Archive of Our Own

But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

Madeline Miller, Circe

“I’m the problem? All I have ever done is support your decisions, even when it meant putting my own life on hold. You wanted to acquire your mastery in France and didn't want to do long distance. We live in the manor now for your mother. You wanted that apothecary. You you you."

Pansy and Narcissa are intruding spectators stuck waiting for the curtain to fall.

The room is too small for its four inhabitants (five, if the distinct aura of Hermione's grief is considered separate to herself, and Hermione is inclined to think it might just be, for this pain indicates she's shorn in half).

She pulls a ragged breath that rattles through her sternum. The linen dress hanging from her frame shivers with the movement of her ribcage finally expanding.

"What about my dreams? Do you have any idea what I hope for when I imagine the future? When was the last time you actually saw me, Draco? When did you stop and look and see that I'm fading away before you. Your own mother noticed and you didn't."

He doesn't react. She's not even sure he's listening. She can barely tell if he’s breathing beneath his black cashmere pullover. Despite having been in his lab, there’s not a hair out of place. He could be carved from marble, this man before her. Resolute, untouchable, cold.

"I can't keep holding you together. I'm tired, Draco. I needed to be needed before, but now... I just want someone to take care of me for a change. To not assume I'll be agreeable with the constant take take take. I just- I want to be someone's first consideration.”

Her shoulders slump at the hopelessness of this entire situation. The tall ceiling of the manor’s drawing room felt perilously close to her skull. Absently, she wondered if the ceiling rose surrounding the new chandelier would crack before her bones.

“You sneer about Ron and Harry taking advantage of me? You're a fucking hypocrite. My god, you wouldn't have your improved wolfsbane without my consultation. And now? You stole my magic for your mother's recovery. At what point did I become little more than a plant for you to harvest from? Is that all I ever was?"

She can't see for the tears now. But she knows he didn't even flinch. The silence guts her, but she resolves to save herself.

Pansy steps to her side and silently offers an arm.

Hermione clutches it, flesh of her knuckles drawn taut, and lets the ring drop to the marble floor. It chafes that she doesn't have the strength to apparate solo, but she's depleted- no. She won't think of this now. She can't think of this now.

As she feels the tug at her navel, she hears it; Narcissa's haunted whisper.

"Draco. What have you done?"

Narcissa's tea service is, in a word, ostentatious. Hermione has no need for such an elaborate set up, but the older woman is clearly making an effort, and so Hermione attempts to do the same.

The awkwardness cloaks the patio with a stifling weight.

Peals of carefree laughter pulls both women's attention. Draco is chasing Teddy Lupin across the lawn.

Andromeda won't stay while he visits the manor, but is comfortable with Hermione's guardianship in her absence. Hermione wonders what fighting in a war has to do with childminding, but doesn't wish to add to the worries of the grey-haired witch.

"It's been too long since these grounds were gifted the joy of a child's playfulness," Narcissa murmurs fondly.

Hermione says nothing. Narcissa presses on, insistent.

"You will try for children, yes?"

Breathe. Steady. Grounding.

"I'm sure Draco will make a wonderful father. He's attentive and generous. His children will be doted on."

"That does not answer my question, Hermione."

The young witch sighs.

"I don't know what to tell you, Mum. I won't promise you grandchildren. You said yourself, the stars wouldn't disclose hopes to dreamers."

"I never should have introduced you to that darned telescope. You spend longer gazing out at the night sky than sleeping most nights. Don't think I don't hear the floorboards creaking. I'm old, not deaf."

The breeze picks up a silver strand of Narcissa's hair, which she promptly pins back in her sleek chignon. Narcissa Malfoy has never dressed down in all the years Hermione has known her.

"I'm glad you introduced me to the stars. I think I'd feel far more self-important without the sky to humble me. I've told you before, it's a relief to give control over to fate. No more planning, not like before. I can just… exist."

Narcissa eyes Hermione carefully. This wistfulness has grown heavier as the years pass. There's a permanent sallow quality to her pallor. A light sheen of sweat. Hermione insists she's alright, but Narcissa frets. With her own failing health, Draco cannot be left alone. If the grief didn't snap him in two, the isolation would shatter him. He's a far softer soul than most realise.

"I'm all right Mum, I promise."

In her delight at Hermione's growing comfort with their familial bonding, Narcissa doesn't catch the difference in the phrase.

Draco and Teddy's heads are arced together, conspiratorial smirks and small hands clutching larger fingers as if to anchor them both to the soft grass beneath them. Teddy's head snaps to the patio, waves excitedly at their captive audience, and runs off in the direction of the stables.

When Draco's eyes meet hers, they hold a heat she hasn't felt in months. She smiles. He must be making progress.

All right. Correct. Immovable. As she is meant to be. Not fine - resigned.

Hermione doesn’t hear her feet hit the ground, her sobs invade every one of her senses. Her skin is raw, air can’t fill her lungs fast enough. Pansy holds her, saying nothing - what is there to say?

Before her legs can give out, she feels a larger body scoop her up. She buries into Blaise’s chest, blocking out the grey light that intensifies the pain behind her eyes.

She can’t make out the soft rumbling, too weak to fight their caregiving as she’s settled prone on a bed she’s never slept in. A cool washcloth over her forehead, the dip of the mattress by her feet, a steady hold on her ankle. Enough contact to ground her, but not too much to overwhelm.

She smells more than sees Pansy curl up beside her. The sandalwood and smoke of her encircles Hermione, soothes her aching insides. Familiarity, comfort, presence.

She’s not sure how long she sleeps, dreaming fitfully, forcing herself to avoid reality. She thinks the sun sets and rises twice before the room is graced with someone new.

“Budge up, Parkinson, you’re hogging the whole duvet.”

Ginny climbs in, her satin blouse skimming Hermione’s forearm.

“I’ll let you sleep one more day, and then I’m throwing you in the bath, Mi.”

Hermione has no energy to agree or resist the woman’s plan. She merely sighs and nestles her head on the slight Weasley’s shoulder.

His bedroom in the manor is surprising. Olive green and warm browns. More simplistic than she was expecting. Although, she's learned that there's little about Draco Malfoy that can be guessed at without at least three misdirects from his highly guarded emotionality.

She sinks into the four poster bed, pulling the drapes shut. This must be what a chick experiences in an egg before hatching. Muted light through the curtain, sound dampened. Safe, beforeness, an entirely different existence.

Her nap is interrupted by a body pressing against her. Kisses peppered down her throat.

"It's done."

She hums.

"Granger, I need more praise than this. If I wanted unaffected congratulations, I'd have flooed to Zabini."

She bites back a grin, heart softening at his open neediness. It took time to get here. He still withholds most things, but so does she. This is a win in more ways than one.

Rolling to meet his hungry mouth, she pours her celebration into him, fills him with unspoken but unmistakable gladness.

Hands grip at her cotton-clad hip, her bare thigh. The buttons of his shirt press to her sternum. She traces each circle in her mind. Catalogues the friction of his slacks against her leg. Notes how small he makes her feel, despite her height.

He turns her to her back, cages her with his limbs. Tongue, teeth, lips. Pinching. Pulling. Giving giving giving.

She cants her hips, begs for release in sighs and giggles. When he sheds his clothes she wraps her arms and legs around him. Soaks in his warmth. The bone-deep comfort of him.

The moment he guides his cock into her, she loses all air in her lungs. Every time, it's like this. She is left gasping and keening. He draws animalistic noises from her throat. Primal nature drives his hips forward. Tears wet the corner of her eye. He licks them from her skin. She claws at his biceps, tilts her head to give him access to her neck. An acknowledgment of his power, how he owns her.

It's his teeth sinking into tender flesh that sends her tumbling into her orgasm, sobbing.

His pistoning hips grow erratic and soon he's growling, head resting on her shoulder as he shudders, release locking his muscles.

Easing out of her, he flops to the mattress, a hand on her heart. Reminding himself she's alive. He's alive. They are together. Living.

Tracing runes over her skin, he tells her changing the order of ingredient addition worked.

"I told you so."

His laugh rumbles.

"Yes you did, swot. I can't believe the ash stabiliser actually worked though. Who'd have thought angrily setting fire to my moonwort supply would be beneficial? I should get that furious more often."

She says nothing, letting him ruminate on this victory.

He will dedicate the potion to Teddy. Supply every werewolf who wants it. For free. He can afford to. She will quietly enjoy being right. Her refusal to quit paid off again. Dedication to him. Desire to see him thrive. This light nurtured in him is as warm as the golden hour sunlight seeping through the drapes.

"You'll have to start working on the Wizengamot. Perhaps it's time to move departments. Anywhere above Archives will be closer to their policymaking. Perhaps DMLE? Not an auror, of course, but surely Ron could use a liaison to the Wizengamot? I'll suggest it to him at the Burrow on Saturday."

