?” she asked, brushing a finger over the edge of the leaves. They all quivered as though a breeze had blown them instead.

“Oh, hello,” Dr. Carter smiled. “What a nice surprise! Theo, we’ve got a guest.”

The dark mop of Theo’s head snapped up behind a veil of steam. A grin broke across his face.

Hermione scanned the large papers clipped to the drafting table—circles, triangles, equations… a mess of geometry that turned wild chaos into an orderly tessellation. Beneath the hard angles and lines were the fuzzy shapes of painted trees carefully rendered in soft watercolour.

“He’s there, I’m sure of it,” Dr. Carter murmured, looking at the papers as well. “What other reason would there be for such an enchantment than to hide Merlin himself?”

“I agree,” Hermione said, and felt the truth of it crush any last burbling doubts. “But, do you think that when the enchantment is broken, the forest will become… I don’t know–”

“Mundane?”

She nodded.

“It’s possible, but I think unlikely. All trees talk to each other in unintelligible treeish ways, but maybe once upon time, they trusted us enough to speak a language we understood. Maybe there’s no such thing as a mundane forest, anyway, just a quieter one.”

Hermione reached for the leaves. “May I?” He nodded, and she lifted the weight off to take hold of two.

“Those,” he explained, “are from a particular oak tree that the centaurs gathered at recently.”

“How did you cut them?”

“I asked Draco if he could request their assistance.”

“Then they’re still alive,” she mused. “I have something like that at home—I promised I’d use it well, so I have to think of something.”

“Draco gave it to you?”

“I cut it myself.”

“Did you?” He studied her with intrigue.

“It’s such a curious thing, isn’t it, the forest?” She twirled one of the leaves. Golden spots mottled its edges.

He stroked his beard for a moment. “Do you remember the feel of the Forbidden Forest?”

“Yeah,” she said, suppressing a mild shudder.

“That one’s very old too. Who knows which is older? But maybe the trees there are just more used to people than Draco’s forest.”

“Do you think the forest is wary of strangers or is it Draco who is?”

“Both, I imagine.” He grinned. “So, what brings you to Oxford during your normal Trapped in the Ministry hours?”

“Trying to make some decisions,” she replied. “I’ve got some ideas. One of them is about the forest.”

“Oh? Thinking of how to assert its sentience?”

She shook her head. “The timing’s all wrong. No one will accept its sentience until the enchantment is broken—and maybe still so long as Draco is bonded to it. They’ll argue it’s actually the enchantments causing everything.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Not the mercury!” a portrait shouted at Theo.

“Think! Thou canst ne’er mix them. Thou knowest this!”

“Shut the fuck up.” Theo pointed his wand at the gaggle of alchemists crowding the painting. “I know what I’m doing.” He glanced at the cauldron. “I was just thinking about it, alright?”

An alchemist in thick, velvet robes tossed his hands in the air and marched off to another frame where he poured himself a hearty glass of wine.

Hermione turned her attention back to Dr. Carter. “I think we need a different, more immediate solution.”

“I quite agree, and I presume you’ve got some idea already.” He rose and moved to a trolley a few steps away. “Tea?” Hermione nodded.

“Alberic is going to want to use the Crown’s rights or something like that for the Ministry to assert common access,” he said, passing her a cup. “I’ve had a suspicion that he’s been waiting until he could deal with Draco outright as a common wizard. Much better without the potential headache that could’ve arisen while he was still on probation.”

“Mmm, I assumed something like that was holding him back.”

“Couldn’t be seen taking advantage, you know?”

“And now…god, I feel like I handed him an excuse on a silver platter.”

“Not at all.” Dr. Carter gave her a sympathetic look. “It was only one photograph, my dear. People will forget. Public memory is terribly short.”

Hermione sipped, letting her gaze drift over the vacated landscapes and backgrounds that made up the portraits. She couldn’t have guessed any of their names.

“Even Selwyn told me the public would forget,” she said. “And I have to go nudge him again about those thestrals.” She rubbed her temples.

“Thestrals?”

“He bought one of the parcels of land from the Rookwood estate. Has a herd of thestrals, which he knows need to be assessed to stay compliant with the Private Lands Act, but he’s still giving a bit of trouble about it.”

