Caelum Ignis Ch57: "Promises Broken, Promises Kept"
A Dramione fan fiction
Hermione did worry about people asking questions about Draco.
She worried about them asking questions about her, too, but only because she knew it would likely lead to them asking questions about Draco.
She still hadn’t gotten any time alone with him.
Well, not in the way both of them desperately needed.
They were at the point now where they barely made eye contact in front of the others, and she couldn’t really bring herself to sit by him, either. The house filled with more and more people over those first twenty-four hours, and the sheer number of witches and wizards there made it nearly impossible for her and Draco to talk privately about much of anything, although she picked up enough of his thoughts to know he was struggling.
She was struggling, too.
They never even managed a shower together that first day.
Despite her promises to him before they’d entered that kitchen, they never got any time alone together in one of the rooms, either.
By the time she made it to her old bedroom, Nott had fallen asleep in there, along with Pansy. They’d left her a bed to use, possibly even for her and Draco to use, but she ended up walking, zombie-like, to the two other bedrooms upstairs, only to find those occupied as well. When she heard Draco still in the shower, she finally returned to the sitting room downstairs, in the hopes he’d come down with her and they could strategize where to sleep. But Draco never reappeared that day, but she never found out where he slept, either.
As for Hermione herself, she eventually slept on the smaller bed next to the one where Nott and Pansy slept. Blaise and Neville slept on the floor of the same room with blankets and pillows someone transfigured; so did Harry and Ginny once Harry returned from Nott Manor.
Snape still had the downstairs bedroom, but now he shared it with Lupin, Kingsley, Bill Weasley, and possibly Draco, depending on where he ended up. Hermione’s parents took one bed in the second room upstairs; Tonks and another female auror took the second bed, and Luna sometimes took the floor. George, Fred, Mad-Eye, Charley, and Arthur Weasley had the third upstairs bedroom, which had previously been taken by Nott. Hermione had no idea how they all fit in there, as that room was by far the smallest.
The next day, she didn’t see Draco at all until around noon.
That was the day the aurors from the Ministry arrived.
More members of the Order arrived shortly after.
Once the floo had been re-opened for real, and the fidelius dropped, the stone house somehow came to replace Grimmauld Place as the Order’s new headquarters. The change happened quickly––so much so, Hermione struggled to adjust for days. She couldn’t help but feel resentment at what felt like an invasion of her home, or what had become her home over the months it had been just her, Nott, and Snape living there.
In the days following the death of Voldemort and the massacre at Nott Manor, most of the professors of Hogwarts visited at one point or another, as well… not to mention representatives of the Ministry of Magic, the D.M.L.E., even the Minister of Magic himself.
Some of them still hadn’t left.
Aurors relentlessly questioned her about what happened, some more than once. She assumed they spent at least as much time questioning Nott, Draco, and Pansy, as well as Snape, Lupin, Harry, her parents, and whoever else. She only listened in on a few of those interrogations, and none that included Draco directly.
Luckily, despite their seemingly endless questions, the D.M.L.E. didn’t seem very concerned about her or Draco’s role in things, other than to want verification from them that the Death Eaters had mostly killed one another after being poisoned with “some muggle drug.” They didn’t seem particularly interested in the muggle drug itself, or how it found its way into the Nott family liquor stores. They didn’t seem overly concerned that Hermione and Nott had concocted the plan that made that happen, or that Snape and Dobby assisted them.
They wanted to know which Death Eaters survived.
They wanted to know where those Death Eaters might have gone.
They wanted to know if she’d seen any specific Death Eaters apparate out of the Manor, and if she could help them formulate a list of those most likely to be alive.
She couldn’t give them that, of course.
Eventually they seemed to realize that, and gave up asking.
No one questioned that Harry had been the one to kill Voldemort.
No one knew of her possession by Voldemort after the ritual, not so far as Hermione could tell. No one knew whose body Voldemort had been wearing when his real death finally occurred. No one questioned how the Nott family’s ancient wards had come down, nor how Lucius Malfoy had died, nor Bellatrix LeStrange, nor any of the individual Death Eaters who died at the manor. No one even asked her about the Death Eater guards who’d died outside of Dumbledore’s house. No one seemed at all interested in who killed them.
Everyone accepted the story that the muggle drug had caused a bizarre orgy of death, most of it within the ranks of the Death Eaters themselves.
The D.M.L.E. clearly had larger concerns to contend with than school-aged wizards and witches, all of whom were clearly traumatized, and some of whom had suffered torture and near-murder, one at the hands of his own father. It was almost lucky Draco retained a number of very visible scars, especially the one from the magical collar. Even with his unusual healing abilities and Snape’s attempts to get rid of it with potions, salves, spells, and dittany, a thick, ridged line of hardened flesh remained that nearly circled his neck.
The fact of that scar and others on his face and body proved a useful reminder that Draco hadn’t been given the Mark of his own free will, nor had he been treated like much of a “guest” by the Dark Lord or his followers.
Hermione’s parents, of course, were eloquent on the subject––more than Hermione would have liked, really, although she supposed she should be glad they’d been so convincing. They described the nearly daily beatings and torture Draco received in excruciating detail, particularly the one from his father and Roland that nearly killed him.
The manhunt for Death Eaters would likely continue for months.
Imperius curses were broken in several high-ranking officials, including a number of decorated aurors within the D.M.L.E. Some curses broke automatically when the Death Eaters who’d cast them were killed. Others got rooted out by the remaining aurors as they attempted to (quietly and methodically) clean out every Ministry department.