She lets him plan, unwilling to derail his good mood. He was groomed for this - letting him play political chess as his father wanted but with none of the dire consequences of Lucius's ideological influence is just another win, she thinks. This is his real mastery - who is she to deny him the much-needed social change he will usher in from the shadows with her as his mouthpiece?

Leaving the safe haven of woollen blankets is daunting, but Ginevra sticks to her word - she’s never faltered where Hermione’s welfare is concerned.

Stepping into a milky bath, Hermione realises it’s as much for her privacy as it is for her healing. Honey, rosemary sprigs and lavender float in the opaque water to sluice the stress and sweat from Hermione - a purging of dead cells and spent emotions.

Pansy routinely refills her teacup, lemon verbena and ginger slices for energy, and feeds her cherries, holding her hand out for Hermione to drop the stones into.

As the water turns tepid for the third time, Hermione stands, not bothering with modesty. There’s hardly room for shyness now - these women have seen her bare.

They each take an arm to help her out the tub, fawn-like legs shaking from lack of use these past days. They towel her down with a gentleness Hermione doesn’t anticipate, she blinks away tears before either witch notices.

Pansy leads her back to the bedroom, setting her on a chaise by the bay window while Ginny goes in search of a dinner more substantial than cherries and tea.

As Hermione sits for Pansy to braid her hair, Blaise knocks on the door and enters carrying a tray. Ginny follows him, scowling.

"Some broth and dumplings, Granger. Take it slow and see how this settles in your stomach. I have a rhubarb crumble with your name on it if you can handle something sweet in a little while."

He pushes his hands in his pockets and rocks on his heels, uncertain.

Hermione watches the slight twitch under his left eye.

"Just tell me, Zabini."

Ginny huffs and sits heavily on the bed, mouth set in a grimace.

"You have visitors. Potter and Theo are asking after you. Ginevra doesn't think it's the right time to let them in, but Theo is rather insistent."

Hermione's smile is small but genuine.

"There's no use trying to stop him. Send him up with the crumble."

She turns to Gin, eyes kind but firm. "I know you mean well, but I don't need anyone making decisions for me. Not any longer."

Her friend's face falls in devastated realisation, but Hermione raises a hand.

"You're trying to protect me and I will always be grateful for that. But I need to have all the facts and make the choice myself. Your care is nothing like-", she chokes and tries again.

"I know you would never try to undermine me. But keeping them from me isn't going to help matters. Why don't you and Pansy go to the garden and pick some flowers for the room? I'm sure Zabini won't miss them."

Ginny nods slowly and reaches for Pansy's hand. Steadying. Mooring.

Blaise leaves with them and Hermione soaks in the brief silence, only her own breath and the hidden mechanism of the grandmother clock in the corner filling the space.

Until thundering steps disrupt the stillness.

"You look like shite."

"You would too, Theodore, if your magical core had been tapped like a keg for Merlin knows how long."

He throws himself onto the chaise and pats her thigh affectionately.

"Gods I've missed your bite, princess-”

Theo’s cut off by a heart-wrenching sob. Looking across the room, Hermione sees Harry’s distraught face pale as his hand clutches his throat.

“Hermione”, he keens, dropping to his knees. No one had prepared him for the shock of it, of what ripping a tear in a witch’s magical core could do.

She’s up and kneeling before him in a matter of moments, low energy be damned. The pair’s backs arch and their foreheads meet, tears pooling between them.

Connection. Acknowledgement. Grief.

Silent apologies pour out of her. Desperation leaks from him.

“How long did you know he was doing it?”

She shakes her head, jaw glued shut. He grabs her shoulders and shakes her.

“How long?!”

She’s vaguely aware of Theo’s warning behind her, but Harry’s jostling unlocks the skeletal vibrations borne of her silence - her body violently attempts to dislodge the shame, fear, resolution that she refuses to set free with words.

“How dare you sit on this, Hermione. How dare you let him bleed you dry.”

“He didn’t, he didn’t. It worked. Harry, I’m here.”

She smooths a hand over his cheek, pressing her warm hand to him, proof of the life still in her.

“You could have died. You would give up your life for-”

“For a woman who gave me a chance to know the love of a mother. Who knew my failures and chose to accept me anyway. She is worth it, Harry. They both are.”

His answering sob shatters them both. For family, every sacrifice is worth it - he was the one who taught her that.

“You would have left me. You would have left me all alone.”

The smile she manages is cracked but visible.

“You have Theo now. You’re building a new family.”

He scoffs. “It’s an extension of us. You’re the foundations, Mione. Without you, it all comes crumbling down. Do you regard yourself so lowly? Can you not comprehend how vital you are?”

The smile slips and in its place is a gaping grief. She gasps, gasps for air. Her lungs stay empty.

Theodore lifts her, carries her to the bed. Harry crawls to her side, resting his head on her belly from his position on the floor.

“Rest up, princess. You’ll need your strength for the verbal spanking I’m going to give you when you’re better.”

Hermione drifts to sleep, Harry’s tears dampening her nightdress.

"You can't resign! What am I going to do without you to kick the old men up the arse with obscure subsections of legal texts?"

Hermione grins at the dismay painting Ron's features.

"It's already done. And you know just as well as I do that Susan is perfectly capable of whipping the boys into shape. She's scarier than me, I think."

They both chuckle - Susan Bones is a formidable Welsh witch who refuses to entertain the pandering or patriarchal bullshit many of the old guard trip over when she walks in the room.

Ron leans against his leather office chair, scratching his week-old stubbled cheek.

"You're sure I can't convince you? I know it's not the money that keeps you here."

She smiles. Her husband's vaults would feed the entire country for a century. It's never been about the money. Playing politics is part of her life. She's grateful Draco got her out from under Shacklebolt's thumb. She's a free agent, in a sense.

"It's time to try something new. It's been three years. I've done what I set out to do. Azkaban intake is down twenty-three per cent. Lust potion distribution is regulated. Magical creature handling training is mandatory for all public-facing staff-"

Ron interrupts her quickly, "you don't need to extoll your wins to me. I am well aware of your policy successes. That's not why I want you to stay. I enjoy us working together, Mione. I'll miss you.”

She laughs.

What she almost says: I’m not dying. But she swore she’d never lie to him again. She’s careful with her words now.

“I’m moving department, not countries.”

He groans in defeat and tells her they’re taking a long lunch so he can grill her on her decision to move to International Magical Cooperation.

She doesn’t tell him it’s Draco’s plan, that she’s along for the ride. Instead, she lists a number of respectable reasons for the change - challenging new projects, the opportunity to travel with her work beyond Cornwall or Inverness. Draco’s plans to begin exporting Teddy’s Wolfsbane and other potions he’s developing never cross her lips as she finishes demolishing her mushroom quiche and swatting Ron’s stealing fingers from her box of chocolate truffles.

The smell of brown sugar caramel and newspaper rouses her from sleep.

“You sure know how to kill a party, Granger.”

She eyes the steaming crumble, stasis charm maintaining its warmth. Chugging a glass of water from the nightstand, she pushes herself up to sit against the plush pillows.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a few days. I just need to figure out where I’m going to move to.”

Blaise grins. “Straight to the point. Well, I hate to tell you this, but Parks has signed a lease on your behalf. Here. You’ll be renting this wing of the house. The agreement comes with a patch of land for gardening. I imagine you’ll want access to the greenhouses too, which can be arranged.”

She blinks. Zabini doesn’t do charity. It was one of the first things she learned about him when Pansy forced them to interact. She liked that she knew where she stood with the man - mutual gains and sly side deals were how he operated.

“And in return?”

“Only your rent. And an understanding that Narcissa will be taking tea in the parlour weekly. You’ll be expected to join us, once you’re well enough.”

Bile rises in her throat.

“I can’t-”

“You can and you will. If the sins of the father don’t tarnish the son, then the son’s misdeeds are of no consequence to the mother. You have six weeks.”

He folds the paper and leaves it on the bedside table, striding out from the room, dragonhide bootsteps against the hardwood floor echoing down the corridor.

Hermione sighs. It’s not as though the offer is unreasonable. And he’s hardly going to expect her to be hiding here.

That is what she’s doing, after all. Hiding. From herself as much as Draco.

Even thinking his name tugs at her torn edges. She wonders how long it will take to heal. Whether she deserves to free herself of this devastation. Karma always collects, after all. She couldn’t keep her birth parents safe with her magic. She certainly didn’t save them from her magic. Now she must repent. Saving the only mother figure she’s known in decades by sacrificing her magical core is penance. This must be her reckoning.

A teacup meets its saucer with a clatter.

