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“Are you sure you’re ready to do this?” Hermione asked through clattering teeth.
The chill in the late October air was harsher this year than usual and Hermione’s ministry issued robes weren’t holding up against the wind.
Draco took off his scarf, wrapping it around her neck, and took her hands in his own. It was nearly dark but Hermione could see a glint of silver in his eyes.
“Darling, I’ve been putting this off for long enough, but I’m ready. I just need to go in and grab a few old heirlooms and documents before the ministry destroys the manor and cleanses the grounds of any residual dark magic.”
“Okay, but don’t forget, Harry and Pansy are expecting us in an hour for drinks at Grimmauld Place.”
She closed her eyes as he leaned forward and his warm lips touched her forehead. “Of course, Mrs. Malfoy.” His whisper sent shivers down her spine.
They turned and continued up the gravel path towards the silhouette of the looming estate. Hermione couldn’t help thinking the points of the iron gate and spires on the roof gave the impression of a dragon lying in wait.
—
Hermione had heard from Harry that the Auror Department had tried everything but had been unable to access Malfoy Manor without Draco’s help. The estate still held such strong magic tied to the Malfoy bloodline. In the ten years since his parents' deaths, Draco hadn’t once set foot inside the manor. But as soon as they approached the front door now, it swung open with a slow creak as if the old house had known Draco would come back to it, and had been waiting for him.
Hermione hadn’t been back to the manor since she was seventeen years old. She still had nightmares about her visit on that night thirteen years ago, but waking up to Draco’s words of devotion in her ear helped ease the anxiety that always followed.
It was her turn to return the favor. Draco needed her tonight and now wasn’t the time for her to think about what had happened on the drawing room floor. But as she followed him through the dark halls she couldn’t help notice the burning sensation in her bare left forearm.
They stopped outside a closed door with an ornate serpent shaped doorknob. Hermione could sense Draco had stopped breathing next to her and she wrapped her hand around his arm.
“We can come back in the morning if you want,” she reminded him.
In answer, he let out a breath and reached his hand out to open the door. The room beyond was an old study, clearly once belonging to Lucius. His cane was leaning on the desk and the chair was pushed out at an angle as if he would be coming back to work any minute. Hermione half expected him to walk in the door behind her if it weren’t for the thick atmosphere of dust and must in the air. Clearly no one had been here in years.
Draco went to the desk and began to search through the drawers as Hermione wandered the edge of the room. She examined the bookshelf, lined with old tomes she’d seen in the restricted section at Hogwarts and dark artefacts she knew better than to touch. She made her way to the fireplace. She could feel the suck of cold air as it exited the room up through the flute with a whispered scream.
She shivered and curled her fingers into the cashmere of Draco’s scarf around her neck. Her eyes grazed the mantle and she noticed it was lined with old picture frames. They were covered in dust and she could barely make out the moving figures beneath the layer.
She’d seen limited photos of Draco as a child because they both refused to visit the manor and she desperately wanted to know what he looked like before she’d met him in their first year.
She turned around and saw Draco was flipping through some files at his father’s desk so she picked up a frame and wiped the dust from the glass.
It was an image of Draco as a baby, maybe a year old if she had to guess. A soft tuft of nearly invisible hair on the top of his head and a green stuffed dragon almost as big as he was held tightly by the neck under his arm. Hermione smiled as the photo moved and Draco’s eyes wrinkled in hysterical laughter.
She moved onto the next frame and brushed the dust away with her thumb. Draco appeared to be about three years old here. He was being held by both of his parents and he had another big smile. But… This picture was off… The photo started with both of his parents kissing his cheeks, but as the frame progressed, Narcissa turned to face the camera. She was beautiful. Blonde hair in soft, relaxed curls and an easy smile on her face that Hermione had never seen from her before. As Lucius turned to look at the camera, Hermione grew still. His long hair had hidden his profile when he’d been kissing Draco on the cheek, but as he turned to face the camera it looked as though someone had scratched his face out of the picture. Just jagged gouges remained where his face should’ve been.
Hermione looked back and Draco was now searching through a new drawer at his father’s desk. She realized she had no idea what heirlooms he’d been hoping to find. She thought he hated all reminders of his family history.
She moved on to the next frame. Young Draco on a broomstick with his father chasing behind him. Draco looked thrilled but she’d never know the emotions Lucius held in this moment. His face was, again, gouged and shredded.
She picked up the next frame. Draco and Narcissa sitting by a tree on a picnic blanket. Lucius bending into frame to hand Narcissa a wine glass. Face missing.
