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Chapter Text

Draco

There is something almost sacred about silence, Draco thinks. Not the kind one finds in libraries or under star-lit skies. No, this silence is scorched into the stones of Hogwarts, into its blackened halls and shattered glass, into the splinters of magic still humming in the walls. A graveyard kind of quiet. The sort that comes after screaming.

He walks through the debris, his boots crunching over burnt wood and fallen plaster. Smoke lingers in the air, making it hard to breathe, and adding to the scent of blood clinging to everything. There, on the marble staircase, lies a wand snapped in half, and there, a bit further away, a hand.

Draco doesn't flinch. He doesn't think he's capable of it. He hasn't cried in a very long time. Not since the Manor. Not since his aunt carved letters into the skin of a girl who had done nothing to deserve it. He can still hear it —Hermione's scream. It followed him into sleep. It still does.

He pauses by the corridor where Crabbe died. There's nothing left of the boy, nothing but a blackened crater and a smell like cooked meat. No one had bothered to clean it. Why would they? Crabbe wasn't a hero. He was among the bad guys; he wasn't friends with the Golden Trio —in the end, he was just another casualty. Another mark on the ledger.

Draco touches the long, bleeding scar that cuts across the left side of his face —from his cheekbone to his jaw. The skin is slightly burning in the kind of pain that would have usually made him howl, but now, he can't find it in him to actually feel the pain. He doesn't remember who gave it to him, who cast the spell. Was it a blade? A curse? All he knows is that he woke up in the rubble, and it was there.

The trial, when it comes, is swift.

He stands in the centre of the Ministry courtroom like a lamb laid bare, shoulders straight, in robes that weren't his own. They made sure he was clean —combing his hair, giving him fresh clothes. For appearance's sake, someone had said.

Draco hasn't said a word —he'd rather let them accuse him. He lets them list every unforgivable sin by association. Let them talk of dungeons and Death Eaters, of cowardice and betrayal. He doesn't try to defend himself because he knows that no one wants to hear what he has to say. No one wants to know his side of the story, or that he, too, had suffered during the war. He, too, has lost many things.

He just let them.

And when Potter steps forward, it feels like someone dragging sunlight into a crypt. He tries to defend him, tries to tell them to spare his life, says he didn't give them away at Malfoy Manor, says he never cast a Killing Curse. Says he tried, even if it wasn't nearly enough to redeem him.

Then, when Potter has given them all of his arguments, Granger comes. Her presence surprises Draco the most. He had somewhat expected Potter, because it was such a Potter thing to do to try to defend him. But Granger? He had been nothing but disgusting with her; she has absolutely no reason at all to spare his life. Still, when she speaks, her voice is steady, almost clinical, and she never looks at him.

But neither of them says the thing that matters most: that Draco had no choice. That he had been just a boy when he was thrown into the Death Eaters' world. That he had been drowning long before the Dark Lord had marked him.

Perhaps that's a truth no one wants.

He knows the Wizenmagot and the Ministry want justice. They want vengeance. They want to believe evil has a face, a name, a clean jawline and grey eyes. They want to burn what's left of the war.

He is what's left of the war. He represents it all. He knows that as well.

So they give him to Azkaban.

There, he's magically restrained for an indefinite sentence. They break his wand in half, and he has no right to an appeal. He's stuck on this Merlin-forsaken island. There's just the silence. Again.

Inside his tiny cell, he loses his sense of time. They're only a few Dementors left, probably the most powerful of them if the chill Draco constantly feels is anything. He doesn't eat much. He doesn't sleep much either. Sometimes, he forgets his name, becoming but a ghost of himself. He ends up only bones and breath. Turns into the stone he's sitting on. The darkness around him. Or this pulsing, angry thing beneath his skin.

The first time he hears the echoes, he thinks it's a memory.

Coward, it says. Murderer.

He curls into himself and lets it speak.

The second time, it calls him by name. The third time, it laughs.

He dreams of fire. Of Bellatrix laughing. Of his father screaming. Of Potter's green eyes and his mother's hand on his shoulder, cold as marble.

He wakes up sweating, gasping, hands shaking with power he can't control. His magic pulses against the restraints around his wrists. The enchanted cuff glows red-hot some nights, and it burns him when he's angry. It bruises him when he weeps. Still, strangely, it seems that the raging beast curling inside his belly knew he couldn't be held forever.

The night it happens, it's raining. A guard spits on the floor and tells him he should've died like the rest of his kind.

It's nothing new. That's what's odd to Draco. But the cuff cracks all the same. He feels it break —not with a sound, but with a shift in the air.

He remembers standing. And the next moment is ash and screaming. He doesn't remember casting any spell. But there was fire. Bones cracking. He remembers standing in the ruins of Azkaban, soaked to the skin, the wind howling around him as the rain washes the blood from his face and body.

The cuff lies at his feet, melted, and his magic hums like a storm.

The Ministry never finds the various bodies of guardians and prisoners, because they are none to find. He disappears into the dark with nothing but this raging beast inside his chest and his heart hollow. Still, as he walks away from the massacre, he realises that he does feel something. It is not rage nor grief. It's something far worse for the world, he supposes. It's purpose.

Tom

Darkness. Then breathe.

It isn't like waking from sleep. There is no slow return, no comforting warmth of a remembered bed. It is sudden —violent. Like the first gasp of a newborn or the scream of someone pulled from water too long drowned. His lungs ached as if they'd never known air before. His chest heaves as he curls on cracked stone, fingers clawing at damp earth.

The ruins around him reek of mildew and dust, dead magic thick in the air like smoke. Morning light filters through the shattered remnants of a dome above, ivy creeps in through cracks, and birds stir in the trees beyond, oblivious.

He lies still for a long time, muscles trembling. No thoughts. Only instinct curls inside his mind, his chest. He keeps breathing as deeply as he can muster.

Then the ache starts. It isn't physical —though his body is thin and cold— but it's reaching somewhere deeper than mere flesh. It's an absence, a chasm carved out of his chest. Slowly, thoughts return to his mind, like a foreign tongue remembered mid-dream. He starts to realise that this ache is the result of a loss. No, a lack. A pain where something should have been. But he doesn't know what exactly.

He sits up slowly, his unfamiliar limbs obeying him with grace, strength, beauty. He catches sight of his reflection in a sliver of broken glass, half-buried in the dirt.

There, in the reflection, is a young man. Perhaps twenty-something. Pale, sharp-featured, eyes like coal, and hair raven black and damp with sweat. As he studies the face watching him, he finds there's something wrongly perfect about it. As if nature had been tampered with to create it —no blemish, no mark, just timeless beauty.

He feels wrong that what he sees is him. It still feels incomplete.

He stands and takes a step, then another. His feet remember how to walk, it seems, though his mind doesn't know where to go. The ruin around him pulses faintly with magic —it's old, bitter, barely fading.

Words come to him. Horcrux. Ritual. Split. Potter. Hogwarts.

He pauses. The words taste like rust on his tongue, but they mean something. Had meaning. He had meaning.

He moves through the ruin, dust lifting in spirals around him. There are remains here, fragments of spells that echo of power long gone: a circle of scorched stone, an altar blackened at the edges. At its centre, there's blood. Dried, but clearly not ancient. His, he knows instinctively. He steps closer to the altar, eyes on the centre. Then, suddenly, the world turns. They're flashes —a wand lifted, a scream cut short, a green flash, a boy with round glasses, then a boy with white-blond hair, watching, tears in his eyes. There's a name on the tip of his tongue. He knows this last boy. He thinks hard, fingers running over the altar almost maniacally until, finally, the name flashes in his mind.

Draco. Draco Malfoy.

It hits him like a strike to the chest. The ache in him doubles —sharpens. It's not just a memory of some vague shadow of his past; it's something that matters. Or at least, it will. He remembers the boy, proud and cold in childhood, then, later, when he himself turned more monster than human, scared and teary.

The ache intensifies to the point where he falls to his knees, grasping the altar's edge. Perhaps there's an answer to why he remembers this boy so clearly. Perhaps, it's a clue. Perhaps, Draco Malfoy is a thread, a tether for him to this world. Something to remember.

Standing, he straightens his back. He could barely remember his past, could barely remember his own name, but, somehow, something deep inside this ache tells him that he had to find purpose. To find the boy. The one with the silver eyes.

Days passed slowly but still too fast. He barely has time to understand who he has become now. A few days after he had remembered the silver-eyed boy, he managed to remember his own name. He's Tom. Tom Riddle. He knows he has been called something else because Tom Riddle irks him every time he tries to say it out loud. He thinks he hates hearing this name, but he hasn't managed to remember what other name he could have.

He has left the ruins now, and the world beyond is wild and vast. He walks through forgotten places, through woods dense with silence and ghosts. Birds watch him from the trees, and wolves flee his path. Once, he saw a cottage. Smoke curling from its chimney. He turns away.

He has tried his power and realised that he was mighty. He could conjure from thoughts only. Could break trees and dry lake with a spin of his wrist.

It is after killing one of the wolves without even looking up from what he had been doing that he realises he isn't normal. He couldn't be, but didn't care much.

As the days go by, he drinks from streams, sleeps beneath stars, and every night, he dreams of the silver-eyed boy. Draco Malfoy. In flashes, snatches of memory not entirely his own.

Once there's a boy, sneering. Then, a man, bleeding. Every time, eyes like glass before they shatter. It's the most beautiful thing he has seen and the most horrible at the same time. But he doesn't understand why it is this boy who haunts him.

Until, one day, as he walks through the deepest part of the woods, he begins to.

There's something in the boy from his dreams —something drawn to the scarred man from his dreams. Something that twists inside when he thinks of him. Not hate, not really, although it's a very similar emotion. It's not hunger either. It's different.

He reaches the edges of a city before he understands how to hide. It's only after some odd looks that he decides he must do something, and after a moment, he lets his magic bleed from his fingers when he reaches for it, wild and primal. He cloaks himself in shadows, surrounds his body with silence. People walk past him now, unaware. He smiles, watching those muggles, thinking that magic is the most wonderful thing.

Then, whispers of the world reach him when he enters the Wizarding World.

The Dark Lord is gone.

Harry Potter is alive.

The war against Lord Voldemort has ended.

Those names remind him of something, stir deep emotions within his chest, but it takes him a very long time to fully understand to what extent. He's seated behind an inn when he realises that he's Lord Voldemort. At least, he had been. Once. Not so long ago that people still talked about who he was.

Later, he finds a man in Knockturn Alley who trades names. So, he slips him coins he didn't know he had in his coat, and the man gives him more than just a name —it's an old newspaper. On the front page, there's a photograph of a man on trial. Quickly, he realises that it's the silver-eyed boy. Draco Malfoy, thinner than in any of his memories, face half turned from the camera, and a scar running from brow to jaw. The article is terse —disgraced, pardoned, released. Then— vanished. He stares at the picture for a very long time, so long he doesn't realise that the sun has gone down. Something tightens inside his chest. Something that tells him he really has to find the silver-eyed boy.

Tom finds Draco in winter.

A remote cottage lies in the middle of France, in Auvergne's dark forest, where the cold wind lashes against the hills. It is half-hidden behind bramble and wards, but he can taste the magic. The current of powers taste of old blood, woven protections, cloaking spells —clever ones. He stands in the snow for hours, watching the cottage.

Then, at dusk, the silver-eyed boy steps out.

He's wrapped in a dark coat, eyes sunken, hair slightly longer. He looks older than in any of his memories. The long scar is stark against the boy's pearly white skin.

This is when Tom decides to step from the trees, and then, almost immediately, as if in reaction to him, Draco freezes. In a matter of seconds, he has his wand out, pointed at Tom.

"Who—?"

He looks at the silver-eyed boy. He wonders —how can his memories be so far away from the picture in front of him? Still, the boy has silver eyes, and there's still something deeply scared in there. He doesn't speak, he rather looks, waiting for some recognition from the boy, not really a boy anymore. The moment stretches long and taut, until the silver-eyed boy's face shifts from confusion to horror to something like disbelief.

"Your face reminds me of someone..." he whispers as he takes a step closer. It's just one; he's still too far away from Tom, but he's also closer, so he takes a step as well, hoping to cross the distance. "Someone my grandfather has shown me when I was a young child."

He stops talking, his silver eyes squinting as he tries to take in Tom's features.

"But it's not possible," he adds after a moment, "you should be dead. And old. But mostly dead. Potter killed you. I was there."

Ah, Tom thinks, he must remember something. However, if he remembered, then, as per the memories of the boy he has, he should be afraid. But he doesn't seem so. The contrast troubles him; thus, he takes another step closer.

But the silver-eyed boy doesn't falter, doesn't even seem that much scared after a closer look. On the contrary, his grip on his wand tightens, and his brows frown, making his scar move against his cheekbone.

"Don't come any closer," he orders. Then, after a moment, like an afterthought: "My Lord."

For the first time in this rather short life, Tom obeys. He stops, but he is now close enough to see the details of the boy-who-is-not-a-boy-anymore. The silver-eyed boy looks older than his memory permits, taller as well. His shoulders are broader now, though still held in that particular, aristocratic poise that reeks of old breeding and rehearsed restraint. He is pale, almost grey under the flickering light, like marble kissed by ash. 

However, it's his face that draws his gaze —traps it, like a nail driven through soft flesh. Like he has seen in the newspaper, a scar mars his cheek. It runs jagged from just below the left brow bone down to the curve of his jaw, slicing through the once-immaculate symmetry of his features. It's a cruel-looking wound —not elegant, not neat. It bisects the skin in a slightly raised line, the colour of raw silk pulled too tightly. It pulls a little when he speaks, tightens when he frowns. Still, as his eyes go down, he notices the rest of the boy-who-is-not-a-boy-anymore seems sculpted around it. His mouth is narrower now, lips chapped slightly, but formed with that familiar, aristocratic curve. The nose remains the same as his grandfather's and father's— proud and straight, but there's a tension even there. It's like something that used to be delicate has been reforged in iron. Draco's skin bears the faint evidence of other small injuries, thin slivers near the temple, just under the chin. Fine lines begin to form around his eyes — eyes that are this luminous silver, not just pale, but molten mercury, glinting with something brittle. As for his hair —once so carefully combed and lacquered into place— now longer, not quite shoulder-length but enough to fall around his face in uneven strands. Silken, yes, but no longer manicured. It moves when he does. A ghost of boyhood rebellion —or maybe just the negligence of someone who no longer cares. There's stubble along his jaw, faint but visible, like he shaved days ago and then forgot. His collar is askew. His robes are dark, seemingly too dark for him, draping over his frame with the heaviness of mourning. He wears no rings, no visible mark of his former station.

Yet, Draco stands. Still elegant, still proud, still so utterly Malfoy.

Tom tilts his head, caught in something not quite recognition and not quite mourning. This is not the boy he remembers. This is something else entirely —something broken, but, oddly, unbent.

He observes the defiance of the silver-eyed boy. With this simple movement, the boy's breath catches, he staggers back a step, and he feels almost amused.

"You call me Lord, but you don't bow. Why?"

Draco's eyes narrow, giving his fair face a wicked look. "I will not bow to your presence anymore. You have died, and with you, my loyalty to what you were. You are nothing more than a parasite. A relic. Something that looks like the monster it used to be, but not truly."

Tom smiles; it curls his lips, but the motion is cold and sharp. The silver-eyed boy doesn't smile back, but there's no fear left in his gaze now. None.

"In none of my memories do I remember you being this rebellious, sweet Draco Malfoy? Is it since your parents died? Is it because you are so certain I am no more?"

Draco's jaw ticks and hardens, and Tom's amusement uncurls further. For the first time since waking up in the ruins, he is feeling something stronger than hunger, than need —he feels curious. He doesn't know this version of the boy, doesn't remember it. He wants to know why he will not bow anymore, why he is not on his knees at this moment, begging for mercy. But most of all, he wants to understand why, in the hollow silence of the world, does he feel that if this boy-who-is-not-a-boy-anymore tells him to leave —he might actually listen.

No, he thinks, I will not leave. He hasn't come this far to be sent away. To give up. He wants to know, so he will. He wants to see this boy beg, so he will. He wants, wants, wants, and wants...

Ah, the hunger is back...

Deciding, he'd rather ignore the boy who has not yet used his wand despite visibly hating who Tom is and was, he steps closer, so close he walks past Draco, who stays frozen where he stands.

"Let's go inside, shall we?" He orders as he stands at the door. "We'll freeze to death otherwise."

He enters the cottage, leaving the silver-eyed boy to the snow and winter. After five long minutes, Draco walks inside as well. The door shuts with a low thud, quickly followed by the heavy click of the old bolt sliding back into place. The air shifts inside the small space that stands as the entrance and living room. The cold seems to follow the silver-eyed boy in like a dog on a leash, coiling around Tom's ankles, clinging to his sleeves, even as he stands close to the hearth where a meagre fire stirs in its stone cage. Draco lingers near the threshold, snow melting off his coat in slow drops.

The floor will stain, he notes absently —not that he cares. It is Draco's, not his.

Tom can't decide how he feels now that he stands in what is the boy's space. There's something strange moving inside his chest —he doesn't know if it makes it tighten or loosen. However, he can smell the silver-eyed boy's powers in every crook of the house —like old wine in a new bottle: dry, complex, decanted. It's, yet again, very different from the taste of his memories, where it had been fear and brightness —now, it seems it has aged in darkness. He remembers that Draco had been to Azkaban and that he did not simply escape, but burned the place down so that there's nothing left. The world doesn't even know he is alive.

Carefully observing the boy, he says, "You have changed." But the boy says nothing in answer. So, he exhales slowly through his nose. "That is not a compliment."

He doesn't think Draco has believed for one instant that he was being complimented. He is still tensed, standing stiffly, shoulders squared, like someone prepared to run or strike, and Tom can feel the hatred coming from him in waves. Still, he notices that the boy's wand remains lowered. Perhaps, the boy-who-is-not-a-boy-anymore doesn't see the point of using it. Perhaps he wants to see how this plays out, what Tom will do. These are valid wishes, he believes, for he wants the same thing. Thus, he steps forward again, slowly this time, more animal circling a prey than human. His steps are soft, deliberate as his feet graze the floor. Draco watches him, and though there's tension, there's calculation too in those pale eyes. He's waiting, measuring. Tom finds it equally amusing and irritating.

"We should sit," he proposes, but it's an order.

Draco doesn't move from where he stands.

Tom tilts his head, still flabbergasted by how much the boy has changed. By memory, he remembers that he should have flinched or immediately obeyed.

"You've become quite rebellious."

There are movements inside Draco's eyes. "I'm not yours anymore," he replies, voice low and calm. "I do not have to obey you. I do not obey the dead."

The phrase hits something beneath his ribs. He hides it, conscious that he should not reveal too much of himself. Instead, he softens the edges of his voice, coiling it with interest.

"Oh?" He steps even closer. "Then why not hex me, or kill me for good? Why not run if you don't believe yourself capable of cursing me?"

Draco's lips twitched. "I'm not yet decided on which one I will use."

Tom's fingers curl loosely at his sides. "Ah... I suppose I can give you time to consider, if it makes you feel better. Although I don't see how you could even touch me."

There's a beat when they just breathe, and the fire crackles loudly in the background. Then, as if waking up, Draco shrugs one shoulder.

"You didn't try to kill me either."

Now, Tom is amused. Truly, this version of the boy is disconcerting, but it is, at the very least, entertaining.

"I am curious," he declares, "the boy I remember is not you. I'd like to understand why. This is the reason you are still alive."

That makes the silver-eyed boy frown. He seems to be considering Tom's words.

"You're the one who is not per my memory. The last time I saw you, my Lord, you looked like a snake, dead. Worse, even. You were something half-buried for a long time, to whom someone had finally put an end." He pauses, looking into Tom's eyes bravely. "I think you should have stayed that way. Being alive doesn't suit you, my Lord."

Slowly, as he listens to the boy, Tom smiles. It's a slow movement that mesmerises his opponent, for it seems to open some inner light from his otherwise dark body, but anyone should be aware —especially someone like the silver-eyed boy— that it is a lie. There's no light inside Tom Riddle.

"Yet, here I am."

Draco only watches Tom as he finally moves —to the hearth, where he crouches beside the fire and extends his hands to the flame. Tom notices that his gloves are worn at the fingers and that his hands tremble slightly, whether from cold or fear. He isn't sure.

He watches for a moment —the sharp planes of the silver-eyed boy's face, the stubborn, pursed line of his mouth, the long scar. That's what Tom keeps coming back to, that thin silver ribbon that cuts down from brow to jaw, skipping like a knife across his cheekbone, interrupting what was once a perfect mask. Now it's lived-in, like a statue that's survived a fire.

He moves closer to Draco until the hem of his coat brushes the boy's boots.

"Who did that to you?" He murmurs.

Draco doesn't even look up from the fire. He doesn't answer. So, Tom crouches beside him, mirroring his posture, close enough now to smell the smoke of his skin and something faintly metallic, like blood that never really washes out. The boy's face is a map of everything he doesn't remember. The blond-white hair seems soft at the ends, where it curls near his collar. There's a bruise yellowing beneath one eye, and the ghost of another scar near his mouth. The skin is no longer flawless, and the cold has reddened his nose and chapped his lips. Still, however, it is not the damage that interests him. It's the endurance, the quiet, maddening steadiness.

"I liked you better when you were afraid," he says idly. Those words make Draco's head turn toward him just slightly.

"I've never liked myself because of you, so it doesn't matter whether I'm afraid of you or not. You've destroyed everything I've ever had, if I ever had a chance at something."

"Your parents destroyed everything for you, not me. They were weak."

A dry chuckle escapes the boy's lips. "My parents, like their parents before them, believed in every word that left your poisonous mouth. I do not blame them for not trying to see farther than what you imposed. I blame myself for having done the same thing as them, thinking only too late for it to matter."

Tom's mouth parts just a little, but the words don't come. He doesn't quite know what this is —not quite resistance, because for it to be resistance, then Draco should seem to care, which he does not. Not submission either. The boy is no longer a follower, but despite his threats, he hasn't tried to drive him out properly. They stand somewhere in between, in a grey area that remains undefinable to Tom. It itches under his skin.

"I don't remember you like this," he admits. "In my head, you were quieter. Afraid. Always looking away. Always looking at your trembling father."

Draco looks at him in his eyes. "I was a boy. I am not anymore."

Tom smiles again, just to seem pleasant, just so he hopes to relax the silver-eyed boy. He doesn't work, but he smiles still. "So, I see."

They stay like that for a while, kneeling by the fire, shadows trembling against the stone walls. 

Chapter Text

Draco

The fire snaps in the hearth as if protesting the silence. Draco sits rigid, still kneeling in front of the fireplace, even if his knees are starting to ache. Slowly, he sits down, crossing his legs under him and then his arms over his damp sweater, sleeves clinging to his forearms. He hasn't bothered to dry himself with magic, nor has the one he remembers been named Tom. Tom bloody Riddle. The young man —he looks barely older than twenty— is perched beside the flames like a myth unravelling, half-warmth, half-ruin.

The snow has started to melt in their hair, trailing rivulets down their necks and collarbones, soaking into the fabric of clothes that should have been abandoned the moment they crossed the threshold. Neither moved. Neither spoke. It is as if speaking might break the strange, glimmering thread holding the moment together, or cut it entirely.

He breathes in smoke and wet wool as the hearth pops. The shadows dance on the walls, exaggerated and long, reaching past the peeling wallpaper like they, too, are trying to escape. His mind drifts without his permission —as it does often since Azkaban.

He sees it again.

First, there's the courtroom. Then, green eyes. It's the way Potter looked at him across the stone aisle that haunts him. He's not angry nor triumphant, unlike the rest of the room. He just looks tired. Like Draco's fate was just another name etched into the long list of debts this war has left behind. Like Potter had no fight left in him, not for Draco, not anymore. Then, the green eyes change to brown. Granger's stare is colder. Not vicious or cruel —just exacting, like a scalpel. She had tried defending him, but none of her words had helped against the other testimonies or the sentence. He still remembers her fingers tight around the rail in front of her, remembers how her knuckles had gone white when they listed the charges.

Accessory. Witness. Coward. Just another child of Deatheathers turned Deatheater themselves.

He'd stared ahead, unmoving. Unwilling. It was not a question of dignity then, but rather a means of survival. At the time, he had still believed he could be saved, could step out of this whole.

In the silence that came with the memory of the verdict, it is Zabini's voice that comes haunting him. It is the one he hears the clearest.

You think penance will save you, Draco? You're not the boy who can be saved. You never were.

Blaise had been sent to Azkaban some time after Draco, but now, in light of everything he has done, he knows his old friend must be dead, only ashes lost to the sea and wind. Like the rest of them —Parkinson and Nott. Although even if he knew Pansy had been perhaps a level under his cell, he never knew if Theodore was charged and sentenced to Azkaban. Clever as he is, he must have found a way to escape that destiny. Draco hopes so, at least.

Still, all of these are nothing but ghosts in too familiar skin. And now, there's this one. This man —this thing— beside him, who wears the Dark Lord's true name and none of his face. No red eyes, no white, snakelike features, no terrible aura, dense and humming with magic. Just a barely man with high cheekbones, dark lashes, curly brown hair and a hungry mouth. And that voice, so unalike the Dark Lord —deep when it used to be high, soft when it used to cut. A man who has all the arrogance of a king without a throne, one who uncomfortably reminds him of his younger self. Before the fall. Before the trials. Before Azkaban.

"You talk like you've forgotten everything," he says quietly.

The one he should call Tom doesn't even look at him —he keeps staring at the fire as though trying to read something in the flicker of it. He seems to be considering what to say, what to answer.

"Perhaps I have, partly," he eventually replies.

"You've been saying that since the moment you arrived. That you remember me a certain way. Not like this. Like I've changed," Draco looks at him sidelong, thinking that of course he has changed, for if he hadn't, he wouldn't stand here. "But what about you? What in Salazar's name happened to you?"

That makes Tom finally turn to him, the fire carving shadows into his cheekbones, making the curve of his mouth look too sharp, too defined.

"You're asking the wrong question," he only declares.

"Am I?" he pauses briefly, looking into those dark as night eyes, trying to find some redness, trying to find some of that madness he remembers, but finding none yet. "You're standing in my sitting room, looking like Hogwarts spit you out two decades behind schedule, claiming not to know me anymore and asking me why I won't kneel. So you'll forgive me if I'm rather more interested in who you think you are."

He thinks he'll find anger in those dark eyes, but he's surprised to recognise some genuine amusement, as if everything he has said was funny.

"Who do you want me to be?" Tom only whispers, like it's a secret, like he's saying something nasty.

So, instead of flinching away from whatever attempts at convincing him the man next to him isn't a lethal force, Draco laughs, low and bitter.

"I'd rather you be dead."

That earns him a grin —cold and sharp. So, he continues before the silence can stretch again.

"Why come to me? Why not Potter, or his little friends? They're the ones who fought you, destroyed you."

"They're not the ones I remembered or interested in remembering," Tom declares simply.

"Because you remembering me is interesting enough?"

"I did remember you first, even though you were not like this."

Draco swallows, his throat thick.

"And what did you remember?" He asks, his voice quieter now. "Some pathetic Deatheather's son playing lapdog for your war? Or the terrified boy you tortured with your simple presence? Or maybe you remember me cowering in my father's shadow at your feet, too frightened to speak?"

"Yes," Tom says first," but also no. I remember a boy with silver eyes. A boy who wanted very badly to be good, but failed."

Draco closes his eyes for a second, the words a stab in his soul. There it is again, he thinks, that pulse behind his ribs, that echo of the disappointment he represents. He has carried it all his life, so long it has melted into the bones of him. He doesn't answer Tom, doesn't think he has the words to convey his hatred, but he doesn't need to because Tom is turning toward him fully now.

"You are your father's greatest disappointment. This is what I remember."

He flinches —he couldn't help it.

"But not for the reasons he thought," Tom adds, leaning back slightly. "He thought you weak, but your weakness was never cowardice, like him, Draco." There's a pause. "It was hope. You were the only boy who had it in him."

Draco exhales shakily, eyes lost in the fire. "You think you know me, or understand... You were never capable of such a thing. Even when you looked more snake than human."

"I do understand."

"You don't. You remember a version of me, but you don't know what happened next or before. You didn't see the trials. The arrests. The loneliness. You didn't hear my mother scream when they took her wand, then her home. You didn't live it. You were dead."

"And you did?"

"I survived it," he bites out.

Tom tilts his head, studying him closely, as if he were a puzzle with missing pieces.

"You keep surviving things meant to destroy you. Tell me, what does that make you?"

"Empty. Tired."

He hums, thoughtful as if he had never considered it before.

"You are fascinating," he says at last, "in this state. I see guilt in you so deep it rewrites your spine. There is a sense of ache inside of you, like it is all you know how to feel. And yet —you defy me. Still."

"You are nothing now... my Lord. Hence, I'm not defying you, I'm just done," Draco mutters.

"That is not the same as peace."

"I do not ask for peace," he snaps, "I asked to be left alone."

After a brief moment, Tom leans forward in Draco's direction, dark eyes slightly narrowing as if realising something terribly entertaining.

"My presence here bothers you," he declares slowly, a charming smile curling his lips. "How damning. I do appreciate what you've become, albeit it is still a bit perplexing."

Draco has nothing to say to that, so he stays quiet and lets the silence settle between them. However, it seems that Tom has other ideas.

"Why are you here, in this ruin of a place, letting yourself rot by the fire like a man three times your age?" He asks, genuine curiosity echoing in his voice.

Draco looks over his shoulder, diving his gaze into Tom's. "Because I deserve to."

That makes the man scoff and curl a mocking grin on his handsome face. "Ah. The martyr's path."

"Don't you dare—"

"Oh, but I do, Draco. You're not hiding, you're punishing yourself. You think if you suffer enough, it will equal the lives you failed to save and those you killed, and perhaps then, once you've suffered enough, perhaps they —the world, Potter, your guilt— will leave you alone. But, my dearest Draco, pain is not redemption, it's just pain."

He stands abruptly, refusing to hear more of the words leaving Tom's mouth. His breath catches in his throat, and he wants to scream but does not, and he wants to cry and laugh but does not. He wants to punch Tom so hard, but does not. Instead, he spits out: "Get out."

But Tom doesn't move; he only mockingly grins.

"I say get out," he repeats, sharper this time.

"I will not," Tom only says.

Draco turns his back to him, the firelight flickering across the long scar of his face. He's watching the short corridor that leads farther inside his little house —he's considering leaving the room, going to sleep, pretending that this man, this monster, is not there, pretending that nothing happened and—

"You must think I came here only to torment you," Tom says softly, "But I didn't. I came because something in me remembered you, even when I didn't know my own name. You —anchored me to this reality."

Draco freezes, halfway to the corridor. He listens but doesn't answer.

"I came to see what you became."

He frowns, the scream inside his belly definitely wanting out.

"I became nothing. I am nothing. I want to stay nothing."

There's a brief pause, long enough to force Draco to look over his shoulder in Tom's direction. The man is looking at him with those dark eyes and handsome face, and there's an odd glint in his eyes, something that turns his stomach to the point of ache, but he can't be certain that it is from fear or else.

"No," Tom finally says, "you became free, and you don't know what to do with it."

Draco lies awake in the dark, the blankets pulled up to his chin like they might hold something back —cold, memory, breath. For years now, sleep has become a thing with teeth, just out of reach, pacing the room like a restless predator.

He knows that this time of the night, the fire downstairs has dulled to cinders. He wonders if Tom is still there, and if he is, if he sleeps. He has not shown him a room, still wishing the man to be gone. He is probably sleeping by the fire's ashes.

He can hear the wind brushing against the leaves, like the world trying to whisper its way in. He closes his eyes, tries not to hear, tries not to think. But the dark thinks for him. He dreams —or perhaps, it's a memory— the Ministry's chamber, tall and grey and echoing. His trial. Again and always. They are chains across his wrists, and his mouth is dry as he answers questions with deliberate restraint. His mother is sitting in front of him, hands folded in her lap, gaze unfocused, hollowed out from years of pretending it would all end differently. His father is already dead. There's nothing left for either his mother or him.

There's Potter, all grown and gold-lit, standing at the podium, defending what is left of the great Malfoy family. There's no kindness or warmth, but Draco knows Potter is honest. Perhaps, at the end of the day, that's Potter's greatest quality, the main thing that made him a hero and Draco a villain. Because he never knew how to be honest, how not to lie, not to pretend.

He watches with great apparent indifference the day they snap his wand cleanly in two —he feels the humiliation worse than the chains, worse than seeing his father kneeling in the dirt, worse than seeing his mother crying, begging for mercy. He once possessed the Elder Wand, and now, even this old thing was considered too good, too dangerous for him. He had wanted to burn down the Ministry that day, had wished for the Dark Lord to have won just so he could have watched those people suffer.

Azkaban had not needed Dementors to wound him; the silence had done the job well enough. The quiet reminded him too much of home. Even now, his father's voice echoes in his bones.

You'll never be half the man I was.

Stand up straight.

Stop crying. Malfoys do not cry.

However, Malfoys do break, apparently. He had shattered in one moment, the way glass fractures when it's frozen too long, only needing the smallest tap to splinter. He had exploded. Burnt everything to the ground. So much power had coursed his veins that day —it had been exhilarating. It had almost felt forbidden in a way. To this day, it still feels wrong. Even when he uses it, this newfound mightiness, his fingers shake, his stomach curls, his mind blanks, and it's the best and the worst feeling.

He curls onto his side now, facing the wall. The moonlight glances off his hands. Those same hands that shook when he was given a second chance. Hands that had once been ordered to kill and then, some long time later, finally did. So much blood now stained his hands, but it didn't seem to bother as much as it did when he was sixteen. He shouldn't have survived the war; he knows that. He didn't earn this relative peace —he merely endured long enough to be left behind. There's no honour in endurance. Only breath and breath and breath, until you forget how to stop.

The bed feels too soft beneath him. The room too still. He thinks of the wand on his nightstand —not bought or stolen, but crafted. He did it. He had sanded the wood with his own fingers. He had chosen a core with bloody knuckles and careful calculation. A wand that is, in every way, an act of rebellion. He hadn't meant to make something powerful, though, but coincidentally, this wand is the only thing that seems to control the wildness inside him. This strange magic inside him that has grown during Azkaban, or perhaps, simply been revealed by it. Explosive. Dangerous. Not Malfoy. He knows his father would've spat at the image of his son working with his hands. Lucius had always sneered at wandmakers, even when they were the ones to furnish the Malfoy. "Glorified carpenters," he'd said once. But Draco has learned that spite is its own form of salvation. He had hidden books in floorboards, had read until his vision blurred. There's a quiet pride in that. In the fact that no one helped him. That no one taught him. That it's his, and his alone.

His fingers twitch when he remembers his last nightmare —the one where Potter's eyes turn black and empty, where Granger screams, where blood floods the Malfoy Manor's drawing room like a tide. He hadn't screamed when he woke —he doesn't do that anymore— but he'd stood, hands shaking, and stared at the mirror.

He'd looked like his father. He never lets the beard fully grow now. Draco's breath slows. He isn't sure if he's dreaming anymore, or simply thinking —the line has blurred now. He remembers Blaise's laughter, he remembers Pansy crying in a corridor when she thought no one was looking, he remembers Theodore in his silence, his brilliance, already halfway out of the door long before any of them knew the war was really coming. He wonders if those who have survived hate him now. He thinks of Tom downstairs, with eyes like dead stars and a voice like silk wrapped around knives. He thinks of the way he'd said 'you talk like you've forgotten everything'. Draco hasn't forgotten anything —forgetfulness is the privilege of the dead— but he's trying not to remember. There's a difference.

The bed creaks under him as he shifts again, half entangled in his blanket. It smells faintly of pinewood and smoke. Snow pelts the window in soft, arrhythmic flutters, and somewhere downstairs the wind has found a crack between stones and sings through it like a distant scream.