“Why won’t you tell me what’s going on? Draco hardly leaves the dungeons most days, except for mealtimes. You’ve not joined us for dinner in nearly a month, Hermione.”

Hermione winces. In her research-laden evenings, she’s forgotten how a good daughter behaves. Or, rather, she’s resorted back to familiar patterns - familial ruin.

"I'm sorry, Narcissa. Truly. I've been so caught up in work. It's a habit I've never broken."

Narcissa frowns, clearly concerned for the witch in front of her. The maternal fussing tugs at old scars Hermione would rather ignore.

The parlour, she realises, has been redecorated again. Navy with gold accents. Pansy has clearly been visiting with Narcissa in Hermione's absence. The chosen child who never fails to bloom under Narcissa's mothering. Guilt rises but Hermione swallows it down. They can't know the importance of her research, but it is important.

"How are your tremors, Mum?"

She visibly softens at the word. Recognition, acceptance, requirement. Narcissa lives for her son, but she thrives for her chosen daughters.

The witch waves a steady hand, brushes off concern.

"Better this week. I think Draco's new potion is working. I've had no pain at night. The aphasia is hardly worth mentioning most days."

Warmth fills Hermione's chest. It's working. It's actually working.

Healing is magic.

No sacrifice is too great for this woman, she resolves. No gift too much for the woman who put the girls back together, mended the war wounds and battle scars with affection and no small number of threats. Such is her way. Thorny, but forever worth it.

Hermione feels the pain radiating from her breastbone. Her breath stutters, but she maintains.

"How about an evening with the stars?"

Narcissa chuckles.

"Darling girl, I think I've exhausted the constellations by now. At least thrice."

"Then read me my fate. Tell me what the stars have to say about me."

A pregnant pause. So many worries left unaired. The pull of regret. Slicing grief. Her story always ends the same. Narcissa wishes she'd never mentioned it. Will never forgive herself that fateful slip. Naming eventualities none of them were prepared for.

It's unnatural how easily Hermione accepted her end. Narcissa watches her closely for the faintest sign of fracturing. Hermione is unbreakable. Or in too many pieces to capture new fissures. Her heart splinters all over again.

"Of course, dear. I love our nights together. Let's grab some supper and watch the sky."

Retching, she holds her hair away from her face. Apparating is becoming too taxing. Simpler spells leave her dizzy. She won't grieve this loss, but catalogues her draining abilities with clinical detachment in a journal only she can open.

A dark joke, really, to lock it with her own magical signature. One day, she'll be unable to open it too.

Knowing Draco, though, that's for the best. He'd only drive himself spare with the contents.

She spits, rinses her mouth from the tap, and smooths creases from her maroon dress. Smile affixes, she rejoins the revelry.

Exploding Snap is a raucous affair between Ron and Teddy. Ginny stands to the side, unthinkingly running a hand down Pansy's stiff spine. It must be a bad day again.

Draco presses a coffee in her palm and she works to keep the grimace from her jaw.

"A pick-me-up. You've been working too hard."

"We both have. She's worth it."

He doesn't respond, doesn't look at her. She can't remember the last time he looked at her.

"I'll be in Germany next week, collecting another sample. Longbottom assures me it's potent, but I'd rather test it for myself. Mother will need company."

"Of course."

She would scream if she knew what to say. Wordlessness isn't a comfort to her.

He nods and leaves her with the coffee she knows is laced. Its hellfire black heat meets her soul - like calls to like; cannibalising.

She gulps it down and prays that the November air cools her skin enough.

Theo pinches her ribs and she's dragged into a conversation about library acquisitions with Narcissa.

"I wouldn't mind bidding on a first edition, but that rot McLaggen would enjoy accessing my coffers a bit too much, if you know what I mean."

Narcissa affectionately chides him.

"Theodore, be civil. Hermione, I've noted a few items up for auction tomorrow you may be interested in. You'll join me, won't you?"

"Yes, Mum."

Theo shares gossip about the Bells' supposedly cursed brooch, Narcissa delights in the salacious news. Hermione counts down the minutes til nine o'clock.

Pansy is watching her. Refusing to speak, still. She won't be left in the dark. Hermione refuses to strike a match. Their impasse has left gatherings tense for weeks.

"Sisters are the most vicious, I've found. But always your strongest ally. Go talk to her."

Narcissa always knows to play on Hermione's shame. Capitalises on past tearful confessions. A cruel kindness. Hermione isn't sure she could accept guidance any other way now.

She sidles up to her raven-haired other half. They are cut from the same cloth.

"Are you going to apologise?'

The sneer is acidic, eroding the emotional chainmail Hermione silently prays will withstand the assault.

"No. Join us tomorrow. Mum misses you. Misses us."

"Fuck you, Mi. You can't expect me to accept this blindly. Draco is distant with you. You deserve-"

"I know exactly what I deserve. You're not welcome in our war room, Pansy. Trust me. Please."

"Every time you say that, it sounds like Goodbye."

Light catches the diamond on Pansy's left hand. They both watch it glitter.

"We're leaving at 10. Have breakfast with us. Your wife can spare you from her bed one morning."

Finally, a grin. A concession. A win.

Narcissa is beaming at the girls, mending.

Draco is downstairs minding a cauldron, steam masking the flush of guilt across his cheeks, none the wiser to the battle meted out in the drawing room above.

Four weeks into her friend-mandated bedrest, Hermione is ready to burst.

Pansy and Ginny are taking her physical and magical weaknesses seriously, barely allowing her to leave the bed unaccompanied. Her two new shadows watch every wince, every unavoidable gasp as her joints get stiffer and her energy dwindles. Walking through the gardens leaves her winded.

They tried lacing her tea with potions, but the tongue lashing Hermione gave them soon put an end to that. So now they’ve resorted to food. She doesn’t mind the hearty dinners, they remind her of mealtimes at the Burrow. But the motivation for them turns the assorted garden-grown vegetables and locally caught fish to ash in her mouth.

She doesn’t want her magic back. She’s not sure it’s possible to repair the lesion in her magical core. She certainly has no interest in finding out.

Hermione has made peace with her situation. She knew what Draco was doing when she drank her morning coffee, caffeine masking the real reason for her elevated heart rate as her body battled the near-intangible thief in her veins.

She wonders, sometimes, if it would be better to know or live in ignorance as to the mechanics of her draining essence. She thinks it’s better to know, especially that Draco didn’t trust her to give it willingly. That is a pain she is still blinded by. It makes her ears ring and she tastes copper from biting her cheek so hard.

Draco didn’t believe her love for him was real. Didn’t trust her intentions with his family. She thinks of the dreams she’d had. Narcissa giving her away on their wedding day. Grey-eyed babies playing hide-and-seek in the maze. A stable full of abraxan foals to rear together. Revealing that acre of forest teaming with rare plants for his potions on his birthday. A quiet retirement from the public eye.

Anemoia did her no good, though. Far better to make the most of the time she had left. Inevitability was a strength, a tool she would now wield to set her affairs in order.

She sent an owl to her solicitor amending her will so Theo could bypass her wards on the forest. A second letter she penned to the abraxan breeder, apologising for reneging on the sale of the three foals and paying the full sum to cover the cost of care while sourcing a new buyer.

Hermione would not let herself shed a single tear over this. She was pragmatic enough to accept reality. Dreams had no place in death.

Slipping on the cardigan Ginny had brought over the previous day to keep the unseasonably wet September chill off her shoulders, Hermione made her way towards the owlery (because of course Zabini had an entire owlery) to send the letters. She treated a pair of southern white-faced owls to some snacks from the pouch tied to the wooden post they rested on, fastened the letters to each bird and sent them on their way.

The walk from the bedroom had exhausted her and she briefly contemplated apparating back upstairs, but decided that enduring one of Pansy’s conniptions over a light splinching once was enough to last a lifetime (however short that lifetime might be). Smirking at her own gallows humour, Hermione slowly padded through the quiet corridors, stopping to enjoy the artwork on the walls.

Zabini really did have an eye for landscapes. She could almost step into one. The escapism, he’d told her, was crucial during his mother’s third and fourth husbands. He became quite adept at buying and selling, leading to a natural progression in his career in magical artefact acquisitions.

Hermione knew the greyness of legality was part of the tension underpinning his and Ginny’s strained acquaintance. But Ginny’s brother being head of DMLE was hardly something Blaise could take into consideration, Hermione supposes - no matter how besotted he is with the ginger witch.

In her contemplation of her friend's unrequited romance, Hermione misses the distinct footsteps that grew louder as they drew nearer.

“Oh, darling.”

Hermione is as startled as the witch before her, pressing herself to the wall, not trusting her racing heart to induce another fainting spell.

“I apologise. I hadn’t realised it was Tuesday. The art distracted me on my way back from the owlery. Enjoy your tea, Narcissa.”

