Chapter Text
Draco and Hermione stand outside the safehouse, neither speaking. He watches her in his peripheral vision, memorising how the setting sun highlights the angles of her face. Her freckles are stark against the pallor of her skin, and her eyes are laced with specks of gold that seem brighter than they had only hours before. He hasn't seen her in the light since they were adolescents, and he knows now that she exists for sunlight.
Not like him - a creature destined for darkness. He is barely capable of surviving within the light, lest it highlight his shortcomings.
This will be the last time he sees her, and despite his anger, he wants to commit every detail to his mind. He will never be the same, not since she's used and discarded him. Not since she tricked him into believing he could be something better.
Slowly, the sky turns to inky black, and he can only see the outline of her profile. In some strange way, it feels more manageable to be cloaked in darkness. This is the only way he's ever had her and the only way he ever will. The Hermione Granger of the dark is his, but this new iteration of her belongs somewhere he can never be.
Finally, she speaks. "I'm going inside."
She does not give him a chance to reply before she turns, climbs the sloping hill, and steps inside the darkened house. The lights flicker inside, and he sees her shadow moving about the rooms.
He does not follow. He is eager to leave the safehouse—to escape the crushing rejection of this reality—but something urges him to stay. He cannot leave her now, not when she's so close to freedom. He can do nothing but see this through. He waits, finally relenting enough to sit in the tall grass with his knees propped.
The sky is just brightening into navy when two figures appear at the apparition point.
Weasley and Potter are alive.
Draco is surprised but not unhappy. An acidic sort of relief claws its way up his windpipe.
Potter stumbles forward, clutching one arm over his abdomen. His shirt is soaked with blood, and his glasses are gone. Weasley is in a similar state - his face is streaked with ash, and one eye is nearly swollen shut. They prop one another up, two sides of the same disaster.
Potter coughs and wipes a bloodied forearm over his mouth. "Malfoy. You're still here."
"I am."
"You're not planning to stay?" Weasley's lip curls in disgust.
Draco stands. "Don't worry, I'll leave now. I only wanted to be sure you'd return before I left her."
Both men stare at him like he's an unknown entity rather than their childhood enemy. Draco can't say he disagrees. He does not understand the man he's become. The air between them is thick like syrup, sticky with tension and distrust.
"Ah." Potter grimaces. "Good luck, Malfoy."
Draco looks up at the house. Every room remains illuminated. He imagines Hermione sprawled on the bed and bathed in the light, unwilling to tolerate the darkness for even a moment longer. His happiness for her mingles with his anger until he can no longer untangle the emotions from one another. Everything he believes knots into one, and he can only isolate a single thought.
He swallows. "Did you…do it?"
Potter looks unsure, then nods. "It's done. Voldemort is dead."
The war has changed so many things. Many of Draco's childhood staples are gone: Diagon Alley has been razed, and St. Mungo's is little more than a crater. To Draco's surprise, the Ministry still stands, but the government has been stripped of many of its most recognisable faces. Despite the destruction, the world is not as different as Voldemort allowed his followers to believe. The other side has prevailed amid significant loss. The things are gone, but the air flows with determined hope. Draco spends only a few hours exploring before he heads to Wiltshire.
The Manor is a shell, first stripped by Ministry forces and then by transient wizards looking for a place to loot. He stands in the centre of his old bedroom. The windows have been smashed, and sunlight glints off the shards of glass that litter the rug. His broomstick - which once hung proudly on the wall above his headboard - is long gone, leaving behind a shadow of its shape. On the floor lies a ragged teddy bear, the prized possession of his six-year-old self.
He sits on the bed and lifts the duvet to his nose. It smells of smoke - more like Tenebris than any faint memory of his boyhood. For some reason, this realisation makes him inescapably sad. Hermione longed for a past in which she had been loved. There were a host of joyful memories for her to cling onto, a liferaft amid her imprisonment. Draco has no such memories. There was never a time in which he was cherished nor a time in which he believed himself deserving of care. There is nothing to ache for.
Nothing but her. Hermione is the singular spot of comfort in his memories; even then, it was one-sided. She was his hope, but he was never hers.
He slams the door to the bedroom, sending several abandoned portraits crashing to the marble floor. He wants to rebuild his childhood home almost as much as he wants to burn it to the ground.
Draco is relieved to find that the library remains partially intact. The hand-carved couches are stained with soot and spilled wine. His mother would be devastated if she were still alive - the library was her pride and joy, more so than he had ever been. The volumes on the shelves have been picked through, and most everything of use is gone. But Draco is only looking for one.
