Chapter Text

The body had been arranged with mathematical precision.

Hermione Granger stood at the edge of the ritual circle, her wand light casting harsh shadows across the victim's face. Professor Septima Vector lay on her back in the center of her own office, arms and legs positioned at exact ninety degree angles. Around her, someone had carved numbers into the floorboards with what must have been excruciating care. Complex equations spiraled outward in a nauseating pattern, each symbol cut deep enough to splinter the ancient wood.

"Don't touch anything," Hermione said, though the warning was unnecessary. Auror Robards stood frozen in the doorway, his face pale beneath the fluorescent glow of his lumos charm. His hand trembled slightly on his wand.

"Is that..." He couldn't finish the sentence.

"Arithmantic notation. Yes." Hermione crouched lower, careful not to disturb the circle. Her knees protested the movement. She'd been awake for thirty-six hours straight, buried in research at the Department of Mysteries, and her body was making its displeasure known. But none of that mattered now.

The numbers weren't random. She could see that immediately. They formed a sequence, each building on the last, spiraling inward toward the body with deliberate intention. At the center, where Vector's heart should have been beating, someone had carved a solution into the floorboards. The numbers were precise, elegant even, speaking to someone with genuine mastery of the field.

But the answer was wrong.

That was what made Hermione's skin crawl. Whoever had done this understood Arithmancy well enough to create an elaborate working, sophisticated enough that it would have taken hours to complete. Yet they'd deliberately introduced an error into the final calculation. The number was off by exactly thirteen.

Nothing in Arithmancy was ever off by thirteen accidentally. Thirteen was the number of transformation, of death and rebirth, of fundamental change in the magical world. This was intentional. This was a message.

"When was she found?" Hermione asked, forcing herself to focus on the practical questions. Emotion could come later, after she'd gathered the evidence she needed.

"An hour ago. Head Girl came to ask about her thesis proposal." Robards cleared his throat. He was young for an Auror, probably only five years out of Hogwarts himself. This would be his first real murder case. "She thought Professor Vector was asleep at her desk at first. Then she saw the blood."

There wasn't much blood, which was another oddity. Whatever had killed Vector had done so cleanly, efficiently. No struggle, no defensive wounds, no sign that she'd fought her attacker. The cuts in the floor were the only violence visible in the room.

"You're not supposed to be here, Granger," Robards added, his voice apologetic but firm. "Unspeakables aren't cleared for Auror investigations. You know the protocols."

"Vector sent me an owl yesterday." Hermione pulled the crumpled letter from her pocket, handling it carefully. Evidence, her mind supplied automatically. Everything was evidence now. "She said she'd found something in the archives. Something about the Founders' original protections on Hogwarts. She wanted to meet this morning at eight."

The letter trembled slightly in her hand. Not from fear, but from exhaustion and guilt that sat like lead in her stomach. She'd ignored Vector's request, too busy with her own research into temporal magic to make time for her former professor. The work had seemed important at the time. Critical, even. Now Vector was dead, and Hermione's research felt like ash in her mouth.

If she'd just taken an hour to meet with Vector yesterday, would the professor still be alive? Had Hermione's absence somehow triggered this, or prevented it? The questions spiraled through her mind, as complex and dizzying as the equations carved into the floor.

Robards pinched the bridge of his nose. "The Department of Mysteries will want this case. It's clearly ritual magic, possibly dark arts. That makes it their jurisdiction."

"The Department of Mysteries can have it." Hermione stood, her knees crackling. "After I look around."

"Granger..."

"She was my professor, Robards. She taught me everything I know about Arithmancy." Hermione met his gaze steadily. "And whoever did this knows I'll be looking into it. The error in the equation isn't random. It's meant for someone who would understand the significance. Someone who would recognize the deliberate mistake."

She didn't add that the message was likely meant specifically for her. That whoever had killed Vector had known about the meeting request, had known that Hermione would be called to the scene, had wanted her to see this display. That knowledge sat cold and heavy in her chest, but saying it aloud would only make Robards pull her from the investigation faster.

He studied her face for a long moment, then stepped aside with a sigh. "Ten minutes. Then I'm calling this in, and you need to be gone before the senior Aurors arrive."

Hermione nodded her thanks and stepped carefully into the circle, her personal wards flaring to life as she crossed the carved boundary. They detected nothing. No residual magic, no trace of the killing curse, no sign of any spell she recognized. The equations themselves held no power. They were inert, decorative almost, which made them even more disturbing. All this precision, all this effort, and it had been purely theatrical.