Draco lies on his back now. His eyes burn from the effort of keeping them shut. He turns them to his wand on his nightstand. It's crooked and weathered, although he hadn't made it that long ago. There's no careful finish to hide its knots, no polish to soften its pine, it's just wood —greyed rowan, ashen and obstinate— split once near the base and mended with spellcraft that never quite took. He now lies on his side, half-drapped over the thin mattress, eyes trained on his wand. It shouldn't work, that wand —he'd expected it to explode in his hand. He had expected some humiliation somehow, something to remind him that he is a failure and that his creation couldn't be any good. He had expected silence, the way his father had after the Dark Lord had return. But somehow his wand answers him, not like a loyal hound, but like a trapped beast —sullen, dangerous, watchful. The Thunderbird feather within had been folded in a letter, wrapped in bloodstained silk, bartered for a book he ought never to have owned. He had then carved the wood himself until his fingers bled. The handle is still rough where the bark refused to sand down properly, no matter how many charms he muttered through gritted teeth.

Sometimes it still cuts his palm. Often he doesn't mind.

He closes his eyes, and this time, sleep comes but it's a punishment. Thoughts still gnaw at the edge of his mind, as they always do.

You ruined everything.

His father's word.

You could have done so much more.

Now his godfather, Severus Snape, quiet and disappointed.

The common room blurs in his mind —boys draped in Slytherin green, laughing at a joke he never quite found funny. Theo, cool and silent in the corner. Blaise with wine-dark eyes, watching him with something like pity. Pansy's voice, shrill and constant, offering a hundred outs he never took. The Golden Trio always at his back, always winning, always better.

He shifts in bed —he's sweating again.

Then a new face flashes into view —not the Dark Lord as he remembers, not that snake-thing born of horror and death, but Tom. Tom with his quiet voice, sharp cheekbones and eyes the colour of the night. That version of the monster —handsome, poised, young— evil refashioned as desire. He hates even this version, of course, but there's also a part of him —something broken beyond reparation, wild and half-starved— that remembers the way power used to feel. The pull of it. The thrill and the lie. His wand had nearly shattered the first time it tasted his magic. That night, the explosion carved a crater in the yard. He still doesn't know how he survived it.

Draco reaches out for his wand without thinking much, fingers brushing its handle. It's warm, breathing almost. He lets it go and turns away, dragging the blanket higher.

Tomorrow, he'll face Tom again. He doesn't know what this version of the Dark Lord wants from him, but he knows what Draco wants. Perhaps that's what truly frightens him. To be read so easily by a stranger.

Tom

The fire crackles behind him, forgotten now. Draco's abrupt retreat leaves the room colder than it should be, the silence expanding to fill the entire cottage. He stays seated a moment longer, spine straight and fingers laced loosely in his lap. The place feels too still —it irks him in a way he hadn't expected. He notices, with a hint of distant curiosity, that Draco didn't tell him where he could sleep and if he was invited to do so here. He knows that the silver-eyed boy has asked him —ordered him— to get out, which can explain why he has left him alone without instruction. This version of the boy is definitely amusing.

He stands slowly —his bones feel strange in this body. Not wrong, but not entirely his own either, as if too stretched. The borrowed skin of resurrection, perhaps. Or perhaps it is, but the weight of being someone again instead of nothing at all.

He walks across the room toward the kitchen in the far corner. The wood beneath his feet is warm —magic, no doubt. It seems that the silver-eyed boy keeps his home like he keeps himself: quiet and controlled. Even the air smells of restraint —cedar and potion fumes, something alchemical and old. The kitchen itself is simple but not poor. With its dark slate counters, everything is in order as if rarely touched. He finds some bread to eat easily enough, and he tears off a piece, chewing thoughtfully. It's soft and warm, the kind of thing someone might have baked in the morning —except he doesn't find any flour or yeast or even salt. No doubt, the silver-eyed boy employs spells for that as well.

He finishes the bread, then continues on. The corridor is narrow and dark —one of the doors is closed, he supposes it's Draco's. He pauses briefly in front of it, hand lifted midair for a moment before dropping it. He should leave the boy alone, at least for the night; if he wants to see more of his character, he doesn't want to be too quick with him. The next door he tries opens to a room lined with shelves. It's a study with books stacked neatly, parchment scrolls wound tight with string, ink pots stoppered and precise. There's a desk beneath the window, bare save for a candle holder and a wand stamp —empty. The chair is tucked in, and there's a blanket folded at the foot, as if even comfort here is only allowed in order. He fingers the spines of the books, reading them. It's mostly about potions —Advanced Extraction Methods, Runic Integration in Liquid Forms, Wolfsbane Stabilisation Through Lunar Dust— but there's also some wandlore —Core Resonance and the Wandmaker's Intent, The Nine Woods and Their Dualities, Designing Wands for Temperament.

Tom finds it curious —most things about Draco Malfoy seem to be curious in his eyes. He wouldn't have thought the youngest Malfoy to be such an intellectual. He opens one of the books that is on the desk. It's about wand making, and it seems that Draco has underlined a passage about horned serpent tail hair.

"Not suited to repression."

The irony almost makes him smile. He closes the book and leaves it where he found it before leaving the room. One more door down the hall leads to a small bathroom —clean, white-tiled, functional. Nothing personal to view or peruse over, no perfumes or half-melted soap bars —even the towels are folded like they're waiting for someone else. It's as if the silver-eyed boy himself is just a guest in his house.

Then, outside the bathroom, he spots a ladder. It's short and wooden, and it's discreetly hidden in the ceiling. He reaches for it, unfolds it with a tug, and begins to climb. It leads to an attic. The air inside is cool, and dust swirls in the air as he pushes the hatch open. A single window lets in moonlight, casting silver light across the wooden floor —the space is nearly empty if not for a pile of old linens in a corner, a broom, and a stack of canvas frames leaning against the wall. He steps in.

The quiet here feels different —it's cold, but also, it seems to wait. He conjures a gust of air to sweep away the dust, then a cloth, a wave of his hand —he doesn't even bother with incantations. He knows his magic, remembers it like muscle memory. His command over it has always been instinctive, brutal, effortless —some things, he'd had to earn with blood and study, but his magic has always been his mother tongue. The first thing he does once the space is a bit cleaner is to conjure a bed with a simple frame and a soft mattress. He adds clean white sheets, which he does not touch immediately. He conjures a table and a chair, which he places under the window.

Then, he finally turns to the canvases. There are three of them, covered in what seems to be decades of dust. Stepping closer, he cleans one with a flick of his wrist. The surface is untouched beneath the grime. He wonders why the silver-eyed boy has these. He kneels, curious, peering at the back of one frame, looking for a potential name or date, but there's none. He brushes his fingers along the edge and looks around the attic again. He now wonders if this truly was Draco's house —it seems so empty of signs of his life, of clues. Leaning against the wall, he slowly lowers himself onto the new bed, his back to the slanted beams. The window beside him is small, but it frames the edge of the forest —pines whisper in the distance, the wind like breath over cold stone. He only watches for a while, unmoving, and his mind is blank. Perhaps that's when the thoughts came and began.

At a certain point, they concern the silver-eyed boy. He believes he knows who Draco is supposed to be —or was to. He'd seen it —memories of battlefield, of Hogwarts, through fragments of the one that used to be Voldemort. Seen the pale, trembling boy who could not kill, who could not stand firm, who let the snake of failure coil tightly around his name.

However, he has to confess —if only to himself and the night— that this version of the boy brought out more than mere curiosity out of his hollow soul. This version —with his ink-stained fingers, his scar and haunted silver gaze, his mind full of questions and rebellion, this man with his books on wandlore and loneliness in his walls...

Ah... He feels strange. There's a certain warmness growing inside his belly that he has never felt before.

This version of the boy is certainly something else.

His eyes travel across the vision of the forest, listening to the wind as the image of the boy dances inside his mind, but then, he thinks of himself. Of who he has become. Of the version that came before. Of Lord Voldemort and of Tom Riddle.

He remembers who he was, like a dream half-buried —he mostly remembers the rage he used to feel then, remembers the robes, the speeches, the cold of his wand in that mutilated hand. He remembers watching Harry Potter through his snake eyes.

Ah, he remembers so much hate, hating how human it all felt. How desperate.

Lord Voldemort had been truly mad in his anger —he had believed himself a god. Better than Merlin. Better than his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. However, now that he is just Tom —now that he is young again and breathing and living... Ah, his head hurts. He breathes deeply, closing his eyes for a moment. Since he woke up in the ruins, there are things he still recalls perfectly —things like the life Tom Riddle had. He knows that Voldemort was but a boy who never got to be one. He thinks of the prophecy Voldemort was so obsessed over, of Potter and of the blood spilt. He thinks of the child made from a crime. And he thinks—

Ah, perhaps he should stop thinking.

But—

Is that why the darkness was always there?

Because he was never born of anything real? Because love, when stolen, can only rot?

He has no answer. He never understood what love was, could never truly know if he was the subject of it.

He looks down at his hands —they were his, but newer, odder. Nevertheless, even though he should have been old by any standards, and that he is still so young because of witchcraft, the one magic curling inside of him feels deeper than ever. It's wilder, as if this version of himself is less tethered to time, to structure, as if he is the echo of a spell. He knows he is an echo. It's clear to him that Voldemort committed the most immoral of acts without a whiff of remorse, just so a version of who he thought he was could live.

He realises that perhaps something in the silver-eyed boy's presence makes it all worse to handle. Or better. He isn't sure. But it's in the way he remembers the boy's eyes, how he has watched him not flinch, not beg. He recalls outside, when he had realised he had finally found the boy with eyes the colour of molten mercury, the strange wand —it's blackthorn, maybe? Or elder? But it felt heavier, darker, as if it had been made to resist ownership. He briefly wonders what core such a wand could have. He suspects it isn't something standard by any means. He hopes it's something like kelpie or threstal tail hair, something you have to survive to claim. It suits Draco better. Because he has survived —barely, battered, half-ruined, but standing.

Just like me, Tom thinks as his eyes settle on the moon. Just like me.

Chapter Text

Draco

He leaves without a word. He simply takes his wand and his growing sense of unease, tightening his throat like a collar. The wind catches at his sleeves as he Apparates, leaving the cottage and its security behind. He leaves him behind. At least, for tonight. The faint smell of firewood and something sweeter clings to his jumper, and it's that, more than the cold, that makes him shiver. He doesn't know where he's going until he's there.

He stands at the centre of a Muggle village, so he doesn't bother hiding his face. In front of him is the door to a relatively quiet pub. When he enters, the place is dimly lit, half-deserted, the kind of establishment where nobody looks up unless you spill a pint. It's also a place he never imagined walking into during his lifetime.

He spots Potter almost immediately —force of habit after more than a decade spent looking for the other, if only to spite him. Now, the war hero is slumped in the far corner, half-shadowed, a glass in hand and another already empty. He briefly hesitates —the years stretch between them, the hatred, but also the fear that Potter will call the Aurors or the Ministry upon seeing his face.

However, then, Potter looks up and freezes. Green meets silver.

"Malfoy?"

Draco arches a brow at the sound of his name, as if slipping into an old pattern. Perhaps reclaiming parts of himself is easier than he thought.

"Well, you look like shite, Potter," he drawls, sliding into the booth across from him.

Potter's frown deepens as he continues to stare at him. "You're supposed to be dead in Azkaban. You're supposed to be among the casualties."

"Well, shocking as it may be, it appears that I am not dead and therefore, not a casualty, Potter," he glances at the drink in Harry's hand. "Bureaucracy has never been our Ministry's strong suit."

Potter stares a bit more —it's a slow, wary kind of staring, as if Draco's some ghost he isn't ready to believe in.

"If you're here to hex me, do it quickly. I'm not in the mood for theatrics."

"I'm not here to hex you." Draco's voice is low and steady, but there's a thread of exhaustion beneath it. "I came to ask you something. Something only you might be able to answer."

"What do you want?"

"I need to know who Tom Riddle is," he declares, "beyond being the true name of Lord Voldemort. Beyond being the Dark Lord."

Potter flinches, his hands tighten around his glass.

"Riddle?"

Draco breathes deeply, leaning both his elbows on the sticky table, letting propriety die a quiet death.

"Yes, Riddle." His voice softens reluctantly. "I think I want to know whoever he was before he went mad." A pause. "If he ever were sane."

Potter doesn't answer immediately —his eyes flicker downward, then back up, and something old flickers behind them. Draco wonders just how much of the war Potter kept within him.

"Dumbledore told me a bit about him. And I saw some of it for myself in Dumbledore's Pensieve," he says finally. He swallows, gaze far off now. "I think the worst of what I remember is the orphanage. I can still see vividly the cold walls, the grey light. The way the matron talked about and to him... like he was a fault in the floorboards no one could fix. He scared the other children. Animals went missing. Strange things happened around him, and no one reached for him. Even Dumbledore was scared of the child Tom Riddle had been."
Draco stays quiet; he can feel his pulse in his throat, and when Potter glances down again, he leans in slightly.

"From what I know," he continues, "his mother —Merope Gaunt, proud descendant of Salazar Slytherin— was obsessed with a Muggle —Tom Riddle Senior— and tricked him with a love potion. She used magic to make him stay at her side and slept with him while he was under the effect of the potion. Except that one day, she foolishly thought that Riddle Senior might truly love her and thus, she stopped dosing him. He, of course, ran away, and she was left to give birth alone. She died at the orphanage and left nothing behind her but a child and a name."

Draco doesn't move; he barely dares to breathe.

"A child born from false love," Potter murmurs more to himself than to Draco, "into abandonment. Raised without warmth. That's the beginning of him —a void where something human should've been."

What follows Harry's declaration is thick, heavy silence. When Draco finally speaks, it shatters the silence with a strength that suited the subject of conversation.

"Do you think it marked him from the start?"

Potter lifts his eyes, and for the first time, there's no anger in them, just tired honesty.

"I think he never stood a chance."

Draco leans back, suddenly colder. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he starts to regret having left the cottage so suddenly. He sees Tom again —his quiet figure curled in front of the fire or standing in the kitchen, drinking tea. He stands. He should return home. He should talk to Tom. He should see for himself.

Potter doesn't try to stop him; he just says, before Draco turns to leave, "Be careful. Whatever part of him you're seeing... It's not all he is. He was known as a charmer. A cruel one."

He doesn't answer —truly has nothing to say to those words he knows are true.

He Disapparates into the night.

Tom

He knows Draco left the moment he opens his eyes. He doesn't try to chase him, understanding —after the long days he has spent here at the cottage beside the boy— that there's a new rule that governs the fragile air between them. If he follows, the boy will vanish, not just from the garden or the path. From him.

So he stays inside. He stands, motionless, until the frost melts around the windowsill. He waits. It's not exactly patience —he simply knows that he should wait for the boy's return. That the silver-eyed boy will return. There's no logic behind it —just quiet certainty of a tether still holding, stretched thin across time and space. He doesn't pace, doesn't worry. Instead, he sits in Draco's chair, behind his desk. He leans back into the worn cushion and stares up at the wall. He waits.

Time begins to collect around him. The hours pool like dust in corners, and soon he's surrounded by the ghost of the silver-eyed boy's absence. It's in the unwashed mug on the windowsill, the faint scent of bergamot and potion oil, the way the books remain stacked just so —as if he might return at any moment to flick the next page open. He doesn't touch anything at first, but something in him begins to stir. His insatiable curiosity has returned. He walks the perimeter of the cottage like a ritual —each room opened slowly, explored silently. His curiosity has turned into a need to understand —to map Draco's interior world through the shape of his solitude.

In the bedroom, the bed is made with obsessive neatness. He has never set foot inside this room, so he takes a long time to look around, and, like in all the cottage's rooms, except for the study, there are no photographs, no clutter, no sign of personality or life. But most intriguing of all, there's no mirror. When he moves to the study, he finds what he expects from Draco —wandlore manuals, spellcrafting journals, parchment scraps filled with sketches of wand handles and woodgrain textures. The margins are full of the boy's handwriting. In the bathroom, after looking, he finds a potion rack meticulously labelled above the washbasin, and on the side, some herbology notes as well as a silver knife that does not belong to any visible set. In the corridor, there's an easel, covered with a thin cloth. He stares at it for a long time. At first, he doesn't undercover it. Doesn't dare. Instead, he goes up into the attic —his room, his space— and brings out the other canvases. They're still untouched, pristine, waiting. The sight of them unsettles something in him —perhaps it's the way they seem to just wait, perhaps it's the silence of them, the inaction. He leaves them there. Comes back. Leaves again. When the night arrives, he conjures paint. He doesn't fully know why —doesn't try to know either. He only realises that he no longer wants to see that blankness. It's offensive —it dares him to feel nothing, and he cannot bear it.

Thus, he paints.

In the hours that follow, he starts simple —the hearth, the table, the window with the condensation curling like ghost-breath across the glass. Then the garden, the narrow path through the woods, the worn shape of the boots Draco leaves by the door. Then —then he draws hands that are not his. He paints the silver-eyed boy's hands without knowing he's started. The brush seems to move on its own —he knows those fingers without ever having touched them. They're long fingers, callused pads from sanding his wand, the pale constellation of a burn near the knuckle of his left thumb from brewing a potion. The brush is precise and clinical, and yet, still not enough. The next thing he paints on the third canvas is the boy's scar —the one that goes from his brow to his jaw. He paints it carefully, with care, wanting to see it as if real, then he adds the boy's eyes. Those molten mercury eyes that held the power of a storm. Then, when the eyes and the scar are still not enough, he adds his mouth. The corner of his jaw where the skin folds with fatigue. He paints until there's nothing left to paint but Draco.

When the morning arrives, he finally uncovers the easel, and it is empty.

Of course it is, he thinks, bitter despite himself.

He stands before it. His shirt is half-buttoned, but it shows more of his chest than hides it. His hands are covered in paint. His hair is everywhere, especially in his eyes. He is breathless. His heart is beating wildly, and his vision is swimming. There's a brush between his fingers —something in his chest tightens, and his heart thrums faster even. It's the kind of ache he does not recognise, as if he's caught between becoming and dissolving.

This is not conquest, he thinks, his mind spiralling out, far, far above the cottage. This is inhabiting.

Thus, he paints.

He does not sleep. The hours blur. When the canvases become too small, too formal, too constrained, he leaves them behind and moves to the attic. To his space. It is cold there, under the roof, the kind of cold that seeps into the marrow. The insulation is poor, and the slanted ceiling presses in on him like a hand. But it's his, and more importantly, it's empty. There's a void begging to be filled. And so, he continues to paint. He first moves the bed and the table so they are in the centre of the room, and gives him room to move around. He presses his brush against the wall first. At first, the strokes are smooth —he draws a hallway, a boy standing alone in the corridor of a stately orphanage. The light above his head is flickering, and the floor is waxed linoleum. When he moves to another space on the wall, the brush paints what he remembers as the Room of Requirement back at Hogwarts. He paints the towering relics, the crown, the cup, the locket split open, bleeding black —all so beautiful, unknowable even in his fragmented memory. He paints himself then —not as he is now, but as he was. It's not one version, but many. First, a young boy in crisp school robes, eyes sharp and clever and cold —too cold for his age. Then, a man in serpent-skinned body, holding court with monsters. A face, split by cruelty, made less than human —and yet he knows it's his, knows this is him.

It isn't enough.

He moves to the floor. He paints in circle —sigils he remembers, though he doesn't recall from where exactly. He draws runes long-forgotten, snakes winding across the floorboards, slithering over the cracks. One of them splits near the window —a jagged line through its belly, like a wound. Then, the floor is not vast enough, and he feels the immediate need to find a vaster canvas.

He moves to the ceiling. No need for a ladder, his magic responding to his spiralling mind gently levitates him, naked feet dangling in the air as he presses his brush against the wood. There, he paints stars. Not the constellations as they are —he can't recall them clearly enough— so he draws them twisted, half-remembered from childhood books and stories the snakes had whispered to him growing up.

There's no silence anymore. His heartbeat drums in his ears, his breath echoes in the rafters. He's aware he mutters as he works —it's not spells, it's barely any words.

I was —not always—

He made me like this—

I remember the sea. The sound of it—

No one came.

His hands shake. His hair is stuck to his skin. The attic smells of paint, sweat and pain, and the images flashing into his mind are beginning to blur together —and yet, still, he cannot stop.

He paints.

He paints even when he hears the door creak open behind him as he finishes to draw a star in a corner, his body still in the air as if nothing. He doesn't acknowledge the presence immediately —doesn't even register someone is here. But at one point, he feels it in his bones, in the way the temperature in the room shifts.

The silver-eyed boy has returned. His voice breaks the stillness.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing?"

Chapter Text

Draco

When Draco returns to the cottage, it is dawn. The door creaks open beneath his hand, and immediately, he feels he is being assaulted —the air is heavy, distorted. Magic clings to it like smoke after a fire. It vibrates faintly against his skin, causing the hairs on his arms to stand on end, and making his lungs protest the effort of breathing. Dust motes float slowly, unnaturally, in the saturated space; a teacup levitates idly by the mantle before dropping soundlessly onto the floor. The walls groan with it. Everything feels displaced, like the house has slipped slightly sideways from reality.

He closes the door behind him with quiet fingers as he leaves his boots by the door.

Something is wrong, he thinks. Tom must have done something, must be doing something.

He moves through the cottage slowly, eyes trained on the corners where light warps, where shadows linger a little too long. There's no trace of Tom in the living room, and yet, it feels like he's everywhere —in the static tension of the air, in the books that have been moved, re-shelved, re-ordered; in the mug left near the window, still half-full of tea long gone cold; in the small, black-feathered bird perched on the curtain rod. He thinks it might be an illusion.

He steps into the hallway and comes to a halt. His eyes catch on something that wasn't there before. Three canvases lean against the corridor wall —paint still wet. The first is the forest, done in sweeping, almost angry strokes —the trees leer with more menace than they possess in truth— and in a corner is painted the garden, twisted in its proportions, the flowers rendered in colour too vivid, too unnatural. It's beautiful, but disturbed, as if in a dream. The second he finds is a representation of many things —the cottage's hearth, the table, a window. It's simpler, as if a test. He quickly puts it aside to focus on the third one. This is when his breath catches. He recognises himself in the painting. Only part of him —his eyes, his scar, carved in painful detail along the skin of his cheekbone and jaw. He carefully observes the look on his face —that expression, frozen mid-thought, intimate in a way that claws at him. The gaze is unflinching —not cruel per se, but observant. Possessive in its certainty. His stomach knots as he tears his eyes away with effort and turns toward the easel tucked at the end of the hallway. It seems half-finished, just shadows. He steps forward. He can hear muttering —low, rhythmic— up the ladder leading to the attic. He climbs it, every step creaking louder than it should. His wand is at his side, reassuring him. The attic door is ajar and light leaks out in unnatural colours. A vibration hums against his molars as he approaches. He pushes the door open, and stops —the air hits him like a blow, rich with raw, unshaped power. It drips from the ceiling, pools in the corners. It burns against his magical core. His skin feels too tight, like it's been stretched thin.

Tom hovers in the centre of the room.

He's suspended in the air, slow-turning, head tipped back, arms loose at his side. His dark curls fan out around his head like ink in water. His shirt is unbuttoned, wide open over his bare chest, his pale skin faintly streaked with paint. His feet are bare, floating feet above the ground. Magic streams from him like heat from a summer road, making his edges blur, indistinct. His silhouette flickers, occasionally see-through. Unreal.

Draco stares, wordless. The room is unrecognisable. Paintings cover every surface as if the walls are a story in themselves —of pain, of memory, of something ancient and snarled. Hogwarts, rendered in jagged brushstrokes. The Dark Mark, several times over, in varying states of dissolution. A child standing alone before a grey building. A hallway of doors, endless and dark. A mouth opens in a scream with no sound. The floor is painted in runes —deep, furious sigils, gouged with intent. They form a loose spiral around the centre of the room. His gaze lifts. The ceiling is black, spangled with stars, with constellations in odd, shifting geometries. It pulses faintly, as if breathing.

And, in the middle of it all, Tom. Draco's chest tightens. The feelings rush in, uninvited —fear, awe, anger, confusion, and something like grief. He doesn't know why.

The silence stretches. He could walk away. He could leave and pretend he never saw any of this. He doesn't, though. Instead, he steps forward, enough for the floorboards to groan.

He speaks.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing?"

But Tom doesn't seem to truly hear him.

For a moment, Draco simply stands there, framed by the door, as if hoping that the weight of his presence alone could be enough to tether the spinning world back into place. Tom doesn't move from where he hovers, but something in his movements tells Draco he has heard him. They falter briefly. However, Tom still floats with dreadful elegance, caught in a cyclone of barely contained magic. The runes on the floor shimmer faintly, their outlines writhing, feeding from whatever storm has taken root in Tom's chest. His dark curls flow, now haloed in a soft blue light, and his eyes —half-lidded, unfocused— stare into some great, invisible distance beyond the attic ceiling.

"Tom?" He tries to call, as if afraid of startling a creature on the verge of flight.

But there's still no response, only a twitch of his fingers. He takes out his wand now, wanting to help but not knowing how —not without hurting. The magic in the room is still nauseating. It presses against his skin, hums under his teeth. The stars on the ceiling are pulsing now, like a beating heart, and Tom, at the centre of it all, is beginning to unravel.

"Tom, you're safe. It's me. It's Draco."

Still nothing, but the air thickens once more, sharp and acrid, and Draco knows with a sick certainty that if he waits too long, the man might tear a hole into the fabric of the house, of the world.

He lifts his wand.

"Descentio lenis."

The spell is gentle —he doesn't know how he manages it. Tom doesn't so much fall as begin to lower, slowly, like an autumn leaf, his limbs still limp, his body drifting in slow spirals. He crosses the attic in two strides and catches him before his bare feet touch the floor. Tom flinches at the contact.

"Shh. You're alright," Draco murmurs, steadying him with an arm around his back. The warmth of his skin burns through the fabric of his shirt. He's freezing.

Finally, Tom's dark gaze meets his. They are glassy and bewildered, rimmed with fever-bright rings of silver. There's recognition there, but barely, like he's still half-anchored in some distant memory or dream. He guides him backwards until he's seated on the mattress. The bed is unmade, the sheets splattered with dried paint, as though he's collapsed into it without even bothering to clean his hands. Nearby, brushes and parchment littered the floor, surrounded by dozens of uncorked vials of pigment. He finds the heavy knitted blanket hanging from the chair and shakes it out strongly. It smells faintly of rosemary and woodsmoke. He crouches, drapes it over Tom's shoulders, then tightens it around his back, muttering a warming charm under his breath. Tom shivers once and then goes very still, hunched under the weight of wool. He doesn't resist when Draco keeps his hands on him, steady and grounding.

"You're alright," Draco says again, "it's just me. You're safe now."

The magic in the room begins to recede gradually, and the air clears. Objects that have been shivering in place drop softly back to the ground. The runes stop glowing, and with it, Tom's silhouette grows sharper, less a figment and more man again. He blinks once. Then again. He looks down at his hands, paint-smeared and trembling, then he whispers, like someone waking up after a long, terrible sleep.

"...I didn't mean to."

Draco exhales slowly —relief punching through his chest, sharp and aching.

"I know."

Tom swallows, eyes darting toward the ceiling, the walls, the painting —his world, his mind lay bare.

"I was just—" he shakes his head, the words lost and tangled. "It got loud."

Draco stays where he is, crouched in front of him. Close, but not smothering. He watches Tom's face, the subtle shift from disarray to awareness, like a curtain slowly lifting. There are flecks of gold paint on his collarbone. His lips are dry and cracked, his pupils still too wide, but he is here, now. Present and real. Draco reaches out before he can think better of it, and brushes a streak of dried ochre from his cheekbone.

"Sorry," he immediately apologises once he realises to whom he is doing this. Quickly, he glances away.

"I just didn't want to see them blank anymore," Tom declares, ignoring Draco. Then, he speaks one more, voice quieter still, as if realising something. "You came back."

Draco's eyes turn to him again. "I did."

"Why?"

He meets his eyes. There are too many answers to that question, and he chooses the one that came easiest.

"I had the answers I wanted."

To his surprise, Tom doesn't argue further. He simply nods, almost imperceptibly, as if Draco's answer was enough. He knows it isn't, though.

Tom

The door clicks shut behind Draco. Tom stands unmoving for a moment, wrapped in the heavy quiet of the bathroom. Steam curls in delicate tendrils from the surface of the still water, thickening the air. The silence is not peaceful —it presses, echoes loudly in his head. He looks down at his hands, fingers stained with dry streaks of paint, red and blue and something like gold. His palms shake, if only slightly. He feels oddly fragile —not in body, for it has always obeyed, sharp and lean and obedient. It's something inside, something thin, transparent and vital, that feels as if it's cracked.

He lowers himself into the water. It stings where his skin is raw, tinged with the sharp bite of magic. He welcomes it as he sinks down until the water licks the bottom of his chin. He begins cleaning himself. It's methodical and slow, the warmth of the water filling the space. It frightens him. Not the bath or the silence, but the knowledge that if Draco hadn't come, hadn't dragged him back from wherever his mind had wandered —he wouldn't have come back at all. He knows that with a bone-deep certainty. He had been gone, lost in memory, in the paintings, in spells he'd half-consciously drawn over the floor. He had vanished into a labyrinth of the past and locked the doors behind him.

Perhaps, this is the price, he thinks, his fingers tightening around the porcelain tub. The cost of cheating death. Twice.

A punishment of sorts —not a curse cast by another, but one of his own making. Not madness, not quite, but unravelling. A slow drift into the corners of his own mind until he no longer remembers where he begins and ends.

Then, there's Draco. He had seen the painting. He feels him, now, under his skin. The memory of the silver-eyed boy's hands around his shoulders is still branded into his flesh. It had been a steady presence, the only anchor he had to this moment, to now. His magic had recognised it too —that steadiness— it had stilled around it, bent even.

He raises his eyes slowly to the wall, conjures with a whisper the mirror that isn't there —it slides into being, silent and silvered. He hangs it above the washbasin on the counter. He steps out of the bath, water falling around his body, and goes in front of the mirror he conjured. His reflection stares back at him —foreign and yet, deeply familiar still. He looks like a man barely out of his teenage years. Pale skin still sprinkled with flecks of persistent paint that's melted and cracked. Long lashes and high cheekbones. His dark curls are wild, clinging damp to his temples and neck. His eyes are glassy with something he can't name. It's not madness or rage, but it seems hollow and trembling and warm all at once.

He looks like someone who's been touched. Not just physically —the silver-eyed boy's hands, still on his skin, touching, caring, and—

No. Don't think further.

Touched by kindness, this is what it is. That burns more than any flame could.

He touches his chest, touches the space over his heart. It aches. There had once been a hollowness there, carved sharp and cold. He had lived with that emptiness all his life, now it thrums —warm, unfamiliar and alive.

He drops his gaze, unable to look anymore.

There's silence again.

Draco—

The name curls around his thoughts, anchoring them. He lets the heat envelop him, lets the memory of steady hands and cool grey eyes stay. He does not want to get lost again. Not now, not when someone has found him. 

Chapter Text

Draco

The kitchen smelled of bergamot and old wood. He stands by the hearth, a teapot steeping gently behind him as steam curls all the way to the ceiling. He watches, half fascinated, half in his mind. He has conjured sandwiches —nothing elaborate, crusts uneven and butter too cold, but he never cooked in his life, let alone for someone else. Before, he never cared if the food he ate looked or tasted good, because it was for himself. Up until now, Tom has made his own food, and Draco has made his.

He sighs —the food looks lifeless. He knows better than to expect taste from magic alone, but he had hoped for something better. Still, he knows food needs hands, patience and a little affection, so he also quickly realises that he might never be good at it.

He turns back to the tea. That he knows how to make. Tea is simple. Water and herbs. Easy. He watches the loose leaves in the water as it rises to the right temperature. He sets a little milk just in case. He likes the ritual of making tea, likes that it takes time and care, and likes the calming effect it has on his nerves.

His hands are steady now when they hadn't been a few minutes ago. His thoughts turn back to Tom, floating in some half-form, untethered and unblinking, as his hands paint the ceiling obsessively. He recalls how those dark eyes had not seen him, the way the magic had curled around him like a storm. He remembers the way he wrapped a blanket around his shoulders like that would do anything to hold the pieces together.

Oddly, it had helped. Tom had stilled under his touch, had looked at him, had talked to him.

He swallows thickly. The canvases are still in the hallway, untouched and unmoved. He hasn't dared look at it again, wouldn't bear seeing his face painted. Still, he can't help but think about it, think about what it could mean coming from such a tortured mind as Tom. His face has not been abstract or monstrous, or twisted in shadows; it is just him. His face as he looks right now. Just the suggestion of cheekbone, the angle of his jaw, the way light hit pale hair. His scar. This has unsettled him. Draco doesn't believe he is handsome by any means —at least, not anymore. Not with this scar, not with this past, this life. But the painting... well, he guesses the painting has shown him through the eyes of another, and this him is strangely pretty, in the way dangerous and forbidden things are. To him, it mostly meant that Tom had looked at him long enough to be able to paint something so human, without the usual darkness he sees in himself.

He rubs the inside of his wrist absently, trying to ground himself.

The other paintings, the ones in the attic that bleed across the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Mostly the walls. Those were disturbing in a way —a version of Tom with his mouth wide open in a silent scream, a version of Tom with a face like a snake, eyes the colour of rubies, a version of Tom standing alone in a darkness so thick it feels like he's drowning. Faces torn in grief or hatred, magic scorched into pigment. Draco had walked past them quickly, unable to look at them for too long without feeling something. He hadn't known where to put all that feeling —he still doesn't.

What version of Tom is real? The boy under the blanket, trembling from overheated magic? The tyrant with red eyes and a voice that can bend the world to his will? The young man painting a ceiling with quiet, obsessive devotion? The one who once called him weak?

None of his questions has an answer. Not now, at least. Not with him resisting to know more about this version of Tom.

He exhales sharply and sets the cups out on the small table. He tries to keep his hands steady as his mind turns and turns with thoughts.

Potter might know what to do, he thinks. It comes unbidden, like it had a dozen times over the last weeks. Potter would probably march in here, wand at the ready, self-righteousness intact. He might even be right —he usually is, in the end. However, Draco can't bring himself to send a message. He already has met with Potter, already has asked him questions when he should've stayed as low as he could manage, because now, he is quite certain that the Ministry is aware that he is alive, somewhere, because Potter couldn't have possibly kept this information for himself, and—

He breathes deeply.

He is panicking. He must take care of Tom first, then panic if needs be.

He will not send a message to Potter; it feels like betrayal now. Of what, he isn't entirely sure, of Tom, probably. Of himself, perhaps.

He thinks of Theo instead. Theodore Nott, who might still be alive somewhere out there, now that his father is gone for good. He'd always had a way of seeing things Draco couldn't, of weighing impossible things and choosing the one that mattered most. Hence, if anyone could help him make sense of this, it is Theo. He just needs to make sure that his old friend is alive.

He pours the tea in two cups, lets the warmth seep into his fingers, then he glances back toward the hallway where Tom still bathes in silence. He tries not to wonder what kind of fire he had taken into his home —and into his hands. Tries not to think of the fire he feels has awakened inside his chest. 

He tries not to think.

-/-

The Ministry of Magic's war room hasn't changed much since the last battle that happened within its walls. It is just cleaner, with fewer bloodstains and more parchment stacked in careful towers. The aurors now walk less in a hurry, less ready to strike —they're still alert, but it's still calmer than it was before. War has left a certain kind of silence behind, one that lives under the skin.

At the head of the room, Kingsley Shacklebolt stands, his expression impassive as he reads through the latest report. The soft scratch of a quill echoes in the space, followed by the shuffle of robes as Arthur Weasley takes a seat beside him, glasses slipping down his nose.

"He's alive," Harry Potter declares, breaking the silence in the meeting room.

Everyone looks at him.

"I saw him," his voice is hoarse, a touch too loud. "He was asking questions about Tom Riddle."

There's a sharp inhalation from someone, and Hermione, standing to Harry's right, folds her arms across her chest, her eyes trained on the file Kingsley holds.