Narcissa’s mouth turns down as she takes in the sight of the younger witch. Likely, Hermione reasoned, the sight of her in a chunky knit red cardigan atop her grey poloneck and navy sweatpants was not the assault to delicate senses the matriarch had prepared for. And her weakened state meant she could no longer maintain the glamour, so the black staining her hands (now spread to her elbows) was a bracing exposure.

“I’ll get out of your way. There’s a book waiting for me upstairs.”

Nodding her goodbyes, Hermione makes to scurry off, but the movement leaves her unsteady on her feet and she stumbles. Burning embarrassment colours her cheeks as Narcissa rights her with a firm grip of her arm.

“Will you at least pretend to look after yourself? Blaise made me swear not to pry, and I mean this with a mother's love Hermione, but how in Merlin’s name do you think flinging yourself through the manor is remotely acceptable in your state?”

Hermione’s patience abruptly ends.

“Acceptable? Forgive me, Narcissa, but I’m unsure why my state is any longer your business? You can’t for a minute stand before me and pretend you didn’t know exactly what was going on in your own household. Nothing gets by you, after all. You’re not ignorant, nor are you stupid. The library records note every book accessed, every request lodged with linked archives."

Narcissa flushes. Hermione presses on.

"You mean to tell me your son’s half-hearted attempts at subtlety didn’t draw your attention? He was crying out for confrontation. But you let him delve further and further, didn’t you. Dark magic tomes that made the Malfoy wards tremble upon entering the manor, Narcissa. We both felt it. You mean to tell me you never once pried? I suppose your faith in your son was well placed - he cured you, just as he promised. The grey leech venom did the trick. Grünzüngiger Dragon acid to burn through the core’s defences was inspired. How poetic that the star you named him after would give him the key to your survival. Nothing’s impervious to the will of dragons, isn’t that what you always told him? The strain of his guilt was an unwritten toll but we pay it nonetheless. Willing sacrifice, as the book demanded. Magic always has a price.”

Hermione’s sneer is brittle.

“Now, if you’d leave me to die with the shred of dignity I have left, I’d consider it a favour I’ll owe you in the afterlife. It’s not like there’s exactly time for me to pay up in this one.”

The fire that consumes Hermione’s words dies with the oxygen she spent on her tirade.

"Darling girl, come home. We can fix this. It's not too late."

Shoulders slumping, she turns towards the stairs but pauses.

“I only ever wanted to right my wrongs. The stars decided this was how I’d pay. You were the one who taught me the value of their decisions, the importance of accepting what the fates decide. I just hope your health sustains you long into your twilight years, and that you are blessed with the family legacy you so desperately fought for. I’m truly happy you’ll live to see grandchildren and great grandchildren, Narcissa. It’s no less reward than your sacrifice deserves. And for what little it might be worth to you, I am truly sorry.”

Narcissa's whimper was the final straw. Barely thinking through the consequences, Hermione squeezes her eyes shut and apparates to the safety of her chambers, gasping as her shoulder rips from its socket.

Blinking away the tears, she grits her teeth and heals the dislocated joint with a yell.

“You fucking fool,” Zabini spits, apparently having laid in wait to ensure an audience to her mortification. Casting a diagnostic spell, he mutters curses under his breath and pinches Hermione’s nose to force a pain potion down her throat. She has no energy to fight, and the immediate drowsiness soothes her frayed edges.

Staggering to the bed, she flips Zabini her middle finger and buries herself in the mattress.

“Don’t worry, landlord, I’ll be out of your hair soon, “ slurring as the potion dragged her towards unconsciousness. “Unless the stars decide I’ve not paid enough," she giggles, the narcotic taking effect. "Maybe I’ll be forced to haunt this room for an eternity. What will the Zabini generations to come think of a pathetic muggle ghost in their North wing?”

“You’re not haunting anything except your own heart, Granger. Now shut up and rest. Pansy is going to kill me for this mess.”

But Hermione doesn’t hear him. She is already asleep.

“I’d choose you, every single time.”

It was a truth she let slip early in their relationship. The sun had been warming their skin for hours as they read in a paddock, spiky thistles piercing the blue tartan blanket she’d laid out for them to lie upon. A strawberry’s juice runs south from the corner of his mouth and she licks its path upwards without thinking, planting a kiss at his right dimple.

He watches her curiously, waiting for her to elaborate. He knows not to push. That she often couldn’t find the words to name her emotions.

“In life. In death. In the stars, if I have the choice. I choose you.”

He knows Narcissa has been educating her in astronomy. It was a bonding exercise, a parental closeness she would afford herself for as long as the Malfoy matriarch showed interest. Undeserving, selfish, needy.

“The sun highlights every facet of you. Your sharpness, your wit, your attentive nature. The softness of you is clearest at high noon. The shadows blur your edges. You’re reachable at this time. I could burrow between your fourth and fifth rib. Make a pillow of your lung and settle for being close to your heart. I think I’d live happily in a pocket of you.”

The breeze caresses her bare shins, grass whispering to buttercups and daisies and ants. He stays still, soaking in the warm mahogany tones of her hair, the radiant blush of her cheeks. She turns to lie on her stomach, chin resting on her palm as she looks up at him in undiluted wonder.

“There is little to remove the stain from me. But in the light of the afternoon in peak summer, there’s a gap for your brightness to shine through. My insides feel less muddy. I’m almost prone to hope. What a fool you’ve made of me, Draco Malfoy, having me believe I can want.” She grins playfully at him, but he hears the truth of her admission.

“You can have all of me, Hermione. I’m all yours.”

“That’s a lie and you know it. But I’ll take the pieces I can, while I can. I’m too weak to armour myself against you.”

On her left hand, the blue sapphire flanked with diamonds casts rainbow patterns against her skin. Loyalty, nobility, integrity - intention forged in Black family heirlooms. Promises the stars foretold would be broken.

“He believed me impervious, Ginny, it’s hardly a crime.”

“Draining your magical core - the essence of your witchhood - is absolutely a crime. It’s a violation of the highest fucking order, whether you choose to accept it or not. Let’s call a toad a toad, Hermione. You cannot hide from this. There’s nothing to stop us seeking justice when you’re-”

Ginny chokes on the truth, panic flashing in her eyes. Her anxious hand is picking at a loose thread on her lilac henley’s sleeve.

“You’re right, Gin. I’m dying. I won’t be here forever. Unless I’m haunting Zabini,” she attempts to smirk, but Blaise’s stony countenance has her changing tactics. “I’ve already set the record straight with my lawyer. There can’t be a prosecution when the supposed victim is insistent that there’s no crime.”

“How could you do that? How can you possibly cover for him? He broke you, Hermione! You were distraught when Pans brought you here. The betrayal…” Pansy trails off.

“It’s hardly a betrayal, I knew what he was doing. He forgot I know him better than he knows himself. I had to, for both our sakes. Otherwise he might have done something really stupid. I knew what I was getting into. I chose to give up my magic. He will survive losing me. He already is. The Prophet detailed his date with Daphne just yesterday. He wouldn’t have survived losing his mother. Surely you understand that?”

She ignores the distress bubbling over, cauldron overfilled. She’s human, mostly, except for the empty spaces filling her. Heartbreak is an endless experience. She’s not immune to feelings.

“It wasn’t your choice to make alone! What about the rest of us? Why don’t we get a say in when we lose you? You don’t even have to die, Hermione. You could have spent these last weeks researching with us. God only knows Harry hasn’t left the library in Grimmauld for more than an hour at a time. Theo had to move their bed between the stacks. It’s like you in Hogwarts all over again, honestly.” Pansy’s sleek black hair flicks angrily, snake-like tendrils reacting of their own accord.

Hermione smiles fondly, her arms too heavy to reach for the woman, but she seems to understand and moves to the bedside anyway.

“There is no way to repair this kind of wound without drastic intervention. I don’t want to become a guinea pig for experimental treatments in St Mungo’s. I want to be able to pot bulbs in the garden, eat tomatoes from the greenhouse’s vine. Rattle around this house to give Zabini an idea of what it’s like to accept company, even though it scares him. That has nothing to do with Draco. And, even if it did - I can’t help that I love him. I wasn’t meant to. The fates tried everything to carve a distance between us including an entire battlefield. I was always loving on borrowed time with him. But I saved him from himself. I created a chance for his mother to reconnect with him. Birthed a future so his legacy might live on, since I knew I couldn't be that for him. Yes, I stole selfish moments with them both too, but I’m only human.”

Chuckling weakly, Hermione’s eyelids grow heavy. Talking takes so much from her now. Everything has a price.

“I love that man. I love every bit of him, even the parts that scare you. They don’t frighten me. I know what it means to love so deeply it’s dark as a midnight eclipse. His soul mirrors mine in that respect; we match. You think the stains on my fingers are from losing my magic? No. I bear the mark of magic darker than I knew how to channel. I bargained for wins in that war. I willingly paid the price. Just as I do now.”