The sheer number of Ministry officials who’d been compromised was already proving an embarrassment politically, and it was likely a wide-scale purge would be undertaken by Scrimgeour in the coming months to deal with the fallout.
Scrimgeour himself would likely be on shaky ground, too.
Hermione had her own lingering questions.
One got answered a day or two after they got back; Snape found magical traces on both her and Draco, but only after he separated the two of them to look at their magic individually. When Hermione and Draco were in close proximity, say, in the same dormitory at Hogwarts, or sitting within the same classroom––or in the main room of Dumbledore’s house––those traces disappeared. The instant they were apart past a certain number of feet, (Snape speculated around fifty yards), they became visible to anyone who knew to look.
It explained how Bella and Greyback were able to follow Draco through multiple apparations after he went to the Hogsmeade train station that day. It also explained how Voldemort knew the instant Hermione entered the wards of Nott Manor.
Although it was practically a moot point now, Snape removed both traces.
Hermione found herself angered by the whole thing, and all the problems they could have avoided had they known that, but again, there were other, more pressing things to focus on for those first few days.
The biggest one was what Dumbledore had warned Harry about: Voldemort still wasn’t entirely “dead.” Before he’d been captured and murdered by Lucius, Dumbledore warned Harry he’d need to hunt down every one of the seven horcruxes that young Tom Riddle virtually confessed to Slughorn he intended to make.
Some of the horcruxes had been dealt with already, of course.
There was the piece that possessed her, the one she’d inadvertently killed when she tried to murder Harry. There was Tom Riddle’s diary and the ring, both of which had been destroyed by Harry and Dumbledore. The fourth horcrux had been Slytherin’s locket (they had yet to find the real one), and the fifth, Ravenclaw’s diadem, got broken by Harry the day after the debacle at Nott Manor. With McGonagall’s help, Harry used the Sword of Gryffindor to smash it after Hermione told them where to find it in Dumbledore’s office.
For the sixth horcrux, there was some speculation about a cup that had been owned by Helga Hufflepuff, as it had featured in some of Riddle’s memories.
They had yet to find that one, either.
As for the seventh, Harry and a number of Order members hunted down Voldemort’s massive snake within Nott Manor and killed it in the dungeons with Gryffindor’s sword. Harry seemed quite positive it had also been a horcrux, given how it died.
That left the cup to be found and (potentially) verified, the fate of the real locket to be determined, and both objects to be destroyed.
Until then, all of wizard-kind remained at risk.
Harry said the Order would prioritize finishing off the last of the horcruxes until they could be absolutely certain none were left. The mission was top secret, of course, led by Harry and Lupin, with Mad-Eye, Kingsley, and Tonks in the primary group of horcrux-hunters. Arthur and Bill Weasley offered to assist, and Snape volunteered to join them once Draco managed to fix his godfather’s leg from the worst effects of the acid curse.
McGonagall had taken over as the new Hogwarts headmaster, but she would be aiding the team as well, at least until the beginning of next term. So would Professors Sinistra, Slughorn, Sprout, and Flitwick.
Before he took off to lead the horcrux hunt, Hermione also asked Harry to finally explain how they’d both survived the killing curse, and that turned out to be a more interesting answer than expected. Tom Riddle’s horcruxes hadn’t been the only thing Dumbledore confided to Harry before he died; luckily, he told Harry about the Deathly Hallows, as well.
According to Dumbledore, Harry would need three objects with him before he faced Voldemort for their final battle: a magical stone Dumbledore took from Voldemort’s blood family, Dumbledore’s own wand, and Harry’s invisibility cloak. Dumbledore entrusted two of those things to Harry before they left to look for the locket; the third thing, his wand, he’d given him before they’d apparated back to Hogsmeade.
Harry said he’d been so exhausted and emotionally wrung-out at the time, he hadn’t even thought of Dumbledore’s wand until he’d found it in the pocket of his robes when he got back to Gryffindor Tower. It had been the thing to convince him something horrible had happened, however, when Dumbledore didn’t return to ask for it back.
Since that night, Harry kept all three things on him at all times.
Hermione didn’t at first understand how any of that brought her and Harry back after she’d essentially avada’d both of them… but Lupin and Snape seemed to have opinions on that, and Lupin promised they would research the phenomenon after they’d dealt with Voldemort’s remaining “pieces” and ensured he was finally gone for good.
Hermione listened to all of this, and for once was relieved to not be a part of it.
Draco seemed more conflicted on that front.
She knew he’d approached Harry privately to talk to him about going along on the horcrux hunt. She couldn’t help but be relieved (even if she felt slightly guilty about it) when Harry gave Draco a firm “no” as to his involvement.
She could guess Harry’s reasoning.
Harry knew what Draco was, and likely already considered using him before Draco approached him directly. But Harry also knew the chances of the adults in the Order figuring out something was “off” with Draco’s magic would go up exponentially if they saw him in action––particularly in any situation that might turn out to be life-threatening.
The horcrux hunt was likely to be life-threatening.
For one thing, they had a good chance of running into Death Eaters. Harry also confided to her that the horcruxes they’d destroyed so far had a nasty habit of “fighting back” just before they were killed. That often involved speaking toxic truths and trying to harm their attackers; Draco would be an easy target for both, especially with someone like Mad-Eye present.
