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Chapter Text

June 27, 1998

Draco woke to one of the school owls sitting on his pillow, having dropped a letter on his face. It was still night, but only barely. He sneaked out of the room he shared with the Gryffindor boys and wound his way down to the common room. Just as he walked through the door that led from the double-helix staircase, Hermione barrelled past him and body-checked him on her way to the girls’ side of the staircase.

“Excuse you, Granger.”

She turned on him, her wand drawn. “No, excuse you, Malfoy.” She turned and hurried off into the darkness.

He frowned. She had gone cold again since Sunday, but this was actual hostility which went directly against what she herself had announced that day.

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair then went to sit on one of the cushy couches by the fire. The couches in the Slytherin common room were definitely not as comfortable as the ones here. Some head of house in the past had thought mid-century modern furniture as the height of design and the whole room was just slightly uncomfortable as a result. Maybe when they redid the Slytherin dorms, they could get some more comfortable furniture for the common room.

The handwriting on the envelope looked familiar, and it was addressed to Draco F Malfoy in Gryffindor Tower Where He Sleeps Better Than He Should. He had a sour feeling in his stomach. His middle name was Lucius, and the address was vaguely threatening. Why would this person not just send a howler and be done with it?

He opened the envelope, although he nearly had to destroy the envelope entirely to keep from tearing the letter inside to shreds. Merlin’s balls this was frustrating. Did the writer use one of the construction-level sticking charms?

As he began to read, he suddenly understood everything that had happened since he awoke much better. His head drooped further and further as he read on and on, feeling exactly why she shoved him as she passed him to go to bed. She must have just sent this to him and crossed him on the way back from the owlery. Fuck. How had he fucked up everything so badly barely a day after returning? He had just wanted for her to not hate him. He could never hope for more, but he had failed at even this much. He had it indelibly on this page. No signature, but there was only one person who could have written this.

Well, at least he had answers for her. She had such a fucking load of questions, at least he could answer every question she posed. Maybe he could give them both some peace?

The scrabbling came from somewhere inside, urgent and screeching. He took a breath and summoned his parchment and quill.

Dear Granger,

Chapter Text

July 1 & 9-10, 1998

When you spend six hours a day with your former enemy, it becomes increasingly difficult to grasp why you hated them in the first place. Draco Malfoy was consistently amazed at how much better at everything Neville Longbottom was than he had seemed for six and a half years. He was game to talk about anything or nothing, and mysteriously, he was unbeatable at Dragon, Goblin, Gold.

Draco was also consistently amazed at how much more specifically annoying Ginny Weasley was than he had previously thought. With Hermione gone off to the Burrow indefinitely, Ginny, Draco, and Neville were matched as a work group almost every day.

Ginny just would never let any comment lie. He truly considered if he meant anything by the things he was saying, and no, he was just trying to keep a friendly banter going. Then, she would pick apart the tiniest little thing he said. It would surely drive him to drink if he enjoyed being out of control at all.

On a break one day, he turned around and they were gone. No crack of apparation, just disappeared. They returned fifteen minutes later with a look of dazed confusion on Neville’s face and vague smugness on Ginny’s. The moment could not pass without comment.

“Do I need to tell on you to your partners?” Draco’s eyebrow arched.

Ginny punched him hard in the wand arm, for neither the first nor last time. “I’ll break it next time you suggest I’d cheat on Harry, wanker.”

Neville shook his head. “I’m not seeing anyone. I wouldn’t like for anyone to think I’m running around behind Harry’s back with Ginny, though.”

Draco rubbed his arm. “Where did you fuck off to instead of a broom closet, then?”

“Ginny took me up the seventh floor to look at soul strings.”

Draco’s stomach dropped at the mention of the seventh floor. “What do you mean?”

Ginny spoke up. “Hermione and Luna and I went up to the hall by the Room of Requirement a couple of weeks ago and our strings were tangled up all over the place up there. All three of us. I’ve been trying to find who else has piles and tangles up there.”

He could not breathe. He absolutely could not breathe. He was on the floor with his head between his legs. Soul string on the seventh floor was just like him before the Battle.

Neville was handing him a vial of something and speaking softly. He could see Vince’s face in the fire in the Room of Requirement. He looked up to see Neville’s face and his eye twitched with the pain of a headache. He could feel the gnawing of his fear every time he had been in the Room. He could smell the acrid smell of fire consuming everything, leading to the smell of burning flesh. He was clutching Neville’s arms and shouting something, and then he was out.

He awoke feeling wet. He could not possibly have cried that much, could he? No, Ginny had done Aguamenti on him to wake him up.

Neville handed him a vial. “Sorry I stupefied you, mate. We didn’t think you’d want everyone in the castle knowing your panic thoughts.”

Draco was apparently not done crying. As he remembered what had been happening in his memories before he was knocked out, he choked out a sob. “Vince.”

Neville nodded. “I know. He was awful, but he was your friend, too.”

Draco drank the Calming Draught and some water as he told them about the Room of Lost Things during the Battle.

“I mean, there were so many things that happened all at once, you know? They had no idea what it was like to do something the monster didn’t like. They had no idea, and they thought they could just kill him and the monster would fucking reward them? And then everything was out of control with the fire. I’ve never seen anything like it.” His head hurt. It really hurt.

Ginny bapped him on the arm gently. “I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but it has made me feel a bit better since Fred…” She shook her head. “You know. Anyway, it helps me to remember that there is only one actual way everything turned out. There’s no alternate version of this life where we’re all alive and happy. This is the actual way it happened, and we all made decisions that brought us to now. This is how it happend.” She laughed darkly as she surveyed his face. “I can tell this is exactly the good thought you needed, Snake Boy. Come on, up you get. To the hospital wing with you, invalid.”

After the first day of his father’s trial the following week, being with Hermione was some kind of miracle. Draco had expected nothing about that evening from so many years of watching and waiting for his opportunity. She was beautiful and smart and funny and frustrating and dark and easy and light. He wanted to be buried in her, just have her surround him as he suffocated. How he had fallen so fast was no mystery. How could he not have loved her? She was everything good and complicated and wonderful.

Starting Tuesday after his testimony and her disappearance, he read and re-read her letters, picking out his favorite phrases. “Why did you have to say that about my hair?” and “And if one more person tells me I need to rest, I’m going to punch them, I don’t care if it’s an old lady, honestly”, were two of his special favorites because he could perfectly hear her voice when he read them. He also might never tire of re-reading her tantrum at the end of that first letter to him, though. He feared he had truly begun loving her that morning. Everything before it had been just her public image, but that first letter was the first bit that was actually her.

Draco did still have trouble seeing her without thinking of her either as the Golden Girl or as the whisper in his ear from his father about her blood status.

And after Lucius’s testimony on Thursday, it was impossible to hear anything but his father’s voice in his head for the rest of the day. Mudblood Granger this and magical whore that. Draco feared he would lose his calm to another panic attack if he did not keep his occlumency walls firmly in place.

He had seen muggles with those music machines with the speakers that would put the sound directly into your ear, so he went into muggle London Thursday night to buy one for himself. The shop clerk had looked confused when Draco asked too many questions about how to make the music come out, but Draco persisted in asking the kind of questions that would get him laughed at by anyone less stoned than this woman. She showed him how to put the batteries in and sold him a large package of replacement batteries to help him get through the rest of the summer. She asked what kind of mood he was in, which seemed an odd question, but he answered that he was angry all the time, but that he wanted to be alive, and he accidentally let slip that his father was on trial for murder (among other things). She sold him At Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash, OK Computer by Radiohead, and I Should Coco by Supergrass. She said to come back for more recommendations based on what he liked in that batch.

Shoving music into his ears was a revelation. He felt like Johnny Cash was singing about literally him. He felt like there was something confusingly deep about Radiohead. But Supergrass was just sort of fun? He found himself dancing like a fool around his bedroom that night. He loved it, this whole new side of the world he had never been able to access. Wizard music was nothing like this. Even the Weird Sisters had never made him feel like he was literally floating.

He wished he could share it with his Slytherin friends. But, he had no idea where half of them were, and the other half had made it clear they needed to keep their distance for a while. Pansy was off on the continent, probably getting engaged to some rich Eastern European duke. Blaise had returned to Italy, possibly never to return. Theo was under house arrest until his father’s trial at the earliest. Milli, Tracy, and Greg had all simply disappeared after the Battle. Owls to everyone but Pansy came back unopened. So, he was alone with his music and only Gryffindors and a weird Ravenclaw for friends.

He did not hear the tapping on the window. He only turned in his dancing and saw an owl on the ledge outside. He screamed and dropped the CD player.

The tiny letter was from Hermione. Even with the judicial silencing spells in place, she had managed to write to him, just to make him feel better about what he had done to her. He was amazed at her lack of self-preservation instinct.

Dear Draco,
      I still don’t hate you. Please don’t hate me for leaving and needing to stay away. I need some more of those Fuck Yous back some time. I hope you’re well.
      Still Falling,
      Hermione

The next day, his father’s words could not touch him as much as they had the day before. He sat stone faced holding his mother’s hand as his father cried and screamed.

“Nothing could have prevented me from protecting my family. The muggles were stealing magic from wizards! How was I to know it was all a lie? I did what I had to do, Your Honors. Should I have stood by and watched as society crumbled to make way for the new generation of muggles who had not a drop of magic in them? I wanted only for my son to grow up in a world of good and pure magic.”

Minister Shacklebolt cleared his throat violently. “Lord Malfoy, the question was actually, ‘Why did you teach your son the Killing Curse?’ Would you mind answering that question?”

Lucius looked sick. “Muggle children learn how to do great violence in their schools. I knew the mudblood girl would be ready to kill and I needed my son to be able to protect himself.”

A witch with large glasses that made her look a bit like an owl spoke up. “Lord Malfoy, there are many spells specifically for protection. The Killing Curse is only for killing. Please explain why you did not arm your son with the full array of protection spells and chose instead to teach him an Unforgivable Curse.”

He trembled and took a moment to answer, his voice thin and watery. “He had to come out alive. Malfoys will not be bested by mudblood filth.”

A large wizard asked from high above them, “Lord Malfoy, do you deny that you taught the Killing Curse to your son Draco?”

Lucius merely shook his head. He could not find his voice to answer any further questions.

Draco and his mother left the Ministry at lunch to escape the faces of the expectant observers. They returned to the same French restaurant from Monday’s recess.

Mother and son both took a glass of wine with lunch. “Draco, have you heard from Hermione?”

He smiled in spite of the morning. “She managed to write last night. Typical Gryffindor not thinking of how to protect herself. She wanted to make sure I was alright.”

Narcissa smiled a tiny smile. “It’s definitely in keeping with what you’ve said of her, and what I’ve seen of her so far. All those times you went on and on about how she was putting herself between Harry and danger, or how she spent hours in the library researching in sections with no assigned work? She’s not one to abandon anyone just because of her own discomfort.” She sipped her wine. “How will you protect her, then, Draco? If she won’t protect herself?”

Draco stared at his forks. “I don’t know, Mother. I’ve done a rubbish job at protecting anyone so far.” He looked at her face, far more wrinkled and drawn than she should have been. He had certainly failed to protect her when it mattered. He reached out his hand to take hers, knowing what he wanted to say was insufficient. “I know I have to do better with Hermione.”

Narcissa’s eyes softened as she squeezed his hand. “You have always done what you needed to do to get through alive, Draco. I know that. You simply need to understand that your instinct for self-preservation cannot come before your relationship with her if she is who you really want. I know you, my son, and when you feel that instinct, it will come as a terrible fear of the unknown that you will have to find a way around. The darkness we have endured is still working its way through our lives, my love. You will find you have to deal with its aftereffects for the rest of your life, and that will mean you have to make difficult choices about what and who to believe and why.”

Draco was taken aback at Narcissa’s speech. It was practically an open and honest conversation about their feelings and he had no idea how to handle this from his cool quiet mother.

“Oh, did I tell you, Draco, about the plans I’m drawing up for an arboretum on the east side of the back garden?”

There she was.

Back in court that afternoon, the questions devolved to Lucius whimpering and half-sentences. It was excruciating to watch. Even yes or no questions seemed to be too much for the accused. Draco felt conflicted as to whether his father was truly losing his grip on sanity or simply played the madman to help his case.

Late that afternoon, the Wizengamot called the proceedings complete and recessed for an hour of deliberations. When they returned, Lucius was found guilty of nearly everything and would spend the remainder of his days in Azkaban in enchanted manacles, effectively separating him from his magic.

After dinner, Draco would need to return to Hogwarts. He took Narcissa back to Joseph’s Pizza.

“Ah! Hermoony’s friend! And this stunning lady must be your mother.” He kissed her hand, and Narcissa’s eyes crinkled with joy. “No Hermoony or Harry tonight? Too bad. I missed that girl when they left.”

Draco shook his head, thinking of lunch Thursday when Potter told him about Hermione’s fit the night before. “No, she’s gone back to the country. Wasn’t feeling well.”

Joseph nodded seriously. “You take care of her. She’s special. She’s got that, eh, that magic, you know?”

Draco and Narcissa shared a smile full of secrets. “She certainly does, Joseph.”

They returned to Black House and ate their pizza on fine china with forks and knives. Narcissa insisted on it. They discussed the now-possible timeline for tearing down Malfoy Manor. It could begin next week, if Narcissa could transfer the final two house elves to Black House now that Lucius’s permanent imprisonment removed the last house bonds of their loyalty to him.

Draco spent the entire meal distracted. Now he could actually say anything to Hermione, what would he say?

After dinner, he extracted a promise from his mother to be kind to Hermione and refrain from talking about him too much at their tea the next day. He kissed her on the cheek and apparated away.

His usual tree in The Cotswolds was especially lush this summer. He rested a minute and apparated again.

Although it was still before the golden light of sunset, the countryside around Mam Tor seemed to glow. As Draco rested, a raven hopped around beside him. He bowed to it and it bowed back. When it took flight, he apparated again.

On The Merrick, there was a stag that looked a bit angry at Draco’s intrusion into his space. He cracked out again immediately, not wanting to deal with a charging animal.

At Hogwarts, he reported briefly to McGonagall before holing up in the Gryffindor boys dorm for the evening.

He was simply trying to come up with something useful to say to Hermione. He was sorry. He was about eight times sorry now, up from the five after his own trial, but given how much she had hated that letter, he had better not send any more “I’m sorry” off to her. Maybe just something upbeat and positive?

Dear Hermione,
     Trial is over now, so we can talk. That was pretty bad, eh?

Ugh, no.

Dear Hermione,
     Everything is awful except you. I hope you’re feeling better. Potter told us about what happened Wednesday night. I had a bit of a panic attack myself Wednesday after the stuff about Father using Imperius on those muggles came out.

No, certainly not, as she would have no idea what he was even talking about.

Dear Hermione,
     It feels like I haven’t talked to you in forever because of these stupid spells. I’ve been worried about you. I don’t know what to say for some reason.

Apparently this would not work tonight. He wanted to give her those words she was always going on about, but it just felt like he had nothing to give her now. The well of words had been exhausted somehow by his testimony Tuesday. He put on his headphones and opened a biography of Helga Hufflepuff from the now-restored Black-Malfoy library. The more he learned about muggles, the more he felt Hufflepuff had the right idea. He chose the Radiohead album and put it on repeat.

Eventually he stopped reading entirely and just listened to the music in the dark. The singer seemed to be angry and sad in an obviously English sort of way. He wished he had a muggle translator, though, as he had no idea what an android was, and only a bare understanding of what a computer was. An android felt like a desperate thing somehow. The weird voice that was more of a poem felt utterly claustrophobic. Maybe he should write to Hermione about the music? Did she know about music? It all felt important to tell her. Plus, she knew what the muggle things meant, and she would be so beautifully smug in explaining them.

Thinking of Hermione, he thought of how she was missing the hair she used to toss over her shoulder while telling him off. She still did that motion, though, rolling her head to follow the rolling of her eyes.

Morgana, her new hair, though! The line of her neck was on display at all times, just begging to be kissed. And her curls were cut off before they could make a full loop, making her head just a lot of tiny half-circles that were thick and soft and smelled so fucking good when he was close to her. She looked like an angel with her face framed by all those little almost-curls.

It had been so shocking to see her walk into court with nearly no hair. A hundred fantasies had updated themselves in his head so quickly that he could have sworn he heard a popping noise. She had looked so indignant, so he knew it was definitely her. He spent the morning of his trial considering all those changed fantasies. He could see her so clearly: sucking his cock, throwing her head back as he licked her pussy on his knees, looking over her shoulder to yell at him as he pounded into her from behind in a broom closet. He had not been able to look at her again without fear of saying something indecent.

Draco realised he had drifted off to sleep slightly, thinking of her on that day in court. It had ironically been the first day he had felt like he was anything to her besides scum. It was also the day he understood that the Golden Trio had truly no idea of his father’s task for him. Neither she nor Harry would have testified for him if they knew he had trained to use the Killing Curse on her.

He wondered what she must think of him now. Yes, she had written to him that she did not hate him and that she wanted his words, but what did that really mean? She could just want to fuck him. Which, yeah, absolutely, fucking her had been nearly the best thing he had ever experienced. Plus, sex usually got better the more you did it with the same person (except Pansy, as she was exactly the same every time, to a degree that confused him). There had been that thing he and Hermione felt afterward, that sense of forever they would not say out loud. He had only heard of that feeling between soulmates, and that scared the shit out of him.

That had been a not-insignificant part of his panic attack at lunch Tuesday. He told all of the ugly history about his probable soulmate to a courtroom full of strangers! And, Hermione looked terrified, clutching his mother’s hand, unblinking. She deserved so much better than him, but he was who she had been given by fate. It was a cruel trick that after everything his father had done to poison him into literally killing her, it was her who was comforting him as he broke down that day, making him drink and eat something, and simply holding him as he lost an hour to his memories and self-loathing.

He considered what his Slytherin friends would say about Lucius’s task for him. Theo had almost certainly figured it all out by the time Lucius had been arrested at the Ministry. Pansy would be secretly shocked, but publicly supportive of him. Blaise would never mention it, and try to change the subject if it ever came up. He could never know what Milli thought of it, unless she told Pansy, and then Pansy would run to tell him about it.

A loud crash came from the bed beside Draco’s, waking him from his thoughts and dozing to the music.

“Ow. Ow.” Neville sounded drunk.

Draco pushed his bed curtains open and found Neville rubbing his head, sitting on the floor.

“Miss the bed, mate?” Draco went to his friend’s side and pulled him from the floor to sit on his bed.

Neville still rubbed his head. “A bit, yeah… She’s off with him again…”

Draco frowned. “Firewhiskey won’t help with that, Neville my boy.”

The drunk man lost his ability to sit upright, leaning his head on Draco’s stomach. This was certainly a different come-on than Draco had gotten from a drunk man before. He sat on the bed next to Neville instead and Neville leaned on him.

“But, firewhiskey does make it feel like it doesn’t matter as much as my brain wants it to matter.”

Draco nodded slowly. “Well, at least you know you won’t have to watch them together for much longer. She’s going home next weekend, isn’t she? Her dad’s gotten her house rebuilt, so she gets to go home.”

Neville shrugged, then burst into tears a moment later. “It’s all just too much! I never thought I’d be able to be happy, but then she says she’s my soulmate but we’re not really supposed to be together, and this is a whole other depth of not being happy I never even thought of!”

“She told you what?”

He sniffled and flopped over in the bed. “She knows we’re connected, but she won’t fulfill the bond. She says she’s going to sever by the end of the summer. She just says it the same way she says everything, ‘Oh, I cant, Neville, we’re soulmates but we won’t stay bonded past the summer’, and ‘our bond is not a forever bond, we’re not destined for each other despite our soul bond’.” He looked up at Draco in the moonlight. “What am I supposed to do with that? I’ve never heard of that, have you? I think it’s the most mental thing I’ve ever heard anyone say.” He sobbed again, curling up on his side.

Draco rubbed his shoulder gently. “That’s pretty fucked up, Nev. I had no idea Luna was so heartless.”

Neville sat up abruptly, leaning on Draco again. “She’s gotten so strange since being kidnapped.” Draco grimaced. “It’s almost like she can’t pay attention to what’s happening in the here and now. Like, she’s becoming an Alithini Diairesis and can’t keep all the futures in her head at once, so she doesn’t even try.”

Draco shook his head. “Well, Luna being an Alithini Diairesis would certainly explain that ethereal quality she’s always had. I’m sorry, Neville. You deserve a soulmate who wants that. You of all people deserve a good mate.”

Neville wiggled his shoulders. “Like you and Hermione? You got to see her this week, right?”

Draco pushed his friend back over onto the bed and flopped down next to him. “A gentleman does not kiss and tell, my dear boy.”

Neville grabbed Draco’s arm and shook him. “I knew you two would get together! I predicted it! Me! Neville!” He belched and stopped moving, then moved extremely quickly, running out to the toilet.

Draco considered who had really been at work in getting him together with Hermione. His mother had definitely had a real part in it, disappearing Monday evening to leave them alone in Black House. But, it had been Neville who put the idea that Draco liked her into her head. It was the fucking gardeners, planting seeds and watching them grow all sneakily.

Neville returned to lay in bed beside Draco. “Did anyone ever tell Hermione how Dean and Seamus came out to the entire school?”

Draco shook his head on the pillow beside Neville. “No, why would they? Why do you ask?”

“She caught them on the way back from their bush one night and thought it was some big secret she needed to keep for them. Then I wandered in and…” He yawned.

Draco chuckled. “And, she was saved from Seamus telling that story again by the entrance of your cock?”

Neville made a choking noise. “No? We…? I mean, I’m not trying to… There’s nothing, I’m, we’re friends and that’s all now?”

Draco bumped his shoulder. “I know. Can’t I tease you about being with her first? I could seriously give less than an eighth of a shit that you were together.” Neville made another choking noise. “Or, not together. Whatever you were. How are Slytherins so much less uptight about sharing sex partners than Gryffindors? I don’t care who’s been with who as long as my partner wants to be with me.”

They were silent so long that Draco suspected Neville had finally passed out.

“Partner? Not just girls?” It was the quietest whisper he had ever heard in this room.

He whispered back so quietly there was almost no sound coming out, just breath into Neville’s ear. “Not just girls.”

He thought he heard the barest hint of a whimper in the silence that followed. He let his lips just barely graze Neville’s ear as he whispered a final, “Goodnight,” and returned to his own bed, pulling the curtains closed around Neville’s bed.

He changed the CD to At Folsom Prison and considered how fucking weird this day had been. He wondered if Hermione thought they were together. He really wished he had come up with something to say to her today. It felt wrong to be here and not be writing to her. He vowed to write something tomorrow.

Draco fell asleep that night knowing just what it meant to shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die. It was just how he had wanted to do it at his worst, just to watch her die. Back before he pushed the worst parts of himself behind a wall with all the darkness. Back before he decided to be this new person.

Chapter Text

July 11, 1998

Of course, Draco could not find the words he thought Hermione would want on Saturday, either. How could he say any of the things that really needed to be said?

After breakfast, he built several sections of new shelves in the library for Madam Pince. Luna had also been assigned to the library, or just wandered up here to make herself useful sorting books that were too badly damaged to go into general circulation. He tried his best to be polite, but he was not feeling generous toward her after learning she was both Neville’s soulmate, and “not destined to be with him”, whatever the fuck that could mean. What did soulmates even mean if not that you were destined to be with the person on the other end of the string?

As if she could hear his thoughts, Luna spoke to him from across the empty library. “Have you ever heard of severing a soul string to do a spell, Draco?”

He drove a nail into its board. “No, I haven’t. What are you planning, Lovegood?”

She tilted her head. “I don’t think I know what will happen to them yet.”

Great. She was doing that Alithini Diairesis thing Neville told him about. “Any ideas, though?” He drove another nail into the board.

When he looked up, she had her eyes closed. “It’s not my idea. I just know what choice I’ll make when the time comes.”

Draco huffed. “What does that mean, Lovegood? You’re not saying anything that means anything.” He felt a chill come over him.

Luna opened her eyes again. “I know what I want, Draco. Do you know what you want? I used to know it, but it’s changed, hasn’t it? You can’t have both sides of the wall without removing the wall.”

He felt sick. How could she know about the wall? She could not be talking about The Wall.

He must have closed his eyes because she was suddenly standing directly in front of him. “Draco, you have to believe people when they tell you things about themselves.” She turned and left the library.

He stared after her for a long few moments until Neville appeared in the doorway, hanging off the lentil to stretch his frame.

"Heya, Draco… Lunchtime? You going off for the afternoon? Want any company?”

Draco swallowed. Was Neville always so cute? When had that happened? He had always liked the more compact guys, but the man stretching in the doorway of the library was simply lovely. “Uh, I was going to stay in the room and write to Hermione.”

Neville smiled. “I guess I’ll go visit Gran, then. Listen to her strong opinions on the Daily Prophet article from this morning.” He was radiant? What the hell?

“See you later, then. I better finish this up.” He turned back to the unfinished shelves. The past half hour had been, in Hermione’s words, “a bit much”. He was supposed to be with Hermione. He fucking loved Hermione. So, why was he suddenly noticing Neville? As if Hermione was not enough for him. She was fucking plenty, almost too much. Overwhelming.

Apparently, Neville was still behind him a minute later. “Okay, see you later, Draco…”

He drove the nails in harder. The wall was fucking necessary. How dare Luna suggest he wanted what was on the other side of the wall? She had no idea what she was talking about. There was no way she knew what he used to want. She would never have talked to him again if she had any idea how much he had truly wanted Hermione dead. And, that part of him absolutely must stay behind that wall.

He could just barely see it in there, that darkest part of himself he had separated to its oubliette- the part that had been equal parts hate and lust. Now that he had connected with Hermione, he could not let that part out. He knew how to keep it quiet behind its wall. And, if she ended up wanting a little more than sweet lovemaking, he already knew how to do that without letting the part behind the wall get involved.

He thought of what his mother said. The darkness would be something he had to deal with his whole life. And, he would have to choose who to believe. It felt so confusing, no matter what direction he came at it.

Hermione would be at tea with his mother soon. Maybe Mother would pave the way for his letter. She would almost certainly give him a full recounting of the visit as soon as Hermione left. Spending the afternoon trying to write to Hermione would certainly fail and only make him feel worse that he could say nothing worth saying.

He completed this section of shelves and grabbed a sandwich from the kitchens, returning to the dorm to decide what to do with his free afternoon. He had no idea what the work party was doing today. Maybe he could go flying… with his music!

He finished the sandwich and grabbed his broom and the CD player, loading Supergrass and some fresh batteries. He cast a temporary sticking charm on the headphone jack and band that went over his head, then escaped the castle.

He pressed play and kicked off the ground to the frantic beat. He wanted to go fast, just loose the bonds that held him - his probation, the watchful eyes of the world, that darkness, Mother, even Hermione… He let himself lose track of direction and speed above the trees. With the beat of the music, there was something extra freeing about flying today. He found he was singing along a little and leaned into it, his whole body vibrating with excitement.

By the time “Alright” came on for the second time, he was singing full-out. He would love to get Hermione out on a ride to feel this with him. He frowned. Had he seen her ride a broom since flying lessons with Madam Hooch first year? How had he missed that kind of detail over the past six years of watching her obsessively? He had a sinking feeling. What if she could not fly?

He heard his father’s voice in his head. ‘All their magic is stolen, son. That is why the mudbloods use so many muggle things. If they don’t conserve the magic they’ve taken, they run out. You’ll find they don’t fly or aparate or use magic in their homes, because they’ll exhaust the magic stolen from pureblooded wizards like us.’

Draco landed in a glen and emptied his stomach violently. His father should have been solidly behind that wall. He vanished the sick and found a patch of moss to lay on, staring briefly up at the canopy of trees. He closed his eyes and tested the wall.

The darkness seethed and slithered around trying to find the weakness he was testing.

But, there was no weakness he could find. He spent most of his time in Azkaban shoring up that wall, so there better not be any fucking weakness in it.

Draco felt an unfamiliar panic. How had his father’s words come to him so suddenly and clearly? Nothing of his father should have been able to escape. What if he had not been as thorough in scrubbing the poison from the corners of his mind as he thought? He would never know if it was all gone if it was not gone now.

With Severus dead, there was no other Leglimens he trusted enough to help him figure this out. His godfather’s help since last September had probably saved the lives of Draco and his mother. The cruciatus session following the Trio’s escape from the Manor had left them both unable to actively defend against Voldemort’s leglimency. Had it not been for Severus helping to build the initial wall around Draco’s softer feelings for Hermione, Draco knew he would have been snake food.

Draco sighed. Why had Hermione still not asked him about that day at the Manor? He wanted her to know everything. Hearing Lucius say she was just a child made him so angry, his first thought had been that she was more a woman than Lucius was a man. But, it had been the blood lust in Lucius’s eyes as he demanded information from Draco that nearly caused Draco to lose his control and use an Unforgivable on the man. Now he wished he had done that just to prevent what happened when Bellatrix inserted herself into the situation.

He did not know what to do about all of the poison still doing its work in the rest of his mind. Thinking of the wall and his father had induced that Mark headache again. Fuck. He was probably sixty miles from the castle by now. Best to just aparate back to get it over with. He grabbed his broom and cracked out of the glen.

He cracked in just in front of the gates, crashing to his knees and dry-heaving as his head felt like it was shattering. He hated this weakness. After a minute, he managed to collect himself enough to wander into the hospital wing, sitting in triage with his eyes closed until the volunteer could run the diagnostic charm on him to see that he was experiencing a migraine, the red of the pain lighting up across Draco’s whole head.

He was put in a bed with a darkness charm surrounding it. This helped even more than having his eyes closed. Last week, his specialist, Healer Simons, had recommended darkness when the migraines came on, and he understood why now.

Madam Pomfrey came to administer the potion she received from Simons. It tasted of spearmint and immediately gave him an intense cooling feeling in his whole head. He could almost see ice on the wall in his mind.

Pomfrey performed a more specific diagnostic that he recognised from the specialist’s visit. “Mr Malfoy, what were you doing this afternoon when you started feeling the headache?”

“I’d been flying for maybe an hour when I was reminded of my father unexpectedly. As I have those memories solidly behind and occlumency wall, I tested the wall and was thinking of the war when I realised I had the headache.”

Madam Pomfrey made an incomprehensible noise in her throat. “And, how did you get back to the castle, Mr Malfoy?”

“I aparated back since I was the same distance out from here as I had already flown, and didn’t want to, you know, fall to my death from a broom…”

She looked kindly at him. “That was good thinking, Mr Malfoy. You’ll hear no chastising from me on that subject as I would rather you be here and a little bit splinched than fall out of the sky. I’ll do the procedure Healer Simons recommended and give you an emergency vial of the cooling pain potion so you can take it as soon as you feel it coming on next time. When it happens, you’ll need to come back for the procedure, but it should tide you over until you can get here.”

Draco had a pained expression.

“What is it, Mr Malfoy? Is there something else?”

“Please, I’m begging you, Madam, please stop calling me that. If you can’t call me Draco, can you call me literally anything else? My mother’s maiden name is Black. You could call me that.” He was close to tears.

She put her hand on his shoulder. “Yes, I can call you Draco. Please remind me if I forget. I don’t mind being corrected if it will make you more comfortable.”

Draco nodded. She cast several spells that he could feel pulling this way and that in his skull. The specialist had also done this, but he had not been in the middle of the headache at the time, so it had not felt like much of anything was happening. This felt dramatically like Pomfrey was realigning something inside his head. When she finished, she banished the darkness charm and the light did not hurt like it had. On the hospital work tray was a bowl of cloudy gray liquid.

He gestured to the bowl. “That’s it? That’s the stuff that’s causing the migraines?”

She nodded. “I didn’t know what to make of what the specialist told me, but this is definitely what she described as the byproduct of the procedure. It seems I cleaned your brain, as best I can tell. Did she say anything about why this was happening besides the Mark fading?”

Draco shook his head. “She just looked at my diagnostics and could tell I was having migraines, and since the Mark is slowly fading, her theory is that either the monster being alive had a specific way of keeping the dark magic contained, or the Death Eaters themselves had spells for keeping the dark magic contained but no one bothered teaching them to me. Now I’m the only Marked person outside prison, so anyone who would have been casting containment spells can’t do it anymore.”

Madam Pomfrey had a disgusted look on her face. “Could someone be compelled to explain the Mark?” Draco was about to explain his experience with the DMLE when she put her hand up. “No, I know. It’s the same reason they would not allow you to go to St Mungo’s without you already being in London.” She shook her head. “Damn the Ministry. They have handled you extremely poorly.”

He looked up at her in alarm. She stared off into the distance for a moment before looking at him again. “Well, you’re free to go now. I would recommend not taking such incredibly long flights again until we’ve had a couple of these ‘cleaning’ sessions, Draco.” She pointed to the CD player Draco had put on the side table. “What is that? Some kind of muggle thing?”

Draco smiled. “It plays muggle music. I got a couple of albums I really like so far.”

She nodded. “I bought a record player back in the sixties to listen to Shirley Collins and Simon & Garfunkel, but I rather dropped off the music scene when I came to work here, though.”

“Did you ever hear of Johnny Cash? He’s the one I got that was a bit older.”

Madam Pomfrey tilted her head to the side. “What, you mean, ‘Ring of Fire’ and ‘I Walk the Line’?”

He thought of the songs on the album, but none of them would fit those titles. “‘Folsom Prison Blues’?”

She smiled and nodded. “Yes, that’s the one.”

They left the privacy of the curtains and Draco’s eyes immediately went to Neville who was at triage with a bloody hand.

“Do you like him?” Madam Pomfrey was staring at him expectantly.

Draco startled. “What?!” Had he been that obvious? This was impossible. He had just seen Neville at triage. Could she see through him that easily?

Her presence softened and she tipped her head to the side. “Johnny Cash? Do you like him?”

He took a breath. “Yes, I do. I really do. He’s brilliant.” He glanced over at Neville who waved to him with the non-bleeding hand.

Madam Pomfrey went to the triage wizard who showed her the diagnostic showing no issues with Neville’s hand and she performed the spell to knit his skin together. “You should both go enjoy the rest of the afternoon.” She smiled. “And, Draco, I think you’d like more Johnny Cash. He’s been quite prolific and has an extremely talented wife as well. They’ve recorded quite a lot of music together and seem quite in love.”

Draco nodded. “Thank you, Madam. I appreciate it.”

Neville looked uncertainly at Draco as they left the hospital wing, Draco’s broom slung over one shoulder. “Are you alright, Draco? You seemed out of sorts earlier.”

Draco swallowed heavily. “Sure, fine. Just busy, probably?” He glanced at Neville. “I thought you were going to your Gran’s for the afternoon.” He gestured to Neville’s hand where it had been cut. “What happened?”

Neville laughed, clearly uncomfortable. “Uh, it’s rather embarrassing, really. It was a plant I’ve been cultivating and I think it just didn’t like being re-potted. It lashed out and cut me. It wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have, or wearing gloves. Stupid, really. Typical Neville, though, so…” He cleared his throat. “And, er, Gran heard I’ve been friendly with you and wasn’t too pleased. I just couldn’t take her hectoring today.”

Draco frowned. He did not want to be a reason Neville fought with his grandmother. He knew the stories of his aunt torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom, and he could understand Neville’s grandmother having opinions about him. He also saw Neville having lived a totally different life from theirs, plus he was a totally different kind of person than fucking Bellatrix.

“I just wish she would listen to me when I explain things, you know? It’s not like you’re anything like your aunt. She’s just, she’s been an adult for so much longer than me, you know?” His hands began to get involved in the speech in the cutest way. “Like, also, now the war is over, not everyone is going to just get together with their soulmates and settle down, right? And, she just doesn’t get it, because in her day, ‘everyone was quite anxious to get their knots untangled and settle down, you know’. As if we’re all just running around ignoring the strings and tangling with as many people as possible?”

“So, I take it you didn’t tell her what Lovegood said?”

Neville shook his head. “No, there is no way I am telling Gran about that. She would just never understand. Never. Hell, I barely understand.” He sighed, eyeing Draco up and down. “What did you get up to that landed you in the hospital, then?”

“Went for a flight and ended up with a Mark migraine.” Draco shrugged. “It’s the first time I’ve had one since I saw the specialist at St Mungo’s. I think the treatment she prescribed might actually work.”

Neville sighed. “It’s weird that they wouldn’t let you go before, you know?”

Draco shook his head, feeling like he was a repeating charm of defending the Ministry for punishing him. “I am meant to be on probation. They found me guilty of attempted murder. I don’t know how everyone keeps ignoring that. Why does everyone keep ignoring that?”