Dr. Carter frowned, taking several sips before speaking again. “How odd,” he said. “Alberic isn’t one to disregard rules. Quite the opposite, usually. He may be a bit unpleasant, but he likes the bounds and structures of the law. I think it comforts him to know we’re all trapped in it.”

“Well, he’s not being very helpful right now. And I would think he’d want us to give him some sort of all-clear to move the thestrals out of those woods so he can harvest them for wand wood.”

Dr. Carter scoffed. “Not likely on old Rookwood land. Won’t be able to touch it, will he?”

Hermione set her cup down on her knee very slowly. Cogs in her mind began whirring to life.

“How d’you mean?”

“It’s an untouchable grove, isn’t it?”

Her heart began to drum a little faster. “I dunno. I haven’t heard it called that.”

Dr. Carter tapped the handle of his cup, staring up into the vaulted ceiling. “Let me see, how did it happen…there was something about an old Rookwood.”

“Very old?”

“Not very. Maybe two—three generations back? I’m not sure.” He scooted forward on his seat, a look of concentration coming over him. “I believe that—if it’s the same bit of land I’m recalling—there was a son. Idiot of the first class, practically born sneering around the silver spoon—you know the type.”

“Blood purists?”

“Please, they were Rookwoods.” He scoffed. “There was a herd of red deer known to live on the estate, as well as some magical creatures. The red deer caused local interest in the land—some wealthy Muggle or other, I’m not certain who, but you know how these things go. Wanted to hunt the deer, but the Rookwoods wouldn’t have it. Anyway, this went on for ages, and eventually the son was interested in selling off the acres to the Muggles. Why not, after all? A nice piece added to the family purse, which had dwindled somewhat, and less land to deal with. But the father didn’t want anything disturbing the purity of his property or legacy.”

“Of course he didn’t.”

“So he set about finding a way to keep the property away from the son, and it became untouchable in perpetuity."

“Magically?”

Dr. Carter raked his fingers through his beard. “I don’t think so—something else.” His eyes seemed to glitter then with a spark of recognition. “Wait, no, there is a magical component, but that isn’t all. I think it has something to do with the deed. Was a bit of a mess when they were divvying it all up, remember?”

She shook her head. Too much was a muddle from back in those earlier days after the war.

“Does your department do much with it? With the land?” He asked.

Her blood was rushing. A restless urge to jump up right then, say ta-ta and dash for the library shot through her. This was it, this was something.

But she could manage being polite, so her leg just began to bounce.

“We’d like to,” she said, “but he’s being stubborn and won’t coordinate with the magizoologists.”

“Ah, now that’s quite interesting. Maybe he’s been trying to find alternatives?”

“I’ve no idea, but to be honest, I’m more interested in whatever that Rookwood did to secure the lands ‘purity’.” She stood and began gathering her things. “I need to get to the Wulfric Inn, actually—see if I can find out exactly what happened.”

“Yes! Yes, I see. That could be something, it really could be.” He seemed to thrum with the same excitement that was now trembling through her.

“This might be it, you know?” she vibrated. “If we could secure it—if we could make it untouchable even beyond Draco…”

He flashed a grin that was all Cheshire Cat. “Wouldn’t that be deliciously ironic for poor Alberic?”

In the quad, the rain hit like a drum, driving her on. She set a pace to match. She could find this, she could do this. She could stop that wormy little pureblood set from—

“Hermione!”

She glanced back to see Theo jogging her way.

“Didn’t realise you were leaving so quickly,” he panted.

“Yeah, sorry. I want to get to the Wulfric Inn with plenty of time to spare.”

“No worries, I won’t slow you down,” he said. “Can you pop round for dinner?”

“Tonight?”

“Mm, at Great James Street. Harry meant to ask, but said he missed you at work.” Pink dusted his cheeks.

“Of course!”

“Seven too early?”

“No, that’s perfect.”

He grabbed her in a quick squeeze, giving her an oddly long look as he pulled back. Before she could even attempt to puzzle out his expression, he’d given her a pat on the shoulders and dashed back off.

Draco appeared in the entry hall. A breath of forest lingered about him. The lock of hair on his forehead rustled. An urge to go quickly, back beneath the trees beat at his chest. He ran his hand along the dark wood panelling of the hall and trudged heavily up the stairs to the library.

Pages fluttered, their sound unwound something inside him that rested over his weary bones. In his lungs, the forest murmured.