Hermione didn’t know how much of that Harry explained to Draco.
Either way, Draco seemed restless.
She couldn’t help but follow him with her eyes as he stalked through the various rooms. He appeared to listen when people talked, but avoided questions posed to him, gave vague or sarcastic replies, or sometimes just walked away. He spoke to her parents fairly often. He also sat on an armchair by the fire with Crooks most nights, reading and stroking the cat in his lap without speaking to anyone. She saw him huddled with Pansy, Theo, and Blaise. She also saw him disappear into the gardens a number of times, or wander off with Snape, or even Harry.
She tried not to take it personally that he didn’t wander off with her.
She knew why.
Her parents being there was definitely part of the reason.
The fact that all of them were stuffed into a small number of bedrooms and had no privacy at all likely factored into his thinking, as well.
She knew that probably wasn’t all of it, though.
She told herself it didn’t matter, that they’d waited this long, they could wait a bit longer, but she still struggled with her reactions whenever he avoided her eyes.
She watched him interact with her parents in mingled curiosity and bewilderment.
He tended to argue playfully with her father, while her mother was affectionate with him and seemed endlessly worried about him. They very likely didn’t “know” what was different about Draco, but they definitely knew something was unusual about him. They were extremely guarded whenever they talked about their time in the dungeons of Nott Manor.
She didn’t know what Draco had told them, and didn’t ask.
That they knew to keep certain things to themselves––such as how Draco got free of the magical collar he’d worn (they claimed only that “a very nice elf” freed all three of them, when Hermione knew it hadn’t been anywhere near that simple), or the fact that Draco could do complex magic without a wand, or even details around the physical fights Draco had gotten into with the Death Eater guards, or just how badly he’d been hurt by his father despite the relatively light, silvery scars he wore on much of his body––told her a lot.
Whatever her parents knew or didn’t know, a bond definitely existed between the three of them that, embarrassingly, managed to make Hermione feel a little left out.
As for Draco’s own family, Narcissa’s whereabouts remained unknown.
Hermione strongly got the feeling no one was looking very hard for her.
Even Draco had seemed uninterested in her precise location.
He’d only asked Harry if they’d found her body among the dead at Nott Manor, and hadn’t asked a single follow-up question when Harry confirmed they hadn’t. No one mentioned going to look for her in the time since. No one mentioned charging her with any crimes. Hermione suspected it might be coming at some point, depending on the mood of the Ministry in the coming year, but for now, Narcissa wasn’t a priority for anyone who mattered.
Hermione listened to all those conversations.
She watched her friends and classmates and teachers floo in and out of the house.
She listened to Ministry officials talk and ask questions.
She listened to Order members as they reported back findings and developments.
She talked about inconsequential things and drank tea and ate biscuits with Ginny, Neville, Theo, and Luna. She helped Nott and some of the adults cook meals and wash up in the kitchen. She talked more cautiously and warily with Pansy and Blaise, reassured herself that Theo was truly okay, and talked to Snape whenever he wasn’t overly busy with something. She joked around with the Weasley twins and with Charley Weasley, who’d come in from Romania to help with the horcrux hunt. She spoke to her teachers about her plans for next year, and her grades, and what had changed at Hogwarts while they’d been gone.
She even had a few awkward conversations with Ron, although he still seemed to be struggling. She’d caught him staring at the lion ring on her left hand more than once, a hard, cold look in his eyes, and he’d stared equally hard at the snake ring Draco wore on the same finger.
Ron hadn’t stayed as long as the others, though.
Neither had Molly Weasley, who’d been more than a touch frosty to Hermione as well, and who’d spoken a little too loudly when she proclaimed her relief that Lucius Malfoy was dead and hoped that the rest of that “evil family of dark wizards” would be consigned to the rubbish bin for all of eternity, as well.
As they left, Molly had (again, loudly) proclaimed her need to return to the Burrow, and Ron stood beside his mother and muttered about helping. Given Ron had never offered to help with housework, or yard work, or really any work before, at least as far as Hermione was aware, it wasn’t a particularly convincing excuse, but Hermione had been too angry with both of them to bother saying anything, not even a real goodbye.
She and Ron would either sort it out in seventh year… or they wouldn’t.
She had a feeling a lot of things would change next year.
Vincent Crabbe had been arrested, both for wearing the Dark Mark and due to evidence of having used “illegal dark magic against underage wizards and witches,” “utilizing unforgivable spells against one or more wizards and witches,” and “engaging in a conspiracy to commit treason and murder.” Millicent Bulstrode and Graham Montague had also been arrested, for “conspiring to and committing illegal acts.”
It was unclear what would happen to any of them.
But they weren’t Hermione’s concern right then, either.
Really, she had only one thing on her mind right then.
And he seemed to be pointedly avoiding her at the moment.
She didn’t look up when someone threw themselves into the armchair across from her.
Like every day for the past two weeks… or however long they’d been here, she’d basically lost track by now… people had been coming and going out of this room and these chairs every few minutes. Neville had been sitting in that chair, last she looked. He’d likely come back with a pasty from the kitchen, or maybe another cup of tea.
Harry had returned to the house that morning to tell them they’d found Slytherin’s locket in Grimmauld Place, of all the ridiculous things. Kreacher, the Black family house elf, had hidden it among his things in a filthy bedroom he kept just off the kitchen. It turned out that “R.A.B.” had been Regulus Black, Sirius’s brother, who had stolen the real locket and entrusted it to Kreacher in the hopes the elf could destroy it.