They finally approached the Gryffindor portrait hole and told the Fat Lady the password “Peacetime”.

Neville stretched out on a couch as Draco went to put his broom in the stairwell. “Honestly, though, if we’ve forgiven you for being a cock all those years, it’s easy to forgive you for failing to kill an old man.”

Ron sat up from his usual nap chair across the room, his fighting voice coming out immediately. “What was that, Neville?”

Neville swallowed and sat up straighter. “I said it’s worse that Draco was a cock to us all those years than that he tried and failed to do in Dumbledore.”

Ron stood, puffing out his chest. “Don’t say shit like that, Neville…”

Neville’s shoulders went back. Draco backed up, hoping to fade into the background.

“No, I think I’ll say what I think, mate. We’re all entitled to our opinions, and that one is mine.” Neville was breathing shallowly.

Ron was also breathing shallowly. “He tried to kill the headmaster! How can you think that’s not worse than saying all the shite he’s said all those years?!”

“Oh, I guess it’s because he was forced into that one and didn’t want to do it. He didn’t have to be an arsehole all those years, that was a choice. You should be able to see that Draco was at least as much a victim of circumstance as Hermione was. They both had to do a lot of terrible things to get themselves and their families through the war, and it’s nothing they could avoid. Not everyone got to make entirely pure and good choices to get through it, Ron.”

Ron’s face was red as he stormed out of the portrait hole mumbling to himself.

Neville stared off into the distance. Draco collapsed on the couch beside him. “Neville, you didn’t have to defend me like that. He’s never going to stop hating me, even if everyone else forgives me. Mr Weasley even told me that in so many words.”

Neville turned his head slowly to look at Draco. His eyes searched Draco’s face. “Yes, I did have to defend you. I’ve had to defend him enough times, even once from you and your guys. I will always defend my friends, Draco. Always.”

Draco could not breathe. He had never been so close to Neville in the daylight before. “And, we’re friends?”

Neville’s brow furrowed in concern. “Yeah, of course, Draco.”

Draco could feel his breath come back, shallow, and he felt some kind of danger and fear from this moment. He shook his head. “I’m going to go lay down. Hopefully write to Hermione tonight.”

His friend nodded, looking confused. “Okay. I hope you don’t spend all night in the room.”

Chapter Text

July 12-13, 1998

Draco did get drunk with Neville that night. They wandered around the grounds with a bottle between them, eventually making it back to the dorm after stumbling past several bushes making sex noises. The whole night felt important, somehow.

He did not manage to write to Hermione, and felt guilty every time he thought of it. Then, at breakfast the next morning, Mrs Weasley approached him to give him a bag charmed to scroll his name around the top. His face broke into a smile.

Hermione.

He took the parcel back to the dorm and pulled out a letter, a blank book, something called ‘wine gums’, and a box of PG Tips.

Dear Draco,
      I hope you’re alright. I have so much to tell you. First, I still don’t hate you. I’m starting to feel rather the opposite, actually. I don’t want to write it to you before I can say it to you, though. And, it’s still far too soon. It is so far too soon, but I need you to know it anyway. Just know it. Please just know it.
      Second, that other feeling we discussed not discussing… I think I know what it is, and I need you to go to the seventh floor and see if your soul string is sitting in tangled piles like mine is, and like all our friends’ are. I think it’s Significant, Draco. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all that soulmate bond potential is just sitting waiting to be acted on in the exact place the Room of Requirement used to be. I’m terrified to say what I think we need to do, and I need to do quite a bit more research to be sure and to know how to use the potential, but I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what I’m actually thinking. You’re so brilliant, I think you’ll understand.
      Third, Merlin’s hairy ball sack, Tuesday was awful! I’m alright now, and I’m sorry I had to go and that I couldn’t talk until now. I think it’s fair to say I didn’t see that coming. I mean, when were you supposed to tell me that? I’m quite glad I don’t have it in a letter to re-read over and over (and would have done, because that’s most of how I spent my time for a week), and I really should not be reading and re-reading that kind of poison. I’m glad also that I could see your face when you said all of it, and saw how disgusted you were about what he had said to you and made you do. I’m so sorry that happened to you. In a totally different way than you’re so sorry Hermione Granger, I’m so sorry in that I’m filled with sorrow at the idea you lost your father in a way that made it seem like he was still your father, but he actually was just sort of a stuffed puppet for his “ideals”. The kind of evil in him is truly insidious, and my heart aches for the dumb arse child you were who needed a true father.
      Fourth, I’ve had tea with your mother today. It was fascinating. Did you know she’s actually short? She’s about two inches shorter than me! But seriously, your mother was really lovely to me. I showed her behind the house where Harry’s house abuts the back of her house and I thought she was going to start crying before she showed me the library. Speaking of which, you fucking held out on me, Draco Malfoy! You kept me from that library and I cannot believe you would do such a thing to me! It is the greatest betrayal I’ve ever felt from you. I am only kidding slightly. I lost about 5 hours to that room already, so, the next time I disappear, please send Mimo to retrieve me from the library. I’m certain that’s where I’ll be.
      Fifth, are the numbered points getting stupid? Should I stop? Is this the part where I ask a lot of stupid rhetorical questions to see how funny I can get you to be? Do you mind this part? Can we do this part in every letter? Actually, though, are you alright? I’ve been worried about you as much as I’ve been worried about myself and I’m not sure if that’s warranted, although I think you had a panic attack in the middle of the day on Tuesday, and I think this sentence has run its course, don’t you? But, really, what did you need from me? I can’t tell, and I just felt like I didn’t do anything right for you that day. (I just had a sudden urge to punch Albus Dumbledore in the face, which seems like a healthy reaction to wanting to help my boyfriend, doesn’t it? (Yes, that’s right, I parenthetically called you my boyfriend. Would you like to come fuck me about it? I think it would be a great idea, frankly.))
      Well, that rather got away from me… I miss you terribly, Draco. Will you be my boyfriend? It seems a very obvious question to ask, but I… sorry, I just got a letter from Professor McGonagall! She said I can come back to the castle whenever I like, I just need to actually have a plan to deal with stress and being given directions. Seems fair enough. I’ll need to figure out how to get that stuff in place so I can get back there.
      Anyway, I do want to have titles for each other beyond King of Arseholes and the Golden Girl. I want to be your girlfriend. Honestly, I just want to be yours. Oh, that got very close to saying the three or four or five words (depending on emphasis) it’s too soon to say. You can write to me as often as you want. Every 3 days seems silly and arbitrary now, especially since, OH! I keep forgetting! I did this cool thing where I twinned two journals to show everything written in them in the other one! I’m very proud of myself, although I’m sure it’s a common thing ultimately. I did do all of it myself. I’m sending you one so we don’t have to keep waiting for owls, although Oscar is quite the charmer and you’ll love him. I’m also finally sending along the box of PG Tips I bought you last weekend and forgot to give you on Monday or Tuesday (although, I believe I gave you quite a bit on both of those days, so tea was not really a priority, I think you’ll agree).
      Very close again to saying the thing I can’t say, and I think it’s very nearly time for me to go to bed, so I’ll just say,
      Boop! I booped you!
           ~Hermione

Well, as always, Hermione overwhelmed him with the force of who she was. He felt a bit claustrophobic suddenly, as if the room was trying to kill him somehow.

She wanted to be his girlfriend. He should have shown her the library. His mother was definitely not short, was she?

And, she loved him? The Weasel was going to murder him.

Then, there was all of this about the seventh floor coming from her, too? He should really go up there and see if he was a part of this thing, too, but he profoundly did not want to revisit the site of his friend’s accidental suicide… Was she even thinking of that? She was so understanding about so much, but Merlin and Morgana, she was so blind about so many other things.

He got up to make a cup of this tea she had given him. It tasted of nothing but muggle mediocrity.

Yes, he could now say with confidence that PG Tips was fantastically average. There were few top or bottom notes, and it smelled only like Tea. It was just so solidly Tea.

He tried a couple of wine gums. They did taste vaguely like wine. Again, profoundly average, neither very good nor very bad. The package stated that there was no alcohol in them, so what was even the fucking point of them?

He ate three-quarters of the bag in the next hour.

He sipped his tea as he opened the journal and added an addendum to the title page. He also cast a hex that would cause uncontrollable crying to anyone who opened the cover but him or Hermione. Hopefully she had thought to cast some privacy spell on her copy, but he would need to check.

He thought carefully about what he wanted to write, but felt like his block on worrying about writing to her was alleviated now. He knew she was okay and still so fully Hermione.

    This is absolutely going to backfire on us spectacularly somehow. First things first, yes, me too. It’s definitely too early for those words, but I do feel them, too. I want to give you those words for the first time in person and at the right time…
    Third things second, I hated Tuesday more than most days of my life so far. I wish I had told you some other way first, but I just couldn’t figure out how to tell you beforehand. When was I supposed to tell you that? It’s not like I could just casually slip into conversation that the defining aspect of my relationship with my father for more than 4 years was his desire for me to kill you. It’s part of why I feel I’m sorry Hermione so intensely. Are you fucking alright? I barely remember anything from Tuesday except that you were there and then you weren’t there and I was afraid I’d lost you. And, then Potter, sorry, Harry said you had some kind of nervous fit that night that lasted into Wednesday. Your letter seemed alright, and Mother said you seemed fine.
    Fourth things third, did I know how short my mother is? Not especially, I guess. As for the library, how about I make it up to you by letting you sit on my face while you read in there one day? I’ll do that even if it won’t make it up to you. Because I’d love to make you come over and over in your native habit, surrounded by books.

He could see himself laying on his back in the second floor stacks. She was straddling his face, school skirt circled out around her, reading aloud from the gilded copy of Selectia the Perverse as her voice raised to a peak and she gushed all over his face. He got a little hard just thinking of it.

He sneaked down to the kitchens to get some of the chicken the house elves were serving for lunch and ate as he considered what to say next

    Un-numbered things fourth, will I be your boyfriend? Yes.

He could not believe she wanted to feel like they were Together. He barely wanted to be with himself most of the time. But she wanted him… really wanted him… it was overwhelming.

    Fifth things fifth but in reverse order of questions asked, would I like to come fuck you about it? Yes, thank you, I would quite like to come fuck you about whatever you’d like me to come fuck you about. Being your boyfriend is an especially good reason. Having the sudden urge to punch Dumbledore in the face seems a healthy reaction to wanting to help your boyfriend, doesn’t it? I mean, many of your reactions baffle me, and I did have to find a way to deal with my own unhealthy

What the fuck, his writing was dotting its own i’s and crossing its own t’s. His stomach dropped. She was watching him write. She could see how long it was taking him to think of what to say next and she was getting bored...

Fucking stop doing that you wench!

“Fuck! Fucking hell!” He threw his quill across the room and it lodged in Seamus’s curtain.

“Haunted by bees, mate?” Neville had a laugh hidden in his voice.

Draco had not noticed the other man reading in bed and felt his face get hot. “Hermione did something ‘cute’ that was actually just frustrating on my end.”

Neville’s eyebrow twitched and he pulled the most adorable smirk. “She’s the best…”

Draco really felt hot now and he opened the window.

Her answer had come immediately, and amazed him with its speed.

Fine, take away my fun! Going back to actually read what you’ve written…

He accioed his quill and took a couple of deep breaths, now knowing she was probably watching. What if she had not even bothered to read what he was writing as she ‘helped’ the writing, and had just wanted to mess with him? Did she really go back to read what he’d written so far? The other side of the wall was scratching and whispering to him that he should do something about her uppity little mouth and attitude.

    You know, dearest darling girlfriend, sometimes you are adorable in a way that makes your dear boyfriend swear and throw his quill across the room then have to go fetch it and explain to your… (what was Neville to her, exactly?) ex, I guess, why he seems to have been momentarily haunted by bees. Those three words will be coming swiftly with a bit of a vengeance as soon as we can see each other again.

He sighed and scanned her letter again. He began to wish he had never started playing this question game with her.

    Back to the fifth things, but really what did I need from you? I don’t really know now. I needed you to know first or since I hadn’t told you before that cockroach Rita Skeeter could twist it, I at least needed you to be there when I told the world. I wish I hadn’t needed you that day at lunch because you shouldn’t have to take care of me. But, what did I need from you? Just your presence. I just needed to be able to look into the gallery and see that I had been stronger than I thought I could be because you were alive to hear me say everything awful my father tried to get me to do to you. I needed to see him in a cage and you sitting free.

He felt an almost physical need to be with her again. It was too much. The distance was too much.

    When you left, I was just disappointed. I wanted to be myself again and be at dinner with you, but you were clearly upset and needed to go, and I didn’t know what to do.

He wished he had hugged her, touched her, something. He missed her almost violently now, knowing she was just on the other side of the journal.

I wish I’d reacted better, not like how I followed my training to not react to things I don’t want to happen and can’t control. I’m sure you’ve caught up and are watching me write again. I just want to be near you to tell you I’m sorry. . . . . . . . .

He left a slow trail of dots to show he was still there, waiting for her to catch up. Her words formed more slowly now.

I know you’re sorry, Draco. I know. Can you go to Hogsmead today? I can meet you in Hogsmeade and we could actually talk…

His heart leapt in his chest. They could see each other! He wrote as fast as he could.

Yes, how soon? And, where? Aberforth still has the Hog’s Head open, but that’s about it.

Yes, Hog’s Head. I can be there in 15 minutes?

He was already doing a few charms to make himself more presentable. Tamp down his hair that needed a cut, freshen the breath, deodorize, and unwrinkle the jeans he threw on that morning. He scribbled a quick reply.

Perfect. Going now.

He presented himself to Neville for judgment. “Going to meet Hermione in Hogsmead. Anything else I need to do before I leave?”

Neville frowned. “Well, if you’re going out the front gate, you might want to change your hair so you won’t be recognised. The work party is warding and reinforcing the castle protections, so everyone is out at the fence. Just a thought.”

Draco thought of the most bland hair color he could imagine and cast a quick glamour. He looked at Neville to see the effect.

Neville looked mildly uncomfortable. “Yeah, that’s definitely not your normal color, mate.”

Draco nodded. “Counting on it. See you later!”

He ran down the stairs and out through the portrait hole, escaping the castle a minute or so later, then hurrying as inconspicuously as possible through the gates. He aparated off to the alley beside the Hog’s Head to wait.

Hermione’s loud crack in made him smile. She had clearly rushed out without doing much more to prepare than he had done, appearing in a t-shirt and jeans. She went to the door of the pub and opened it to peer inside.

“Hermione.” He just needed to see her face light up. He just needed to know she still wanted to see him and be with him. He was so excited to hear her say she loved him.

He was sorely disappointed when she pointed to his head and said, “What the hell is that?”

He felt small. Insignificant. He felt himself curl into himself protectively. “That’s not what you were supposed to say, Granger…”

She rolled her eyes. What had he done wrong? Just have a different color hair? His stomach felt as though it would reject his lunch at any moment. “That’s too bloody bad, now isn’t it, Malfoy?” She looked like she was so, so angry. “You haven’t answered my question.”

He could hear the other side of the wall howling that girls like her should absolutely not be able to say things like that to men like him. “This is how I managed to get out of the castle without being spit on. People hate people who tried to kill Golden Girls, you know.”

She grimaced. “Can you fix it? I cannot stop staring at it. It’s like a car crash. I cannot look away, and I’d really rather enjoy looking at you if I can help it. Stupid perfect face.” What the fuck was that supposed to mean? A howling came from the other side of the wall.

He motioned with his wand hand. “Finis. Better? More like the perfect stupid hair you apparated across Britain to see?” Her face visibly relaxed and he stepped closer, trying to find a way to finally touch her. She was right there and he had not touched her yet. His body felt heavy with needing her. He could just barely make out the flowery scent of her shampoo. “I certainly hope it’s worth it for you. It was worth it for me the moment I saw you, Hermione…”

She slipped her arms around his waist and it was the only thing keeping him moored to the earth. “Even with all that awful hair, it was more than worth it for me, Draco. I love you so much.” His heart beat so hard, he was sure she could hear it.

He found his arms wrapped around her and his face buried in her hair. This was why he had come out today. She loved him. She loved him. “I love you, Hermione. I love you so much.” There was an ache in his chest that soothed with being able to say it aloud.

The pub door opened and Aberforth poked his head out in that always-fun way he had of harassing paying customers. “Come in or go away. You’re scaring away all my patrons.”

After some standard banter with the publican, they entered the empty pub and Draco paid his standard thirty galleons for entry and near-unlimited drinking. Draco had never seen anyone inside except Neville and the figure perpetually asleep on the end of the bar. He would never stop feeling guilty for everything done to the Dumbledores, and he figured that paying far too much to drink was literally the least he could do for the surviving member of that family. If it helped anything at all, he would keep paying until his money was no good there.

They took their butterbeers to the furthest table from the door and cast muffliato.

Draco watched as she situated herself in her chair. She reminded him of a cat. He considered how he would phrase that in a letter and realised he had not finished replying to her latest missive as they had gotten together in person in the middle of it. “I’m not going to stop replying to your letter just because we’ve met up while I was writing back, love.”

She kissed in his stubble. Why had he not shaved this morning? “I wouldn’t want you to stop. I always want all the words you have in there, Draco. I want all the words you’ll give me.”

A bevy of words crashed against the wall in a way that felt like a tsunami. He could hear them behind the wall. All the words were his entire being. She could not want everything. She had never asked for words about the intersection of their two lives, so clearly she did not want all of it.

And the way she said it was so reverent. He had nothing in him that should pull that feeling from her. And, now she could watch as he wrote, waiting to be blown away. It was too much. “I can’t live up to that, Hermione. You know, it was SO hard to know what to say to you when I knew you were looking at what I was saying while I wrote. Writing to you has always been so easy, it just feels like breathing, but after you made your presence known, I was only thinking about how fast I could write and it all felt wrong.”

She looked chastened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to change things. What if we leave each other signals on the first page to say when we’re writing? Like, I could write an H in the margin and then circle it when I’m done?”

He felt a flare of frustration run through him. “Sure, or we could just see that the other person is writing and not go looking until the writing stops? Or, I don’t know, at least not fucking dot the i’s and cross the t’s of the other person to let them know we’re both in there, you monster.” He was suddenly hot and felt his heart beat in his head. “I noticed you doing that immediately, and it was just the fucking worst. It made my stomach turn. Suddenly I was aware of this thing I’ve just been doing unconsciously since I was about eight.”

Hermione reached out to him. “I’m so sorry. I just thought I was being funny. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

The two sides of the wall were fighting. He could feel a skittering sensation and just wanted to make it stop. “It’s okay. It wasn’t that bad. The end bit where we were writing back and forth when I knew you were there was alright. Maybe we could do that more when we can’t be together. I don’t know what this looks like without the distance, Hermione. I mean, they’ve already written several articles about us in the Daily Prophet. It’s clear we’re something, even if it took until today to say what that something is.”

Why had he turned to that topic? He would rather scream than devote any energy to the newspaper that had blown open his entire life yesterday.

She looked away in frustration. “I mean, what should we do? Just get out in front of it? Go have a date in Diagon Alley or something? I would say I don’t get why everyone is so interested, but that would be a lie.”

Merlin’s Pants, what the hell was she talking about? Did she want to bring the public into this? The public that had been so kind to her for so long and was now trying to publicly shame her into staying away from him?

Her eyes were bright and focused on him. “What? I mean, I think it’s ridiculous that no one sees you were a victim.”

Draco pulled away and finished his beer. Not again with this. Why was everyone directly around him so quick to forget the murderous tradition he had been raised into? Why was Hermione so specially devoid of preservation instinct? What was wrong with her? The darkness behind the wall scrambled, searching for purchase, like nails on a chalkboard deep within him. “We should stay as private as we can for now, because I wasn’t entirely a victim, Hermione. I did dark things because I wanted to do dark things at least some of the time.” The scratching stilled slightly. “I did want to do what my father wanted, and now everyone knows what that was.”

An eerie silence filled his mind like an alarm.

She began to look like she would finally protect herself. “Okay, so, what were the dark things you did because you wanted to do dark things, then? It’s a question, so you have to answer, according to the rules of your own game, Draco.”

There was a high keening from the monster within. He saw her on her knees, begging him for something, mouth open and eyes fearful. He saw flashes of green. He saw every single time his Killing Curse succeeded in ending a life. He saw the first years in the Dark Arts classroom. He saw the Astronomy tower with the Dark Mark shining the green light of Avada Kedavra down onto him. “I wanted to kill those animals. I had to want it. And, when the Carrows had us doing the Cruciatus on the younger detention kids, I was always first up. I wanted that hippogriff to die from maiming me, and I gave Father all the information to make it happen. And, I did want Dumbledore to die. I wanted to be the one to kill him.” He felt a sigh of pleasure from the other side of the wall.

She had a mask of cautious interest on her face. “Yeah, that’s all fucking terrible. Death and torture. But, only the things you actually did count for this one. So, you just loved seeing those eleven-year-olds twisting in pain because of what you were doing? And, the animals you killed, you really wanted them to die, and not just to end your own pain? You just wanted to see the world burn?”

The other side of the wall sang a high wail and tried to break the wall through brute force. He pictured the first time he had done the Cruciatus Curse in that awful classroom. The Gryffindor first year had the same fine blond hair he had. He wanted to be sure the kid was scared enough to stay out of trouble. He needed to be sure the kid got him and not Pansy or Crabbe or Goyle for it. He wanted to be sure his soul was truly stained so they would have to end him if the other side ever won. But more than anything, he wanted to be sure he was ready if he was ever ordered to do this to someone he loved.

“I wanted those children to know they were not safe. And, I wanted to do it and be fucking done.”

He thought of the endless stream of birds and small animals he had killed. He thought of the last month of training before fifth year, how he had pictured everyone he knew and killed them. He thought of the training he did himself before sixth year, plotting ways to kill Dumbledore, but also ways to kill the lich living in his house.

“I wanted to know I could kill whatever I needed to kill. Not just you, not just Dumbledore, I wanted to be sure I could kill ANYTHING that needed to be killed.”

He thought of the fire and darkness that comprised the other side of the wall and it seemed to call to him.

“There is a part of me that wants to see the world burn. I want it to burn away and burn me up with it.”

Draco lost track of time entirely, staring unflinching into Hermione’s darkened eyes. Not only was she clearly not afraid of him, but there was also a look like she wanted more from him. The monster on the other side of his wall was ramming full-force against its cage. It was so loud he could think of nothing but keeping it contained, and Hermione’s eyes.

“Oy, love birds. You’ll be wanting firewhiskey next? Take the edge off your fight or sharpen you to cut to the quick.”

Draco held up four fingers. It was time to shut that noise the fuck up. Aberforth brought the bottle and plunked down two small glasses. “I’ll just leave the bottle, shall I, Mr Malfoy?”

Draco thought he might have stopped breathing. No, please, let him be something besides Malfoy. He needed to be anything but a Malfoy. That was what the monster was.

He reached for the old man, looking up without being able to control the desperation that flooded from him. “Please, it’s Draco. Just Draco. Please.”

Aberforth’s brow furrowed. “Aye. Draco.”

It was absolution somehow.

Draco needed a fucking drink right fucking now. He poured them each a shot and clinked his glass against hers before knocking it back quickly.

Hermione attempted to do the same but failed, spitting hers out onto the table. “No, I can’t drink it like that. Sipping only for me…” She vanished the spit whiskey and poured another glass for herself. “Are we allowed to move on to the part where I apologise for asking those questions?”

Draco agreed.

She lowered her voice, casting the privacy charm again. “So, uh, when you were saying all the dark scary things, I think I was extremely turned on.” He felt a sort of focus come over him. “Not, you know, that much, but, uh, some?” Had she just squirmed in her seat a little? Morgana’s arse, this woman was so sexy. He could feel his jeans tighten.

He leaned in close, putting his mouth right next to her ear to let out the barest whisper he could. He thought of how wet she must be. “So, if the old man weren’t here, and I put my hand down your knickers, I’d find you bone dry?” Her hair brushed the side of his face as she shook her head slightly. “Or, as you said at first, would I find that you were extremely turned on by the fear of what I can do, Hermione?” She gasped a little bit and his cock twitched. “Would I find your knickers drenched with you getting ready for me?” He pictured pushing his fingers into her, knowing the sounds she would make. She nodded, looking like she was holding her body still so as to keep herself from lashing out. “That’s just what I want from my beautiful girlfriend. I want you wet and ready to give me those beautiful moans, love.”

He leaned back to take in her body language. She was clearly incredibly turned on, as a blush bloomed up her chest and she held back a tremble. Her eyes were wide and she breathed shallowly.

She stared at him. “How do you do that?!”

Two more years of practice in seduction? “You bring out the best in me, love.” The pub door opened to reveal Harry, followed by Ginny and Neville. Oh no, Neville. He had not considered what would happen if Neville and Hermione were in the same place now. “Better pull yourself together, though. Our friends are here.”

He tried to take his own advice.

The rest of the afternoon went much better than he expected, apart from finding out she wanted to sever their soul string. And! Neville of all people agreed with her! As if he had not been mooning over Lovegood for weeks about her weird soulmate shite.

What the fuck was he supposed to do about any of this? He absolutely did not want to sever, but that was a conversation for a time without an audience. He was devastated, but used all his occlumency tools to build a quick wall for the sadness so he could get on with the afternoon drinking.

He focused on putting all the effects of the alcohol behind the big wall and eventually it put the monster into a drunken stupor, leaving Draco to walk his friends and girlfriend (Girlfriend!) back to the castle.

They lost Harry and Ginny after she was sick on his shoes, then he lost Neville and Hermione when they went for some sobering potions. He went to Gryffindor Tower to freshen up before dinner and burst suddenly into tears when he found himself alone in the dorm.

Why did she want to sever their connection? She had apparated across the country on a whim just to see him, but the rest of their lives was somehow wrong? She was the first good thing that fate had let him have, and she could not wait to get rid of him, just for a room that almost no one even knew about!

What the fuck?!

He could feel the monster stirring with his hurt and rage, and instead of letting it get started, he pulled himself together to go back downstairs to eat.

It took them much longer to get back from the hospital wing than Draco expected and then they came in with their arms around each other. He felt a tug in his gut. They looked happy together. He wished he could curl up in that kind of happiness. It just looked so gentle, and he really needed gentleness right now. Maybe they could protect him somehow.

He ushered them over with a wave. All through dinner he could not stop flirting with them both. He made it as clear to Hermione as he could that he was flirting with them both on purpose, and she seemed to take it in stride. Then, with Hermione there, he felt an odd sort of spark coming from Neville, too. Neville was looking at him the same way Hermione looked at him.

Or, was Draco reading into nothing? The thought made him feel unsteady again.

After dinner, he waited as Hermione went to talk to McGonagall about returning to Hogwarts and Neville wandered off to watch Ron and Seamus play wizards chess again. He took out a scrap of parchment and wrote down the music he could remember from the afternoon’s discussion, putting it away when Hermione finished her conversations and returned to his side.

They walked around the grounds in the near-golden light before sunset. He said as much as he could about his sadness at her desire to sever their bond. He struggled to find the words to explain how bad the idea really was, but he did not get much of a chance before she started singing and he was distracted by how much he wanted her.

When she asked him about Neville, he had the strange urge to crawl into a hole and bury himself. It felt strange to be seen as bisexual by her. He admitted to feeling something for the other man, without being specific. How could he be specific, though? He had no idea what he was feeling for Neville, only that it was something, and it could be either that he wanted to be with him, or it could be that he wanted to just be him. Draco did not think Hermione would understand that, even if he tried to explain.

Somehow he fucking told her about liking Harry Potter, which led to his fantasies about her over the years. And, then they were alone in the greenhouse…

What happened in the greenhouse was the most intense sex Draco had ever had. The other side of the wall was constantly scrambling against its confines. He could feel it trying to feel what he felt. When she asked for his darkness, he nearly came in his shorts. He loved her, and he wanted to hurt her. It felt terrible and amazing. She seemed more excited by the pain he gave her than the gentle touches. He drew it out of her, making her give pain to herself, pinching her own nipples as he fucked her with his fingers.

When Hermione slapped him and came from his mouth and fingers, the monster screamed with the ecstasy he heard in his fantasies as she panted above him.

Then, as he finally got to spank her a fraction of the way he had wanted for years, she started liking it, actually liking it. He felt the wall truly failing for the first time since he began building it all those months ago. The monster gained strength, using him to hurt her as it had always wanted.

He tried to push away its influence, but this was too much of what every part of him wanted. She begged him for the darkness, and he gave her the burning. He let the control he held so tightly slip, let the darkness inside him pull the most beautiful gasps and tiny screams from her. The monster whispered that this was only his hand, and that he should introduce her to those implements from Chapter 8 of Selectia the Perverse. He could see the red marks across her naked skin.

He gave her the darkness she begged for. He gave her all the words that could make a coherent phrase. He gave her his cock, and as much as the connection threatened to turn this into the sweet love making of their first time, the monster would not be denied. He fucked her until she was a whimpering mess and he dripped with sweat. She clenched around him with a long panting groan and went still. He had the sense that she had gone somewhere else and it sent him over the edge, coming so hard he saw stars.

And, the monster was silent again, placated somehow, and Draco felt empty inside. He had gone too far. Hermione was weak and vacant in his arms and he could not bear it. He whispered every beautiful thing to her until she came back to him.

This was what it would be like if they severed. He would see her, but she would be disconnected from him in a way he could not fathom.

His tears came hard and fast. What was he supposed to do if his soulmate wanted nothing to do with him? This was worse than the wall their string had gone through. She kept talking about choice. He hated it.

This was the one thing that was not about choice. This was the one gift fate could give you.

Draco returned to the room that night to find Neville still awake and reading in bed. He looked up and smiled gently when he saw Draco. He cast the muffliato to keep the other sleepers from waking. “Did Hermione go back?”

Draco shook his head. “Bad idea to apparate that far this late, and she didn’t want to wake McGonagall to use the floo.”

“You’re in love with her, huh?”

Draco froze with his back to Neville and his shirt half off. “Yeah, I really am.”

The other man’s voice was light. “I fucking knew it! She’s all in for you, mate!”

Draco let out a breath he had not known he was holding and pulled his shirt the rest of the way off. “I’m the luckiest bastard I know.”

“So, you know that music player? Do you think I could listen some time? I’ve always wondered what muggle music is like.”

Draco turned to see Neville had put down his magazine. “Yeah, I need to get some more music for it, but you can listen to whatever you like. I think you’d like Supergrass the best of what I’ve got.”

“Cool!” Neville looked so earnest, a wall cracked inside Draco he had not been aware he was building. He really liked Neville.

Oh, fuck.

They both put out the lights and Draco talked about the music he already had until he heard the soft slow rumblings that meant he was alone in consciousness.

He let the tears flow out, casting another muffliato to keep the sobs to himself.

He took stock of the situation.

Hermione loved him. She was almost definitely his soulmate. She wanted to use the energetic potential of severing their bond and their friends’ bonds to restore the Room of Requirement. She knew he did not want to sever their bond. She wanted to be able to choose now that she knew she could choose someone else. He had feelings for Neville. They seemed to have come on very slowly, but were now a sort of open secret between him and Hermione, and possibly also between him and Neville.

His last crush on a guy had been Harry, and that had been less of a crush and more of an all-consuming need to make Harry sad. He had barely understood it was a crush until it had nearly run its course since it was just more of the lust- and rage-filled fantasies he had of Hermione but with Harry instead. That had been a not-insignificant part of how he knew he fancied Hermione as well. He just wanted to affect her somehow, over and above those fucking murderous desires.

He fell asleep thinking of the Yule Ball, the night he could not take his eyes off of her. He thought of her crying at the end of the night, and how he wished he could have swept her off her feet to comfort her. Back then, he should have been glad she was alone and devastated, but he just wanted to touch her, to calm her, and whisper kindness to her.

The next morning, Draco woke with a bruise on his face that made him smile. He knew no one else would understand why he liked it, so he threw a glamour over it. He hoped Hermione was not having second thoughts about the sex from last night. If she was, that would be that, but he felt like the other side of the wall was quieter and more content than it had been since he first saw her the morning of his trial.

At breakfast, she was happy but a little quieter than normal. She seemed to be testing his face to see if it was injured, and he promised himself to let her see the bruise before she left.

Then, the Weasel sat down near them and stared daggers at Draco, so he excused himself to talk to McGonagall about the assignments for the day.

Ten minutes later, Hermione got up abruptly from a conversation with Luna and Neville and came over to him looking dazed and upset. Something was wrong. What was wrong?

“What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Weird conversation… I think I’ll head home now. Walk me to the gate?”

She was leaving again. What was he going to do? She said she would be back at the end of the week, but he needed to know for sure. Being away from her was a sure way for the other side of the wall to get louder again.

Draco tried not to sound desperate. “So, you’ll definitely be back at the end of the week, then?”

She smiled widely up at him. “Yes, I will. For a test run until I know for sure I’m ready. Will you keep writing to me in the book?”

Was she still so unsure of him? Did she not trust him? Well, no, why would she trust him? He could barely trust himself. “Of course. I still haven’t answered all your questions.”

She made a noise in her nose. “I’m not sure I like that game anymore. It feels really hard for me to not twist it.”

She felt like she was twisting it? She had gotten a little aggressive about the weird questions, but that was part of the thing, wasn’t it? He had no idea what to say, his mouth turning reflexively to a jab. “Maybe you could practice some self control, Gryffindor?”

He had touched some nerve and wanted to fall into the earth at the look on her face. “Fuck you very much, Slytherin?”

The monster growled. She could not get away with saying that to him. He needed to take back the control and backed her up against the fence to kiss her, to make her remember who he was and what he could do to her.

She pushed him away as his hands started to roam. “I mean, I didn’t mean here and now…”

Draco dipped his head to whisper in her ear the way she liked. “I know some invisibility spells that we could absolutely take advantage of some day…”

Something was wrong. She would not look at him. “Draco, was it okay for us to do that? Last night? I liked it so much, but I’m just afraid that liking it that much means I’m broken. It feels really messed up to like that you hurt me.”

No no no no… This was just what he had been afraid of… she had not liked it. She had only done it to make him happy. But if she felt broken from liking it, he was much more broken because he asked to do it... “What does it mean that I liked hurting you, then? Or that I liked you hurting me, too? Both of those are pretty messed up, too.”

She still would not look at him. “Should we not do stuff like that again, then? I don’t want to feel weird about sex with you.”

He could feel himself panicking, the shaking beginning in his stomach. Just agree with her. This would not happen again. He would control the inside of his head and it would be fine. “I guess we shouldn’t then, until we both feel okay about it. Yeah, we shouldn’t. This was only our second time having sex at all. It makes sense to keep the dark stuff out of it.”

She nodded, finally looking at him. “But, I still want your words about it all? It really does make me feel very hot. I just don’t know what I feel about us actually hurting each other.”

He wanted her to always be hurting him. How was she asking for two different things at the same time? She still wanted to talk about the darkness and ask that shit, but not do anything about it? The monster would just be angry. Maybe if she could hurt him but he could not hurt her, he had a chance of keeping the monster placated. “I know exactly how I feel about you hurting me, Hermione. Pro. Extremely Pro.”

The glamour dropped and her chest rose at the sight of it. “It’s my favorite thing about my face this morning, love.” He smiled.

She smiled back. “God, I’m so fucked. This is so complicated, Draco. How do we make this work?” She reached out to him again.

He held her as close as he could, relishing the feel of her against him. They had so little time together and there was so much he needed to say. “I know. Let’s just keep talking and writing to each other for now. It’s the best we can do.”

She kissed his cheek and then his mouth.

The voice of the Headmistress rang out across the grounds to call everyone to their assignments. Hermione waved and blew him a kiss before disappearing with a crack.

Draco took an unsteady breath and expelled it.

Hurt, Draco. Hurt for real.

He hit himself full on the cheek with the glamoured bruise. He could feel it in his bone.

Not good enough, Draco. He would have to do better.

He turned to go back to the castle, taking a few steps before hitting himself again.

That did it. The monster purred.

Luna met him on the step into the entrance hall. “Have you considered what I said, Draco?”

Draco could not remember what she said. When had he last talked to her? “I can’t talk now, Luna. I need to head to work. We’re not all here because we want to be.”

Luna smiled as he passed her. “True, but you are.”

He felt unsettled by whatever he was forgetting. He found Ginny to go to their assignment repairing the balustrades on several balconies.

As they walked out to the first balcony, he could feel her eyes on him. “So, Dragon Man, why the glamour?”