Vector's eyes were open, staring at the ceiling with that fixed, glassy look that the dead always had. Her lips were slightly parted as if she'd been about to speak. Hermione knelt beside her former professor, checking for any detail the Aurors might have missed. Vector's robes were undisturbed, her wand still holstered at her hip. No defensive wounds on her hands. No signs of poisoning in her lips or fingernails.

She'd simply stopped living, as if someone had flipped a switch and turned her off.

On the desk, Vector's research lay scattered across the surface in organized chaos. Papers covered in the same cramped handwriting Hermione remembered from her seventh year, when she'd spent every spare hour in this office learning advanced theory. Lunar calculations covered one stack. Theories about magical resonance filled another. Notes on ancient protections, ward interactions, the mathematical principles underlying protective enchantments.

Hermione leafed through them quickly, her mind cataloging and filing information automatically. Nothing immediately jumped out as dangerous. Nothing that obviously explained why someone would kill Vector over her research. It was all theoretical work, the kind of pure mathematics that most wizards found boring but that Hermione had always loved for its elegance.

Then she found the photograph.

It had been tucked between two volumes of Advanced Arithmantic Theory, hidden so deliberately that Hermione almost missed it. The books had been placed at an odd angle on the desk, creating a small gap that would be invisible unless you were looking from above. The photo itself was old, the magical movement sluggish and faded. It showed six people standing in front of Hogwarts' main entrance, dated 1945 in faded ink on the border.

She recognized a younger Dumbledore immediately, his auburn hair not yet fully gray, his face unlined but with those same piercing eyes. The others were unfamiliar. Three men and two women, all dressed in formal robes that spoke of old money and older magic. They stood with the easy confidence of people who belonged, who had never questioned their right to be exactly where they were.

Then Hermione's gaze fell on one man standing slightly apart from the group. Tall, pale, with the sharp features that marked old pureblood families. He wore a ring on his right hand that glinted in the photograph's frozen sunlight. A thick silver band with a black stone, carved with a symbol that made Hermione's breath catch.

The same symbol that was burned into Vector's forehead.

She'd been so focused on the equations that she hadn't examined the professor's face closely. But now, leaning in, she could see the mark clearly. A circle bisected by a vertical line, with smaller circles at each cardinal point. It matched the carving on the ring exactly.

Hermione's breath caught. Her mind raced through possibilities, connections, implications.

"I need to speak with someone," she said abruptly, standing so fast that black spots danced across her vision. "About the history of Arithmancy at Hogwarts."

Robards frowned from his position by the door. "Who?"

"Someone who was there in 1945. Someone whose family has been connected to this castle for generations." She met his gaze steadily, watching his expression shift from confusion to understanding to concern. "I need to speak with Draco Malfoy."

"Granger, you can't be serious. Malfoy hasn't been involved in anything magical since the trials. He's retired to the Manor, doesn't take visitors, barely responds to Ministry correspondence."

"Then I'll make him respond." Hermione pocketed the photograph carefully, ignoring the voice in her head that told her she was removing evidence from a crime scene. She'd return it. Eventually. After she understood what it meant. "Vector died because of something connected to Hogwarts' foundational wards. The Malfoys have been record keepers for the castle since it was built. If anyone knows what this symbol means, it's him."

"And if he refuses to see you?"

Hermione's smile was sharp. "Then I'll stand outside his gates until he gets annoyed enough to let me in. You know how persistent I can be."

Robards sighed. "Ten minutes is up. You need to go before Williamson arrives. And Granger?" He waited until she reached the door. "Be careful. Whoever did this is intelligent. Methodical. They're not going to stop with one victim."

"I know," Hermione said quietly. She looked back at Vector one last time, at the woman who had encouraged her love of mathematics, who had seen potential in a muggleborn girl and nurtured it without hesitation. "That's why I need to find them before they kill again."

The morning air outside Vector's office felt startlingly clean after the stale atmosphere inside. Hermione drew in deep breaths, trying to clear her head. Students would be waking soon, filing down to breakfast, completely unaware that one of their professors had been murdered in the night. The castle would go into lockdown once word spread. Parents would panic. The Board of Governors would demand answers.

And Hermione would have to find them, because she couldn't live with another death on her conscience.

She apparated directly from the Hogwarts gates, the wards recognizing her authorization from her work with the Department. The familiar squeeze and pull of side-along apparition compressed her, and then she was standing on a country road she hadn't seen in five years.