Harry had made short work of the real locket with the sword, and now they only had one horcrux left to find. No one knew where to even begin looking, unfortunately, but they’d started by going back to Nott Manor and going through every level, from top to bottom, starting from Voldemort’s quarters and working their way outward.
For the same reason, Hermione already knew it wasn’t Nott sitting across from her. Theo had gone with Harry to help them with anything tricky they might encounter with the remaining wards, specifically those built to protect certain areas of the manor.
Harry warned her they’d likely be there for weeks.
Bill Weasley was assisting, as well, as he was considered one of the topmost curse-breakers alive, along with two wizards from the Department of Mysteries that Mad-Eye had cleared of any suspicion of dark magical ties.
They’d caught a few more Death Eaters over the past week, including one of the two believed to have been impersonating her parents at the safe house in Bavaria.
Her parents had finally gone home––meaning, to their real house, at 8 Heathgate in Hampstead, London. Hermione had been both relieved and sad to see them go. She knew they must be anxious to get back to their lives… their real, normal, happy, and very muggle lives. She didn’t begrudge them that in the slightest, but had to bite her lip to keep from asking them to promise to see a mental health specialist, and not assume they were entirely “normal” after everything they’d been forced to endure.
She knew there’d been some talk about obliviating them by the Ministry and even some members of the Order, but she also knew those suggestions had been quashed, not only by her, but by Arthur and Molly Weasley, Remus Lupin, Andromeda, Nymphadora, and Ted Tonks, Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid, and Snape, and, maybe unsurprisingly, with threatening intensity by Draco when he heard.
In the end, only Mad-Eye hadn’t been cowed into no longer even grumbling about it, and even he seemed to accept defeat in the end. When he made some vague growls about “keeping an eye on everyone involved” over the next few years, he quickly got shouted down on numerous sides for even suggesting he might be spying on muggles, and parents of Order members no less, without a damned good reason.
After that confrontation, Hermione doubted anyone would be bothering her parents.
She tried not to watch as Draco hugged them both goodbye, and she determinedly refused to listen when he spoke to them quietly and privately before they left.
They hugged her tightly too, of course, and made her promise to come to see them “as soon as she could tear herself away.” Her father also stared at the lion ring on her finger for a pointedly long few seconds and informed her curtly that they had a number of “family issues” to discuss, most notably her “changed status” in regards to a certain young wizard with a “volatile temperament” who nevertheless mostly seemed “a decent and protective sort of fellow.”
Hermione snorted a little at that.
She knew her father, and knew he was fond of Draco already.
She should have been grateful for that… and she was grateful, mostly… but she still dreaded that conversation, especially if it took place before she had a chance to speak to Draco himself. It didn’t help when her mother beamed at her and insisted she bring Draco over for a meal soon, adding that they should possibly all take a trip together before the school term began, “maybe somewhere hot,” her mother offered hopefully, like Turks and Caicos, or the Maldives, or possibly Hawaii or even Fiji.
Hermione wasn’t ready to contemplate that possibility, either.
For now, she mostly felt relief knowing her parents were no longer stuck in the stone house, no longer getting suspicious stares from Mad-Eye, and no longer having to think overly about wizarding problems and Dark Marks and dungeons and dark lords and the rest of it. She worried about them, of course, but she also knew them, and knew her mother, especially. She had no doubt Jean Granger didn’t need any advice from her daughter on how to deal with what they’d just been through; she’d likely seek out a visit with a psychiatrist for both of them, just to be safe, and likely within days of their return to London.
“Are we ever going to talk?” a voice murmured from the nearby armchair.
She flinched, flushed, and looked up.
Damn him. He must have been occluding.
Draco sat there, his silvery eyes studying hers cautiously.
She wanted to laugh. She wanted to point out it hadn’t been her refusing to look at him, that she’d been staring at him practically nonstop for the last two weeks, trying to get his attention. The thoughts manage to jumble themselves all up inside her, however, and in the end she only made a scarcely-intelligible, “Humphf” noise, and folded her arms.
He smiled.
“I know,” he said, quieter. “But it was hard with them here.”
She knew he meant her parents.
She wanted to say something scathing to that, too, like how had he become the one who worried most about her parents? Was he saying she wasn’t worried about them? Or simply that he cared more about manners and propriety and all that rot than she did?
“Well… maybe that last one,” he said.
She glared at him, and glared harder when she saw the small smile at his lips.
“You’re impossible,” she informed him.
“Can we get out of here?” he said back, his eyes unwavering.
She flinched a little, and dropped her arms and hands. She gripped the book she’d been reading to keep it from sliding off her lap, and studied his face.
She thought about the question.
“And go where?” she asked.
Her mind continued to turn over places, and possibilities.
“We don’t have any money,” she reminded him. “Well… I mean, I have some money, but I don’t know if it’s enough, and it’s really meant for me to get started somewhere after I get out of school. Were you thinking we’d use that now? Get a flat somewhere?”
His lips pinched expressively.
For a few seconds, he seemed to hesitate.
“Well…” he began slowly. “Before we get into all of that, I think you should read something, Granger. Then maybe we can discuss particulars.”
She rolled her eyes, snorted. “It’s Granger again, is it?”
“Just read it, Hermione. Please.”