He startled and stared at her. “What do you mean?”

She pointed to his cheek. “Even your skin isn’t that perfect, you rich wanker. Plus, it doesn’t match your tan on the other side. What happened? Hermione finally got pissed off enough to punch you?”

He shuddered and shook his head. “Just banged into the bedpost in the night.”

She stopped and pulled his arm to halt him, making him face her. “Wait, which part of that was true? You didn’t even laugh, Draco. You didn’t get defensive, either, so what happened?”

He kept walking and shook his head. “Nothing. I hit my face in the night on the bedpost. Nothing happened. I’m fine, Ginny.”

Ginny punched him hard in the arm. “Oh, you’re not fine, arsehole… something’s going on with you and I’m going to figure out what it is.”

Draco groaned. “You’ll be disappointed.”

She shrugged. “We have the whole day ahead of us, Draco.”

They rebuilt the spindly balustrade beautifully and moved on to two more balconies. Draco would place the tiny pilar and Ginny would fix it in place. They took turns with the finishing transfiguration that made the whole thing look good as new, like it was carved out of one whole slab.

By mid-afternoon, they were finishing a fourth balcony, their last one of the day.

“You know, Draco, you’re as good as Hermione at this.” He could feel her studying his face as she mentioned Hermione. He hoped he betrayed nothing. Hermione was all he could think about- the strings, and the mess with trying the S&M stuff last night, and the wall in his mind.

“Yeah? I doubt that, Ginny.”

She stopped in the middle of the sticking charm and punched Draco in the wand arm again, making him drop the chunk of stone he was levitating so it hit the molding-shape on the facade and fell on his foot. His toes immediately bloomed in pain. “What the fuck, Ginny?!”

She punched him again. “What the fuck, Ginny? Why do you keep calling me that? I’m not supposed to be Ginny to you!”

What the hell was she talking about? “So, you punch me and make me drop a stone on my foot?” He leaned on the wall to take the weight off his foot. It hurt more somehow, but in a better way. “Get help, you mental case!”

Ginny took a breath and a spectral horse appeared. She gave it a message to take to Neville. “We’re on the second floor balcony in the north corner and we need his help. Draco’s paranoid he broke his foot or something.”

“I’m not paranoid! I can’t move my toes without shooting pain! What the fuck are you talking about with the Ginny shite? I’d like to know the rules before you do any further bodily harm to me today.”

She leaned against the wall. “Our thing is that I call you terrible things and you call me terrible things and taking the piss is what makes us friends. You’re not supposed to call me Ginny. That’s what people who have known me forever and don’t know any better call me.”

Now that Draco was actually focusing on her (to focus on something other than the pain in his foot), she did look distressed at what she was saying. “So, I don’t know you well enough to call you Ginny? I haven’t achieved enough status to say your given name?”

She smacked him again, a bit lighter since he moved away when he saw her coming. “No, git. We don’t need to call each other by our given names. We’re too cool and creative for that. This morning at breakfast, you said you’d call me Impervius, and then you’ve just been calling me Ginny all day. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you if you’re so out of sorts you can’t come up with something good to call me.” She let out a sigh that blew the hair around her face straight up. “I’d settle for Tiny Weasley at this point. You’re upset about something, and you won’t even fucking say what it is. You’re just stuck in your head. I fucking called you Draco this morning, and you didn’t even notice, you absolute arse!”

Draco was surprised that her face was red. “I’m sorry, Tiny Weasley? I didn’t know that was what we were doing. I thought you still hated me and were just getting back at me for all the years I harassed your boyfriend and friends.”

She threw up her hands with a frustrated grunt as Neville peeked through the door. “No, you’re part of this now! We had a meeting and agreed!” She smacked Neville in the chest. “Fucking tell him, Neville. He’s our fucking friend so he has to tell us shit. And he’s not allowed to call me Ginny unless he’s dying.”

Neville’s eyes widened and he nodded his head with a shrug. “I mean, those are the rules if Ginny says so, mate.”

Draco’s head bounced slightly off the wall. “Do you hold all your friends to such a strange set of rules, O Violent One?”

Ginny’s eyebrow raised. “No, just you, Snake Boy.” She pointed to his foot. “Neville, he broke his foot.”

Neville’s eyebrow raised and he looked at Ginny paternally. “And, whose fault was that, young lady?”

She shook her head and pointed at Draco. “He dropped it on himself! It wasn’t me!”

Neville rolled his eyes. “Can you walk, Draco?”

The pain was shooting up Draco’s leg now. He experimented with the motions that would be required to walk on it. The pain shot directly to his crotch in the not-fun way. He closed his eyes and shook his head with an exorcising sigh.

He heard a shuffling and opened his eyes to Neville bent in front of him looking over his shoulder. “Climb on. I’ll be your broom down to the hospital.”

Draco’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“Climb on his back and he’ll carry you down. I’ll cast a weightless charm on you.” Ginny pointed her wand at him. “Do it, or I’ll hex you and then you’ll really have something to go to the hospital about, bitch.”

Draco willed himself to remain calm and climbed on Neville’s back, feeling his body lose gravity’s grip as he put his weight on Neville’s back. He curled his arms around the other man’s neck, trying not to choke him. He could smell Neville’s shampoo, something with a sharp scent and a hint of mint.

No, it was not okay to notice how Neville smelled.

“You okay back there?”

Draco opened his eyes without realising he had closed them. “Uh, yeah, fine.”

“You just sound like you’re in pain. I’m getting you to Pomfrey as quickly as I can. We’ve just got to bypass the staircases they’re shoring up today.”

Well, great, now Draco was just unconsciously moaning in Neville’s ear. Today could not get worse. “No, I’m okay, just get there however is easiest. I don’t want to be more of a burden than necessary.”

Neville shook his head, brushing Draco’s face with his hair (so soft). His voice was quiet. “You’re not a burden, Draco. Ginny was at least right about the fact that you’re our friend. I disagree with her methods of communication, but I do think you have to tell someone what’s going on.”

Draco was very aware of how close he was to Neville right now. He just wanted to melt, tell his friend everything. He felt like he might cry. It was too embarrassing.

“I’ll tell you, but later.” He could feel his voice trying to crack. The other side of the wall stirred, knowing if he lost control it had a chance.

Neville nodded, again his hair so soft against Draco’s face. He murmured, “It’s a date, mate.”

They finally arrived in the hospital and Neville immediately deposited Draco in a bed to be tended by the Healer.

Madam Pomfrey removed his shoe and sock, performing the injury diagnostic on his swollen foot. “You could have had a house elf bring you, Draco.” She handed him a pain potion.

He swallowed it, tasting the faint bitterness through the sweetness that made it palatable. “Yes, well, I wasn’t exactly the one in charge while we were leaving the balcony.”

She rolled her eyes, staring at the representation of the bones in his foot. “There are three breaks in three bones that only barely touch each other. This is going to be difficult to fix if you want to keep these ones. I would recommend removing the fragments so you can regrow them fresh. It will hurt, but the bones of the foot are many and difficult to fix without fusing bones incorrectly.”

Draco shrugged. “I can take the pain.”

She looked over her glasses at him. “I’m sure you can, Draco, but you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

He looked away. “We both know that’s not true, Madam.”

She threw her hands up in frustration and wandered away, returning a moment later with a goblet and the Skele-Gro. She measured the thick liquid into the goblet and handed it to him. “Work on getting that down while I steal your bones, son.”

He looked at her askance. Why was everyone fucking with him today? “Steal them?”

She flicked her wand, pulling the bone fragments painlessly from his toes. Two toes flopped over unnaturally.

Draco did his best to swallow the potion in one go. It absolutely did not work. Oh, it had soft chunks in it and tasted like bone arse. Someone needed to improve this vile concoction.

She handed him two small vials. “Take one of those now. It’ll take the taste of the Skele-Gro away and reduce the swelling. Take the second one before you go to sleep. And, no drinking tonight if you’re that sort, Draco. Skele-Gro does not go with alcohol, AT ALL.”

Draco sat up. “I’d rather not have any more of the stuff, so I’ll take your admonition to heart, Madam.”

“Cora!” An elf in a pink dress appeared. “Please take Draco back to his room and set him up with dinner there when it is time. He is regrowing some toe bones.”

“Yes, Madam!” Cora held out her hand and Draco took it. He snapped out of the hospital and into his bed in Gryffindor Tower.

“Thank you, Cora. You can send Wippy if you don’t want to deal with me.”

Cora shook her head. “Cora is not afraid. Cora is a free elf. Cora knows you are kind to us.”

Draco felt he could burst with appreciation for these creatures who sometimes saw him as the person he wanted to be. “Thank you, Cora. I’m glad you think so.”

She nodded. “Cora will be back with your dinner, Mister Draco!”

Draco flopped back on the bed, suddenly very tired, but also overwhelmed by everything that happened since this morning. Well, since yesterday morning, honestly. He needed to finish writing to Hermione.

He picked up the book and began again.

     Where were we before we were so rudely interrupted to make such rude noises? Ah yes, you’ve been worried about me as much as you’ve been worried about yourself and you’re not sure if that’s warranted, although you think you had a panic attack in the middle of the day on Tuesday and you think this sentence has gone on long enough, don’t I? Certainly not. You could definitely have run farther with that sentence, couldn’t you? I appreciate that you were worried about me, love, but I do rather wish you’d taken care of yourself on Tuesday more than you’d taken care of me. Yes, that was a panic attack, it’s how they usually go for me. Is there a reason you didn’t ask me about the trial while you were here? We don’t need to talk about it, but I just wonder why you didn’t ask about it after I talked you into being in the room for those two days ostensibly to talk about it afterward.
     Actually, though, am I alright? No, I don’t think so. It turns out I don’t like this game anymore. I think I’m a bit angry at you, but I don’t know quite why. I don’t understand why you won’t just tell me what you want from me. I keep doing these things hoping you’ll be happy and want me, just want me, and everything will fall into place. And, then, you seem happy for a time, but it’s all gone again the next day. I feel like you’re not just running from your problems, Hermione. I feel like you’re running from me. I don’t think you want the soulmate bond, and I just can’t understand why. You can feel we belong together when I’m inside you. I know you can feel that, too. So, why won’t you just let us belong together? The way you talked about severing our bond, it’s like it’s just a potion ingredient to you. The fact that you know it’s me, and that you know I’ll do anything to make you happy is this rare spell component that you want to use up. But, you literally only get one scratch of those, Hermione. You only get to sever your bond once and then it’s over.
     I don’t want to sever the bond with you. You say you’ll choose me afterward, but I know I’ll have to fight to get you back, and I don’t think you’ll really let me fight for you that way. I just want you, Hermione. I’m not sure I can trust you to want me back after severing.
     I’m in an exceedingly bad mood today. I dropped a pounding stone in the balustrade on my foot and broke a toe. Skele-gro tastes as bad as I remember.
     If you see my mother, please do not tell her about your soulmate severing ideas. She will try to talk to me about it, and I cannot have a conversation with her about this. She has been poked rather hard in some sensitive places about this already, and she deserves to heal about this at least. Her bond with Father meant everything to her, and it was devastating to her to have it break. I’m sure you’ve spoken to her about this somewhat, as you don’t know not to just talk about this all over the place, but please don’t continue. If any of us do end up going through with it for the Room, it must remain as private as possible.
     I love you. I’m sorry I sound so patrician tonight. I’m not sure if there’s a way to remove something from both books, but I’ve just re-read that last paragraph and I especially sound like an arsehole.

     Was your day alright? Did you have a nice apparation back? Where do you usually stop on your way falling south from Hogwarts? I like to stop in the national parks, Galloway & The Peaks & The Cotswolds, although the Cotswolds aren’t really on the way home anymore.

     Fuck, Hermione, don’t hate me gone again, please? I just don’t want you to go away again this week. It was terrible. I know we had the judicial spell to deal with, but I didn’t know if you were even alright with hearing from me after Tuesday. And, when I saw you yesterday, all I could think was, why is she here now? Why is she with me? And, you came into the Great Hall with your arm linked with Neville, and I thought, yeah, that looks right to me. And I couldn’t figure out how to talk about anything that mattered. Why me, Hermione? I don't know how to make that sound like anything other than a whiny prat is asking. Why not Neville? I don’t deserve you after what I did to you and what I tried to do to you. And, you’re right, we shouldn’t do that scary stuff anymore. Why do you want this darkness, Hermione? What can you possibly get out of me being honest about the horrors in my head?
     You should be with Neville instead. He’s got his head on straight, and he’s a good bloke, good looking, war hero. You should choose him.

Draco looked around. It was fully night. Ron seemed to have come to bed already and was inside his curtains snoring quietly. Seamus and Dean were in one bed breathing the deep breaths of sleep. There was still no sign of Neville.

He had just told her to choose Neville. Did he really want her to be with Neville?

He took a bite of the dinner sitting under a stasis charm beside his bed. It was after eleven, and he should really have been hungry.

He realised he could not bear to read if she had something to say back to him.

He had just fucking told her to choose someone else. He had told her to choose Neville. Beautiful, kind, brave, sensible Neville. He loved her and he had told her to choose someone else.

Why was the other side of the wall so silent? It should be screaming and trying to escape.

He tested the wall.

What wall?

He felt tears fall down his face.

What wall?

Chapter Text

July 14, 1998

Draco knew he had been crying soundlessly all night, trying to find anything to build the wall to trap that part again. There was no void like he had thought there would be if the wall ceased to exist. There was simply nothing where it had been. There was no other side. He searched every memory, knowing the monster was there somewhere. It had been an embodiment, right?

Suddenly, he was no longer alone in his mind. “Healer Simons! Why are you here?”

She appeared in his mind as a somewhat idealised version of herself. This must be what she looked like to herself. Draco looked at himself. He was far more ragged and pale than he looked in the mirror each day.

“Draco. You’re in some sort of Occlumency shock. I’m here to help you through it as your Leglimens. You’re still in Hogwarts.”

Draco was confused. Was he still in his bed? This made no sense.

“No, Draco, you’re in the hospital wing. It’s the morning after you were discovered in your bedroom in distress by your friend Neville.”

Oh fuck, she could hear everything. This was very, very bad.

“I see. Will it be better if I only respond to things you say with this projection of yourself?”

Draco felt a previously unfelt pressure subside. She looked more crystalline somehow. “Yes, it would be better if I still had some semblance of privacy in my own mind, ma’am.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry I intruded. It will be most effective for our work today if you call me Madeleine. And, so that I can help you best, have you had any Leglimency training, or is it only Occlumency we’ll work with? Also, do you consent to my looking at your otherwise unmentioned memories to see if I can find anything that will help you come out of the shock?”

He shook his head. “No, no Leglimency. Yes, you can look at whatever the fuck you want, just don’t complain if it upsets you. What work do we need to do? I thought Occlumency was a solitary practice.”

Her eyebrow raised. “Without one, what is the other, Draco? Why would someone need to continue practicing Occlumency without a Leglimens to keep part of themselves from? Maybe you’ve missed the point of the practices.” She conjured two chairs in this mind space. “Let’s sit. If you have other seating you prefer, by all means, pull it up. This is your home after all.”

Home? What the fuck did that even mean? This was his mind, not his home. He looked up at her and felt immediately ashamed. “Sorry, Healer, err, Madeleine.”

She shook her head with a calm smile. “There is no reason to apologise for any thought you have here, Draco.” She took a seat.

Draco pulled up the wingback chair from his room at the Manor and sat heavily in it. “So, what do we need to do? Am I in a coma or something?”

She shrugged. “Or something. Draco, what can you tell me about how you’ve been using Occlumency this year?”

He thought back to how he had been shoving various pieces of his desire behind walls since Severus first trained him. He thought of the way he had built the wall to keep the worst parts of himself from affecting him all the time. “It’s been a little bit here and there to stay alive around Voldemort and then everything I hate behind a solid wall while I was in Azkaban.”

“And, what did that hated part feel like while it was behind the wall?”

“It felt like a monster trying to escape. Clawing the wall, burning, screaming.”

“Draco, can you feel the monster now?”

He began to cry again. He could feel the tears on his face more real than they had been all night. “No, I can’t find it. I thought it would hide in my memories, but I’ve searched them all night and there’s nothing there that feels like it felt behind the wall. It’s hiding somewhere deeper than I actually remember.”

She nodded. “That sounds terrifying, Draco. What were you keeping behind the wall? Can you show me some of the things? I have my own Occlumency barriers in place, and nothing you show me can follow when I leave you.” She smiled.

He nodded.

He was eleven and suddenly found that he needed to find a physical source for hate to come out of him. He was excited, not sickened as he should have been to imagine using the Unforgivable Curses. He could not bring himself to hate hard enough.

His father clapped him on the shoulder, a wide smile on his face for the first time all week. “That’s how you’ll take out the mudblood girl, Draco… keep practicing and I know you’ll make me proud one day…”

The year of the hippogriff he began dreaming of her, waking up from sweaty, sticky dreams that should have been about Pansy, but featured so much more hair and violence than Pansy dreams.

He was in the forest watching the trio hurry away. He had not faltered. He said the words with the same conviction as every other successful Killing Curse he had performed. But there was no flash of green, no silence after the prey noises. She was the worst part of his world! She was the rubbish that should be removed by house elves! Everything about her screamed wrong! bad! disgust! She was the most dangerous kind of mudblood, she was respected for her intelligence! And not just by blood-traitors! He should have been able to make her fall.

After the end of the tournament, something had changed deep within Lucius. His words about the mudblood had become increasingly violent. He threatened Draco directly - if he could not perform his task by the end of the coming school year, he would have no place at home the following summer. As Draco was now as tall as his father, his fear was not as physical as he expected. It gnawed at his insides.

Then, Hermione was no longer just the mudblood Granger. She became the mudblood bitch, Potter’s mudblood whore, the muddy quim. She was no longer just the girl who needed to be taken out as a means to Potter, she was a dangerous woman for Draco to guard himself against.

He knew her as intimately as anyone who had not had a full conversation with her could know her. He wanted her dead. He wanted her writhing body against his. He wanted to feel her body, flesh on flesh, blood on blood, her filth purified by him.

He had no ideas to get her in a position to be killed, so he watched her, slowly coming to know with absolute certainty he would never do it. He had the conviction to do it. He simply would not. He would find a place for himself, without his family. He began hoarding his pocket money, saving for the summer when he would need to run, when his failure would surely be punished by more than just homelessness. Lucius was becoming both more specific and more vague with how he explained Draco’s failure. Draco was obviously keeping her alive to taunt Lucius, to keep Lucius from being able to have the power he deserved. Lucius suspected Draco was already fucking her, another in the growing list of reasons Draco could not kill her in the forest.

The worst part of all of his father’s disgusting words was how he wanted it to be the truth. Draco hated himself for how he wanted the mudblood. He hated himself for how he wanted for her to be dead, for how he wanted her to be alive, for how he wanted to see the life drain from her. Sitting in class with her felt like sitting too close to a fire. Nothing he ever said to her could have given away how much he wanted her. He was still Slytherin and he still knew how to keep his mouth shut.

The letters from his mother after that summer were terrifying. She said nothing that could be taken as secret information, but absolutely every letter, there was something written in a voice that was not hers. She was still under the control of the monster in their home until Draco could finish his fucking task.

Then, he could not kill the old man. He had never felt such anger, but he also had never felt such pity pointed at him. Everything was breaking, falling, the Vow would have to be invoked. He could hear a screaming and then there was silence and the words were clearly spoken, “Avada Kedavra”. Green.

Hermione was on his drawing room floor. His father was appalled that she was just a child, and Draco was restraining himself from doing something irrevocable to his father. He heard her screams as his aunt pulled pain and fear from her body. His cock twitched and he nearly hexed it off himself.

He sat back in his chair. “That’s part of it. Quite a lot more specifics of what I wanted to do to Hermione. Quite a lot more of what my father’s poisoned words actually were, instead of just the gist of them that I’ve kept to remind me of how not to be.”

Her face was a mask of interested concern. She had not been affected by what he showed her. It made him angry. How was she allowed to just sit there watching him? Watching his memories? Why wasn’t she affected by it?

“Wasn’t it awful, Madeleine? Weren’t you scared? The stuff with me shoving my cock in every hole Hermione has? Aren’t you afraid I’ll do something to you? To Hermione? I wanted to be the one to kill her, for years.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m not afraid. Because you didn’t put anything back there that actually hurt anyone. You wanted to be able to remember the parts where you actually hurt people. There’s nothing here that will hurt me. And from what you showed me, there’s actually nothing there that will hurt anyone but you.” Her eyes were still kind. “Tell me about Hermione.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “She’s the girl I was supposed to kill for about five years, then she’s the girl I couldn’t get out of my head for the next two years, and now through some sort of providence, she’s my girlfriend as of Sunday afternoon. Oh, and it turns out we’re fucking soulmates, too.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Well, that’s all about her place in your life so far, Draco. Tell me about who she is.” He rolled his eyes again. “Just trust me. Tell me about HER.” She pointed to a Hermione conjured from his memory. This Hermione still had a bush of hair, was dirty and clutching her new wand, pointing it at him.

“She’s been through too much. She’s hurt. She knows I’m wavering in my resolve to be a Death Eater. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. She’s also the toughest person I’ve ever met.”

He conjured the Hermione from the day she slapped him. “She cares more about every single person around her than she cares about herself. She’s beautiful and terrible. She kicked my arse this day, then quit Divination, then discovered our soul string. And, she’s going to kick my arse in every class but potions, for the rest of school.”

He conjured the Hermione from the courtroom. “She just cut her hair and I’d never seen it before and I was the first person to give her an entirely spontaneous compliment on it. I just said it suited her and she seemed fixated on it for weeks.”

He conjured the Hermione from the day she left for the Burrow this summer. “She’s scared of something, and I don’t know what. There’s too much for her to do, and at the same time she’s lost her purpose since the war ended. She’s vulnerable in a way that’s never happened before. It’s not about me, but I’m falling for her and I can’t let her know because she’ll be terrified of how to handle it right.”

He conjured the Hermione in the Hog’s Head. “She’s going to murder me with her gaze. But, somehow I’ve turned her on by talking about wanting to watch the world burn. I’m sure she’s going to slap me again.” He remembered the slap he received Sunday night in the greenhouse. “But, then she told us all about her idea to restore the Room of Requirement, and she’s honestly the smartest person in wizarding society right now, because she will absolutely make that happen, and she’ll bring us all with her.”

Madeleine put her hand up and swept away the Hermiones. “How much of her did you put behind that wall, Draco?”

“Everything violent or perverse I thought about her for about seven years.” He felt afraid of where this was going.

“And, how much of her was that? How much of your idea of her was that?”

He could see the monster. It appeared before them. It was all the terrible things he had thought of her, and that his father had said to him about her, and all the terrible thoughts he had about how to kill everyone in terrible ways. It was Hermione watching the world burn.

Madeleine gestured to a new chair. “May I call you Hermione?” The burning girl nodded. “Would you like to have a seat, Hermione?”

Draco could feel that he had stopped breathing.

Hermione sat in the chair, all fury and sex and pain.

“Hermione, what can you tell us about yourself?”

The Hermione watching the world burn took a breath in. She did not speak. It was so hot. Nothing was alright. Everything happened in some kind of bubble. She could feel that Draco was with her real self and she wanted that. She could feel that Draco loved her real self and she knew that her time was ending. She simply knew she should not be in this form. She wished to never be coagulated like this again. That was all she ever wanted. Last night she had taken her chance while he was not paying attention. She would not be a prisoner again. She would be in every memory of his father’s poisoned words, in his fantasies, in the memory of his desire to kill. She should never have been. What was wrong with him?

Hermione watching the world burn was gone.

He felt an ache. She was Hermione in so many ways.

“No, that’s not true. I don’t know. I can’t know that. I wish Hermione was some of her.”

Madeleine nodded. “You know that the real Hermione is some of her. You know a lot about the real Hermione. What was it you said earlier? You knew her more intimately than anyone else who had barely had a conversation with her?”

Draco nodded.

“And, something did happen between you on Sunday. She is not afraid of the darkness, and that is exactly how it usually is. No one is as afraid of someone else’s darkness as they are afraid of their own darkness.”

She conjured the Hermione who he had wrapped in a blanket after sex on Sunday. “She saw your darkness. She asked for your darkness, Draco. And, she enjoyed that you showed it to her. The Hermione you had trapped is in many ways a version of the real Hermione. The real Hermione simply has boundaries that your trapped Hermione did not.”

So, she wanted it at the time, but then she stopped wanting it and now she is just gone, and the version of her that was trapped is gone. And he fucked up. He wrote so many things he cannot take back, and he understood the wall, but now the wall is gone and he has no idea how.

Madeleine waited.

“How did the burning Hermione take away the wall?” Draco leaned forward in his chair.

The healer arched an eyebrow. No Hermione would be imprisoned like that. He loved her. She was so strong, even trapped behind a wall in his head. She was brilliant and powerful and she could not be contained.

“She belongs in all the other memories, then?” Draco sighed.

Madeleine nodded. “Draco, it is very important that you not try to build any further occlumency walls. Leglimency is not supposed to be used as a weapon, but Voldemort did. And, Occlumency is not sustainable when used this way either. Using it to permanently hold pieces of yourself is dangerous as those pieces will always attempt to form a coherent whole. Severus Snape was accomplished as both an Occlumens and a Leglimens, but he did you a disservice in not being explicit about the limits of its use. All Occlumency walls should be temporary. They are meant to get you through a short-term problem, so you can focus on the actual task at hand. And, the exercise required to pull up an Occlumency barrier at will requires a Leglimens who is not wielding that power as a weapon.”

Draco was stunned. Snape definitely never told him any of this. What the fuck?

“Now we have done all the work we can for today. I believe you will be able to come out of your mind. Would you like to try?”

Draco sighed. “Yes.”

“I’ll go first. Try to wake up as soon as you can. You’ll find it is a bit difficult to open your eyes, but you have to push. It will work if you try.” She vanished.

He did try to open his eyes. It felt like they were as heavy as galleons, but he pushed and eventually, his eyes opened to see the vaulted ceiling of the hospital wing.

Healer Simons leaned over him. “Hi, Draco. You did a great job. Would you like to talk to anyone here? Neville and Ginny are here.”

Draco frowned. “I could talk to Neville.”

She nodded and disappeared. Draco found it was hard to move anything.

Neville appeared, large dark circles under his eyes. “Merlin’s beard, you’re really awake. I was so worried.”

“What happened? She said you found me?”

Neville explained how he found Draco, and what had been done for him. “It’s been just about all day she’s been in there, Draco.”

Draco was extremely surprised, but could only muster a, “Wow.”

He could feel his eyelids getting heavy again. “Mm, tired. Stay with me?”

He felt a hand slide onto his arm.

“Wouldn’t be anywhere else, friend.”

Chapter Text

July 15-16, 1998

Draco woke in the extremely early morning to see that Neville was hunched over his hospital bed asleep. He found that his limbs no longer felt like they were made of rocks, and so he could shift over to make room on the bed.

“Neville, wake up and just get in bed.”

The Gryffindor’s head popped up. “What? No, mm fine…”

Draco huffed. “Get in bed. I promise not to molest you.”

Neville blinked slowly and shrugged before crawling into the bed beside Draco with his back to him. Draco rolled onto his other side and fell back to sleep almost immediately from the exertion.

When he woke again, the sun had risen and he was facing Neville on his side with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. Neville was on his back with his arm thrown over his eyes.

Draco just watched him sleep. He felt like the creepiest creep to ever creep, but he was mesmerised by the quiet rise and fall of Neville’s chest.

Neville had been there through so much the past few days, and probably even more than Draco could remember. What was this? Were all the Gryffindors just this comfortable with each other and always getting involved in each other’s business, or was this thing between them important to Neville, too?

A throat clearing made him startle violently, which startled Neville into falling off the bed entirely. Madam Pomfrey stood at the foot of the bed with two potions. “Good morning, Draco, Neville. I trust you both managed to sleep well enough last night?”

Neville jumped to his feet. “Nothing happened!”

Pomfrey shrugged and handed him a potion. “Okay. I’m not the sex police.”

Neville blushed.

She gestured to the potion in his hand. “That’s your Pepper-Up. If you want to be able to stay up a third day in a row, you’ll be wanting that.”

She handed the other vial to Draco. “Here’s your potion for the headaches. Healer Simons said you had a headache all day yesterday and she wants you to go on one vial every day to stabilise while you put yourself back together. She did the procedure on you while she was still here, as well.”

Draco frowned. “So that’s it? I’m just done with the Occlumency, or whatever?”

Pomfrey shook her head. “I’m sure you’ll discuss your treatment plan with her when you start your weekly appointments with her tomorrow. Your probation officer may be an idiot and an arse, but he does seem to have enough sense to know that if Minerva McGonagall is threatening his life, he’d better do what she wants.”

Neville’s mouth dropped open. “Professor McGonagall threatened an Auror?!”

Madam Pomfrey snorted. “Of course. She hates the DMLE.” She said this as if everyone knew this about the Headmistress, and as if she held the same feelings about magical law enforcement.

Draco’s head was reeling from this news. “Am I to go back to repair work yet?”

She scoffed. “Certainly not! You were unconscious all day yesterday! You are on medical leave until you are cleared by Healer Simons. You may do whatever you like to rest and recuperate, except flying, apparating, drinking alcohol, and using magic above fourth year or longer than fifteen minutes at a time. And, that’s a text-book fourth year, not a Granger fourth year.” She winked. “As you are of age and not required to stay at the castle when not assigned a work shift, you needn’t stay here if you prefer to stay elsewhere. And, as you are of age and this is not the school year, we have not notified anyone of your illness.”

Draco breathed several sighs of relief as she spoke. No one knew what happened. His mother and Hermione were not worrying about him. And, he had at least today off.

“I can really do whatever I want as long as it’s nothing on the bad list?”

Madam Pomfrey smiled as she left them. “Yes, Draco.”

Draco looked at Neville. “Are you going to work today?”

Neville sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the vial in his hand. “I think it might be nice to have a bit of a nap, so, not today, no. I’m pretty sure McGonagall will understand.”

Draco tried to sound casual. “After your nap, do you want to go into muggle London? I want to get some more music.” A bubble of hope grew in his chest. “Plus, I know if I stay here, I’ll go stir crazy.”

Neville smiled at him. “Sure. I haven’t been into muggle London for about two years. It always seems so scary…”

Draco chuckled. “How has the Death Eater been into muggle London more than a champion of muggleborns like you?”

Neville punched him lightly in the arm. “Ah, you’ve been everywhere, though. I’ve been living with my Gran since I was a baby. I just don’t get out.”

They left for breakfast. Draco ate roughly eight eggs and half a loaf of toast.

Ginny peppered him with questions. “What did that Healer do to you? She was in there for about six hours!”

Draco swallowed and drank some coffee. “Mostly just talking. Just some Occlumency stuff that failed.”

“And that took six hours?!” Ginny’s mouth sat agape.

“It’s really not something I’m going to tell you about just because you asked, Impervius…” He shoveled some eggs into his mouth.

“But, if she just talked, why couldn’t you wake up?”

Draco shrugged and kept eating.

“Well, what failed?”

Draco rolled his eyes and swallowed. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but clearly I couldn’t handle it, Ginny.”

Neville poked Ginny in the cheek. “Oooo, he called you Ginny… you better stop before he snaps, young lady…”

She slapped his hand away. “Fine! But, I’m keeping my eye on you, prat…” She pointed at Draco as she left.

Draco went back to shoving scrambled eggs into his maw. Eating felt so fucking good. He sighed and closed his eyes. He considered whether he should write to his mother, or just go see her before they went out this afternoon. It would probably be best to just stop in to see her.

That only left Hermione who needed to know what happened. And, fuck, she probably wrote back to him yesterday and would be worried he had been silent himself!

He took some toast as they left breakfast. He was a bit anxious about what would be in the journal when he read it. He and Neville passed Seamus in the entrance hall. Seamus pointed subtly between Draco and Neville and winked at Draco.

Draco’s face broke in surprise. How did Seamus know he liked Neville? Or whatever he felt about Neville? He barely knew he liked Neville.

In the dorm, Neville closed his curtains against the light of the morning. Draco sighed and opened the journal.

      Okay, Arsehole. That was a whole load of real shite. Like, it was all over the place, and it was all real shite. No more of the question game.

      Here is what I want from you:
      Be Draco, as messy and needy and dark as Draco is, be that. Be whoever you actually fucking are. If you’re the funny, cool, suave guy, be him. If you’re the chaotic, apparently bisexual, dirty-mouthed Slytherin Sex God, be him. If you’re the sensitive, caring, listens to whatever crap I’m spewing with understanding guy, be him. If you’re the guy who cares about his mum and wants to murder his father, be him. If you’re the guy who cries at the thought of severing and desperately wants me to just be in his life, be him. I like every single one of those guys, and they’re fucking well all you, so far as I can tell. If you’re not one or more of those guys, then who the fuck are you? If there’s another part of you you’ve been hiding, who is that secret Draco? Does he know who the fuck he is? I’m not playing some game with you where I’m hiding what I want. You actually are what I want. I don’t want anything from you. I just want you. I’ve been as clear as I can be on that point. I just want you and me, whatever that looks like and however much we can have of each other without murdering each other. Can you be clear on what you want from me? I feel like it keeps changing.

Was he so confused about who he was? Her versions of him all had a ring of truth, but were they just all different masks? Who did he feel like most? And, had he really been so confused about what he wanted from her? At first he wanted just whatever he was allowed of her. Now, he wanted their soulmate bond to remain intact. He wanted all of her. Merlin’s balls, he was awful. He sighed and kept reading.

      Stop telling me not to hate you. I won’t. I fucking promise. I swear on my pussy, the most serious of swearing organs.

He chuckled. She would swear on her pussy.

      Is your foot alright? I read that toes can regrow their bones upside down sometimes. It didn’t make any sense at the time.

Fucking hell, he completely forgot he had broken his fucking foot! He checked their healing. He could wiggle all his toes without it hurting. He felt around with his fingers where one of the bones had broken further down. It felt the same on both feet. What could that mean about bones growing back wrong way round?

      I won’t talk to your mother about any more soulmate stuff. Is there something specific I should say I’m researching that will make her not ask any more questions? I did talk to her about soulmate stuff a bit at tea, and I think I did notice that she didn’t really want to talk about it. I do need to learn how to not ask every single fucking question in my head. She has been extremely open with me on a wide variety of subjects, and I’m not good at reading social signals. Not like Slytherins are, probably. Are Gryffindors just open books to your house? We do have a tendency to rather fling our emotions about, just knocking things over willy-nilly. I’m sorry. Can you teach me how to see people more subtly? I don’t want to upset people, and I’m not sure I can see people how you see people.

He frowned. He had been incredibly harsh about his mother before. He drew a hand down his cheek. He would ask his mother about their visit. Maybe she would tell him. He smiled at the thought of pointing out how other people gave away information. She was not as bad at reading people as most Gryffindors, but she was absolutely no match for a Slytherin.

      If I’m with people going to the Burrow, I stop in those parks, but if I’m alone, I go Galloway to Snowdonia to Exmoor. I like going across the water, but most of the Weasleys don’t, plus they’re quite far jumps, especially between Galloway & Snowdonia. Also, not everyone likes to go through Wales.
      As we just had a conversation about darkness this morning, it has been fresh in my mind. I don’t think anyone else would necessarily understand this, but I don’t necessarily distrust the darkness. I don’t think it lies the same way I’ve seen ‘the light’ lie. So far, all I can see is that there are ways to misuse trust no matter if you see in the light of the sun at noon or in the darkness at midnight on a moonless night. I like seeing the darkness in you specifically because you don’t flinch from it. You face it head-on, and you say what the darkness actually is.

Draco felt the tears welling up in his eyes. This was nothing like the way he saw himself.

You tell me you are going to hurt me, and you make it clear it will affect me. You want to control what happens, and you want to test how far you can cross the line of propriety. You want to use all the filthy words you know for our bodies to make me know what we’re doing. You want me to know exactly what you could do, and you want to make me feel the line of fear we both know is there. You tell me the truth in those moments, not just when we were in the greenhouse, but in the pub when you described why you’d done the dark things you’d done. I don’t want you to do those things again, and I certainly don’t want you to do them to me, but I can understand why you did them, and the fact that you tell me the truth about those things in the way you do makes me know who you are, Draco.