Draco tossed himself on the Chesterfield.

“Remember the book about the hippogriff you gave me a few weeks back? That one, please.”

A rustling and fluttering stirred one of the shelves. The slim volume slid out and flew straight to him. From the next room, the roar of the Floo sounded like a whoosh. Odd. Dr. Carter wasn’t usually back much earlier than seven.

“Oh, hello,” Potter said, with a gleam in his eye—the antagonistic bastard.

Draco’s spine stiffened. He turned the page, pretending at insouciance. “Off you fuck.”

Potter dropped a conspicuous bag by the door and strode into the room instead. He plopped into one of the chairs and smirked at Draco.

“Library,” he said, like a wanker. “How about a book about vampires in London?”

“You don’t have to say, ‘Library,’ like that,” Draco said.

“How else would it know I’m talking to it and not you?”

Draco gritted his teeth and turned the page. He hadn’t read a word, but appearances mattered.

A dozen books began piling up on the small table beside Potter. “Shit, I didn’t mean so many. Erm, what about taking away the fiction?” Several books ruffled their pages, then flew off to their shelves. “And, er, how about get rid of anything more than six—no, fifty years old.” Several more darted back to where they came from, clattering onto the shelf.

Potter eyed the more reasonable stack of three sitting before him.

Draco pointed his wand at the small fireplace in the corner and brought it roaring to life with a murmur.

The fire crackled, and they read in something that resembled companionable silence to the untrained eye. Once or twice, Potter cleared his throat in this cloying way that Draco felt buzz in the back of his teeth, practically forcing his lip to curl. He could feel the man’s eyes on him. Probably trying to get him to say something about Hermione or who knows what else, but none of it was his business anyway.

Draco rubbed his chest in a particularly pronounced way, drawing his brows in. The forest was quiet, but Potter didn’t know that.

That stopped the throat clearing well enough.

“Why hello there, my darlings,” Theo chimed, leaning in at the door.

“About time.” Potter’s book snapped closed. “I’m starved. What’s for supper?”

“Dunno! Chicken Kiev?”

“No chicken,” Draco mumbled from the sofa.

“Bugger.”

“I can make us something,” Potter offered.

“No, I told you no cooking,” Theo scolded. “You can cut veg or something. But we’ve got to pull something together soon—Hermione’s coming.”

Draco slapped the book closed onto his chest. “When?” he said at the same time Potter spluttered, “Oh, you ran into her!”

Theo’s smirk was insufferable—Draco would hex it off if he weren’t also famished. “Seven.”

Potter hooked his arm around Theo’s slim waist and whispered something in his ear. Theo shot a devilish look at Draco, which was even worse than the stupid smirk. Summoning Potter’s bag and hanging it on his shoulder, Theo led the two of them off to his room upstairs.

Alone, Draco tipped his head back and stared at the texture in the ceiling. Hermione was coming for dinner. A delicate, tremulous thing murmured to him. It wasn’t his home, not really, but something surged at the images that blazed before him: her hand in his, the stairs creaking under them, him pushing the door open, and then his bed only steps away…

“It’s settled,” Theo burst in at the door, “we’re making quiche.”

He spent the hour trying to read, but had to repeat every other page or so until he finally gave it up, flinging it across the room. The books chided and flapped on the shelves in protest.

A crack resounded from the sitting room, and Draco knew.

He was on her in a heartbeat. Lips pressed into her neck. Arms wrapped tight around her. Pushing her, guiding her, moving her toward the settee.

She came up for air. “Hello to — you, too.”

A spring creaked with their landing on the cushions. “God! Ouch.”

“Fuck. Sorry.”

He kissed her wildly. A murmur of leaves stirred his blood. The wind was driving him. It pushed the fabric of her clothes beneath his hands.

“Draco.”

It tangled her hair about his fingers.

“Draco.”

It caught in his breath and passed through to her until she breathed the forest too.

“I don’t—like being—apart for so long,” he managed.

She laughed a breeze. “Two days! That’s—mm—hardly long, you clingy git.”

“Awful.” His lips blazed a trail across her collarbone. “Why with magic—should I not see you—every day?”

“Hermione is that—ah fuck!” Steps thumped back down the stairs. “Theo! I’ve been blinded, and you can blame Malfoy!”