There are different ways to save a soul. Sometimes you fight the darkness with light. Sometimes, you sit in the shadows and let it speak to you. It’s amazing what people will tell you in the dead of night. Unseeing, secrets spill from salvation-hungry mouths. The darkness sheds pretence. Those afraid of the dark have not let her cleanse them yet. Night is rebirth. And death is peace.

Muffled sobs behind clenched fists accompany Hermione’s psalm. The grandmother clock’s hands move slower, maybe. The dust motes dance somberly in the firelight.

Hermione looks around at the faces of her friends. These precious few who stayed until the end, despite the expense of their grief. She’s lucky, she thinks, to be shepherded onward by these five pillars of light.

“I need to rest. Bring the Oscar Wilde collection tomorrow, Pansy. I’m ready for a new story.”

They stay with her til her breathing evens out. None of them are willing to acknowledge how shallow they sound.

There's no room for thinking.

Her nails anchor in her thighs as she chases the sensation building in her pelvis.

The only sounds filling the room are their harsh, panting breaths and the rustle of sheets beneath them.

He isn't looking at her. Eyes scrunched shut. Fisting the cotton bedding. Lips pressed thin.

She stares at the headboard, blocking everything but the sensation. Focusing so intently on her body.

If she could think, she'd consider the detachment unbearable. But she's not thinking. Not feeling. Just sensing.

Her hips undulate, faster and faster. Cunt gripping cock. Orgasm building, creeping along her spine, stealing oxygen from her lungs.

When she ignites, it's painful. Lightning rips through her body. Chin drops to chest. Jaw hanging in a silent yell. Muscles seize. Nails biting her skin. There's no pleasure in this.

Her pulsing sparks his release. She dismounts and it spatters across his chest.

Neither of them breathes.

The silence is suffocating.

He walks to the bathroom. The water starts running.

She lies on her side of the mattress, as close to the edge as possible. She doesn't deserve any more space on the bed.

Draco returns. Sits down heavily. Neither of them speaks.

He draws the drapes. She squeezes her eyes shut.

Tonight the darkness is suffocating.

“-of the sun, guidance of the moon. Draco, hold her head steady.”

Hermione jerks into consciousness, her belly tight and her joints aching. She tries to speak, but can’t control her jaw. Or her limbs. Panic rises.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll beg for forgiveness later. Add it to my list of sins.”

Draco?

“You don’t believe in sins, you fucking prick. Just keep her still and your mouth shut.”

Pansy sounds furious, probably because she’s crying in front of people. But the heavy pain of lungs filling with concrete distracts Hermione from following that thought further.

“The stain is still spreading. Lovegood, I thought you said this would work?”

He's furious.

“It will, if she lets it. She has to want to stay. I told you that from the beginning.”

Luna? What was Luna doing here?

A thick paste is being painted on her chest and she realises she is naked. What a funny thing, to worry about propriety in the midst of dying, but she can't help wishing she was better covered in her final moments with friends and ghosts from her past as an audience.

“Hermione. Please. You have to hold on. I’m begging you, though I have no right. Just, please fight this. I can’t- you- Please. You have to live.”

She frowned. She must be hallucinating. Draco would never deign to set foot in her death chamber. Would never show such desperation.

“Fuck off, Malfoy. As if she’d listen to you now. Hermione. You’re not allowed to die. I told you as much in that stupid tent on that bloody mountain. I’m not outliving you. And you’re far from 133. There’s a whole lot of living left in you yet. So buckle up, sweetheart. This is going to hurt.”

Harry’s voice is a balm to her blistering skin, despite his frantic tone. She was most worried about him, but knowing Theo was ready to hold him while he grieved left her resting easy.

“She’s fading fast. If you’re not going to help, Draco, get out the gods-damned way.”

Theo. Oh, sweet Theo. She wished she could have spent more time with him.

Ice ravages her veins and she seizes, the shock drowning out the commotion of voices as she plunges into the Black Lake.

Dying is an awfully funny thing, she thinks, to transport her to the school she was so desperate to leave by the end.

That was her problem, she muses, as her limbs thaw and the temperature of the water becomes bearable. She was never able to be still, be present. Always planning, thinking ahead, anticipating moves and preparing counterstrikes.

A drop of sweat rolls down her cheek. Could she sweat in cold water? Opening her eyes, she startles seeing Draco before her. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

She tries to tell him to leave, that this wasn’t his place, but he just watches her as if she’ll disappear the moment she blinks.

“Go, you stupid man. This is no time for your intervention.”

“You said you’d choose me.”

Hermione’s stomach plummets. There was a reason she had refused his requests for mediation.

“I did. I made that choice.”

“No. If you chose me, then you’d live. You’d fight this and live. To curse me for a millennia, or to burn me at the stake. You’d never choose this. Not for me.”

Hermione’s sigh is haggard. She had nothing left to give. No resistance. He pressed on.

“You let me stew in my guilt for poisoning you. You let me believe you didn’t know what I was doing. How was that for me? You have a funny way of showing love, Hermione.”

How can he not see she has lived her life for him? That she's greeting death for him as well?

“Because the ends justified the means, Draco. You think it was easy to let that acid burn at my insides day after day? To feel everything that made me me be stripped out?”

“Yes. I think you wanted to suffer. I think you chose pain over happiness. I think you chose your own wallowing over a life with me. You chose silent complicity instead of open partnership. You put those books in my path. You whispered ideas in my ear. You chose to give into the fear instead of leaning into the possibility that you just might find somewhere you belong. You nearly ruined everything.”

Hermione shuddered as the thundering bellow loosed itself from Draco’s chest.

She takes a moment to look at him. To see the tension bracketing his mouth, the hard swallow in his throat. Chest barely moving. As if he were scared that he’d steal her oxygen and kill her quicker.

“I sacrificed my magic willingly. You would never have recovered, Draco. Not from losing her that way. I wouldn’t have been strong enough to carry you through that. You've never forgiven yourself for casting that curse, the fact it rebounded into Narcissa. I wouldn’t have survived her loss either. Better to lose me than her. You can’t have it all. You don’t get to keep me too.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Before she can stop him, he presses his lips to hers. It isn’t a kiss. It’s ownership. A willful dominance of her entire soul. His mouth parts and she is helpless against him, lips and tongue and breath mingling.

“You don’t get to steal yourself away from us. We get a say in our fate. Together.”

A golden light emits from his wand, then - she hadn’t realised he was holding it - and she gasps, eyes opening as a cacophony of voices flood her ears.

“There’s still some attached to her. See if you can’t prize one more from her left arm, Blaise.”

“For the record, this is the most disgusting enterprise I’ve ever been a part of and I will be billing you all if I find a single trail of slime on the rugs.”

Needle-sharp pain pricked the crease of her elbow and Hermione winces.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, princess,” Theo sings, triumphant.

Looking down, she sees that she’d been covered with a cotton sheet - thank goodness. More pressing, though, were the bulging leeches attached to her arms. Seven, if she counted right.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

“Reversing the curse,” Harry replied nonchalantly.

“She’s not cursed, you imbecile,” snaps Pansy. “We’re just using your own logic against you. You realised leeches could syphon your magic, right? Well, Luna suggested they might be useful to drain the poison that weakened your magical core. We still haven’t figured out how to stop you leaking magic all over the place, but stymying the poison will give us ample time to sew you up.”

Pansy’s grin was watery, but Hermione didn’t linger on her tear-tracked cheeks. Her gaze flitted to the others hovering over her. Blaise’s cool countenance, Harry’s delirious victory grin, Theo’s smirk, Ginny’s quiet anger. Draco's impassivity.

Luna stands by the door, an airy smile warming her face.

“Welcome back, Hermione. You look like death warmed up. I told you you’d be needing my leeches a second time.”

Hermione lifts a corner of her mouth but doesn’t respond. Her head might split open with the pressure under her skull.

Ginny pushes a glass of water to her mouth.

“It has Dreamless Sleep in it. I want you fully lucid when I tear you a new one for not telling us everything.”

She watches Draco leave before she closes her eyes.

Hermione is startled awake by the slamming of a door.

“I’ve had enough of this! Hermione, what the ever-loving fuck is going on?”

Ron.

He stops. As if he's afraid his anger will be the thing that kills her. She's too weak to point out that he can’t hurt a ghost.

“You have every right to be upset, Ronald, but please can you keep your voice down? I’m still a little tender.”

“Yes, well, I can imagine magical poison-sucking leeches would leave a mark!”

She winced. This was what betrayal looked like. “Will you let me explain?”