When she glanced up at him, his cheekbones flushed a reddish pink, making her stare. He ignored the question in her eyes though, and reached for an inside pocket of the light jacket he wore. He pulled out a thick envelope with the wax seal broken, and leaned towards her armchair to hand it to her carefully.
She took it from his fingers equally carefully.
“What’s this?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
She looked down at the envelope in her hands and noted the gleaming silver seal, the stylized “G” broken in half when the wax was cracked.
She turned the envelope over, and startled when she saw it was addressed to her.
Well… not only her.
It was addressed to both of them.
Mr. Draco Lucius Malfoy & Mrs. Hermione Jean Granger Malfoy
She looked at Draco, one eyebrow quirked, but he only waved a hand at her, urging her, somewhat impatiently now, to open it.
She lifted the flap of the envelope, tugged the thick, folded pieces of parchment out, and flattened them carefully on the book open on her lap. Bending down to stare at the exactingly lines of handwriting, she began to read.
“Is this absolutely necessary?” he asked, his voice holding a faint irritation.
She gave him an incredulous look. “Of course it is.”
“Is it?” he persisted, a little peevishly.
She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Draco. You’d trust your father with something like this? You’d trust any of them, given what we now know about the Blacks and the Malfoys?”
They stood outside high iron doors, dense with wards and what looked like around a hundred interwoven locks that bolted the doors in various ways to the rock walls. Those locks had been opened maybe twenty minutes earlier by a cluster of five goblins.
Two of those goblins remained outside; one held a gold-colored lantern and argued in surly tones with Charley Weasley, who was outraged at the condition and treatment of the large, white-scaled dragon that protected this level of the Gringotts vaults.
The second goblin stood nearer to her and Draco, and watched all of them, Charley included, with a wary expression, a sickly, green-tinted lantern hanging down from the iron handle he gripped tightly in a long-fingered hand.
The other three goblins had all gone inside with Bill Weasley, Mad-Eye Moody, Arthur Weasley, Harry, and two curse-breakers from the Department of Mysteries––the same cursebreakers Mad-Eye already vetted for their help in unlocking the bizarre collection of wards and boobytraps that littered Nott Manor.
Hermione and Draco hadn’t been inside the vault at all yet.
They were still waiting for the all-clear from Mad-Eye and the others.
“Harry Potter is inside my family vault before I am,” Draco muttered. “Fucking typical. Chosen One, throw-yourself-on-the-pyre, hero-complex bullshit––”
“You know why Mad-Eye wants him there,” she murmured disapprovingly. “They still haven’t found the seventh horcrux. There’s some chance Voldemort gave it to Lucius.”
“Doesn’t mean we couldn’t have gone in there with them,” he grumbled.
“It’s safer for you out here,” she said, exasperated. “Harry needs to be in there right now. You don’t. I don’t, either. And your father––”
“––Never in a million years intended or believed he would die before me,” Draco muttered, his voice even lower. “He would’ve found some way to make sure I never got a sickle, if he had. At least not without strong stipulations, including continuing a pure bloodline for the next five generations, and likely a betrothal contract for me to marry some pureblood princess from some horrific country or another.”
Draco’s jaw hardened as he stared into the dark opening in the cave wall.
“He wouldn’t have simply let me have it all,” he grumbled. “He certainly wouldn’t have done it only to kill me with a blood-freezing curse the instant I walked inside the vault. You read the letter. This is a direct-descent, bloodline-bequeath based on wizarding inheritance law… we aren’t getting it due to any will my bloody father wrote, waxing on about his darling boy and how he meant to provide him and his offspring a secure future…”
His voice dripped venom by the end.
Hermione could feel and hear the nerves in him, though.
“It hardly matters what he intended now,” she scolded anyway, gripping his fingers tighter in hers. “You know he’s got foul things in there. Things that might hurt you. Things that would definitely hurt me. There’s no reason to be reckless, just because––”
“I’m honestly surprised the Ministry didn’t just confiscate it all,” Draco exhaled, irritated. “I mean, why give it to me? I’m still a bloody Malfoy.”
Hermione snorted. “They likely would’ve taken it on some pretext if they could. But they couldn’t, Draco, and you know it… not legally, at least.”
“You’re sure about that?” Draco eyed the nearest goblin, who was obviously listening to them talk, and clearly had his own thoughts on the matter from the way his pale lips thinned. “They’re probably going over my testimony around Nott Manor right now, trying to figure out what they could charge me with to get their hands on some of it.”
She snorted a little that time, too, unable to help it.
Her fingers gripped his hand tighter in both of hers.
She considered letting go of him altogether, but didn’t. Frankly, she was struggling not to react to the simple fact of touching him. She could feel his magic sparking around her fingers and arm, and wondered if he was having the same problem.
“Yes,” he said flatly.
Of course he was listening to her.
“I can hardly help it,” he said, his voice harder. “My magic is so desperate to get into yours, you’re damned lucky I haven’t tried to fuck you against that wall yet… in front of Potter and Moody and every one of these annoying, intrusive, do-gooder fucks. Especially since their asinine precautions always end up meaning I never get to be alone with you.”
She swallowed, but didn’t answer.
She didn’t even exactly disagree.
He went on in a gruffer voice.