“Oi! Dinner!” Theo trumpeted with a sonorous charm.

Hermione pushed Draco off of her. They sat knee to knee on the settee. Now their surroundings seemed to come to him: the sitting room, a single lamp glowing in the corner, the possibility of just anyone in this house walking in on them.

A wicked heat sizzled down his spine. He dove for her again.

“No! Draco! Argh, getoffofme—mm—get off. Yes, okay.” She straightened her top and skirt with one hand while holding the other out as if to keep him at bay. He felt like a tiger ready to hunt her down.

Oh gods, the tiger.

“Hermione, listen—Laurie thinks we found him.”

She froze. “What?”

Her hair was a wild mess, and she looked her loveliest, and he really ought to focus again because he had things to tell her, but couldn’t there just be time without things to tell? Couldn’t they have that? Just time for all of this nonsense and nothing else?

“Yeah, Merlin’s tree.”

“The one the centaurs sang at?”

“Yes.” He braided their fingers together. “But look, she wants you to come see it.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, something about wondering if a witch needs to break it and,” he paused with a swallow. Fuck, it didn’t feel nice to say, did it? He grimaced. “She doesn’t think she’ll work—not for this magic—not the way the forest reads her.”

Hermione worried her lower lip. “No, I—I see what she means. Well, yes of course.”

“Tomorrow?” He pulled her hand into his chest and pressed closer. “If we could free him—if we could end it—”

“I can’t tomorrow. I have meetings all day. God, why does the sun have to set so early in January?”

“The day after,” he pressed.

“I—”

A sonorous Theo boomed through the house. “DINNER! Oh, fuck, sorry Graham.”

Hermione sighed heavily. “Can we talk after dinner?”

“Of course.” Never mind the fair number of other things he was marshalling in his mind for after.

࿐ ࿔*

“—so he showed up with four boxes of a bunch of potions rubbish—”

“Distillation set,” Theo said.

“—and starts setting it all up in the big room he and Fred used to use, remember, Hermione?” Potter asked.

“With all the scorch marks?”

“We got rid of those,” Theo clarified. “Rennovation?”

“Of course.” Hermione nodded.

“And then he went to Sirius’ old bedroom—”

Draco frowned into his wine glass. “Morbid.”

“Yeah, I actually do agree with that,” Potter said, scratching the back of his neck. “But you know, he’s fucking incredible at transfiguration—”

“And charms,” Theo added.

“Two minutes and he’d changed the whole room. He’d brought a little bag all shrunk—”

“Good of you to ignore the extension charms, darling.” Theo pecked his temple.

“Harry’s used to ignoring those.” Hermione waggled her brows.

Potter made some growling, grumbling sounds while Theo bestowed kind pats on his shoulder.

Draco grinned into his glass. Hermione was by his side, her arms brushing his with every movement, and, Merlin, was there movement. She shimmied, twisted, wiggled, and scooted—anything but sit still.

Above the table’s surface, they ate and listened to Potter and Theo go on and on about selling Grimmauld Place to George and how they would be staying here for a little while. It was a fact that normally would have bothered him more. But Draco was distracted.

Below the table, a quiet dance of friction and finesse was taking place. Hermione wore a skirt. Of course, she did. He’d seated her on his right with purpose, and now his free hand roved. The fabric, a thin wool that draped over her legs to just below her knee, was inched deftly up, up, up. Bunch by bunch, it climbed beneath his walking fingers. Hermione’s free hand slid from her lap to his. A circle was traced over his knuckle. A press to his wrist. Her own fingers walked their way to his thigh and drew spirals there while he worked.

“So where next?” Draco asked for pretence, making eye contact with the surface of the table. A small intake of breath escaped Hermione as his fingers met sheer tights.

Theo rambled for a little while about the Cotswolds, maybe, and Potter shook his head, saying he’d like to be nearer to the Harpies. Maybe there was some talk about what Theo was working on in the lab. Draco might’ve answered a question or three about the forest…or so he thought. His focus was elsewhere on a soft touch that lingered and moved along his thigh, on a press of a knee into his, on a shoulder that crept closer and closer until Potter said—

“So… you two, yeah?” He glanced between them.

Hermione flushed a brilliant rose. She turned to face Draco. He could read her questions there in the crease between her lush brows, in the way her sparkling eyes moved back and forth over him.