The approach to Malfoy Manor.

The Manor looked different than Hermione remembered.

Someone had torn down the albino peacock topiaries that had once lined the drive like pale sentinels. In their place stood what appeared to be an entire orchard, dozens of trees planted in neat rows. Apple trees, Hermione realized as she walked closer. Their branches hung heavy with late autumn fruit, red and gold in the weak morning sunlight. The air smelled of apples and earth and something else, something green and growing that had no place at the Malfoy estate she remembered.

The gates stood open, which seemed either careless or deliberately inviting. Hermione paused at the threshold, studying the ward structure. She couldn't see it, not exactly, but she could feel it the way she always felt powerful magic. A prickling along her spine, a pressure against her temples, a sense of being observed by something vast and intelligent.

Malfoy's wards were supposed to be among the most sophisticated in Britain, keyed to his bloodline and his alone. No one entered the Manor without explicit permission, without being added to the ward schema personally by the head of house. The wards should have stopped her, questioned her, held her at the gate until Malfoy decided whether to grant her entrance.

Instead, they welcomed her.

Hermione stepped through, and the wards recognized her. Not as a threat, but as someone expected. Someone invited. The sensation was unmistakable, as clear as a hand shaking hers, as warm as a greeting from an old friend.

That should have been impossible.

She walked up the drive slowly, her wand loose in her hand but not drawn. The orchard stretched out on either side, ordered and peaceful. Someone had clearly spent considerable time and money establishing it. The trees were healthy, mature enough that they must have been planted years ago, but young enough that this was recent work. A project undertaken after the war, after the trials, after the Malfoys had retreated from public life.

The front door opened before she could knock.

"Granger." Draco Malfoy stood in the doorway, and for a moment Hermione could only stare. He looked different. Older, obviously, but it was more than that. He'd always been lean, but now he was almost gaunt, with circles under his eyes that suggested too many sleepless nights. His hair was longer than she remembered, falling past his collar in a way that would have horrified his father. He wore muggle clothes, dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. No robes, no family crest, no ostentatious jewelry. Nothing to indicate the pureblood heir he'd been born to be.

He looked, Hermione thought with some surprise, tired. And oddly vulnerable, standing in his doorway without the armor of his family name wrapped around him.

"You're predictable," he continued, stepping aside to let her enter. His voice was the same, that drawling aristocratic accent that had once made her want to hex him. Now it just sounded weary.

"You were expecting me."

"Vector's been murdered. You're investigating. You found something that leads back to my family." He closed the door behind her, and Hermione heard the wards resettle into place with an almost audible sigh. "The real question is why it took you three hours."

The entrance hall had been stripped of its dark artifacts. Gone were the mounted house elf heads that had decorated the walls, the serpentine sculptures that had lurked in every corner, the oppressive crystal chandeliers that had cast sickly green light over everything. Instead, bookshelves lined every available wall, stuffed with volumes that looked recently purchased. Hermione caught titles on wardcrafting, ancient magic, defensive theory, arithmantic principles, even a few texts on muggle mathematics that made her eyebrows rise.

"You're researching," she said.

"I'm trying not to die." Malfoy led her down a corridor she didn't recognize. The Manor had been partially renovated, walls knocked down, rooms reconfigured. It looked lighter somehow, despite the dark wood paneling. More windows. Less oppressive. "Tea? Or are we past social niceties?"

"Someone killed my former professor using Arithmancy." Hermione got straight to the point, pulling out the photograph as they entered what appeared to be a library. Floor to ceiling shelves surrounded a working space dominated by a massive oak desk covered in papers and open books. "They left a deliberately incorrect equation at the scene. And they marked her with this symbol."

She thrust the photograph toward him. "The ring in this picture. I've seen it before, in records of your family's collection. Tell me what it means."

Malfoy took the photo, his expression unreadable. He studied it for a long moment, and Hermione watched emotions flicker across his face. Recognition. Concern. Something that might have been fear, quickly suppressed. When he looked up, something fundamental had shifted in his demeanor.

"That's my great great uncle Corvinus," he said quietly. "He died in 1945. Suicide, supposedly." Malfoy's jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath pale skin. "The ring went missing with him. My grandfather searched for it for forty years. Turned the Manor inside out looking for it, interrogated every house elf, called in favors from half the families in Britain. He never found it."

"Why?" Hermione pressed. "It's just a ring."