"He looked different," Harry adds, quieter now. "Gaunt, perhaps. Older."

"Malfoy..." Arthur says as he seems to think. "Are you sure?"

Harry nods.

"And asking about Voldemort?" Arthur pushes on. "That doesn't strike you as suspicious?"

"Well... he looked unwell," Harry answers, jaw tightening slightly. "Haunted, somehow. Tired"

"That's how they lure you in," someone murmurs from the far end of the table. "Play the victim. He was raised by Death Eaters, after all. Pure Bread, at that."

This appellation is new, an insult, of course —one of the many fallouts of the war. It makes many people in the room tick, especially the ones who used to be referred to as Mudblood.

"No," Hermione's voice rose, tone like ice. "He was a child. He never chose to be born within that family. I suppose that whoever Harry met was the consequence of the war."

Kingsley raises a hand, and the murmurs die.

"We're not here to debate whether Draco Malfoy is victim or villain," he declares, "we're here because his existence, the fact that he's still alive, forces us to reopen the case file on Azkaban."

A heavy folder hits the centre of the table with a dull thud. Moving photographs spill out —twisted metal, ash-covered bones, melted stone. Bodies burned mid-scream, and Dementors turned to nothing. It had taken weeks to properly examine the island —to this day, they have found no survivors. Or though they thought. It seems that Lord Draco Malfoy has survived.

Hermione doesn't flinch, eyes on the horrific pictures, but her lips thin. Harry, on his part, looks away, looking paler than he was a moment ago.

"If Malfoy is alive, it means he is the reason Azkaban was burnt to the ground," Kingsley continues, "No one's denying that something pushed him to this. But the how and the why —we need answers."

"What if he's recruiting?" Arthur asks. "What if he wants to take his revenge? If he's not alone?"

"Then we find out before it's too late," Kingsley says grimly. "He may have once been a scared boy, but whatever broke him also made him dangerous. And Voldemort was alone, once. It should be warning enough."

Hermione's jaw twitches at their words, and Harry could feel the tension in her like a live wire.

"He's not Voldemort," Harry says quietly —he sounds like he is trying to convince himself.

"He might be worse," Kingsley responds gently, eyes full of pity.

And the words hung, bitter and sour.

Later that evening, Harry sits alone in his flat in Great Haseley. The curtains are closed and the fire burns low. A bottle of Firewhisky sits half-empty beside him. He doesn't hear much anymore, just echoes, just screams. The final spell. Fred's last laugh.

He knows he should feel relief that the war is over, but instead, he carries it all with him at all times, dragging a war-shaped shadow wherever he goes. Ginny had called him a stranger once, before they broke things off, said his eyes never left the battlefield. She wasn't wrong. He never quite left.

The letter she left still sits unopened on his coffee table. He throws back another shot and leans his head against the cool windowpane.

"What if I failed Malfoy?" He mutters to no one but himself. "What if I could've stopped it?"

Of course, no one answers.

In a small flat two streets over, Hermione Granger pores over the Azkaban file again. She tries to keep at bay all of her personal thoughts about the war and how it left her without anything in her. Often, it feels like she can barely remember the girl who'd erased her parents' memories, who'd begged Ron to come back for one more kiss before everything ended. Often, she guesses that she had killed this girl on the battlefield, left somewhere in the rubble of Hogwarts. Now, she reads case files and gives speeches and drafts laws to make the wizarding world safer.

She doesn't flinch when her eyes land on the photo of Malfoy's cell —it's empty, melted through the core, the epicentre of the explosion. Although she has never liked Malfoy, she has never wished for him to go to Azkaban. She wouldn't wish that faith on her worst enemy.

"Too much power," she whispers as her eyes wander over the various pictures, proofs of the magical explosion. Something seemed to have cracked that day —like magic pushed too far— and the result had been annihilation.

What truly haunts her is not the destruction, per se, but the silence that has followed it. The utter absence of anything else. There have been no surviving witnesses, no records left, only the lingering feeling that someone —now, she knows that it's Malfoy— has not escaped from Azkaban, but that it was destroyed from within. Perhaps that's what scares her the most. Malfoy never looked the strongest of the bunch, nor the smartest, but a part of her, the most logical one, has always known that it was all just play pretend, that in truth, Malfoy was terribly clever, and now, in front of that proof, she just realises that he is terribly powerful too.

She has tried, for years, to channel her grief into systems, to pour her pain into laws and structure. The war taught her, more than anything, that chaos only breeds more chaos. So, she organises. She reforms. She drafts. Legislation against the abuse of magical creatures. Education access reforms. Reparations for families impacted by the war.

Her work fills the silence left in her life.

However, when the day ends, and she's alone in her flat, it all feels awfully like theatre. Her flat is small and sterile —all white walls and harsh lighting. She has not bothered to decorate, barely eats in her kitchen, and barely sleeps in her bed. She doesn't see Ron anymore, and, in truth, she doesn't really see anyone these days, not unless they're in her office or standing in front of a podium waiting for her to speak. She tells herself that she's doing what needs to be done. That she's fulfilling her duty to the world they tried to save. Still, on some nights, when she wakes up gasping from a dream where she's still trying to hold back the roof of Hogwarts with her bare hands, she wonders if she's just building walls around herself to keep from falling apart.

The Malfoy case gnaws at her —she slips through the file again, lets her fingers brush the grainy photo of the cell. The damage isn't external, that much is clear. There is no breach noted. No spells cast from the outside. Hence, the explosion came from within —but no known spell could do something like that, no known wand. At least, not anymore.

She remembers Draco's face from school —pale and pinched, cruel and arrogant. But also small. She remembers the way his eyes shifted when he thought no one was watching. It was not in arrogance these times, but in fear. In pain. It strikes her now that she never really looked at him —except, perhaps, this time when she punched him in the face— not until he was already behind bars, and she was standing in the Ministry courtroom, one of many who had nothing left to say in his defence.

"Too much power," she repeats softly, tracing the burn marks in the photographic evidence with her thumb.

Hermione Granger does not believe in monsters. She believes, however, in trauma, and procedures, and consequences —and, perhaps, that's why this case haunts her. Because it doesn't follow any known rule. Because somewhere, underneath all of this, she thinks there's something deeply human in it.

If she can understand it —if she can solve it— then maybe she'll find whatever part of herself she lost along the way.

Tom

The water has turned grey-blue with paint, streaked with grime. Tom watches it swirl around his knees in lazy eddies. He has returned to the water, eventually deciding to ignore his reflection in the newly conjured mirror above the washbasin. It's painful to look at himself, for some odd reason. Now, his skin is raw from scrubbing the remaining paint —the colour still clings stubbornly to his nailbeds, to the soft bend of his wrist. His magic twitches occasionally as if to remind him that it is still there, hidden, but there. It's a flicker of light in the corner of the room, a breath of warmth rising from the surface of the bath like steam.

His mind is quiet now, almost oddly so. There's no voice from a memory, no noise either, just the echo of motion, the ghost of paintbrushes dancing mid-air. The echo of the silver-eyed boy as well —standing below him with wide eyes, something horrified and curious in this mercury gaze. He sinks deeper into the water until it laps at his jaw —he feels some kind of exhaustion in his bones, one he never truly felt before, one he can't fully understand. He doesn't feel weak by any means, or drained —not quite. But there's the kind of tired that means quieted, contained, like he was a storm that had run its course. He thinks he should feel vulnerable, but he doesn't, not truly. He has laid himself bare with the violence of his magic and the delicacy of his hands pressed to canvas, and still, he doesn't feel vulnerable. On the contrary, there's a strange comfort in the ache of his body, in the mild sting of soap in his cuts, in knowing that Draco has seen...

He's not alone anymore. Maybe that's why he doesn't feel vulnerable, like the situation would want him to feel.

Despite everything, the silver-eyed boy is still here in the kitchen, by the soft clicking of porcelain and spoon, the faint smell of tea and bread.

He tilts his head back, lets his eyes fall shut. He should get out of the water —it's cold now.

Draco.

He hasn't screamed, hasn't raised his wand threateningly, hasn't left him. That's something to hold on to. That's something to tether him.

Water drips in slow beats as he emerges from the bathtub. He wraps a towel around his waist, not bothering with conjuring or finding fresh clothes —his hair is slicked back, and there's still lingering faint streaks of green and ochre in the creases of his fingernails. His feet are silent against the floorboards as he crosses into the hallway, guided by the muted clinking of china and the low hiss of the kettle.

Draco doesn't immediately look up when Tom steps into the kitchen.

The room smells of bergamot and thyme, and he sees a teapot sitting on a wooden tray, steaming gently beside two mismatched cups. There's a plate with an odd-looking sandwich on it. Draco's sleeves are rolled up, exposing forearms dusted in fine scars, faint blue veins, and a starkly black tattoo of a design he recognises as his mark. The Dark Mark. He realises that it's the first time he's seen the mark on the silver-eyed boy. Draco moves with that same distant grace, as if his body is acting without his permission.

"It smells good," Tom murmurs as he leans against the doorframe, eyes lazily over Draco's silhouette. "Domesticity seems to suit you."

Finally, Draco turns his mercury eyes on Tom. Immediately, he raises a brow, eyes going up and down his body, taking in the fact that he is indeed very naked under the towel.

"You're not going to put on any clothes?" Draco exhales softly through his nose, turning back to the tray.

Tom shrugs slightly. "I will. I'll conjure some."

Draco sighs, looking over his shoulder for a moment before suddenly leaving the kitchen for the hallway. He hears him open a door —he supposes it's his bedroom—then quickly returns, clothes in his hands. There are simply black pants and a grey shirt with a cream woollen jumper. It's the clothes Tom had seen on Draco. Wordlessly, the silver-eyed boy hands him the clothes, pressing them against his naked chest.

"Alright, alright. I'll get dressed," Tom laughs, letting the towel drop from his hips.

"Oie! By Merlin, couldn't you do that in the bathroom?" Draco exclaims, eyes dropping before he quickly turns around, trying, Tom supposes, to give him some sort of privacy. Which he doesn't really care about.

"There," he says, delicately touching Draco's shoulder, "I am dressed."

Sighing once more, the man turns around, eyes narrowing as if making sure he's telling the truth. Then, once he sees his clothes on Tom's body, Draco smiles —a natural smile that makes his eyes slightly smaller, slightly more luminous, moon-grey rather than mercury. For a brief instant, Tom is enthralled. Then, he breathes and watches the silver-eyed boy move to the counter, sliding him a cup filled with tea, keeping the other to himself.

He thanks him, lowering himself into the creaky chair. They drink in silence for a beat —the tea is warm against his tongue. He tastes bergamote, thyme and bitter bark. Over the rim of his cup, he discreetly observes Draco, studying the slope of his neck, the slight downward pull at the corners of his lips —that delicate, ever-present restraint. He doesn't think Draco knows how to be without it.

"You've painted me," Draco's voice breaks the quiet, tone a bit unsure, as if asking a question he already knows the answer to.

He blinks, slowly, setting his cup down, fingers lingering on the handle.

"I have."

"Why?"

A flicker of amusement rises in Tom's chest as he watches the silver-eyed boy tilt his head in slight confusion. It's endearing.

"Is that vanity speaking?"

But the silver-eyed boy only returns his gaze, unimpressed. "Humour me."

So, he leans back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other —the jumper is slightly too large on him, especially on the shoulders, and the sleeves fall just past his wrists. He finds that it softens him in a strange way, domestic and dissonant, to look like this. He is aware that he must look younger than he is, and a part of him —a large part of him— wishes he would have his own tailored clothes, his own robes and suits, just to be able to look like himself —like the put-together noble he is. Could be. Whatever. Those clothes smell faintly like the silver-eyed boy, and he thinks he can deal with looking soft if it means he can smell that sweet perfume a little longer.

"I painted your scar because it's the only honest thing about you," he starts explaining at last, "the rest of you—" he gestures, vaguely, with his fingers, "is curated. Controlled and restrained. But your scar is truth carved into flesh. It's unavoidable and ugly, and beautiful in how it resists erasure."

He watches Draco stiffen as he listens to his words, but he doesn't interrupt him.

"As for your eyes," his gaze slides to him. "I must confess, they are the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Both in their shape and colour. But, I still remember the boy you were, the way those eyes looked then, and how they look now, as if you've seen too much and still won't look away. I find that—" he pauses to consider his next word, "compelling."

Draco lifts a brow. "So what? You collect my trauma on canvas? That's comforting."

He chuckles, amused and unapologetic. "I suppose I do. It's what artists do, isn't it? Hold mirrors up to the broken things."

Draco leans back, arms crossed loosely. "And what does it say about you, that you keep painting me?"

His smile fades a bit, and he finds himself unable to answer immediately.

"Maybe I'm trying to understand why you didn't leave me to rot," he says eventually. "Or maybe I just like the shape of your face."

The silver-eyed boy snorts softly, not quite amused, not quite vexed. "You never stop pushing, do you?"

Tom's eyes narrow, thoughtful. "I'm not the only one pushing. You keep trying to pin me down —figure out who I am now. I'm pretty sure you believe that if you observe long enough, I'll unravel."

"I don't need you to unravel. I just need to know if I'm sheltering something that will eventually try to burn the world again."

At that, Tom pauses, looking up at him fully. "And what if I am?"

Draco doesn't look away, doesn't flinch; instead, he dives his gaze into Tom's, unafraid. "Then I'll decide what to do when the time comes."

There's something in the air between them —not quite heat, but tension humming slightly. Tom smiles —he finds he truly prefers this version of Draco, the one with teeth and claws. After a beat, Draco exhales and straightens from his chair.

"You're good, you know. At painting."

Tom blinks. "Hm?"

"What I've seen, on canvas or upstairs. It's..." he seems to hesitate. He looks genuinely uncomfortable giving praise. "It's expressive and precise. You're talented."

He watches him now like he's watching something unnatural unfold. "You sound like you almost mean it."

Draco shoots him a look. "I mean it. I just think, if it helps you process whatever... mess you've come back with, then you should keep at it. I'll bring you more supplies. Real ones. Brushes, paint, canvas. You don't have to conjure everything."

Tom feels his face shift, muscles straining. He thinks he's smiling, like a soft curl of his lips, something that transforms him into a being more human.

"You'd do that for me?"

Draco doesn't meet his eyes. Instead, he moves to the sink and begins rinsing his cup, but Tom notices the slight curve of his lips, the way it softens his face as well.

"I'm doing it for the house. Less chance of you accidentally blowing the place up if you've got something to occupy your hands."

Tom huffs out a quiet laugh.

The kettle clicks behind them, and outside the window, wind moves through the trees. In the warmth of the kitchen, silence returns, but it's different from before. This one feels more fragile, but more peaceful as well, as if a truce has been drawn between them. There's a persistent warmth growing in his chest and belly that makes him pause in his movement, and for an instant, he wonders if that's what people call happiness.

Chapter Text

Tom

The attic breathes quietly, like a sleeping beast. Its slanted ceiling bows under the weight of his memories, its shadows sprawl in crooked lines across the wooden floor. He sits on the narrow bed pressed against the wall, arms resting on his knees, bare feet chilled by the boards. Outside, he can hear the wind scrape against the shutters, and below him, muted and steady, he hears the soft clink of glass and the low whoomp of a burner igniting —he knows it's Draco, in the study, working on a potion.

He doesn't move. His eyes are on the walls around him —the ones still covered in his paintings. Thick with brushstrokes, clawing at meaning, dripping in reds and blacks and golds. It gnaws at his mind, and he hesitates between erasing everything and trying to understand their meaning. Some are unfinished, some are violent, some are just shadows wearing his face.

He rises, walking the room like he's pacing a cell. He has taken up with him the painted canvases that were in the hallway. One is propped in the corner he doesn't look at anymore —a smear of silver eyes over high cheekbones, the line of a scar, that's all he can bear to see. He remembers painting it both with brush and fingers. He remembers laughing, and then he remembers nothing else.

He drags his hand across one of the walls, his touch grazing the dry, cracked surface. It's a portrait of himself, of selves. There's the boy in the orphanage with hunger and fury in his eyes. The Hogwarts prefect with ambitions in his smile. Then, the more snake than human creature he once had been, the one without a soul. There's also this version of him, but the drawing is confused, the strokes unclear, half in light, half in shadows, expression and face unreadable.

Which one am I now? He wonders. What am I now?

He doesn't know, and he isn't sure it matters. Perhaps, they're all his. Perhaps, he is a monster and a mortal, or, to take a Muggle image, he is both a devil and an angel. Still, he doesn't like this picture —half-devil, half-angel— because it still doesn't seem to fit him properly. Perhaps, he's none of these. Perhaps, he's a mass of grey, a mass of nothing and everything at the same time. A mass of infinite possibilities that could mean everything or nothing, that could change the world or disappear without a trace.

Still, he doesn't know.

He leaves the room before the silence swallows him whole.

He finds Draco outside, near the edge of the property, wand raised. The air feels sharp outside, still terribly cold, and the ground is littered with fallen pine needles and pale moss. Draco's coat is open despite the cold, and Tom finds himself wanting to come over and close it for him. Instead, he watches the silver-eyed boy move his odd wand, leaving trails of silver light in the air, drawing geometric arcs that shimmer briefly before sinking into the soil.

"Warding the place?" he asks from where he stands, a few paces away.

Draco doesn't look at him. "Reinforcing."

"What for?"

"Keeping the world out, I guess. Not wanting to be found."

He steps closer, eyes flicking to the pattern of runes hanging briefly in the space between them. They look like spiderwebs.

"Or is it to keep me in?"

Finally, Draco glances at him, something unreadable hiding in those mercury eyes. "Both, maybe."

"Wise," he hums, lifting his hands to help him with the wards. He adjusts runes over one side and pulls on others, until the whole form is perfectly impenetrable. Then, Draco modifies the next sequence, leaving Tom to correct what he could have got wrong. He always understood magic on an instinctive level, like a language that was written into his bones.

As the final rune is drawn and sunk, his hands linger in the air. He watches the runes disappear slowly.

"You don't have a wand," Draco says suddenly.

"You're stating the obvious," he replies, looking a bit oddly at the other man. "I don't need one."

The silver-eyed boy tilts his head slightly. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't have one."

Tom turns to face Draco, trying to understand what he wants. "Planning to make me one?"

There's a long pause where he watches a slight flush rise to the man's cheekbones. Entertaining as it is, his eyes wander lower, to his hand, the one holding his wand. It's unlike any he's seen —longer, darker. It pulses faintly from Draco's lingering magic. It looks like a weapon grown from grief and ruin, and he likes it —likes seeing it on Draco and likes even more that it is the silver-eyed boy who made it.

"You think you can make me a wand?"

Draco only smirks. "I think I'm the only one who can and who will." He pauses, eyes narrowing in amusement. "No one sane will make you a wand, especially not Ollivander."

Tom breathes in. He smiles, if only to mirror Draco, but inside, for a moment, something moves —not quite longing, not quite warmth. The last wand he held had been the Elder Wand, stolen from Dumbledore's grave. Its power had tasted like divinity, like stars burning through his fingertips, but it had never truly been his —not really. Even now, with his fragmented mind, he remembers the high of that magic, the way the world shivered when he cast. Nothing has ever matched it since.

But then he looks at Draco, and he thinks that perhaps he might come close now.

Draco

He doesn't go back inside right away; instead, he takes a moment to observe Tom. The man lingers in the wards, hands in his pockets, face unreadable, even if he seems deep in thought. He catches the way his eyes follow him —not suspiciously, not possessively, something in between. Like a child left outside a door they're not sure they're allowed to knock on. The thought burrows under his skin and stays there.

When he finally returns to the warmth of his study, Draco doesn't light the fire, but instead, he sits at his desk, pulls a sheet of parchment towards him, and begins to write.

Notes on wand composition.

Subject — Tom Riddle

He hesitates briefly at the name. Tom Riddle still feels like a placeholder. But he can't write Lord Voldemort, that would be far more weird. Far more painful. His Tom Riddle is a strange, haunted, shapeshifting creature who wakes screaming some night and smiles when he sees him like he remembers how to lie.

He continues writing.

Wood — something ancient, rooted, but not brittle. Ash? Not oak (too proud). Not elder (too cursed). Ash remembers fire (survives it). (Doesn't burn)

Core — not standard. So, no unicorn hair (too pure, will burn). No dragon heartstring (too volatile). Need something instinctive/rare.

He sits back in his chair, thinking of the way Tom touches the air like it answers to him, of how he had fixed the wards by feel rather than calculation, how his magic hums even without a wand —raw, sharp, wild.

Then, quieter thoughts come unbidden —the way Tom watches him, as if he's trying to read himself in Draco's features.

He writes one final word under Core, pressing harder with his quill than he means to:

Veela hair.

He doesn't allow himself to unpack that just yet.

The next morning, Draco wakes early, the sky outside still greyed with snowlight. He leaves a note on the kitchen table —"Back soon. Don't hex anything."— and wards the door behind him. He knows it won't hold if Tom decides he wants out, but it makes him feel better anyway.

Still, he doesn't expect to hear a hoarse with sleep voice, not even five minutes into the frost-covered path through the pine forest.

"Where are you going?"

Tom stands barefoot in the snow, shirt clinging to his frame, chest heaving with something that looks too much like panic. Draco stares a bit, suddenly worried that the man will catch the most terrible cold of all time with his bare feet in the snow. His breath fogs in the air between them.

"I left you a note."

"I saw it," his voice is rough still. "But it didn't say where you were going."

Draco blinks at him, trying to gather his thoughts, trying to understand the other man, trying to reconcile the current image of Tom Riddle with the Dark Lord he knew. He steps forward carefully, like one might approach a wounded animal.

"I'll be gone for a few hours. That's all."

"I didn't know that."

Tom's fingers twitch at his sides, like he's resisting the urge to grab something —him, most probably. There's no fury in his dark eyes, only this terrible, quiet disorientation, like the world is tipping sideways and no one told him it would.

"You left," Tom says, but he seems to be talking more to himself than to Draco, "without saying why. You always do that."

Draco watches Tom a bit longer. Perhaps, if he looks at him long enough, he might, one day, understand what is going on inside his fragmented mind.

"I'm going to get what I need to make you a wand," he explains finally with a surprising softness. "I will not be gone for long. A day, at most."

Tom doesn't answer at first; he just stares as if trying to decide if this is a lie, a test, or both. Then, finally, he steps back, nods once, and disappears back inside the house.

Only then does Draco allow himself to fully breathe again.

The trip takes most of the day. He stops at three locations —one hidden grove known to grow Ash trees with magical alignment, another where rare cores are bartered for in whisper-markets, and finally, an old contact of his mother's who still weaves protective threads for wand bindings. By the time he returns, his bag is heavy on his left shoulder, and his fingers ache from the cold. When he opens the door, the cottage is quiet. He half-expects Tom to be gone —there's sudden leaden at the bottom of his stomach, something bitter rising in his throat.

Then, after a moment where a slight panic reaches his heart, making it beat an unsteady but quick rhythm, he hears it —soft footsteps above, in the attic.

He smiles, breathes in, breathes out, and heads to his study.

The carving begins at dusk. He works by wandlight, his tools laid out with reverent precision. He holds the ash branch in his hand like it's something alive —it might as well be— feeling the grain under his fingertips. He's always believed that wandmaking is like sculpting memory since you don't just cut wood and bind it to a core —instead, you uncover something already hidden in the material, something waiting to be named and linked.

He works slowly, carefully. Ash is resilient —it curves reluctantly, only under steady pressure. A bit like Tom, he thinks. He carves not just with his hands but with his magic and thoughts —remembering the way Tom tilts his head when he listens, the violent beauty of his paintings, the precision of his magic, the way he had said "Planning to make me one?" like it was absurd and intimate in equal measure.

The Veela hair is added last. It's a single strand —pale and shimmering under the light. He threads it through the heart of the wood carefully, delicately, with great tenderness, like coaxing a wild animal to come closer.

When he finishes, what he holds between his hands is long and narrow, with a slightly curved handle, unpolished for now, needing varnish yet. But it already pulses with power, with want and need.

Excitement rises inside his chest. He can't wait to present it to Tom. 

Chapter Text

Tom

He has claimed the attic; that much is clear to him. The ladder still creaks heavily no matter how lightly he treads on it, and the air up here is thinner, colder, but it's his. He likes it just fine.

Thus, when he sits on his bed and watches the walls still covered in remnants of his panic, he can't help but feel uncomfortable. Scrawled lines of magic-warped paint, shapes that don't make a lot of sense, bruised colours that spiral like a slow implosion.

He breathes in the stillness. Tries to concentrate. He reaches for a brush. He settles on the floor, cross-legged, and chooses the darkest section of the wall. There's a thick coil of black where he must've used his fingers instead of a brush —it looks like a shadow trying to eat through the plaster.

He begins to paint over it in white. It takes several coats —the black pushes back, bleeding through, swallowing up the lighter pigments like it's hungry. He persists, still. He layers white paint again and again until something shifts. He changes colours and tries to paint himself. That goes badly. The first attempt ends in frustration —a shape, vaguely human, but the face slips away every time he tries to hold it. The second turns serpentine —slitted red eyes on a snake-like face, pale as a ghost. That version of himself he still fears might live somewhere in his marrow.

He wipes the wall clean —paint gets under his fingernails.

Then, he paints the cottage over barely dried, mixed with white and other colours. He starts slowly, carefully. The roof heavy with snow, smoke curling from the crooked chimney, trees lining the back garden, their bare limbs inked against the pale sky. He adds the path, the steps, even the warped window in the kitchen where light spills in like gold on colder mornings. The act steadies him, gives him shape. It's strange how easily the brush moves now.

When he grows tired of painting the house, his hand continues on its own. He sketches the outline of a face. A scar running from browbone to jaw, first. Then, silver eyes —precise and impossible to forget. That sharp jawline, the slight asymmetry to his mouth, the faint shadow of tiredness always clinging to his cheekbones.

Ah. Draco.

His brush moves more gently there; he paints him from memory. He doesn't have to think about the angle of his nose or the way his hair falls, always slightly to the left. It's all there, right under the surface, like he's been cataloguing him in silence this whole time.

He paints Draco the way he touches his magic.

He stills at the realisation. A thought stirs in him —not truly a slow dawning but more like something has cracked open inside his chest. It's something he hadn't dared look at directly until now. He remembers the way panic twisted him when Draco left —how the walls had seemed to buckle. He remembers still the moment he woke, in these ruins. He remembers the thoughts that had gone through his mind. He remembers how Draco's name and face had been one of the first things he recalled, how he had believed it meant something important. Still, along the way, the silver-eyed boy had become a tether, a presence that keeps the air breathable, the hours survivable. If he clings to him so tightly, if he reaches for him in the dark, if he wants—

He draws in a breath. It's shallow, careful. His fingers still flecked with paint as they curl over his pants.

He doesn't know how to name what he wants —not yet— but he knows it's not indifference. He lusts after Draco. It simmers beneath his skin. But it's not just physical, it's also in the unbearable nearness of him —the steadiness, the heat. He wants to be close —to stay, to belong.

The realisation cracks through him like a bell rung too loud. He doesn't move again until he hears a knock.

He blinks.

The light has changed, and he sees that it is morning as pale sunlight spills over the attic floodboards, catching the scattered brushes and the half-finished portrait. His breath mists faintly in the cold air. He rises slowly from the floor, like surfacing, then opens the door.

Draco stands at the top of the ladder, one hand cupped around something long and narrow, wrapped in cloth. His mercury eyes flick once to the painted wall, then to Tom. He says nothing to Tom's great relief and invites himself inside the room.

For a moment, all he can do is stare —later, he would accuse his sudden realisation. Draco's silhouette is haloed by the rising light, not golden but silver, cast in shades of frost and ash. His white-blond hair is mussed from spending the night running his fingers through it, pushed back off his forehead in disarray that makes him look younger. He's wearing layers —a grey turtleneck that clings to the slim line of his throat, an old wool coat Tom's never seen before, stained at the hem, and fingerless gloves that look handmade. He notes that his fingertips are pink with cold. There's colour in his face as well, rare and luminous, a graceful sight. The scar down his cheekbone has caught the light like a thread of moonstone.

Tom cannot remember the last time he looked at someone and wanted to learn them, cell by cell. It startles him, this ache. Draco doesn't say anything as he walks across the attic, his boots leaving melted prints. Then, he holds out the long bundle of cloth, pale linen wrapped with careful ties, to him.

Accepting wordlessly the gift, his fingers tremble as he undoes the knots. The fabric falls away like the shedding of skin, revealing a wand. The tips of his fingers touch the wood, and the effect is immediate.

It is unlike any wand he has ever held. Unlike the Elder Wand, which had always felt borrowed despite its addictive feeling of power, this wand feels made for him. The wood is pale as bone, but veined through with hairline streaks of garnet and charcoal, like something alive had bled into it. There are faint carvings in the grain, traces of Draco's hand. The handle is sculpted in a shape that fits his palm exactly, shaped to his grip as if Draco had known the exact width of his fingers, the pressure points of his hold. There's no flourish, no ostentation. It's beautiful in the way a sword is beautiful —lean, purposeful, and deadly.

He doesn't speak as he closes his hand around it. The moment he does, the world shifts. Power blooms like a sun beneath his breastbone —it's pure, golden-hot, laced with something darker, colder, and sharp and feral. It courses through him, lighting up his nerves, each bone in his body singing with it, and for a moment that feels like eternity, his breath catches, and his vision whitens out. It's too much and yet, it fits him —like a second spine, like truth.

The Elder Wand had answered to his ambition, to his hunger, to his need to dominate. This wand answers to him. To who he is now. It's the first thing that has ever felt like it truly belonged to him.

He lifts his gaze once his vision has returned, and he sees Draco observing him, arms crossed and a charming, small smile of satisfaction curled at the edge of his lips.

"I—" he tries, but the word fails. He swallows, throat dry. "This is— it's perfect."

Draco's smile grows wider, making his eyes more moonlight than mercury. And Tom, who has never thanked anyone in his life without resentment or calculation, finds his voice breaking open.

"Thank you," he says, and then again, quieter, as though the first one wasn't enough. "Thank you."

There's no spell for this, no magic for what it does to him. Still, something in him, something deep and exiled, heals, just a little.

Draco

It's always fire that gets him. It roars through the corridors, eating the stone, bending the air, turning light into something molten and merciless. A voice rises within it —low, coaxing. He cannot tell if it's calling for him or warning him away. The flames breathe like a living thing. They take shapes —serpents and basilisks— before collapsing back into chaos. And there, at the heart of it all, is a shadow, waiting.

Draco wakes with a sharp inhale.

The fire is gone, but he feels hot, as if the heat hasn't left him entirely. His skin is damp, hair plastered to his temples, lungs dragging in the heavy air of the small room. Tom is standing over him, watching.

"You were crying," He says simply, as if it explains his presence in his room in the middle of the night.

Before he can properly reply, Tom's hand lifts slowly, and two fingertips brush the pale scar running on his face. It's a touch so light it should be nothing, but it's enough to still the words in his throat.

"It's fine," he manages to say after a moment. "I'm fine."

However, Tom doesn't move his hand —he doesn't move at all. His eyes are fixed on Draco's black as midnight and utterly impossible to read, no matter how hard he focuses.

"You're lying."

The refusal is quiet, but it leaves no place for retreat, and Draco, who has spent years barricading every thought, every flicker of feeling, realises Tom is not going to leave him alone right now until he gives him something.

So, he sighs, preparing himself.

"It's the same dream as always," he admits, "always the same. That day at Hogwarts in the Room of Requirement. Crabbe cast a Fiendfyre and lost control of it... It chased us until there was nothing left to run from. I can still feel the heat of the fire, the smell of fear and ash. Potter dragged me out on his broom, but—" he swallows. "But I can still feel it burning, even after all this time."

If he closes his eyes, he could still perfectly recall the moment, how the smell came first —sharp and wrong— then the heat, pressing against his skin like molten hands. He could still hear Crabbe shouting the incantation, voice too loud, too eager, then too panicked, and he knew, even before the first serpent of flame uncoiled from the wand, that something had gone terribly, irreversibly wrong. This kind of fire didn't simply spread; it erupted, rearing up into chimaeras, serpent and towering wolves. They roared, and the room's air became a furnace. Goyle had shouted something, but it was lost in the cacophony. And then came the sound —the deep, bone-shaking groan of wood and stone as the Room began to burn alive. Crabbed had vanished in a wall of gold and crimson, and Draco, to this day, didn't know if it was screaming he'd heard, or if it had been the fire itself.

He closes his eyes briefly, taking a deep breath as he pushes the memories back to their place, locked up in the far back of his mind.

"Sometimes, the dream changes. Sometimes I'm in Azkaban, and all I can hear are the screams. Then, all I can smell and see is blood."

He takes another deep breath, opening his eyes to see Tom staring at him intently. He seems entirely focused on what Draco is saying.

"Often lately, I wonder what happened to my old friends..." he then adds quietly, "I know I've killed some of them. Crabbe and Goyle are gone. I've killed Pansy when I was in Azkaban, and I probably killed Blaise as well. But I wonder if Theo is still somewhere out here. I've never known if he was sent to Azkaban like us, or if he escaped in time... I hope he escaped."

The words die between them, bare and graceless. Tom is still looking at him, but he doesn't speak. His hands are on his lap, and he wears a serious expression. Still, when Draco's voice catches in his throat on the last words, he gently but firmly draws him in an embrace, one hand resting lightly at the back of his head. At first, he can feel some hesitation coming from Tom, but then, quickly realises that he is the one who hesitates, as if he isn't certain he has any rights to this moment. Yet, when no patting meant to signal it is time to let go comes, he allows himself to lean into the warm embrace. Almost immediately, the tension in his shoulders eases by fractions, like something inside him finally unclenches. He feels the steady rhythm of Tom's breathing against his own, grounding him.

Neither of them speaks, and when Draco's eyelids begin to grow heavy, Tom shifts just enough to let him lean against his shoulder. He doesn't urge him to lie down, doesn't make a sound, but simply stays, patient and still, until the pull of sleep finally wins. 

Chapter Text

Harry

Sleep refuses to come. The look on Malfoy's face that day —half-defiance, half-something he doesn't know how to name— would not leave him, nor would the words. They thread through his mind like a curse, pulling at a thread that has been frayed for years.

He keeps wondering, keeps thinking that if Malfoy truly had him —a version of Tom Riddle, however fractured, however changed— that meant danger of a kind he hasn't thought he'd face again ever. It means the possibility that Voldemort isn't as dead as he believes, as they all believe. It means they might have been living a lie since the end of the war.

It's been weeks since he met Malfoy in that bar. Weeks, he's been pondering whether he should do something about it or not. Weeks, he wishes he were anyone but the One-Who-Lived. Weeks, his overworked brain waits for him to make up his mind.

Eventually, he comes to a decision. He has pulled together a small, trusted group of Aurors —mostly former Gryffindors, all of them hardened by the war. They move quietly, each task carried out without hesitation. Malfoy's magical trace is their first lead, but years in Azkaban had altered it, blurring its signature beyond easy recognition.

Frustration knots in his chest until Hermione steps in. She has worked beside Kingsley for days now, layering charms and tracking spells over and over, narrowing the field with the kind of precision Harry has once watched her use on impossible homework questions.

Piece by piece, they reconstruct the trail. It leads them to the middle of nowhere —Auvergne, France. A place forgotten by time, hidden among mountains and dark forest. It's the kind of place one could disappear in forever if one only wishes it. Plans for the raid are quick, clinical —some of his team would aim to subdue, and others would aim to kill if they judge the threat too great. Maybe —Merlin help him— he would, too.

Standing in the cold dawn, looking over the great forest of Auvergne, he stares at the trees ahead, breathing in the sharp air. Somewhere in there, Malfoy is living a life apart from the world. A life with the world's greatest threat. Once, Harry was the saviour, the hero. The boy who always found a way to spare those he could. However, today, he despises himself for the thought that he might not spare Malfoy at all after all.