“Yeah,” Draco breathed. Hermione’s fingers threaded through his beneath the table. He turned to face Potter. “Problem?”

Potter shook his head with a weary, though not unkind, sigh. Theo nudged into him, grinning.

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

Her hand was in his, the stairs creaked beneath them, he pushed the door open, and they fell into the room, in a tangle.

Several breathless moments later, he pried himself from her and turned to set his usual nighttime spells.

Hermione wandered further in, her hand trailing over the back of one of the chairs. Wandlessly, she threw a little spark into the fireplace, igniting the birch logs lying inside. A sudden self-consciousness flooded his veins. He moved to lean against his bedpost, grasping it behind him like it was a young tree and stared. The firelight glowed beneath her, casting a long shadow. Golden light from it mingled with the orange glow of the street lamps outside.

She neared his desk, examining the scant papers and books strewn there. Some old letters from his mother were tossed into a basket on top. Her eyes lingered on them briefly, then moved on.

Merlin, he wanted to know what she was thinking. What did she see? What did she ignore?

“So much dark wood in here,” she said with a smirk.

“Most of this is from my childhood bedroom,” he replied.

Her smile vanished, her brow furrowed over a more serious gaze. “Why?”

“To help me feel a little more at home, apparently.”

“And did it?”

Did it? How to sum up the shifting feelings. The crushing realisation that this was all he would ever have of it. The disgust, later, that he had any.

“I was angry about it at first,” he said, slowly. “I figured if they were going to put me in another prison, why the subterfuge of my personal effects?”

“It isn’t a prison—or, it wasn’t meant that way,” she said the last more quietly.

He took a steadying breath, his hand squeezing the bedpost. If it were a tree, the leaves would shiver at his touch. A tug in his chest told them they might be anyway.

“No, it’s not a prison. But it wasn’t freedom either.”

She leaned against his desk, crossing her arms. Not where he wanted her. Much too far, for one thing. Her lips twisted to the side.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I feel—not trapped, that would be the wrong word—hemmed in? I don’t know. Like the path is a little narrow.”

If he kept her—if she kept him, and he stayed bound to the forest, would that hem her in too?

A weariness stole through him. He sank onto the mattress, staring at the small fire crackling in the hearth. A painting of a forest hung over it, the trees swaying in an imagined wind.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve always thought it was terribly ironic that this is the painting that was brought from my bedroom.”

She looked at it again. “Was it the only one in your room?”

“Gods, no!” He scoffed. “But it was the one that hung over my desk. Isn’t that strange?”

“Uncanny.” She took a step toward him.

“Always looking at the forest, framed in—like you’re talking about.”

Hermione reached the bedpost and looked back at the painting. “I think I know how to help the forest…at least a little.” She faced him again. “And you.”

The forest roared to life in his chest. He pressed his fingers there—be still, be still—while his heart beat wildly against his ribs.

“How?”

She shifted, moving to stand in front of him. “I need to talk with Contance Trigg first, if that’s alright.” Her hand combed through his hair. “Can I explain it later?”

“Later is fine,” he murmured as her fingers dragged along his scalp. Leaves fluttered in the corner of his mind. A dim thought about a thing he needed to ask her. “Can you come to the forest tomorrow?”

“For the oak?”

“Yes.” He reached out and let his hand rest on her hip. “But we can talk about that later, too, if you’d prefer.”

“Later is fine.”

The fabric of her skirt was so soft. So deliciously smooth. He let his thumb make arcs along its band until her shirt was snagged on it, and then he slipped up and beneath.

“So,” she murmured, “we two?”

He stilled—a frozen moment of uncertainty. Something unnameable, yet already stated, hung in the balance. His touch became a firm grasp, pressing into her. Her fingers bunched in his hair, pulling gently, angling him back.

“Yeah,” he said, a grin stealing over his lips. “Problem?”

She dove onto him, pinning him to the mattress.

࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

Orange light from a street lamp glowed through the sheer curtain, casting soft shadows that smudged the wall. On the bureau, the clock read just past one in the morning. Draco lay on his stomach, his covers thrown partly off his overheated body.

Hermione hummed and rolled over, throwing her leg across his bare backside.

Facing her, he reached up and looped a curl about his finger. The streetlight caught its fibres.

“It’s not just brown, you know?”

“Hmm?”