“What is there to explain? You let Dragon Breath poison you to save his mother, didn’t tell anyone the method was going to kill you, felt betrayed by your own short-sightedness when your magical core didn’t automatically heal itself, broke up with him, and have been hiding out here to die ever since. And not once in all that time did you think that I should be informed.”

She watched the frustration build in his chest, the forest green shirt straining against his muscles as he worked to keep his emotions in check.

“Ron, how could I tell you? You’d have bulldozed over my wishes and opened an investigation into Draco’s potioneering. He’d have lost his licence. You’d have caused all kinds of problems for Theo and Harry. And I’d still be dead.”

He flinched.

“But you’re not dead, are you? I- I didn’t realise you were suicidal, Mione. I knew you were struggling, but I didn’t think you actually wanted to die.”

“I’m not suicidal, Ron. It's not like I wanted to die. There was just no other way. Don’t you see? None of us would have survived."

"Good thing you miscalculated," he bit out, "or I'd be communing with a fucking spirit to have this conversation. Fucking Merlin, what happened to the witch that stormed out of Trelawney's classroom?*

"She grew up. And I did die. My heart stopped. Ginny had to shock it alive. I don’t think I was meant to survive it, but it seems your sister is more tenacious than the fates themselves.”

He snorted, pulling a hand over his face in weary agreement. The golden hour sun warmed the brickwork outside her window. Hermione watched two swallows dancing in the breeze. Listened to Ron’s huffing breath, the shuffling of his shoes against the rug. Waiting, knowing, grateful.

“It’s painfully frustrating how well you think you know us all. I’m not for a minute suggesting that I wouldn’t want to investigate Malfoy. But I’d respect your wishes, Hermione. I know how important that is to you. I know you need the choice.”

Her eyes filled with tears as he clasped her right hand in both of his.

“I’m not saying I don’t understand your reasoning, or your motives. I just wish you’d come to me. I wish you would have let me say goodbye to that old you.”

Her smile is unrestrained. He understands. She knew he would.

“It’s like that painting you stared at for months on end. Ophelia. You always wanted to write her a happier ending, right? Let her win this time.”

Regrets wash away with every word. Newness, kindling, comfort. A sob leaks from her.

“I missed you, Ronald. Desperately.”

“I’m here now, Mione. I’m here now.”

“I didn’t just obliviate my parents.”

Harry peers at her through his glasses.

“I know.”

“I did something far worse.”

“Worse is subjective.”

“I broke them, Harry. I objectively killed them.”

He sighs and picks a gerbera out the vase, clearly having prepared for this conversation.

“You were a child. You were terrified and unsupported and a Muggleborn. You had a target on your back. You were trying to survive. You’re right - you could have likely gone about it in a hundred different ways that would have resulted differently. But what you did happened. And there’s a point where you have to stop living in the regrets of the past. Let them teach you, but stop expecting their weight to drag every step you make forward.”

She ponders his words, rolls a pomegranate seed over the roof of her mouth. Crushes it between molars, paints her tongue tart.

“Are we able to forgive our own sins? Can we grant ourselves absolution? The self-aggrandisement feels, well, obtuse. My actions stained my soul and my body. With every spell that strays to darkness, my skin bears the price. And yet, I find it comforting. I yearn for that feeling.”

Hermione smiles wistfully, her eyes moving to the vase on the table.

“The darkness reveals as much as it hides. How am I to follow a path of righteousness if I am more inclined to draw my blood and negotiate with the space between the stars? How can empty black nothingness call to me and I consider myself filled with light?”

A missing puzzle piece slots into place.

“Hermione, Draco is your light. He’s the balance. He shed the darkness a long time ago. He’s dripping in gold. Why can you not see that in him and let your chest be filled with the kaleidoscope of brilliance? Life is destined for change - to stall in darkness is to lack contrast. You are good, Hermione. The very best of us. You give everything you have to save us from making the difficult choices. You soak up every piece of darkness that lurks beneath the surface so we might live in multicolour.”

He leaves her to think on his words, calling out for Theo down the corridor.

She does everything for family. Her love language is acts of service. Especially those they don't want or brush off as unnecessary. It's not that she enjoys saying "I told you so". She pulls deep comfort from knowing she helped them avoid something painful, something harder, something worse.

He stares at her, opia burning away every defence. Uncertainty is not a comfort. The stars have abandoned her, the clouds are oppressive.

"Where do we go from here?"

Her sigh crackles. She's still weak.

"The same place we were always going. It doesn't make sense to-"

He slams a fist on the desk. She startles.

The silence grows heavy.

Narcissa finally speaks.

"Hermione, if I had any idea you'd use our conversations in this way, I'd never have told you those stories. What you did was beyond reckless."

Hermione fights a smile at the scolding. She isn't sure what they want from her.

"You said so yourself; I didn't fit. I wasn't part of the Malfoy Family plan. You made concessions to have me in that manor. There are still rooms warded because the generations before you collected items that will seek to kill me. I'm quite sure Blaise will accept my tenancy for a few more months. You'll hardly know I'm here. I’ll return the ring to Gringotts for you. You can continue courting Daphne. I don't see the problem?"

The laugh in Draco's throat chokes him.

"I see you've planned it all. Was this always a contingency, or does your lunacy accelerate under pressure?"

"Draco, enough!" Narcissa snaps.

He throws his hands in the air and stalks to the bookcase, his back turned on the women watching him.

Hermione thinks he must not be sleeping. Perhaps he's brewing a new potion. Now that Narcissa is well, he must have devised a new project. Perhaps one from their wishlist. Though, likely not. It should be something entirely new. She's rotten enough.

Picking at a cuticle on her stained fingers, she tries again.

"Narcissa, I'm eternally grateful for those stories. They lit the path to your health. I can't regret that."

Draco growls. She pushes on.

"Had I openly suggested this course of action, you never would have agreed. I accept the ethical failings in not offering you informed consent, but you had to survive. I had to save you."

Narcissa looks positively ill.

Hermione isn't sure what else to say, so she says nothing.

Draco stews.

Pansy knocks on the door, disturbing the tense silence.

"The Greengrasses are here."

Narcissa stiffens and Hermione rises to leave.

"I owe you my life, Narcissa. Maybe one day you can forgive me, maybe you never will. I made peace with that before I set us on this course. You taught me everything a mother should, and for that I'm indebted to you. I wish you well."

She leaves the room and takes Pansy's hand, ignoring the stony glare.

"Mum deserves better than that."

Hermione agrees.

They reach the stairs as the voices carry down the hall.

"Draco, darling! I missed you this week."

Hermione swallows the lump in her throat. There's no use feeling jealous. He isn't hers to lose.

"You could fight for him. He thinks you don't love him."

"Draco does not wish to accept the truth. That is not on me. I won't discuss this with you again. Daphne is good."

She's a healer. She will tend to Narcissa, mend Draco, and care for their children.

"You keep talking like you're still going to die. At what point will you start living again? What's it going to take for you to fucking live?"

Pansy can't understand the tiredness in her bones. The energy it takes to get up in the morning. She's still spilling magic faster than she can regenerate it. The scorch marks are slowly creeping along her limbs again. Accidental magic has wrought tornados on her bedroom twice and flooded the pantry.

Hermione knows she's still dying. The magic will seek payment soon.

"I'm not against upholding the Black family tradition."

Draco is laughing, not believing her.

"You don't want children, why are we arguing about this?"

"When have I ever said I didn't want children?"

He stops.

"Last month. At dinner with Ginny and Pansy. You said-"

"I said I wasn't motherly. That's quite different. We're still practically children ourselves. Of course I don't feel ready to be a parent."

He lets her words sink in.

Then he pounces, pinning her to the sofa.

"You'll have my babies?"

"Draco, I'd give you everything."

If I could.

He devours her, once again ignoring what isn't said.

Ara, the eldest. Lyra and Leo, the twins.

Tears smudge the ink.

A deep breath and she conjures enough of a flame.

Sacrifice is necessary. The magic demands it.

She mourns the possibility. The opportunity to have birthed them. Held them. Nurtured them. Known them. She already loves them.

The black mark creeps over her wrist.

At least she has the idea of them. But she knows Draco will never forgive this.

She marks it in the spelled journal. Another life stolen, another sin to atone for.

The wine bottle rolls and clinks against the other empties in the corner.

World spinning.

Clarity finally takes hold.

She finds it a cool irony that she fought so hard to fit in this world, and now the magic is leaving her, flooding the floor before dissipating, absorbed by the in-between to be gifted to more deserving hosts.

Everything always leaves.

Nothing stays the same.

Change is the only constant.

Gosh, she’s maudlin this evening.

She considers the last ten years. The war. Losing the future. Finding Draco.

Changing the course of reality with a deceptively simple ritual.