Draco

He wakes up with a start, his chest tight and heart hammering before he even understands why. For a moment, he thinks it is just another nightmare, just some fragment of memory dragging him back into the dark, but then, the air presses against him, heavy and sharp, and he recognises the tremor racing through the house.

It's the wards. They have been triggered, and not by accident. It's not just one or two wandering presences, but many. Too many to be coincidental.

He is on his feet in an instant, wand in hand, moving before thought can catch up. The wards groan again under the strain of probing magic, each ripple louder and closer than the previous one.

Quickly, he goes up to the attic, crossing the room in a few strides. His hand closes around the man's shoulders, shaking him.

"Tom," he hisses, "wake up, now."

Slowly, he stirs, bleary-eyed and confused, until he hears Draco's tone. Then, he sits upright in seconds, fumbling for his wand, while Draco looks for clothes to put on the other's back —he has realised not long ago that the other liked to go to bed with barely anything on him, no matter how cold it was in the attic.

"What—?"

"I think they're Aurors," he explains, finally finding a shirt and jumper as well as some cream pants. "At least a dozen, from what I feel from the wards. They won't hold long."

Tom seems surprised for a moment, then he shakes his head and grabs the clothes Draco is holding. He wears them quickly, ignoring the look Draco gives him when his eyes land on the expanse of naked skin. His hand is tight on his wand, knuckles pale in the faint light. Draco feels the quick surge of pride at his composure, at how quickly he moves to collect a small pack, but there seems to be fear in him as well, something discreet and raw, fear of leaving something precious behind. He hates how young that made him look.

He leaves Tom to organise his things —probably to erase all of his paintings on the walls, floor and ceiling, to remove the proof of who he is so that no one but him and Draco could see them. He goes to the kitchen, keeping the dark close around him. The only light comes from the moon, silver and cold against the window. He slightly pushes the curtain aside by a fraction and freezes.

Figures move beyond the wards, black silhouettes shifting in the dark. There's a shimmer of magic glowing faintly around them, brief as a spark, and Draco knows it's the remnants of the wards standing. He recognises those faces even after all these years. There's Potter, Shacklebolt, and Granger. Behind them, other Aurors, mostly former Gryffindors, their schoolboy edges sharpen into something harder.

He knows they've come for him. For Tom. Potter has decided to be the hero once more and rid the world of the remains of darkness.

The first curse strikes, and the wards blaze a brilliant blue, then dim. Another follows, then a third. The window rattles in its frame, and the small cottage holds on against the attack. Tom suddenly appears at his side, pale, tense and waiting. He watches briefly through the window, but Draco notices that his eyes don't light up as if he doesn't recognise any of the people outside, not even when those dark orbs glide over Potter. Then only lit up when they stop on him, eyes searching his face, as if bracing for whatever comes next.

It's a wonder, Draco realises, to be the centre of this man's attention. To be the centre of his world.

But he has no time to enjoy the rush of feelings that crash through him, that the wards finally crack, and a blast of green light tears through the window, sending shards flying. Draco shoves Tom down behind the kitchen's counter, protecting him as much as he can, and as he does so, Tom lifts his new wand above Draco's shoulder and screams:

"Protego!"

The shield shimmers, catching the impact of the next curse. Sparks fizzle against the walls. Draco's heart is beating a quick staccato, arms tightly around Tom's waist, trying to remind himself that Tom Riddle is the Dark Lord, is Lord Voldemort, is everything that has ever terrorised him, even if, right now, he is more afraid than this version of Tom Riddle could get hurt in the mid of this battle

"Let's not fight them all," he says, pulling Tom closer behind the counter. He doesn't say that even if it's just the two of them, they could probably overtake them. He doesn't say either that he is too scared for Tom, too terrified by the idea of having his blood on his hands that he'd rather run somewhere else, somewhere safe, with him. Let them know he's alive, he thinks, let them think he's still a coward.

The other man's breathing is quick, harsh, against Draco's neck. "Then, what do we do?"

His mind races —every exit seems blocked and the wards are gone. Potter is out there, shouting orders. He knows they would be inside within minutes. Then, as if his sick mind has decided to fail him when he needs it most, a memory strikes him —sharp as lightning. Blaise, Pansy, Theo. Long summer nights hiding from their fathers' expectations. Firewhisky burning in their throats. Laughter echoing through the ruins of a manor in the Scottish Highlands, a place so far forgotten it had slipped from every map. A place no one knew about, except his friends.

"I know where we can go," he says suddenly.

Another curse rattles the shield, and shouts draw closer. He seizes Tom's wrist and drags him up, their shoulders brushing in the cramped space. Tom doesn't resist, following Draco willingly, fingers curling around his hold. His eyes barely widen when he understands what he wants to do.

"Side-Along?" He asks, eyes diving into Draco's.

He nods. "Yes. Trust me."

It surprises him that Tom doesn't object to that. On the contrary, his eyes seem to soften as if the one thing he is only capable of is to trust Draco. Their hands lock tight, he presses his wand to Tom's shoulder just as a final curse shatters against the counter, flooding the kitchen with green light —and the world folds.

They land hard on cold stone. Draco's knees buckle with the strain of pulling someone else through Apparition. The air here is sharper than it was in France, tasting of heather and rain. Silence presses against them. He pushes himself upright, chest heaving. Blindly, he searches for Tom, panic rising the longer his fingers don't touch soft skin. Then, they do, and he takes hold of the hand he has touched, clenching it tightly, breathing deeply. Tom's fingers are close to his lips, and it takes everything Draco has within him not to press them against the skin. He only observes the other, making sure he is whole and unarmed. Once he is certain that Tom is breathing and all right, he looks around. Dust lies thick in the air, the scent of old wood and damp stone rising around them. He knows this hall, even if he has not stood here in years, but every crack in the fireplace, every torn tapestry, every abandoned portrait is burned into his memory.

The manor seems still forgotten, still safe.

Tom's hand is clutching his now. He doesn't let go, and he finds, strangely, that he doesn't either. Their eyes meet, something flickering in Tom's gaze that Draco doesn't want to name —fear, relief, something warmer beneath. Before he can speak, a voice cuts through the silence.

"What in Merlin's name—?"

Draco spins around, wand raised as his heart stops. A figure stands in the doorway, a book in one hand, a teacup in the other. Thin, sharp-featured, older but unmistakable.

Theodore Nott. His friend. Alive. Very much alive.

Draco freezes, his wand trembling in his hand as his throat tightens around a breath he can't quite release.

"Theo," he whispers.

Theo's brows shot up, his blue eyes wide now. "Draco?"

The laugh that escapes Draco startles even himself —ragged, incredulous. After terror, after flight, after years of silence, here is Theo, staring at him as though he were the ghost. 

Chapter Text

Tom

He watches Draco sit forward in his chair, one elbow on his knee, his pale hair catching the firelight. The one named Theodore Nott —a name that stirs only fragments in his broken memory— is slouched across from them, long legs stretched out, teacup and book forgotten at his side. The man is taller than Draco and Tom, lean but not fragile —all edges and restless stillness, as though his bones are carved to lounge but his mind never stops moving. His dark hair is cropped short; only a few strands fall into his sharp-cut features. He has eyes a piercing blue-grey that catch the light in quick glances, narrowed with thought, too keen to be at ease. He looks older than they do, even though Tom is aware that it's not the case. There's a quiet confidence that exudes from him, the kind born of surviving and refusing to bow. The teacup and book at his side seem almost ridiculous, as though he had only stepped out of an ordinary life to stumble into this one.

"I'll admit," Theodore drawls flatly. "I thought you'd finally keeled over in Azkaban. Everyone swore no one crawled out of that massacre."

Even if Tom doesn't appreciate the way the man speaks, he glances at Draco, whose mouth tilts briefly, brittle with irony.

"Well... I'm the reason for the massacre," he replies at last.

Theodore's brows draw together. "And since you survived, sending even one bloody owl was impossible? I defended you, you know. Told anyone who'd listen you weren't dead. You left me looking like an idiot."

Something flickers across Draco's face, like guilt but softened by exhaustion. He shifts, uncomfortable.

"I wasn't exactly free to send letters..."

"That much is obvious," Theodore's eyes flick briefly toward him, then back to Draco. "Still. You could have trusted me sooner. You used to."

"I'm trusting you now," Draco declares simply. Tom notices that his voice doesn't waver, doesn't hesitate, and it strangely feels like a blade pressed to his ribs. It's his turn to feel uncomfortable.

Silence stretches, then, Theodore leans back in his seat, shaking his head as a dry laugh breaks out of him. "Merlin, Draco. You always did have the worst taste in companions."

Tom frowns at those words, but can see the smile on Draco's face —an honest, unguarded smile that reaches his eyes and makes his stomach curl into itself and warms his chest.

"Look who's talking. I remember you and Zabini, and how you guys ended up nearly setting the Black Lake on fire when we were fifteen."

Theodore barks a laugh, one hand covering his eyes as if remembering something bittersweet. "It was Zabini's fault. He said squid ink was flammable."

"And you believed him, when you were supposed to be the smartest of the bunch." Draco's tone is lighter now, threaded with a warmth Tom has not heard before.

"You went along with it too," the other shot back, "Don't act superior."

Draco's lips curve again, softer this time. "Fair. We were disasters."

The rhythm between them is effortless. They fall into memories he cannot reach —some detentions with Snape, some secret escapades into Muggle towns, a night Theodore hexed a prefect's shoes to sing opera. Their words weave old strands of intimacy, inside jokes that are still sharp after years apart. Tom hears in them a shared language —a past knitted with laughter through darkness, and subtle rebellion for imposed rules blends with a loyalty too stubborn to die properly. And every single time, Draco's mercury eyes soften, every time his laughter cracks his careful mask in a way Tom has never managed to do in all the time he has been with him. Slowly, as the minutes pass, he feels the slow coil of something venomous in his chest.

Nott has been there. He has seen Draco whole before the world carved him into this sharper, lonelier version of a man. Nott carries memories Tom could never steal, truths he could never hope to touch.

When Draco gestures toward him, introducing him, Nott's gaze sharpens, measuring him like a blade's edge. Tom bears it without flinching. He listens as they shift to graver talk —Aurors, the raid they've just suffered, this ruin of a manor's safety. Nott listens with keen interest, brow furrowed, tapping his fingers against his thigh. Draco's voice steadies, and Nott leans closer, the curve of his mouth easing into something like affection.

Tom watches, too closely, perhaps. He can't help but notice the way Draco's eyes soften when Nott laughs, and the faint crease at the corner of his mouth. He notices the comfort of shared history —how quickly they move from grave words to dry jokes, to bitter memories dulled into something almost sweet. A language of survival that Tom cannot decipher.

The venomous thing curling inside his chest grows bigger.

For weeks now, he has been tasting the new shape of his existence —his bond with Draco, his need for Draco, the ache of want that coils tighter with every brush of fingers, every breath against his skin. He has told himself it is strategy, survival, inevitability. However, here, watching Draco's ease with another, he feels it for what it truly is: desire and want. Hunger and possession.

He wants Draco's voice lowered for him alone. He wants Draco's gaze softened only when turned toward him. He wants every memory, every fracture, every shard of pain that made Draco who he is —wants to own them, to know them, to carve himself into the very bedrock of Draco's being.

But now, Theodore Nott has already been there, knows versions of Draco Tom cannot touch. The boyhood Draco, the reckless Draco, the one who belonged to a group, who laughed freely, who shared secrets whispered over firewhisky and nights too long. Nott has lived that intimacy, and he never will.

Jealousy threads through his veins, cold and merciless. Not the fear of losing Draco, fury at the idea that anyone else has already touched parts og him he cannot reach.

Draco

 He has half-expected Theo to vanish, like a mirage conjured by his own exhaustion and wish, but the longer he stands in the ruined drawing room, the more it sinks in: Theodore Nott is here. Alive and solid, still too sharp in the bones, with the same dry disdain in his eyes that used to cut through all their adolescent posturing.

When the silence stretches too long after their conversation, Draco finally asks the question that is truly on his mind: "Tell me, why do you stay here? Why not be in the Nott Manor?"

He watches his friend tilt his head back against the armchair, gaze fixed on the cracked ceiling.

"Because there's no Nott manor anymore. Not for me, at least." He doesn't look at Draco when he says it. "Father didn't survive the battle. Which isn't exactly a great loss, but it comes with its inconvenience. The Ministry seized everything they could put their filthy hands on. Gold, family heirlooms, land... all of it 'reparations for the war'" A bitter twist pulls at his mouth. "But Father had always been paranoid. He kept —contingencies. Cashes hidden so deep even the goblins didn't know of them. That's what I lived on."

Draco absorbs the words in silence. He feels Tom next to him shifting in his seat as he listens as well. There's a faint ache blooming in his chest, understanding the kind of pain that is being taken, everything your family ever had. Theo continues, softer now, less confident:

"I needed somewhere to vanish. Somewhere the Ministry wouldn't think to look. This place... it was ours. You, me, Blaise. Half-fallen walls and broken hearths, nights of firewhisky when we wanted to forget our fathers and mothers. Nobody else knew it existed. Only us."

His long fingers tap absently against the armrest. "So I cloaked it. Wards on wards. They hold well enough, though it refreshes them every morning. I've fixed what I could —kitchen, some bedrooms, two baths, the library. The rest is still a ruin, but it's still better than it was when we were younger." His gaze finally lands on Draco, steady and cool. "And for old time's sake, you can stay here if you wish to. But..." the pause sharpens the air. Theo's eyes flick toward Tom, still listening with attention, but now frowning deeply. "If he wants to stay, I need to know who he is."

Draco stiffens at the same time as Tom does. "He's with me," he repeats to his friend, "that should be enough."

Theo's look cuts sharper than any curse. "It would've been once upon a time, but not now, not after everything. You know me. I won't risk this place for a stranger. Especially not one who calls themselves Riddle."

The name coils between them, bitter as venom. They both know who the only Riddle they have ever met in their lives is, and he did not look like the Tom he has by his side. That, Draco knows well. But he wants to argue, to slam the door shut on Theo's suspicion, but he also knows his friend, knows that once he's dug in, there is no moving him without proof. He exhales slowly, tight and resigned.

"Fine. Do your little tests. But they'll prove nothing you don't already see —he isn't a threat to us."

"I'll decide that," he replies, standing.

Tom's eyes snap to Draco then, dark and burning, to Theo. "You're really going to let him?"

Draco visibly swallows the flare of unease. "If you want to stay here, yes. Trust me."

For a moment, Tom looks as though he might refuse outright. Then, with a tense lift of his chin, he stays still, allowing Theo to do whatever magic he needs.

His friend begins casting; quiet, efficient Latin spilling from his lips as his wand traces sigils in the air. He recognises charms of detection, spells to reveal compulsions, glamours, and dark bindings. Green, blue and red lights sparkle and flicker in quick repetitions. Most of them come back clean, but some stutter oddly, as though brushing against something too fractured to read properly. Theo's brows pinch, muttering under his breath as he lets the final glow fade.

"... strange," he says at last. "But nothing that screams traitor. Or Ministry spy." His tone is clipped, but grudging. "You can stay. Both of you. For now."

With that, Draco releases a breath he hasn't realised he has been holding. Tom says nothing, but he could feel the darkness in his eyes, the heat of his gaze on the side of his face. He realises that Tom is angry, and that his anger feels like a knife pressed just beneath the skin.

However, he chooses to ignore it for now as Theo gestures toward the hall. "Come. I'll show you your rooms."

Tom

 The room is simple, stripped to its bones, although he can see how hard Nott must have worked to redo it. The old stone walls are still slightly uneven and hold the chill of centuries. He sits on the single narrow bed that is on one side, and the plush mattress is covered in clean sheets that smell faintly of lavender. Tom wonders if it's Nott's attempt, perhaps, at civility. There's a wardrobe leaning against the other wall, one door refusing to close all the way. The floorboards creak under every shift of weight, and dust clings to the corners despite recent effort. Only the large single window breaks the heaviness of his surroundings: it's tall, arched, with cracked panes that let the moonlight spill silver across the room, striping the walls and the bed in pale light.

The pace is neither welcoming nor hostile, but somewhere in between —a room meant for survival and not comfort. It still feels temporary, as though it does not expect anyone to stay long within its walls.

He sits on the edge of the narrow bed, elbows on his knees, staring at the cracks in the stone walls. Beyond it, he could sense Draco's presence —a weight in the room next door, steady, unbearable near.

The silence presses against him, thick, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He reaches inside his pocket, and his fingers find the spine of the sketchbook Draco has placed by his bed in the attic days ago with an offhand murmur —"For when you need to keep yourself busy." A careless gift, perhaps, yet Tom has kept it close since. Sometimes, when he holds it, he thinks it's one of the few proofs that he belongs somewhere. He conjures a pencil with a flick, lets it roll between his fingers for a moment, then touches the tip to paper. At first, his hand moves without thought, lines spilling into vague arches and towers. Slowly, the contours sharpen and he recognises Hogwarts and its stone walls rising out of mist, spires silhouetted against memory. He draws the Great Hall's windows, the familiar shadows of the library, the curve of the lake under a moon he once thought belonged to him. Faces follow. He identifies some of his schoolmates: Mulciber's sharp profile, Avery's cold smirk, Rosier's haughty brow. He remembers how he has kept them at arm's length, how he has ruled them more than he has walked beside them. Even then, he has never laughed as Draco laughed tonight with Nott. He has never offered or received the kind of loyalty that did not reek of fear.

A sour regret coils in his chest. Perhaps, if he had been capable of friendship, something of him might have survived his insanity; perhaps, he would not have hollowed himself into nothingness.

His mind darkens, lines cutting harsher, until the page becomes a warped face —his own, and yet, not really anymore. Slitted nostrils, hollow sockets, a mouth stretched in cruel command: Lord Voldemort. The ruin he has made of himself.

He stares at it until the sight sickens him, then turns the page.

His hand changes once more. The pencil no longer gouges but caresses as he draws Draco. First a line of his jaw, pale and sharp, then his eyes —mercury grey, clouded with secrets. Hands, long-fingered, restless, always tightening around his wand or a teacup, then the curve of his shoulders, tense and large and muscular. The hollow at the base of his throat.

The more he sketches, the quieter he becomes inside. It's like each line smoothes the rawness in him, each shadow soothes. Here is something he wants to capture, not control. Not really. It's something that tethers him back to a world that isn't all blood and ash.

He lingers over Draco's mouth. His pencil traces the suggestion of lips, faint at first, then fuller, softened by the imagined weight of a smile. Then, he imagines leaning closer, feels the ghost of warmth against his skin. The thought spreads —a body pressed to his, pale hair brushing his cheek, breath shared between them. His hand moves faster, sketching not just features but nearness itself, the imagined press of Draco's palm against his chest, the slope of a shoulder beneath his grip.

He pauses only when he realises his breath has grown unsteady, his fingers smudge with graphite. On the page lies not only Draco, but the reflection of what he craves: touch, closeness, a kind of surrender he has never known. He closes the book with a snap, as if to trap the ache within its pages, and yet, it lingers. It's in the air. It's in the slight sweat that covers his forehead. This terrifying clarity that Draco Malfoy has become his still point, his obsession, his only salvation.

Chapter Text

Draco

 Draco had not expected to spend his days hauling rubble and scrubbing soot from stone, yet here he is, sleeves rolled to his elbows, wand out, cursing under his breath as another section of plaster collapses instead of mending. The manor groans like an old beast being forced to wake, and every room seems to fight them before yielding.

 He is tired, even as time blurs into a rhythm of labour. 

 Morning after morning, Draco finds himself with his wand in hand, undoing years of neglect. Theo shows him the layers of wards he refreshes daily, and together they strengthen them. Tom prowls through the halls with an intensity that makes Draco bite back comments. When his fingers aren't tracing the edges of rotting tapestries, they are flicking his wand with startling precision, mending stone, levelling floors, coaxing stubborn hinges back into place. 

 The kitchen is the first to transform. Although Theo had already cleaned it as much as possible, it is still not in the best shape. What has been a hollow shell of a hearth now burns steadily, warmth soaking into the stone floors until the room becomes bearable again. A scarred oak table, dragged from storage, is scrubbed until its surface glows. They eat their meals there, mismatched plates clattering in strange harmony, firelight flickering against faces.

 Bedrooms follow the reparation of the kitchen. Draco takes the lead in transfiguring moth-eaten curtains into thick drapes and banishing mildew from the walls. Theo repairs pipes with a pragmatism that makes the bathrooms almost comfortable, while Tom, oddly meticulous, insists on polishing the woodwork until it gleams. The library, though, is his true obsession: he spends hours coaxing dust and damp from shelves, restoring the faded charm on the great arched windows so that the light spills golden across the floors once more. 

 It is laborious, endless, often frustrating work. Spells backfire, charms unravel, and once an entire wall collapsed on Theo, who swore viciously in three languages until Draco pulled him out. But for every setback, there is a small victory —the first night the hearth holds steady against the storm outside; the first time water pours clear from a repaired tap; the first time they step into the drawing room and it looks less like ruin, more like a place where people live. 

 Slowly, carefully, the manor begins to change, and with it, so does the rhythm of their days. The silence is no longer heavy, but carries voices now —arguments over which corridor to tackle next, dry jokes flung between rooms, the occasional laugh that startles Draco each time it escapes him. He would not call it home, but when evening falls, and the candles light themselves one by one across the hall, when he looks into the drawing room and sees Tom slouching over his sketchbook in the corner, he admits to himself that it no longer feels like exile either.

Tom

 He sits in the corner of the freshly restored library, sketchbook open but neglected, while Draco and Nott sift through half-burnt books. Their voices rise and fall in that easy rhythm Tom has come to despise —a cadence stitched from years of friendship. Nott seems to say something funny enough to bring out a startled laugh out of Draco, sharp and unguarded, bending him forward. He doesn't even catch the words, but it's enough to make him feel terrible in an uncontrollable way. He snaps his sketchbook shut, and the crack of it makes both heads turn, but he is already on his feet, striding for the door. 

 "Tom?" He hears Draco calling, but he doesn't want to stop and see the look on his face. 

 The manor's corridors twist dark around him, the candlelight jittering against the stone as his anger mounts. He doesn't even know what room he's heading for, only that the walls are too tight, the air too thick with the many ghosts of Draco's laughter that weren't his to summon. 

 By the time Draco catches up, he is standing at the window of one of the unused rooms, fists braced against the sill. He's trying to calm down, trying to rationalise his anger, his wants, but it's all very much harder when his mind keeps screaming at him that he shall possess what he wants, he shall have whatever he wants. He keeps seeing in flashes the snake-like face of who he used to be, sneering at him, telling him that he has become weak, desiring such a wizard as Draco Malfoy, that even wanting something so close to feelings is a show of weakness, proof that he is the worst version of Tom Riddle yet. 

 "What was that?" Draco demands, voice laced with an amusement Tom doesn't feel, even though his silver eyes are puzzled. "You stormed out because Theo told a joke?"

 He breathes deeply, wishing he had a brush between his fingers just to paint his thoughts away. He turns to face Draco, and the words rip out before he can temper them. 

 "You smile at him like that. You never—" he cuts himself off, jaw clenching, feeling the burn of shame inside his chest. "You've known him all your life. I just feel left out because he has pieces of you I'll never know."

 Draco blinks, his faint smile fading away. "So, this is really about Theo?"

 "It's about you!" Tom hisses, the sharpness of his tone even startling him. "You let him in, you laugh with him, you— by Merlin, he knows you! He's had what I'll never have with you! Years of shared memories! And I just—" his voice drops, rough now. "I want all of you. Every shard. Every scar. And it kills me that I can't. It makes me so angry..."

 Silence, thick and burning, stretches between them, and Draco just looks at him, unreadable, until Tom feels the weight of his own words —the burn of his shame intensifying when he realises just how much he has uncovered of himself, of his feelings. He turns back toward the window, muttering, "Forget it."

 However —as he should have expected from Draco— he ignores his words and steps closer, steady, until Tom feels the heat of him at his shoulder. 

 "You're a fool," he says softly, and there's no sting in it. "You think I'd be here if I didn't care about you? Yes, sure, I've known Theo for over a decade, but my relationship with him is nothing like the one with you. It's not comparable, it's—" he takes a deep breath before continuing. "You, you have me now. You're what I have now."

 The words crack something open inside Tom, violent and inexorable. He whirls, catching Draco's face in his hands before he can think better of it, before his braveness wears out, and presses his mouth to Draco's, harsh and desperate, and for once he doesn't think of any strategy, of any means to make the man fall into his open arms —it's only the fire that surges through him as Draco yields and pulls him closer, as though neither of them could ever be close enough. The kiss deepens, turns bruising, days of longing and hunger crashing into the present. Tom feels Draco's hand fist in his collar, feels the heat of his body pressed flush to his own, and it is too much and not enough. 

 It's the weight of lives of loneliness, of loss, of masks worn too long that dissolve into that single point of contact. It's his hand curls around the back of Draco's neck, his thumb brushing the vulnerable hollow of his throat —and not wanting to rip it open, but to cajole until it makes Draco sigh— and the man leaning closer, closer still, until they are pressed so tightly, until there's no air left. Heat surges like a tide, overwhelming and consuming, yet beneath it, a tenderness blooms —a quiet reverence that frightens Tom more than desire ever could. Draco kisses him as though he is something rare, something irreplaceable, and that truth lodged deep, unshakable, in his chest.

 For an instant, the world outside falls away, and he is left with only a few knowledge: the taste of Draco's breath, the weight of his body pressed against him, and the terrifying, liberating truth that for the first time in his cursed existence, Tom Riddle has something to lose. 

 When they finally break apart, foreheads resting together, both of them breathing hard, he lets his eyes close. The silence is no longer brittle, but it holds something alive, fragile but undeniable, stretching between them. 

 "You have me," he hears Draco whisper against his cheek, the words raw, scraped out of the deepest part of him. "That's all that matters."

 His fingers linger against his skin, trembling ever so slightly. He presses one last kiss —softer, lingering, sealing— to the corner of Draco's mouth, his voice nothing more than a vow breathed into the dark when he answers:

 "Always."

Chapter Text

Hermione

While Harry and Kingsley are loud and visible, chasing rumours across continents in ports that reek of salt and smoke, in half-empty pubs that buzz with whispers of a blond wizard with grey eyes, Hermione slips back into her Ministry office and surrounds herself with parchments and ink. Returning to work as normal is easy —she is all efficiency: quills scratching across reports, her voice clipped as she delivers recommendations for new legislation, her smile politely weary when colleagues comment on how good it is to have her back.

It's all a mask, though.

In truth, she has rerouted her life around her new research —Malfoy's file still lingers in her memory. She keeps thinking back to everything she thought she knew about the man —their years at school together, his alleged hatred of Muggle-born wizards and witches, his part in the war, his trial... nothing about him seems to make sense anymore, and it leaves her with an acrid taste in her mouth. If Malfoy has been the sole responsible for the destruction of Azkaban, that means —as per his file— that his power, his magic, has become unstable, volatile, and unlike what he used to possess. It is unsettling to say the least. There has never been any mention of a wizard's magic changing in nature or mightiness, but she supposes, as with most things, there is always room for evolution and new discoveries. She suspects Malfoy to be one.

Hence, she doesn't really care to catch Malfoy, but she does want to understand him.

But then, there is also the matter of Tom Riddle. It was Harry who had said Malfoy came to him asking questions about Riddle, as if he knew him now. And the night they raided their little cottage —such a peaceful place to settle down, she had thought then—they have been two people inside the house. Malfoy and a man with dark brown curls, abalone skin and enough power to scare her to her core. His presence brings other questions: how could someone who has died not just once, but twice, still walk again? She knows with a certainty that Harry, Ron and she have destroyed all the Horcruxes, and she doesn't believe that Voldemort would have had enough soul left to create another one before his demise. She wonders what spell or ritual he must have done to himself in order to survive yet again, even if it's in another form.

The thought gnaws at her with every waking hour, and sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night with ink smudged across her cheek, her dreams tangled with fractured voices and half-written theories. She cannot let go until she has answers, because if the world truly believes Voldemort is gone while his shadow walks free, then they are all living in blissful ignorance. However, ignorance has never sat well with her.

So, she buries herself in the archives. Nights find her deep in the stacks of the Department of Mysteries —no one knows she's here, so she supposes she can ignore the fact that she is doing something highly illegal— fingertips stained with dust from books not touched in decades. She traces lines of script about soul-fractures, binding rituals, echoes of selves torn loose by curses. She pores over banned case studies of experimental magic that tried to split power from body, life from death. Her eyes burn from sleeplessness, but she presses on, cataloguing, cross-referencing.

She works endlessly and quietly, and no one notices the subtle alterations in her schedule, the extra parchments she borrows and never returns. She lets Harry believe she has returned to normalcy. She lets Kingsley think she has stepped back. In truth, she knows she's even more relentless.

One evening, as she has infiltrated the Department of Mysteries one more time, using all her knowledge in magic to achieve such a feat, she stumbles across a note that chills her. It's a footnote in a confiscated journal, referencing resonant echoes of personality that can survive the death of the primary host. She shuts the book too quickly, pulse hammering, because she thinks she already knows whose echo she is chasing.

However, as she reads more about the Malfoys, their lives, their rituals and so on, she comes across a journal that kept track of Draco Malfoy's younger years, which includes, in the mid of it all, half-buried in a report of seized properties: Norxward Manor (abandoned), ownership dissolved, last wards collapsed in 1992.

Norxward... she knows the name from somewhere. She had read about it a long time ago.

The Nott family has lands in Norxward. The name scratches at her memory; she thinks of the only Nott boy she knows —Theodore Nott, a quiet Slytherin, sharp-eyed, always in the background. Malfoy's friend and Zabini's shadow.

She exhales slowly, heart racing. If Malfoy had wanted to disappear, he would have chosen somewhere familiar, somewhere the Ministry wouldn't know about if they didn't put their noses inside the DoM's files.

She closes the file with steady hands, though her mind is already far away, moving across maps and memories, tracing the path toward a place that might still be hidden. Harry and Kignsley may be chasing ghosts across oceans, but she knows she is closer to finding the truth. Much closer. 

 At last, she gathers the courage to visit the ruins of Malfoy Manor, in the hope of finding more information about their youngest heir. The place is desolate now, its once-grand walls blackened and half-collapsed, its wards stripped by Ministry decree. Still, as she walks through its silence, she feels something. It's faint at first, so faint she almost doubts herself. It's more of a vibration under her skin. A pulse. Tangled, distorted and sharp. The air shivers as though the house remembers the magic that once filled it, and for an instant, she can almost taste the Malfoys' power. She leaves with her heart pounding, ink-stained fingers scribbling as she tries to capture what she felt.

That night, she doesn't sleep, and by dawn, her decision is made.

If Malfoy had truly vanished, if he had chosen to hide in a place no one would think to look, then Norxward Manor fits too perfectly to be a coincidence. A half-forgotten estate, dissolved from the records decades ago, connected to the Notts... she can't ignore it in good conscience.

When the first grey light of morning seeps through the curtains of her flat, Hermione is already dressed. She pulls her cloak tighter, tucks her wand into her sleeve, and shrinks her satchel of notes to fit into her pocket. With no word to anyone, she leaves her flat in the pre-dawn hush of her town, the streets still damp with last night's rain.

Draco

 Days pass in a blur of warmth he has not thought himself capable of. The manor still bears its scars, but the rooms echo differently now. He realises that it's the sweet, heavy sound of them that echoes the most nowadays —the soft shuffle of steps in corridors, the brush of hands when they cross paths in doorways, the quiet, stolen kisses that leave him faint and trembling. He finds himself expecting it now, that subtle tug toward Tom like a current pulling him under, and each night it is not a question whether they will find each other but when.

He can still recall perfectly the first rush, the urgency of want that left his lips bruised and his breath ragged. Yet, tenderness had followed swiftly, wrapping itself around them as surely as Tom's arms had wrapped around him. It unsettles him, the way they can coexist —hunger and gentleness, ruin and reverence.

He cannot stop watching Tom now. It's the way he looks with his head bent over parchment in the library, curls falling into his eyes, fingers ink-stained yet elegant. It's the way he looks when they walk out by the small lake at dusk, his back stretched across the grass, sunlight catching in his skin, his sharp profile softened into something almost young. It's the way he looks when he slips into Draco's room at night, bare feet soundless against stone, eyes burning in the dim candlelight as though he has been starving all day and only now remembers how to eat. And then there are the moments no words can reach —the taste of his mouth, warm and insistent, the slide of his skin against his, he kisses the hollow of his throat. Every time feels like discovery, every sigh like a secret pressed into his hands. That night, when Tom pushes the door shut behind him, Draco doesn't bother asking if he'll stay. He simply steps into him, arms sliding around shoulders that feel far stronger than they look, mouth finding his before thought has time to intervene. Tom kisses him as if he means to brand something onto his very soul, and he lets himself be scorched.

The world narrows to warmth and touch, to lips parting and hands learning, to the sheets beneath them as they tumble back together. There's no violence in it, only heat that grows and grows until Draco thinks he might unravel from the sheer intensity of it. Tom whispers his name against his skin —it sounds like a prayer and a curse both. He swallows it with great pleasure. His own hands tremble as they map the expanse of Tom's back, every muscle, every scar, every place where the world has once broken him. It feels like gathering fragments, as if by holding him tighter, he might keep Tom from ever vanishing.

When they finally come together, it is a rhythm that binds instead of breaks. He feels it in the arch of Tom's spine, in the way his breath shudders out against his ear, in the way his eyes burn when they meet his in the dim light. They move not as conquerors or rivals, not as enemies or ghosts of war, but as men who have found each other in spite of everything.

After, when silence folds back around them, Tom does not retreat. He lies against him, arm thrown loosely across his chest, breath evening into the kind of peace he has never seen on him. Candlelight flickers across the planes of his face, and Draco thinks —if paradise exists, it must look like this. The weight of him, the warmth, the unbearable truth that he has fallen in love with a soul before he could even understand how dangerous that would be.

Yet, as he presses his lips one last time to Tom's temple, Draco knows he would choose this danger every single time. 

Chapter Text

Tom

 It unsettles him how easily tenderness has crept into his days. From the fragments of his mind, he has known hunger, obsession, victory and ruin, yet he had, until now, never experienced this. Not the weight of a hand slipping into his in passing, not the quiet certainty of lips brushed against his at the turn of a corridor. It isn't a conquest, nor the thrill of domination, but it's something so much steadier, slower, something that lodges beneath his ribs and will not let go.

Nowadays, he loves watching Draco. It's a constant in his day-to-day life, and he no longer tries to hide it. He loves the curve of the man's shoulders when he shrugs off his cloak, the precise line of his mouth when he frowns at a stubborn charm, the way his hair catches the light, pale as moonlit silk. He thinks of marble statues he once studied in books, perfect and untouchable —except Draco is no statue, and he seems to be made of light and flesh rather than stone. He is warmth, breath, laughter that slips out when he is caught off guard, and he cannot stop wanting him more and more.

He paints him more as well, to remember all of him. His sketchbook is already heavy with portraits of his face from every angle, the slope of his throat, the arch of his hand in sleep, the line of his spine when he stretches after long work. He draws not just what he sees, but what he feels —because it's easier than wording them. It's the devotion that scares him more than lust ever did, the need to keep. But lust is there, always, driving his hand to trace Draco's body again and again until the page smudges dark beneath his fingers.

Where once his art was all sharp edges and shadows, now light bleeds into the margins. Every stroke seems to soften him, every drawing is a vow he does not speak aloud.

Draco wants him —he knows it now. The kiss, the touch, the nights tangled together, proof pressed against his skin. The certainty of it changes something fundamental: the restless clawing in his chest has quieted. He no longer needs to fight against Theodore's place in Draco's life, since the latter has chosen him. Thus, when Theodore sits by the lake one afternoon, book balanced lazily on his knees, he does not bristle. Draco is napping nearby, stretched out on the grass, and for once, he does not mind another's presence. He lowers himself onto the grass, sketchbook in his lap, and lets Theodore speak.