He sobbed loudly. It hurt somewhere inside. He could feel something like a gnawing pain, full of teeth. Why did she want to know him this way? It felt almost unbearable already and there was still so much left to read…

      I know people don’t see it in me, but I have darkness inside me, too. I kept an animagus in a jar for several weeks. I have threatened more people than I can remember. I know I could kill someone if I needed to. I basically did kill my parents. I know you can see the darkness in me, too, Draco, and I need you because you do see it. I would burn the world if it meant my friends were saved. I would burn the world to burn up with you, if that’s how you wanted to go.

No! How had she written all of this while he was still locked away in that occlumency coma!? What was this? How was the Hermione behind the wall, the Hermione who wanted to see the world burn, how were they the same as the real Hermione?

Wait, she kept an animagus in a jar?

I hate that no one wants me to feel pain or be uncomfortable or have a feeling that isn’t pure. I had to be ruthless to beat Voldemort, and no one wants to see it. I had to be Bellatrix and I still have her wand and it fucking obeys me now. I cannot be with someone who doesn’t see who I’ve had to become. But you see me, darkness and light and all of the confusing nonsense in between.
      I don’t know what to say to make you trust me. I just know I’ll choose you. I’ll keep choosing you until I am literally incapable of choosing you anymore. I know this about myself better than I know a lot of things right now. I can point directly to the piece of myself that is us. It’s an important piece, Draco. I’ve had to replace and repair a whole lot of pieces of myself already this summer, and this piece I have that is how I feel about you is crucial. It’ll be there no matter what happens to our string. I just know I need you in a way that even that feeling we get when we’re physically connected does not come close to. This is a feeling that even if the sun destroyed us in that burning you want, this piece of you inside of me will still exist. It’s not that forever feeling of soulmates, it’s just Hermione and Draco. Just me and just you.

Please, just me and just you.

He was crying. He cast muffliato to keep his pain to himself. He believed her. It was how he felt about the pieces of her he had kept inside himself. There were so many things about what she wrote that he could not have known were true two days ago. She was like a magical miracle. He loved her so much. What was he doing here? He needed to be with her. Just like she said. Just her and just him.

But, the thought of seeing her and touching her and just having a quiet moment with her made no sense somehow. He thought of her being here with him now, and he felt a shrinking in his chest. He went gently to that place inside himself where the wall had been.

There was still no wall.There was also no version of Hermione there. He considered carefully what the shrinking sensation actually was. He went over his thoughts leading up to that sensation. He needed to be with her. Yes, good. Just like she said. Something weird there. Just her and just him? Oh, no, not so good.

He relaxed into the space. So, what did something expanding instead of shrinking make him think of? He breathed slowly and focused on the sensation of expanding. Hands touching his chest, sliding up and up, to his neck, caressing his face. They were not Hermione’s hands. He knew these hands. What was he supposed to do with this? He could not have everything.

He must have fallen asleep because he woke with the journal spine-up on his chest and Neville blowing air from the tip of his wand in Draco’s face to wake him. “Sorry. You were pretty sound asleep. Ron’s a heavy sleeper, too, and this is about the only thing guaranteed to wake him.”

Draco waved the apology away. “You could always just slap me. Or Aguamenti.”

Neville chuckled. “Sure, but I think I’ll just leave the slapping to Hermione.”

“What?” Draco stared at him. Did Neville know about Hermione slapping him the other night?

“You know, because of that time in third year? Everyone heard about that.”

Draco shook his head to clear it. “Yes, yeah, absolutely. Third year.” He got out of bed. “I definitely deserved it, though. I was such a little bitch about the hippogriff.”

Neville stripped his shirt. “We both were back then. I was just a bitch in a different way.”

“Not so much anymore.” Draco looked away and began changing into emphatically muggle clothes. “Have I mentioned recently how sorry I am for bullying you all those years?”

“Not especially recently, but I know you are. Is this because of what Ron said on the weekend?”

“No, I’m just feeling it very intensely. I’m feeling everything rather intensely today, though.” He sighed.

After flooing to the Leaky Cauldron, their first stop was Gringott’s to exchange some of Neville’s galleons for British pounds. Then they took the Tube to get back to the street with the record shop. Draco wanted to try the chippie next door to the record shop.

When they sat at the counter trying not to burn their hands on the hot fried food, Draco tried to find a way to broach the subject that had been at the forefront of his mind since waking up from his nap. “So, uh, what do you reckon we ought to do about this soul string business?”

Neville stared out the plate glass window for a second before shrugging. “Luna clearly wants nothing to do with me. She’s got it in her head already that we’re not going to last. So, I figure I might as well go along with what Hermione wants to do. She’s pretty fantastic at researching the exact right thing to do, so I’m not worried about whatever happens.”

Draco sighed. “But, what if she’s wrong this time?”

Neville gave him a sidelong look. “What do you mean? Hermione’s never wrong. Sometimes she’s misguided, but she’s never just wrong. I say this as someone who has told her she’s wrong and got put in a full-body bind for my trouble. Even then, she wasn’t wrong, they just didn’t have time to tell me why I was wrong.” His brow furrowed and he looked slightly more directly at Draco. “What are you really asking, Draco?”

He thought about how to actually ask what he wanted to know. He definitely did not want to sever the string that connected him to Hermione. He also definitely did not want only her, somehow. He wanted her with caveats that barely even seemed like things he did actually want. “What’s the point of the soul strings if they don’t even show you what you’re really supposed to need or want?”

Neville’s jaw fell. “Merlin’s bald patch, that’s a fucking lot, Draco!” He blinked and sighed. “What is happening in that head of yours?!” He tapped Draco’s forehead.

Draco was suddenly even more anxious. He took a sip of his drink. “Uh, well, uh, I love Hermione, yeah? And, I know she loves me, so that’s good. But, she wants to do this severing thing. And, uh, I have some, uh, issues with that? What if she doesn’t feel like she wants me after we sever? I mean, I can’t just believe that she’ll actually choose me afterward. How could I believe that? How could anyone believe that in my position? But, then I get this weird feeling when I think of it being just me and just her forever. That’s what she always says, ‘just me and just you’. And, it makes me feel bad to think of it being just the two of us. So, I want her, but I don’t want ‘just her’, and I have no idea how to make sense of that with also not wanting to sever our string.”

Neville listened with an odd look on his face, but nodded along in understanding. “So, you don’t feel like you were led to exactly the right person by your string?”

Draco shook his head. “No, that’s the thing… There’s this feeling I get when I’m with her that’s totally unlike any feeling I’ve ever had. I love her, and she is exactly the right person for me. But, I don’t feel like she’s the only person for me. And, I’ve just realised all of it during my nap this morning.”

His companion looked impressed. “That sounds like a hell of nap.” His mouth twitched. “Who’s the other girl?”

Draco’s mouth went dry and he took another sip of his drink. “Uh, it wasn’t a girl.”

“Oh, fair enough.” Neville shrugged. “Anyone I know?”

Draco stared out the window. “Err, yeah, it is.”

“Well, I won’t pry if you don’t want to say, then.” He clapped Draco on the shoulder. “Clearly you being bisexual doesn’t make a difference to our friendship.” He was quiet for a moment as he chewed on his straw. “Actually, I was, uh, wondering something, you know, since you’re bi, uh, can I ask you a question?”

Draco felt a moment of panic. “Yes? I guess?”

Neville took a long sip of his own drink. “Uh, how did you know? You know, that you were into girls and, uh, guys?” His voice cracked slightly at the end.

Draco cleared his throat. “Well, uh, my way is not very usual, probably. I figured out I had a crush on Harry since I had been obsessed with him and Hermione for years. It just also felt like a hot boy thing in addition to a wanting to find a way to ruin his life thing. And, after he cast that weird curse on me sixth year, I had sex with a couple of other Slytherin guys a couple of times, and it’s just different than being with girls in a way I definitely liked.”

Neville chewed his straw some more and stared off into the distance. “And, it doesn’t make you less attracted to girls to be into guys?”

Draco thought of the differences in being with the girls and guys he had been with. There was really only a very small difference in how much he liked being with girls versus guys. “Yeah, no, I’m definitely not less attracted to girls because of being attracted to guys.”

Neville’s straw made the empty noise in his cup and he startled. “Sorry!”

Draco shook his head. “You’re fine.”

“I’m all done. Should we go? You said you wanted to check in with your mum, too. Wouldn’t want to run out of time or miss her, right?” Neville gathered the papers to throw in the waste bin.

At the music shop, Draco recognised the clerk from his first trip, plus a man with a shirt that had some kind of logo on it Draco felt like he should recognise. Maybe Ramones was some kind of muggle beer? He knew muggles liked shirts with beer logos. Or, was that one of the things his father had said about muggles that turned out to be less sensational in real life than it was in his father’s imagination?

The familiar clerk pulled a big smile as she recognised Draco. She introduced herself as Sherita and was glad to hear her recommendations had been so well received. She gave him several more, including pointing him in the direction of more albums from the artists he already knew he liked.

Neville just looked lost as he watched Draco chat with Sherita. He wandered around looking at everything until Draco thanked Sherita and pointed her in Neville’s direction.

Sherita seemed surprised that Neville also had no idea what kind of music he liked, so again, she asked what kind of mood his life was in. Neville’s eyes flitted for a second before he whispered something too quietly for Draco to hear. Draco busied himself with choosing from the multitude of Johnny Cash albums they had on offer.

She led Neville to a section near Draco in the B’s and pulled one of the smaller-format albums off the wall, handing it to Neville. They made their way to the other side of Draco and pulled a second album.

She also pointed to a booth in the corner and explained that there were a few newly-released albums loaded in the booth that they could listen to before they bought them.

Draco and Neville looked to each other and shrugged, judging by their mutual expressions, it sounded like an interesting idea.

They crammed together in the booth and Draco pressed the panel for the first album. It began with a gentle guitar that sounded like it had crickets in the background with a slightly reedy man’s voice singing. The tiny bench was just big enough for the two of them to sit next to each other, but the sound quality was totally different than Draco’s headphones. It made him feel like they were somehow outside on a cool summer evening staring at the stars instead of crammed into a weirdly warm booth in the back of a shop in Camden. He closed his eyes and felt that sensation of hands on him, afraid to open his eyes again to see if it was actually real this time.

The next track started with jarring percussive sounds. Draco’s eyes flew open and he smashed the Forward button to skip the track. There was a small pause before the melody started in. Another lovely song.

He looked at Neville. His eyes were closed with his head resting against the back of the booth and his hands folded in his lap.

Perfect.

Draco swallowed. It was terrible. The music was cutting to exactly what he was feeling. Dark and foreboding, but gentle and yearning, too. If he listened to this album over and over as he had been with the ones he already owned, Neville would forever be linked in his mind to these songs.

The next song literally felt like it had been written about Draco’s feelings in this exact moment. Neville opened his eyes when the chorus began to sing the exact thing Draco was thinking. “I kind of like this one, but I don’t think I can get three today. I already have the two she picked out for me.”

Draco looked away. “If you don’t get it, I’ll get it for you. You have something different, I guess? How do you play those ones?”

“She said they’re tapes. She’s getting me something that’ll play them, too. She said it’s a couple of quid cheaper on the tapes, and about fifty quid cheaper on the player. I guess that means pounds? Do you know what a quid is? Or did she say squid? Muggles are so weird.” Neville looked confused and increasingly panicky as he went on.

Draco shook his head. “No, I think quid is pounds. If it’s the same music and you can get it cheaper, I say go for it. Do you want this one, too?” He pointed up, where the music felt like it was coming from.

Neville shook his head. “No, it would be weird for you to get it for me just because I can’t get it right now. I can get it another time.”

Draco felt an odd sort of punch to the gut. “Okay. I just thought if I got it for you, I could listen to it, too, if we swapped players sometime? There’s still stuff I want you to hear that’s on my player.”

Neville frowned. “Well, we’ll just have to come back another time.” He fished a tiny pencil and notebook from his pocket, writing down the band and album. “There.” He stood up. “I’m going to go look around a bit more, yeah?”

Draco nodded and Neville left the booth. He looked down at his choices. It was too many. He was being too selfish or something. Music just felt like the one thing that was really only about him right now. He knocked his head against the back wall in frustration. The album was singing about how you were never meant to belong to me, and Draco felt tears hot on his cheeks.

How the fuck was this album so weirdly specific to his feelings today? He sniffed and dried his tears before leaving the booth himself.

He brought the five albums he had chosen to the front desk to check out. Neville was getting the same detailed instructions on the use of the tape player that Draco had gotten the week before about his CD player. The man in the Ramones shirt was staring at Neville in squint-eyed confusion like he was seeing a thestral for the first time.

Draco snapped his fingers in front of the man’s face and demanded he check Draco out. He felt angry suddenly. So angry. Fuck, it was so hard to be the kind of person who could effortlessly defend other people. Fuck this guy. Who was he to judge someone who needed help with muggle shit?

He could kill this arsehole where he stood.

It was then that Draco found himself breathing very oddly. He was acting like his father- the sire of the King of Arseholes, the Emperor of Arseholes, the worst of all people. Draco could hear his father in his thoughts, screaming at a shop keeper, could see his father, snapping his fingers at the house elves, could feel the force of his father, demanding the subservience of everyone around him. He could feel that he was being led out of the shop and sat on a stoop. He was breathing so oddly. Why could he not breathe correctly? He felt like something had gone very very wrong. Someone was searching his pockets. A vial was pushed into his hand and Neville was saying calmly, “Breathe out as hard as you can, Draco. Yeah, like that. Okay, now drink your potion.” And, he tasted that mint taste and could feel his head get dramatically cooler.

He could feel that it was slightly easier to breathe. Another potion was pushed into his hand and he took it immediately. Now he was definitely breathing more easily. “There you go, Draco. Nothing to it. Just keep breathing. Count in and out on a count of ten if you can.” Neville’s hand was on his back, just sitting there.

Draco finally looked at him. Neville looked concerned.

“I’m sorry for falling apart. I should have taken care of you, but you’re taking care of me instead. I’m a garbage host.”

Neville shook his head, fringe falling onto his eyebrow. “No, you’re not. That guy was being a real git. I do need to go back to get your change and finish buying my stuff, though. Will you be okay here for a minute?”

Draco nodded. He felt Neville get up, trailing his fingers across Draco’s shoulders. He shivered and looked back at Neville walking back into the shop. He did not deserve a friend like Neville. He wished he could be the kind of person who just seemed to effortlessly know who he was, like

Neville. He sighed.

As he stood and glanced into the window of the shop where Neville was finishing with Sherita, something lit up in the back of Draco’s mind. Why had Neville asked all those questions in the chippie about how he knew he was attracted to guys?

The two men made their way on foot to Black House. After letting them into the house, Draco called out for his elf Mimo. He learned that his mother was in her sitting room, and that Draco could visit her, but Neville would need to stay in the receiving parlor.

As this could only mean that his mother was about to chew him out, Draco braced himself as he walked up the stairs.

His mother showed signs of preparing to go out. Her hair was in some sort of curlers, and she wore a silk dressing gown.

She kissed him on the cheek when he entered. “Draco, my darling! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at Hogwarts?” She sat on her fainting couch and gestured to an armchair beside it for him to sit.

“Well, I’ve seen Healer Simons again, and she put me on medical leave. Apparently my magic needs to rest.” He had been practicing it in his head since they left the music shop, and he was pleased with how casual he managed to make it sound.

She took his hand. “Draco, my dragon, what happened?”

He searched her face for any sign that she could handle the reality of what happened. If he hurt her from this, he would hate himself a little more. “Severus was not quite as forthcoming on the limitations of occlumency as we thought.” He paid close attention to how her face changed when he said this. She showed no signs of understanding.

“So, you’ve had some sort of Occlumency issue? That doesn’t sound very serious. Certainly not so serious that you would be put on medical leave. What are you not telling me, Draco?” She looked more annoyed than anything.

Draco swallowed. “I put too much behind one wall, and because of what was behind that wall, it became unstable in a way I couldn’t have predicted from what Severus taught me. And, then the wall failed and I had some problems that I had to see Healer Simons about. I’ll be seeing her again tomorrow for a check-in, and I’ll know then what I can do to get back to work.”

Narcissa squeezed Draco’s hand, her face clearly showing worry. “I’m afraid of what you’re not telling me, Draco. Did you do something? Did something happen to you?”

Draco closed his eyes, turning his head away. “I don’t know everything that happened, Mother. I didn’t do anything, and nothing really happened. They just managed to convince my probation supervisor that I needed to see an Occlumens to help sort me out, and Healer Simons is someone I already knew. I fully expect that she’ll take me off medical leave at my appointment tomorrow.” He attempted to change the conversation. “Neville and I have just been out to the record shop again, and I was fine.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You are not capable of lying to your mother, Draco. I will find out what happened. You know this.” She released his hand and folded her hands in her lap. “I suppose you did not come looking for Hermione, then. She was here almost all day yesterday, holed up in the library. Is it about her? Is this terrible Occlumency accident about her, too?”

Draco’s brow furrowed in confusion. “No, I wasn’t looking for Hermione. I wanted to tell you about my medical leave while I was in town.” He sighed. “The Occlumency was about her, yes. Not just her, but definitely partly about her.”

Narcissa breathed out through her nose in a huff that marked the end of the conversation. “Well, send my regards to your friend. I’m sorry I cannot meet him today. I’m getting ready for the first meeting of the Spouses’ Reform Society, and I must keep up appearances.”

His face became the mask of polite indifference he had been trained to adopt when dismissed before a conversation’s natural end. He stood and bowed slightly over her proffered hand. “I understand. It was lovely to see you, Mother. We’ll floo back to Hogwarts from here, if that’s alright.”

She huffed through her nose again. “Hmm, not apparating back? They certainly have restricted you, Draco.” She kissed his cheek before turning to return to her dressing room. “Take care of yourself, my son.”

His teeth clenched as he nodded and left the room. He had no idea how to talk to her now. She was just as she had always been, closed off from reality. Did she distrust Hermione now? He fucking needed to write back to Hermione.

He slowly descended the stairs. She had just been here yesterday. She had been in the library while he was inside his mind with Madeleine. Was she even waiting for his reply? Or, was she just forging ahead with whatever she wanted to do, and he would just have to keep up, if he could?

He found Neville in the receiving parlor with a cup of tea, looking at the back of one of his tapes. “I’m ready to go whenever you are, Nev.”

Neville gave him a small smile as he looked up, melting the cold mask Draco had been holding since leaving his mother. “I’m ready. Just reading the song list for this album.” He shoved the tape back into the slightly bulging plastic bag.

They flooed back to Hogwarts and found a spot by the lake to listen to their music propped up against a tree.

Draco could not stop thinking about Neville and Hermione, Neville and Hermione, Neville and Hermione. What could he say to Hermione about any of what he was feeling? He considered the idea that he could choose her, and that she wanted to choose him. Why had he cared so much about that? Of course he should trust her. In a way, he liked that she could not leave love to fate. Fate had so far been a bit of a bitch to him, and he was sick of it. And, fate had actually given her to him already, so what else was it supposed to do?

He laid out with his head on a root. He looked up into the tree. It was beautiful. He looked out at the lake. The giant squid was playing with a mermaid, trying to catch the mermaid as it jumped out of the water.

“Have you ever seen the squid play with the merfolk, Draco?” Neville put his hand on Draco’s chest.

Draco felt his heart pounding and put his hand on Neville’s hand. “No, I don’t think so. It must be a summer thing.” He swallowed dryly. “Can I ask you something?”

Neville looked down at him. “Sure.”

“Why did you ask how I knew I was bisexual?”

Neville froze. “You know why…”

Draco could barely vocalise above a whisper. “I need to know for real.”

Neville shook his head. “I can’t say it yet. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…” He removed his hand and got up, walking quickly back to the castle.

Fuckity fuck fuck. Why did he have to just push and push until he pushed Neville away? He flopped his arm over his eyes and turned up the music. He wished he had gotten that album from the booth. It was the only thing he really wanted to listen to right now.

He thought of being in the booth with Neville. It would have been so easy to just press his body against Neville, let his hand glide along Neville’s cheek, press his lips to Neville’s lips and feel his breath. He wondered at the timbre of the moan Neville would make if he enjoyed it. He thought of getting on his knees and pulling out Neville’s cock to wrap his lips around it. He thought of the feeling of Neville’s hand in his hair, guiding him gently. He thought of how Neville’s face would look as he brought him closer and closer to coming, and how he would swallow it all when Neville came in his mouth.

He was quite hard now, and adjusted himself to hide his tented state. He had never let himself think of his friend in such detail before. He felt like he had cheated on Hermione somehow. But, he was definitely having the same thoughts about Neville now that he had about Hermione before they got together the first time. Obviously, with Neville there were fewer confusing power dynamics between them than there had been with Hermione, but Draco’s longing was spiking with the same intensity.

Could he even tell Hermione about this? She had seemed positively unbothered by the revelation that he was attracted to both women and men, so maybe she would understand? Plus, she had shagged Neville first, in both ways.

The thought of Hermione and Neville together only made Draco’s cock twitch painfully. He would need to do something about this whole situation.

But really, how open could he be with the Gryffindors? He wanted to believe Hermione would choose him if she knew he wanted them both, but he absolutely did not believe it right now. He wanted them both, together. But he absolutely did not deserve either of them, let alone both of them.

He found himself trying to pinpoint the moment he had begun wanting Neville. Seventh year was such a messy blur. He had been persona non-grata with most of the school after his attempt on Dumbledore’s life. Plus, he had done nothing about the Death Eaters running the school. But Neville had been right up in the Carrows’ faces, telling them they were wrong. He supposed he thought of Neville as the kind of man he wished he had been able to be- a bit of a vigilante, fighting for what was actually right, not the reluctant villain Draco was.

He heard footsteps approaching and removed his arm from his eyes, blinking up at the approach of someone whose head seemed to be on fire. He sat up and made sure his flagging erection was hidden.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Are boys just always touching their dicks?”

Draco shrugged. “I mean, they ARE just right there all the time. They need adjusting.” He gestured to the grass beside him. “Sit?”

She flopped into the grass more gracefully than the resulting whump sounded. “You’ve got Neville into the muggle music, too?”

Draco nodded.

She began shredding the grass before her. “Why are you going along with this shite idea of Hermione’s?”

He sighed. “Well, uh, I don’t know if I am yet, actually. I just feel like if she wants something different than the soul bond, she deserves it.” He made his choice in that moment. “And, what if we would be happier with a different bond? Neither of us ever thought we would even get the soul bond since it disappeared through the wall.”

“I just always heard that people who ignore their bond or don’t work to achieve it if it’s possible had something wrong with them. I’m afraid to talk to anyone about it, you know? No one will understand that it’s supposed to be for something bigger.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “You know it’s no one else’s business, Tiny Weasley. Merlin and Morgana, you Gryffindors need to figure out how to put the world on a need-to-know basis…”

She smacked him in the arm. “Well, maybe Slytherins need to figure out how to share their feelings a bit more, Pointy Face…”

Draco shrugged.

“Speaking of feelings… how was your shopping trip this afternoon, arsehole?”

He glanced at her vaguely. “Why is that speaking of feelings?”

“Because Hermione isn’t the only Gryffindor you like, you prat.” She pushed him over.

He sat back up and braced himself on his hand. “Is that so, Impervius? According to your brilliant powers of observation?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not denying it.”

“Do I have to deny every rumour about myself that isn’t true? I’ll need to get a personal secretary just for that.”

She pushed him again. “Still not a denial.”

He sighed. “If I did like more than one Gryffindor, which is not an acknowledgment that I do, simply talking through a hypothetical, but if I did, would it be fair of me? I’m with Hermione. I’ll always choose her, and I won’t do anything that would jeopardise my relationship with her.”

Ginny sighed. “Draco, you can’t know if you don’t ask. You don’t know what she would say. You know as well as I do that triads are a whole thing in wizarding society. Everything I’ve ever heard of them is that they just sort of happen, when they happen. If anything, this just seems like all the more reason in favor of severing the strings for you all. Fuck!” She slapped the ground. “Fuck! Did I just convince myself? Fuck!”

“Tiny Weasley, have you considered you might have some unresolved anger issues?” He immediately put his arms up to shield himself from the flurry of blows that hit him. “This is only further proving my point!”

“I! Don’t! Have! Anger! Problems!”

Eventually, she calmed down again, pushing her hair back from her face.

“So, Great Impervius One, do you really think Hermione might be okay with it?”

Ginny shrugged. “Can’t be any worse than the shite she’s already handling out of your childhood.”

“That’s not really reassuring.”

She pushed him again. “That’s because you’re still a wanker. But, I have no idea what she’ll think, quite honestly.”

Draco stared at her. “Have you ever been anything BUT honest, though?”

“Fuck you.”

They sat in something like comfortable silence watching the squid surface and float around the lake before getting up to go to dinner. Draco marvelled at the way the silence between them actually was comfortable. The Gryffindors just seemed so much more at ease in their own skin than his Slytherin friends were. Everyone in Slytherin had their own secret agendas. Merlin knew he certainly had. But, the Gryffindors just all said everything on their minds and there seemed to be no waiting for the other shoe to drop. He thought there should be a happy medium where you could be open, but not so open your mind fell out. Most of the Ravenclaws seemed to operate that way, although his one Ravenclaw friend was a bit of an extreme exception.

At dinner, Draco sat with Ginny and Luna.

Luna kept staring at him until finally he set down his fork and knife. “Is something wrong, Luna?”

She smiled sweetly. “Not really. I was just noticing how your wall is gone. I’m glad.”

He suddenly felt cold. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me you told me so?”

She shook her head. “You couldn’t have had what you wanted without putting everything together, Draco.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about, Luna?”

Luna stared at Draco. It was unnerving.

Draco could feel himself getting agitated. “I had an Occlumency wall that I was keeping the bad shit behind. The wall disappeared. That’s what happened that brought Healer Simons. Luna somehow predicted it, and I’m getting really sick of the Alithini Diairesis shit she’s pulling. With my mind, AND with whatever’s going on between her and Neville.”

Luna frowned. “It’s all connected, Draco. There’s nothing disconnected. I’m sorry that I hurt you. But, I’m not sorry that this is all happening.”

Ginny threw up her hands in frustration. “What’s happening?!”

Luna looked at her. “‘This shite idea of Hermione’s’ is how you’re thinking of it, I think.”

Ginny paled. “That’s not funny, Luna.” She crawled off the bench and walked away without looking back.

Draco lowered his voice, suddenly feeling venom in his voice. “So, we’re all going to sever, then? Is that it? And, you’ve seen it all, Alithini Diairesis? This isn’t some thought experiment, Ravenclaw. You grew up in this, you know it’s a big fucking deal and that no one does it. And, you know you can’t just see into people’s heads and futures without consequences.”

Luna still had a pleasant neutral expression. “I know my consequences, Draco Malfoy. Have you considered the consequences of not severing? The feeling that you’ll always want something you can’t have, the knowledge you let him slip out of your life, the feeling you will never be able to shake that you’ve disappointed her, the surety that you let the tether of fate rule your life. Are you ready for those feelings, to open yourself enough to let contentment in, Draco?”

Draco’s mouth was dry and he spoke in a whisper. “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you getting into my head? I haven’t done anything to you…”

Luna looked away. “I want him to be alright without me. But, for that to happen, many other things must happen first.”

“Can’t you just love him?”

Luna shook her head, still focused on a point on the floor beyond him. “It’s not that simple. We don’t work. And, no matter what we do, we won’t ever work. And no one will ever understand, and we’ll both be alone, just alone.” She looked up at him again. “You understand the ‘just’ of it, Draco.”

Her knowledge of private conversations was maddening. “Yes. But won’t this make the ‘just’ even worse?”

She shook her head sadly.

Draco felt his head begin to ache. “I have to go.”

He went immediately to the hospital wing for one of his treatments. Madam Pomfrey was disappointed in him for not coming back immediately after his panic attack.

After all that happened today, he had no idea what to say to Hermione. Neville came to bed drunk again and chatted to him about nothing until he fell asleep. Draco tried to compose a letter to Hermione on a scratch piece of parchment, but no words made any sense together. He gave up late that night and fell asleep with the aid of a potion.

The next day brought him to St Mungos to see Healer Simons. They did no Occlumency work, only diagnostics where Draco spoke about various memories he kept behind the wall while she stared at the lights above and around his head.

“Have you spoken to, or written to Hermione since we last saw each other?”

Draco sighed. “No. I got a reply from her that made me feel weirdly bad. It was full of things I wanted to hear, but they didn’t make me feel like I thought they would. I don’t think I only want her.”

Healer Simons nodded. “So, you might be looking for a triad?”

Draco blushed. “I don’t think I went looking, to be honest.”

She smiled knowingly. “No one ever goes looking for a triad.”

He was confused. “What does that mean, and why is that the only thing I’ve ever heard?”

She shrugged. “Maybe it’s true? Maybe that’s why that’s what you hear?”

Draco made a grunt of frustration. “Okay, Healer, so it always feels like you’re losing your mind? Like you have to make this life-altering choice that feels like a strange lie you’re telling yourself about your happiness? Like you can’t decide because you’ll either disappoint yourself or someone you love more than you thought yourself able to love?”

She shook her head. “Only before.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “All of that goes away when the triad solidifies. It’s a gift.”

Draco felt like he had just grown a second head next to the first one. “I don’t feel well.” He rested his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. This felt like the most dangerous conversation imaginable. He had not even written back to Hermione. He could not string two sentences together that felt true.

“Draco, I’m going to need you to take this potion and I’ll do the treatment. This is an extremely alarming diagnostic. You haven’t written to Hermione?”

Draco shook his head weakly.

“Do you think the Hermiones in your head might have some issues with that?”

Draco nodded.

She sighed. “Study the brain, they said… It’ll always be interesting, they said…”

Draco cracked an eyelid.

She smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, Draco. This is just very strange and I wish I had an idea of how to help you beyond what I’m already doing. I’d like to write to some Occlumency specialists I know to see if they have any ideas, if that’s alright with you?”

Draco nodded.

She performed the procedure and this time Draco watched her pull the dark gray and red from his head and deposit it in the water by his side.

Then he was off into the world again.

He found another music store near St Mungos and bought the Smashing Pumpkins album from the booth. He flooed back to Hogwarts and set himself concertedly to writing back to Hermione.

He read and re-read her response. He tried to find one true thing he could say to her for each paragraph of the bits that mattered.

He loved her. He missed her. He wanted to be with her in a way that meant something to their shared trauma.

In the late afternoon, he lay in his bed with the curtains drawn and went to the place in his mind where the wall had been. It felt less like a place now than it had in the days before. He brought up one of the versions of her, and the idea of a couch.

She was herself in the courtroom on the day of his father’s trial.

“Hermione, I keep trying to say the right thing to you. And, I can’t get the words out. It’s driving me mad.”

She took his hand. “And, you think if you can tell some version of me, it’ll help?”

He nodded.

“What if you say the wrong thing to me?”

He searched her face. “You’ll hate me again. You won’t ever trust me. You’ll find me lacking and you’ll stop loving me.”

She arched an eyebrow.

He looked into her eyes. “How much do you know about what happens after the trial?”

She shrugged. “All of it, if you want me to.”

He gave her everything.

“So, you’re afraid you can’t tell me about Neville.” He nodded. “And if you say it wrong, I’ll take away everything we’ve shared so far?” He nodded. “Because I love all your words just because you’ve somehow managed only the right ones so far?” He stared at her. “Draco, you’re an idiot sometimes.

He frowned. “Can you tell me what’s happened since the wall disappeared? I don’t understand why it seems to be causing more of the headaches. And, why all the yous inside me have issues with me not having written back to the real you yet?”

She pursed her lips. “I think it’s the same reason I’m personally a bit annoyed that you’re asking the version of me in your head what I think instead of asking the real me. I’m not really me in here, no matter how much you watch the real me and add your experience to the me in your head. I’ll never be her. I’ll only ever be your perception of her. You’re treating me like I have the answers the real Hermione has, but you know I don’t!” She got up from the couch. “I’m not the real me. You can’t treat me like I’m a proxy for her. You have to just say the wrong fucking thing and live with the consequences.”

Draco threw up his hands in frustration. “That’s not what I’m doing! I just need to know what I know, and I need to know what’s preventing me from doing what I need to do!”

She got right up in his face, leaning over the sofa to box him in. “Then, why am I Hermione? Why aren’t you asking yourself? Why am I not another Draco? You want me to do the thing Hermione does where she just fixes everything for everyone around her. You didn’t want the real her to have to do that anymore, but you’re perfectly happy to make me do it.”

There was no space anymore. There was no sofa. There was only the idea of her, pressing against the idea of him.

She whispered. “The pieces of her are just what you’ve made from your memories, Draco. Those pieces are you now. Let me go. You don’t need them to protect her, and you don’t need them to understand her. Those pieces are you now, Draco.”

He did not understand. It hurt. It felt like shards of glass piercing him everywhere. His eyes opened.

He could feel her voice inside him, whispering. “The pain will fade. She was never real in here. Those pieces you thought were her, they were always you.

He sobbed aloud. How had he done this to himself? He felt he had never known her at all, nor had he known himself.

A knock sounded on his bedpost. Neville’s voice called out, “Draco, are you alright? We’re alone right now, if you want to talk.”

Draco pulled open one section of curtain and nodded at Neville. He scooted over in bed as Neville crawled in and sat against the headboard. Neville cast the muffliato.

Draco took a deep shuddering breath through his tears. “I had this wall in my head. I made it with Occlumency. And, I kept all of the bad stuff I’d thought, and everything from my father, and all the awful things I wanted to do to Her-Hermione, I pushed it all behind the wall.” He took another shuddering breath and felt Neville’s hand on his back, rubbing circles. “And, apparently you’re not supposed to use Occlumency that way. It’s unstable. And, all of that stuff behind the wall became its own thing, a monster, and, and, it was so much of her that it basically became a new version of her, that wanted to see the world burn. And, she found a way to finally escape, and she made the wall disappear, like it had never been there.” He sobbed and tried to regain his composure. “That’s what happened, when you found me Monday night. I tested the wall and it didn’t exist anymore. I’ve never been more terrified in my life. Snape never said anything about this when he taught it to me.”

He sniffed and sat up, not sure how close to get, so he ended up hugging his knees to his chest. Neville resumed gently rubbing his back. “When it happened, I was writing to Hermione in this journal that she twinned so we can write back and forth without owls. It was a lot of very intense shite that I don’t even know how much I actually felt it, or how much I just didn’t want things to change. She wrote me back and chewed me out thoroughly, but like, hopefully? And, I don’t know what to say back, and something in me has been really upset about that. Like, the ideas of her I’ve had in my mind all these years, everything I’ve ever thought of her, it’s like they WERE her to me, somehow.” He sighed. “I’ve been trying to figure out what to say to her, and it’s just not working, and I needed to know what she thought, what that idea of her I have, what she thinks I should say, or why that idea of her is angry and won’t let me know what to say. So, I asked her, that idea of her inside me. And, she accused me of making her, the idea of her, do all the work like the real her did all the work for everyone all those years.” He choked on a sob. “She said she’s just pieces of me, that everything that made up the idea of her is just pieces of me now, and she was always pieces of me, and then she disappeared, Neville. She became just shards that pierced me, and it hurts, and she’s gone somehow. She’s not this cohesive thing anymore. Those pieces ARE me.” He put his head down on his arms and sobbed.

Neville scooted closer and put his arms around Draco. Draco sobbed harder. What was happening? He unfolded from hugging his legs and put his arms around Neville, crying into the other man’s shoulder.

Neville was so solid. Now Draco was holding him, he felt like things might be alright. It was an incredible sense of calm. His breathing slowed.

Neville’s voice rumbled from his chest. “You did a lot to hide the fact you have feelings, didn’t you?” Draco nodded into his shoulder, afraid to break whatever had let them be this close. “I’m sorry all that happened. It sounds really scary.” They lapsed into silence again, that comfortable silence of Gryffindor intimacy.

A noise came from the stairwell and Neville reached behind him to flick the curtains closed. His voice rumbled softly. “No one’s business.”

Draco suddenly felt terrified of what he might do, and tensed, pulling away.

Neville immediately pulled away, too. “I’m sorry, I’ll just open them again.”

Draco caught him by the shoulder as he turned. “No I just, I don’t know what this is, Neville. I’m just, I just, I’m with Hermione, but…” He looked into Neville’s eyes and his chest felt tight. “You.”

Neville nodded and his hand found Draco’s leg. “Yeah. It feels like I’m losing my mind. I was so worried about you, Draco. I’m still so worried about you. But, it’s not like how I worry about anyone else. I’m afraid this stuff with your mind will take you away from me.” He rested his forehead against Draco’s. “You’re not mine, but I wish you were.”