“We’re getting the fuck out of that house, if even a tiny fraction of this is mine and yours,” he muttered next. “If I’m left with enough for a down payment for a flat… or even enough to rent a room somewhere for a few weeks… we’re fucking leaving, Hermione. Don’t think I’ve forgotten you broke your promise to me utterly, wife. You assured me, that very first morning, you’d personally kick every one of those twats out. You said you’d do it the next day after we got back there. You said we’d take a shower together. You said we’d find our own room, and lock the gods-damned door and sleep wrapped up in one another, and the hell with the rest of these Order fucks and all their self-righteous, do-gooder bullshit––”
She huffed in outrage. “You wanted me to kick the Minister of Magic out of Dumbledore’s house? My parents? The entire D.M.L.E.? Every member of the Order of the Phoenix? All so we could––”
“You’re fucking right I did,” he growled back. “You promised, Hermione.”
He gripped her hand tighter, though, pulling her closer to his side.
In the end, she only exhaled another annoyed huff.
“You’re ridiculous,” she muttered.
“And you owe me,” he shot back. “I intend to collect. Then, after maybe a month or two of that, we can go to dinner with Jean and Henry. Although I’m not sure about a vacation with them… I’m not sure I’m ready for your father to want to murder me again, when I demand we share a room… and a bed… and I absolutely fucking refuse to budge on either point. We’re married, for fuck’s sakes. Henry has to get used to that. He just has to.”
She snorted again, but covered her mouth with a hand.
She honestly wasn’t sure if she was more amused than horrified at the thought of Draco getting in an open argument with her father about sleeping arrangements. She might actually die of mortification if that happened in front of her, especially if Draco felt the need to spell out exactly why he was insisting.
Something about that made her think about their next year at Hogwarts, though.
McGonagall already confirmed she’d passed all her courses with high marks, thanks to Snape and her other professors allowing her to finish.
Draco had to make up some of his work over the summer. He’d also arranged to go back to the castle early, and take in-person exams before their seventh year started.
“I’ve already done all but three make-up assignments,” Draco muttered, clearly listening to her again. “I’ve completely finished with Potions, Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures, and Arithmancy. I’ve only got Muggle Studies, History, and Ancient Runes left, and the first two are a joke.”
She looked up at him, frowned. “You’re not serious.”
He snorted in derision. “What the hell do you think I’ve been doing, while my wife slept in a different bedroom, surrounded by a wall of Order members clearly placed there to keep her safe from me?”
That time, she laughed for real.
“You really are ludicrous,” she told him, squeezing his hand.
“You’re the one who’s ludicrous if you think I’m in any way joking,” he muttered.
“Why on Earth are you taking Muggle Studies?” she asked next.
“I thought you’d ask about Care of Magical Creatures first.”
“Well, that, too.”
He opened his mouth, clearly about to say something else––
––when Bill Weasley emerged from the darkened entrance of the vault.
He glanced around, found Hermione with his eyes, and grinned.
“It looks okay,” he assured her, his handsome face made sallow in the greenish light. “There are quite a lot of dark objects in there, of course… they’re boxing up the worst of them now. It’ll take us at least a few weeks to get them all, and you definitely shouldn’t touch anything we haven’t cleared, particularly none of the jewelry or art, but if you want to go in and just look around, you both should be perfectly safe in doing that much. We dismantled a few blood-purity wards, and there are a few dozen safes and display cases that hold heirlooms that are more than a little dodgy, but all three of us checked out the main store of galleons and they’re completely fine. You can take as many of those with you as you want.”
He winked cheekily at Hermione as he said that, and then turned to the goblin nearest to them, and began to speak in a clipped, businesslike tone, laying out the schedule for curse-breaking the rest of the vault’s contents.
Hermione and Draco exchanged looks, and for the first time, the annoyed, angry, paranoid glare diminished somewhat in his eyes.
It had been replaced by a look of pure, astonished disbelief.
“Come on.” She squeezed his hand.
When he didn’t move, she began leading him towards the vault door.
“I think it’s time you finally got a look at what your father’s been hiding from you all these years.” She smiled at him until her smile gradually tipped into a smirk. “…And maybe you should start thinking about where you actually want to live, Draco.”
“Not at that bloody manor, that’s for sure,” he muttered, still looking stunned.
She rolled her eyes.
“I’m pretty sure you’re going to have options, Lord Malfoy,” she said loftily.
He bought them a five-story, white house in muggle London on the edge of a small park in Kensington, just a handful of blocks south of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.
He brought her there only after the keys had been handed over.
She looked up at the graceful structure with its ionic columns on either side of a blue-painted front door, and her jaw dropped a little, in spite of herself.
She wasn’t sure why he’d picked that exact spot, if it had been the house itself that drew him––he’d already described to her with machine-gun rapidity the multi-level gardens on the rooftop floors, the high ceilings and light-filled rooms, multiple fireplaces and enormous master bedroom, sunken bathtubs and several balconies, plus a newly-renovated muggle kitchen, which he seemed to find especially fascinating with all its appliances, and which he wanted her to explain and demonstrate the workings of in exacting detail––or if that part had been more incidental to him, and the house and neighborhood simply contained all the rough things he’d told her he wanted.
Those things included, in no particular order: proximity to several green spaces, which Draco stated was a must, a location in the city not far from Grimmauld Place, where Harry and, perhaps less surprisingly than it should have been, Theo, would be living from now on. He wanted something far enough away from the wizarding world that they’d have real privacy, and where he could grow magical plants year-round. He wanted something with enough rooms for a private potions lab, and with enough space for a good-sized library, maybe even the vast majority of what currently lived in Malfoy Manor. He wanted both muggle and non-muggle rooms where they could have both kinds of guests over to visit.