Their conversations begin awkward, edged with caution, but Theodore has a curious mind, sharp as a blade, and soon they are trading fragments of theory —ritual working he half-remembers from forbidden texts, old family magic Theodore knows through lineage. They argue over details, diagrams sketched in the dirt while the water laps gently against the shore. Sometimes Nott's remarks even drag a reluctant smirk from him, and once, when Draco stirs in his sleep and rolls closer, Tom sees the flicker of surprise in the other's eyes. Surprise and recognition.

Tom knows he must make an effort to befriend Theodore because every time he does, it makes Draco smile. Still, they still do not share what someone would call friendship, but it is still a beginning.

That night, when he returns to the quiet of his room, he spreads the day's sketches across his desk. There's Draco's profile in the sunlight, Theodore's sharp features etched in concentration, the curve of the lake's edge where their shadows stretched long across the grass. His pencil hovers, and then he adds one last detail: Draco's hand, reaching toward him, as though even in sleep he is pulled closer. For a long moment, he just looks at it and feels something raw, terrifying, and precious settle deep inside. He has never believed that he could reach the concept of happiness, but perhaps —perhaps this is the closest he will ever come to it.

Draco

 The air bites sharply against his skin, damp with mist rising from the lake. It's early, earlier than anyone ought to be awake, but sleep has refused him again, even with Tom's arm heavy around his waist, even with the heat of his body pressed close. The night had been restless —shadows chasing him back into memories he thought he'd buried. Some nights, not even Tom could keep the ghosts away.

So he had slipped out of bed, careful not to wake him, pulling on his cloak before the house could stir. Out here, with the morning air filling his lungs, the silence is almost clean. He watches the water ripple, thinks of how different his life has become. It used to be the heir of the Malfoys. He almost laughs at the thought now —he remembers what it was like to be raised in marble halls under cold gazes, weighed down by expectations sharpened into chains. His father's voice still echoes sometimes, brittle commands he obeyed too long. His mother's quiet sorrow, heavy as the drapes that now lined their manor. Everything in his life had been performance and wearing careful masks of disdain, the role of dutiful son, heir, and even Deatheather. Even now, the taste of it lingers, acrid as ash.

He presses his fists into the grass, trying not to think. He doesn't know if he'll ever be free of the nightmares, doesn't know if he'll ever be able to let them go.

A ripple shudders through the wards, making his head snap up. It's faint, but he knows the weave of these spells as well as his own heartbeat —he and Theo had spent days reforging them, stringing layer upon layer across the land until they held strong as new. Something —or more probably someone— is unravelling them now. His wand is in his hand before he breathes again, and he rises to his feet just as the air flares and the wards buckle. There, out of the shimmer, steps the one person he has expected the least.

Hermione Granger.

Her hair is tied back, eyes alight, wand raised as the last threads of the protective spell dissolve, and she is smiling —something triumphant and smug. The sight of it makes fury burn through his chest, and his mouth opens before he can think of anything:

"Are you mad?" He shouts. "Do you have any idea how long it took us to rebuild those wards properly? Days, Granger —days! And you waltz in here, burning through them like it's nothing? You shouldn't even be standing here!"

She blinks, clearly startled at his ferocity, but he barrels on, voice rising with each word.

"If you've come to drag me off to whatever pitiful excuse for a prison the Ministry has scraped together, you'd better be prepared to fight for it —because I am not going with you. Not ever!" His hand tightens on his wand, knuckles white. "I won't be shackled again."

Then, once he's done talking, he takes a deep breath, briefly closing his eyes, only to open them again to Hermione's faintest smirk. It curls at her mouth, partly mocking, partly amused, and it manages to throw him off. There's no threat in her stance, he realises, no righteous fury. She actually seems really surprised by his explosion.

However, her smirk turns into a full smile that she has never, in his entire existence and since he knows her, addressed to him.

"I finally found you," she says. Then, with that same disarming certainty: "and no, Malfoy, I'm not here to throw you in a cell. I'm not here on Ministry business at all."

His breath stutters, suspicion flickering at the same time as his confusion. But Granger steps closer, unstoppable, as she lowers her wand.

"However, now that I think about it..." she starts, her gaze unwavering. "I think I'll only keep this place hidden from Harry, Kingsley and the rest of the Ministry on one condition."

His throat is dry now. "And that is?"

Her eyes gleam with the same feverish hunger he's seen in himself, the same restless need to know. "That you let me study your magic. Your core. Something has changed in you, and I need to understand what exactly. I don't care much about arresting, but I do want to know what happened to you."

He stares at her. For a moment, he simply doesn't know what to say. His wand is still raised, aiming at her face, and mist curls around them. He can only gape, caught between shock and indignation.

"Are you truly out of your mind, Granger? Have you fallen on your head?" His voice cuts through the still air, incredulous. "You break my wards, you stand here grinning like a lunatic, and then you tell me you want to study my magic?"

Granger doesn't so much as flinch. Instead, she clasps her hands in front of her, steady as stone, though her eyes gleam with restless intent. "Yes. Exactly that."

He lets out a disbelieving laugh, sharp and bitter. "Merlin, you're worse than I remember."

She obviously ignores the jab, stepping closer and her voice tightening with sudden focus. "I want to know what's happened to you, Malfoy. Whether this is magic that was hidden away —by spell, by trauma, by yourself— or whether it's a true evolution of your core. If it's the latter, then it's unprecedented. It would change what we know about magic itself, and that is reason enough for me."

He narrows his eyes, lowering his wand only slightly. "And what? You expect me to just hand myself over like some... some experiment?"

The words are a little distasteful on his tongue, and he can't help the slight frown that curls his lips.

"What I expect from you is to understand that I have no care in your punishment. That concerns the Ministry, and I am not them," she replies, quick as a whip. "What I care about —as I was saying— is to understand. That's all."

He studies her, suspicion curling in his gut. "Do you truly expect me to believe you? Just like that?" He shakes his head, not knowing if he feels amused by her behaviour or annoyed. "I have people who count on me. I'm not letting you come any closer."

At his words, there's the faintest pause. Then, Granger exhales slowly through her nose.

"Ah. Yes. Riddle, isn't it? Voldemort—"

"He's not him."

The words are out of his mouth before he can think properly, a wave of brusque anger flowing over him in a matter of seconds.

"Alright..." she nods slowly. "Perhaps he's not anymore. In any case, I would be interested in knowing who he is now and how he managed to be there at all. I've already found references to rituals, to echoes that can survive death, but I'd like to see one breathing, walking, thinking for myself. If he's willing to let me study him, that's it. And if he isn't—" she lifts her chin— "then so long as he doesn't try to kill me, I won't care. I'll keep his secret, too."

At that, Draco's mouth goes dry.

The audacity of her. The sheer, impossible arrogance.

Yet, beneath it, he knows there's only one thing on her mind: the dangerous kind of curiosity that had always made Granger terrifying.

"There's also Theo," he declares, as if it would change anything, but there's no surprise in her clever eyes, only recognition.

"I suspected as much," she admits. "Theodore Nott, alive..." she shrugs then —maddeningly. "He's of no concern to me. So long as he doesn't try to kill me either, I won't care much about him."

He can only stare at her, breath slightly ragged and pulse hammering. He can't decide if she's insane, brilliant, or the most dangerous person he's ever met. He runs a hand over his face, fingers dragging down the sharp line of his jaw. He feels the familiar press of a headache brewing behind his eyes.

"You're unbelievable," he mutters at last, lowering his wand fully, though his grip on it stays tight, if only to calm himself. "Absolutely bloody unbelievable."

She only arches a brow, unruffled in the slightest. "Is that a yes?"

"It's a 'you don't leave me much of a choice'," he snaps as his gaze narrows. "But before you so much as set foot past the threshold, I'll know for certain you're not dragging a trail of Aurors behind you."

She only sighs at his words, like she had expected as much from him. "Check me, then."

His lips press into a thin line, deeply annoyed at her, but he wastes no time. A flurry of detection charms springs from his wand, golden light sweeping over her like a net. He circles her slowly, precisely, searching for even the faintest flicker of enchantment. After a few minutes, he finds no trace of a tracking spell, no charm humming under her skin. So, he lets his magic die slowly, and when the last thread of light dissipates, he exhales slowly.

"Fine." His voice comes out grudgingly. "You're good."

The cold morning air curls between them then, as he watches her smile. He groans, annoyed.

"Understand this, Granger," he says, stepping closer so she cannot mistake his tone. "You are here by my tolerance. You'll follow my rules. You won't go digging through this manor without permission, you won't lay a hand on either of them without their consent, and if you try so much as a whisper of betrayal..." his wand lifts, barely, almost lazily, and he lets his wild magic flow to his fingers, feels the air change around them. The threat is unmistakable. "You won't get the chance to regret it."

He watches her swallow, enjoying the fear he sees in her clear eyes.

"Agreed," she nods, determination enlightening her gaze.

He stares at her for a moment, still barely believing the audacity of her, the nerve, the sheer steadiness of her now. Then, he jerks his head toward the looming shadow of the manor.

"Come on, then. You wanted to see the place. Let's see how you fare with the others."

He turns, leading her up the slope, the grass wet with dew. Behind them, the sun creeps pale over the lake, casting the ruins of his wards into ash and shimmer. 

Chapter Text

Tom

The bed is cold when he wakes. Tom notices Draco's absence immediately, the empty space beside him a hollow reminder of where his lover should be. His hand brushes the sheets, and something sharp coils in his chest. He's gotten used to the quiet luxury of waking with Draco pressed against him —the warmth, the steady breath, the rare softness he allows himself, the silver of his eyes brighter in the early morning lights. To wake alone feels wrong now. 

 He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, conjures a robe over his shoulders, and moves through the still-slumbering manor. The corridors echo with silence, pale morning light filtering through fractured windows. It doesn't take him long to spot movement through the cracked panes of the sitting room: outside, near the lake, Draco is not alone. There's a woman with him —her hair, despite being attached, is wild, a dark halo in the mist, and she's smiling with a kind of quiet triumph as she speaks. Her face sparks something half-remembered —a shadow he remembers seeing long ago, perhaps at Hogwarts during the war, perhaps before— but he can't place it immediately. She's familiar, yet she's not. 

 But Draco looks furious, and that's enough for Tom to decide that he hates that girl, whoever she might be. He also notices that his lover has yet to hex the stranger, and the fact alone is strange enough to make his pulse quicken, because it means that Draco knows her. 

Moments later, before he can go out, the door opens, and Draco steps in, the woman at his side. His expression is still thunderous, jaw tight, but there's also resignation in the way he pushes the door shut with a heavy hand. Tom stands waiting in the middle of the room, arms folded, gaze sharp as he observes them. He doesn't know how to properly react, doesn't understand if he must protect Draco or if he must wait. He meets his lover's silver gaze with expectations. 

 "This," Draco announces, voice clipped as he gestures to the woman behind him, "is Hermione Granger."

 The name jolts some of his fragmented memories, but it's still a struggle to correctly remember to whom she corresponds. He doesn't recall them like he should. There are some pictures running through his mind —a girl with wild hair and burning eyes with two boys, one is a red-headed, the other is Harry Potter, the boy he swore to destroy. He remembers the weight of his own loathing then, the sharp, poisonous hunger to destroy, to dominate, to grind them down until there is nothing left but obedience. Still, the memories feel wrong, distant now. It's as if those feelings had belonged to someone else. The hatred still burns like an echo, but not in his veins —it's more like an old scar he runs a finger over and finds the skin no longer stings. He can recall the obsession, the fury, the endless need to be above them all, no matter the cost, even if the cost was himself, but he's not the one who bore it anymore. 

 Ah... she must be the clever witch. Potter's shadow, who, without her, would've died countless times. She's the one who made his downfall possible time and time again.

 Before he can say anything —like asking why Potter's closest friend is doing in their house, because if he remembers correctly, the last time they saw Potter, he tried to invade their home, so they're not friends or even friendly— footsteps echo from the corridor, and Theodore enters, hair rumpled, eyes still heavy with sleep. He takes one look at the scene —at Draco, at Tom, at Granger— and freezes, eyes now wide. His expression flickers from disbelief to shock, then outrage. 

 "Granger?" His voice cracks like a whip through the room. "What in Merlin's name is she doing here?"

 Draco doesn't flinch at Theodore's tone —if anything, he looks resigned, as if he's been preparing himself for this storm. "She's here because she found us," he says flatly, eyes darting from Tom to Theodore. "She claims she doesn't care about the Ministry's hunt. What she wants is to study Tom and I's magical core."

 He thinks he hasn't heard right, but then, he watches Granger lift her chin, unapologetic, as if daring anyone to challenge her. Theodore, before he can say anything, does.

 "Study?" He repeats, spitting the word like venom. "What kind of madness is that? What wizard goes poking around another wizard's magic like a specimen? That's—" he breaks off, sneering, "—that's the sort of thing only a Muggle-born would think reasonable. No pureblood in his right mind would waste time on something so bizarre. We live in magic. We won't disassemble it like cogs in one of those Muggles' machines."

 Granger's eyes flash something dangerous, but Draco lifts a hand —not to stop her, but to cut Theodore's anger short. "It doesn't concern you, she said," he declares tightly. "It's about Tom and me only. We'll deal with it ourselves." He pauses briefly, glancing at Tom. "She seems to believe that what happened to me might mean that my magic has evolved. If she can verify her idea, perhaps it will make us more powerful. Let's not be too quick to dismiss her."

 Tom listens to his lover, but his words land like shards under his skin. His throat constricts, and his hands curl at his sides. Draco has agreed with the woman. He has agreed to this nonsense. Draco —his Draco, whose touch is the only thing that makes the chaos in his head recede— has allowed her, of all people, to dissect them with her clever brain and her parchment. A low pulse of fury thuds through him, and he feels it blood cold and tight in his chest, sour and ugly. It makes his breath catch. For a moment, he doesn't feel like a man at all, only like a creature to study, like the less human version of himself. 

 "So," he finally says quietly, though the quiet makes it worse. It makes it cut. "You would rather let her prod at me —at you— like some beast in a cage than to refuse? Then to leave it be? Why do you have to know? To be more powerful? Aren't you powerful enough? Aren't I mighty enough for you?"

 Draco's head snaps toward him, eyes widening. "Tom, that's not what I—"

 But he doesn't wait to hear the rest. His fury has already taken him by the throat, propelling him toward the door and making the air shift around him, his magic curling furiously as if in answer to his rage. The corridors blur as he walks, faster, faster, until the air itself feels too tight. He finds himself in one of the manor's abandoned rooms —walls bare, dust clinging to fractured wallpaper. He presses his back to the door once it slams shut and breathes raggedly.

 It's too loud in his head. Always too loud when he lets the wrong feelings linger. 

 Fool, the familiar voice snarls, low and poisonous, curling around his thoughts. Weak, pathetic fool. You let them touch you, you let them soften you. And now look —a mudblood with her clever little questions, poking at the carcass of your greatness. You should crush her. You should crush them all.

 He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his fists against them as hard as he can manage, nails digging crescents into his palms. 

 "I am not you," he whispers in the empty, the words coming out raw.

 The voice laughs —a rasp, familiar and hated. You are nothing without me. You are but my shadow. You'll crawl back, and when you do, you'll thank me for cutting out all this softness. You'll beg me to make you strong again. 

 The worst part is the flicker of truth in it. He can feel how fragile he is, how easily the walls inside him could collapse. Most days, he keeps the voice buried, drowned under Draco's touch, under the quiet steadiness of silver eyes and a hand laced with his. Sometimes, even Theodore's sharp wit can silence the chaos, the ritual of words and runes grounding him. 

 However, now, the voice is louder than ever. 

 Still, through the noise, he clings to the scraps of feeling that keep him tethered. The warmth of Draco's body pressed against his. The sound of Theodore's laughter when a ritual misfires. The strange calm of simply being alive, breathing air that doesn't reek of blood or fear.

 He clings to them because, for once in his life —this new life, but the others as well— he likes what it is to feel. He likes wanting, touching, being wanted back. He likes the way Draco looks at him as if he's something worth keeping. He likes the way Theodore can talk about the most complicated subject with him, and the way that makes him smile.

 The voice roars against it, but he whispers into the silence anyway: "I won't give that up. Never."

 The room seems to shrink around him, now. His palms are clammy, his chest a cage too tight for breath. He paces, back and forth, bare feet stirring dust into the air. His thoughts snarl and snap like dogs pulling at the same bone. 

 You were never a man to begin with. You were but hunger, will, ambition given human shape. Everything else about you is a lie. Is weakness.

 He presses his palms to his eyes a bit harder, nails now dragging along his scalp. The voice is his and not his —the remnants of Voldemort carved into him like a scar, a rage that will not die, no matter how much softer he becomes. The edges blur; sometimes he feels like the intruder in his own head, like the one who cares for Draco, who laughs at Theodore's dry remarks, who feels paint staining his fingers— isn't the real him at all. 

 He doesn't hear the door open, but he feels his lover's presence fill the room. The aura is calm, cutting through the wild storm in his head.

 "Tom."

 His voice is low and careful, as if scared to hurt. Tom doesn't turn to it right away —his throat is too tight to speak. Then, there's a pause before the footsteps cross the floor. Draco stops just behind him, close enough that he feels the warmth radiate through his back. "I should have chosen my words better," Draco says quietly. "I didn't mean for you to think she sees you as anything less than a human." There's a pause. "I don't see you as anything less than that."

 The words slice through the haze, a sharpness Tom didn't know he needed. He whirls around slowly, eyes burning, mouth dry. For a moment, he wants to say he doesn't believe him, that Draco will never understand the brokenness clawing at his skull, but then he sees it —Draco's eyes, open and unguarded, mouth tight with sincerity, a tremor in his fingers as if he's afraid he won't listen. It breaks something in him.

 He surges forward, mouth colliding with Draco's, a kiss slow and desperate. Draco gasps softly against him and presses him closer, arms sliding around Tom's back, anchoring him. He clutches at him like he's the last thing keeping him from splintering, his magic sparking hot and wild against their skin. Draco doesn't flinch; instead, he holds him even tighter, grounding him with a gentleness he doesn't know how to deserve. 

 When their mouths part, Draco rests his forehead against his, breath warm and steady. "You're not anything less," he murmurs. "You're not who you used to be. You're you. You're mine."

 The words settle in his chest like stones dropped in a stormy sea, pulling him back down to something solid. He swallows hard, clinging to his lover's arms. 

 "Then why let her—" his voice breaks painfully. "—why allow her to pick me apart?"

 Draco exhales, thumb brushing his jaw. "Because maybe she can truly help. Maybe she can explain what was done to you, what you did to yourself when you clawed your way back from death. If we understand it, then perhaps you'll finally understand your own mind. Your magic, and even the echoes you still fight." His gaze flickers, soft but insistent. "Wouldn't you want to know why you are like this?"

 Tom closes his eyes. Truth be told, the thought terrifies him. Because what if the answer is that he's doomed to be nothing more than Voldemort's shadow? What if he's doomed to insanity like his past self? And yet, the promise of clarity is tempting, like a door half-opened after years of wandering blind. 

 Draco's hands hold his face steady, tilting it up, forcing him to meet those silver eyes again. "You're not less than human, dear. But if there's a chance she can show you how to silence the ghosts, wouldn't it be worth it?"

 He breathes out, shaky, leaning into the touch, craving for more. The voice inside snarls its disdain, but he manages to drown it beneath the steadiness of Draco's hold, the warmth of his lips back on his, the whisper of sweet words —"My Tom... Mine, only mine."

 He doesn't answer yet, but he doesn't pull away either. 

Draco

 He holds Tom closer, tighter than he thought possible, as though if he loosens his grip, he will splinter apart in his arms. He can feel the tremors running through Tom, the ragged edges of his breath, the way his magic crackles uncontrolled, sharp against his skin. It doesn't frighten him, but what does is the pain he sees buried in Tom's eyes, the pain he barely lets slip but that Draco catches in every glance now, every silence, every night when he wakes sweating and rigid. It claws at him, that pain. Because for all his cleverness, for all the books and spells he's memorised, he doesn't know how to help Tom. He doesn't know how to help him carry the weight of ghosts stitched into his mind. He can soothe him, yes —a kiss, an embrace, whispered words in the dark— but none of it takes the shadows away. None of it makes Tom believe he isn't doomed to Voldemort's remnant. 

 He presses his lips softly to Tom's temple, lingers there, lets his breath warm his skin. "I wish I knew how to mend this for you," he whispers, the confession raw. "I wish I had the answer."

 He shuts his eyes against the swell of helplessness. He's never cared like this before —never wanted so badly to protect someone not only from the world, but from themselves. And it terrifies him, because he knows he can't shield Tom from his mind, from the fragments of a man he once was. 

 Perhaps Granger can. 

 But that's the problem, isn't it? Granger can, and he can't. He almost laughs at the irony. Not much has changed since Hogwarts, then. The lead in his stomach tells him that, a bit like Tom, this frustrates him. They shouldn't have to ask for her help among all people. Yet, he knows she might understand the language Tom's wounds are written in better than he. She might know how to trace the scars in his magic back to their origin. She might even be able to read his own magic better than he, to understand it better than him. It wouldn't surprise him that much. 

 However, that means he must work with her —if he must tolerate her cleverness, her maddening persistence— then so be it. He will, if only because there's even the faintest chance it could ease Tom's torment, he would burn down every wall he's built just to see him smile without the shadows behind his eyes. 

 He tilts Tom's chin, unable to stop himself from drinking him in. He has memorised every line of his by now —and still, every time feels like the first. The high, elegant cut of his cheekbones, the curve of his mouth that always seems carved for sharpness, yet softens only when he looks at him. The sweep of his dark lashes, too long for someone who believes himself unworthy of beauty. There's something arresting about the contrast in him —the pallor of his skin against the storm-dark of his hair, the fragility of his mouth set against the unyielding steel in his eyes. Those eyes —Merlin, those eyes. Black, but never simply black. They hold whole tempests, entire ruins, as if he's lived centuries rather than years. Sometimes they are cold stone; sometimes they flare with fire so raw it steals his breath. He thinks Tom doesn't realise just how beautiful he is, not in the way he sees it. Not just the sharp, impossible symmetry of his features, but the way his expression softens when he sleeps, or the rare crookedness of his smile when Theo says something amusing, or the fierce focus he has when he paints, brow furrowed, brush hovering. 

 His thumb lingers against his lips, and he feels a pang so deep it almost hurts. Because it's not only desire anymore —though that is there, constantly, burning in his blood. It's something gentler, more unbearable: the ache of caring. The ache of love. The kind that makes every inch of Tom precious to him —from the slope of his shoulders to the lines of tension he longs to smooth away, to the warmth of his hands when they cling like Draco is the only anchor he has left in this world. 

 All to his feelings, he leans in, pressing the lightest kiss at the corner of Tom's mouth, reverent, allowing himself a moment longer to observe the darkness in his eyes swirl before they have to return to reality and the world outside. 

Chapter Text

Theodore

He has had to sit down. The sight of her — bloody Granger— knocks something loose in him, though he doesn't let it show, even if it feels wrong to have her here, in their sanctuary, like Hogwarts ghosts wandering into his present life. He never thought he'd see her again, never wanted to. Yet, she stands in front of him, and he can't decide if it irritates or unsettles him.

Back in Hogwarts, Draco would have the craziest ideas some days, and he feels oddly like he has jumped back in time right now. He leans back in his chair, watching her like he might a chess opponent he doesn't yet understand. Hermione Granger —the clever little Gryffindor who somehow pulled miracles out of thin air for Potter and Weasley, like a walking encyclopaedia with too much hair. She looks different now —older, sharper, as if she's been tempered in a forge, more solid than most of the war's survivors.

"So," he drawls it, lazy as a smile, even if his chest feels tight. "You want to study Draco's magic." A pause, as if weighing the absurdity of it in his mouth. "Tell me, Granger, is this a hobby of yours? Poking at other people's cores like you're dissecting frogs? Or are you simply manipulating Draco because you know the fastest way to get him to bend is to bring Riddle into the conversation?"

He watches her bristle, then steady, almost just as quickly. She doesn't snap the way he would've expected —she just looks at him, patient in a way that irritates him more.

"You can sneer all you like, Nott," she says evenly, still standing. "But I'm not here to play games. You don't have to understand my interest, but it is a fact that Malfoy's magical core has changed. I'm sure you've felt it as well. And another fact is that magical core doesn't change like that. It simply doesn't happen. We —wizards and witches— are born with a magical core that we can train and develop, but it never changes. Never evolves. So yes, Malfoy is one of a kind, and I'd like to study him. I also have an interest in Riddle, because I think his existence can only be the result of a complex ritual that I'd like to understand. It's dangerous and extraordinary at the same time, and I intend to understand it. No manipulation."

He hums lowly, thinking. Dangerous and extraordinary... that's one way of putting it. He wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but instead, he nods slowly. Granger seems to think that it is a sort of compliment, and that alone tells him how very different her mind runs from theirs.

"Prove it," he says abruptly. "I suppose you have notes of your research. Show them to me."

She hesitates —brows drawing together in faint offence— but reaches into her satchel and produces a thick folder, its edges dog-eared, pages crammed with diagrams, runes, annotations in her neat handwriting. He flicks through them, expression carefully schooled to disinterest even as his mind races. The runes she traced are old, some he's only glimpsed in the darker shelves of his father's library. She's charted fluctuations, mapped them against obscure case studies he recognises only because he's seen them in restricted texts. She's done the kind of work that makes his teeth ache with the truth of it. It's impressive, and he hates it —hates more that part of him wants to ask questions. He will never admit it aloud, still too weirded out by the prospect of her studying her friend and his lover. He sets the file down carefully.

"So you're serious."

"I wouldn't be here otherwise," she simply answers.

His lips twitch, humourless. "Forgive me for thinking breaking into a fortified manor and demanding to prod at someone's soul might be the work of a lunatic."

Her brow arches. "Perhaps, but it's work worth doing."

That answer leaves his mouth dry. He takes the time to study her —he tries to understand just how different they are, trying to figure out what her Muggle-born brain is thinking and why it feels so different from the way he thinks.

"What are your conditions? Be honest. Spare me the idealistic Gryffindor speeches."

She surprises him again by not flinching. "Consent. From all of you. I won't take a single note without your permission. And secrecy as well, I suppose. What I find stays between us unless you decide otherwise. I'm not the Ministry, and I have no interest in having power over you. All I want is knowledge. That's all."

He leans back once more, fingers tapping against the armrest. She still sounds mad to him, but the conviction in her tone that, at least, doesn't ring false. He can tell the difference; he's been lied to by experts his whole life.

"Strange," he murmurs, almost to himself. "No Pureblood I know would ever dream of tearing open magic just to see how it ticks. We accept it. We inherit it, but you—" his gaze narrows, curious despite himself —he realises that he wants to know, to understand the way she thinks, wants to understand the differences between them. "—you treat it like a puzzle to solve."

Her mouth softens, just faintly. "Maybe that's it. You inherit it and with it, all the knowledge and the power. But when I was born with magic, I had to fight every step of the way to learn about it, to understand it."

And, at that, he doesn't have a ready retort. Not because he believes she's necessarily right —Merlin forbid— but because something in her words lodges sharp beneath his ribs. He never had to fight magic, perhaps that's true; he was born drowning in it, crunched under it, forced to survive it beneath his father's hand. It wasn't something he had to earn; it was something he endured. And he isn't sure it's any better, but he realises something: maybe it explains why her hunger for knowledge unsettles him, because it's so foreign, and some buried, reluctant part of him recognises it. 

Hermione

 She can still feel the weight of Theodore Nott's gaze on her even after their argument had lapsed into silence. He's different from how she remembers, but then, weren't they all? At Hogwarts, he had been the shadow behind Malfoy, clever and cold-eyed, a boy who spoke rarely but always seemed to know more than he should. Detached, even then, like he was already rehearsing for his exile. Now, though —now there is an edge to him she hasn't seen before. He's still tall, lean, sharper around the angles, the kind of elegance that Pureblood families seem to breed like hothouse flowers. His mouth tilts in dry amusement, his blue eyes cutting and restless, as if constantly measuring her for weaknesses. If Malfoy's beauty is all polish and iced fire, Theodore's is more understated —bone-deep, serious, like a line of poetry scrawled in the margins of a book.

She hates that she notices it at all.

"Well," he says, pushing to his feet. "Since Draco hasn't hexed you into next week, I suppose you're meant to be tolerated."

His tone is as dry as before, but she thinks she sees the flicker of reluctant acknowledgement there now. She doesn't believe to has left him a choice anyway.

"Come on. I'll show you around," he adds, glancing at her.

The tour is perfunctory. He doesn't waste any time explaining each room profusely. The library, all in shadows, books and deep colours. Then the kitchen, practical and almost too tidy. The bathrooms, gleaming faintly in their cleanness. He speaks little as they walk, and she finds herself noting the efficiency of it —how this sanctuary, this hideout of theirs, has been made into something functional, even lived-in.

Then, he stops at a bare, echoing chamber. "This one's empty," he declares flatly. "You can have it. If you want to stay, clean it yourself."

Her eyes flick back toward the corridor they've just passed, where she'd glimpsed neatly kept bedrooms, sheets smooth, curtains freshened. Heat rose to her cheeks.

"You're doing this to spite me."

His mouth only twitches in what might have been an amused smirk. "Of course."

She draws in a breath, steadying herself instead of giving in to anger. "I won't be staying here. If I disappear from my flat overnight, Harry will notice. The Ministry as well, I think. I'll come in the evenings, after work."

She watches him shrug, seemingly unconcerned. "Fine. But if you breathe a word of this place to anyone—" His voice cut, low and dangerous, as if he just realised something essential to this conversation. "You're going to swear it. We are not going to take any risks with you, because you're going to make an Unbreakable Vow."

The demand steals the air from her lungs, and for a heartbeat, she almost laughs, almost asks if he is serious. But one look at his eyes —blue, flat, expectant and implacable— tells her he is. She lifts her chin.

"If that's the only way you'll trust me."

He doesn't smile, doesn't nod at her agreement, only wraps his fingers around his wand with frightening casualness. He speaks the incantation, slowly, in a whisper, and when her hand grips his, she feels the pull of the magic immediately. It's heavy, solemn and unyielding. She watches the golden lights curl around their joined hands with curious eyes. It's the first time she has ever witnessed such an event, and what a turn of events that she is the one swearing!

As the vow binds itself between them, threads of searing white fire curl around them, biting down into her skin, she smiles softly. She doesn't flinch, too mesmerised by the light, even if she knows the dangerousness of such Vows. When the lights fade, the room seems darker for it. Theodore releases her hand with a curt nod, visibly satisfied.

After a moment where she blinks at her hand, noting the new, almost invisible white lines marking the palm of her hand, she looks around.

"Where are Malfoy and Riddle?" She asks, trying to keep her voice steady.

Theodore barely looks at her now, already turning away. "Not your concern," he says easily. "They'll come back when they're ready."

She hesitates, unsure of the meaning behind his words. She eventually only shrugs. "Fine. Then tell them I'll be back tomorrow night. After my shift."

He only inclines his head, dismissive, and then, with the same quiet defiance that has carried her through the war, she leaves the manor, returning to stand by the lake. She disapparates back to her small flat there.

Back in her narrow kitchen, the weight of the vow still lingers on her skin. She presses her palm flat to the counter, breathing slowly. She should be terrified, after all, she has just sworn her life away to Theodore Nott of all people. She is walking into the dark with only her wits for a shield. And yet—

Her chest burns with something closer to exhilaration than fear. She is closer now. Closer to understanding the impossible. Malfoy's magic. Riddle's existence. The way the world could fracture and rebuild itself in ways no book has ever taught her.

Perhaps she is mad. Perhaps Malfoy's right. She has lost her mind. It wouldn't be all that surprising if it were truly the case, after all, she is a survivor of a terrible war, and she has spent it on the front line.

She closes her eyes. She has no illusions, though —this path could cost her everything. However, knowledge has always come with a cost. If the answers are there, buried in the ruins of that manor and in the men who haunt it, she will find them. Even if it means burning with them. Even if it means bearing Theodore Nott's cold blue gaze a while longer. 

Chapter Text

Draco

 It had not occurred to him that routine would take root here, of all places. Yet, weeks on, there it is: the scrape of Granger's chair across the floor each evening, the ink-stains spreading across her fingers, the steady scratch of her quill... She comes as if she belongs, unfolding her parchment on the low table and filling it with meticulous diagrams and impossible equations that he doesn't always care to understand. Sometimes she asks him to cast a spell —lumos, incendio, protego, crucio— and he would feel her eyes on him as she watches the air shiver, the ripple of his core pressing against the walls of the manor. Other times, she simply asks questions, relentless in the way she chases detail, until he gives her something she deems worth writing down.

It is still extremely strange to be studied, to feel like both specimen and participant. Stranger still is how little she seems to flinch at the reality of this house, at what she knows —or suspected— about its inhabitants.

Tom, of course, hates her presence and what it means. He can see it in the way his jaw locks every time Granger appears in the doorway, in the sharpness of his voice when he pretends indifference but cannot quite mask the irritation. He keeps to himself, refuses her questions, refuses even to look at her too long. He's guarded, as expected, and he doesn't think it is because Granger is Muggle-born. As it turns out, this factor doesn't seem to matter much to him, rather than the fact that she intends to study him. He never even insulted her —not even once, not even when he thought she deserved it— but chose to pretend she didn't exist.

And so, it falls to him to hold Tom steady when his magic surges restless, to shoulder Granger's endless curiosity, to translate one to the other like some unwilling bridge. He tells himself it is worth it —because maybe, just maybe, she will find something useful in her notes, something that might give Tom peace. But every evening as he sits between them, he feels the weight of it settling heavier across his shoulders. It is one thing to let Granger in, and it is another to watch Tom retreat further into himself with each passing day, as though the mere presence of her scrutiny confirms his worst fears: that he is nothing more than Voldemort's ruin, something broken to be examined and put on a pedestal in a museum.

And Draco... he isn't sure how much longer he can hold them both together.

That evening, Granger finally gathers her files and disappears with a brisk pop of apparition; silence seeps back into the manor. He exhales, shoulders sinking as though he's been holding them taut all evening. He waits a few moments, listening to the echo of her absence, before going to find Tom. He's where he expected —in the study, a single lamp burning low, shadows cutting sharp angles across his face. His hands rest on the arm of the chair, perfectly still, as he watches out through the large window. He has never looked more like his old self than in these moments, and perhaps, that too, terrified Draco. He can sense the tension coiling beneath his lover's skin, the storm of thought behind his eyes, and he wishes he were an Occlumens like his godfather.

"Brooding again," he says lightly, leaning against the doorframe.

Tom's gaze flicks to him, then away. "Observant," he corrects, his lips barely moving around the word.

Draco crosses the room and lowers himself onto the edge of the desk, close enough that their knees brush. He lets the silence stretch, watching him, until Tom finally looks up. There's sharpness there still, but muted now —not anger or annoyance, but something like weariness.

"You know why she's here," Draco says softly. "You know Granger only wants answers."

"I don't need her answers." The words are calm, almost too calm. "I've lived enough lives to be able to choose to ignore her."

He studies him, his chest tight. "And what if she could tell you something you don't know? Something that makes it easier?" He hesitates, then adds, quieter still, "What if she could help you understand what was done to you? That you aren't just what he left behind?"

Tom doesn't respond right away, but his jaw tightens, his eyes narrowing, and for a terrible moment, he thinks he will snap —cut the conversation short with a barbed remark, the way he so often does. Instead, Tom exhales slowly.

"Make it easier for who? Whether you believe it or not, it was I who separated the last shards of my soul so that a piece of me could live. It was I, Lord Voldemort, who cut a piece of myself because it meant I would never die. I don't understand why that raises questions. It is what I've done as Voldemort. I have already done this eight times, so what's the ninth?" He declares soberly, his face grave as he lets his dark eyes wander over Draco's face. "Do you truly think there are answers that can change what I am? Because I don't." His voice is quiet now, low enough that Draco has to lean in to catch it.