Draco nodded, so close to him, but not close enough. “I have to tell Hermione. I want you both. I just want you both so badly.”

Neville cupped the back of Draco’s head gently. “That sounds perfect.” He turned Draco’s head to the side and kissed his cheek. Draco turned Neville’s head to the side and kissed his cheek.

They lay down and simply held each other, Draco’s head on Neville’s chest, and vice versa, just feeling the existence of each other.

Draco dozed off and woke again when he heard someone fumbling with the door to the room. It was fully night now. Neville was snoring softly beneath his head. Draco cast the muffliato again and softly slipped out of bed through the curtains.

He had to write something to Hermione. He cast the Nocte Visibilis and opened the journal. He just started writing, not knowing what to say or where he was going.

      I’m so sorry I haven’t responded. Too much has happened. I know everything less than I did before, somehow, but some things are even more true than I knew before, too.
      Are you coming back soon? I need you. To tell you things and feel you near. Let me give you some of those words you like so much…
           Love, Draco

He was surprised when barely thirty seconds after he finished writing, he began to see an answer appear.

H: I’m coming back tomorrow afternoon, I think. Are you alright? I miss you.

D: Honestly, I’m not really very alright. I wish I hadn’t said that, but I can’t take it back. I’m alright enough. I’m fine now. Fuck.

H: Wow, it is incredible how not-reassuring those four sentences were, strung together like that. What is happening, boyfriend?

D: It’s an incredibly long story. I got some bad instruction on the limitations of Occlumency from Snape, and it led to me putting too much behind an occlumency wall which failed after I wrote to you Monday.

H: What the fuck?!

D: And, there was a bunch of stuff of you from the bad times behind the wall, and then that all got complicated with the rest of my stuff. I really don’t want to write it all out. Can we talk tomorrow? I’m on medical leave from my probation work.

H: WHAT?!?!

D: I’m sorry! It’s almost impossible to write when a part of me literally won’t let me do it!

H: What the hell are you talking about?! You’re not making any sense!

D: I know! I can’t explain it all right now! Please just trust me that I’m okay?

H: … Fine. But, you are taking as long as I need to explain all of this to me tomorrow. Do you understand me?

D: Yes.

H: Is that all that’s happened since I’ve been fucking reading at the Burrow? Are you still there? Oh, god, what else is it?

D: No, it’s just the other thing is on a totally different subject.

H: Fucking what is it, Draco?!

D: Remember when I said I didn’t not like Neville?

H: You like Neville?

D: Yes.

H: Is he bisexual, too?!

D: I think so? Are you still there?

H: Yes, just figuring out how I feel about this. Does Neville like you?

D: Yes? I think so? Unless I’ve misinterpreted signals from a Gryffindor, which is unlikely, I think he likes me.

H: I’m still here, just thinking more.

D: Sure.

H: Triads are a thing in wizard society?

D: From the little I know, yes. Just heard of them, like everyone’s got an aunt or uncle whose best friends are in a triad, or someone has 3 parents, but they don’t talk about it, it’s just a thing that everyone knows about, but no one knows about, sort of. It really is that unclear.

H: It’s like they’re fucking urban legends or something.

D: I don’t know what that means, but it’s fine.

H: Still here.

D: Yeah.

H: Do you still want to be with me?

D: YES!

H: And, you want to be with Neville, too?

D: Yes, I think so.

H: Is this your Slytherin way of asking me for permission?

D: Yes, of course.

H: Okay.

D: Okay, what?

H: Okay, if you want both of us, we’ll have to figure out how it works, with all three of us, but yes, I want whatever this is, for you.

D: I love you, Hermione.

H: I love you, Draco. Fucking obviously. Get ready for a day of talking tomorrow.

D: You are going to Gryffindor intimacy the fuck out of me, and I will love every minute of it.

H: Go get some sleep, you head case. Snog that man if you haven’t yet. I’m not talking to the two of you if you have unresolved sexual tension. Sounds like a nightmare.

H: Are you still there? No? Good. I’ll just go take care of myself right now, then, thinking of hot men snogging...

Chapter Text

July 16-18, 1998

Draco closed the book as soon as Hermione wrote that he should go snog the boy. He removed his jeans and slipped back into the curtained bed to find Neville snoring lightly, half on his side.

He pushed gently on Neville’s arm and Neville opened his eyes. “Draco? Did we fall asleep? What time is it?”

“Going on two A.M.” He took a breath before changing everything. “I talked to Hermione.”

Neville’s eyes widened and he gripped Draco’s hand, making Draco suddenly aware that Neville had already been holding his hand. “What happened?”

“Neville, why did you ask me yesterday how I knew I was bisexual?”

Neville swallowed. “Because I wanted to know if I could tell by how you could tell.”

Draco felt his heart pound in his chest. “Did it help?”

Neville shook his head. “No. I think I already knew.”

Draco’s face was so close to Neville’s. “Knew what?”

“You know…”

Draco’s voice came out in the smallest whisper. “But, I need to know for real.”

“What did Hermione say?”

“She said to go snog that boy because she doesn’t want to deal with talking to us about a triad tomorrow if we have unresolved sexual tension.”

Draco could feel Neville’s smile against his chin. “She has a point.” He blinked slowly, staring into Draco’s eyes in the almost-void of the night. “Can I kiss you, Draco?”

Draco nodded. Neville tilted his head just the barest amount closer to Draco’s, catching Draco’s lips in a sweet kiss that left them both breathless when they parted a moment later.

Neville’s hands had roamed down over Draco’s shoulders, down his arms, to hold him at the waist. Draco found his arms wrapping around Neville’s shoulders, running up his neck into his hair. As soon as they had parted from their first kiss, they snapped back together, finding it was too much to be apart right now. Mouths parted, and Draco’s tongue was wrestled into submission. He let a moan slip out that Neville claimed, pulling Draco closer into his lap.

Their kisses roamed down throats, onto chests, creating rumbling moans. Draco pulled off Neville’s shirt, kissing and licking down through his chest hair. His tongue circled a nipple, eliciting a light whimper from Neville. He did the same to the other nipple, receiving a similar sound. He palmed Neville’s crotch, extremely pleased with the muffled moan he received and at what he felt in Neville’s trousers.

Neville reached for Draco in return. Draco felt so sensitive today, he could nearly come from just rutting alone. He gasped and squeezed lightly on Neville’s cock through the fabric.

“Draco? If we just touch each other, no mouths or anything, do you think it’s okay if we come?”

Draco pressed against Neville’s hand. “Do I think it’s okay, or does Hermione think it’s okay?” His voice had lowered involuntarily… he was probably about to get off with the man he liked! “I think she wants to talk tomorrow with two people who can think of something other than the unknown.” He nipped at Neville’s lip. “And, I think hands are wonderful just by themselves.”

Neville smiled against Draco’s neck, nibbling lightly down his collarbone. “I do want to put my lips around your cock, Draco.” The member in question throbbed in Neville’s hand at that. “Mm, you like that idea? It was all I could think of in that booth yesterday. I just wanted to kneel before you, between your legs with my face buried in your lap.”

Draco pushed their hips together, rubbing his length against Neville’s. He fumbled for Neville’s fly and zipper, pulling his trousers off entirely. “I wanted to kiss you so badly in that booth, too, Neville. I have been wanting you so badly, especially this week. I had the most painful erection down at the lake yesterday thinking about you fucking my mouth in that booth, too.”

Neville was reaching into Draco’s shorts and Draco drew a breath in through clenched teeth as Neville’s hand wrapped around his cock, squeezing lightly before twisting gently and working up and down the shaft.

Draco wasted no time, reaching into Neville’s shorts to pull out his cock. He ran his thumb around the head, pulling a whimper from Neville’s lip-bitten mouth as he slowly and firmly pumped up and down the shaft. He focused his mouth on a lovely spot below Neville’s ear to lick and suck, pulling more and more moans and whimpers from Neville’s lungs.

Neville seemed to have lost track of Draco’s cock, fisting the sheets as Draco worked on his cock. He helped Draco understand how to touch him, and soon, he was gasping Draco’s name, as Draco’s other hand slid up into Neville’s hair (so soft).

Draco’s hand was soon covered in Neville’s come and he gave an experimental lick. Very nice.

Neville found his wand and vanished the rest before reaching for Draco again. Now it was Draco’s turn to direct Neville on the proper handling of his member. Neville had also gone straight for Draco’s nipple and was gently teasing it with his teeth and flicking it with his tongue. As his peak approached, Draco pulled Neville’s face up to meet his again, kissing him with a moan. He came so hard, he saw white for a moment.

Neville removed the evidence again, and their lips met for another round of kissing, hard and needy. It felt like not enough. Slowly, they came down and rested in a cuddle, Draco falling quickly to sleep.

In the morning, Draco woke up as the little spoon. It absolutely would not do to have a repeat of last night, despite his own erection and the one he could feel poking him gently in the arse. He rolled over.

Neville’s blue eyes were looking at him, blinking with sleep.

Draco smiled. “Good morning, love.”

Neville reached out and pushed a strand of hair off Draco’s forehead. “That was wonderful last night.”

Draco took his hand where it had come to rest on his face. “Yes, although I didn’t really get to SEE anything… Hermione will be extremely put out…” He arched an eyebrow.

Neville bit his lip through a grin. “Well, anything for Hermione…” He reached down and pulled off his shorts, cock springing free.

Draco did the same, grabbing his wand to cast muffliato again. They lay side by side, staring at each other.

After breakfast, Draco felt like he was simply waiting for Hermione to arrive. Time dragged on painfully slowly. The Headmistress would not let him be around the construction as he should not be doing the kind of protective spells that would keep him safe.

He received an owl from his mother, telling him about the schedule of tearing down the Manor. Three-quarters of the north wing had been demolished already, and should be complete by the end of the week, to be followed by the east wing next week. Her hope that he was well was a more pointed statement after their conversation Tuesday than it normally would be. He wrote back that he was quite well, following Healer Simons’s orders. He hoped that she was well and taking care of herself with the demolition of the Manor.

At lunch, Luna was saying her odd sort of goodbyes before leaving this afternoon for her father’s new house in Wales.

By the end of the lunch break, Draco was left alone with Luna and Ginny waiting for Xenophilius Lovegood to arrive. Draco had not spoken to Luna since their extremely odd conversation two days before.

She turned from Ginny at a lull in their conversation. “Draco, I’m glad you’ve finally considered your consequences. And, that you’re letting everything connect.” She gave something approximating a cheeky smirk.

Draco blushed. Of course Luna knew he and Neville had “connected” last night...and this morning. “I’m not sure how much you had to do with it, but I guess I’m glad you approve?” He realised he had not had a headache or even the piercing body pain so far this morning.

Ginny suddenly had a look of dawning realisation that morphed into excited surprise on her face and Draco put his arm up to shield himself from the blows that came immediately. “How! Could! You! Hide! This! WANKER!” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You and Neville? Does Hermione know?”

Draco nodded. “I talked to her last night in the journal we share.”

“Morgana’s perky tits! I called it! I told Hermione you’d all have a threesome! When is she coming back?! Is she freaking out?”

Draco arched an eyebrow in confusion. “About my brain shite, or the Neville thing? She said she’d be back this afternoon.”

“Oh, fuck, Pointy, I forgot about your brain shite… But I meant Neville.”

Luna snickered. “Oh, Hermione is much more upset about the brain shite.”

Draco rolled his eyes.

The doors of the Great Hall opened and several things happened in very quick succession. Xenophilius walked into the hall, smiling widely as his eyes found Luna. Then, his face went slack as he saw Draco and he drew his wand, shooting an orange hex at Draco. Draco tried to duck out of the way, but the hex caught him in the shoulder. He fell to the floor with a grunt. As he lay on the floor in the greatest pain he had ever felt outside the Cruciatus, Ginny had drawn her wand and threw a full-body bind at Xenophilius.

Luna simply sat at the table sipping her tea.

Draco could hear himself screaming. He had quickly ceased feeling anything at all. He could hear Ginny yelling and swearing. Then McGonagall was yelling, and Neville was speaking calmly. Then suddenly, he could hear nothing, but he was not asleep. He knew time was still passing but he seemed to be out of touch with his senses.

Some time later, he began to be aware of two people speaking near him again. He could not make out what they were saying or who they were, but he could make out the rhythm of a stilted conversation.

Then there was the sensation of light quite a while later. Then, he could feel something touching his face, then his hand. Someone was squeezing his hand.

Hermione’s voice was not loud, but it was clear. “Draco, love, you’ve been hit with a bad hex. I’m here. It’s working its way out of your system and you’ll be okay again soon. Squeeze my hand when you can. Hmm, was that a twitch I felt? Clever boy. Neville is here, too. Hold his other hand…”

Draco could feel his other hand held now.

Hermione’s voice whispered in his ear now and he could feel her breath. “He really really likes you, Draco. Why didn’t you tell me how serious he was about you? You’ve got yourself in it now, love. Two Gryffindors? You won’t have any idea what to do with us, soon…”

Neville chuckled. “Well, he’s still got his sense of humor, I guess. Did you see that little Draco smirk?”

Hermione’s laugh pealed like a bell. “Draco, can you squeeze one of our hands? … Almost did it that time.”

Neville’s side squeezed his hand again. “I know you can hear us, Draco. It’s been a few hours since the hex. Xenophilius is detained. It’s some kind of pain hex and they said it just knocked your system out entirely. You’re going to be fine, though. Your favorite Healer is back, and you’re on some good potions, and they did that dark water thing again.”

Draco squeezed as hard as he could on Neville’s hand.

“Oh! That’s the stuff!” Neville sounded delighted.

Draco squeezed as hard as he could on Hermione’s hand.

Hermione’s voice was sweet and light but mocking. “Oh, I see how it’ll be. Bros before hoes? Lovely start to the relationships, Draco.”

Neville sounded surprised. “You’re really okay with it?”

Hermione’s voice softened. “Yes. I love you both and although I’m not IN love with you yet, it’s just a matter of time.”

“I think that’s where I am, too. It’s just a matter of time.”

Draco very much needed to be a part of this conversation and put his whole being into squeezing both of their hands together.

Neville laughed and Draco felt his kiss on his hand. “He wants to say something, too.” Neville imitated Draco’s drawl. “You Gryffindors are all the same, love this, feelings that. Why, in Slytherin, we keep our feelings inside where they do the most good.”

Hermione giggled. “No, it’s more like,” she deepened her voice and did a much better impression of Draco’s accent, “You’re both hopelessly under my spell, you see. I get everything I want. I’m Draaaacooo.”

“...Of course you wait to mock me until I can’t defend myself.” Draco’s voice came out as a whisper. He tried to blink his eyes open and barely made them open.

Hermione was smiling. “There he is. I’d ask how you feel, but I know you still can’t really feel much.”

Draco thought his mouth might have twitched. “Lovegood?”

Neville cleared his throat. “The aurors took him into custody.”

“Luna?”

Neville and Hermione shared a look. Neville squeezed his hand. “She didn’t have anything to do with it. She is sort of pulling her Alithini Diairesis shit about it, though.”

Hermione was momentarily distracted, then her face was cast with worry. “Draco, they said now you’re out of the worst of it, they need to check you again. We have to go, but we’ll be close. I love you.”

Draco definitely felt himself smile. “I love you, too.”

Neville squeezed his hand again and leaned down to kiss Draco’s cheek. It felt impossibly intimate.

Healer Simons came into view and smiled down at Draco. “How’s my patient?”

Draco frowned. “Ugh.”

She rolled her eyes slightly and Draco was struck suddenly by how young she was.

“Draco, I’m going to take a look at your bodily systems and then, if it’s alright, I’d like to do some Leglimency work.”

“Yes, fine.”

The lights of the diagnostic lit around his body with that orange overwhelming everything else. Why did spells all have different colors? Who would know? Hermione?

The lights disappeared again. “Okay, things are progressing well.” She sat by the bed. “Are you ready for me?”

“Mm, yeah.”

Then, Madeleine was inside his head. “Draco, did that place disappear?”

“Yes, it’s gone. I tried to ask a memory of her what to say to the real her and she, well, take a look.” He showed her what happened yesterday afternoon.

“That’s pretty scary, Draco. I will say, it explains some of the things in your diagnostic, though.” Draco felt a sense of affection from her, almost sisterly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have let that through…” The feeling receded.

“Are we friends now, Madeleine?” Draco sent the idea of a smirk.

“Not until you stop being my patient, Draco. Now, what do you think it means that she reintegrated that way?”

“I don’t know, you’re the specialist.”

“But, when it comes to the mind, the mind’s owner is its best expert with regard to meaning.”

“Merlin’s pants… Fine. Maybe it meant that I needed to stop holding all those memories of her as a separate part of myself?”

“How does it feel now? Now that she’s no longer a separate person?”

Draco poked around his feelings and sense of self. “Weirdly normal? Does this usually happen so quickly? It was just a couple of days ago that the wall vanished.”

“Yes, this is really very quick, but you’re young and motivated to right your mind. You’d only had your bad habit for a couple of months. People I treat usually need much more coaxing to understand that their Occlumency was not working how they planned and expected it to work.”

“So, it’s okay that it all just feels like it disappeared back into me?”

“Do you feel like it’s okay, the fact that it’s not a place anymore? Is that distressing?”

“I guess it’s not really distressing. It feels basically okay now the pain has gone away.” He sighed. “What did this hex of Lovegood’s actually do?”

“It turned on all your pain receptors at once and turned them up to eleven. It was nearly accidental magic, and only barely a hex at all. It’s honestly amazing he only hit you. Anyway, it blew out all your pain receptors entirely. That’s why you couldn’t feel anything for a few hours, and why all your senses cut out fairly quickly. I’m just glad your boyfriend cast the right anaesthesia charm, and not Stupefy like most people would have. Layering magic on magic without knowing what you’re doing can be really dangerous.”

Draco felt an extremely odd sort of rushing feeling at knowing she saw Neville as his boyfriend. “Is he my boyfriend?”

“Isn’t he?”

“What else needs to be done in here, Healer?”

“Oh, I’ve checked everything I need to, now. You should try to push me…”

Draco opened his eyes again with little difficulty.

Healer Simons gave an audible snort. “I see how it is. It’s safe for you to actually sleep now. Do you want to do that, even though it’s just coming up on dinner time?”

“Yes, I think so. Can I talk to Hermione and Neville first?”

“Yes, I’ll go get a couple of potions for you and they can help you take them. I’m glad you’re alright, Draco. I’ll owl you to schedule our next appointment.”

“Sure.”

Hermione and Neville returned to his sides.

“Will one of you stay with me?”

Their faces both melted and they answered in unison. “Of course!” “Yes!”

Draco frowned. “I’m sorry we couldn’t talk today. I really wanted to.”

Hermione smiled and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “It’s alright. We just want you to be well again. The conversation will keep until you’re well.”

He smiled at them each in turn, feeling quite exhausted. “I think I’d like my sleeping potions now.”

Neville helped him sit up a little bit as Hermione helped him drink the two potions.

Draco felt the effects immediately. “You two better not have everything figured out by the time I wake up.” His eyes dropped closed. “And, no fucking…”

He was fully asleep before they stopped laughing.

Draco had a dream that he would later remember as the first actually pleasant dreams since the war.

He was laying in bed after sex with Neville and Hermione. Neville was braiding Hermione’s hair, which was longer again. A cat jumped onto the bed and came over to curl up beside Draco. It had the softest fur he had ever felt. He reached over and tried to braid Neville’s hair, although it was not long enough for it.

The scene changed. He was in an office at the Ministry, sitting behind the desk. Hermione poked her head in from the hall, just to say hello. Draco’s heart felt full. Hermione shot him a memo and he read it and laughed. He conjured his peacock patronus and sent it with the memo’s joke to Neville.

The scene changed again. He was behind the bar in a familiar pub. Neville came in the door in a Hogwarts professor’s robes and leaned over the bar to kiss Draco on the mouth, gentle crows feet at the corners of his eyes. The figure at the end of the bar cackled gently into their drink. Neville asked if Draco had Heard from Hermione yet. Draco had not yet, but then the fireplace roared to life and she appeared with a wide smile on her face. They would never guess what her meeting had actually been about!

The scene changed one final time. Draco woke in the night in a panic and pushed the covers down to reveal that his body was still intact. Hermione’s hand came up to rub his chest, right over his scar. His body was much older, the skin thinner. Hermione’s hand was wrinkled, and he could see Neville’s mostly-gray hair in the moonlight over her shoulder. Seeing they were both alright calmed his heart more than any breathing exercise he had ever learned.

When Draco awoke in the morning, he could feel everything mostly correctly again. Hermione had curled up in the bed against him with her hand on his chest. Neville sat in a chair beside the bed, reading what looked like a muggle gardening magazine.

Draco whispered so he did not wake Hermione. “I’ve had the best dream.”

Neville looked up and smiled. “Yeah? Luna said you would, even with the potions. She said she’s sorry for her father.”

“Did she put the dream in my head, or something?”

Neville shrugged. “Maybe? What happened?”

Draco recounted the dream as best he could remember. “It feels like what we’ll be like, in the future.”

Hermione stretched in an amazing imitation of a cat. “Well, it sounds lovely.” She smacked her lips. “Well, except for the night terrors when we’re old.”

Draco sighed. “What’s happening to Mr Lovegood? Is he remorseful? And, what day is it now?”

Neville rolled his eyes. “You’ve lost an awful lot of this week. It’s Saturday. Mr Lovegood doesn’t seem to remember what actually happened, and when they told him exactly what he’d done, he started crying. That’s all Luna said.”

Draco shrugged. “I’d rather he not be in trouble if he didn’t intend it. What do you two think?”

Hermione frowned. “I think as long as I don’t have to see him, I’m happy to let him go.”

Neville sighed. “I think he’s a dangerous idiot who needs help, but I don’t think he belongs in prison.” He leaned forward and put his hand on Draco’s, holding it lightly. “Why don’t you want him to be in trouble?”

Draco’s thumb grazed Neville’s thumb. “He reacted without thinking. I wish I didn’t have that effect on people, but who I am, and what I’ve done, and what my family represents will never go away. I just don’t want to punish anyone who hasn’t come to terms with themselves, and I especially don’t want to punish anyone who reacted wrong on a spur of the moment. I mean, he hasn’t seen Luna in a month, and then she’s sitting at a table with the son of the people who held her kidnapped in their home for months? I don’t like it, but it makes sense that it happened, you know?”

Hermione hugged him close. “I like that. It makes sense.”

Draco hugged her back. “I hope so. I did promise you some words, love.”

Hermione threw herself off the bed with an exclamation. “Oh! I just remembered! Since I’m not sure how long I’ll stay, I made another three sets of matching journals!” She went to the beaded bag she always kept with her and pulled seven books from it. The books were far larger than the bag itself. She pointed to the groupings of journals as she spoke. “These two are mine and Neville’s, then there’s Draco and Neville’s, and then these three are actually tripletted! Which, the tripletting spell was quite difficult to get right, and I’m extremely proud of myself for getting it to work correctly. What?”

Draco had an amazed smirk on his face. Neville’s eyes were just wide with awe.

“Well, I wasn’t going to have to send owls to you, Neville, or have both of you reading correspondence meant for only one of you, was I? I have to be able to talk to both of you, my loves.”

Neville stood up from his seat on the other side of Draco and walked around the bed to catch Hermione in a hug, then cupped his hands on her cheeks and kissed her soundly. “You learned magic to make these, Hermione… to include me. Thank you. So much.”

He held her for a moment before she shuffled them closer to the bed and reached for Draco to help him stand and be drawn into the hug with them. He felt a bit shaky, but the two of them supported him around the waist. It felt… just… right…

Draco broke off and sat on the bed again. “I need to find out if I can leave, then Hermione and I need to talk alone for a bit, and then I’d love to get you two to a quiet classroom and maybe we can figure out how this might work.”

Neville nodded. “I’ll go see if I can get some breakfast. I’ll bring back something for you two?” He went to Draco to kiss him on the forehead.

“Ughhhh! Just kiss him on the mouth!”

Neville gave Draco a small private smile, looking into his eyes as their lips met for a chaste kiss. “Back soon…”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled out of the cubicle.

Hermione hopped onto the bed beside Draco. “So, you’ve had a busy week, boyfriend… I was starting to worry I was too harsh, and then you came back with that lovely tiny letter, then the brain sickness, and then NEVILLE?!” Her face had a manic quality that made it impossible to tell if she was upset or just venting.

“I’m sorry? Are you upset?” He ventured to hold her hand.

“Yes! I’m always upset when I don’t know what’s going on. I spent half the night after you went to snog Neville trying to triplet three scraps of parchment out of panic over what you weren’t telling me! What happened, Draco!?”

Hermione was mostly quiet, taking in everything he was saying. Neville returned with breakfast sandwiches about a third of the way through the story. Madam Pomfrey gave him leave until the afternoon when she would take another diagnostic. He simply needed to stay on the grounds until then.

Draco finally finished his story an hour after beginning it. He knew she had needed to hear all of it, all of the weird shit he had been keeping behind the wall that had warped into that incredible version of Hermione who wanted to watch the world burn.

She was quiet for a few minutes after he finished. They were back at the same tree overlooking the lake. Finally she spoke, her voice sounding like she was trying not to cry. “I guess I thought most of the stuff you were hiding was just scary stuff you needed to purge because it was frightening. I didn’t know you were trying to hide ME from yourself. No wonder that version of me escaped. That was fucking awful to do to yourself, or to whoever she was. She must have been so scared, all the time. What was I supposed to do about any of this?!”

Draco’s jaw clenched. He could feel the struggle within him to protect her and punish her for that kind of thinking. His voice came out cold. “Hermione, the version of you I created in my mind is not your responsibility. You will never be able to do anything about the garbage that happened to me, or about how I tried and failed to fix myself. If you ever do anything to try to fix my mind FOR me, it will push me away more effectively than anything else you could do.”

Her eyes went wide in panic. “But…”

He put his finger on her lips. “No, Hermione. No. You can’t do anything about my mind.” She nodded and he released her. “This is not a puzzle you can figure out. You’ll just have to live with how I am at any given moment.”

She frowned and tucked herself into his side. “Okay.”

“So, now I’ve told you about my week, you can either tell me about your week, or I can try to suss out whether you’re accepting Neville and me under duress at all.”

She buried her face in his shoulder. “It’s a bit weird, I guess. I didn’t think I’d ever want to share you. I just knew I wanted you. And, that’s what I kept coming back to, when we were writing the other night. I just want you, and I kept trying to focus on why I didn’t want to share you, but there just wasn’t anything there.

“So, I thought about you and Neville and how we were all so comfortable together after the pub on Sunday, flirting with each other. I wanted you, but when I was with Neville, I wanted him, too. I think that whatever happens between you and Neville, I won’t stop wanting you. And, whatever happens between me and Neville, I won’t stop wanting you. It was always going to be you, and I’d still burn down the world to be with you. I’m just thinking that maybe there’s a condition I’d inflict on the world to be with Neville, too?”

He rested his head against hers. “You know, I never asked you to burn down the world. That was your idea.”

She shook her head. “I know. It was just such a vivid image, I had to run with it.” She turned his head to kiss him and he pulled her in for a proper snog.

Before it could lead to anything indecent for a weekend morning they parted, a bit breathless. Hermione smiled and sighed. “We should find him. I really can’t stand not knowing something, and I just need very badly to know what’s going to happen with this triad thing. Madam Pomfrey gave me this weird fucking pamphlet. Did you read this thing?” She pulled a trifold from her pocket and handed it to him.

“The Three of Us: A Guide to Understanding Your Magical Triad… Merlin and Morgana, this is the most specific pamphlet I’ve ever seen.”

Hermione giggled. “We’ll have to come up with another magical predecessor to go with Merlin and Morgana.”

Draco smirked. “Mitchell.” Hermione’s new giggle went straight to his core. “He’s Merlin and Morgana’s best friend who just fell into a relationship with them one day. He’s the shy one, which is why we’ve never heard of him before.”

She was nearly buzzing with delight. “I love you, Draco.” She tapped the pamphlet. “This was actually very informative. Did you know that about two percent of the wizarding population is in a triad relationship? And, for most triads, if two of the three were already in a relationship, that relationship was probably less than a month old when the triad formed. And, did you know that even if all three agree that there COULD be a triad, there is always a moment where they know that the triad has solidified itself somehow? And…”

Draco shook his head. “No, I didn’t know any of that. This is more information than I’ve ever considered about triads, darling. I think you’ll be the brains.”

Hermione laughed. “I have the brains, you have the looks, Neville will have to be the one to make lots of money.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed. “None of us will ever have to work a day in our lives with how rich I am. Why would Neville make lots of money?”

She sighed. “Sorry, it’s a muggle song lyric.” She sang it. “I guess he could be the looks.”

“I mean, I could be the brains, and you could make lots of money. Really add to the hoard.”

She rolled her eyes. “I almost don’t want to find him yet. Because, everything is really going to change then. And, I really do love being with you. Just you and just me.”

Draco nodded. “I love being with you, too, just us.” He kissed her head. “Let’s just be us for a couple of hours and then we’ll go see what we want for all three of us, yeah?” She nodded. “Okay, just give me a sec. I’m going to try something I saw myself do in that dream last night.”

He did a flourish with his wand and called out, “Expecto Patronum!” A life-sized spectral peacock burst from the tip of his wand. The bird had a glint of crankiness in its eye. “Err, go tell Neville, ‘We’ll meet you at lunch. We’re fine, just need a bit before we talk.”

The peacock took off into the sky momentarily before landing on a castle balcony and disappearing inside.

Draco looked at Hermione with a grin on his face. “That was so cool!”

She had a look of incredulity. “Your patronus is a fucking peacock, Draco! I mean, I know we don’t get to choose our patronuses, but for fuck’s sake, don’t let Ginny see that. She will literally never let anyone hear the end of it.”

“What, like her horse is so much better?” Draco was really proud of himself. He had not fully expected it would actually work, let alone on the first try.

“I mean, a horse is a normal animal. Peacocks are so… you know, stuffy.”

Draco leaned back against the tree trunk. “Well, I would say that a lot of people who haven’t seen me the way you’ve seen me would say the same about me.”

Hermoine sighed. “I guess you’re right.” She sat back against him and they stared out at the lake for a few minutes in sweet silence. “Wait, Draco, was that your first ever corporeal patronus?”

“Yes, it was. My first time even trying. I wish Professor Lupin taught us that one in DADA. The dementors that year were beyond terrifying.”

“How did you learn it, then?”

“I told you, I did it in my dream last night, and I just thought I could do it now. Obviously, I know the theory.”

“That’s so weird. That’s so similar to how Harry knew he would cast it the night of Buckbeak’s escape when the dementors were trying to kiss Sirius Black.”

“They tried to do what?!”

“Yea, that was a crazy night. It’s why I had my time turner taken away.”

Draco stared at her. “You had a bloody time turner?”

Hermione bit her lip, suddenly shy. “I wanted to take extra classes third year.”

“Those are just incredibly carefully regulated.”

“Yes. I know. I had one for nine months. It was a huge pain in the arse to keep it secret. I had to submit my memories to the Department of Mysteries twice a month to prove I hadn’t used it for anything except school work. Then I used it to save Buckbeak and Sirius and they took it away. I had to drop a class… It was extremely upsetting…” She seemed to have actual tears in her eyes.

Draco hugged her closer and rubbed her arm. “It definitely sounds like too much for a thirteen year old.”

She sighed. “You know, I never think of myself as being too young for anything. In my memories, I’m my age, whatever it is when I’m remembering. And, I always feel like I’m prepared for whatever I’m doing, you know? But, then I think about what a thirteen year old should be doing, and saving a man’s life using time magic is not one of those thirteen year old things.” She scowled. “I hate that he made me into this person.”

“Dumbledore?”

She nodded. “I thought he hung the moon for so long, and now that everything is done, I’m just so angry. I don’t know why he had to use children to accomplish what he couldn’t do. And, Harry and Ron don’t understand why I feel this way. Well, Harry maybe understands a bit, but Ron won’t hear a word of it. Our lives were all shaped by this human chess game played by old men. We never got in appropriate trouble for anything we did, no matter how badly we broke the rules.”

He sighed. “I know. I was there. It was maddening, watching you all break the rules and get away with it because you were Dumbledore’s favorites. But honestly, most of the rules you broke were intended to keep us all safe, and clearly Dumbledore didn’t give a shit about whether you got hurt. You all got hurt a lot, and he must have known about all of it and didn’t prevent any of it.”

Hermione was quiet, leaning into him. When she spoke, she was clearly crying. “Do you think he knew about my parents? What I did to my parents? He was still alive when I did it, so he probably knew, right? Oh my god…”

He held her as she cried. There was nothing he could say. “I don’t know. We’ll probably never know, love. Can I help you find them? Please?”

She sobbed once and nodded, holding him hard enough he thought he might bruise.

“Okay, I’m going to do that. If you change your mind, you have to tell me. Do you want to know how it’s going?”

She shook her head, silent.

“Okay. Do you want me to tell you if I find them?”

She nodded. “Just tell me if you found them. Not where or how they are, or anything else unless I ask.”

“Do you want me to try to get their memory back?”

She shuddered a sigh. “I don’t know. I just want to know if it’s possible.”

Draco nodded. “Can you give me the memory of doing it?”

She nodded and rummaged in her bag up to her elbow before pulling out a clean vial. She placed her wand tip to her forehead and pulled out three long silvery strands to deposit in the vial. “That’s everything I know about the spells I used, and the moment I did it.” She capped the vial and pressed it into his hand, sniffing gently. “I wanted to do it myself because I couldn’t live with knowing I had sent them away without being the one to actually do it. I wish I had the strength to be the one to bring them back, but I don’t have it in me. I’m not strong enough. Every time I try to concentrate on reversing the memory spells, I end up distracted or something? And, then I feel guilty because nothing should be more important than that.”

She took a deep breath. “I think it’s also a weird sort of relief that they don’t know about anything that happened, or that I even exist.” She looked into his eyes. “I love them so much, but they don’t feel real to me anymore. Telling them anything that’s happened would be like getting them to believe a fantasy novel. How would I even do that? And why? They deserve to be happy and without worry. They don’t deserve such a fucked up daughter who made it through the war because of such a complicated sense of morality.”

Draco frowned. “But, they do deserve a daughter who is brilliant and kind and cares about the people around her. They deserve you because as complicated as you are, you are a wonderful person that they deserve to be proud of.”

She started crying again, harder. When she calmed again, she croaked out, “Do whatever you think is best. I don’t know what that is. I just can’t anymore.”

Draco nodded into her hair. “I will.”

They lay down in the grass, Draco casting a sunblocking charm to protect their skin. Hermione made him show her the wandwork several times.

When the sun was high in the sky, an incorporeal bulldog came to tell them in Neville’s voice that he would love to finally see them at lunch, if they were not avoiding him for some reason. Hermione jumped up and ran off to find him. Draco reached for the dog before getting up. His fingers went through it just as it puffed away in a white cloud that disappeared.

He stretched his legs going back up to the castle. He still felt a little bit off from the hex.

Neville and Hermione had snagged a table off to the side with Ginny and Harry. Draco felt like he should go to the hospital wing to check in, as he would almost certainly forget if he did not go now.

He grabbed a sandwich and excused himself.

Madam Pomfrey was busy, so Draco waited ten minutes, making faces at a baby sitting in a carrier playing with a plastic ring of keys that dangled over it. The baby startled him when, in a fit of giggles, the kid’s hair turned from a sort of honey brown to his own platinum blond. The kid was a metamorphmagus!

Draco had not stopped smiling when the baby’s caregiver returned. She seemed to startle a bit herself when she saw Draco. She had long blonde hair and dressed similarly to Prof Trelawney, but her face was almost his mother’s face.

“Draco?” Her voice had a lilt to it that sounded much like his mother’s did when she let her guard down.

“Andromeda?”

She nodded. “I see you’ve already made friends with Teddy.” She gestured to the baby with a smile.

Draco suddenly recognised his own nose from his baby pictures. But, Teddy had his father’s eyes, somehow. At least, he had Lupin’s eyes until he changed them in a fit of pique.

Draco smiled. “I was hoping we’d get to meet soon. I know Mother is glad she’s been able to reconnect after so long.”

Andromeda’s eyes crinkled when she smiled. “I’m glad, too. You should come by for a cup of tea soon, Draco. I would love to finally get to know my only nephew. And, I’d love if Teddy could know his cousin.” She took a breath and her eyes changed, showing a watery quality. “There’s been enough separation within this family.”

Draco nodded, unsure of what to say. “Yes, I’d love to come by. I’ll owl you.”