"No." Malfoy crossed to one of the bookshelves and pulled down a slim volume bound in black leather. The cover was unmarked, anonymous, but Hermione could feel the preservation charms radiating from it. Old magic, carefully maintained. "It was a key."

He opened the book carefully, revealing pages covered in dense notation. Hermione recognized the style immediately. Arithmantic proofs, the mathematical foundations of ward construction, equations that described magical principles in pure numerical form. It was beautiful work, elegant and precise, the kind of thing she would have spent hours studying just for the pleasure of understanding it.

"The Malfoys have been keeping records of Hogwarts' wards since the castle was built," Malfoy continued, his voice taking on a lecturer's tone. He might have been teaching a class, if classes involved family secrets and murder. "The Founders didn't trust the Ministry. They didn't trust anyone, really. So they made certain families responsible for maintaining different aspects of the protections. Failsafes, in case something went wrong. In case the castle needed repairs or modifications centuries after they were gone."

"Different families," Hermione repeated, her mind already leaping ahead. "Different aspects. What were the divisions?"

"The Blacks handled blood wards. Recognition magic, family connections, the spells that identify friend from foe." Malfoy turned a page, showing her a diagram of interlocking circles. "The Notts managed the defensive enchantments. Attack prevention, protective barriers, the wards that keep the castle standing during magical battles. The Parkinsons maintained the concealment charms, though that line died out in the eighteenth century and their responsibilities were absorbed by others."

"And the Malfoys?" Hermione asked, though she was beginning to understand.

"Guarded the Arithmantic framework," Malfoy confirmed. "The mathematical foundation that holds everything else together. Every ward, every protection, every charm on that castle is built on top of a numerical structure. It's like... imagine the castle's defenses are a building. The Blacks provided the walls, the Notts provided the roof, the Parkinsons provided the camouflage. But the Malfoys provided the foundation. The mathematics that makes it all possible."

Hermione stared at the equations in the book. They were similar to what had been carved around Vector's body, she realized. The same elegant spiraling structure, the same careful notation. But these were more complete. More correct. This was the master copy, the original blueprint that someone had tried to recreate in blood and carved wood.

"Someone's trying to break into the castle's core protections," she said slowly, puzzle pieces clicking together in her mind. "Vector found something in the archives. Maybe she discovered what Corvinus knew, or where he'd hidden his research. And they killed her for it before she could tell anyone."

"Or she was killed to send a message." Malfoy's voice was quiet, controlled, but Hermione could hear the tension underneath. "To whoever still guards those secrets."

Their eyes met across the book. In the morning light streaming through the library windows, Hermione could see exactly how exhausted Malfoy looked. How worried. This wasn't the arrogant boy she'd known at school. This was someone who understood exactly how much danger he was in.

"They're coming for you next," Hermione said. It wasn't a question.

"I know." He closed the volume with a soft thump that echoed in the quiet library. "That's why I've been researching. Why I've spent the last three years studying every text I can find on Arithmancy, ward theory, protective magic. Why I've been trying to reconstruct what Corvinus knew before someone decides to kill me for it."

"You could have gone to the Ministry. Asked for protection."

"And tell them what?" Malfoy's smile was bitter. "That someone might be after me because my family guards secrets about Hogwarts? The same Ministry that would love any excuse to confiscate the rest of our property and throw me in Azkaban? They'd use it as an opportunity to seize the records, and then where would we be?"

He had a point, Hermione admitted reluctantly. The Malfoys weren't exactly beloved by the current administration. Any sign of dark magic, any hint of danger associated with their family legacy, and the Ministry would have all the excuse they needed to strip them of everything.

"You could have contacted me," she said. "Years ago. If you knew you were in danger."

"Could I?" Malfoy's gaze was steady. "Would the brightest witch of her generation have taken an owl from Draco Malfoy seriously? Or would you have assumed it was some kind of trick?"

Hermione wanted to argue, but honesty forced her to acknowledge the truth. Three years ago, she would have thrown any letter from Malfoy directly into the fire. She'd been angry then, still processing the war, still dealing with her own trauma and grief. She'd had no patience for the complexities of reformed Death Eaters or the nuances of pureblood families trying to rebuild their reputations.

"Vector sent you an owl too," she said instead. "You mentioned that earlier. What did she say?"

Malfoy crossed to his desk and pulled out a letter from a drawer. The paper was cream colored, expensive, covered in Vector's familiar handwriting. Hermione took it carefully, reading quickly.