"I think..." he swallows, his hand brushing over Tom's wrist, tentative but firm. "I think you're more than what you were made into. I've told you a thousand times already, and I will tell you a thousand more, but if there's even the smallest chance that she can prove that to you, then perhaps it's worth letting her try."

Tom looks at him then, really looks, and something flickers in his eyes —there's no surrender there, but there's something softer, something that he doesn't see often. His hand shifts beneath Draco's, turning so that their fingers brush together. It's not a yes, it's not even close, but it's a beginning, and he will take it.

Tom's fingers linger against his, the barest brush now, and he thinks he could stay in this quiet forever. But the silence shifts —becomes charged, heavy with everything between them that he adores. He slides closer, into Tom's space, into the storm-dark orbit that both terrifies and steadies him.

"Love," he breathes, the word leaving his lips like a vow. His hand rises to cup his jaw, thumb tracing the sharp line of his cheek, and for a moment, Tom resists —always resisting, if only for a second— but when Draco leans in and presses his lips to his temple, something —like it always does— yields. A slow exhale shivers out of him.

It starts tender —soft kisses along his hairline, down to the corner of his mouth. Touches that aren't meant to take, only to remind, and Draco whispers between them —that he's here, that Tom is not alone, that there's more to him than he could ever imagine. He feels the tremors in his body, the way his magic claws at the edges of the room, unstable and dangerous, and so, so precious. He kisses him harder.

And then, the world tips.

Tom pulls him in suddenly, mouth crushing against his, teeth scraping. It's desperate, a claiming and a breaking all at once. Their hands roam —Draco's gripping the back of Tom's neck, Tom's clutching at his waist as though to fuse them together. Heat floods every nerve, urgency drowning out thought. He gasps against Tom's lips, the sound raw and presses his forehead to his. He whispers then, quoting lines every wizard knows from The Lament of Ysilde, though never like this:

"Break my soul. Break my soul so that there's nothing left of me, so that I don't feel no more. Break my soul so that I only see you. Break my soul so good I won't even protest. Please."

The words tear something open in Tom —his magic bursts, violent and searing, before it folds around Draco like fire turned shelter. His kiss deepens, his hands urgent, and he lets himself be consumed. He wants it —wants to burn, to unravel in Tom's hands, until there's nothing left but this.

When at last the storm ebbs, they collapse together, tangled and breathless, skin slick, mouths still brushing as though neither can bear distance. Draco presses his face into the curve of Tom's neck, breathing him in, grounding himself in the impossible reality of him. He knows it's dangerous. Merlin, he knows. To love Tom like this —to bind himself to him so completely— is to step willingly into fire. One day, it may scorch him beyond recognition, and yet, as Tom's arms tighten around him, as their ragged breaths sync and the shadows settle back into silence, he cannot imagine choosing anyone else but him.

He lies awake beside Tom long after their breathing has steadied, his arm curled protectively around his waist, fingers tracing idle patterns over skin he hasn't yet tired of learning. The shadows in the room seem heavier now, thicker somehow. Inevitably, now that the heat under his skin has subsided, his thoughts turn to Potter, to the Ministry, to the day when footsteps will come pounding through the wards, wands raised, orders barked, as if the world has the right to dictate what is his to love.

Well... perhaps, in this case, the who is important.

He knows, now, what he didn't all those months ago when he met Tom right outside his cottage. He will not surrender Tom to them. He will not sacrifice his love. Not even for the security of the Wizarding World. Even if it meant to throw back to Azkaban or whatever prison they've built in its place. Even if it meant exile and more blood on his hands and ashes at his feet. The realisation does not frighten him. It feels right.

He presses closer to Tom, resting his forehead against the back of Tom's shoulder, breathing him in as if to brand the scent into memory. There's no version of reality where he gives him up. Not to anyone, really. He feels it deep in his bones —he will burn the world to the ground before he lets them take Tom from him.

And that thought, that unflinching devotion, is liberating. He doesn't have to pretend to be chivalrous or benevolent. He will not be, not if it means he can keep Tom close to him, if it means he can love him all he wants. 

Tom

 The lake is still. It looks like black glass stretched wide, reflecting nothing but the thin blade of the moon. Tom sits at its edge, cloak pooling darkly around him, fingers tracing idle patterns in the damp grass. Out here, away from the suffocating weight of stone and voices, he almost feels alone. He tells himself Draco is with Granger in the library, enduring her endless questions, her scratching quill, her insufferable voice. The thought tightens something in his chest —that Draco tolerates her, when he himself cannot, that Draco chooses to spend hours beneath her scrutiny, submitting himself to it, while he refuses to bow.

He will not be a specimen. Not again. Not ever.

There's a noise behind him —a rustle of grass, the faint crack of a twig. His body stiffens, head turning just enough to catch a shadow.

Hermione Granger.

For once, she doesn't fill the silence with words. Instead, she stands there, behind him, waiting, her outline framed by the rising night. Then, after some hesitation, she moves forward and lowers herself onto the ground beside him. Not close, but not distant either. Tom's gaze flicks to her, sharp, but she only looks out at the water. They sit that way for a long time, until the sky bruises into indigo, then into black, stars pinpricking through. The chill deepens, but he barely feels it. He only wonders how long she can last in silence, but he doesn't have to ponder any longer —she soon breaks the silence.

"Why do you refuse me so strongly?"

He listens to the inflexion of her voice. It's soft, almost quiet. She doesn't want to hurt me, it seems. He doesn't answer immediately —instead, he watches the lake, the ripples shifting against the dark. Then, softly, his words cut the night.

"Because I am not an object. I am not something to be dissected or measured. I am lord of myself, or I am nothing." His voice is sharper than he intended. He lets the silence stretch, then adds, quieter: "The thing is, Granger, I know what it feels like to be studied. To be prodded, questioned, and treated like a rat in a maze. I know it far too well. At the orphanage, I still remember how they watched me —teachers, nurses, priests. Always waiting for me to break, for me to prove their suspicions right. And when I came to Hogwarts, it was no different. Whispers in the corridors. Eyes measuring me, weighing me. A curiosity, a danger, never simply a boy."

He looks at her then, his gaze cold and flat. "I will not endure it again. Not from you. Not from anyone. Better to be nothing than a specimen."

Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees her bite her lip. She seems thoughtful, but she doesn't flinch at his tone. She doesn't even argue, and perhaps that unsettles him more than her persistence.

She tilts her head, her voice careful. "And yet Draco lets me study him."

His jaw tightens and he feels the words coil in his throat —a snarl, a warning. Instead, he exhales, long and slow.

"Yes," he says at last, clipped. "And I watch him endure it. I hate it. But I— I see him do it." The admission tastes bitter. He doesn't know if she understands what it costs him to say even that much.

The night deepens, and a breeze slides over the lake. She asks, almost gently:

"Do you remember anything... from your rebirth?"

His gaze sharpens, but her tone holds no malice, only curiosity. He looks away, back to the water, and when he speaks, his voice is little more than a whisper.

"It tasted of blood."

His words leave a silence, but she doesn't press him —which surprises him— but then, he's disappointed when she asks her next question, like a blade slipped between ribs. "How did you survive?"

His answer, when he speaks, is cold and deliberate.

"I turned pain into power. Into purpose. That is the only way to survive in this world." His eyes shift, catching hers now, and there is something hard and ancient in them. "And if you want to survive —if you truly mean to keep digging, to keep breathing in this world we've made— you will have to do the same."

His words hang between them, heavy as the night. He intended his words as a warning. A truth of sorts, but he realises quickly that it is both. 

Chapter Text

Tom

Granger doesn't speak again right away, and he is grateful for the silence, but her presence lingers, steady and irritating all at once, like a quill scratching on never-ending parchment. His eyes return to the water, at the way the moonlight shatters on its surface, and his thoughts stray -as they always do- to Draco. Draco, who lets himself be watched, prodded, studied without even flinching. Draco, who endures Granger's endless questions as though each answer he gives is a shield raised to protect him.

It infuriates him.

It unsettles him.

And yet, beneath all of that, there's something else he cannot deny: his awe.

Because he knows what it is to feel like prey under watchful eyes, and he's certain Draco knows all too well -to be catalogued, measured, reduced. He vowed never to let it happen again, but his lover does it willingly, even stubbornly, and it doesn't diminish him. Somehow, it seems to make him appear even stronger.

It gnaws at Tom.

Finally, he exhales, long and slow, his gaze returning to Granger.

"You want to understand me," he says, his voice low, almost lost to the water's murmur. "You will not study me," he adds, tone edged. "I'm not a beast or a failed experiment." A pause, a slight hesitation to continue. "But you may ask your questions. About who I was. Who I am. What I remember. Nothing more."

The words taste like surrender, though he refuses to think of it that way. To him, and from now on, it is a concession, even if a dangerous one. But as her breath catches faintly beside him, he knows she understands the weight of what he's given.

Hermione

Over the course of weeks, then months, Hermione's evenings blurred into a pattern she could recite by heart. She arrives after work, parchment and ink in hand. Malfoy would be waiting in the library now -sometimes restless, sometimes aloof, sometimes with an odd redness to his cheeks as Tom leaves the room before she enters, but always willing, in his peculiar way, to be examined.

And so, she studies him.

At first, it is simple spells she asks from him - lumos, windadium leviosa, protego... Harmless spells, repeated over and over until the magic in the room grows heavy with it, saturated. She writes everything down, filling sheet after sheet with diagrams, equations, and small notations that only she could decipher. She even mirrors-writes some of them -just in case, just because the war has rendered her paranoid.

However, it isn't long before she realises what she is seeing is not simply strength, but change. A wizard's magical core is supposed to be fixed, immutable. It can wax and wane with training, it can weaken with age, but its nature never shifts. It is the one constant in a witch or wizard's life. That is what she has always been taught, that is what she knows. That is what is true. A fact.

And Draco Malfoy has proven her all wrong, proven centuries of knowledge wrong.

When he casts a Lumos, it isn't just light that blooms from his strange wand, but heat, pressure. A tangible force that presses against her skin as if she were standing too close to the sun. When he conjures a shield, the barrier doesn't block impact, but absorbs it, changes under it, and learns from it. Even his simplest spells ripple outward in waves, bending the air like the surface of a pond after a stone has struck. It is more than unusual. It is impossible.

She begins to suspect, after long hours watching him, that his magic is reshaping itself. Not merely expanding, not simply growing stronger, but adapting -rewriting the way it moved through him.

And why him? The war has scarred them all, but it seems it has hurt Malfoy more than most. He has carried the Dark Mark -an unnatural tether that bound his soul to Voldemort's will. She could see it, stark against his pale skin, on his arm when he pushed up his sleeve. The connection had severed when Voldemort fell, but the Mark has left something deeper behind -cracks, fractures in the bedrock of his magical core. Most wizards would have shattered under such strain -shattered like Lucius Malfoy had, for instance, but she never voices it out. Draco has not; he has reconfigured, like a tree struck by lightning. He has not died from the wound, but grown around it, scars becoming new rings of strength. His core, instead of breaking, has adapted. And now it continues to adapt, rewriting itself again and again, shifting to fit what it needs to survive.

It means, she realises with a shiver, that Draco Malfoy is becoming a living ritual -a vessel through which magic itself is experimenting with new forms. The implications of it shake her. If this evolution continues unchecked, he could one day transcend the limitations of wizardkind entirely. A new kind of magic, not inherited through bloodlines, not taught in spellbooks, but lived. Experienced through pain. It was both terrifying and brilliant. A discovery that could change the history of magic as they know it.

Sometimes, when she watches him closely enough, she thinks he feels it too. She would see the way his expression shifts in the half-light when a spell cracks too sharply in the air, when the ripple of his core made the walls tremble. He would school his face quickly, pretending indifference, but Hermione sees. He knows something is happening to him --or has happened to him--, even if he doesn't say anything.

And she wasn't sure what unnerved her more -the danger of it, or the beauty.

However, if Draco unsettles her because of the impossible evolution of his magic, then Tom Riddle unsettles her because he shouldn't even exist at all. She has expected him to be something like the Horcruxes -a sliver of Voldemort's soul made flesh, incomplete, tethered unnaturally to the world. A dangerous echo, but still an echo. That is what logic tells her to prepare for. But Tom Riddle is not an echo.

Every time she brushes against his magic, however briefly, she feels it -the wholeness. Dark, of course, and distorted, certainly. But whole. There are no gaps, no ragged edges, the way a Horcrux carries its incompleteness. His presence fills a room, pressing heavily against her skin, not the fractured noise of a broken soul, but the steady thrum of something ancient, something complete.

And yet, it doesn't feel right. Horcruxes are wrong by nature because they are shards. Tom is wrong because he isn't a shard. He is all of something that should never have been.

At first, she couldn't place it. Then, slowly, through months of watching the way his aura moves, the way his spells carry weight, the way shadows seem to bend closer when he enters a room, she begins to trace it. She sees faint impressions -sigils woven into his very presence, the residues of runic structures older than Hogwarts itself. Pre-Merlinic, she realises one night, her quill trembling over the page. Rites of blood and sacrifice. This is not the imprint of ordinary Horcrux magic, but the logic of a ritual -the kind of ancient magic used by cults and blood-priests who wanted to tie their essence to the earth, to the veins of the world itself.

It seems that, as odd as it sounded, Voldemort had wanted to assure a new future, a new life, for a new version of himself.

Bile rises in her throat from the unfairness of it all. Lord Voldemort doesn't deserve a second chance at anything. Still, every time her eyes land on Tom -so different from Voldemort- she can't help but think that, perhaps, it is a good thing that amid his madness, Voldemort has known that there is still something to be saved within the last shard of his soul.

The question, then, is how?

Voldemort has scattered his soul across eight vessels. When his body fell at Hogwarts, one more shard should have dissolved -burned away into nothing, like ash carried by the wind. That is the law of magic. But it hasn't; instead, it has pulled itself together again.

Hermione could not escape the conclusion: the conditions of that night had twisted the outcome -the serpent slain, the Elder Wand broken, the Hallows disrupted, Harry alive when he should not have been... all of it feeding into Voldemort's endless obsession with eternity, with blood and survival. That shard had not scattered; it had recongealed. It had used pain as fuel.

Blood, pain and will. That is the law of the ritual she sees etched faintly into the shape of him. When she asks him about it, his answer is chilling in its simplicity.

"I am made of pain," he says, voice low and steady as stone. "So, in order not to be consumed by it, I turned it into power. That is the only law. Pain survives. Pain feeds. Pain transforms. I am proof."

She has shivered at the time, not only at his words, but at the truth she could understand in them.

What he doesn't say -but that she understands, with mounting unease- is that his very existence is a paradox. He is not Voldemort resurrected. He is not a Horcrux given flesh. He is something else entirely -a soul reforged by blood, by circumstance, by pain turned into survival.

A kind of dark alchemy. No text she has ever read accounted for it. Not even the most obscure treatises on necromancy or the rare scraps of soul magic banned from every Ministry archive. The ritual isn't written in any book. Thus, it isn't supposed to be possible. And yet here he is. Tom Riddle, the boy who should have died, the man who should have remained shattered, is now something new, something real, something strong. But he's not Voldemort. Not the shard of Voldemort. He's something neither and both -the first of his kind.

She closes her notebook one night with trembling hands, her pulse hammering. Draco Malfoy's core is becoming a living ritual, evolving before her eyes, when Tom Riddle is living proof that souls can be remade. They are not simply anomalies; they were opposites. Two answers to the same impossible question of what magic could become when pushed beyond its limits.

Draco's core is evolving forward. His magic learning itself anew as though it has broken through some ceiling she has always thought absolute. He is a wizard whose core did not remain fixed, but rewrote itself constantly, each fracture turning into growth. He is the future of magic, the proof that wizardkind is not bound to its old limits, to its traditions. Tom, by contrast, has been reforged backwards. His soul has collapsed and then reknit itself into wholeness through blood, through pain, through the darkest alchemy. He is not a shard, not a fracture, but a return. A soul seal together in the way ancient blood rituals have once promised, at a price no one else has ever dared to pay. He is the past resurrected, a reminder of the oldest magic. Wholeness carved from ruin.

Forward.

Backward.

Two impossible directions, meeting here, in the ruin of a manor and the shadows of the war.

She presses her hand against the parchment as though to steady herself. The implications are staggering. If Draco represents a future where magic could grow, and Tom a past where magic could remake, then together they form a spectrum she has never thought existed. And she -Hermione Granger, with her ink-stained fingers and restless mind- is the only one to witness it. Well, with Theodore.

The thought chills her.

And it thrills her.

Chapter Text

Harry

Harry has been watching her for weeks. It was nothing obvious at first —Hermione was still Hermione: the tired smile over her morning tea, the brisk way she straightened the piles of parchment at her desk in her office, her constant muttering about research and old texts. But he is a creature of instincts, and he had felt something underneath the old habits. There had been something else, a quiet that shouldn't have been there. She never hid things from him, not like this.

The first time he followed her, he lost her within minutes. She'd Apparated somewhere outside of London, and he'd tracjed the echo to Wiltshire, but there was nothing more from there. The second time, he made sure he'd get closer, but again, she slipped through the cracks as though the earth itself was swallowing her whole. By the third time, his nerves were fraying. He couldn't shake the feeling that his best friend had a secret he was no privy to. And so, where she left the Ministry one evening —files tucked under arm, her cloak wrapped tightly about her— he followed her once more.

However, this time, he had been ready.

He followed her through side streets, to the edge of the city, across the brittle, frost-dusted grass. When she Apparated, he cast a quick Tracking Spell on her, Apparating right after her. He had landed by a lake, surrounded by forest and flowers, and a little farther, an old manor.

Noticing that his friend has landed as well and is walking toward the manor's entrance, he hides quickly behind a tree. He takes the time to look around, to observe the manor. It rises from the fields, carrying the weight of old money and older magic —stone walls weathered by centuries, slate roofs sharp as daggers, chimneys coughing thin ribbons of smoke into the cold air. High windows glitter faintly, reflecting the last light of the sun, though most of them are dark, their glass so old it warps the shapes within. The house itself seems to crouch low to the ground, wide rather than tall, with wings stretching out like the folded arms of a predator at rest. Ivy claws at the stone, curling black where frost has bitten it back, and the grounds surrounding it are overgrown, left to tangle into wild hedges and thickets of bare trees.

He thinks the place should have looked abandoned, but it doesn't. He can feel the wards prickling in the air, invisible and immense, and every line of the building seems to pulse faintly with enchantments layered deep into the foundation. It is a house alive, its presence both inviting and forbidding —a sanctuary, he understands, and a warning as well.

His heart hammers as he creeps forward, crouched low behind the frozen hedges. The moment his boots touch the grass before the gates, the air snaps. It is like stepping into a web of lightning —wards awakening around him. They shiver across his skin, warning, measuring, and announcing him.

Inside, he quickly realises, they have to know. And sure enough, the door opens almost instantly. Hermione is at the threshold, her hand half-raised to knock —but she freezes as Theodore Nott steps out, wand drawn, eyes sharp as flint, scanning the grounds for a trespasser.

Harry's blood runs cold. He remembers the last duel he's fought against Nott —the boy's wand spinning from his hand, his body crumpling under a Stunner as rubble collapsed overhead. They'd marked him as dead. Yet here he is, alive, standing in the doorway of a house that should not exist anymore, wand raised as though expecting exactly him.

Hermione spins around at the sound of Nott's voice —a warning muttered low and dangerous. She suddenly looks pale, stricken, but she doesn't step aside; instead, she raises her wand as well, following Nott.

However, then, another figure appears —blond, pale, unmistakable.

Draco Malfoy.

His mouth goes dry. But then comes the third. And it's so much worse.

It's a tall silhouette emerging from the gloom, dark curls falling just so, eyes the darkness of the night and sharp as blades. There's a grace in his movements, a smile that could have charmed Veelas —and Harry recognises him. He knows him from the diary that has bled ink and memory into Ginny's hands, from the Chamber of Secrets, from the voice that has hissed behind the basilisk's fangs.

Tom bloody Riddle.

It's impossible. It's obscene. But he realises that he has prepared for this eventuality since Malfoy came to him all those months ago, even if he has tried to believe that it couldn't be Riddle. It couldn't be possible. Malfoy couldn't possibly care for this monster. He doesn't question it further, for his wand is already in his hand.

"Stupefy!" He roars, his voice cracking the air.

The spell splits the twilight like a cannon blast, crimson light rushing toward Riddle. But he moves before anyone else —a sidestep, graceful and precise, the curse missing him by inches and exploding against the stone arch of the doorway. Debris rains down, sparks flickering in the cold air.

He sees Hermione gasping, spinning back toward the lawn. "Harry—!"

But he isn't listening. His arm is already raised for another spell. Rage has overtaken reason, the years of nightmares condensed into this one, impossible vision: Tom Riddle alive, standing in a doorway like he belongs in this world. His world, for Merlin's sake.

"Expelliarmus!"

Riddle's answering shield shimmers into existence, the spell snapping harmlessly against it. His lips curve, dark amusement flickering there —as though he is being entertained,

"You," Harry spits, breath clouding in the air, "shouldn't exist."

Nott has surged forward now, wand still raised, his stance calm but dangerous, angling himself between Harry and the threshold. Malfoy follows a second later, stormy eyes filled with a rage Harry has never seen in him. He holds a crooked wand as he tries to put himself in front of Riddle, as if to protect him. However, Riddle doesn't retreat. Instead, he steps forward, past the protection of the doorway, past Malfoy, the wards whispering around him like a tide that belongs only to him. His gaze sweeps Harry —measured, curious, unhurried.

"You've grown," he says softly, his voice like silk dragged across glass. "But you're still quite similar to the boy I remember. Still too predictable."

Harry's scar burns —phantom pain, like a ghost clawing through his skull. His fury rises with it.

"Avada Kedavra!" He shouts.

Hermione screams his name, begs him to stop, but the words have already left his mouth, the green light bursting forth. The spell strikes the ground where Riddle had been a heartbeat earlier. He has vanished, reappearing several paces away in a blink of shadow and smoke, his laugh ringing sharp in the winter air.

"That's your first answer, Potter. And your only one."

He lifts his wand, almost lazily, and the air convulsed. The grass blackens where the spell struck, heat rolling outward in a wave that forces Harry to throw himself sideways. His shoulder hits frozen earth, his ribs jarred, but he is on his feet again in seconds.

They circle each other now, predator and prey shifting with every step. Behind them, Hermione is shouting, words tangled, pleading, her wand drawn but lowered as though she cannot choose where to aim. Nott blocks her with a sharp gesture, a silent warning flashing in his eyes. Malfoy, however, no longer stands still. He surges forward, wand snapping up, pale hair flashing like a banner in the gloom.

"Protego Maxima!" The shield explodes outward, catching Harry's next hex in a burst of sparks. Malfoy shoves forward, positioning himself between Riddle and Harry with the instinctive violence of someone protecting what is his.

"Move, Malfoy!" Harry roars, fury spitting through his voice. "Let me kill him!"

But Malfoy's eyes cut him like a blade. "I'll kill you first, Potter."

Another curse splits the air —Harry's wand flashing as he flings a jinx past Malfoy's shield, forcing Riddle to twist aside, but Malfoy's countercurse comes instantly, faster than Harry expects, striking so close to his feet that the ground bursts open in shards of frozen earth.

Harry staggers, catching himself, teeth clenching. His eyes dart between them —Riddle, smiling faintly, even if he eyes Malfoy with something akin to worry in the endless night of his gaze, and Malfoy, standing before him like a wall of pale, furious defiance.

"You're protecting him?" He can't help but ask, disbelief twisting in his chest. "After everything—"

"You don't know anything," Malfoy spits back, his voice shaking with fury, with something rawer still. "And you'll have to go through me before you can touch him."

The words rattle Harry more than the spells, but there's no time to answer —Riddle strikes again, a whip of dark fire lashing through the night, forcing Harry to leap aside. Malfoy's shield flares again, his stance so tight with tension it looks as though it might shatter his bones.

Side by side, Riddle and Malfoy move with a terrifying synchronicity —Riddle's power violent and precise, Malfoy's magic sharp and vast, cutting across Harry's path again and again to push him back, to keep him away. It isn't just defence. It's devotion forged in battle. And Harry, for the first time in years, feels the ground slip under his feet. 

Draco

 His wand hand trembles, not from fear but from the echo of battle, the pulse of magic still burning in his veins. The night smells of scorched earth and shattered wards. Potter's body sprawls unconscious on the stones like a broken promise.

Granger's voice cuts through the smoke. "Enough!"

The force of her voice startles even him, and he sees how her hands are clenched white around her wand, her face pale and wild. She moves past Theo, who still guards the manor's threshold, and comes to stand between Draco and the ruin they have made of her best friend.

His chest heaves. His shield still shimmers faintly before him, though the duel is long over. Tom stands just behind his shoulder, silent, the curve of a satisfied smile lingering on his lips.

Granger drops to Potter's side, trembling fingers brushing his temple, checking his pulse. Relief flashes across her face. "He's alive."

"He shouldn't be here," Theo mutters, his wand still raised, eyes scanning the shadows as though more wizards might tumble out of the night. Draco steps forward, something feral still alive in his bones. He looks down at Potter —the bloody Saviour, the boy who's haunted his life, the man who's tried to defend him in court, the constant reminder of his scar. And now, he is here, helpless, their secret exposed.

Granger looks up at him, her eyes blazing. "We have to let him go."

"No," he says abruptly. His voice is hoarse, sharp with the aftertaste of fury. "He saw. He bloody saw everything. Tom. Me. This place. You. Because you seem to forget, but you aren't supposed to be here in the first place! You are the Saviour's best friend after all, Granger. The one who helped him destroyed the Dark Lord."

She flinches, but she still wouldn't back down. "Then we erase his memories. Let me Obliviate him... but let's not —it'll be cleaner than any of this."

Tom's chuckle slides through the silence. "Cleaner... Or cowardly?" He steps closer, his shadow falling across Potter's body. "You would strip him of truth and send him back into the world to sniff us out again? No, we're better off if we keep him. It'll be less dangerous for us."

Her head snaps toward him, brows frowning. "You can't mean—"

"Why not?" Draco's voice surprises even himself. His eyes stay locked on Potter's unconscious form. "If we let him go, he'll come back, only this time, he'll bring Aurors, the Ministry, and the whole bloody wizarding world down on us. And then what? We die? We're thrown in jail? We're killed? I'd rather not."

But Granger doesn't seem inclined to agree with any of them; instead, she rises to her feet, fury sparking in her eyes. "And you think locking him up will solve this problem? That's Harry Potter, Malfoy. The one and only Saviour. The boy who lived. People will notice if he disappears. People will assemble and raid this place if they believe he's detained here."

His lips twist. "Yes, I know, which is exactly why we can't just let him walk away. Because he's the boy who lived, the one and only Saviour. Because people will follow him no matter what he says, and they will destroy us." He pauses briefly. "They will destroy you as well, because now, you're one of us. You've kept secrets from your friend and the Ministry. No one will believe you have any innocence left. Perhaps they will take pity on you and not kill you, but they will always believe you are like us."

The silence that follows is thick, the decision pressing down like a stone. He can feel Tom watching him, that terrible approval simmering in the air. He can feel Granger's despair, her hopeless search for another answer.

"There are rooms on the far wing," Theo suddenly breaks the silence, voice flat and practical. "There're warded and it'll be quiet. If we quickly renew the wards, no one will know that he's here."

"We'll have to interrogate him when he wakes," Tom adds, "we must know if he was alone or not, so we can handle the potential threats."

Draco nods slowly as he watches Granger's breath hitching, as though she has just started to understand just how involved with them she is now. He kneels next to her, slipping his wand away, and looks at Potter —that boy who had once saved his life in a firelit inferno, the man who had cursed him tonight without hesitation. His chest tightens slightly. Not with guilt, he realises, but with something much colder-- resolution, perhaps.

"He stays," he declares at last, his words final. 

Chapter Text

Hermione

The Ministry notices quickly, of course, the disappearance of Harry Potter. He couldn't simply vanish without any of the members of the Ministry rattling like a shaken hive. At first, it had been whispers in the corridors of missing reports filed too late and of someone covering for him in meetings. But within days, the whispers had hardened into alarms, and the Aurors had begun moving in tighter circles, questioning people, their eyes turned to his closest people. Ron was pulled from the field, and Ginny had to come from Holyhead to be questioned. Neville and Luna were both dragged from their lives, from their work, to sit in small, windowless rooms and account for their every hour.

And her —she kept coming to her office like she did every day, kept scratching quills over parchment and holding meetings, her expression the careful mask of competence it had always been. She also had been pulled for questioning, but she had produced all the good files and had all the good answers, and they had left alone. She was still Hermione Granger, model of efficiency and pillar of the Ministry.

Except she isn't that anymore. Not exactly.

Behind her calm facade, the manor clings to her like a shadow —the evenings she disappears, the conversations she can't recount, the faces she can't let herself name. She hides it all beneath ink-stained fingers and exhaustion smudges beneath her eyes.

But when the Aurors' first rounds of questioning yielded nothing, their methods shifted —polite interviews becoming sharper, suspicion creeping into every glance. Then came the word she had dreaded from the start.

They will now use Veritaserum. They choose carefully —she notices they do not submit Ron to the potion. He's too close to Harry, perhaps too volatile. Not Ginny either, for she would have hexed the bottle from their hands. They do it to Luna, but not Neville. And they do it to her. Because Hermione, who has been slipping despite her best attempt at hiding it, who has been seen wandering the Department of Mysteries without cause, whose colleagues whisper that her mind is elsewhere and her behaviour odd. Hermione, whose mask has begun to crack.

So, she sits across from them now, the vial glinting between their fingers. She tells herself to breathe. They are in a cold, windowless room of the Department of Justice, her pulse a drumbeat in her ears. She has grown used to these corridors, its stale ink-and-parchment smell, its steady hum of bureaucratic order, but this room is different. This is where trust goes to die. The Aurors line the table opposite her, faces unreadable. The vial of Veritaserum gleams menacingly between them. She keeps her hands folded tightly on her lap, hiding the tremor. She tells herself she's not afraid. She tries to believe it.

"Standard procedure, Miss Granger", one of them declares, breaking the silence. She hears some relish in his tone, but he moves still, pushing the vial closer to her side of the table. She grabs the potion, taking a deep breath before drinking it. The liquid burns its way down her throat, she fixes her mind on one thought, one truth she can hold to like a shield: the vow, the vow, the vow... She can feel it coil inside her —an invisible hand at her chest, tightening, demanding. Her pulse thunders in her ears, and she clenches her fists in her lap, nails biting into her palms, bracing herself.

"We've had reports of odd behaviour concerning you. Longer hours, frequent absences, unauthorised entries into certain departments..." another Auror says. His gaze flicks up, observing her. "Did you see Potter on the day of his disappearance?"

Her mouth opens before she can think, her tongue willing to talk, begging to tell the truth for herself.

"Yes," she answers, but it doesn't feel like her voice. "In his office."

"Did you harm him in any way?"

The potion swirls inside her belly, forcing words out of her mouth.

"No."

She forces herself to answer with the fewest words possible, trying as hard as she could not to give too much away.

The Auror leans a little, his elbows on the table, as he sighs, dissatisfied.

"Do you have any idea where he is now?"

Her lips part, but the Unbreakable Vow burns her veins, searing, an iron band clamps around her chest, and the words that were about to leave her mouth claw up her throat, unable to go further. She breathes in, then out, gulping softly.

"No," she manages to lie, and the potion turns acid, hurting as it tries to push the truth out of her.

Her struggles must be observable on her face, because the Aurors in the room frown, murmur and exchange notes. She feels the truth sliding from her lip like shards of glass, unable to stop it —but revealing where Harry is would mean revealing the existence of the Norxward Manor, which would lead to Malfoy, Nott and Riddle, and her Vow blocks her like an anchor. She's suddenly very thankful for Theodore's precaution.

After a while, they let her go, convinced she is simply tired and rattled by the disappearance of her best friend, but not a traitor. Because how could Hermione Granger, member of the Golden Trio, one of the Wizarding World's saviours, be a traitor?

That's it, until Kingsley catches her arm in the corridor leading to her office.

"Walk with me," he says.

Without a word, still under the effect of the Veritaserum and fighting its effect, she follows him down quieter halls, past portraits leaning in to eavesdrop. Kingsley's presence is heavy. He's not unkind, but he has always seemed immovable to her.

"You're not alright," he adds after a moment, "I've seen it, this exhaustion you feel. The way you disappear into the Department of Mysteries. Hermione —you could have a future here. A real one. You could be Head of Department soon, and even Minister tomorrow, but that's only if you don't bury yourself in secrets." His voice softens then, almost paternal. Patronising, she can't help but think. "Talk to me. You know you can trust me, so let me help you."

She meets his gaze, and for a terrible heartbeat, she thinks the Veritaserum will have the best of her and that she will talk. She almost thinks she wants to confess everything —the manor, Malfoy, Riddle, even about Nott. She wants to share what she has found about the strange magic of Malfoy and Riddle, twisting at the edges of her understanding. But instead, she bites the inside of her cheek, strong enough to draw blood, and only when she tastes the iron of her tongue does she allow herself to speak. She smiles, even.

"I'm only tired, Kingsley. That's all. Sleep still doesn't come easy, but I promise you —there's nothing else."

He doesn't believe her, she can see it in his eyes and the set of his jaw, but he still lets her go.

It takes her longer than usual to reach her office, the potion still painfully swirling in her stomach, leaving a bitter tang on the back of her tongue. She feels faintly ill, as though something inside her is still trying to crawl free. Once she's sitting behind her desk, she takes a minute just to breathe, to swallow down the panic still clawing at her throat. Her hands shake as she presses them flat against the wood, willing herself steady.

She closes her eyes, wondering if she's making the right choice. The thought comes again, and again, relentless as it has been these past weeks. She cannot seem to escape it, but she tells herself that she has no choice at all. And yet.

When she opens her eyes, she feels a bit calmer. Until she notices the parchment waiting for her. It's crisp, sitting neatly on top of her stack of files, though she is certain she never left it there.

Her stomach drops, and she takes it slowly, as though it might bite.

The words stamped across the header knock the air clean out of her lungs.

Promotion to Head of Department of Magical Law Enforcement (D.M.L.E).

She stares at it once, twice, three times, as though repetition might change the words. It doesn't. They only grow heavier with each reading, pressing down on her. Her breath hitches.

"This—no," she whispers to herself, "not now, it can't be." She cuts herself off, lips clamping tight, though the words still rattle inside her head. This can't be happening, not like this, not after—

Her throat tightens, remembering the interrogation room, the glint of Veritaserum, the way the Vow burned through her veins. She still tastes iron at the back of her mouth, still feels the phantom ache of nearly losing control. And now they reward her? After telling her that she has been lacking?

She folds the parchment with precise fingers, as if neatness might restore some of her control, but the edges shake anyway. She tucks it beneath a stack of briefs, then lays her hand flat on the pile, pinning it down. Her mind won't stop spinning. Is this an honour or a trap? Is this the proof that the Ministry trust me, or is it trying to own me?

She wants to laugh, a hollow laugh, because isn't this what she once wanted? Recognition and responsibility. To shape laws that would protect the vulnerable, to ensure no one ever suffered what she and others had suffered during the war. Wasn't this the dream? And yet now, after the manor, after Malfoy and Nott and Riddle —after realising how fragile and flawed the system's promises really are— it feels like a cage gilded in parchment.

She presses her hand harder against the desk until her knuckles whiten. She breathes in once more, keeping the air inside her lungs. She doesn't release her breath until after a long moment. 

 Midmorning, the fluttering of wings fills Hermione's office —not the soft beat of an owl, but the sharp whirr of an enchanted paper aeroplane. A Summons Memo, she realises. The Ministry's interdepartmental memos are usually harmless things, all folds and scribbles and the occasional ink blot. However, this one is different. It circles her head once like a hawk before snapping down onto her desk, unfolding itself in a crisp, officious voice:

"Addressed to Hermione Granger, Head of D.M.L.E. Effective immediately, you are relocated to the D.M.L.E. Please, report to your new office without delay. You have one hour."