Next. Draco looked to be close to Hogwarts age here. He was posing with Lucius in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic with Millicent Bagnold walking in frame to shake Lucius’ hand. Lucius’ face scratched away yet again.
Frame after frame, they were all the same. Lucius’ face gone. Narcissa untouched. She couldn’t help but notice the light in Draco’s eyes growing dimmer as his childhood progressed.
“Are you ready?” Draco’s voice was right behind her.
Hermione jumped and the frame clattered over on the mantle. She turned around with short breath and her heart in her ears.
“I didn’t hear you walk over,” she admitted. “You frightened me.”
“You have nothing to be frightened of, dear,” Draco said, emotionless, his eyes lingering on the pictures Hermione had been looking at. He put his hand on the small of her back and guided her out of the office. Hermione could feel something hard and small pushing into her back where his hand rested.
They made their way back to the foyer but as Hermione headed towards the door, Draco stopped her.
“Wait here, I’ll just be a minute,” he said stiffly. Hermione could tell he was occluding. She wanted to follow him but she could tell this was something he wanted to do alone. He disappeared down a hallway opposite the one they’d just come out of.
—
Minutes passed and Hermione began to wonder what could be keeping him. All she could hear was the wailing wind through the old glass window panes and the creaking sounds that came with old houses.
She cast a Tempus charm and noted that they needed to be at Grimmauld Place in 15 minutes.
She set down the hall he had disappeared into. Her footsteps were muffled by the thick layer of dust on the carpet. She could see a flickering light at the very end of the hall behind a cracked door, cast a Lumos, and set towards it.
The heavy darkness of the hall made it seem longer than it probably was. She seemed specifically attuned to every noise since she couldn’t rely on her sight with only the glow of her wand. Were those footsteps above her making the ceiling creak like that? Was there an open window somewhere that made the tapestries on the wall shift like that?
As she got close to the door she heard Draco talking. Apologizing. Crying?
“Nox.”
She peeked through the crack and saw him, back hunched, heaving sobs, kneeling beside an armchair. He was in what appeared to have been his old bedroom, judging by the Slytherin posters lining the walls.
She tried to shift closer to see who he had been talking to when her foot caught a loose floorboard and it creaked.
He whipped around with his wand drawn and a green curse ready on the tip. In the light from his wand she could see that his face was strained and his eyes were black.
“Draco, it’s me,” Hermione said with her hands out. “...Are you okay?”
“Get out,” Draco bit out.
“Wh-what?” Hermione breathed out in shock.
“GET. OUT. MUDBLOOD.”
He turned back to the armchair and got down on his knees in front of it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I failed my task from the Dark Lord but I won’t let him down again. I’ll protect our family. I’ll keep you safe, mother.”
As she stepped closer she caught sight of the armchair and finally saw what was in it. It was a skeleton. A female judging by the clothes. It appeared as if the woman had been holding a green stuffed dragon and a picture frame in her final moments. Though Hermione couldn’t see the picture under the thick layer of dust, she thought she caught a shock of blonde hair in the moving picture beneath.
His mother? How was this possible?
Hermione had been with Draco at her funeral. She’d seen her coffin placed in the Malfoy family mausoleum.
Then she noticed that this room wasn’t nearly as abandoned as the rest of the manor. The fireplace had recently charred wood in it. There was a book on the bookshelf that she swore Theo had given to Draco for Christmas last year. There were copies of the Prophet on a side table from just last week.
Draco was stroking the hand of his mother’s skeleton. As his fingers moved, Hermione caught a glimpse of silver in the candlelight. He had the Malfoy Signet Ring on his left hand. He’d never worn that before. In fact, she hadn’t seen that since before Lucius had died.
Something was not right.
Hermione began to back away slowly. Once she was out of the room, she turned and bolted down the hallway. She passed a turn leading down another dark hall and did a double take as she saw a set of large, green, watery eyes that reminded her keenly of Dobby. She kept running.
What was going on?
Draco hadn’t been to the Manor in a decade… right?
As Hermione ran down the gravel lane she periodically tested her apparition to see if she were past the wards. She had a stitch in her side and didn’t think she could run much further. When the pain began to feel like a dagger between her ribs she felt the sensation of the air being squeezed from her lungs that told her she was finally successful in apparating.
She landed on the top step outside of Grimmauld Place and pounded on the door.
“Hermione! We’ve just put Scorpius and Albus to bed,” Pansy said as she opened the door, reaching for Hermione’s robes and the cashmere scarf she was clutching to.
Harry walked up behind his wife and pulled his best friend inside as soon as he saw her face.
“Hermione? Where’s Draco?”