Mr. Malfoy,

I hope this letter finds you well. I'm writing regarding a matter of some delicacy concerning your family's historical records. Someone has been making inquiries at Hogwarts about the Malfoy ward documentation. They've been asking specific questions about Corvinus Malfoy and the period around 1945.

The inquiries have been subtle, but troubling. I thought you should be aware that someone is taking an active interest in your family's connection to the castle's protections.

I've also discovered something in the archives that I believe may be related. I'd prefer to discuss it in person. Would you be available to meet at the castle this week?

Regards, Septima Vector

The letter was dated five days ago. Hermione looked up at Malfoy. "Did you respond?"

"I sent an owl saying I'd meet her this weekend. I thought I had time." His expression was carefully neutral, but Hermione could read the guilt underneath. He'd underestimated the threat, and now Vector was dead. "I should have gone immediately."

"We both should have," Hermione said quietly. They shared a moment of mutual understanding, two people bound by the same regret.

"So what do we do now?" Malfoy asked.

Hermione turned back to the book of ward documentation, her mind already working through possibilities. "We figure out what Vector found. What Corvinus discovered that scared him badly enough to kill himself. And we find whoever murdered Vector before they kill again."

"The Aurors..."

"Won't understand the Arithmancy. Won't have access to your family's records. Won't be able to move fast enough." Hermione met his gaze steadily. "This is someone who understands advanced magical mathematics. Someone with resources and patience and a specific goal. The Aurors are good at catching common criminals. They're not equipped for this."

"And you are?"

"I'm the best Arithmancer in Britain under the age of forty," Hermione said without false modesty. "I work for the Department of Mysteries studying the most complex magic in existence. And I'm not bound by Auror protocols or political considerations." She paused. "Also, they're going to try to kill you, and I'd rather they didn't succeed."

Malfoy's eyebrows rose. "Concern for my welfare, Granger? I'm touched."

"Don't be. You're the only person with access to the information we need. I'm being practical."

"Of course you are." But there was something almost like a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "So you're proposing we work together. You and me. Hunting a murderer who's clever enough to kill an Arithmancy professor without leaving magical traces."

"Unless you have a better idea."

Malfoy was quiet for a long moment, studying her face. Hermione let him look, keeping her expression neutral. She needed his cooperation, needed his family's records, needed his knowledge of Hogwarts' hidden history. Pride had no place in this equation.

"I'll give you full access to the Malfoy records," he said finally. "Everything we have on the Founders' wards, on Corvinus, on the castle's Arithmantic framework. You can read it all, copy what you need, spend as long as you want in the archives."

"And?"

"And you'll answer my questions honestly. No moral superiority, no lectures about dark magic and blood purity. If we're doing this, we're doing it as equals."

"I can agree to that," Hermione said. "As long as you answer mine the same way. Honestly. No pureblood games, no half truths, no convenient omissions."

"Deal." Malfoy extended his hand. "Partners, then."

Hermione looked at his outstretched hand. Five years ago, she would have hexed him for the presumption. Now, with Vector dead and a killer targeting anyone connected to Hogwarts' secrets, she had only one choice. She took his hand and shook it firmly. His grip was cool and dry, his fingers callused in ways that suggested he'd been doing physical work. Not the soft hands of aristocracy she'd expected.

"Partners," she agreed. "Now tell me why Corvinus really died. Because I don't believe in convenient suicides."

Malfoy released her hand and turned back to the window, staring out at his orchard. The morning sun painted the trees in shades of gold and amber, peaceful and serene, completely at odds with the conversation happening inside.

"My grandfather said that Corvinus discovered something in the wards," Malfoy said quietly. "Something that terrified him. Something that violated the fundamental principles he believed in. Corvinus was a good man, by all accounts. Principled. He fought against Grindelwald, worked with Dumbledore, believed in protecting Hogwarts above everything else."

"What did he find?"

"No one knows. He tried to seal it away, to hide it where no one could find it. He modified the wards, changed the equations, added layers of protection that weren't in the original design." Malfoy's hands were clenched on the windowsill, knuckles white. "Three days after he finished, he was found dead in his study. And according to the family records, he died solving an impossible equation."

Hermione felt ice slide down her spine. "Like Vector."