She drops her quill when the memo finally falls silent. For a moment, she simply sits there, staring, as though the parchment has mispronounced her name.

She must move now, though —there's no time to waste, no chance to breathe or think. She packs what she can into her satchel with hasty flicks of her wand —files, inkpots, a few quills still stained from sleepless nights. The rest she leaves behind.

The D.M.L.E floor smells different from her old one —ozone, parchment, and steel. Law and enforcement live here side by side, sharp edges wrapped in bureaucracy. When the doors to her new office open, two figures wait for her.

The first is a tall woman in emerald robes, her hair a sleek braid threaded with silver. She carries herself with the easy assurance of someone who has spoken in a hundred courtrooms and won ninety-nine of them. "Magistra Selwyn," she introduces herself crisply, extending a hand. "Senior Legal Counsel. You'll find me useful if you mean to stay afloat."

She barely has time to register the words of Selwyn when her heart falters at the sight in front of her. Auror's robes, red as fire hair, freckles across nose and cheeks that she knows as well as her own hands.

"Ron," she breathes.

He gives her a small smile, not quite awkward, not quite easy. "Head Auror Liaison, assigned to you. Guess we're working together again, like back in the days."

She tries to smile back, but she is too stunned by his presence, by the fact that he has told her nothing about this, to follow the rest of the meeting. Selwyn lays out the shape of her new position with the precision of a spell diagram —she is to coordinate directly between the legal counsels and the Auror Office. When detectives pursue high-priority cases, it would be her responsibility to guide their methods, ensure the admissibility of evidence, and write reports that can hold up before the Wizenmagot. Hermione is not just a paper-pusher anymore —she would have command, even over Auror teams, when the law demands it.

The authority feels heavy, but she nods through Selwyn's explanations even if in her chest her heart thuds in uneven beats.

When Selwyn finally leaves them alone, she turns to Ron, who has been watching her silently all along.

"Want me to show you around? Place is a maze if you don't know it."

She nods, still not brave enough for words.

They walk together through bustling corridors lined with Aurors and clerks, memos darting overhead like restless birds. Every now and then, someone looks at her curiously, whispering Granger like a word that has grown new weight overnight.

"How've you been?" Ron asks at last, voice low enough not to carry. "Since... well. Since us."

She hesitates. "Busy. The Ministry hasn't exactly slowed down."

He nods, a small smile hanging at the corner of his lips. She takes a moment to observe him. He hasn't changed much since their break-up. He's still tall —taller than most, broad-shouldered now in a way that speaks of years spent in the field. The Auror's life has hardened him, honed him; muscle fills out his frame where once there had been lanky limbs. His hair is as vivid as ever, a shock of copper that catches the corridor light, and his eyes —bright, piercing blue— have lost none of their warmth, though there's a weariness tucked at the edges. To anyone else, he would be considered striking. Handsome, even. But now, to her, it is familiarity edged with distance, like looking at a photograph that no longer belongs in its frame.

"And the interrogation?" He asks after a moment. "They treated you all right?" His jaw tightens. "I heard they were using Veritaserum on some of us."

Her stomach twists at the moment of the potion, but she forces her face to stay neutral. "It was fine, I suppose. Nothing out of the ordinary, even if we are all worried about Harry's disappearance."

Slightly turning to her, Ron's blue eyes study her face, brows furrowed. "You don't look fine to me. You look exhausted."

She offers the smallest smile she could muster. "That's just the way it is now."

For a long while, silence stretches between them. It's familiar, like the days at Hogwarts, even if now the peace between them is fractured. She can feel his eyes lingering on her, the unspoken ache of something left unfinished, and for the first time in years, the thought of Ron's affection doesn't comfort her. It presses down like a weight she doesn't have the strength to carry anymore. She knows she will never love him again. Not after the war, not after all the fractures time has carved into them, and not while she lives a life that already demands every ounce of her energy, her lies, her divided heart.

When they part at the stairwell, Rom gives her a small nod, soft at the edges, eyes shining brightly with affection. She returns it, but inside she feels only the widening distance. Her new office awaits, and with it, the secret she carries. 

Draco

 They had put Potter in the farthest room of the manor. Theo and Draco had carried him themselves, one under each arm, like some prized weapon they weren't sure whether to keep or dismantle. The chamber they chose is small compared to the others —barely wide enough for a bed and a table. Thick stone walls, a narrow window high on the wall that admitted only a strip of pale light. They had warded it thoroughly; no spell Potter knows would work in here. His wand had been taken as well.

It has been days since then. Days of waiting, days of tension running like a blade-edge through the manor, while Tom kept to his silences and Granger paced, stressed by her own worries at the Ministry.

But now, he thinks it's time to have a conversation with the Saviour. Draco volunteers to go first —or perhaps he hasn't, perhaps it has been inevitable for him.

Still, he pushes open the door. The air inside is stale, heavy. Potter sits on the edge of the bed, disoriented but alert, every line of him taut. His eyes are fixed on Draco instantly, and in that green glare is the same bloody thing Draco has seen for years: judgment.

"Malfoy," Potter says as a greeting. "Am I inside the manor?"

He doesn't answer at once, preferring to ignore his questions for now. Instead, he leans against the wall, arms crossed, letting the silence draw itself out. He has expected confusion or fear; instead, Potter sounds like he always had —righteous, as if he still has the right to demand answers. Even here, even like this. He shakes his head —he can't help it, he finds this whole thing highly irritating. Tom had wanted Potter dead, but he had argued hard enough. Killing Potter outright would have set the Ministry aflame, sent a legion of Aurors crashing through their gates. Alive, though —alive Potter is leverage. Alive Potter is protection. With him breathing behind warded walls, the Ministry will hesitate, or at least hesitate to kill everyone in sight.

"Betrayal, then," Potter says suddenly, cutting through Draco's thoughts. "You've sided with Voldemort again."

The name slices the air like broken glass, and Draco feels his composure split for a moment, his lips curling before he could stop himself.

"Don't you dare call him that." The words are out before he can rein in his anger. They're sharp and raw, and he hates the sound of them, hates that Potter of all people has dragged it from him.

Potter's gaze narrows, and he pushes like he always did at Hogwarts. "Then what is he to you, Malfoy? What could he possibly be that makes you lock me up in this bloody place?"
His reply comes reckless, cutting, before he has the chance to think better of it.

"He's mine. And I won't let anyone take him from me. Not you, not the Ministry, not anyone."

The silence that follows is heavy. Electric. Draco sees it land —sees how Potter's eyes widen, how the words startle him, because they aren't the hollow adoration of a fanatic. They are devotion —real and unyielding. It's love, even. Something Potter doesn't know how to name without breaking a part of himself. But then Potter's voice cuts through, low and steady:

"He's a monster, Malfoy. No matter how beloved."

The words strike harder than they should have. Harder than any spell could have.

Monster...

For a second, it is as though the air is gone from the room. His stomach knots tight, his chest aches. It feels as if Potter has reached inside and clenched his fist around his heart. He has heard this damn word whispered a thousand times before, hissed in drawing rooms, and shouted in battlefields —but always aimed at others. At his father. At the Dark Lord. At Death Eaters in their masks. But he has a hard time reconciling this word with the man he chose to love. And yet some part of him, buried and trembling, has always feared it, known it. He fears that when the world looks at Tom, it might be true. That Draco has chained himself to something dark enough to drown him.

So, for a flicker of a moment, he nearly falters. His mind fills with fragments: Tom's smile like firelight, the way his voice can command a room, merciless brilliance in him. Beloved, yes —but so dangerous, uncontrollable, something that bends even his loyalty into strange shapes. If Potter's right —if Tom is indeed a monster— what does that make Draco, who loves him anyway?

The thought threatens to rip him apart.

So he does what he has always done. He shuts it down, and his face hardens, smooth as glass, the mask he has perfected since boyhood sliding firmly back into place. His hands curl behind his back so Potter wouldn't see the tremor in his fingers. His breath comes too sharply, but he forces it even. He lets silence shield him where words cannot.

When Draco finally turns and leaves the room, the door warded shut, he leans against the cold wall outside, holding himself upright with sheer will. His heart still thunders, every beat echoing that word, that curse Potter has left him with.

Monster.

He tells himself he doesn't believe it. He tells himself Potter is wrong. He tells himself he will follow Tom anywhere.

But no matter how fiercely he clings to it, the seed of doubt has already been planted —and it hurts more than he can bear. 

Chapter Text

Tom

The firelight paints the manor's drawing room in restless shadows, the kind that lick and curl like serpents across the stone. He sits in the high-back chair nearest the hearth, posture relaxed, long fingers drape loosely over the armrest. Beside him, Draco lingers close —he's always close, even if he wishes he was closer still— a quiet silhouette of blond hair and restless grace, watching the flames with the same intensity as if they might answer questions neither of them has voiced. Theodore sits farther back, stretched along the settee as he reads a thick grimoire.

Tom thinks of the future. He knows he has already folded in on itself. Conflict is not just a possibility; it is inevitable. He can almost feel the Ministry gathering outside these walls, telling itself it is righteous.

Let them, he thinks. He has never expected peace. The world had chosen him as its enemy long before he had given it reason. Even now, when he tries to breathe in something close to stillness, they would call him a monster, an abomination, the shadows-returned. Perhaps they aren't wrong.

A faint smile tugs at his mouth as his thoughts settle. If they have decided he is still a monster, then he might as well act the part when it serves him. He will not hide, and he will not cower. He'd rather burn their Aurors alive if it meant protecting what is his.

And yet, when he glances at Draco, he sees something that makes everything different.

It's him. Tom expected to live his new life with nothing binding him but power and ambition. He had planned to use Draco as a means to an end. That was the original intent. Except... except, over the time they have spent together, in the corners and nooks between them, Draco has become a tether, quiet and unyielding, making him feel not just claimed, but claiming. Except, now, he is in love with Draco Malfoy, and the thought of losing him —to Aurors, to Potter, to the Ministry, to anyone— tightens his chest like a vice. It's been quite a long time now that he has realised that if keeping Draco meant drowning the world in blood, he would do it without an ounce of hesitation.

Theodore, though? Granger? Useful, intelligent, even occasionally amusing. They serve their purposes, but if one of them falls, if they are captured, if the Ministry tear them apart —Tom's only calculation will be what it costs Draco. Their loss will only matter because of the shadow it will leave on his lover's face.

His fingers tap lightly against the chair's arm. He pictures Aurors storming these halls, wards flaring, shouts echoing, spells tearing through the manor. He pictures them broken and screaming at his feet, and he feels nothing but a cold anticipation. He will carve truth out of them if he must —protect what matters and burn the rest.

The fire crackles, sparks leaping in the hearth, and he leans back, a serene figure crowned in firelight. The storm is coming; he can feel it in his bones—the inevitability of battle, of fear sharpening into violence. He has lived this story before. The Dark Lord, the name whispered like a curse, the shadow that bent the world beneath its heel. That has been him once. Or rather, it was the ghost of what he had been, the twisted echo carved out of his own hunger and fear.

He is not that anymore.

He tells himself that, even as the firelight paints him in sharp angles and darkness, even as the choices before him are blood and ruin, he is Tom still —the name feels smaller, but truer. Tom, who sits with Draco at his side, not with armies at his feet. Tom, who still remembers what it means to want and to keep, not only to conquer. He is the version of Lord Voldemort, of the orphan Tom Riddle, who has known love and loves in return. It makes everything about him, about his soul, different, even though he knows the world does not see it. To them, he will always be Voldemort, and perhaps there are moments when he feels the temptation to become it again. Cold power, unflinching, untouchable. It would be so easy to wear this old skin. That's it, if it weren't for Draco. He is the line between Voldemort and him. The man beside him is proof that he is not the hollow shadow he once was. Proof again that he can love and not only possess, protect and not only dominate. Voldemort had no heart to lose, but he does, and Draco holds it like a blade to his throat, and that fear of being cut open is the sweetest of feelings. The only thing that makes his stomach tighten, his chest burn, and his mind whiten. Beautiful, if anything.

The storm is coming; there's not much he can do about that, but he will not run or bend. He will let them approach, let them try to destroy him and everything that he cares about.

For now, Draco is his, and that's all he cares about. 

Hermione

 The Ministry has a way of grinding people down. Hermione had known that even before she took the promotion as Head of D.M.L.E, but still, she hadn't expected the sheer scale of it. Her office, grand in title and miserable in truth, is a mountain of parchment. Case files, incomplete reports, memos fluttering onto her desk faster than she can skim them. Half the time, the same report appears twice, only with conflicting numbers, as if someone somewhere wants her to spend hours reconciling contradictions that don't matter.

She tries not to think too much about it. It isn't like her after all —she is practical and logical. The simplest answer is always inefficiency, not conspiracy. Still, the thought worms into her mind as she stares at the never-ending stream of work. Why her? Why this relentless tide?

Ron had dropped by her office earlier in the day. Broad-shouldered, freckled, grinning like the boy he once was, he has leaned against her desk with that easy charm that makes everyone feel at home. It has been almost comforting, in its way. Almost.

"How are you holding up, 'Mione?" He's asked, blue eyes bright with concern. "You look tired."

She has brushed him off, muttered something about adjusting to the workload, about needing to set things in order. But the truth lingered long after he left —the way his presence tugged at her, the way she remembered another life she could have had. The safe one, with him.

And then, of course, comes the guilt.

Because how can she sit across from Ron, his loyalty so plain, and not think of Malfoy's sly smirk in the manor's halls, or Nott's infuriating quips that make her want to strangle and laugh all at once, or Riddle —dark, dangerous, impossible Riddle— who has begun —almost imperceptibly— to tolerate her, to acknowledge her as more than an intrusion in his life.

The contrast tears at her. Here, in the Ministry, in her department, everything is orderly, righteous, sanctioned. Everything that she likes. Yet she feels herself suffocating, as if the files and the memos are chains meant to hold her down.

At the manor, surrounded by men she has every reason to hate, she had felt strangely free.

Perhaps the Ministry isn't sabotaging her. Perhaps it doesn't matter if it is. If it tries. Because the outcome is sensibly the same —she is drowning here. And she cannot ignore the tug in her chest that tells her she isn't done at the manor.

Thus, by evening, her candle has burned low, her quill has gone dry, and she knows she cannot stay another night here, buried alive. She pushes her chair back, gathers her satchel, and leaves her office with brisk steps.

She does not go home to her apartment. 

The wards of the manor shimmer faintly as she steps through, heart quickening. She is finally back. 

Kingsley

There is a truth that none of the Ministry's officials likes to hear, but the Ministry has survived the war, but only just. Its walls bear no scars, but Kingsley knows how fragile the foundations have become. Trust is brittle. Order is tentative. The only thing holding the world together is the illusion that the victors have been right, that their champions have saved them all.

Harry Potter is more than a boy, more than a man —he is a symbol, and symbols cannot be allowed to vanish.

He sits in his office, broad hands folded over his desk, staring at the file that has been laid before him. The ink still smells fresh.

Confirmed trace —Potter's magic detected. Vicinity of Norxward.

Norxward. The name rings in his head like a bell from the past. It's the same as before the war —old blood, old families, the sort of land that has once hidden Death Eaters in its bones. It had been years since he heard the name, but when he sent for research, the answer chilled him: A Nott estate, left to rot after the war, but never fully stripped of its protections.

It makes sense, he realises bitterly. Potter has always been drawn to nests of vipers, and it would be just like him to stumble into an old enemy's lair, convinced he could walk out unscathed. Except this time, he hasn't walked out. At all.

Kingsley's jaw tightens. The Ministry needs Potter back, even if Harry has never truly recovered from the war —haunted eyes, that restless guilt, the way he drifted through the corridors as if his heart had been buried alongside the dead— none of it mattered. The world needs its saviour visible, breathing, real.

That makes him wonder —what if he is dead? What if he hasn't survived whatever jail or torture he has been through?

He shuts that thought away with a snap of his hand on the desk.

No, Potter needs to be alive. He has to. It's too early for him to die, because if he is, then the Ministry will crumble. No one will trust power if the Saviour is not there to guide them. 

He leans back in his chair, the leather groaning under his weight, and thinks of what comes next. The file talks of a trace, and it isn't vague. The Auror who had found it —Greengrass, sharp-eyed, steady-handed, one of his best trackers and one of those who had been forcibly assigned Auror in order to be pardoned of their crimes during the war— had sworn to the location. It points directly at Norxward, and Greengrass knew about the place. She had been there as a child. And if Norxward still stands, then whoever holds it is dangerous, clever, and worst of all, prepared.

His mind leaps to the names already whispered in the streets. Malfoy, surely, and perhaps even Nott. Both have slipped through the Ministry's fingers. One had destroyed Azkaban and escaped, the other had managed to disappear in the chaos after the Dark Lord's fall and had been declared dead, but no body was ever found. Nott's disappearance has been tolerated for a time, as well as Malfoy's. 

Before Potter's disappearance, they had held a meeting about something darker still. The possible survival of Tom Riddle. When Kingsley and Potter had tracked Malfoy to his place in France, they had found a second person with him indeed. However, there is no proof that it was Riddle, not without having him right in front of him.

He presses his hands flat against the desk, breathing deeply.

If even only half of it is true —if Harry has been caught in the web of those men— then this is no longer a simple rescue. It is a war waiting to ignite. He can almost hear the clamour already: cleanse the nest, destroy it before it spreads.

Perhaps they are right. A corner of him, the part that has bled and fought for too long, agreed. But another part, quieter and older, speaks of restraint. Hope, even.

Can he risk restraint now, though? Can he risk the Ministry looking weak while its saviour is bound in an enemy's house?

No. He can not.

The firelight shifts as he rises to his feet, his decision unshakable even if heavy. Aurors will be dispatched. He will choose the best of them and they will storm Norxward, tear through whatever shadows still cling to that place, and drag Harry Potter home —whole if possible, but at any cost if not. They could use a martyr as well, after all.

Kingsley's reflection in the window stares back at him, grim and unyielding. He does not relish what is coming, but he will see it done. He doesn't have a choice; the Ministry will have its saviour returned, and if the shadows fight to keep him? Then, let them burn. 

Chapter Text

Draco

The door clicks softly behind him as he steps out into the corridor, closing Potter into silence once more. The room is still as stone, but the words spoken inside still cling to him as he walks away. Potter had been calm, unnervingly so, but there was steel beneath the calm —the certainty that Draco is lost, beyond saving, chained once more to darkness, but only this time, it is for good.

Still on his side, Potter had said. Still choosing him.

His hands curl on his sides, jaw clenching painfully. He is choosing, indeed, except this time it is actually a choice when it was not before. Before, when he had been a child and then a teen, it was all imposed on him. But not now. Well, he hasn't chosen to fall in love with Tom, but he chose to stay with him, still chooses every day to keep him close, to cherish him, to desire him. And he will keep choosing Tom until there is nothing left of him to give.

A shadow shifts at the end of the hall, and he recognises Granger, her face pale with exhaustion, thinner than the last time he has seen her, and her eyes darting quickly toward the closed door before locking on Draco.

"Good evening, Malfoy," she greets him as he approaches her. Her voice is steady enough, but there's a rasp of weariness to it.

"It's been some time since you've come," he replies, shaking her extended hand. He guides her, then, down the corridor and toward the drawing room where he knows Theo and Tom are.

The firelight greets them as they enter —Theo is sprawled on the settee, long legs stretched out and a book dangling from his hand, when Tom sits poised in his chair by the hearth, his drawing notebook open on his knees and a piece of charcoal between his fingers. They both look up at once when he and Granger step in.

"Granger... well, good evening," Theo is the first to greet her with a nod and a smirk. "You've been scarce lately," he remarks, marking his page with a finger. "I was beginning to think you'd abandoned us for bureaucracy."

Granger sets her satchel down on the nearest chair, her shoulders tightening. "Good evening, gentlemen," she replies softly before looking at Theo with a similar smirk on her face, although hers is tired instead of witty. "I nearly had no choice."

Draco, who has settled down next to Tom, leans back slightly, watching her carefully. "Care to explain, then?"
She draws in a steadying breath, and he can't help but worry about what she might say next.

"The Ministry pulled me in again. Interrogations using Veritaserum and the likes... and I'm drowning under the work. I'm starting to think they are doing it on purpose."

Theo whistles low, while Tom frowns slightly.

"Did they ask about Potter?" Tom asks as he glances quickly at Draco. He knows he's trying to understand if they have more information than they should have. He watches Granger expectantly.

"Yes," she declares, "I managed, but barely. The Unbreakable Vow held, but I can't deny it was close. Too close, perhaps." She hesitates. "Kingsley isn't wasting time anymore. He's formed a special unit, which he's called the Hunting Team. I've been placed at the head of it. Alongside Ron and others in the Aurors department."

The silence that follows is heavy, stretching taut across the room. They have been expected as much, so Draco can't say he's surprised. Tom and Theo don't look surprised either.

"How poetic," he comments.

"Well. That's cheery," Theo adds, shutting his book with a soft snap.

Granger doesn't smile, and it reinforces the look of tiredness on her face. "Their orders are to track you down—all of you. To bring Harry back and to destroy each one of you. They want to make sure none of you walk away."

Theo whistles lowly, while Tom frowns. Draco only studies a bit more of Granger's expression. She doesn't seem particularly afraid or even regretful; instead, there's something steady in her gaze. He realises that she hasn't come only to warn them, but that she is also making a choice here.

"What do they know?" He asks.

She exhales slowly, running a hand through her wild hair. "Not enough. They traced Harry's magic near here, but the wards have successfully blurred the trail. They suspect Norxward, but the team struggles to find exactly where it is now and how fortified it is. Strategy-wise, they're planning to send scouting teams before launching a raid. It's meticulous. I think Kingsley doesn't want to risk open failure."

He absorbs her words, rolling them like dice in his mind. For the first time in weeks, he feels the faintest flicker of relief. "You realise," he says finally, "that this makes you invaluable."

Her lips tighten. "Or it makes me the greatest liability you've ever sheltered."

He allows himself the ghost of a smile. "Both can be true." His eyes don't leave Granger's face —he notices the dark smudges beneath her eyes tell him how it has cost her to bring this to the, to balance herself between two worlds. She is fraying at the edges, he realises, wondering how long she will last.

They don't talk much afterwards, Granger being exhausted, Theo urged her to go get some sleep in her room before she leaves early in the morning. She returns down the corridor and disappears into the manor's dim light, leaving the men behind in the drawing room. Draco's thoughts snarl like beats, twirling endlessly as he tries to figure out how the three of them —he doesn't include Granger; he's not sure she'll want to— can successfully win a fight against a whole team squad of very trained Aurors. He knows the three of them are powerful, especially Tom —and him, even if he still tries not to think too much about it—, and even Theo, in his own way, but the Ministry will have the numbers. They could reinforce the manor's wards, but it'll take a lot of time, and—

A gentle and warm touch cuts off his thoughts. It's Tom, whose presence is a quiet weight at his side, dark eyes catching every flicker of shadow and flame. They don't speak at first —watching from the corner of his eyes, Theo leaves the room.

"You're troubled," Tom says, and it's not a question.

He lets out a sharp laugh, brittle at the edges. He can't help it. "Potter thinks I've betrayed everything he tried to defend, that I've betrayed what I am. Granger's bringing us news of our execution. And the Ministry's sharpening its knives. Forgive me, my love, if I don't feel entirely serene."

His lover's lips curve faintly, giving light to his face where there had been darkness. "And yet you're still here."

Draco turns to face Tom, meeting his gaze. He falls in his lover's eyes —those eyes, dark as a midnight sky, fathomless, polished obsidian that seem to drink in the firelight rather than reflect it. He knows them by heart now, and he knows also that they're not merely eyes, but weapons —unblinking, relentless, heavy in times, and that they can pull anyone into their orbit. They exist on a face so arrestingly beautiful, high-boned and precise, they carry a danger more profound than any wand can. Tom has always looked like that, charm and menace braided together, the kind of gaze that can make strangers bare their throats willingly, convinced they have been chosen rather than conquered.

However, Draco has learned there is something else there too, beneath the intensity, past the veiled cruelty and the calculated allure, there are currents only he seems to notice. There's fear, sometimes. Weariness, even. And that strange ache of wanting, the fragile humanity Voldemort had once torn away but which had been reforged in Tom.

His lover's stare settles on him now, and he feels his breath catch as though those eyes reach inside him, stripping him bare. They always had that effect —even when he hated this face, even when he wanted to kill him— burning through his layers, through his practised Malfoy composure, seeing the raw truth of who he was. It is infuriating how Tom can read him so utterly, strip him raw and make him grateful for it.

As those eyes study him, his chest tightens and his pulse quickens, loud in his ears. Those eyes claim everything that he is, and every time he meets them, he understands with bone-deep certainty that he has surrendered to this monster of a man —and that, against all reason, he will surrender again if he only asked.

Now, the fire paints Tom in cruel light, half-shadow and half-glow. He thinks of Potter's words —he's a monster Malfoy, no matter how beloved.

He knows it's true, but Potter cannot understand that he has seen the monster, knows it by heart, and he doesn't care for it, because he has also seen the man. The wounded man.

Finally, he finds the words to answer Tom:

"I'm here because I'd rather burn with you than live without you."

Tom is a contradiction made flesh, all refinement and danger, every angle precise, every shadow sharpened into allure, and he has been the perfect prey to fall into his beauty. He has stopped seeing only the terror and the beauty of him, now he sees the small betrayals of humanity others never catch —the faint furrow at the corner of his brow when he's deep in thoughts, the brief, unguarded slackness of his mouth when fatigue takes him. He sees the man beneath the myth, the wound beneath the weapon. And the instant the words leave Draco's mouth, there's a flicker in Tom's eyes. His hand comes up, brushing against Draco's cheek —the one with the scar— and the touch is tender, soft.

"Let's not have you burn away, my love..." he whispers against his skin, "I'd rather have you in health by my side... but I suppose even if we were wounded, even if we were burning away, our desire for each other would find a way to the others, like flesh knits itself over a wound..."

Draco's throat tightens. He feels like his heart is about to explode, but the feeling is sweet rather than painful.

"What a tragically romantic way of saying that you love me."

Tom leans closer, his forehead brushing Draco's, his breath warm and unsteady. In their nearness, he feels everything at once —the sharp edges of his lover's beauty, the unbearable pull of those night-dark eyes, the quiet terror of knowing he has given his heart to someone who could break the world with a flick of his wand, and still, wanting nothing else.

"I do love you —in the only way I know, the way that devours. If it is tragic, then let tragedy bind us. I will not survive you, Draco, and I have no desire to try."

The fire roars behind them, sparks leaping up the chimney, as if the manor itself bears witness to Tom's confession, but all Draco can feel is the press of Tom's hand on his face, the weight of his forehead against his own. Whatever storm will come, this is the only reality that matters.

Chapter Text

Kingsley

 Kingsley has grown used to the smell of parchment and candle wax, but lately the air in the Auror offices reeks of something sharper —like rot buried beneath polished wood. He can feel it in the paper trail and in the reports that don't match. In the signed directives that are never sent. In the sealed files that are unsealed, as if the cabinets themselves have grown fickle.

However, there's only really one thing that troubles him deeply: Hermione Granger's name came up too often. The young woman has always been meticulous, clean, organised, and in sum, perfect. But if there's one thing the Ministry has taught him, it is that if anything is too 'clean' then it must mean that it is suspiciously so. If a pattern is too perfect, that can only mean that something is being hidden.

He spreads the reports across his desks. There's a sealed file on experimental wards, tampered with, an altered directive concerning patrol routes near Kent, and now, testimony from a captured wizard —a former hanger-on of the Death Eaters, slippery as smoke but terrified enough under Veritaserum to confess. He had seen Granger, but not in London nor in the Ministry; instead, near Norxward forest.

Kingsley presses a hand over his eyes. For months, he had told himself Hermione's presence is their greatest shield —after all, she is the brightest witch of her age, unshaken even by war, a tether to Harry Potter, symbol of Light and of hope.

Still, he realises with bitterness, hope has teeth, and it is tearing him apart.

He is the one to order the Legilimens.

The room is dark when he enters, windowless and lined with warded stone. He remains in the adjoining room, divided only by a pane of enchanted glass that allows him to observe without intruding. He folds his arms behind his back, forcing his breath steady as the appointed witch —sharp-eyed, talented— steps forward. Hermione sits opposite, bound only by the runed chair. She looks exhausted as shadows pool under her eyes, but her spine remains straight, her chin lifted in defiance.

The Legilimens witch lifts her wand without any mercy, any kind words, as she starts her ungrateful work. The moment the spell settles inside Hermione's mind, the air shifts —he can feel it even through the barrier. Hermione, to her credit, only stiffens. Her fingers curl tight against the chair's arms, and within seconds, beads of sweat glisten along her hairline.

Kingsley has been witness to hundreds of interrogations in his career, but this is somewhat more brutal than anything he's ever seen. Perhaps because it is a different kind of violence, a different kind of invasion. The witch is fighting not against Hermione's will alone, but against something seemingly buried deep within her.

The young Head of Department gasps, shaking her head hard as if to dislodge invisible claws as blood wells at the corner of her nose, then from her ears. Her lips form silent words —stop, stop, STOP!— though her voice never leaves her throat. Then, something happens. The Legilimens witch shudders, as if she'd just struck against iron, and he feels rather than sees the breaking —something inside Hermione snaps.

A sound tears out of her —half scream, half sob— and light sears across her chest. Her blouse darkens as the fabric burns away in a perfect pattern. A scar, raw and livid, branched out just above her breasts: a star, ten-pronged, each line jagged as though cut by molten glass.

Kingsley's breath catches as he watches the scar spread. It looks like a curse, or a vow, but at least, something ancient —older than Ministry law, older than most known bindings.

Through the haze of her pain, the Legilimens staggers back in her chair, clutching at her own head, eyes wild. She turns to the window behind which he is hiding as she speaks with difficulty:

"I saw—" she rasps. "A manor. And within, Malfoy and Nott. And him. You-know-who, except he doesn't look like the Dark Lord, but I know it's him. She knows it's him."

Her words fall into silence as he digests them, fists tight against himself. He frowns as he looks at Hermione, something akin to disappointment rising in his chest.

Granger's body is trembling, her new scar glowing faintly like a wound that refuses to close. He feels like the chamber tilts around him, reality narrowing to two truths:

One— Harry Potter is alive.

Two— Hermione Granger has chosen darkness.

As his stomach sinks, he leaves his hidden place behind the window and enters the room. With a clipped nod, he dismisses the witch quickly. He doesn't watch her leave the room, his attention on Granger. He wants to disbelieve it —Hermione, siding with darkness. Hermione, Potter's anchor. But the Legilimens couldn't have lied, and the pieces slowly start to fit together —the tampered files, the false reports, the wizard's testimony. And if the memory fragments are true, then Potter—

His breath catches once more. Potter is alive. Their symbol is alive, hopefully well, even if held by the Dark Lord and the remnant of Death Eaters. The symbol of Light endures, and that means that the world will not crumble yet.

However, Hermione—

Well, there's no convincing her back if she has already decided to tamper with the Ministry. No speech, no plea, no justice to appeal to, not when she has walked into the shadows willingly.

He watches her as she tries to catch her breath, as she wipes the blood from her nose, as the blood runs from her ears. It's a pitiful scene, but there's no pity in his heart. He will do what the Ministry has always done. He will brand her. Cast her out. Make her name another warning in the long ledger of betrayals, like the Malfoys, the Blacks, the Notts, and so many others.

The Wizengamot chamber thrums with voices, benches filled with cloaked figures whose wands glimmer faintly in the low light. Once again, this call for battle has brought them all back to vigilance, and they hunger for certainty.

Kingsley stands at the centre dais, shoulders squared, though the weight of it pressed hard. When he speaks, it is without the usual political ornament, without pause, his voice echoing off the stone:

"Members of the Wizengamot. Today, I bring proof of treachery from within our ranks. Hermione Granger, once a friend of our Symbol of Light, Harry Potter, once sworn to the Light and the Ministry, Head of D.M.L.E., has been found guilty of conspiracy. Her actions have aided the enemies of this world in abducting Harry Potter and holding him hostage. She no longer stands as protector, but as traitor."

Surely, as he has hoped for, gasps ripple through the chamber. Some shout her name in disbelief, others shake their heads as though they have always known she would eventually fall. The Wizengamot has always been a theatre as much as a court, and tonight the audience demands its tragedy. However, he does not flinch and looks ahead, even if he feels the cost inside. Hermione Granger has once been a pillar —brightest witch of her age, soldier of the Light, the mind that kept Potter alive when even hope faltered. To strip her name from the record and cast it into shadow is to salt the earth where their victories have been sown. Still, he forces himself to look straight, unwilling to show his pain —after all, the Ministry of Magic has not survived on truth, it has survived on certitude. And tonight, that demanded a traitor.

Thus, a minute of chaos, he raises his wand for silence. His eyes harden, even as in the marrow of his bones, something splinters.

"The Ministry of Magic, therefore, declares Hermione Granger a sympathiser with dark forces, an enemy of peace. From this day forth, she is branded a traitor of the Light and the Wizarding World."

The words fall like a sentence carved in stone, and in that silence after, he feels the weight of his responsibilities, of the Wizarding World, shift —irreversibly. 

Hermione

The cell is colder than she expects. The walls are thick, rune-scored in places where the eye refuses to linger, and the air carries that faint metallic tang of wards pressed too tight. Hermione sits on the narrow cot, back straight despite the ache that settles into her spine. She tries not to shiver as she empties her mind of everything that has happened in the past twenty-four hours. The silence here is so complete it echoes —every shift of breath, every scrape of fabric a reminder that she is both contained and utterly unheard.

Her fingers drift unconsciously toward her chest, where the fabric of her blouse pulls strangely over raw skin. The scar throbs terribly, a starburst of pain etched into her flesh, ten sharp branches carved by a Vow she chose to make but not to break. She silently hopes that Theo is alright and has not suffered too much from the breaking of their magic. She can perfectly recall the witch's voice cracking under the magical strain that comes from mind-reading spells, Kingsley's disappointed gaze, and the searing pain as something very important inside her broke open.

She thinks it is Kingsley's eyes that haunt her most —the cool, appraising, condemning. Once, she had believed him steady, a rare anchor in a world of opportunists. However, now, she wonders if she mistook his caution for his integrity.

She forces her thoughts into order, the only way she knows how —with logic, step by step. If the files were tampered with, then suspicion would fall. If suspicion fell, they would turn to Legilimency or Veritaserum. They had already used Veritaserum, so they used a Legiliment. If Legilimency broke her vow, then the truth —even if only fragments of it— would spill. If fragments split, they would be twisted into a shape the Ministry already wanted to see.

If A, then B. If B, then C. If C, then D.

The sequence is neat, unassailable. But it doesn't really matter, she thinks bitterly. The Ministry has stopped listening to logic; they never wanted her equations.

Her breath shudders out of her, and in the echoing dark she understands that she is not here because of what she's done, but because of what she threatens. Because she no longer fits the narrative.

Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her age, Harry's best friend, Ron's ex-lover, and somehow a symbol of reason, had become inconvenient. She lowers her head into her hands, not in defeat, but in sudden clarity. This is not a trial of her actions --not entirely, at least. This is mostly punishment for breaking the story they built on her back.

The iron door grinds open, and the sound feels like a verdict in her ears. She rises from the cot, wrists shackled by a charm that hums cold against her skin, and lets herself be marched forward by two Aurors who will not meet her eyes. She knows them —on her left is Paul, he's been an Auror for only two years, he likes to eat tomato soup at lunch and he has a girlfriend he wants to propose to, and on her right is Lorelei, she's older and she's been through the war and survived, she has two kids at home and a wife waiting for her.

The corridors blur past —marble veined with shadow, the Ministry's grandeur turned suddenly hollow. She knows where they are taking her long before the doors loom: the chamber of the Wizengamot.