From what he’d told her, this location and house fit all of those things.
While not being in a magical area of the city like Diagon Alley, it remained close enough to everything, including her parents, that they wouldn’t have to travel far for most things.
He’d already proclaimed a desire to learn to ride the tube, go shopping at muggle indoor and outdoor markets, cook in a muggle kitchen, and even to drive (the thought of which terrified her), and the first time he saw muggles riding motorbikes, he of course compared them to brooms and also wanted one of those.
The proximity to friends likely mattered to him more than he’d admitted.
Hermione could feel that Theo being at Grimmauld, and with Harry, reassured Draco more than he’d likely ever acknowledge outright, and certainly not to Harry himself. Draco seemed to sense in Harry someone who would keep an eye on Theo, just like he had.
Ginny and Neville would be visiting Grimmauld a lot as well, along with Blaise and Luna, who seemed to be gravitating towards one another, so there would be multiple benefits to being within easy apparation distance (and, if Draco could be believed, even muggle transport distance) of Harry’s new home.
Neville and Theo were already the worst kept secret in Hogwarts before the term had even started, so Theo would have more than just Harry looking out for him, anyway. Hermione already managed to walk in on them at Dumbledore’s twice so far––only snogging, thank Salazar––but she was looking forward to Theo having his own room again, too.
Theo and Neville had at least managed to snog.
She and Draco still hadn’t really been alone, maybe because neither of them trusted themselves to stop with a few rushed kisses.
Curse-breakers and aurors continued to crawl all over Draco’s newly-inherited vaults. She’d barely seen him after they cracked the Black vaults in the lowest levels of Gringotts, and the final horcrux had been discovered in the one belonging to Bellatrix LeStrange.
It both horrified and bewildered Draco that he’d inherited practically all of his family’s wealth, on both his mother’s and his father’s sides, simply because the rest of his family was either dead or disinherited. His mother still controlled her own private vault (the fact it hadn’t passed to him via blood transmission was his only solid proof she remained alive), and there was the house at Grimmauld Place, plus Sirius’s remaining galleons, which had all gone to Harry.
Everything else was his.
Neither he nor likely any other living person had a clear idea of the full extent of it yet, but Draco had been kept busy with the legalities of transferring all of it to him, including Malfoy Manor, LeStrange Manor (Rodolphus died of his magical injuries a week after his wife), not to mention all the other family properties scattered over the world, which included at least one (and usually several) on every continent apart from Antarctica.
As soon as it got signed over to him, Draco bequeathed all of the Black money that wasn’t bound up in various trusts and companies to Andromeda and her children, and the LeStrange manor for them to dispose of however they wished. He further signed over a Malfoy property in Italy and another in France when Andromeda and Ted told him they didn’t have any interest in running or owning companies or businesses.
What remained, even just on the Black side alone, was still… a lot.
Really, it was an obscene amount, and Hermione knew Draco was still trying to wrap his head around it. The logistics of simply tracking it all between the two families seemed to overwhelm him entirely in those first few weeks.
For the same reason, she hadn’t seen very much of him.
She knew he’d been forced to make several trips to the manor.
She knew he’d met with estate agents, lawyers, financiers, company heads, and members of Gringott’s Board. He’d also visited several properties and businesses.
He told her Lucius kept a lot of valuable things at the manor, in addition to the vaults. The curse-breaking crew found six massive safes already inside the stone walls.
Somewhere in that period of Draco signing endless contracts and forms, poring over documents and itemized lists and estimated totals and vault numbers and stock statements, obtaining keys and maps and deeds and passcodes and business plans and capital valuation projections for everything he’d just inherited, he’d bought a house.
He’d bought this house.
For the two of them.
As he walked her towards the front door, he seemed to be second-guessing that decision.
Or perhaps he was second-guessing whether this would be a “nice surprise” for her, or would come across as a high-handed, presumptuous, and unilateral method of deciding anything that affected both of them to such an extent.
He explained in a hurried rush that he’d used a magical agent who specialized in muggle-wizard legal and financial contracts. The agent, a young witch who’d been suggested to him by Bill Weasley, arranged for all the muggle paperwork; Draco really only had to provide galleons, along with a single signature and initials which were then replicated over the stack of papers that formalized the purchase.
The house was his now… or really, as he reminded her with increasing agitation as they first walked up to the front door… it was theirs.
“We can sell it, if you hate it,” he added, his fingers tightening in hers. “We can rent it out, treat it as an investment, or give it away. Or we can keep it for the summer to try it out, figure out what to do with it after… it doesn’t matter to me.”
He was babbling a little.
He let go of her long enough to fumble with the muggle keys in the front door locks.
“I should have brought you here first,” he muttered. “…Before I signed. It’s your money, too. But I knew you’d probably say it was too much, or too big, or too everything, and then you’d want to give all our money to elves’ rights or to save the ruddy wrackspurts, and before we even had a roof over our heads. So I decided to just buy it and let you yell at me later…”
Hermione hid a smile, but only nodded.
She kept most of her expression mock serious.
“Quite rational,” she scoffed. “Given I likely couldn’t spend your positively ridiculous hoard of galleons in a few thousand years, even if I spent a bucketful every day for––”
“You don’t hate the neighborhood, then?” he blurted, obviously too distracted to fully hear her sarcasm. He gave her a worried look as he continued to wrestle with the lock. “The location is okay? It’s not too… I don’t know… anything?”