"Exactly like Vector." Malfoy turned back to face her, and his expression was haunted. "Same method. Same precision. Same deliberate error in the final calculation. My grandfather found him surrounded by carved numbers, just like you described. Whatever Corvinus discovered, whatever he tried to hide... someone wants it badly enough to kill for it. And they won't stop until they have it, or until everyone who might know where to look is dead."

Hermione felt the weight of Vector's letter in her pocket. Her professor had found something in the archives, something connected to this mystery, to the Founders, to secrets buried for seven decades. And that discovery had gotten her killed.

"Where do we start?" she asked.

Malfoy's smile was grim. "The Hogwarts ward room. If there's a weakness in the castle's protections, if Corvinus hid something in the mathematical framework, that's where we'll find evidence of it. The ward room is where all the castle's protective magic converges. Every equation, every spell, every charm, it all flows through that space."

He moved to his desk and pulled out a hand drawn map of Hogwarts. "But we'll need permission from the Headmistress to access it. McGonagall won't grant it without proof that there's a genuine threat. She's protective of the castle's secrets."

"Then we get proof." Hermione's mind was already working through possibilities, strategies, approaches. "Vector's research is still in her office. The Aurors will have secured it by now, but I can request access through the Department of Mysteries. If we can decode what she found, if we can reconstruct her line of inquiry..."

"We'll know what the killer is after," Malfoy finished.

"And how to stop them."

"And whether we're next on their list."

They stood there in the morning light, unlikely allies bound by necessity and murder. Outside, wind rustled through the apple trees, making the branches sway and dance. Somewhere in the distance, a raven cawed, harsh and grating, breaking the pastoral illusion.

Hermione thought of Vector's eyes, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Of the wrong equation carved around her body like a prayer or a curse. Of all the questions that needed answering and all the secrets that needed protecting. She thought of Corvinus Malfoy, dead for seventy years, his hidden knowledge still dangerous enough to kill for.

She thought of Draco Malfoy, standing in his stripped bare manor, surrounded by books instead of dark artifacts, planting apple trees instead of maintaining his family's reputation. Trying to outrun a family curse that had already claimed one life and might claim his next.

"This is going to be dangerous," she said.

"I know."

"We might not survive it."

"I know that too." Malfoy met her gaze steadily. "But if we don't try, if we don't stop whoever is doing this, they'll keep killing. Vector won't be the last. There are others who know about the wards, who have pieces of the puzzle. They'll work their way through everyone connected to Hogwarts' secrets until they have what they want. And then..." He trailed off, but the implication was clear.

And then they would break the castle's protections. Unmake centuries of careful ward construction. Leave Hogwarts and everyone in it vulnerable.

Hermione squared her shoulders. "Then we don't have a choice. We work together, we solve this, and we stop them."

"Just like old times," Malfoy said with a wry smile. "Except this time we're on the same side."

"This time," Hermione agreed. "But Malfoy? If you betray me, if this is some kind of elaborate scheme, I will make sure you regret it for whatever short time you have left."

"Noted. And Granger? If you decide to throw me to the Aurors to save your own reputation, I have enough dirt on Ministry officials to bring down half the government. Mutually assured destruction keeps people honest."

"How reassuring."

"I thought so." Malfoy gestured toward the door. "Shall we start with breakfast? You look like you haven't eaten in days, and I make surprisingly good eggs. Then we can review the family archives and plan our approach to McGonagall."

Hermione's stomach chose that moment to growl audibly, reminding her that she hadn't eaten since yesterday morning. She'd been too focused on her research, then too disturbed by Vector's death, to think about food. But Malfoy was right. They needed to be practical. Murder investigations required energy and clear thinking, and she had neither on an empty stomach.

"Fine," she said. "Breakfast. Then work. And Malfoy? The eggs had better actually be good."

"Granger, I'm offended. When have I ever promised something I couldn't deliver?"

"Sixth year. You promised you'd catch Harry breaking curfew and never managed it once."

"That was different. Potter had an invisibility cloak and an unhealthy obsession with rule breaking. These are just eggs." He headed toward what Hermione assumed was the kitchen, then paused in the doorway. "Thank you for coming. For taking this seriously. I know we have... history. But Vector deserves justice, and whoever did this needs to be stopped."

"I know," Hermione said quietly. "That's why I'm here."

And as she followed Draco Malfoy through the renovated Manor, toward breakfast and an alliance she never would have predicted, Hermione wondered what Vector had discovered in those archives. What secret was worth killing for. What knowledge Corvinus Malfoy had died protecting.

She wondered if they would survive long enough to find out.