She has stood here before. Once, her name had been a banner for victory next to Ron's and Harry's. Once, her presence had drawn applause, gratitude spilling from benches lined with cloaks and wands raised in salute. She can still feel the ghost of it in her bones.

Now, whispers follow her like knives. Now, the eyes are murderous.

The chamber thrums with chaos as she enters. Cloaks ripple, masks of power blur together in the half-light, and the benches seem higher than she remembers —looming, watchful, hungry. A bit out of herself, she thinks that it must have been Draco's view of her, as she had tried to defend his case after the war, right before he was sentenced to Azkaban.

She recognises faces despite herself: former colleagues from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the mentors who taught her precision, the Aurors she once trusted to guard her back. Some meet her eyes for a heartbeat before looking away, others glare openly, as though she has spat on the graves of their dead. Perhaps her betrayal feels like she did.

She is led to the centre dais. The shackles release with a faint click, and she can rub the skin of her wrists anxiously. She stands bare in a place where bare words will have to be her only defence.

She spots Kingsley, high above her. He seems to have been here for quite some time already —already condemning her to their world— as she notices the light sheen of sweat coating his forehead and the tension under his eyes.

He reads her charges aloud —treason, conspiracy, aiding dark forces. The scar at her chest —though hidden beneath the fabric of her shirt— is invoked as proof of her corruption, her 'bond' with powers too old, too dangerous, too suspect.

She forces herself to breathe deeply, and when she feels a bit steadier as she looks up to the hateful faces, she speaks:

"I haven't betrayed the Ministry! I haven't betrayed our world," she pleads, "I worked within our walls, with our laws —laws I have created! For years, now—"

Her words echo and slide pitifully against the strength of her audience's silence. The wizards and witches present today listen to her, but they do not hear.

So, she tries again, stronger, passion rising where reason fails:

"You accuse me because it is easier than asking why your walls have cracks. You accuse me because you fear what you cannot control, what you cannot understand! You do not want truth —you want certainty, and certainty demands a scapegoat. If I stand here branded as traitor, then tell me— how many of you are safe? How many of you will be next?"

But again, her words are swallowed whole. The hunger in the air is not for answers. It is for a clean narrative, one that Kingsley had already engraved before her arrival, before she could defend herself. She realises, as her gaze sweeps the chamber, that she could bleed her heart onto the floor and still they would not care. They are not listening, and they never intended to.

Murmurs swell until Kingsley raises his wand, and finally, the chamber falls still, expectant. His gaze sweeps over her once —no warmth, no trace of the man she once trusted, only the weight of office settling hard upon his shoulders.

"Hermione Granger," he intones, his voice ringing clear against the stone. "Head of D.M.L.E. Once the mind that safeguards our saviour, Harry Potter. Today, I declare you otherwise. You have aided dark forces in their plots against this world. By authority of this Wizengamot, and the Ministry of Magic, you are branded traitor, sympathiser, and enemy."

The words are lead and they sink deep within her. Her lips twitch —not quite a smile, not quite a sneer. The irony of her situation tastes bitter on her tongue. Once, she was their proof that brilliance and loyalty could survive the war, and now, she is their cautionary tale, perhaps becoming the darkest traitor of her time. Her mind returns to the time when Draco was standing where she is now, and she was standing where Kingsley is. Same chamber. Same robes. Only the script inverted, as though someone had flipped the page of history and scribbled her name in reverse.

She realises, with startling clarity, that she feels no despair. No crumbling beneath the weight of the judgment. Only a strange, almost serene detachment.

Slowly, she straightens, the scar at her chest throbbing faintly like an oath remade. Let them brand her what they will, she thinks. Names are only names. They do not carry power. What matters at this instant is what she carries still: her knowledge, her mind —the weapon they will learn to fear more than any wand. But as she tries to keep her chin, a new branding burns cold against her skin, a flash of spellfire seared into the air above her as the judgment settles. She does her best not to flinch, not to give herself in spectacle —once again, she thinks of Malfoy, who had stood tall under their judgment, shoulders straight and chin up even as his eyes emptied.

They march her from the chamber, chains rattling softly —ceremonial more than practical, yet weighted with symbolism. Her wrists ache, but perhaps it's more from the every gaze following her down the long corridor than from their grip.

The war hero made traitor.

The prodigy undone.

As they walk through the Ministry's grand atrium, she lets her mind, so frayed by questions and accusations, empty into silence. She looks up. Around her, tall chimneys are rising like blackened sentinels, stone gleaming with soot. She remembers standing here years ago, victorious, watching light flood the space when Voldemort fell. Now it feels hollow. Now she can't wait to return to the same place as Riddle.

Perhaps she's lost her mind, after all.

A bit like Bellatrix. She briefly looks down at her scarred forearm --burning pain rises in her chest at the word written in flesh.

An idea blooms sharp and bright in her mind then.

She is a traitor now —she's been cast out, and with that, the chains of her old loyalties fall away. She has no rules left to bind her, no fear of losing what is already gone. She can break the law and not care. She can fight as her own weapon. She can return to Norxward —to the boys waiting for her, to the war she chooses.

She feels the Aurors' grip tightening on her shoulders as her chains shift. She exhales once, steadying herself, a small smile graces her lips, and she inhales once more. Then she moves.

The runes burn under her fingertips as she twists her wrists, and the chains splinter into sparks. Wards hiss, collapsing in a cascade of failing magic. Gasps rise behind her, shouts of her name, but she is already stepping forward, already claiming the only freedom they left her. She throws herself into the first chimney, emerald flame swallowing her whole, a defiant blaze that leaves only smoke curling in the Ministry's darkened air. In her mind, she pictures the Manor and the boys' smiles, and she whispers her destination.

Immediately, she disappears. 

Chapter Text

Hermione

 She stumbles out of the Manor's chimney, landing hard on her knees. For a heartbeat, she isn't sure if she'll vomit or faint —the wards had gripped her like claws on her lungs, testing, weighing, deciding... Then, like a coin flipped and caught, they released her. Now, she's in. The Manor has allowed her. She takes a deep breath in.

 The soot still clings to her palms when she looks up.

 Draco Malfoy and Tom Riddle are kissing.

 Not the kind of brush-past accident she could blink away, but a slow, deliberate press of mouths, Draco's fingers knotted in Tom's shirt, Tom's hand braced hard against Draco's jaw as if he owns it.

 She freezes, her brain emptying of thoughts in a second as her lungs catch on a wheeze. The moment stretches, absurd and raw. After chains, scars, branding, after the Ministry's judgment and her wild escape... this is what greets her?

 "The hell?" She croaks, voice hoarse.

 Both men jolt apart as if she's hexed them —she might as well have. Draco goes white, lips indecently swollen, and eyes flicking between her bloodied state and Tom's glare. 

 And then, as if her mind has finally decided to break, she laughs. It rips out of her without warning. It's not the neat, controlled laugh she's trained for polite company, but something broken and wild. Exhaustion and disbelief crash together and spill over. She doubles over, pressing a hand to her ribs as laughter shakes her, tears blurring her vision. 

 She can't stop. The harder Draco's ears pink and the sharper Tom's scowl becomes, the more she laughs —helpless, breathless, her body curling around the kind of hilarity that comes only when the world has gone completely mad. 

Tom

 For a split second, he doesn't move. He still holds Draco close, and he can still feel his lips on his, and the warmth that comes with his touch, even if now, his enjoyment is highly disturbed by Granger. Her laughter ricochets through the hall, wild and unrestrained, loud enough to grate against the wards. 

 Draco flushes scarlet, caught somewhere between obvious indignation and disbelief, his mouth half-open like he wants to explain —as if there's any point. He can feel him trembling faintly, the man's usual composure shattered by the sheer absurdity of being seen like this. 

 But it's the laughter that twists under Tom's skin. He notices how Granger is bloodied, openly half-broken, wrists still scored by what must have been heavy chains, but her laughter is too loud, too raw. It sounds mocking to his ear, and his grip on Draco tightens instinctively. 

 His irritation sharpens. "Why are you laughing so hard? We never hid our relationship," he snaps, "Draco has always been mine. That's the reason we're all here. Hardly something worth cackling over like a madwoman."

 Hermione only wheezes harder, doubling over, tears leaking down her cheeks. She tries to speak but fails, then waves a trembling hand in the air as if brushing his anger aside. Finally, words tumble out between ragged breaths: 

 "I just— I just never expected love. But now—" she hiccups once, shoulders shaking, "now it makes sense. All of it."

 He feels Draco stiffen next to him, the red of his cheek darkening further. Tom doesn't breathe for a heartbeat, the word hammering at him with the inevitability of prophecy. And in an instant, irritation bleeds into something else. A strange softness. For the time being, Granger becomes Hermione, and he wants to help her. 

 When he looks again, she isn't just laughing —she's crumpled in exhaustion, her body sagging against the weight of it. The blood under her nose has dried to a rust-coloured stain, and a dark streak marks one ear. Her wrists are visibly raw under her sleeves, bruised deep from what he recognises as restraints that bit too hard. Her blouse is torn, revealing a star-shaped scar beneath that glows faintly, feverish against her pale skin. She looks wrecked —broken down to the bone. 

 He feels his throat tighten a bit, a flicker of curiosity and concern threading through his usual disdain. He wants to demand answers —what happened, who did this, why she looks as if she's crawled back from the edge of death. But Hermione only laughs, spent and trembling, unable to speak. 

 Then, suddenly, the door slams against the stone wall, and Theodore bursts in, wand raised, his eyes blazing with panic. His hair clings damp to his forehead, his skin pallid and sheened with sweat as if he's run a fever for days. The moment he sees Hermione —bloodied and laughing madly— he freezes. His wand wavers. Then, his eyes catch on her chest, on the place just beneath the torn blouse where the scar burns faintly, still angry and red. Tom sees the recognition strike him, sees Theodore's jaw tighten with something more than horror. 

 Hermione sobers almost instantly under the weight of his stare, and her laughter dies in her throat, leaving her voice hoarse but steady. 

"The Wizengamot has branded me a traitor now," she declares, her words sharp but her face now devoid of emotion. "An enemy and a sympathiser. They've set the narrative, and I don't fit into it as a hero. Worse now—" she draws in a breath, fighting the tremor in her hands— "they're preparing for battle. Not days, not weeks, but hours. They'll come here. Soon. Tonight, perhaps."

 The words hang heavy in the air. Draco goes pale, his hand tightening on Tom's sleeve without thinking. He opens his mouth to demand an explanation about the scar, but Draco beats him to it. 

 "What happened to you?" His voice cracks a little, pointing almost accusingly at the star-shaped wound on her chest. 

 She swallows, her mouth opening, but it is Theodore who speaks first, his voice low and ragged, as if he were in pain. 

 "It's my fault." Both Tom and Draco turn on him, stunned. He takes a step closer, but it's unsteady, like every movement costs him. His eyes never leave Hermione's. "When she came here —months ago— I made her swear an Unbreakable Vow. I thought it was the only way to be sure. That she wouldn't betray us. That she wouldn't hand us over to the Ministry." He swallows, colour draining further from his face. "But what the Legilimens did... it wasn't her, but the vow. It twisted. Tore itself apart. Instead of killing her, it... left that." His hand gestures weakly to the star seared into her chest. "And it hurt me as well, draining my energy and magic. I still feel sick."

 Draco's mouth falls open, horror mingling with dawning comprehension. Tom feels his blood run cold, but Hermione's voice cuts the quiet before he can say anything. 

 "It doesn't matter. I'll heal in time. What matters is that they'll come here now. I escaped in front of all of them and as their traitor. That means Norxward will be their target and that they'll follow me, now that they know you are all alive and here."

 Her eyes sweep across the three of them, hard, unflinching despite the exhaustion carved into her body. "We don't have days anymore. The Ministry is moving. The war starts now."

 Tom feels it in his bones —the preparation is finally over. The fragile space they've carved for themselves here, the twisted quiet between battles, is shattered. 

The warrior in him howls, hungry for the clash of blood and fire —but as he looks at the manor walls, he wonders if even they could withstand what is coming.

Theo

He lingers outside her door longer than he should have. He can still feel the echo of pain under his skin, the strange phantom ache left behind since the Vow has broken. It hasn't eased since she stumbled in, laughter jagged and wild, blood streaking her skin.

 Now the halls are quiet, but that tether between them thrummed faintly, like a half-healed wound. He raises his hand, knocks once, and after hearing an answer, enters. 

 Hermione sits hunched on the bed, her hair falling in a tangled curtain around her face. She is quiet now, but not calm. He sees the tremor in her shoulders, the silent way her chest shakes. Her laughter had dissolved into tears.

 He doesn't speak. Not right away. He simply crosses the room and sits down on the edge of the mattress. For a long time, there is only the hush of her breathing and the faint crackle of the manor's wards beyond the walls. Silence has always felt easier than words to him, but when he finally looks at her, and she meets his gaze through wet lashes, he decides he should say a few words. 

 "I could help you," he says softly. "With the pain and the scar. I have things —potions, salves, poultices. They won't make it disappear, but they might dull the pain."

 She doesn't speak, and in her eyes there's no anger left, no sharpness —just exhaustion. She seems to hesitate for a moment before slowly nodding. He stands, offering his hand. She lets him pull her to her feet, and together they walk the corridor to his room. 

 He hasn't really looked at her before —not properly— he realises as they walk. She's always been Granger —the bushy-haired Gryffindor, the know-it-all, one of the symbols of everything Light and sanctimonious. However, right now, in the low lamplight of the manor, he notices details he's once dismissed. Her hair, though tangled from what she's been through in the past twenty-four hours, curls loose around her shoulders like a wild crown. Her face is gaunt from strain but fine-boned, the kind of fragile beauty that reveals itself when she is still. Her blouse clings damp to her, torn open enough to reveal the fever-bright scar at her chest, and her wrists bear angry red lines still. She is exhausted, trembling, but something in her posture —chin raised, back straight even now— reminds him that she is no ordinary witch.

 And it strikes him, with a sudden pang, how much she resembles the girls he'd once known best. Pansy, curled against him in the dormitory after her father's temper had left her bruised and shaking. Daphne, silent tears on his shoulder when the pressure of her family's expectations became unbearable. He had held them both through nights of heartbreak and violence, felt the warmth of their presence pressed against his chest, breathed in the scent of their hair. Hermione, sitting on her bed with tears streaking her cheeks, carried the same weight in her eyes —that mixture of defiance and breaking, of someone too young to be strong for this long. 

 The recognition hurts. It hollows him out, because if she can be so like them, then perhaps the line between Light and Dark has always been thinner than he'd allowed himself to believe. Regret lances through him, sharp and merciless. If he'd been less blind, less proud, perhaps he could have done then what he is doing now —offering a hand instead of a sneer. Perhaps Hermione wouldn't be here, branded a traitor. Perhaps he wouldn't have lost most of his friends to the war and its aftermath, or seen Draco sent to Azkaban and returned utterly broken. For one dizzying moment, he wonders if all of it could have been different, if reconciliation had been possible once upon a time, in the echoing halls of Hogwarts, if someone —if he— had been brave enough to cross the divide. 

 The thought twists his insides mercilessly still when they arrive at his room. He opens the door without a word and guides Hermione inside. She still pauses at the threshold, looking around, before stepping inside. 

 His chambers are different from the rest of the manor —he knows that well. Dark, elegant, suffused with a quiet kind of order that isn't order at all. Books pile on every surface, their spines cracked and marked in different languages. Scrolls and rune diagrams are tacked to the walls, smudged with ink, half-burnt candles still stuck in their holders. His desk overflows with potion vials, pestles, coils of dried herbs, making the place smell faintly of ash, ink and wolfsbane. In a corner, the chimney glows dimly, a small fire curling low against the grate. It casts his scattered drawings in shades of bronze and shadow. 

 He crosses to a shelf and pulls down a jar of thick green paste, the smell sharp and herbal as he twists the lid open. He gestures for Hermione to sit on his bed —the sheets a dark, clean grey, the kind of simplicity born of habit. 

 "Lie back," he says gently, watching her do so stiffly. He lets her open the blouse further without revealing too much of her privacy, but laying clearly in the open, the angry-red scar. Sitting next to her body, he dips his fingers into the salve and then, gently, kindly, touches it to the scar. 

Despite the lightness of his touch, she still flinches. The skin there is inflamed, hot under his hand, and he spreads the poultice as gently as he can. 

 "Why do you keep this on hand?" She asks after a while, her voice thin but curious. 

 His hands don't pause, but he keeps his eyes lowered on her scar. Bile starts rising in his throat even as he keeps a straight face. "Because I learned early that I could only count on myself. I know how to treat bruises, burns, cuts, broken bones. I know how to make things that ease pain. My father taught me plenty about scars." Despite himself, his mouth twists, and the bile rises further. "Not how to heal them, mind you. Just how to survive them."

 The words slip out before he can really think about it, but he doesn't regret them. He feels like tonight it is important for her to know these kinds of things about him. About them, the Slytherins. 

 Her eyes soften as she looks at him. She looks like she understands, really understands. For the first time, her empathy isn't pity, or sharp-edged curiosity, but something quieter. Like shared grief. 

 "I'm sorry," she whispers. She seems to mean it, he realises. He shakes his head. 

 "Don't be. It's only the truth. No need to fret about it."

 She gives a small, broken laugh at that, but her hand catches his wrist before he can pull it away. Her hand is warm, slightly trembling, obviously desperate for an anchor, against his, cold and scarred, and in that moment, with the storm gathering outside and the new war pressing closer by the hour, they sit in silence. Both of them are raw. Both of them scarred. And neither of them is entirely alone. 

Chapter Text

Harry

He sits on the edge of the bed with his hands curled into fists against his knees. He isn't pacing —has stopped doing so days ago and refuses to do it again. Pacing would mean admitting that the walls are winning, that the wards stitched into the stone are pressing too close. Pacing would mean he is restless, caged. He's still trying to convince himself he's not. So, instead, he sits, rigid as a board, fighting the itch in his legs, the twitch in his jaw.

He tells himself he isn't a prisoner. Not really. They haven't locked him in chains, haven't dragged him down into a proper cell —the one like in Malfoy's Manor. He still has nightmares about that place. This situation is different. Choice, he tells himself. He is choosing not to force the wards, choosing not to scream the house down until Tom bloody Riddle appears. He is choosing restraint.

The lie is sour on his tongue.

He wants out. He wants to see Kingsley, to be in the same room with the Minister, to force an explanation, a negotiation. He wants to tell Kingsley that he's tired, that being his symbol of peace is exhausting. He wants to stand there and demand to know why the Ministry keeps the narrative of Light and Dark being infinitely different, with one good and one bad like gospel.

A bitter laugh rises in his throat. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. It's the symbol and political weapon of the Ministry that is polished until it shines. He's won them their war, carried their dead on his shoulders, swallowed their sins with his own, and still... still, he has to continue this parade, this dance to their tune. The saviour. The symbol.

Never a man.

Never a child.

Sitting here, in this suffocating quiet, he can't ignore that symbols don't get to leave their cages. They learn to live within it. 

He stares at his fists until his knuckles ache, until the skin there whitens. The old scar tissue stretches, reminders of curses, hexes, nights of fighting he can't remember clearly anymore. The Boy Who Lived. The Chosen One. What a joke. Every name is a title carved into him until the man beneath gets lost. He knows how the Ministry —Kingsley at their head— sees him: Light incarnate, the perfect victor. He knows what Malfoy and his Slytherin friends used to call him: enemy, Dumbledore's pawn and the Ministry's pet. Both stories strip him down into something that can be wielded, a banner on a battlefield.

However, the truth is simpler and far less valuable. He's just Harry. Scarred and broken-backed from carrying more dead than he can count. So tired he can feel the marrow of it. He remembers the war like it was yesterday, where Light and Dark blurred together, where the same spell burned, whether it came from a Death Eater's wand or his own. Reducto, Stupefy, Expelliarmus, Avada Kedavra —they didn't change their nature because the caster wore Gryffindor colours or was of Light magic. Bodies still fell. Blood still spread. The banners are what made it palatable. Names stitched onto the slaughter so the victors could sleep at night.

A sour thought blooms —Light kills as neatly as Dark, sometimes even more ruthlessly, because it insists it's righteous. And he had been their perfect symbol of righteousness. 

 In the middle of a thought, he hears the door creak open. He doesn't look up at first —half-expecting Malfoy or Nott, but when he finally lifts his eyes, the sight pulls the air from his lungs. It's Hermione. He realises, with a jolt, that he hasn't truly seen her in what feels like ages. She's here, standing in the threshold with a light blue blouse that does nothing to hide a star-shaped scar against her chest, or the marks on her wrists. Or the dark bags under her eyes. Or the paleness of her face, thinner than he remembers. Her hair hangs in wild, tangled curls. She looks exhausted, like she never did before, not even when they were looking for the Horcruxes, because, unlike then, right now she looks absolutely terrified, and... sorry.

For a moment, the fact of simply seeing her again knocks him flat. She's here, alive and breathing. His chest clenches with the urge to cross the room and pull her into a hug almost overwhelmingly. He doesn't move, though, because there's something in her eyes that tells him that he isn't about to enjoy her visit.

She doesn't waste time, and when she speaks, her voice trembles slightly even as she comes to sit next to him.

"Harry... I need to talk to you," she declares first, skipping the politeness. "I need you to let me explain before you... before you decide what I am to you now."

That sets his teeth on edge. She's Hermione, his best friend, what else could she be? His mind refuses to move past that, refuses to reconcile the image with what her tone implies.

He watches her draw in a shaky breath. "The night you went to France, when you tracked Malfoy to that cottage... since you saw Riddle and Malfoy and you've made your report and we have that meeting with everyone. Well, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. About how Malfoy's magic has changed, about how Riddle has... survived. Not just survived —come back with a soul that shouldn't exist anymore. You know me. I couldn't ignore those questions. They consumed me days and nights."

His jaw tightens, the itch to pace returning. "You went looking for them."

"Yes." She doesn't flinch. "And I found them. I found where they were hiding. And Theodore was there as well. They—" she hesitates, her throat working— "He made me swear an Unbreakable Vow that I wouldn't tell anyone. Not even you."

He surges to his feet, hands curling at his sides. "An Unbreakable Vow? With them? Hermione, have you lost your mind? How could you—" his voice cracks, hoarse with betrayal and bitterness. "How could you keep that from me?"

"Because I knew you wouldn't understand." The words tumble out sharp, desperate. "Because you'd run straight to Kingsley, and the moment you did, everything —everything— I was learning would've been buried. Lost. I couldn't let that happen. Not when the discoveries I was making... They could change how the world understands magic itself. Do you hear me? This isn't just about Riddle or Malfoy —it's about the very foundations of how we define life, soul, survival, power. But if the Ministry kills them —kills me— it all disappears. And it'll be for nothing."

Harry lets out a bitter laugh that tastes like blood on his tongue. "For nothing? 'Mione, what about the war? What about Ron? What about everything we fought for? You chose them. You chose the same people who stood with Voldemort, who forced you to erase your parents' memories! You're actively choosing Voldemort through Riddle!"

Her eyes flash, and for the first time, there's fire in her voice. "I didn't betray us, Harry. The system betrayed us. Don't you see? The war never ended —it just changed hands. And I'm choosing Voldemort because Tom Riddle isn't Voldemort. He's Riddle, and if you talked to him, you'd know they were different. He's even different from the boy you've seen all those years ago. And you know as well as I do that the Ministry is not looking for the truth. It wants control. It wants you as a weapon, me as a cautionary tale, and them as villains. They decide who's Light and who's Dark, who's worthy and who's damned. And we both know those words mean nothing. Spells kill no matter who casts them."

Her words hang between them, and for a moment, he feels stripped raw, because she's right. He knows that deeply.

He sinks back onto the bed, running a hand through his hair, his voice low, almost broken. "Do you think I don't know what it's like? To be used by them? I've been their symbol for so long, I don't even know who I am anymore. Some days... some days I'm not living, I'm just wearing the mask of the Boy Who Lived. The saviour. Their bloody puppet. But the truth is—" his voice falters, his eyes glassy— "the boy who lived is half-dead inside. Has been for years."

Hermione doesn't move closer, but her face crumples at his words and the fire is gone from her eyes. The silence stretches, thick with grief neither of them can quite voice. He knows she understands deeply what he means, and he wishes he could do the same for her situation. Slowly, he clears his throat, swallowing hard.

"These discoveries you made... what are they? What's so important that you swore an Unbreakable Vow for them?"

His friend hesitates, then admits softly, "That Draco's magic evolves in every instant, that he can, in fact, become immensely more powerful naturally when it is impossible for the rest of the Wizarding World. Or at least that's what we thought. I don't believe he's the only one with this condition, but how many other children have been mistreated, misled, because of their different magic? And concerning Tom, the conditions in which he finds himself are extremely interesting to examine in order to figure out how Voldemort spared a fragment of his soul for it to be regenerated by ancient rituals and blood. If we study it, we can also learn how to protect ourselves from it or develop it. The possibilities are infinite. But both discoveries inform us what we both have known from the beginning: there's no Light or Dark magic. Magic is magic. Neutral. What changes is our core and what we do with it, how we're raised. I still need to study them both more, but... well, it's already incredible what I've seen so far."

As she falls quiet, he studies her. He wants to rage. He wants to cling to the simple categories Hogwarts and the Ministry have taught him and still chant. But he can't, not with his best friend in front of him, her wrists scarred, her face drawn, her eyes burning with conviction. He exhales slowly.

"And them? Malfoy, Riddle, Nott... What are they to you?"

She meets his gaze without flinching. "Draco and Tom are in love if you want to know. It's... well, I sure didn't expect that, but it's very real. I've never seen this much tenderness and protectiveness between two people as with these two. And Draco has been nothing but respectful, more than I ever thought he could be, and he's helped me more than I can say. Tom—"She shakes her head faintly, lips twitching— "Tom has been cautious, watchful, but he tries. He's learning how to be with people again. And Theodore..." her shoulders lift. "He's himself. Quiet, but he helps in his own way."

He stares at her, stunned, a thousand questions pressing at his tongue, but underneath it all, one thing thrums louder than the rest: she believes what she's saying. She believes it with every fibre of her being. Perhaps that terrifies him a little, but it also makes him admire her even more. Despite everything, Hermione is still the best friend he's always known. Still the same know-it-all and knowledge-hungry.

After a moment, he asks the question that tightens his throat since she's entered the room:

"What did the Ministry do to you?"

Hands twisting together in front of her, she looks away. When she answers, her voice is small, even if steady. It's as if she's sharing a secret, sharing something painful.

"They brought in a Legilimens and tried to strip my memories bare. When they did, they chained me in front of the Wizengamot, like I was some dangerous criminal, and they called it a trial. Kingsley himself stood there and publicly branded me a traitor." Her jaw tightens, but her eyes shine. "You can imagine what that does to someone who believed in the system. In Kingsley."

Harry's gut twists. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He just sits there, staring at her, his chest heavy with a sick weight.

Shacklebolt Kingsley —the man they both trusted, the man who had saved them in the past.

The silence stretches until he has to break it, his voice tight, almost brittle.

"It's hard, Hermione. It's... It's bloody difficult to look at you and not see the betrayal. You are my friend, my family. We fought for something together, and then you—" he cuts himself off, teeth clenched, because he doesn't want to hurl words he can't take back. He drags a hand over his face. "You sided with the one enemy I've sworn to destroy. The one I've lost everyone to. How do I forgive that?" She doesn't answer, but her gaze returns to him, eyes wet but unwavering. He exhales, slow, heavy. "But... I want to try. I want to understand your logic, even if I can't accept it yet. I want to see it for myself."

His gaze hardens, not with anger, but with determination.

"You're right about one thing —those bloody labels don't fit. Light, Dark. They're just words the Ministry uses to keep their story neat and clean. I've cast plenty of curses they'd call Dark, and still, they paint me as their shining saviour. If that's true... maybe there's more to Malfoy, to Nott, even to him." He swallows hard, the name catching like ash in his throat. "I just need to see it for myself. Not through you, not through their stories. With my own eyes."

For a long beat, Hermione says nothing. Then: "Harry... you can't just walk out of this room. The wards —Tom's wards— would tear you apart."

"Then negotiate it. Help me." His voice steadies with resolve, the same steel that once carried him through war. "I'm not asking for freedom. I'm not asking to run. I swear to you, I won't try to escape. I just... I need to know. I need to see if there's something human in them. If there's something worth everything you've risked."

She hesitates, worry flickering across her face. "Before we even think about that, I need to bring them in. All of them, they'll want to hear your arguments for themselves."

His jaw tightens, but he smiles. "Then I'll wait."

He means it, because for the first time in a long time, waiting feels like action. He turns to Hermione as he leans back against the bed, an amused smile gracing his lips.

"How do you think Ron would react to all of this?"

She chuckles lightly next to him.

"Badly," she assures him with a smile.

He laughs with her. 

After a while, Hermione left to seek Malfoy and the rest of them. He's been waiting since then, lying on the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, fighting the urge to measure every second in restless pacing. When the door creaks again, he jerks upright.

Malfoy is the first to enter the room, pale and with blond-white hair, and his back straight. He looks calmer than the last time he's seen him, steadier somehow. Then Nott follows —quiet on his feet, watchful, eyes flicking over Harry in sharp, assessing passes as if he's reading wards etched into his skin.

And last is Tom Riddle. Just like last time, the air goes taut in his lungs and bile rises in his throat, sharp and acid. He's seen Tom in a hundred nightmares: red-eyed, snakelike, inhuman. He always expects that horror. He always braces for it. In a way, this is worse because the man in the doorway is not Voldemort, nor is he the boy from the diary, either. He is something in-between and yet utterly different, something unnervingly real. His eyes are dark brown, almost black, so deep they swallow the light, but not red, not burning with hatred. There's no manic gleam, no inhuman slits. Just eyes. Alive, watchful, steady. Curious, even. His hair curls in loose strands around his face, a little dishevelled as though he'd run a hand through it too many times. A faint pink flush covers his cheekbones, and his mouth is relaxed, not twisted into that thin, cruel smile. Then, there's the clothes —he can't stop staring at them. He no longer wears the ceremonial black robes, but instead wears a cream woollen pullover, black trousers, and brown leather shoes with scuffs on the edges. He looks ordinary. Civilian. He looks more like a scholar who's misplaced his books than the Dark Lord who murdered Harry's parents and most of his family and friends.

It's... disappointing even when the dissonance is dizzying. His stomach knots. He has no idea whether to laugh, retch or draw blood. Yet, when Tom's gaze settles on him, clever and calculating, but not cruel, not enraged, it feels like he's hit with a hex. Tom's attention on him is full, consuming, as though he is already being taken apart, piece by piece.

At least, some things never change, he thinks.

After a moment of silence, he takes a deep breath in, holding it for a few seconds before letting the air leave his lungs. His knuckles dig hard into his knees, a reflex not to reach for a wand he doesn't have. He notices Hermione glancing at him, a hand half-raised as if she might ward the room from the three of them —or from Harry himself.

Malfoy is the first to break the silence.

"So," he says, voice clipped, but not entirely unfriendly, which is a first ever. "Potter."

The name still hangs like a challenge. He swallows, his mouth dry. He wants to spit back something easy, something cutting —Ferret. Coward. Death Eater's son. Voldemort's fuckboy. But it's too easy and unfair if he's honest with himself. He's just angry. He just wants to understand what about them and their situation has managed to persuade Hermione to change sides. To betray everything. He needs to know. If only to be able to live with himself.

Instead, he smiles —more a smirk than a true smile, but still.

"Malfoy," he greets, then, with a glance at Nott and Riddle, he adds, "Nott. Riddle."

Tom tilts his head when he talks, and his presence fills the room further like a shadow. It's not loud, but the weight of his gaze is so absolute that he thinks absurdly that this is what a prey must feel like when a predator has decided it's curious. He forces his chin up because if nothing else, he won't bow. Tom allows the silence to settle for a moment further before he speaks. When he does, his voice is unlike Voldemort, unlike the boy from the diary. It's quiet, even, and it carries through the room easily.

"Hermione tells us," he begins, his gaze never wavering from Harry, "that you asked to. Negotiate the terms of your confinement." He doesn't pace, doesn't gesture, but only stands there, still as a blade balanced on its edge. Harry notices the way Malfoy has turned to Tom, eyes burning on the side of his face, full of an unknown emotion. Perhaps that's what Hermione had called love. Perhaps he might need a lesson in the matter of the heart if Malfoy and Riddle have managed to have it before him. He returns his attention to Tom as the latter continues: "So here we are. Ready to listen and to hear what you have to say for yourself."

He watches Malfoy leaning back against the opposite wall, arms folded, his pale brows raised in the faintest suggestion of scepticism, while Nott remains near, quiet but eyes sharp, taking in every flicker of Harry's expression.

He stares back at them —at Malfoy's cool poise, at Nott's scrutiny, at Riddle's hard gaze. His pulse hammers in his throat.

"It's hard," he says finally, his voice rougher than he would have wanted. "It's bloody hard to look at any of you and not see what I've been taught to see. To see what I've lost because of you. You—" he breaks off, jaw tightening, because the words are already too sharp. He drags a hand down his face. "You're the one enemy I've sworn to destroy, the one who's taken everything from me. How am I supposed to forgive that?"

He calmly watches their brows furrow as he continues.

"But..." his voice softens, "I want to try to understand why Hermione chose you. I want to understand you, even if I can't accept it yet. Even if everything in me is screaming against it." He looks at each of them in turn. "I, too, have cast spells the Ministry would consider Dark. I, too, have done things that are unforgivable. Those labels —Light, Dark— they're just banners to make our history neat and clean. If that's true, though, maybe there's more to you than what I know." He swallows hard. "I just need to see it for myself."

Silence presses in.

"You want to see with your own eyes," Tom says suddenly, "Hermione said as much. That you would demand the right to exist among us, rather than behind a door."

Malfoy folds his arms, a slight frown creasing the space between his eyes. "That's not a small ask, Potter. We're not talking about letting you take tea in the garden. We're talking about letting you close enough to undo everything we've built."

"And what happens the moment you change your mind?" Nott asks, blue eyes sharpening further. "What happens if you decide the Ministry is the safer option? That we're monsters, after all?"

Harry holds their eyes in turn. "Then I wouldn't be here asking. I'm not promising to like you. I'm not promising to trust you either. But I'll give you my word, I won't run to the Ministry. I won't try to break free."

At that, Theo tilts his head, a faint flicker of something in the electric blue of his gaze —amusement, perhaps— crossing his face.

"Then, you won't be against swearing an Unbreakable Vow? Granger did it. And I can't see any other way for us to allow you to live within our walls rather than to be a prisoner. We don't work in words and handshakes here, Potter. We work in oaths that burn when broken. Or worse."

His stomach drops as he briefly glances at Hermione, who only kindly smiles at him.

"He's only trying to scare you," she says gently, "but it'll be safer for everyone if you swore it. Actually swore."

"Alright," he sighs after a brief moment of reflection, "Alright... if this is what it takes, I'll do it."

Riddle steps closer, the air colder around his silhouette, filling in with magic. He raises an odd wand that looks nothing like Voldemort's. He lifts it gracefully between them as he starts incanting. "You swear you will not attempt to leave this manor by force or deceit. You will not seek the Ministry, nor aid them in seeking us. You will attend Hermione's sessions, should you choose, and you may take part in the rhythm of this house. Speak your thoughts. Argue, even. But you will not betray us." His dark gaze pins Harry in place. "That is the vow."

His throat works, but his voice is confident. "I swear it."

When the words are out, Tom quickly grabs his arm, hand in hand, and firmly taps the tip of his wand on their joined hands. Golden curls of magic leave his wand to tangle themselves around their arms and hands until fire sears around his skin as the magic takes hold. The conditions burn themselves into his bones, into his breath, until the spell seals with a sharp snap of heart.

It's done.

When Tom lets go, Harry's palm feels raw even if there's no mark, no scar. He exhales slowly. Tom inclines his head in an almost-nod. There's a slight smile on his lips.

"Then, Potter. Welcome to Norxward Manor."