Blood dripping from her blackened fingertips much like the candle wax from the sconce beside her now.

It’s worth it. It’s always worth it. She barely registers the pain at this point, slicing her palm.

He gets to live.

Nineteen years old is hardly any age at all. Hermione is letting her inhibitions loose today. One glorious, reckless day of pure greed and selfishness.

She starts with chocolate milk and honey-slathered croissants for breakfast. Leaves sticky fingerprints on the newspaper. Absentmindedly tears at the corners of the page as she read her horoscope - Luna would be thrilled at this uncharacteristic whimsy.

She picks three books without reading the covers and wanders outdoors, no particular destination in mind.

This is a heady feeling - the surprise, the not knowing. Hermione plans, prepares for every eventually. Today, she discards care-fuelled habit for selfishness.

Which is likely why she finds herself in the path of none other than Draco Malfoy only several turns and road crossings from the front door. On this day of the unexpected, he is the biggest surprise of all.

"My horoscope warned me of a divergent path," she says as way of a greeting. He clearly has no clue how to respond to her.

There's a strangeness about her that he has never seen before, can't put his finger on it. It's intriguing; she's intriguing.

"Join me, I'm on an adventure."

He does.

They wander the quiet concrete streets, board a bus which takes them away from the city. Lush greenery replaces the muted grime of London. Hermione's lungs are fuller than they've ever been. Draco is careful with his inhales, worried to upset the balance.

The skip in her step as she swings her canvas bag beside her is bizarre. She knows it and continues swinging. She chatters sporadically, feeding him useless information he couldn't possibly care for, probing him on his life now, in The After. He never asks a question back.

They disembark the bus and walk through a quaint village high street, follow a foot-trodden path between a crumbling wall, and happen upon a lake that Draco would be sure was magical if not for the distinct Muggleness of the entire affair.

He trails behind her by several places, soaking in the verdant landscape, the chattering birds, the stillness of the air.

Heemione finally settles beneath a willow tree, a mile round the lake from where they began. She unpacks ginger beer, cherries, and a tub of pistachios. Draco folds himself awkwardly beside her, helping himself to a nut. She offers him a book but he declines, content with watching the scenery, watching her.

An hour trickles by, sun climbing higher in the cloudless sky. The air begins to buzz - excitement.

"I've never sat here before. I've never been here before."

Draco says nothing.

"I think today was destined to be great. Wouldn't you agree?"

Silence.

She peers over at him and he's watching her. Seeing her.

"Nothing great about plotting your own demise, Granger."

She rolls her eyes. It had been a calculated risk contacting him about the moondew.

Snorting, she waves off his concern.

"I'm hardly planning to off myself. Just experimenting with Living Death." The joke falls flat. "I know how well stocked your stores are. You really ought to learn to share."

He sees through her.

"Hermione."

She won't crack.

She picks her book back up and reads again, sharing the occasional passage or turn off phrase she thinks he'll enjoy. She's not sure she knows what he likes anymore.

Draco shells the pistachios. Drains a bottle of ginger beer. Sighs. Hermione is resolved.

The sun arcs and descends, golden light filtering through the curtain of soft leaves.

"My mother wished me to extend another invitation to tea."

A low blow.

"Today?"

In twenty minutes.

She holds her tongue, let's him help her pack her tote before he offers an arm.

The apparition spins her too fast and she notices. His muscled arm. Tight jaw. Baited breath.

Narcissa is waiting on the patio, a full tea service adorning a low oblong table.

"Apologies if we're late, Lady Malfoy."

An indelicate huff.

"You might as well skip that nonsense. It's Narcissa. Why have you come, Hermione?"

The older woman misses nothing.

"I've been in love with your son for at least a year."

"That hardly answers anything."

Hermione bristles. This family. Doublespeak must be genetic.

"Draco promised me the moon and reneged on our deal. I thought you might introduce me to the stars. I hear the view from the west wing is incomparable."

A peace offering. It's time. For all of them.

A gorgeous smile catches Narcissa by surprise.

"I'm ever so glad you missed the eclipse, dear. There's plenty more to do before you go staring into nothing."

Hermione's lip twitches. Draco's fist unclenches.

The young witch turns on her heel, hardly needing to think which direction she's going. She knows this place intimately now in so many ways.

"I want you to come with me."

She's settled by the telescope, a heavy blanket on her lap as the inky sky slowly fills with life. Bats dance, owls soar.

"Stars are already dying by the time their light reaches us. It would be poetic if it weren't so predictable."

Narcissa has joined them.

"Let's begin with my favourite - Leo."

Hermione stares at the woman, whose mouth hides a victorious smirk.

Draco settles next to Hermione, guiding the charmed scope between constellations as Narcissa weaves mighty tales of battles, love, victory, loss. Life.

The sky is teeming with life.

She sends him inside for her notebook so she can update her notes. The stories are never quite the same, for the stars are always changing - always dying.

"I wonder what the sky will look like in Lyon."

Narcissa pauses.

"Quite a bit less visible, I imagine. Dreary place for too many months. But worth it."

"Yes," Hermione agrees. "He is."

Draco returns. Narcissa divines more stories. More grief and sacrifice, and no small helping of bravery. Hermione wonders if the stars aren't exhausted, projecting these inevitabilities night after night.

She leans against the warm chest that has curled in behind her seeking warmth.

"Happy birthday, Hermione."

It’s seductive, the ebb and flow. Calling out to her. Beckoning her to sink her fingers into the ashy grit.

Droplets hit the scorched earth. The whole world shakes, or maybe it’s just her.

It has to work. Has to. The tide needs to turn. They don’t have time to wander the woods aimlessly.

I call upon the beyond, all-seeing eyes - burning stars guide me forward.

She had scoured every page of this book while the boys slept. Desperation committing each incantation, potion, paste, hex, and curse to memory. Black Magicks. At first, she had thought it a family heirloom tucked away behind a disillusionment charm and several bricks of text even Hermione couldn’t find interest in reading. This title was far more literal.

Let me find it. Let me find it.

Latin phrases she hasn't finished translating spill from her lips.

Life, magic, blood - intertwined, inseparable. She cannot divest one without offering all three. She feeds the ground scattered with charred bone fragments.

Wind whips her hair, shocking goosebumps across her flesh. This feels unnatural.

It is.

Worth it. Worth it. Worth it.

She will protect them. From roaming snatchers, from Voldemort. Even from themselves.

Magic slips almost imperceptibly from the shallow wound on the pad of her thumb. She feels it all the same. Burning a sprig of bloodied rosemary from the herb garden, she’s inhaling the smoke gently to ease her aching head when he enters.

"Walk with me."

Hermione looks up, noting the dark circles beneath Harry's eyes and loops her arm in his.

Their sauntering has no real destination. The assorted flora dance in the wind, petal coats ruffling in preparation for the downpour sitting heavily in dark clouds.

"You really sacrificed your children for them?"

She smiles softly, glad Draco has someone to talk to. Loss will always forge bonds, even in unlikely places. The war taught them all that lesson keenly.

"That isn't the question keeping you awake. Ask me whatever is stealing your sleep; your husband will surely appreciate a quiet night."

He doesn't entertain her attempt at levity.

"You're still practising dark magic, even though there’s hardly an Accio’s worth of magic left in you. Why?"

"I told you already - I enjoy it. There's peace in that darkness."

"You're addicted."

She considers it.

"Perhaps. It's not dissimilar, certainly. But it's more; I'm compelled to use it. My magic doesn't respond so well to the light anymore. It seeks to destroy."

He trembles beside her.

"This has been happening far longer than we knew, hasn't it."

She nods.

"I'm not naive. I knew there would be consequences. But that book found me in the Grimmauld Library. And once I’d read it, the whispers in the Department of Mysteries began to make sense. I realised it was better to try and fix as much as I could for as long as I was able. Plant ideas, sow seeds of doubt and intrigue, let the magic take root. Draco wasn't aware he was using me, at first, but I was. And I took the opportunity to mend what I could. Bellatrix's blade poisoned my blood, so eventually I had to offer something else. I gave the magic my dreams."

Hope was perhaps the most powerful magic of all.

"You drained yourself of possibilities. You poisoned yourself against a happy future."

"I ensured the future for my family. That’s the happiest I could ever be."

They had stopped walking some time ago.

He doesn't recognise this ink-dipped witch. The black tendrils are beginning to darken her eyes. She is terrifying.

"Hermione. We never asked for this."

She knows that. Knows they'd never demand sacrifice. Never shirk the responsibility of suffering. That's what makes them so deserving.

"It's done."

Harry swallows and leaves her on the stone bench overlooking the apple orchard.

She hadn't heard him arrive, but feels his presence keenly. She’s always been aware of him. That ought to have been her first warning to stay clear. But she’s never been good at heeding the warnings her nervous system bleats.