“There’s auburn in here—and bits of gold, I think. In the sunlight, especially.” He rubbed the curl between his fingers.

“You used to hate it.”

“You used to chew it in the library.”

“What!” She buried her face in the pillows. “You saw that?”

“You’ve seen me in a variety of much worse states, so I think we’re even.”

She peeked out through one eye, the edge of a smile dimpling her cheek. The orange glow illuminated a glimmering streak along her face. A little touch of gold. He rubbed his thumb over it.

“I thought you’d fallen asleep,” she murmured.

“Can’t.”

“Me either.”

“Why not?”

She blew a curl out of her face only for it to flop right back where it had been. “I keep thinking about my mum.”

He hesitated, then asked, “Something happen?”

“No, it’s just something she said the other day.” She shifted to look at him more fully. “She and my dad pointed out how divided they feel from me in the magical world, and I just—I don’t want them to feel like that, but if I’m honest, I feel it too.”

His hand crept to his chest and pushed back on the murmur growing there. Her own palm crept up to lay over his, interlacing their fingers.

“Wouldn’t it be better to sleep in the forest again?” she asked.

“Yes, but I’m fine.”

“You don’t—”

“Hermione.” He propped himself up on an elbow, looking down on her. Gods, he was going to have to say it wasn’t he? “I’m bound to a forest, you know? A fixed point. It’s always going to be better if I’m there, but—” he swallowed, “I don’t want only to be there all the time. For a lot of reasons—and one of those is you, alright?”

“Me?”

“Don’t play stupid.”

“I like the forest, Draco. I like being there.”

“Yes, but all the time? Every day? Would you like it if you couldn’t ever go anywhere else? What if you wanted to take a holiday to—to—Malta, but instead you got the forest again and again and again. Just always.”

The blankets rustled as she sat up, crossing her legs. She tugged the edge of the sheet up, covering herself like a sculpted nymph. “What’s this really about?”

“Nothing,” he muttered. “Just forget it.”

“Like hell.”

He sat up to face her, pulling the sheet over his lap. “I come with a tether.”

“You think I don’t know that? You think it doesn’t occur to me all the ways the people I care about are divided from me? Let me tell you something, Malfoy, I think about it all the time, and I have been doing so since I was eleven years old. You just went off to some school where your parents could swan in whenever they felt like—”

“Hardly!”

“—and meanwhile, my parents can’t even picture what Hogwarts looked like because I haven’t even got a photograph to show them! They have never and will never be where I work—”

“I thought Muggles could come to the Ministry under special provisions.”

“Yes, and one of those is memory modification.”

“Fuck.”

“Indeed.” She crossed her arms, bunching the sheet across her bare chest. “I’m constantly aware of everything dividing me from people. Constantly. I love them so much and they can’t really see my life—only visit in it like complete tourists coming into the magic world.”

The flutter of leaves rustled against his ribs. A dull ache began to sharpen there. “I thought you spent Sundays integrating all of those things.”

“Yes, well…” Her hands dropped to her lap. “There’s only so much you can do with one day a week.”

The edges of her eyes were strained with more than sleep. He wanted to smooth it away, but this was deeper—heavier. His own mother came to mind: letters full of sharp advice, social calculations, potential solutions suggested and repeated. None of it what he wanted or needed at all. And yet, she could come and go if she wanted—if she chose.

But Hermione? She stared out the window, as if wondering how to open it and let her other selves inside. 

The sharp ache started to pull. A whisper of wind through a yew tree tickled his ear. He caught the sense of it and spoke the wild thought.

“Hermione,” he said, tentatively slipping a hand into hers, “what if—Would you like to bring your mum to the forest?”

A tremor shivered through her. “Bring mum?”

He shrugged. “I don’t see why you couldn’t.”

“But…She would be safe, wouldn’t she?”

“I’ll be there.” Gods, that sounded so much more pathetic when he said it aloud.

“That’s true,” she replied and squeezed his hand. “Okay. That’s enough for me.”

“It is?”

“Of course it—mmph!”

He pressed her flat into the bed, sliding his body over hers.

“The day after tomorrow?” He breathed against her lips

The sheet began to slide away between them.

“Yes, alright.” Her fingers skated up and down his arm. “She’s going to be so excited.”

“Good. Now, can I be Draco again?”

“Weren’t you always?”