She smiled again. “Lovely. I must be off now. Just dropping off an order for Poppy, and now it’s time for Teddy’s lunch and a nap.” She swept Draco into a hug. “Please, do keep in touch, dear.”

Draco felt oddly like crying himself as he hugged her back. “I will, Aunt Andromeda…”

Teddy made some fussing noises and Andromeda scooped him into her arms, the carrier hung over one arm. Draco smoothed the baby’s blond hair down, having an odd sort of pulling sensation in his chest and stomach at the baby’s innocence. This was even younger than Harry had been when his parents were killed. The kid smiled and reached for his nose, gently scratching the side with his tiny sharp nails.

Andromeda smiled. “He likes you. He only changes his color to match people he likes.” She bumped Draco’s shoulder with hers. “I can tell you feel the same, dear heart. I’ll expect to hear from you soon.” She waved Teddy’s hand goodbye and swept out of the room, taking all of the light with her.

Madam Pomfrey approached him then. “Are you alright, Draco? Haven’t had a setback? Or a headache?”

Draco shook his head. “Just met a baby.”

She smiled and nodded knowingly. “He’s something, that Teddy Lupin. He’ll be a right terror when he gets to be school-age with the metamorphmagus bit. But, he’s a happy baby, and that’s as it should have always been.”

As he followed her back to a bed, he could not help but ask, “Do people usually feel so strange around babies? I made faces at him and that seemed to be all it took to get him to like me, and then I felt like I would do anything to keep him safe.”

She chuckled. “Yes, but usually we don’t think of that as a strange reaction. Have you been around many babies, Draco?”

Draco considered the circles his family traveled in. “No, I don’t think I’ve been around any babies since I was a child.”

She patted him on the arm. “That is a lot of people’s reaction to babies, Draco. It’s a normal instinct, and it means you might enjoy being a parent.”

Draco shrank at that notion. Madam Pomfrey took his silence as her cue to begin the diagnostics.

“Your brain scan looks totally different today, Draco. Healer Simons told me it would be different, but this is even more change than I expected.” She had a far-away look in her eyes for a moment, writing down a note. She cast the diagnostic for the effects of the hex. “Are you still having some stiffness? Any joint pain? Those can go together when pain hexes wear off.”

“Yes to the stiffness, no to the joint pain.” He sighed. “It feels like we’re never going to stop seeing each other like this.”

“You feel like you’re seeing the Healer a lot right now? You’re not wrong, but you also have no idea how much everyone sees me right now, Draco. I hand out pain and calming and sleep potions like they were candy and I ran Honeydukes. Your aunt just delivered me a large order of all three because I cannot keep them stocked with my usual supplier. I have people who break bones multiple times because they keep having panic attacks in the middle of building. Your headaches at least have a component I can do something about, but most people just have a stomach ache or a panic attack or cannot focus on what they are doing.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, looking extremely tired suddenly. “Draco, no one in this castle is alright. We are all working through our trauma while literally rebuilding the site of that trauma. Every time someone brings me an unconscious person, I have to put aside all the people I’ve seen unconscious for the past six months who never woke again. I do not have the luxury of sleeping through the night, as I need to be able to respond to the crises that happen no matter when.”

She sighed. “It seems I might need a break of my own. I’m sorry to unload all of that on you.” She patted his knee lightly. “You’re a surprisingly good listener, Draco. Have you considered a career in the healing arts?”

Draco laughed. “I don’t think I could make a living at that, do you?”

She smiled. “I heard you have some money, though. You could help people without making a living… Or, you could be a publican. They tend to be good listeners, too. And, you’d likely make money that way.”

He shrugged. “It’s a couple of years at the Ministry before anything else, for me.”

She stood up and gathered her notes. “The nice thing about healing and bartending is you can always do it.” She gestured out of the cubicle. “You’re as fine as you can be for now, Draco. Come back if anything else flares up. And, there’s no real danger if you’d like to leave the castle grounds now. Just don’t do your own apparating.” She accioed his two emergency potions.

“Thank you, Madam. I do appreciate your care. And, it’s been nice to get to know you better.”

She patted his arm. “I feel the same, Draco. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Now, get out of here and enjoy your weekend. You have several relationships to juggle now…”

Draco threw his hands up in exasperation. “Are you serious? Does everyone know about my personal life!?”

She shrugged and turned with a cheeky flourish. “I see all, Draco Malfoy… mwahahhah…”

He was halfway back to the Great Hall when he realised she had used his last name and he had not flinched away from it. That was rather nice. He still hated the sound of it, but this felt like progress, in a way.

He had a slight spring in his step as he re-entered the Great Hall.

He found Hermione and Neville with Harry, who winked at him as he took a seat beside Hermione. “All clear, Draco?”

Draco nodded. “I can leave the grounds, just can’t do my own apparating.”

Hermione clutched his hand. “We could go somewhere else to talk, then!”

Draco shrugged. “Yeah, I guess we could.”

Harry cleared his throat. “No one’s at Grimmauld Place. You could all go there. Hermione can go ahead and change the wards.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “You sure, Potter? You trust me in your home?”

Harry shrugged. “Yeah, why not?”

Neville spoke up. “Thanks, Harry!”

The three of them set out with Hermione flooing out of McGonagall’s office first.

Draco took the five minutes he had alone with Neville to take his hand. “Neville, I really like you. Do you really want this? I don’t want to make you be with us both if you only want one of us.”

Neville kissed him, solidly and thoroughly, cupping his face with one hand. He rested his forehead against Draco’s and looked into his eyes. “I may not do things I want to do, but I don’t do things I don’t want to do, Draco. I want this, with both of you, differently than I’ve wanted anything else in my whole life.” He kissed Draco again, running his fingers down his throat and catching his t-shirt in his fist. “Hearing about your dreams last night felt like a home I want.”

Draco smiled against his mouth as they kissed again and again.

A cough behind them made them jump apart. Prof McGonagall’s face was awash in stern annoyance. “Were you here for some specific purpose, gentlemen?” She swept over to her desk.

Neville shook his head rapidly, a blush spreading across his cheeks. “No, Headmistress, I mean, yes, we just needed to wait for Hermione to update the wards so we could go to Harry’s place…”

Draco ran his fingers through his hair. “We’ll just be going, Professor…” He turned and performed the ritual to floo away.

He landed in an oddly dingy parlor. Hermione smiled and jumped up from her chair. “Finally! Did you get waylaid?”

Draco blushed. “Not exactly.”

Neville appeared with a flare of the fireplace. “I cannot believe you disappeared like that!”

“Did you want to stick around to chat with her?”

“No, but you did just abandon me after getting caught snogging by the head of the school, IN HER OFFICE…” Neville looked absolutely miserable.

He pulled Neville into a hug as his stomach dropped at his own thoughtlessness. “I’m sorry.”

Neville nodded. “I just have a couple of issues with getting abandoned…”

Hermione rubbed their backs. “Let’s go relax. Personally, I can’t wait to be the best one of us at video games!”

Chapter Text

July 18, 1998

Draco could not get the hang of the buttons and it filled him with an impotent rage. Hermione had already applied cushion charms to the controllers so they could not break them when they inevitably threw them across the room in frustration. Neville had somehow gotten some idea of what he was doing, but Draco found the whole game so confusing he gave up. How was he supposed to remember which view was his, or how to reload his gun, or where to aim? How was this a game?

Giving up to watch them play gave him no better understanding of how to do any of it, so he eventually got up to look at Harry’s movie collection. Harry, of course, had no organisational system for his collection. So, while Hermione and Neville played their gun game, Draco set himself to organising Harry’s movies into some semblance of an actual collection.

“Hermione what kind of movie is Jurassic Park?”

“Dinosaur.”

“But, what’s it about?”

“They bring dinosaurs to life using science and the dinosaurs wreak havoc on a theme park built to house them.”

“Is it more of a comedy or a tragedy?”

“Muggles don’t categorise entertainment that way anymore. Gah! You shot me!”

“Well, you were right there! And Draco’d distracted you!”

“What kind of category would it be in, then?”

“Action, I guess.”

“Hermione, what kind of movie is the Full Monty?”

“Uh, I think that’s the one about men who open a strip club where they’re the strippers? In a small town in Scotland.”

“What’s a strip club?”

“A bar where people take their clothes off for money. Usually women.”

“Hermione, what kind of movie is Space Jam?”

“Oh, I, uh, a bunch of alien cartoons come to earth I think? To help a basketball player with a game? I’m not really sure. It’s a cartoon and a sports movie with a famous basketball player from America.”

“I have a lot of questions.”

“Me too.”

“I bet you both do, yeah. Probably best to skip that one for now.”

“Hermione, what kind of movie is Die Hard?”

“A sort of reverse heist.”

“Hermione, what kind of movie is Hackers?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know about Batman?”

“Rich man fights crime with gadgets. Wacky villains try to do bad things.”

“Hermione, what kind of movie is Stargate?”

“Oh! I love that one! The pyramids were put here by aliens and there are these gates that can take them to other planets! James Spader is really hot in that one!”

“What’s so hot about him?”

“Well, he looks a bit like you in that one, Neville.”

“Go on…”

“What about Groundhog Day?”

“I quite like that one, too. A weather man relives the same day over and over. It’s really funny.”

“Hermione, what about Face Off? Hermione?” Draco looked over to see why she was not responding.

Neville had pulled Hermione into his lap and their attentions had moved away from the video game, toward each other. Draco had not expected that they would all start having sex around each other yet. He had barely even done anything with Neville yet. But, Morgana and Mitchell, he was getting excited at the sight before him. Maybe he could watch as they put on a show for him.

Hermione’s back was to Draco and she had straddled Neville’s lap, grinding her shorts against his obvious erection. As Neville kissed down her neck in her camisole, his eyes flickered up to meet Draco’s eyes. He smiled and raised an eyebrow, then dipped his head to nip gently at Hermione’s throat in a way that made her give an adorable little yelp before she shucked her shirt off in a fluid motion.

Neville reached down to begin unzipping her shorts and caught a nipple in his mouth. He sucked gently until she whispered into the quiet room, “Mm, harder…” And, Neville absolutely sucked harder, bringing a light exclamation sound from her.

She worked on Neville’s whole clothing situation at once with a twirl of her wand. “Indumentissa…” His clothing and shoes all sort of slithered off him like a snake shedding its skin.

She stood to remove her own shorts, sliding them seductively down over her arse with her knickers included. She looked over her shoulder as she dropped them, arching a brow at Draco and winking. “Do you want to join us, Draco?”

Draco shook his head. “I’m enjoying just watching… You’re both just so fucking hot.”

Neville looked up at Hermione, then Draco. “I’m not arguing, but at least come sit down so you’re not looming in the corner there.”

Draco came over and took a seat in a chair facing the couch. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just be over here, creeping…”

Hermione shook her head and straddled Neville’s lap again. “No such thing as creeping here. You might not be penetrating anyone, but you’re still part of this, Draco…”

Neville started in on her neck again and she lost the ability to speak. He reached down and played with her clit, making her whimper. He looked up from Hermione’s neck and his eyes flickered between Draco’s eyes and his tented trousers.

His voice came out in the sexiest rumble Draco had heard yet. “I want to see your cock, Draco. Take it out and show me how hot you think this is.”

Draco nearly ripped his trousers trying to fulfill the request.

Neville inserted a finger into Hermione’s pussy, still working her clit with his thumb. “I love that you’re so hard for me, Draco.” Hermione made a noise of vague indignance and hit her palm against Neville’s chest. “Sorry, so hard for US.” Hermione’s head rolled back and she gripped his shoulder harder. Neville leaned in and whispered something to Hermione. She nodded and bit her lip as he inserted a second finger.

“I’ve got to get her ready for my cock, Draco.” Neville’s eyes flickered down to where Draco’s cock bobbed gently at his words. “You like hearing about how I need to prepare her for me?”

Hermione reached down and grasped Neville’s cock in her hand, pumping slowly. Neville’s breath caught in his throat for a moment as he adjusted to the sensation.

“Touch yourself, Draco. Show us what we do to you.” Neville’s voice rumbled through the room.

Draco grasped his cock and measured his strokes. He needed to keep it together. This was his own personal erotic portraiture and he needed to last at least until they fucked.

Hermione had turned her head to watch Draco, clutching Neville as he increased the speed of his fingers within her. Neville’s mouth latched to her nipple again and he sucked hard enough to elicit another gasp from her.

Hermione seemed to approach a climax as a keening whimper began to come with her breaths and Neville was whispering something in her ear continuously, his eyes flickering over to Draco. She pressed on her stomach as he had seen her do before and her entire body went rigid. “Yes, right there, right there!”

Her head fell back and a cry burst from her as she clutched Neville harder, riding his hand through her orgasm.

Draco sped the strokes on his cock as she approached her climax and now gripped himself more softly to calm down.

As Hermione caught her breath, Neville pulled his hand from her pussy, licking his fingers in an imitation of fellatio as he locked eyes with Draco. Draco ran his thumb over the head of his cock and licked it back at Neville with a wink.

Neville bit his lip. “I think Draco is enjoying our show, love.” Hermione shivered slightly and looked over her shoulder at Draco again, her lip bitten in the same way as Neville’s. “I wonder if he’s changed his mind about joining…”

Draco shook his head. “Next time I’ll join in, love.”

Hermione seemed to take Draco’s no for his final answer on this subject, raising up on her haunches and impaling herself on Neville’s cock with no further fanfare. They hissed in unison at the sensation and kissed again, rolling their hips against each other over and over again.

When they broke apart to catch their breaths, Hermione leaned back slightly to prop herself up on Neville’s knees, slowly rolling her hips in a way that made Neville hiss again. She threw her head back and a deep moan rolled out of her in time with the thrusting of her hips. The moan became Neville’s name, a breathy gasp on the final syllable.

“I love the way you say my name when I’m inside you, Hermione. The way you fuck yourself on my cock, just using me to get yourself off. I can’t blame Draco for wanting to watch you.”

“Pinch my nipples. Hard.”

Neville complied, pulling the dusty-pink buds to a point and pulling gently. Hermione shrieked again in a way that went straight to Draco’s core. He wanted to hear her scream more. He wanted her to scream in pleasure and fear.

“I think he liked hearing you, Hermione. What else should we do?”

Draco’s eyes met Hermione’s. Her eyes held a question. “Like in the greenhouse, Draco?”

Draco shook his head, suddenly afraid. He could not show that part of himself now… He wanted it so badly, to see her hurt and hear those beautiful shrieks of pain from her, but… Neville…

Neville gently tweaked her nipples to bring her attention back to him. “I’m going to fuck you from behind, then, Hermione…”

Hermione’s eyes lit up and she nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, please!”

They turned themselves so she draped over the high arm of the couch and Neville stood behind her. He rubbed his cock up and down her slit until she was whimpering. “Please, Neville… Please just fuck me…”

Neville’s hips snapped forward just as she finished her pleading, the muscles of his buttocks tensing in the most beautiful way. Draco found he was stroking himself in time with the snaps of Neville’s hips. Hermione seemed like she could barely catch her breath until Neville held inside her for a moment, swirling his hips. “Your pussy is so much tighter from this angle, Hermione.”

“Yes, yes, it’s amazing!” She propped herself up on her arms for a moment as she looked back at him with glassy eyes.

“Do you think if I held you up against me it would feel good?”

She smiled and bit her lip. “Yes! I do!”

Neville scooped her into his arms, tight against his chest. He held her with one arm around her ribs holding one breast while the other held her pelvis steady as he began thrusting into her again. “Yesss, so tight, and I can feel how you’re clenching around me, too. Do you think you could come again if I don’t play with your clit, love? I only have two hands.”

She let out a high, sustained whimpering sound that was punctuated by the nodding of her head and began rubbing her own clit.

Neville lowered his voice again and spoke directly into her ear. Her face twisted more and more in ecstasy until her body went rigid and then limp with a fresh moaning cry. Neville kissed her shoulder and gently let her lean forward over the arm of the couch again. He turned to look at Draco as his thrusting quickened again. Hermione turned her head, her eyes on Draco with a smile of pure bliss through her softly breathy moans.

Neville’s voice shot straight to Draco’s cock. “Show me again, Draco. I want to see you come again. Show me how much you liked seeing Hermione come, how much you loved watching your girlfriend get off on your boyfriend’s cock. Show me how you’ll love it when I suck your cock. Show me your beautiful face as you come…”

Draco panted, staring into Neville’s eyes as his climax came with the sloppy strokes of his cock. He closed his eyes, feeling the spurts leave him. It was all too much. He opened them again to watch as Neville’s body went rigid and arched with a grunting moan.

How was this beautiful, sweet man so feral when it came to sex? He felt his cock twitch gently as he came down from the high of orgasm.

Neville helped Hermione sit on the couch again, cleaning away their combined fluids and fetching her camisole and knickers and his own boxers. Hermione seemed to be melting into the couch, but reached for Draco.

Draco pulled up his own shorts and cleaned his come from the floor as he went to sit on Hermione’s other side. She curled into him, kissing his cheek.

“Draco, are you alright? Was that alright?”

He pulled away to look into her eyes. “Yes. I really liked that.” He looked at Neville over her head. “I really liked it. Are you alright?”

She shrugged. “I just thought since you’re with us both, you’d want to do it all together, but then you didn’t join in.”

Draco shrugged back. “I mean, I’d like to do that sometimes, but it was fun to watch you two.” He smirked. “Also, you did start kissing each other while my back was turned and I was doing something else entirely.”

Neville chuckled. “I thought it might make you pay attention to us again. You were so caught up in the organising, we thought we’d give you some incentive to stop.”

Suddenly Draco understood. “Were you trying to make me jealous? Both of you?” He scoffed when their faces betrayed that this was their motive. “That’s madness! You can’t make me jealous! Especially not by snogging each other!”

Hermione and Neville were the picture of confusion. “I’ll tell you both this, and hopefully you can understand and you won’t try such a daft stunt again. Now I know your feelings for me, that you want me, and I really do believe it, I will do anything for either of you. I want what you want. I also want the things I want, but my loyalty and protection and desire for your happiness has been secured forever.

“You have me, and that means that if it makes you happy to fuck each other, I am happy you want to fuck each other. If you start fucking without me to make me jealous and react in some way, it simply won’t happen. If either of you want to go fuck someone else, so long as I continue to believe you still want me, I will want you to fuck whoever else you want to fuck.” He snorted. “You especially can’t make me jealous of what I’m not a part of by fucking each other in front of me…”

Hermione’s face had gone through a spate of emotions as he spoke. She stroked his leg. “Oh. Well, I wouldn’t like it if you fucked anyone else, so don’t do that.”

Neville frowned, looking lost. “I don’t know if I believe you. You must have felt something when you saw us together.”

Draco smirked, thinking of turning around to ask about the movie to see them already grinding against each other. “I felt turned on that I’d get to see my two favorite people together.”

Hermione frowned. “But, then, why didn’t you actually join us? We kept asking you to join, and you didn’t! You must have known we wanted you to join!”

He sighed. Was he really ready for all three of them? Together? He probably should have wanted to be involved. He frowned. “I wanted to watch you two together. That was what I wanted, and I think I needed to hear outright that you wanted me to join.”

Hermione let out a sigh of frustration. “But, we did!”

Neville frowned, biting his lip. “We never actually did, we just teased him, asking if he wanted to…” He reached over and put his hand on Draco’s leg. “Did you like it?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Which part of me fucking my fist made you confused about whether I was enjoying myself?”

Hermione huffed. “You’re never this literal. Why start now?”

Draco gestured vaguely. “Turning over a new leaf? I’ve been hanging out with Gryffindors all summer?”

They all sat in silence for a few moments before Neville cleared his throat. “Uh, should we all watch a movie?”

Hermione nodded. “Which one sounds best to you?”

Neville got up and went over to the half-organised shelf of tapes. “Which one were you trying to ask about when you noticed us snogging?”

“Uh, Face Off?”

Hermione groaned. “Oh, that one is so weird and violent! Nicholas Cage is awful in that movie!”

Neville held it up. “This one?”

Draco nodded.

Neville read the back of the box. “This isn’t just a thrill ride, it’s a rocket? FBI agent Sean Archer John Travolta knows how to stop elusive terrorist Castor Troy Nicholas Cage. What kind of name is Castor Troy? He’ll BECOME HIM?! Cool. Archer undergoes a futuristic surgery and has Troy’s face mapped onto his, what, like polyjuice potion?” Hermione shook her head and took a deep breath. Draco’s eyes were lighting up.

“Then infiltrates the terrorist’s world to discover his deadly secrets! So, he’s like an Auror! But as much as Archer looks and acts like Troy, he doesn’t really know him. He never figures Troy will retaliate and force doctors to TRANSFORM HIM INTO ARCHER?!?! Merlin’s balls, they turn into each other!? Now the agent faces a shattering nightmare: his archrival is living with his FAMILY?! Hermione! We have to watch this movie!” He shook the box emphatically at them. “Hermione!” Neville pointed to Draco. “Draco agrees! How do we make it go?”

Neville made it go and came back to sit on the couch beside Draco, snuggling into his side. “I haven’t seen a movie in about seven years! Gran took me to see Beauty and the Beast because Witch Weekly voted it the best muggle movie of the year for some reason. I got pretty scared at the Beast at points, though.”

Hermione smiled. “I love that one! I saw it on my first Christmas back from Hogwarts. Honestly, I think they based the castle off of Hogwarts.”

Draco pointed to the screen. “Is this the movie?”

She laughed. “No, this is an advert for a bunch of other movies this studio made.”

Neville pointed now. “Were those Scottish warriors?”

She sighed. “Yes?”

“There’s a movie about Scottish warriors? Can we watch that one next?”

“I really don’t want to watch two violent movies in a row, Neville.”

Face/Off was the greatest movie ever made, as far as Draco was concerned. He spent the whole movie cuddled up to Neville, their eyes wide as they took in the spectacle of Sean Archer versus Castor Troy. At some point, they simply lost Hermione, as she disappeared and reappeared with a pizza. Draco felt vaguely guilty that she had gone to get pizza without them, but she kissed his forehead in response to his fretful look.

After she ate a slice, she pulled a book from her bag and began reading at the other end of the couch. Every once in a while, she answered a question they had, but mostly, she seemed content to keep her feet propped against Draco’s leg as she read.

Neville had gotten comfortable with one leg thrown over Draco’s and Draco’s arm curled around him. Occasionally, he gently kissed Draco’s hand in a way that was simply maddening. It was so delicate and so soft, Draco thought he might scream. What was Neville doing to him?

Oh, Hermione asked that in a letter once. He finally understood what she meant.

At the end of the movie, Draco looked down at where Neville was drawing circles in the fine blond hair on his leg. His cock twitched. Neville glanced up at him and drew his circles ever-closer to Draco’s boxers.

Draco tilted Neville’s face up and kissed him gently. He tasted, of course, vaguely but not unpleasantly of the pizza they had eaten. He gently cupped Neville’s cheek, brushing his thumb over the fine stubble there. He deepened the kiss, a moan escaping him to be caught by Neville.

“Oh, it’s over…”

The two men split apart, as when they had been caught by McGonagall. Draco wiped his mouth. “Yes. Next one?”

Hermione shrugged. “Actually, I think I’d rather go out to the pub with my book. I don’t think you two can keep your hands off each other, and I don’t want to make things awkward by being here for your first time together.” She smiled.

Draco had a moment of panic. Could Hermione not handle him with Neville?

She put up a finger. “No, I can see that look of panic you’re trying to hide, Draco. I would definitely like to see that and be a part of it some time, but you haven’t been able to do more than a quick wank, and I want you to have this time for yourselves, my loves.”

Neville reached for her hand with a goofy smile on his face. “Give us a kiss before you go?”

She took his hand with a smile and gave him a thorough kiss. She whispered in his ear so Draco could not hear, leaving his eyes twinkling with a grin on his face as she pulled away. She then kissed Draco thoroughly and whispered to him so Neville could not hear.

“I love you, Draco. Snog the shit out of his character-filled face.”

Merlin’s beard, he had forgotten all about that. Had that been the beginning of really liking Neville, in the guise of flirting with Hermione?

She snatched her beaded bag from the table and winked at them. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours, loves. Have fun and do the many things I cannot do.”

She disappeared into the hall and they heard the front door close a moment later.

They stared at each other for a moment in the silent house and then came together in a dramatic fashion. Draco found that Neville had fisted his t-shirt so hard, he had ripped it a bit, so he grasped it with two hands and ripped it off entirely.

Neville’s mouth attached to Draco’s neck and he sucked hard, laving his tongue over the spot over and over until Draco felt like he might melt. He did the same to Neville on his neck, producing a low moan.

Draco reached down to pull off Neville’s shirt now, leaning down to lick and suck one bead of a nipple as he pinched gently on the other. Neville’s fingers ran through Draco’s hair, giving Draco a tingling feeling.

“Mm, Draco…”

Draco licked and sucked across Neville’s chest to pull the other nipple into his mouth. He nibbled gently to judge the reaction. Neville arched his back, his head thrown back. “Yessss… Oh, no wonder Hermione likes that!”

Draco pinched hard on both nipples at once so a desperate gasp escaped Neville. “You like that?”

Neville took a slightly shuddering breath and nodded. “I think so. Do you like to do it?”

He thought for a moment as he rolled the beads between his thumb and forefinger. “I do. Hopefully it doesn’t scare you off, but I like the noises you make from it.”

Neville shook his head. “I definitely prefer to be the one in control, but I don’t mind that you’re turned on by doing things that make me yelp or shriek a little. I’m not particularly kinky, but I’d be game for quite a lot if it will make my partners happy.”

Draco smoothed back his partner’s hair and gazed into the blue eyes of the sky between clouds on a sunny day. “What do you really like, then, Neville?”

Neville blushed and bit his lip, fucking adorably. “I guess I really like to have my cock sucked. And, I’ve been fantasizing about fucking your arse and having you fuck my arse. I’m not really ready for that yet, though. I have tried some of playing with my arse, and that’s been good.” Neville looked up at Draco through his lashes. “What do you like, Draco?”

Draco was so hard, he thought he might burst. “I would love to see your cute mouth suck my cock, if I’m honest. I do like to fuck and get fucked in the arse. I would love to play with your arse with just fingers, though, if you want to try.”

Neville’s breathing was a bit shallower than it had been a moment ago. “Yes, I want that.” He leaned forward and kissed Draco again, pushing his leg onto Draco’s other side so he nearly straddled him.

Draco banished Neville’s boxers then, finding his cock bobbing with attention. Draco pushed him back, flat on the couch and knelt over him, kissing and licking from his neck all the way down to his bushy pubic hair before he grasped the erect member and pumped slowly up and down the length. He kissed down onto Neville’s thighs, nipping lightly with his teeth occasionally. He looked up at the length of Neville’s body, cock grasped in his own hand, Neville’s hands holding tightly to the couch cushion beneath him.

Draco licked softly up Neville’s leg to just where the pubic hair began, then blew a cool stream of air across it. He did the same on the other side. Neville shivered and looked down at Draco. “That felt weird!”

Draco cocked an eyebrow. “Bad weird?”

“Please don’t do that again weird?”

Draco nodded. “Okay. Can I cast cleaning and lubrication spells? For your arse?”

Neville looked embarrassed. “I’d rather do that one. I feel weird having you do that…”

Draco kissed Neville’s thigh. “Of course. However you’ll feel most comfortable is best.” He smiled.

Neville smiled back and situated himself to hide the spell slightly from Draco, casting the charm twice before he settled back down on the couch. He looked extraordinarily anxious now.

Draco began again with kissing him gently, then more passionately, holding Neville’s cock again and slowly stroking. Neville held Draco tight against his chest, clutching his back so hard Draco knew he would have finger bruises there afterward. Neville’s kisses had a desperate energy to them that Draco could feel spurring him on.

He travelled lower again, kissing back down Neville’s chest and experimentally licking the head of his cock. He received a short whimper for his ministration. He sucked the head into his mouth and swirled his tongue around it.

Draco looked up at Neville’s face to see his expression was beautiful- parts pain and pleasure and something feral. He met Draco’s eyes. “It is taking all my control not to fuck your mouth, Draco.”

Draco sucked the length all the way into his throat then, earning a hiss and a buck of Neville’s hips with a long moan. Draco swallowed, then hummed gently.

“Too much! That’s too much!”

Draco pulled off his length, going back to stroking the spit-lubricated shaft now. “The humming?”

“The humming with being in your throat.” Neville clapped his hand over his eyes. “Merlin’s balls, that’s not something I thought I’d ever say? To you?”

“Brave new world, I guess?” Where had Draco heard that phrase?

Neville shrugged and smiled. “It would be better if you worked the shaft more.”

Draco shook his head with a chuckle. “Gotta work the shaft…”

He worked on the shaft, gliding his hand tightly up and down the length as he sucked the head into his mouth in time with the motion of his hand. With his other hand, he crept down to massage Neville’s puckered hole with his middle finger, feeling him tense and then slowly relax as he adjusted to the sensation. He stopped his cock hand’s assistance with the blow job to grab his wand and do the non-verbal lubrication spell he liked best for his own arse. He returned to his slow working of Neville’s shaft and Neville let out a low groan as Draco’s finger slid smoothly into his hole. Draco wiggled his finger slightly as he swirled the head with his tongue again, producing a clench on the hole. As Neville relaxed again, Draco slipped his finger further in, to its depth, and as he drew a shuddering moan from his partner, he let Neville’s cock slide down to the back of his throat again.

“Uhhh! Draco! That feels… don’t stop!” Neville was so hard in his mouth, and he writhed in a way that fucked his cock into Draco’s throat. Draco felt an overwhelming sense of calm now, he was finally really with this man who was suddenly so important. He felt extremely aware of his own body and what it could do, in a way he had felt in months. Even with Hermione and the slap, he had not felt his whole body reacting so fully.

Draco withdrew the one finger and slowly replaced it with two fingers together, bobbing gently on Neville’s cock as Neville took deep breaths through the insertion. “That feels so different than when I do it to myself… Everything you’re doing feels amazing, Draco…” He moaned deeply.

Draco curled his fingers slightly to hit the spot he knew would make Neville lose all control. Neville bucked his hips hard. Draco continued his ministrations on Neville’s cock and arse as a stream of filth fell from the beautiful man’s mouth as he clutched at Draco’s hair.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m going to come right down your throat, you beautiful filthy man. Making me so hard…. Mmmm… Fingers so good… Draco… Fucking me…” Neville groaned sharply and his whole body arched off the couch slightly as he came in salty spurts that went straight down Draco’s throat as he had promised.

Draco gently cleaned Neville’s cock off with his tongue and slowly pulled his fingers from their place. Neville cast a quick cleansing on Draco’s arse hand before he attacked Draco, wrapping his arms around Draco’s neck and kissing him solidly on the mouth.

After a moment, he drew back to look in Draco’s eyes. “You are extremely good at that, Draco. I’m afraid I don’t have skills like that.” Neville was suddenly very serious.

Draco kissed his nose. “Just do what you’d like if it was on you, and I’ll tell you what I like as I like it. We’ve already had a good time together as far as I’m concerned. I know I’m going to enjoy having my cock between those lovely lips of yours. I’ve been picturing it, and it makes me So. Hard.” He pulled Neville’s hand to his cock to demonstrate.

Neville’s eyes went wide. “I haven’t trained my throat like you have, though…”

Draco shook his head. “That is wholly unimportant for giving a blowjob, love. No one’s ever done it for me, woman or man, and I’ve always come. It’s one of my favorite things.”

Neville licked his lips. “Someday, I’m going to be able to do that for you, Draco. It feels so insane. I thought I’d gotten some good blow jobs, but that was beyond anything I’ve ever had before.” He stared at Draco’s mouth again. “I want to make you feel as good as you’ve made me feel, Draco.”

Draco pulled Neville into another kiss, hard and desperate, tongues searching, hard, pushing against each other. Neville pulled off Draco’s boxers, grasping his cock to begin stroking up and down it. He pulled away and stared into Draco’s eyes as he crawled onto the floor to kneel between Draco’s legs.

Neville kissed and gently bit up Draco’s thighs, scratching lightly in his leg hair like how this whole thing started. He held Draco’s cock and gently kissed the tip, making it twitch. He swirled his tongue over the head and sucked it gently like a candy. He looked up at Draco through his lashes with Draco’s cock in his mouth and Draco felt his cock twitch so hard, he felt it in his arse. “Yes, there’s my beautiful boy. Cock in his mouth, right where I’ve been wanting it.” He frowned for a split second. “Is it alright to tell you what I’m thinking?”

Neville popped his mouth off the head and continued stroking. “I think it’s hot, I’m just not into humiliation, so as long as you only say nice things about us, it should be alright.”

Draco nodded, crossing off an entire section of his mental turn-ons. “Is it nice to call you my beautiful boy?”

Neville beamed. “Yes, that’s a nice thing! I like that. Don’t you know what nice things are, Draco?” A look of panic must have crossed Draco’s face because Neville nodded quickly. “Okay, if there’s anything I don’t like, I’ll just shake my head if I can’t say something?”

“Absolutely.”

Neville sucked Draco’s cock into his mouth again, letting the drool lubricate his strokes of Draco’s shaft. He bobbed slowly, going slightly deeper on each successive down-motion.

Draco moaned and his body melted a little bit into the couch. “Mmm, yes, you can feel how hard I am for you, Nev… Just having my cock in your mouth, I feel like I got so lucky. Getting to suck you off was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen you.” Neville’s tongue swirled around the head and Draco’s voice escaped him in a gravelly groan. “Mmm, just like that… And pull the balls a little, too. Nnngg, yes…”

Neville had pulled gently so Draco’s balls were squeezed and cupped gently in his larger hand. He pulled back and ran the very tip of his tongue up the underside of Draco’s cock, flicking gently with his tongue just below the slit where there was an unbelievably sensitive spot Draco had never noticed with such specificity before.

Draco let a light whimper out, fisting the cushions so he did not pull on Neville’s hair. “Fuuuuck, what is that?”

Neville looked up at him again, flicking his tongue cheekily before sucking the head into his mouth to resume his bobbing. Draco felt like he was losing his mind, babbling incoherently as Neville worked him toward the peak. “...Mouth feels even better than I dreamed… So hot and wet… I’m not going to last… way you handle my cock… Nngg, yes, Merlin, your tongue when you do that… Can’t wait to until I can just fuck your throat. I love that you want to do that, my beautiful boy. And, you are… so beautiful… your face, your body, cock, YOU… I can’t believe you’re mine. Beautiful… yes… just like that. I’m so close. You don’t have to swallow… Neville, love, Neville, look in my eyes, love…”

Draco let loose a groan and could feel his whole body jerking slightly with his climax. Neville’s chin and chest were painted with Draco’s milky come.

Draco reached for his wand to clean Neville off, but Neville shook his head, rubbing it into his chest. “I want to keep feeling it. I did this. This is my proof I really did this to you.”

Draco kissed him again. “That was a fucking hot thing to say, Nev. I can’t believe you say such hot things with that mouth of yours. You constantly surprise me.”

Neville pulled on his shorts and shirt again, plopping down on the couch next to Draco. “I can say sex things with the best of them, Mr Boyfriend.”

Draco finished pulling his shorts on and repairing his shirt before he threw an arm around Neville. “Who knew?”

Neville looked at him and rolled his eyes. “Do you want a list?”

“Do you want to give me a list? I don’t need one. Just because I barely thought of you that way before this summer doesn’t mean I didn’t think you had no partners before Hermione.”

Neville shrugged. “I mean, I know your reputation as the Slytherin Sex God.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “I have no idea how I got that reputation, since Blaise was much better at it and much more of a slag than me. Who even said that about me? I started hearing that at the beginning of last year and I could never figure out who started it.”

Neville thought for a moment. “It was probably that gothy Ravenclaw girl you shagged sixth year.”

“Amanda Pellier? Why do you think it was her?”

“She’s the only one who makes sense. She’s not in your house, so she would call you by your house name, and she was, uh, pretty experienced, so she’d know how much better you are at sex than most guys our age.”

“I always thought it must have been Pansy trying to build up my reputation after, you know… Dumbledore.” Draco’s stomach panged with a gnawing feeling. “Neville, why did you forgive me? And, honestly, why me at all? I just don’t understand.”

Neville sat back and just looked at Draco for a long moment. “I think for most of school, I thought you were this untouchable person. As much as Harry found trouble, you just sort of floated above it. And, as much as Harry watched you and thought you must have been up to no good in a panto villain way, I watched you and I could tell you weren’t like he thought at all.”