He finds the Malfoy Family Genealogy tucked in a lower shelf, where it's sat largely untouched for decades. The binding creaks as he opens it, and a plume of dust particles billows into the air. To anyone outside the family, it is little more than a record of births, marriages, and land ownership. But to Draco, it is more.
He uses his wand to slice a clean cut in the palm of his hand, then smears the blood on the inside of the back cover. Words materialise, and Draco trails his pointer finger down the list.
The Malfoy family has many common traits far beyond appearances. Most of them share the same arrogance, a love of knowledge, and a deep-seated paranoia. Above all else, they are planners, and they have collected a fair amount of untracked properties over the years.
Safehouses, really.
Draco cannot rejoin the wizarding world. He's not even sure he wants to. A lifetime alone doesn't sound so bad after the life he's led thus far. It's what he deserves.
He selects a small property in Lavenham.
It is from the safehouse that Draco learns the details of what he inadvertently set into motion.
Even before Hogwarts was taken, the Order had learned that Voldemort had secured his immortality by splitting his soul into objects known as Horcruxes. They'd been able to destroy most of them before the battle at the school. The Order believed the final Horcrux was Nagini, the Dark Lord's tempestuous snake, but they had been unable to get into Tenebris to kill her.
Until Hermione. It was because of their escape - and the information she fed about the city itself - that allowed Potter and Weasley to get inside and kill the serpent.
According to the papers, a battle ensued after the snake was dead. Harry sacrificed himself to save his friend - and in the process - discovered that he was the final Horcrux. Voldemort's killing curse destroyed the final piece of his shattered soul, leaving Potter alive. It was then that Harry and Ron could kill the Dark Lord, once and for all.
All is right in the world:
Harry Potter and Ron Weasley: heroes of the wizarding world.
Draco Malfoy: war criminal.
Many of the residents of Tenebris were killed in the chaos. Some were arrested and await trial. Some have been offered refuge. Others fled, and the papers regularly run photographs of the Undesirables. Draco's picture is a prominent feature, cast as a lowly servant responsible for the deaths of many.
It's not entirely wrong.
Draco is more bothered that the papers have grossly misrepresented Hermione's role, highlighting her as a rescued prisoner with little to offer. For whatever reason, she plays along in her interviews.
Furthermore, she never mentions Draco. It's as if he never existed. As if he never loved her.
It's kinder than he deserves.
Three Years After The Fall of Tenebris
In the years that follow, Draco learns to accept his sentence. He may not be in Azkaban, but Lavenham is its own kind of prison. The house is small but comfortable. The property is well-concealed, and he spends the summer season taking meandering walks outside. He leaves every few months to gather supplies and newspapers, enough to keep track of the world as it moves on without him.
Slowly but surely, the wizarding world has found some semblance of normal. With Voldemort gone, and many of his followers dead or imprisoned, pureblood supremacy seems to have been minimised. With Tenebris demolished, work has begun to rebuild a school - a new Hogwarts - in its place. Laws have been passed to protect muggleborns further, and the government has started stabilising.
The Dark Lord would be devastated to see his work bastardised in this way, and this brings Draco a small amount of comfort. Despite being fed it from birth, he never aligned with Voldemort's agenda. Now that he's distanced from the all-encompassing environment of Tenebris, he can see how twisted the rhetoric was. Voldemort never cared about blood purity - he just wanted power.
Draco scours the papers for mentions of Hermione. She's rarely acknowledged, except for text that indicates she was contacted for a statement but did not respond. She's chosen to live her life privately, which Draco understands. She was turned into property for nearly seven years. It makes sense that she wouldn't want to give a shred more of herself to be picked apart.
One evening, Draco finds an article that interests him. Potter's marriage is mentioned in The Daily Prophet. In the photograph, he dips his new bride and presses a kiss to her mouth as her veil grazes the floor.
Harry Potter Marries Ginny Weasley in Spectacular Ceremony, the heading announces.
Draco doesn't care about the enchanted newlyweds. He studies the background of the photo until he finds her. She stands off to the side, only halfway in the frame. Her hands are clutched around a bouquet of white flowers; her hair is swept back from her face with a comb. He cannot read her expression. In a particular light, she looks peaceful. If he squints, she appears unsettled. He studies it for days, trying to understand.
He tacks the photo to his wall and spends the next several weeks writing her letters that he will never send.