She glanced over her shoulder at the pretty little park directly across from their front door, its winding footpath and graceful statues and tall, blossoming trees, then looked down the length of pristine white houses that curved alongside the narrow street, also lined by trees and planting pots filled with flowering roses.
“It’s hideous,” she proclaimed, arching a brow at him. “Absolutely terrible. I don’t know how you found such a grim stack of impoverished hovels, Draco.”
“You’re a brat,” he told her, huffing.
“And you’re absolutely ridiculous,” she said with a sigh. “I told you to find a house you thought we’d like. I told you to, since I was busy with the Hallows thing.” She fingered a few curls out of her face and huffed back at him. “Why, pray tell, would I be angry at how you chose to spend your money? Especially when you’re spending it on a place for us to live? And the neighborhood couldn’t be more gorgeous, and you know it––”
“Our money,” he snapped, sounding actually annoyed that time. He paused with the lock long enough to glare at her. “It’s our money, Granger. Would you get that through your annoyingly thick and obstinate head?”
When she only folded her arms and stared at him, he returned his attention to the lock.
“Just because I’ve been the one doing all the initial paperwork doesn’t mean anything,” he grumbled, still fighting to get the key into the keyhole correctly. “I instructed those goblins at Gringotts that I want your name added to every single piece of property, every business, every investment, and every vault holding, regardless of how it’s been stipulated in terms of ‘blood purity’ rubbish. I’ve got a stack of paperwork a mile high I need you to sign, not to mention about five dozen keys I need to give you as soon as you can tear yourself away from Potter and Mad-Eye and all of those other nutters…”
She snorted under her breath.
She’d been tasked with research around the “Deathly Hallows” with Lupin, Xenophilius Lovegood, Bill Weasley, and Snape for the past two weeks, ever since the final horcrux had been destroyed. They’d already determined that the story of “The Three Brothers” transcribed by Beedle the Bard was likely to be mostly true, and had since locked up two of the Hallows artefacts––the wand and the death stone––in the headmaster’s office of Hogwarts.
No one had informed the Ministry of their existence yet, and there was significant debate raging within the Order about what to do with any of them, given the potential danger they posed if they fell into the wrong hands.
Kingsley and a few others wanted them locked away within the Department of Mysteries.
Mad-Eye, Lupin, and Harry wanted them destroyed, including Harry’s invisibility cloak.
Snape, Bill Weasley, Arthur Weasley, Xenophilius Lovegood, Flitwick, and McGonagall all wanted them to remain where they were, under the watchful eyes of the Hogwarts faculty and the Hogwarts headmaster.
Hermione didn’t have a strong opinion on the matter, but she most liked the idea of them staying in Hogwarts, too. It felt problematic to simply destroy them, given their historical and magical significance, and they felt infinitely safer to her at Hogwarts than they did at the Ministry of Magic. The Ministry didn’t have a great track record, as far as she was concerned, when it came to keeping out dark wizards.
Draco got the key in the locked handle correctly finally, and twisted it sideways with a relieved sigh. He got the upper bolt undone next, and let out a triumphant cry when he managed to jerk the blue-painted door all the way open.
He grinned at her then, and gave her a bow with a flourish of his hand.
“…After you, my beautiful, darling, beloved wife.” He smiled at her, and his eyes flared with green and gold light. “Just know that once you pass through that door, you’re not leaving anytime soon.”
“Ha,” she threw back.
“Ha at me all you want, Granger,” he said, his eyes and voice suddenly hard. “This isn’t me teasing. I’m dead fucking serious. Don’t go inside unless you’re okay with being there for a while. I’ve already told Snape, Harry, Mad-Eye, Bill, Ginny, and Lupin that they can’t have you at all, not even for a visit, for at least two weeks. More likely a month––”
She stared at him, and opened her mouth.
Draco held up a finger.
“––When I say you aren’t leaving, I mean neither of us are leaving,” he said, glaring. “That means nothing, Hermione. No floos. No teas. No drunken idiots puking in our brand new toilets. No one coming over for movies, or dinner, or breakfast, or just to ‘check out the house.’ We’ll do all of that and more, as much as you want, but later. Right now, I won’t even open the fucking door if they’re banging on it, screaming about how it’s an emergency.”
She felt her cheeks flush hot, in spite of herself.
“You’re ridiculous,” she informed him.
He didn’t so much as flinch.
“Where’s Crooks?” she demanded next.
“Inside. And don’t even ask,” he cut in, before she could speak. “The vicious little beastie has enough cans of his favorite food to last him a year… along with pillows, two cat beds, a magical litter box Dobby gave me, and several warm fireplaces.”
“We don’t even have furniture yet!” she protested.
“There’s plenty of furniture for our purposes. And for the beastie. I made sure of it.”
“What about food for us?” she demanded. “Are we eating cat food, too?”
He smirked. “Delivery. Look it up. All the muggles do it.”
She bit her lip, still studying his silvery eyes.
“What if we get bored?” she asked.
“You will not get bored, Mrs. Malfoy,” he scoffed. “If you do, I am definitely doing something wrong, and can probably look forward to you divorcing me in not too long a time.”
Her face flushed hotter.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said again.
“In or out?” he demanded. “Make up your mind, wife.”
There was a silence where they just stared at one another.
Then, with a toss of her head, she harumphed at him haughtily, tilted her chin and nose upward a touch, and marched through their open front door.