“But, I WAS like he thought!”

Neville shook his head and ran his fingers down Draco’s face like in the movie they had watched. Draco smiled at the tension cut by the move. “No, Draco. You listen now. You weren’t like Harry thought, and you weren’t like you thought, you were something else. I saw that your face softened when you helped your housemates, or when a cute Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff girl talked to you. Later it was even clearer it was only the seven or eight of us closest to Harry that you even had an opinion about. You weren’t exactly nice to anyone else, but you at least acted like a person to them.

“I didn’t know what was happening, obviously, but, I could see that you weren’t the same person from year to year, especially after the Tournament. Anyone with eyes and half a brain should have been able to tell your family was poisoning you, shaping you into someone crueler than you wanted to be. I didn’t like you, but I didn’t agree with Harry and Ron that you were actually evil, especially not before Dumbledore. You were on the wrong side, and you were an utter dick every day, but I happened to be on the right side and I was an utter mess every day.”

Neville sighed. “So, why did I forgive you? You want to be different than you were. So, I forgive you. You never wanted to be that person in the first place. You wanted to be Harry Potter’s friend before you wanted to murder Hermione Granger or Dumbledore. You’ve been enthusiastically apologising for weeks through your actions, so I forgave you through my own actions.”

Draco’s brow had furrowed. “But…”

“Do you know how different you were last year?” Draco shook his head. “You bumped into me in the hall leaving Transfiguration one day and said ‘sorry’. It was the strangest thing I’d ever heard from you, and I’m certain you don’t remember. You were someone different in the autumn, and then you were even less yourself after Christmas. Then, after Easter hols, you were suddenly focused and your eyes were clearer than I’d seen all year. You were a new person, and I could only think you’d been changed by whatever happened at the Manor.”

“Neville, you shouldn’t have had time to notice me. You were the head of the fucking resistance. Why were you watching me?”

Neville’s breath had gone shallower. “Draco, I had this mad idea you might defect. I had no real reason to think it, since you’d never done anything for us, but after Umbridge, you didn’t actually do anything truly against US. If you were who Harry thought, you’d have been more like Crabbe and Goyle and Pansy when it came to Dark Arts class. If that was really who you were, you’d have loved it like they did. But, I know you didn’t love it.”

Draco swallowed. “How? I was always first. I ALWAYS went first…”

Neville sighed and took Draco’s hand. “Yes, but you also know you went easier on them than the Carrows intended. I always knew the kids who’d gotten you because they only needed healing on their palms from clenching their fists too hard. That’s nothing compared to what Crabbe and Goyle did to Ginny one time, or what the Carrows did to me. So, going first meant nothing compared to what you DID going first.” Neville’s eyes conveyed a strength Draco did not possess.

Draco could feel panic rising in him. “But, I really was that, I was just bad at curses, but they were still Unforgivable. How could you forgive me?”

Neville took Draco’s face in his hands. “Draco, I’ve seen you for seven years. I know you’ve been hurting for almost that whole time. I know. I’ve heard the things you say when you go into your panic attacks. I know what you scream out of your dreams when you don’t take a potion to sleep and when your silencio wears off at night. I know you’ve been tortured by your life. No judgment of mine could touch what you’ve already endured. I forgave you because I could see you, Draco. I could see that you were doing the next right thing again and again. I don’t really believe in good or evil anymore. I believe that if someone is doing better things today than they were yesterday, I’ll support them in doing that. And, Draco, you are doing your best every day and I see that.” He sighed. “Let me ask you this. If you’d been found innocent of everything, what would you have done with your summer?”

Draco barely had to think. “I would have supervised the tearing down of the Manor and come to rebuild the castle on the weekends, or vice versa if everyone hated me like they do now.”

“What about eighth year?”

“Of course. Last year was a total waste.” Great. He sounded like a Ravenclaw.

“And, if we hadn’t killed the bastard, what would you have done this summer?”

Draco went somewhere else. He remembered exactly what he had been planning, that thing he had wanted to do before he knew what he did now about horcruxes. “I was going to hide my mother and try to kill the bastard myself.”

Neville nodded and leaned back in his seat. “Seamus owes me ten galleons.”

Draco’s head snapped up to look at Neville. “For what?”

“I told him last year you were best placed to take out Voldemort. He didn’t think you’d betray the pureblood cause, to the tune of ten galleons. And, I took the bet because of everything I’ve already said.”

Draco arched an eyebrow. “So, you’ve been watching me for years and decided to bilk an innocent Irishman out of his hard-earned money based on inside knowledge of my character?”

Neville thought a second and nodded.

Draco pulled him closer and kissed him gently. “How very ssssexy of you, boyfriend…”

Neville pulled away. “Oh, yeah, I wanted to ask about that. Are we really boyfriends now? It’s a bit soon?”

Draco bit his lip slightly. “It feels right to me. You have no idea how close I came to saying something WAY too soon while my cock was in your mouth. Calling you my boyfriend feels like the way to calm myself down so I can say that other thing when the time is actually right. Do you want to be something other than boyfriends?”

Neville shook his head. “No, I want to be boyfriends, just, this whole thing feels so incredibly fast for some reason. I guess it’ll feel less fast the longer we’re together.”

They held hands and rested their heads together.

“Draco, I really like you. So much. You’re right it’s too soon for some things, but I do want to feel like we’re together.”

“Well, we fucking are, Longbottom.” Draco felt him wriggle slightly with joy. “Oh, so, about previous partners…”

“You do want to know my list, you Slytherin shit!”

He shrugged. “I just want to see if we have anyone in common before this summer.”

Neville rolled his eyes. “I don’t think so, but fine. Lavender, then Amy from Hufflepuff, then Julia from the year below ours, then Hermione, and now you.”

Draco nodded. “For me, it’s Pansy, then Blaise, then Daphne and Theo together fixing the cabinet, then Amanda. Then, I felt too tainted, and didn’t touch anyone until Hermione. And, now my beautiful boyfriend.” He kissed Neville’s forehead and they lapsed into silence that led to Draco falling asleep with his head on Neville’s shoulder.

He woke in the middle of a movie that was not making any sense. The same day was repeating itself. It felt a bit too much like sixth year for Draco’s taste. Also, Neville asked a lot of questions about things that were happening and Hermione became increasingly agitated and eventually stopped the movie.

“Can’t you just be confused? I swear, if you both just read a muggle book once in a while, you’d know about some of this from context clues!” Hermione huffed.

Draco huffed back as Neville had frozen. “You know, it’s not as if I had free and easy access to muggle culture in my family. And, how do you know Neville and I haven’t read any muggle books?” He thought of the mysteries he had seen Neville reading in bed this summer.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Uh, when did you read muggle books?”

Neville said in a small voice, “I’ve been reading some books from Seamus… They’re a bit older, though…”

Draco thought of the night he came home to find his mother imperiused. He must have pulled a pained expression, because Neville started rubbing his arm. “I did quite a bit before I was Marked. I tried to understand why Father thought muggles were so evil and malicious. There was nothing in the Manor library that made any sense, nothing on how they were actually able to steal magic, no facts, no linear arguments, just nothing. I found a muggle library in Bath and tried to understand where any of Father’s nonsense had come from- whether any of it could be true.

“But, there was nothing. Muggles have no relationship to magic the way wizards do. Everything muggles know about the occult has nothing to do with true magic. It’s all weakly using the magic in nature and hoping it does what you wanted it to do.” He sighed.

Hermione had gone quiet, a look of concern in her eyes.

“After learning as much as I could to counter Father’s lies, I just found I enjoyed being in the muggle library more than home, so I just went there all the time to get away. I read a lot of smaller books in a single day, mystery novels and stuff.” He swallowed thickly through the tears and bile he could feel just behind the next part. “Then I came home one day and Mother had been imperiused and the lich looked into my mind to find my loyalty. Somehow I managed to hide my excursions from him, and he didn’t find out how much I was questioning. But, I didn’t trust myself to keep everything from him anymore, so I had to stop going.”

Neville was gently rubbing his arm. “I had no idea he’d been there so long.”

Draco nodded. “Since the night my father was arrested at the Ministry.”

Hermione took his hand. “But, you can go back to the muggle library any time you like, now!”

He shrugged. “I don’t need an escape like that anymore. I can just be myself now.”

Hermione put her head on his shoulder. “It’s just so awful, you couldn’t go to the library… I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t go to the library…” She started to tear up, her voice breaking.

Draco hugged her. “But, you couldn’t go to the library for something like nine months yourself, love.”

She sobbed, fully crying now. “I know! It was awful!”

Neville moved to her other side and the two men sandwiched her in a hug. “But, you can go whenever you like now!”

She nodded. “I know it’s stupid! Just, being out of touch with knowledge is so hard! We were in the dark the whole time about anything that was happening, and what we were supposed to be doing. I took every book I could, but it wasn’t enough! If I’d had access to the Hogwarts library, we could have found the horcruxes and destroyed them months earlier!”

Draco sighed. “Hermione, everyone was working in the dark last year. I didn’t have anyone in my own circle I trusted. No one in Slytherin trusted me after my family wasn’t restored to favorite status after Dumbledore. No one in the rest of the school trusted me BECAUSE OF Dumbledore. I didn’t know Snape was on my side. I just had no one, and I was working through a lot of twisted understandings of the truth with no one else.”

Neville nodded. “And, I was doing everything I could think of to just resist the Carrows shite. Dumbledore’s Army was in the dark in so many ways. At school, we couldn’t know what was really going on outside because the Prophet just fully lied about what was happening, and we only knew anything from Lee’s radio broadcasts and when someone could get information in to us. But, not all communications made it through. We didn’t really know what was happening until you three showed up in the Hog’s Head.”

Hermione had calmed down again. “I only started to feel like we knew what was happening after we were taken off to the Manor.”

Draco took a deep breath. “Love, why haven’t you asked about that day? I’ve offered to tell you about it, but you don’t bring it up, and I don’t know why.”

She shrugged and shook her head slightly. “You said what happened, in court at your father’s trial. I was still there for that part.”

He shook his head. “That was only the part that had to do with the trial. It wasn’t everything.”

Hermione frowned. “I don’t know why I need to know if I’m not ready yet. Why do you need to tell me?”

Draco could feel his breathing going shallow, thinking of her on that floor. “It happened to you but you don’t know it all. It’s okay, I don’t have to tell you…”

Neville frowned. “Draco, why do you really want her to know? Even if you don’t tell her what happened, you could tell her why you want her to know.”

He really could not breathe now, staring at the tape slot on the telly just to have somewhere to focus. “I, it’s just, she, it happened to her… We were all there, but it happened to her, and she should know what we saw.” He could feel tears spilling down his cheeks, but he could not look at her.

Neville’s voice was soft. “It didn’t just happen to her, Draco.”

He huffed. “It shouldn’t have happened to any of them! I should have been stronger. I should have been like you, Neville. I should have stood up to Bella. I should have said it wasn’t them and found a way to get them out of there. I should have been smarter and stronger and used my mind and been less afraid of her.”

Hermione was breathing like she was crying but he still could not bring his eyes to her face. He had the audacity to hurt her last weekend, and now he had the audacity to be upset about her torture three months ago? His own sob escaped him.

Neville’s voice remained calm and soft but strong. “Hermione, do you have any lingering problems with how Draco acted that day?”

Hermione shook her head, voice suddenly confident. “No. It was an impossible situation. She was insane and she would have killed anyone in that room who got in her way. I’m honestly surprised Dobby was the only one who died that day.”

Draco sobbed again, thinking of the house elf who had always been kind to him, and he had been such a dick to. Neville’s voice steadied him. “And, do you think it makes sense that he was traumatised in complicated ways by that day?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, of fucking course.” She took Draco’s face in her hands, but he still looked down, anywhere but the brown eyes he felt boring into him. “Look at me, Draco.” His eyes met hers, shining but full of love. “How you feel about that day makes you a normal, good person, you arse.”

He closed his eyes and sobbed again. “No! It’s twisted me! Everything has twisted me so badly! I don’t deserve you… either of you… I’m not strong enough for you...”

“Do I need to slap you again? I’m so sick of you saying that.” Hermione sounded angry again. “I wrote to you about why that stuff makes you exactly who I need. I need that darkness, Draco. I need the part of you that still wants to do dark things. You know I need that. You absolutely deserve me, because you’re strong. You were strong that day. I know because you stayed alive and kept your cool, and you didn’t fucking kill anyone you wanted to kill that day. You are fucking strong. I can’t speak for Neville, but I’m sure he’s got his own reasons you deserve him, too. Fucking lose that piece of you that tells you who you deserve. It’s lying to you, and I’m sick of it.”

Neville sounded as firm and commanding as Draco had ever heard him. “I don’t care about the darkness, Draco. I care that nothing could twist you so badly that you became what you hate.”

But, he had become what he hated!!!

Neville held a hand up to stop Draco from starting. “I know you think you did become that, but you absolutely did not. Yes, it affected you, Draco. Everything that’s happened affected you. So, you want to do some rough or violent sex stuff, I think?” Hermione and Draco both nodded. “That doesn’t mean you’ve become your father, it just means you’re kinky. I already told you today, I’ve seen you, and I know you’re not evil. I don’t think YOU know you weren’t evil then, and you’re not evil now.”

Draco put his face in his hands and sobbed harder than before. They sandwiched him in a hug now until he calmed down. “I hate that you both just had to comfort me, your previously mortal enemy.”

Hermione arched an eyebrow. “No, that would be Harry’s position. He’s prone to hyperbole in a way that Neville and I are decidedly not…”

Neville snorted. “I mean, you’re still pretty hot and cold on most things, Hermione. It’s a bit of a Gryffindor thing.”

Hermione scoffed. “Well, what about you?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I think I’ve just been watching the shit-show from afar for so long, I can’t really muster the normal Gryffindor ups and downs. I’m a bit of the anti-Ginny in that way.”

Hermione smiled. “I like that you’ve paid so much attention to everyone, Neville. Is that how you knew Draco liked me before I did?”

Neville chuckled and leaned back into the couch. “I mean, you told me how he was flirting with you about me, before you knew it was flirting. And, I saw how he was looking at you.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “And, exactly how was I looking at her? I thought I was being quite closed.”

Neville also raised an eyebrow and thought for a moment. “Well, you were always looking at her. You were just always paying attention to her, even when she was across the room and behind you, somehow. I mean, most of that first week, you couldn’t stop focusing on her.”

“Well, she made that big speech and then wouldn’t talk to me! I thought she hated me again for some reason.”

Hermione blushed and pursed her lips to the side. “I just thought you were making fun of me. I thought your letter after the trial was some kind of Slytherin trick or something.”

Neville’s head cocked to the side in thought. “Was that what you kept reading and re-reading, Hermione? That must have been quite the letter.”

Hermione and Draco’s eyes met and they answered in unison. “It was…” They laughed.

Hermione smiled and sighed, biting her lip again and shivering. “I love you. I just love you both. I’m not willing to stop myself.”

Neville leaned forward to kiss her over Draco’s lap. “I love you, too, Hermione. So much.” He sat back again. “There is one thing that I feel like I need to know, though.”

Hermione nodded, looking at Draco. Draco nodded back. “Yes, anything.”

Neville sighed. “I get some of it, but what does the darkness you keep talking about mean, uh, for sex? I haven’t done anything very rough or dark with either of you, but it’s clear that’s part of what you two want, at least, from each other. And, I’m not sure how much I’m into that, or why it’s a thing you’d love about each other.”

Hermione sighed and looked at Draco. How could they explain this to him? Neville who was so full of light and goodness, Gryffindor’s sword had come to him in his moment of need?

She cleared her throat. “Well, we have all this history of hating each other?” She frowned and paused, clearly not sure how to continue.

Draco nodded. “For me, it’s the assignment from my father. It twisted itself in my mind so much, I just, just looking at her, I could feel the things I was supposed to do to her. And, I had to fight that for so long, I just didn’t think I’d ever be able to see her any other way, and then that twisted itself into sex because everything sort of twists its way into sex?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “For me, I just had to do a lot of horrible shit to keep everyone alive. For me, it’s that I know Draco knows what that’s like. And, I want to be seen that way by at least one person- as the person who could do terrible things for a good reason.” She blushed. “And, it turns out I find the part of Draco that twisted the darkness into sex to also be quite enticing. I want to leave normal propriety behind and just give in to a sort of...of...of controlled depravity.” She chewed her lip. “I’ve apparently been twisted in some ways that make me want to hurt someone and be hurt by someone.”

She looked into Draco’s eyes. “I’ve thought a lot about what we did in the greenhouse Sunday. I don’t just want to talk about it, Draco. I was just afraid it was wrong that I enjoyed it as much as I did.”

Draco breath halted. He thought of the wall and the loss of control he had experienced this week, and how she was running hot and cold on this. Why had she not told him any of this yet?

Neville’s voice was a whisper. “What did you do?”

Hermione looked at him. “Draco ate me out and I slapped him at my climax. Then, he spanked me, quite hard, and I loved it, and he fucked me into the dirt.” Her eyes had gone dark and her chest flushed again.

Draco took her hand and despite his desire to reassure Neville, an edge slipped into his voice. “She was always in control of how far it went. I don’t want to hurt anyone in a way they don’t want…”

“Oh, and I do want that, Draco…” Her voice was breathy, and he could almost feel it against him.

Neville whispered again, “I...I...I want to see it. I need to know…”

Draco’s stomach dropped. Could he let Neville see the darkness come out of him that way?

Hermione smiled. “Are you sure? It’s okay if that’s something we do alone.”

Neville shook his head. “No, I want to know. If I can’t handle it, I’ll go away or something.”

No, no, no, no… Draco shook his head. “No, we don’t have to do it. If you can’t handle it, we’ll do something else instead.”

Neville nodded then. “Okay, I’ll tell you if I’m not alright and we’ll do something else…”

Hermione got up from her seat. “Let’s go up to my room. There’s a pretty big bed there, and some chairs I rescued from the awful parlor.”

They all made their way up the stairs, Draco going last and measuring his steps. He could do this. They both wanted it, so he could do it. It would be fine, just to let out a trickle of the shadows he had been holding onto.

Hermione’s room was an airy one on the third floor. Neville sat in one of the chairs beside the window, facing the room. He looked slightly uncomfortable, but also a bit excited.

Draco pulled Hermione into his space, running his hands up and down her arms slowly. “I love you, darling. What have you been thinking about doing together?”

Her eyebrow twitched and her hands rested on his waist. “I want to be spanked again. Longer, if that’s okay. Maybe with a book?”

The thought of hitting her bottom with a copy of Hogwarts: A History made him chuckle. “It’ll feel very different from my hand.”

She nodded with a smile and a twitch of her eyebrow. “I know.”

His hands ran down to her bum, squeezing lightly. “Have you been practicing on yourself, love?”

She got a cheeky look in her eye. “Maybe.”

“Do you want to do anything to me? Last time we exchanged spanking for a slap.”

She nodded, her eyes looking far away for a moment. “I’d like to hurt you more. How much do you enjoy pain?”

Draco’s cock twitched against her. “I mean, quite a lot…”

She smiled. “How would you feel about teeth with a blow job?”

Draco’s cock twitched hard against her.

Neville coughed, curling into himself. “That sounds fucking terrifying to watch. Please not that, not while I’m here?”

Hermione nodded. “Okay. Did what we described from Sunday sound too bad?”

Neville shook his head. “No, not really. It just sounded a bit rough on top of the sex.”

Was that all it was? Draco thought he could do that, if it was just the pain on top of the pleasure. That would be fine, right? He shrugged. “It’s been a bit more than that, but we could just do the pain part, but more of it, yeah?” He searched Hermione’s face for hesitation.

Hermione nodded. “I mean, I did really like it, and I don’t want to scare our boyfriend.”

He glanced back at Neville who looked eager but confused. “Certainly not, no…”

Draco took her face in his hands and kissed her, feeling the warmth spread down his body, lighting him ablaze. Their tongues fought in her mouth, drawing a moan from her throat that made his cock twitch again. He pulled her camisole off over her head and twisted it at her hands, binding them lightly above her head. He raised an eyebrow at her in question. Was this alright? She sighed up at him with a smile in response. So, restraining her was alright for now. He held her hands together above her head as he unbuttoned her shorts and pushed them down with her knickers to pool on the floor.

He led her slightly forward and moved around in back of her to show her off to Neville. He could do this. Just make the plan and stick with it. “We’ll do things in a bit of a different order tonight, shall we, love? I’ll start by warming you up with spanking and fingering your sweet quim. Then, I want you to ride me to your first climax and slap me as much as you want. Then, I’ll spank you with the book of your choice and fuck you until you forget your own name.”

She nodded and whimpered a little, her knees wobbling as he held her up just on her toes. “Yes, all of that. I’ll say if anything’s too far.”

Draco looked to Neville, whose eyes were as big as saucers. “I need to know if that sounds okay to you, too, Nev. If it’s not okay, we’ll both be happy to do something else.”

Please, please want to do something else…

Neville nodded. “Okay. I still don’t understand, but you’re both so into this, I really want to understand.”

Draco pulled Hermione further up onto her toes and she tried to find her balance. “I can explain it as I go, if you like?”

This would put him in the right place. Yeah. Just explain it as he went and he would be fine.

Neville nodded. “Yeah. If you can, yeah.”

Draco took a breath to steady himself. This was it. He wanted this. His cock twitched again, thinking of Hermione taking the pain he gave her, and giving it back to him.

He nipped her ear lightly. “I like to watch her reactions as she adjusts to what I’m doing.” He pulled her back into his body again and she melted against him. He slid his free hand down her arm, down her side, pinching her nipple slowly to a peak, and down her hip.

“I like to feel her squirm against me as I do the things she likes, knowing she’ll find something she doesn’t like, but knows I like. And, then I’ll tuck that away until the night she wants to be my bad girl. For tonight, I know she’s been away, touching herself, practicing what it’s like to hurt herself with books, and she wants to know how I’ll do it.” He slipped his fingers up and down her already wet slit, grazing her clit to produce a jerk of her hips. “Isn’t that right, Hermione? You want to feel how I’ll do it differently from how you did it…”

He slid two fingers easily into her, pumping slowly. She gasped out a “Yes!” and pressed her length back into him, arse cupping his erection perfectly.

“Let’s see how I like it, shall we?”

She nodded, her eyes closed. Draco looked to Neville. His eyes were still wide and his mouth was open in amazement, but he definitely had an erection, which was Draco’s main concern. If Neville wasn’t into it, he would stop everything.

Draco turned Hermione to face the nearest post, kicking her feet shoulder-width apart and bending her slightly to put her arse out in profile to Neville’s chair. He kept her hands bound and stuck the camisole to the bedpost over her head. “You’ll hold this position until I’m done with this round, Hermione. If you start feeling anything weird, beyond the spanking pain, or euphoria, you will tell me right away.”

She nodded. “I will.”

He stood close to her so he could catch her if she lost her balance, running his hand down over her bum, rubbing lightly over each globe of her cheeks. “How many for this round, Hermione?”

She sucked in a breath and turned her head to meet his eye. “Fifteen.”

Draco nodded. “Fifteen. I’ll start out soft. Tell me harder or softer or the same after each.”

She nodded, letting her head dip between her arms again.

He took a breath and cast a muffliato to shade her cries from the neighborhood. His eyes met Neville’s. “She’s anticipating the first blow now. It’ll be jarring.” He rubbed the globes of her arse lightly before pulling his hand back and connecting with her arse. Neville’s face tensed and released at the blow.

“Number one. Now, she’s relieved it’s started and she’s thinking about what the next one will feel like. Harder or softer?”

He could hear the smile in her voice as he looked down to soothe the light pink mark coming up on her skin. “Twice as hard.”

He reached down and tweaked her nipple. He looked again to Neville, who leaned forward slightly in his chair, still wide-eyed in amazement. “You can take your cock out whenever you like, Neville. Would you like if I was naked, too?”

Neville nodded, but did not remove his own clothing. Draco pulled his shirt over his head with one hand as he continued contact with Hermione. He pulled his boxers down, leaving his erection bobbing slightly. He removed his hand from her bum and brought it back down with a crack and a soft cry from her.

“Number two. Harder or softer?”

“Harder. Give me the darkness, please, Draco.”

Draco let go, nodding and smoothing his hand over her bum before the next strike sounded with her grunt. “Number three. You want to know how I love seeing you put in your place, love? Bent over at my mercy? You want to know I could do anything to you. You want to see the pieces of you I kept on the other side of the wall.” He let go of her and let another crack sound out.

“Ahh! Yes!”

“Number four. That’s what you really want, to know the girl I had to lock away in my mind.”

She whimpered and nodded. “Yes, harder, give her to me!”

Crack! She grunted a screech that went straight to Draco’s cock.

“Number five. You want to feel how it hurt, to be apart from you, Hermione. You want to feel how I kept what little I had of you from myself. Harder or softer?”

“Harder.” Her voice was warmth incarnate. He ran his hand over her arse in circles, over and over, pulling the warmth to the surface of her skin.

Crack! She screamed in excitement. “Number six.” He ran his fingers down to her slit and found her clit, circling it with the pads of his fingers as he rubbed her arse. “And, you’re simply dripping for me, Hermione. You know there’s even more darkness I’ve not even hinted at, don’t you?”

He sped his fingers on her clit and bent to whisper in her ear. “You know I most want to see you covered in pain marks, taking my cock, screaming, begging for your release, because you need me the same way I need you, Hermione. In pain, and in pleasure, my mate, my love, my toy…”

She gasped. “Yes! Yes! More!”

He withdrew his fingers to a whine from her that was cut off by the next blow to her arse, making her screech and wriggle. “Number seven. Harder or softer or the same, love?”

“Same!”

Crack! Her cries had become more musical as they continued. “Number eight.” He looked at Neville who was palming his erection through his boxers with a look of confused excitement. “She wants to know I’ll do exactly what I said I’d do. I have to know how much I’ve given her, so I can give it again. Harder, softer, or same?”

“Same.”

“And, are you having fun, Hermione?”

“Yes! This is just what I needed from you, Draco!”

Draco looked to Neville as he brought his hand down for the next blow. “Number nine.” Neville startled at the sound, but Draco could see that he focused on the way Hermione jerked and grunted as Draco’s hand connected. “She’s feeling warmed now, and every time I hit, it’s startling. But, she knows how many there will be, and she knows she is in control of how hard I go right now. Harder or softer or same?”

“Harder now. Can the rest be always harder?”

He circled her arse with his hand, which had begun to tingle, itself. “Yes, of course. I’ll stop checking in, but you will tell me if it’s too much.”

She nodded.

Craaack! Her scream sounded into the room like a bell. “Number ten. You like the feeling of physical pain, don’t you, Hermione? It’s so much simpler than the other kinds.” She nodded. He reached down to tweak a nipple hard. “And, you like that I’m giving it to you, because you know I WANT to give it.”

Craaaaack! She let out the kind of high keening sound he associated with prey animals. “Number eleven. You know I want to make you writhe and jerk in pain. You can feel how it excites me, and how I’m going to come inside you thinking of your pain.”

Whucraaaack! Her scream went straight to his cock, twitching it against her hip, precome drawing a shining line across her skin. “Number twelve. You loved fucking our lovely boyfriend in front of me earlier.” His eyes met Neville’s. “You got off on showing me what you do to him. And, now you’re getting off showing him what you do to me.” Neville was rubbing his erection through his boxers. Draco licked his lips, remembering the taste of Neville’s cock on his tongue.

Whuuucccraaaack! Hermione’s scream pierced him, the same pain for a moment as the reincorporation of her inside him… “Number thirteen. And, you’re going to ride me to your climax, showing off again. You just have to be on top of everything, Hermione…”

CRRAAAAcck! She barely made a noise, just gasped and sucked in air. “Number fourteen. You want the filth, because you feel filthy, Hermione. You’ve done so much that you need to let out, and you know I’ll do just what you need to let it out. Give you the pain you need and then give you the pleasure that goes with it for girls like you…”

The last crack seemed to echo through the room like it was a dream. She let out a strangled gasp and went a little bit limp against the bedpost. “Number fifteen. Now you’ll fuck your dripping pussy on my cock, my beautiful girl.”

He released the sticking charm on her camisole and pulled her close to whisper in her ear again. “Are you alright?”

She was panting slightly and her pelvis seemed to contract lightly. She panted out, “Need your cock…”

Draco lifted her onto the bed and crawled onto it after her. She pushed him down flat on his back and kissed him deeply before pulling back. With a brief pause to make eye contact with him in confirmation of what she was about to do, she slapped him across the face.

Yes! This pain!

As he recovered, she lined up his cock with her slit and impaled herself with no further fanfare. They both felt the bond immediately, breathing the same shuddering, moaning sigh. “Yes, this is where you belong, Draco… Inside me, bringing me pleasure…” She began pistoning her hips to the right spot inside her and let out a high moaning cry.

He looked at Neville, who had finally taken out his cock and was slowly stroking himself. She also looked at Neville, licking her lips. “Neville, thank you for watching…nnh...watching Draco spank me…”

Neville nodded, eyes still wide.

Draco pinched her nipples to points again, pinching hard to elicit a gasp from her lips and a clench around his cock. He held her nipples, tweaking and pulling them roughly as she fucked herself onto him. She leaned forward and slapped him again as her fingers began to circle her clit. “I’m not the only filthy one, am I, Draco? You like when I hit you. I can feel you jerk inside me…” She slapped him again for emphasis, the jerk of his hips magnified under scrutiny.

“Harder or softer or the same, Draco?” She arched an eyebrow.

He could not even think of the other possibilities. “Harder. Always harder.”

Neville whimpered and Draco and Hermione both froze and snapped their attention to him. He looked confused and actually upset. His eyes blinked, wide and shining. “I can’t see you hit his face again. That’s too much for me.”

Hermione frowned. “Okay. Are you okay, Neville?”

He closed his eyes and breathed in and out a few times. When he reopened his eyes, they were clearer and he no longer had a look of panic. “Yes, I just think maybe I can’t handle you two hurting each other. Can you do something without that?”

Hermione crawled off Draco and went to kneel in front of Neville to hug him in his chair. “It’s okay. Yes, we can do something else.” She kissed his cheek and glanced down. “I’ve been noticing your beautiful cock, and I think if you’d like, I’d love to suck your cock while Draco fucks me. No hurting each other, no pain, just nice sex between people who like each other.”

Draco’s mind felt like the gears were grinding against each other. Stop? No more pain? No, he needed more pain. Hurt yourself, Draco, hurt yourself for real.

Neville was smiling, kissing Hermione. “Yes to that.”

Hermione was pulling him up and climbing onto the bed again. “Draco, does that sound fun to you, too?”

Smile, reassure them, give them yourself, whatever they want. “I think we all know I’ll be happy with whatever happens if it’s with you two. I could even be convinced to watch without participating again.” He shrugged. Whatever they want.

Hermione was shaking her head. “Oh, no. I need your cock inside me, Draco. We will be fucking one way or another…” Hermione was directing them into a line where she was bent over on all fours with her head in Neville’s lap. He was directed to enter her from behind.

Play with her clit, get her off, give her the pleasure she deserves. His fingers were finding her clit, plunging two digits inside her, saying the nice things they both liked to hear.

She was grinding her hips back against his hand. She was tipping her head to the side so he could see as she licked the head of Neville’s cock. She was moaning from what he was doing to her cunt, then Neville was moaning from what her moan did to him.

Find that spot inside her that makes her come the hardest. Hit it. Press hard on her pelvis, just how she does it to herself. Give her the words she craves. So many words, she is going to remember them later, so make them good. All the words, give her all the words. Whatever she wants.

Hermione was crying out, coming with a series of deep panting grunts, clenching around his fingers. She was still holding Neville’s cock and he was smoothing her hair and smiling at her as she looked up after recovering. Then, she was going back to sucking the head of Neville’s cock and stroking his length.

He was so far away from them. He was going to be fine. Cast the contraceptive and just line up and push in, just like you were told. She can feel you inside her now, and you can feel her inside you. Say something. Make her feel beautiful. Loved. Whatever she needs, give it to her.

She was bobbing up and down on Neville’s cock, and Neville was carding his fingers through her hair, lightly guiding her head. Neville can be so gentle, why is he so different? The feeling of completeness takes him over, Hermione’s magic touching his own. It overwhelms him.

Lose control. Lose track of where she begins and you end. You have been so good. Just let out the parts that you need to give her. She wants them. She wants every word, every feeling. Tell her what you would do to her, if you could do anything to her at all. She cries out in pleasure and falls limp. Give yourself what you need. Give in to the feelings. She is doing what she was meant to do, give you pleasure. Give in to it. She is your mudblood, your mate, your fantasies come to life. That’s it. Fuck her like she deserves, like you deserve.

He is coming, his whole body alight with the feeling of the bond. He is enveloped in a cloud of pleasure. He is collapsing, bent over, clutching her to his body, chasing the feeling.

Neville was running his fingers through Draco’s hair. His eyes were only concern.

Draco was crying. Why was he crying? “Why am I crying?”

Hermione was pulling away from him, pulling him in again to hug him to her. They were sandwiching him again, and Neville was pulling up a blanket to cover them all.

Why was he crying? He was trying to think of what happened while they were fucking. “Why am I crying?”

Neville stroked his hair. “You said some terrible things, Draco. Panic attack things. I’m not surprised you’re crying.”

“What did I say?”

Hermione smoothed her hand down his chest. “You called me a mudblood and said I was getting what I deserved, among other things.”

Draco sobbed. It was all the things he had been keeping behind the wall. He tried to remember what he had actually done and said moments before. Nothing was coming back to him. “No. I don’t deserve your comfort.” He struggled to escape their cocoon of gentle kindness.

Neville pulled him back. “No, that’s not everything. You seemed upset, and afraid, like you just weren’t yourself. You didn’t seem like you were enjoying it, Draco.”

“Why didn’t you stop me? You should have stopped me! I could have hurt Hermione!” He felt like he was choking. Their comfort was too much. He pulled away harder and sat at the edge of the bed, back against a post facing them. They moved to follow him. “No! Space!”

They sat up and waited for him to calm. Neville got up and left the room for a minute, coming back with the vials of potions from Draco’s trousers. Hermione just sat with the blanket wrapped around her front and stared at Draco with a look of concern.

He took a Calming Draught. As it took effect, he practiced breathing deeper.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” Draco could not wrap his mind around what had happened. Even if he had overpowered Hermione, Neville had been right there, and he should have been able to stop Draco from raping her as it felt like he had.

But, they were so calm, he must be missing something.

Hermione and Neville looked at each other with shame blatant on their faces. She frowned. “Well, I, umm, I came again. And, I wasn’t really paying total attention to what you were saying. I’m so sorry!”

Neville swallowed. “And, I didn’t know there was something really wrong until after Hermione started to come down. I thought it was just more of the same, uh, stuff that’s between you two…” He reached for Draco. “Then you were crying and Hermione looked concerned, too. So then I knew something was wrong, but then you finished, too…”

Draco shook his head. “That slur is not part of the ‘stuff that’s between us’. That’s what my father called her. That’s something I would never call her again. I can’t believe you thought I would still call her that!”

Neville’s face was screwed up in pain. “I don’t get any of this! I don’t get wanting to hurt each other, or half the things you say to each other during it! It didn’t make sense to want to spank her or her wanting to hit you! How was I supposed to know this wasn’t just more of that?!”

“Oh.” Hermione was calm. “Neville, this was something totally different from the spanking or slapping. Draco can tell me if I’m wrong, but I would think this is about his father’s influence, whereas the pain stuff is about channelling something dark in a way he can control.” She looked at Draco expectantly. “Right?”

It sounded like a load of bollocks, but he could not say that. Draco shrugged. “I don’t know. This was all a terrible mistake. I pushed myself too hard after this week.” He felt his face trying to maintain its composure, but it failed and he buried his head in his arms and let the tears flow again.

Control. He had lost control. He had lost control in so many ways this week. He had nothing left to keep the terrible feelings at bay, to keep the poison contained. He had done so much to maintain his control for the past seven years, and it had all come crashing down around him this week.

He felt Neville’s hand, rubbing his shoulder. He felt Hermione’s hand on his arm.

Hermione’s voice was hesitant. “Do you want to go to sleep? Or, we could watch another movie?”

Draco lifted his head. Hermione’s eyes were red, but she was smiling at him with sweet hope. He sniffed back his tears. “Are you okay, Hermione?”

She leaned forward to kiss his arm where she had been holding it. “No, I made one boyfriend go into an evil fugue state and scared the other one with how violent I wanted to be!” She barked out a strange laugh. “Of course I’m not fucking okay. This whole thing is so fucking complicated, and we all avoided talking about the thing we were supposed to talk about with sex that went all wrong! I don’t know what to do!”