He's sorry.
He regrets a lot of things. The years in school, in which he was so darkly cruel to her and others like her. The six years in Tenebris, in which he did nothing but listen to her scream. But most of all, for allowing his love for her to eclipse goodness. He loved her selfishly - held her in his desperate fist rather than letting her go.
Despite the sting it leaves in his hollow chest, he does not blame her for her manipulation.
She did what she was forced to do. She survived. If she had acted any differently, she would not be the woman he fell in love with.
He knows this now.
Five Years After The Fall of Tenebris
One morning in December, Draco wakes to an unfamiliar sound. He sits up in bed, pushing the quilt from his legs. The air in the house is cold, and his breath is visible in the frosty air. He casts a quick warming charm, then grips his wand firmly in his fist.
In the early days of his isolation, he lived on pins and needles. He woke frequently, expecting someone to cross the threshold of the safehouse - aurors to arrest him for his crimes, or perhaps a Death Eater seeking revenge for his final betrayal. It has been years since he's worried, perfectly nestled in the safety of his loneliness.
He creeps to the window and pushes the floral patterned drape aside. Footsteps line the fresh snow in front of the house, and he sighs in relief. It is only one person - but who?
He grips the railing as he moves down the staircase, illuminating the dark with his wand. He tries to work up fear or dread but can only muster a sinking sense of resolve. It was always going to end like this. He's been living on borrowed time. The last five years are an extension of life he was never supposed to have.
Someone - or something - raps softly against the door.
His visitor is knocking. How peculiar.
It's so bizarre he can do nothing but approach the door and open it, wand braced in a defensive move.
He blinks, his heart stuttering.
"You," he breathes. He places a hand against the doorframe to steady himself.
She stands under the overhang, then lowers the hood of her crimson cloak. "Hello."
"How did you find me?"
Hermione looks back into the night and then returns her gaze to him. "Why don't you invite me inside, and then I'll explain?"
He says nothing but steps backward and sweeps his hand out. He lights the entryway chandelier, then charms the door to shut and lock behind her.
For a moment, he cannot do anything but stare at her. She's almost unrecognisable from the gaunt, half-dead woman he left behind five years prior. Soft curves and lush hips have replaced her angles, and he's momentarily tempted to seek solace in her. She was always beautiful, but now she is alive.
She removes the snow-dusted cloak and hangs it on the wall hook, then arranges her hair over one shoulder. "I'm glad you're alive."
"Are you?" He moves down the hall, looking over his shoulder as she follows him.
She stays silent, their feet moving rhythmically against the creaking floorboards until they reach the sitting room. Draco lights a fire and then gestures toward an upholstered armchair. Hermione sits, folding her hands in her lap.
"Are you going to tell me how you found me?"
"I work for the Ministry now. I'm heading the committee to rebuild Hogwarts and convince families to send their children. I have access to records on untracked land. It's taken me years to make the connections. Your family has a lot of properties."
"Seventeen," he breathes. He's almost afraid to move, fearful she will disappear like a fading ember.
"This is the last one, then," she admits. "I had assumed you'd want something more palatial."
Draco smirks slightly, then sits in a chair across from her. "Precisely why I picked it."
"The wards were impressive," Hermione says.
"And yet you broke them. I shouldn't be surprised. You are, above all things, committed to your causes."
"Yes." She looks suddenly unsettled, folding and unfolding her hands in her lap.
The room feels smaller than it has in years. It's as if she's sucked the oxygen from the space.
"Are you here to turn me in? To punish me for my sins?"
"Is that what you think?"
"Why else would you work so hard to find me?" He summons a decanter of whisky from the mantle, then tips it into an open glass.
"It's been five years, Malfoy. I've been out of Tenebris nearly as long as I was in it, and yet, it feels like it's breathing down my throat. The others have moved on. They're still impacted, of course, but they're building lives. I'm frozen. I have a job. A nice flat. Friends. Hobbies. And still, I don't feel better."
"You suffered far more than any of them." His heart twists, remembering the woman he'd found in that tower - broken but somehow smarter and stronger than any of her abusers.
She waves a hand, dismissive. "I left a lot of things untied when Tenebris fell."
"Things like me?"
She freezes for a moment, honey eyes wide and tentative. Then, she jerks her chin in a nod.
"So you've come to unburden yourself?"
"I'm not sure."
"Of course you are," he says. "You don't do things for no reason."