"It's quite rude to eavesdrop."

"It's ruder to steal agency under the pretence of saviourism. Spare me your high ground."

Draco is gunning for a fight.

"I don't know what else you want me to say."

"Do you love me?"

She looks at him, incredulously.

"All the questions in the world, and you begin with stupidity. I'm disappointed, Draco."

She's deflecting. He won't let her.

He catches her chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her to look up.

"Do. You. Love. Me."

She huffs, the hot cloud visible in the February chill.

"I have loved you in every iteration of this life. Every path leads me to you. My loving you has never been in question. Don't take me for a fool. Your anger doesn't come from me loving you. You hate that I didn't consult you. Your control issues are showing, darling."

His stillness is unnatural. She pushes on.

"Every decision I have made has weighed the consequences for you. I refuse to darken your horizons any longer. Daphne will love you, give you the future you always wanted. Let me fade into obscurity. Decades from now, when I'm a shadow of a memory, you'll see what I mean."

"What a load of bollocks." He shakes her and it hurts. He hasn't touched her in so long.

"Wake up, Hermione. I don't want a different future. I want all my mornings with you. My days and my nights. You didn't once ask what I wanted. That is the betrayal still slicing me open. After everything, every hex we avoided, every curse we outran, every potential law, Circe even the fucking potholes in the street we swerved - you would still leave me."

She blinks.

"You think I want Daphne? You think a life without you is within the realms of possibility for me? With every idiotic deal you made with the devil or whatever cursed demon you sacrificed yourself to, you tightened your link to me. It was all for me, was it not?" His mocking is cruel and she is hopeless in warding off each blow of his words lashing her.

She is cowering. Unmoored. Nothing makes sense.

"You can't have me and be happy, Draco."

"I can't stand to live without you. I'd rather be miserable. At least then I'm feeling something."

She rolls her eyes.

"How utterly toxic. I won't entertain your dramatics. You made it clear you wanted a puppet in office and I can no longer provide that. Astoria is taking the Wizengamot seat from her father - Daphne would give you the in you need to continue your work at the ministry."

The rage is palpable now - she tastes his bitterness, it coats her mouth.

"I don't care about the ministry. I don't care about the Malfoy name or legacy or whatever the fuck. I care about you. I care about your ridiculous quill chewing, your inability to stop from reading absolutely every book you stumble across, your delicate snores. Your biggest mistake in all of this was thinking I give a damn about your magic. I just care about you."

There's no warmth in her smile.

"My magic is me."

"Clearly not, it's drained and you remain as infuriating as ever. Here's a lesson for you, Granger - you can't fight every battle alone. Sometimes, you have to trust that someone else has the answer."

She bristles.

There is no coming back from what she’s done. She made the decision - sacrifice love for family. Magic for good health. Life for the future. There are no roads left, every path burned away.

She has found peace in the walk towards her end. There’s nothing left to fear. The certainty of it all is rewarding, even when it cleaves her heart in two. Hermione gives up, gives over, gives in - and the rest of them flourish. She feeds the soil that lets them blossom, becoming who they are meant to be.

It was never her world to exist in. As a child, she chased with fervent naiveté the notion of acceptance, of fitting in. A daughter of two worlds, caught in the middling realm of impossibilities and impracticalities. She would never be welcomed by wizards, and was too dangerous for the Muggles. So, she had chosen to pour her magic into saving the good that she could, even if she was so clearly not.

The writing she fingerpainted on the wall, her ichor-coated blood dripping her madness, the apple that’s gone bad in the fruit bowl. This destiny is not one she will shy from any longer. Her sacrifice will mean something. It has to.

"I made the right choice."

"You took my choice from me. For someone who has vehemently lectured the Wizengamot about consent and ethics and morals on so many occasions, you sure are lacking in your own practice."

He might have stabbed her with his accusations. He sees the blow land and winces but stands firm.

She leaks tears, runs out of the will to fight.

He senses her crumbling resolve and scoops her into his arms.

"I will never stop loving you, witch. You've broken my heart, but I live for you. We'll work this out."

She can't bring herself to believe him.

Pansy and Narcissa watch from the doorway as he carries her upstairs and into their bedroom. He hasn't slept there since she left.

Drawing the drapes shut, he encircles her, to ward against her sneaking off while he's unconscious.

They lie there, breath intermingling, and the rainclouds finally release their deluge upon the world.

The ground is awash with blood and rubble. The tense, precious few breaths after Voldemort’s death are abruptly stolen by red and green jets of light whipping towards the children and Order members congregated at the school’s steps.

Hermione is slipping across the sodden grass, desperately trying not to think as she hurtles out into the courtyard over limp bodies, looking for somewhere to hide. A Death Eater is in pursuit, firing curse after curse, nipping at her heels.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

Alone.

She’s whimpering, wishing she’d given Harry a proper goodbye, had told Ron she didn’t love him - not in that way, hugged Ginny tighter.

Someone two bodies round the unblemished patch of wall she was headed for. Careening left, she doesn’t have time to process who they are - black robes litter both sides of the battlefield. She covers her head, throwing one last slicing hex behind her when she hears an unfamiliar curse from-

“Draco, no!”

Twirling around, Hermione freezes as she sees a devastated Lucius Malfoy turn grey, slumping to the ground.

Narcissa Malfoy drops too. Draco’s panic cry pierces Hermione’s soul.

She doesn’t think.

Grabbing the older witch is convulsing as Hermione crouches next to her, throwing up a diagnostic charm.

“Is there a countercurse, Malfoy?”

He’s muttering apologies into Narcissa’s hair, curled up, desolate at his mother’s head.

“Malfoy,” Hermione snaps, breaking his daze. “Countercurse?”

“I- I-” he stumbles, floundering.

She does the only thing she can.

Slicing Draco’s palm, she whispers the incantation; the plea. Her wand following the intricate movements she’s sparingly put to practice in recent months. Cutting her own hand, she interlocks their fingers and squeezes twice before pushing their hands into the ground, then pressing pressing pressing against Narcissa’s chest. A grey cloud lifts from the woman’s aura, but lingers, unwilling to disperse. Hermione grunts, yells the incantation over and over, desperate to fix this. Desperate to win.

Narcissa gasps, body convulsing violently for a terrifying few seconds, before the tension melts from her.

“She’ll need immediate assistance. We need to get her to the Great Hall. Pomfrey will know what to do.”

They levitate the witch, shields shaky but holding as they pick their way across the chaos. The sun has set and the flashing hexes, curses and jinxes light up the brickwork and bodies in a haunting display of colour. Draco trips over something. Hermione desperately tries to erase the unseeing eyes of Adrian Pucey from her memory.

The fighting, blessedly, ends as they reach the stone stairs into the castle. There is no jubilant celebration. The grief is too thick in the air to crow wild relief. The Weasleys crumble under their loss. Harry stares glassy-eyed at Remus and Tonks. Parvati and Padma brush Lavender’s matted hair.

The weight of it all makes it too hard to breathe, but a squeeze brings her back to her body.

Draco is still holding her hand.

She manages a weak smile. Wishes she could promise him that everything would be fine.

The uncertainty of orphanhood cloaks him in the candlelit corner they’re assigned. Above them, the Great Hall’s ceiling is filled with suffocatingly heavy clouds.

Draco grasps at her, terrified, as he watches hawk-eyed over the Mediwizard’s every twitch and sigh. The prognosis is not good. They’ve staved off the worst, but she is badly injured and will need extensive medical assistance.

Tears slowly creep from his eyes, sorrow painting his profile. When the aurors question where his father is and he responds “Hell, I hope.”

Hermione thinks about what it must be like to know he may have lost one with the killing blow of the other. Pretends she doesn’t already know.

The stone floor is damp and cold. She shivers. He shifts closer, sharing their warmth. Their breaths sync. There’s a peace in this moment that she’s never felt before. She wonders if he feels it too.

The air is disturbed, Harry stands off to the side. Awkward but unrelenting, she nods at him to approach.

“Alright, Mione. Alright, Malfoy.”

“Not really.” Harry winces.

“She saved you, Potter. You better use that Golden Boy Wonder magic to keep her here. I can’t-” Draco chokes on his defence. Harry lays a hand on the boy’s shoulders.

“Family is everything. We’ll figure this out.”

A watery smile shared between boys from opposite sides of the war over the head of a girl neither could possibly know would be fundamental to their success, or the sacrifices she would make to save them.

Thunder rumbles through the enchanted ceiling and the clouds clear, crescent moon bright, more and more stars appearing the longer Hermione stares.

The noise brings new life to the room and Harry takes this as his cue to move on. He holds out a hand, a peace offering, but Draco doesn’t take it.

He’s still holding Hermione’s hand.

She doesn’t let go.