Draco tosses back the remainder of his drink, then leans forward with his elbows resting atop his knees. She jerks back slightly, a tremble reminiscent of her time in the tower.
"May I ask you a question, Hermione?"
"You may."
"When did you start manipulating me?" He's spent so many years wondering this very thing, trying to pinpoint the moment he morphed into her mark.
She swallows. "The first time you entered the tower. I took one look at those sad eyes and I knew. You needed a purpose. So I gave you one."
The way she tells it is so practical - as if there were no other answer that could've been the truth. She leans back into her chair, shoulders loosening. "I got the idea from Flint. The others wanted to cause pain, but I could have been anyone. I was a mere container for misplaced rage and misanthropy. Marcus Flint hated me. And over time, I witnessed that hatred morphing into need. I realised I could use that to my advantage."
"And I walked right into your master plan?"
"It wasn't a master plan," Hermione says, her voice soft. "I didn't know then that I would figure out how to communicate with the Order. But I knew I could get you to help me."
"By manipulating my feelings."
"Or your ego. Or pity, perhaps. It didn't really matter, Draco."
He nods, digging his nails into the fabric of his trousers. "Why are you here? Despite what you may believe, I'm not stupid. You didn't spend five years tracking me down to rehash your intention to use me."
"Stop!" She stands suddenly, hands going rigid at her sides. "You are not innocent in this. You're not my victim."
"You think I don't know that? I know I'm a monster."
"That's exactly the problem, Draco. You're not a monster. All of this would be so much easier if you were." Her eyes are wet, and she inhales with a shuddering gasp. "You used me too. You were tired of Tenebris, and I was your way out of the darkness. Just like you were mine."
He gapes, feeling a heavy stone settle in his chest.
She's right. He's been trying to claw his way out of his darkness for his entire life. He had been stopped by cowardice and greed - until her. He entered that tower, and Hermione Granger became his escape, the same way he became hers.
They stare silently for a moment, the silence only punctuated by the crackling of the fire.
Hermione exhales. "You understand, don't you?"
"I think I do," he says, his voice a strained whisper. "And I'm sorry. For all of it."
"I forgive you."
"You shouldn't."
"You don't get to tell me what I should or should not feel." She steps toward him, bearing the same haughty look that he knows so well. "I forgive you because I need to. I can't survive carrying this weight hatred and rage in my heart. As I said, you're not a monster. You were selfish. You were cowardly, in so many ways. But you were also my friend."
He presses his lips together. It's not the word he would've chosen.
"There were things I liked about you. About us. I found myself thinking it was a shame we didn't ever try to get along in school. You were, mad as it sounds, the first person I ever allowed to understand me. Even before the war."
Draco cocks an eyebrow in disbelief.
"My intentions were focused on helping the Order. But I never lied to you."
He cracks his knuckles, his stomach twisting uncomfortably. "Surely, you would not have let me touch you if–"
Hermione silences him with a hand in the air. "My body was a commodity for six years. I would not - I could not - have forced myself to do anything I didn't want to do. I would have found another way. I needed that as much as you did. You gave me control when I was nothing but a toy. You gave my body pleasure when it had only known pain."
He is reminded of the way her form felt against his. As much as he thinks of their time together - fucking her, devouring her, watching her come apart - he spends most of his time remembering the way she felt beside him on the stone-cold floor. In those moments - breathing in tandem, their bodies sticky with sweat - he'd fallen in love with her.
"Is this the closure you needed?" He feels himself shake slightly, and it's as if the armour he's stitched to himself is dissolving with every breath. "Can you move on now?"
"I'm not sure." She steps forward, then presses both hands to the tops of his shoulders. "Can you?"
He stares down at her. "I doubt it."
She raises on her tiptoes, then presses her mouth to his. The kiss differs from all the ones that have come before. It is curious, and soft, and unhurried. She breathes against his lips for a moment, then lowers herself.
He opens his eyes. "Will you stay?"
"For a bit."
He leans forward to rest his nose on the top of her head, breathing in her soft scent. "I loved you. I love you. I need you to know that."
"I do," she says.
Gently, he tilts her head back. "Do you feel better now?"
She pauses, closing her eyes as if she's churning up a long-forgotten memory. "I'm getting there."
It's enough for him. It has to be.
As the firelight flickers, he kisses her once more. He does not know if it will be the last time, and he savours it. He cannot leave the safehouse, and she will not stay here forever. But, somehow, it doesn't matter.
She is here now, and he can love her the way he should have from the start.
He can let her go.