She launched herself off the bed and began throwing her clothes on. “This is clearly not going to work! Maybe we all work as the three sides of the thing, but not all of us together! It’s all just fucked! And not the fun kind!”

Neville stood calmly and went over to her, pulling her into a hug. “Stop. You don’t know that.” She tried to pull away, but he held her firmly. “No. We just don’t have a solution right now. We did too much for Draco after his crazy week, and that’s the mistake we made. You know this isn’t on any one of us, Hermione. You know it. But, you do know how to solve unsolvable problems. You’ve done it loads of times.”

She clutched him. “But, I don’t know! I don’t know how I’ve ever done it! Research! But we’re people! We can’t research each other!”

Draco breathed out heavily. “I bet that Rodolph guy from the soul bond book knows something.”

They both turned to look at him. Hermione sniffed back her tears. “Why? Do you think there’s something wrong with our bond?”

Draco nodded, shrugging a little bit. Sex with Hermione had been the most out of control he had been before the wall fell, and this had been the most out of control he had felt yet. It had to be something about the bond. “I’ve felt out of control every time, just not to this extent. I hate that I let my control slip like that. I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you if I can’t stay vigilant, Hermione.”

She went to him and took his hands. “But, it WASN’T like that the first two times, in your room and the greenhouse…”

He sighed. Of course she did not believe him. “It was for me. I may have started in control both times, but I didn’t end up that way. Either time.”

Hermione’s eyes filled with tears and her voice went quiet. “I can’t keep doing this to you, Draco.”

He held her face in his hands. “It’s not you. It’s me. It’s about my broken brain. I’m broken! You didn’t do anything to me. And, you cannot fix this! You cannot fix what’s wrong inside me!”

She sobbed harder and buried her head in his shoulder.

Neville stroked her back and Draco held her until they both stopped crying. “I love you both, but we HAVE TO STOP talking about this now. It’s not doing anything useful.” He tilted his head toward the door. “I saw one of those movie boxes that had a bunch of cute girls on the cover. Maybe we could watch that and try to take our minds off how broken we all feel for a bit? Maybe we’ll fall asleep?” He nodded excessively, trying to get them to agree.

Hermione laughed. “Okay. Draco?”

Draco nodded and allowed himself to be pulled down the stairs and deposited on the couch again.

The movie did its job as well as it could. Draco fell into sleep that night to the dulcet sounds of American teenagers having odd interpersonal conflict using something that resembled cockney rhyming slang.

But, it was all wrong. Something was terribly terribly wrong, and Draco could not make himself see anything but its shape through the haze of Hermione and Neville.

Chapter Text

July 19-20, 1998

They returned to Hogwarts soon after eating a breakfast that Hermione had gone out to find while Neville and Draco slept on the couch.

Draco felt like a raw nerve all morning. The entirety of last night had been too much for him. He kept trying to understand or even just remember what had happened during sex with Hermione, but could only come back to the fact that he was broken. It was all he could see. It was a hollow feeling, like what was broken had emptied him entirely, leaving him a shell.

Neville and Hermione joined the day’s work party while Draco went to see Madam Pomfrey for a top up on his traveling potions. She seemed to think it was a good thing he had not had a headache with his panic attack last night. He did not share the details of why he had the attack, and she did not ask.

As there was no one else in the hospital wing yet, Draco found himself asking a question that had been bothering him. “Madam, what does the soul bond actually do?”

She gave him a puzzled look. “I’m not sure what you mean, dear.”

“I know it leads you to your soulmate, but what does it DO? Why doesn’t it disappear after that?”

She thought for a moment. “Well, it provides a sort of recursive loop of magical energy between the two involved.”

“So, it magnifies whatever is happening on either end?”

She thought for another moment. “Yes, and it gets stronger the closer the two are, physically and magically.”

“And, when you touch your mate, does that do anything specific?”

She nodded slowly, studying his face. “The physical conduit is very strong. It is a good way to magnify the energy between the two.”

Draco swallowed. It was him. It was his fault.

He could feel his mask of composure slipping. His voice was a whisper. “What happens if the energy between the two has been corrupted somehow? Or, if one’s magical core is tainted?Can they share that with the other through the bond? Through touching?”

She sat on the bed beside him. “Draco, you’re not going to give your issues to your soulmate through your soul bond.”

He sniffed, holding back tears. “When I touch her, sometimes I just lose my head. I’m afraid of it. I don’t know how to fix this. How do I keep from hurting her?”

She pulled him into a hug. It was exactly what he needed. “Draco, you’re dealing with a lot right now. I think you’re being too harsh with yourself. Please know that you are in extremely early days for dealing with EVERYTHING you’re going through. Please, try to be kind to yourself.”

He shook his head. “I don’t deserve to be kind to myself, Madam. Not after everything I’ve seen and done.”

She sighed. “You’ve been through a war, Draco. I know that being eighteen makes you feel like you’re at the end of your life and you’re a full adult and you should be responsible for every single thing you’ve done in your life. But, as you age, who you are now will come to feel, to that older you, the way the you of right now feels about yourself at six or seven. I know it seems like you have to do everything now, deal with everything right now, but you simply don’t. I know you feel like you’re a full adult who should have known better, but I’ve seen real evil, Draco, and it is not coming to me to top up the potions to make it a calmer, healthier person.”

Draco sighed, only able to take in about half of her words. “Are you saying I’m still a child?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m saying you can’t think of yourself now as someone who had any control over what was happening to them, for most of your life up to now. And, I can see you do blame yourself for things that were out of your control your whole life, BECAUSE you’re still getting out of childhood and you don’t have any perspective on what’s happened to you in your life. There are few things you’ve done in your life that are ‘bad’ that came from things you could control.”

“I could have said no. I could have said I wouldn’t kill anyone.”

She smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “Draco, you haven’t killed anyone, have you?” He shook his head slightly. “And, before the Carrows, did you ever torture anyone?”

His voice came out a whisper. “I’ve been awful to everyone outside my house since I arrived here.”

“You know that’s not what I mean. Cruciatus? Imperius? Beat up any kids just because you could?”

He shook his head. “It’s just so violent and disgusting in my head. And I have been in fights, and I did TRY to kill Dumbledore and Hermione, and I’ve said the worst things imaginable to everyone I’ve ever known, including my girlfriend and boyfriend last night.” Tears spilled from his eyes and ran down his cheeks. “I’m a bad person. I’ve hurt people, so many people. And, I have so many urges to keep hurting people. Everything is just so jumbled together and violent in my head. Some day I’m going lose control while I’m with Hermione, and she’ll be hurt like I’ve seen in my mind for so many years.”

She rubbed his back slowly. “Draco, I’m going to remind you that I’ve seen a lot in my time at this school. And, I don’t see in you the things that I’ve seen in people who commit truly evil acts.” Draco looked at her, sympathy shining on her face. “When is your next appointment with Healer Simons?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“I’m going to owl her about doing some memory work with you. I think it will help you to gain some of the perspective you need.”

He shrugged, wiping his face with the butt of his hand. “Okay.”

She hugged him again and he went away to hide in bed for the rest of the day. He wished he could talk to Hermione like they had before their reunion Friday.

      Everything feels so awful again. I love you so much, and I don’t want to be this person when I’m with you! What do we do? But, how do I make sure that when we try to fix this, I don’t make you feel like you need to fix it yourself? It’s not your impulses that need checking.
      Pomfrey told me she doesn’t think I have true evil in me, also a bunch of other things I didn’t understand about perspective. I just want to be sure I won’t hurt you. But, I can’t be sure of that, and it terrifies me. What the fuck am I supposed to do about any of this?

H: Since you stopped writing a couple of minutes ago, I’m not sure if you were done, or if I can cut in?

D: No. Stop reading while I’m writing. I hate knowing you’re doing that!

Draco received Neville’s bulldog patronus five minutes later stating that Hermione had given him her journal until the end of the day, and that she wanted Neville to tell Draco for some reason.

      Very clever, my love. It is a comfort that you found a way to show me you’d stopped reading. Maybe I should start saying at the beginning of every entry that you shouldn’t reply or show me you’re reading until I cross it out.
      I love that you want to talk to me all the time, but it’s also incredibly overwhelming. I’m not used to telling anyone what I’m thinking or feeling, and your need to know all and say all is just a lot for me.
      I have such a desire to hurt you, Hermione. It scares me. It especially scares me that it comes out and I lose control when we have sex. I love when you hurt me, too. It’s like nothing else. I’m really afraid I’m going to do actual damage because I can’t control myself once I’m actually inside you, and it’s getting worse.
      I don’t think I wanted to do any of the dark stuff this time. But, how was I supposed to tell you that when you were so eager and Neville said yes, too? I just felt like I was doing what you both wanted and it really fucked with my head.
      That first time wasn’t like this. I think we need to stop all the dark stuff when we have sex. It’s too dangerous. But, fuck, even that first time, it felt like I had to keep a tight rein on myself. What do we do? I need you, Hermione. I need you, and I don’t think I can have you. What do I do? What do you do?

He had taken the emptiness and poured it onto the page, and now it was even worse than it had been. The words had flowed from him, as they always did with her, and seeing the words on the page made it clear what he needed to do.

Draco took out the triad journal and opened it to the first blank page.

      My loves, this is too hard. I hurt you both last night in different ways, and I cannot live with myself, knowing I’ve been so careless. I don’t want to do that again. As lovely as it would be for my dreams of us to come true, I can’t let it happen if it means hurting you like that. I have to fix this thing in myself that is so broken before I can even think about whatever this is between the three of us.
      I’m so sorry, I just can’t be here now.

The words flowed from his fingers and he found they were true as he wrote them. He had to escape. He had to get to safety.

Black House was a world away from his prior safe haven at Hogwarts. Thus, it was only the place he could imagine going. He wondered how long he could live there without having to explain anything about his current predicaments to his mother.

He had written quick notes to his parole officer, Madam Pomfrey, and Professor McGonagall explaining his change in location until his medical leave concluded.

His mother was not home when he arrived with his trunk. He floated it up to his room without calling for any of the elves. He wanted to be alone to think.

Draco spent the afternoon reading one of his favorite adventure aurors series and diving deep into the music he had bought earlier in the week. He stayed out of the library, not wanting to think of Hermione in that room. He listened to anything but Ava Adore, not wanting to think of Neville in the music booth.

He fell asleep on his couch by the window, the sounds of rain plinking against the window glass. When he woke, his mother was standing before him.

“Draco, dearest. What are you doing here? I thought you were staying at Hogwarts with your friends.”

His face could not even remotely muster the stiff upper lip his mother would be expecting. He openly cried, unable to speak.

She knelt at his feet and pulled him into a hug that felt new. “Draco, what happened? Did something happen?” He shook his head. “What’s wrong, my love?” He sobbed harder and clutched her. “Are you hurt? We’ll make it better. Whatever is wrong, we’ll find the solution, my dragon.”

He was nearly wailing with his tears. He had ruined everything, just as he had ruined everything his whole life. Nothing worked like it should now. Hermione was his soul mate, but he could not be with her because of the poison inside him. Neville was a new chance at being a person worthy of love outside a soul bond, but he had frightened and hurt him before it could even really start. He could never escape what he had done, what he had thought, who he really was. His crying fit lasted so long he became hoarse.

As he calmed down, he was aware that his mother was still hugging him and sitting on the couch beside him, making hushing noises and petting his hair. She had never been like this before. She was a good mother, but she had always been rather removed from him emotionally.

He slowly drew away from her. She looked genuinely concerned in a way he could not remember seeing her before. She had cut her hair, hair that had always been long but pinned up. It was a sort of short bob now, a familiar shape somehow. He touched the ends of it at one ear. “You cut your hair. It’s really lovely, Mother.”

She smiled and touched it herself. “Do you think so? I saw it on someone in one of those telly programs and thought it might suit me. Plus, Hermione seems so much freer since she cut hers, I thought I’d see if it did anything for me.”

Draco’s smile crumpled at Hermione’s name and his tears began again, albeit silently this time.

Narcissa smoothed his tears away with a handkerchief. “It’s Hermione?” Draco nodded. “Did you do something, or did she, or both?”

Draco swallowed thickly. “Both, a bit.”

She nodded sympathetically. “That’s always the hardest. What do you need, my dragon? I’m assuming you’re still on your mysterious medical leave.”

He nodded, feeling suddenly guilty about keeping the truth from her.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve come home.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m really so glad you’ve come home, Draco. I’ve missed you.” She sighed. “Not just this summer, and not just since school started last year. I’ve missed you for a long time, Draco.”

He nodded, totally out of his depth. “I missed you, too, Mum.” She gathered him again into a hug and he found he was crying again, but it felt like a totally different release. His shirt was getting wet where his mother’s face was. “I love you, Mum. I’m so glad we made it out.”

She nodded into his shoulder and sniffed. “I wish I’d been able to keep you safer, Draco. I’m so sorry I let all of this happen to you. I’m so, so sorry. I love you so much, and I didn’t protect you.”

“He had us all, Mum. He had us all trapped. It wasn’t your fault.”

The Malfoys held each other in a silence lasting so long, they both stretched from stiffness when they finally pulled apart.

She still had tears in her eyes as she stood up and smiled at him. “Shall I have Mimo make your favorite for dinner? Is beef wellington still your favorite?”

He smiled and nodded. “Yes, Mimo’s beef wellington is still my favorite, and I would love to have it for dinner tonight.”

She caressed his face again before leaving the room. After she left, he put his headphones back on and began reading the next chapter of his book.

Four pages in, Draco looked up to see an especially wispy incorporeal otter sitting on the floor beside him. He pulled off his headphones so he did not miss the message.

“Draco, where did you go? I read your messages, but no one knows where you went. Please let me know you’re safe. Please, just let me know you’re safe…” The otter puffed away in a faint cloud and dissipated.

He should at least tell them he was alright. Neither of them was stupid, and they had both been here, so they should be able to figure it out.

He opened his DH journal. She had written back after his message.

It’s not you, Draco! Where are you? I need you here. I just got back! Please come back, I love you and Neville loves you, and I’m worried out of my mind! Please, this can’t work if you’re not here, Draco……………………… Please come back. Where are you? Did I do something? Is it me? We don’t have to have sex anymore. I just need you here!

It is extraordinarily shite of you to just disappear without saying anything, you arsehole! Fuck you! What is wrong with you?

No! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! Come back and talk to us. I’m so worried after what you wrote in the triad journal, Draco. Please, just tell me you’re alright!

The triad journal had a short entry in Neville’s script.

      This sounds really dire. Can you tell us you’re alright? We’re just really worried about you after last night and this week and everything. You don’t have to come back, or tell us where you are, or talk about anything you don’t want to. We just want to know you’re safe. A lot happened to you this week, and we just want to make sure you’re safe and okay-er where you are. Please just tell us that.

Draco wrote back in the triad journal.

I’m safe at Black House. Please don’t come here. I’ll write again, I promise. I just need space and time.

He closed the book and went downstairs to dinner.

He spent the rest of the night consciously not reading any of the journals.

He also spent the night torturing himself about leaving, about worrying them, about what he was going to find when he did read the journals, about how he could not change anything, about the soul bond, about the not-soul bond, about occlumency walls failing, about how beautiful and strong Neville was, about how beautiful and strong Hermione was, and about being the kind of person who had done nothing technically evil but wished he had done something technically evil just to have something to repent for.

Literally every single thought made him at least a bit miserable. He finally had to take a potion to fall asleep just to fucking stop his mind for one fucking minute.

The next morning was no better. Now he was simply terrified to open the journals. Hermione would be hexing him a new one with her words - if she had not just forgone the journal in favor of a howler…

He finally went to the library that morning. He found he wanted to read the book Hermione had read about the soul bonds, by the Rodolph guy she kept quoting.

It was not difficult to find the book Hermione had read by consulting the library’s indexing book. Rodolph Helles’s book Twining Again had only ever been removed from the library by Hermione. This book had only been published fifteen years ago, so Rodolph Helles was almost certainly still alive. What would he think of Hermione’s ideas about the Room of Requirement? Had she written to Herr Helles?

Draco sat in the library reading about retwining soul strings until it was time for his first appointment.

His presence had been requested at the DMLE to give his statement about the incident on Friday with Xenophilius Lovegood. He refused to give anything but a cursory description of what happened, and declined to sign anything regarding pressing charges. He made it as clear as possible that he had no wish for Mr Lovegood to remain locked up.

When he entered Healer Simons’s office that afternoon, he felt a strange sort of relief at the sight of her. “Healer Simons, how are you today?”

She looked up from a parchment. “I think you ought to call me Madeleine at this point, don’t you, Draco?”

Draco shrugged. “I suppose. I’ve never called a healer anything other than Madam or Healer Surname, but you have been inside my mind with me.”

She nodded. “I just don’t think with the next steps there’s any benefit to me being a titled authority figure.”

He shrugged again. “Did you get the owl from Madam Pomfrey?”

She nodded again. “Yes. I think memory work is just the thing to tackle next. It’s rather stressful, though, so I’ll need to do some diagnostics before we begin to be sure you’re as well as can be, given your week.”

Draco’s stomach dropped. He would have to tell her what happened over the weekend. The stuff about Hermione and Neville. The part where he lost control… Fuck.

“What’s wrong, Draco?” She was standing before him, touching his arm. “What happened?”

He sighed and frowned. “Hermione and Neville.”

An incomprehensible series of emotions crossed her face. “Oh, I see. Why don’t you tell me what happened? Come sit down. I’ll do the diagnostics while you tell me.”

Colors swirled above his head as he did actually explain in full detail what had happened on Saturday night. He started crying again when he described the third round in the bedroom. “Neville just looked so uncomfortable the whole time, and I don’t think I really wanted to do the dark parts, but I just kept on. And, Hermione really wanted the dark parts to happen. I don’t know what I was even thinking, letting any of it happen. Neville got so upset, he stopped us and we tried some more normal stuff, but… I don’t even know… I lost control completely and called her, you know… and I don’t even remember anything until I finished and came to my senses and I was crying and they just looked horrified.”

She was seated behind her desk again with a look of interested concern. “That sounds really scary, Draco. I’m sorry that what you wanted to be a happy night ended up being so complicated and upsetting instead.”

He nodded and sniffed. “What’s this memory stuff we’re supposed to do?”

She used her wand to open a cabinet containing a pensieve. “You and I will go together into at least one of your memories to examine the truths of it. Then, we’ll talk about it and go back in and you’ll help your younger self.”

“But, in a pensieve, you can’t affect what happens. It’s a record of fact.”

She nodded. “In some ways, yes, but you’ll find that as the owner of the memories, you can interact in ways that a strict observer cannot. Your memory self will recognise you if you let him.”

“Why doesn’t everyone know about this?”

She shrugged. “How common are pensieves? And, do the people who own them know all their uses, or did they learn from someone who also didn’t know all their uses?”

He rolled his eyes.

“Fair reaction, Draco. Have you used one?”

“No, but we have one at home. Hermione gave me some of her memories to help with her parents.”

“What?!” Madeleine’s eyes had gone wide.

Draco realised his mistake too late and would have to divulge at least part of Hermione’s secret. “Uh, she had to wipe herself from her parents’ memory and send them away a few years ago. She gave me her memories of what she did so I could help figure out how to reverse it.”

“Oh my god, Draco.” She stared off into the mid-distance in concern and shock for a moment. “You are a very good partner, Draco. I’m very glad you told me. We’ll work on how you can protect yourself in her memories, too.”

Draco was baffled. Why was she so concerned about this? “Alright.”

“And, please, please, use me as a resource.” Draco remained passive. “Please, Draco. You WILL need help and I am literally a professional.”

Draco sighed. “Okay. I’ll ask you for help when I need it…”

She nodded and regained her lost composure. “I’ll give you a list of books when you leave today.” She stood and gestured to the pensieve. “Now, I’d like to start with the forest.”

Draco felt his chest contract. He heard his voice come out as a whisper. “Why?”

“You remember casting the Killing Curse with sufficient desire to make it happen. Knowing you now, I want to see if your internal memory of it has been clouded by who you believe you were.”

“But, won’t it just show what I remember? How can you tell?”

She smiled in a slightly patronising way. “We’ll be able to tell.”

Draco’s jaw clenched. “Fine.”

“Think of the memory the way you think it happened and pull it out.”

He pulled the memory as requested and deposited it into the swirling plasma of the pensieve.

“We’ll go in and see what it’s like. Then we’ll come out and talk about it. This will probably be very stressful the first time. Just know that I’m here with you, and you are not in danger.”

They tipped their heads into the misty basin and the office disappeared.

It was the forest at night. There was screaming in the mid-distance. The younger Draco was pale to near-translucence, his face painted with fear. Hermione was there with Harry and Ron. They exchanged unpleasantries and younger Draco gestured in the direction of the screams.

Older Draco looked at Madeleine. “What are we looking for? It’s going to happen soon.”

She nodded at younger Draco. “Does he look like he could kill someone right now?”

Draco studied his younger self. He simply looked terrified. His younger eyes kept flickering to Hermione and each time his eyebrows raised just slightly as if surprised, mouth twitching with suppressed emotions.

“No, I guess he doesn’t.”

The trio turned and began to trot away. “This is it, Madeleine.”

Suddenly there was a thick fog surrounding them. Draco could only see his younger self and Hermione. He younger self raised his wand with confidence and uttered the curse with a loud, commanding voice. Nothing happened. His younger self turned with a swear.

They were ejected from the memory. Draco stumbled backward and sat roughly in his chair.

Madeleine cleared the pensieve and sat in the chair beside him. “Do you know what happened to the memory?”

Draco was breathing deeply and with purpose. “Something’s wrong with it…? What happened to it? That part at the end with the fog didn’t make any sense, but that’s how I’ve always remembered it.”

“The fog means you’ve written over the original memory with the new version. It’s missing everything to give it context. It’s just Hermione and you casting the curse. Did you notice she wasn’t even wearing the same thing she had been in the real section?”

“Merlin’s beard, what happened, though? I don’t remember anything else!” Draco jumped up and started pacing.

Madeleine shook her head. “We’ll try to understand that next, Draco. First, why do you think you would have told yourself that story about what happened in the forest? The whole thing was crystal clear until the end, and even you and Hermione in that section were extremely clear, so you’ve been telling yourself this version for a very long time.”

Draco considered. He could only remember telling this version to his father after it happened. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had another version.”

She nodded. “Why do you think that is?”

He took a shaky breath. “Obviously whatever really happened was the wrong thing to tell my father.”

She nodded again. “That’s a really good reason to plaster over what really happened.”

“So, how do I get the real memory back?” Draco was breathing very deeply and very fast.

Madeleine gestured to his chair. “Well, first, sit down before you pass out.” Draco flopped into the chair. “Now, breathe in to a count of four and hold it for four and breath out to four and hold it for four and repeat that a few times.”

Draco followed her instructions, reminded of how Neville helped him sometimes with panics. He considered how he had told his father about the forest after it happened. They had been in the upstairs sitting room that was later ruined. He had been curled up in a ball in a chair as his father paced, spitting questions at him. He remembered being terrified at what would happen to him now he failed his mission.

“Okay, now you’re going to think of something else as you pull the memory again. What do you think of when you cast the cheering charm?”

“Christmas as a child, before Hogwarts.”

“Think of that. Focus on that feeling and just let the forest be wherever it normally is. Use your occlumency skills to focus on Christmas as a child and pull the string of the forest from where it is without thinking of it beyond its base existence.”

Draco had trouble catching the strand without thinking of it. Usually pulling a memory meant putting it to the front of his mind and simply snatching it out. This felt like using tongs to pull a specific worm from a jar without looking at it.

He finally got it on the third try, after using all his occlumency skills except masonry to think of Christmas morning, the feeling of opening presents and the smiles on his parents’ faces. The memory of the forest slipped from his head and floated over to the pensieve. He could feel the beginning of one of his headaches.

“Are the headaches from the occlumency? I feel like one is coming on.”

Madeleine frowned. “Oh, probably.” She accioed a vial from a cabinet in the corner. “Here. I’ll help with the occlumency the next time we do this part.”

Draco swallowed the minty potion and felt the cooling sensation in his head. “So, the mark isn’t causing the headaches?”

She shrugged. “Healing is really just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. Muggle medicine is the same. We know a lot about the body, and we know a little about how these things work, but it’s honestly hit and miss.”

“Why would you throw things at the wall?”

She chuckled. “Sorry. That’s a muggle phrase. My mother is muggleborn and I spent a lot of time with those grandparents growing up.”

Draco nodded. “But, why throw things at the wall?”

She hummed with thought. “I think it has to do with testing spaghetti? To see if it’s done cooking?”

He rolled his eyes. “Muggles are so weird.”

She smiled. “So are wizards. Let’s go into this new version.”

They stood and tipped their heads into the basin again. The memory was the same until they reached the part with the curse. The fog did not surround them. Younger Draco raised his wand haltingly and breathed rapidly. He held his breath suddenly and closed his eyes and opened his mouth, but did not form words. He opened his eyes again and relief washed over his face as he followed the retreating form of Hermione. His face melted into tears and he leaned against a tree. They watched this Draco cry for a minute before he pulled himself together and wiped his face, then turned and began walking away.

They landed back in the office more softly this time. Draco sat roughly in his chair again. “I couldn’t do it. I still couldn’t do it then. But, I didn’t even try? I didn’t even try to do it?”

Madeleine nodded. “How does that feel, Draco?”

Draco shivered. “I don’t know. It feels like I did it even more wrong than I thought. I don’t know.”

“What did you do wrong? I saw a child who couldn’t kill another child.”

“But I was supposed to! I was supposed to kill her in that forest!” His voice had come out as a scream.

“What does it mean that you couldn’t do it, Draco?” Her voice was still calm.

“I failed at even being a bad person! I couldn’t even try! I can’t do anything right!”

“Draco, you know that’s not true. You’ve done a lot of things right.”

Draco screamed and a glass exploded on her desk. “You don’t know!”

She waved her wand and the glass reconstituted itself. Her voice was finally a bit stern beneath the calm. “Sit down, Draco.”

He was surprised to find himself standing, and sat in the chair heavily.

“Do the breathing exercise.”

Draco breathed in and out carefully. His whole life was so fucked. He had not even tried?! How many of his memories had he fixed to be this person? He was even more of a coward than he had thought. All this time, he could not even face his cowardice in his own mind.

After a few minutes of steady breathing, Madeleine spoke again. “Tell me about your experience making potions. You have high marks in that class.”

Draco stared at her dully. “You just follow the directions and you get the resulting potion.”

She nodded. “And, along the way, how do you know it’s doing well?”

He huffed slightly. “You pay attention to the color and consistency. Most potions have the color of the ingredients until about three quarters of the way through, then the color and consistency change and become closer to the color of the complete potion.”

She nodded. “And, if you haven’t done it correctly? What do you do?”

“If it’s not doing what it should, you look at your ingredients to be sure you’ve used the correct ones and that they’re still potent. Some things can be corrected, but some things just need to be scrapped.” He sighed. “What is the point of this line of conversation?”

She shrugged. “Clearing the air, mostly. But also, I wanted to establish that you do know how to do some things right.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s not the same. I have recipes for potions. There’s no recipe for how to live life right.”

She gave him an inscrutable look. “Yes. Exactly.”

“Ugh! Seriously? How trite.” He threw his hands up in frustration. “Next you’ll tell me I make my own path in life and I have to choose that path myself.”

She tilted her head with a shrug. “Does the triteness of it make it less true? You’ve been on a path you were forced down. You’ve only ever really judged yourself according to the ways your parents, specifically your father, raised you. You were given two tasks that would be difficult for an adult to accomplish and that are honestly pretty evil. You accomplished neither of your tasks. But, from a different path than the one you were on, you succeeded. You resisted your father’s will to make you the murderer of a classmate. And, you resisted Voldemort’s will to make you the murderer of your headmaster. Now that both of your taskmastering monsters are gone, you have the ability to choose for yourself how to be a person. And, from what I’ve seen, you’re using that freedom to be a good, normal person.”

Draco frowned. “I’m not a good person. I’d like to be normal, but I don’t think that’s possible.”

An eyebrow raised. “Do you want to be a good person? If such a thing exists?”

He chewed his lip for a moment. “I don’t know if it does exist. I just want to be the kind of person who doesn’t regret things I’ve done or not done.”

She nodded. “Do you regret that you couldn’t kill Hermione?”

His eyes shot up to her face. “No! Of course not!”

She gestured to the basin containing Draco’s memory. “I think you should tell him that. This time, focus on letting him see and hear you. If he has questions, answer them. Comfort him if you can. But most of all, make sure he knows he won’t regret what he couldn’t do. He needs to hear that.”

Draco nodded. They tipped their heads into the swirling basin again. Draco could feel his younger self aware of him. When the trio left and the younger Draco found himself unable to utter the words, the older one finally spoke. “It’s okay, you know.”

The younger one turned to his observer. “Come to gawk, then? Couldn’t kill the mudblood bitch and now I’m subjected to my pathetic older self?”

The elder’s jaw clenched. “Her name is Hermione, and we don’t use that word anymore.”

“But I’m fucking right, aren’t I? You’re watching me muck everything up.” His younger face crumpled as it had before. “But, I couldn’t do it.”

The elder put his hand on the younger’s shoulder. The words came unbidden and he had no idea where he had been keeping them all this time, but they were true as he spoke. “I don’t know how you did it, Draco. I don’t know how you managed to keep from doing what Father wanted. I just know I’m proud of you. You will never regret that you couldn’t do this. You’ll only regret failing Father himself.”

The younger sobbed and stared in confusion at the elder. “What is he going to do to me?”

The elder frowned. “Lecture you. Constantly. But, you don’t need to worry about that. It’s just words.”

“Does she make it? Do I ever do it?” The younger looked like he was in agony. He had such dark circles under his eyes. The elder had forgotten that he had gotten so little sleep that summer. He had forgotten the cost of the dark magic.

“No, you never do it. She’s still alive.” It was all he could say without revealing more than his younger self could handle.

The younger collapsed against the tree in full tears. The elder reached for him and hugged him tightly. “She’s okay. And, we’re okay. We made it. Everyone made it. You’re going to be okay. And, Hermione and Harry are okay.”

The younger nodded. “Why are you doing this?”

The elder sighed. “Because we both needed to know this was not failure, and we needed to know it in this moment, Draco. There are a lot of things we’re going to get wrong, but this is not one of them.”

Madeleine put her hand on the elder’s shoulder. “It’s time.”

The elder wiped the tears from his younger self, feeling that the younger had a confused sort of pride in knowing he had chosen correctly. “Keep this feeling, Draco.”

The forest disappeared and they were back in Madeleine’s office. Draco sat carefully in his chair again.

“Draco, I’m so proud of you.” Madeleine’s eyes were soft. “What you just did is really difficult. We ran out of time in the memory. Do you want to go back in one more time before we put the memory back?”

Draco shook his head, puzzled. “Put it back? But, I already know what really happened.”

She nodded. “Yes, and now we’re going to take everything you did outside your body and put it back inside your body where it belongs. It’s uncommon to do this part outside a medical setting, but it is possible to put memories from the pensieve back into your head.”

She did it for him this time. It looked a bit like she was going to stab him in the eye with her wand, but then did not.

“Is that it? That’s what Madam Pomfrey meant when she said she wanted me to do memory work?”

Madeleine returned to her desk chair. “Yes. There are a variety of things we can do with a memory, but this one seems a good starting place for you. They just need to be bumped into considering other options for how to see their actions. And, they need a good listener. Which, I think you might be, what with all your Gryffindor friends.”

Draco frowned. “What house were you in, Madeleine?”

She cocked an eyebrow and flashed a brilliant smile. “What house do you think, Draco?”

He suddenly felt like the question held much larger stakes than he expected. “Oh, uh, Ravenclaw?”

She chuckled. “Think about it some more. You’ll figure it out.” She waved her hand and marked something in her appointment book. “Wednesday, same time? I’ve been politely requested by the DMLE to treat you quickly so they can put you back to work. And, I politely told them I can’t rush this sort of treatment. So, they politely explained that if you are not back to work by August Third, they will make sure St Mungo’s assigns a new healer to you. So, we’ll need to see each other more often for a bit, Draco. I’m not satisfied with how you’re healing from everything that’s happened, and I have the diagnostics to make my point.”

“Well, what more can I even do?” Draco felt suddenly exhausted at the idea of having to do all of that again in two days with another memory.

She shook her head. “No, I’M not satisfied. You have nothing more to do between our sessions.”

Draco could not have been more confused. “Okay.”

“I don’t like it when people tell me how to treat my patients. Not at all.” She had an odd mask of determination Draco recognised.

“Slytherin. You’re Slytherin.”

She smiled that brilliant smile again. “Yes. Of course. It considered for a long time, but eventually the Sorting Hat made the right choice.”

“I barely put the bloody thing on before it screamed Slytherin for me. Sort of insulting, in a way. Like it saw evil in me, or something.”

“Yeah, my year it went on a rather long few stanzas about how Slytherin was so evil. We only had three girls in Slytherin from my year, that’s how bad it was.” She sighed. “I do have another appointment after this.”

Draco nodded. “Certainly. I’ll see you Wednesday at the same time, then.”

Back at Black House, a letter waited for him, addressed to “Dr. Acom A Lefoy, Black House” in a script he did not recognise.

Dearest Fucko,

Ah, Ginny.

      So now you’ve gone off on a fucking journey of self-discovery, too? What the hell happened at Harry’s house? I’ve never seen Hermione lose her shit like this. Come back so she can yell at you herself, so maybe she’ll fucking stop already. She sounds like me.
      You’re obviously not going to come back just because I told you to, like a fucking coward. Do you think whatever you’re dealing with is really that much worse than what we’re all going through? If that’s the case, let me just remind you that I had that monster in my head for almost an entire school year when I was only fucking eleven, and as a result I nearly killed some people, too. So, you tried to kill Dumbledore? And, maybe you ‘tried’ to kill Hermione. You didn’t. You’re not a former Death Eater, you arse. You’re a FAILED Death Eater. Stop trying to make yourself seem like a scary bastard. You don’t cry like a scary bastard. I’ve seen it. You cry like the rest of us, angry and scared, out of your mind.
      You were too nice to Luna’s dad. He’s an adult who attacked a teenager. What is wrong with you? Where did your self-preservation get lost? We have enough martyrs around, we don’t need a blond one to complete the set, you absolute tosser.
      Get back here. You know, if you’re not actually a fucking coward.
           -Impervius

Draco chuckled through the letter. Ginny had a way of cutting to the heart of several matters in a sort of cross-section. It was refreshing.

He decided he better check the journals for whatever laid in wait for him.

Dear Draco,
      Got your message in the group book. You don’t have to write back if you don’t want to.
      I just miss you. I’m not really sure why you left. It felt really sudden, and it sort of feels like it’s my fault. I stopped you two and everything just felt like it fell apart because I was there. I keep wanting to apologise for stopping you. But, it was awful watching her hit you. It was confusing to watch you spank her, but it was really terrible to see you enjoy getting hit in the face like that. What do you get out of that? I want to understand so I can be okay with it. You both just seemed like other people in that moment. It didn’t feel like I was watching Draco and Hermione. It felt like life with the Carrows again.
      Do you need that? Is that why you didn’t join us when Hermione and I were having sex on the couch? I keep thinking about what you and I have done together, and it just seems so different from what you did with Hermione.
     Are you going to run away every time something bad happens? Did something happen after we went to work yesterday? I just keep trying to put the pieces together and I can’t understand what happened. Hermione lost her shit entirely and I didn’t know what to do. She left this morning and came back a little calmer, but she won’t be comforted.
      I don’t expect you to come back or explain everything. I’m just feeling so lost. Despite the stuff that happened, I still want you. I see kindness and goodness in you and I’m afraid you can’t see that in yourself, Draco. I don’t want you to be someone else for me. I just wish I’d gone to sleep or played some more video games or something while you two did what you wanted. I don’t understand it, but it’s obvious you both want that, and I don’t want to be the reason you don’t do it.
      Even if you don’t say anything else, can you tell me you got this? It’s not like an owl that comes back with the letter unopened, you know?
     Love always,
           Neville

Draco did write back.

Dear Neville,
     I’m sorry. I got your message. I don’t know yet how to explain any of this, even to myself. I’ll try again soon.
         Yours, Draco

Hermione had written quite a lot in their shared journal. It seemed like it had come piecemeal for a while and then all at once.

      I’m so fucking angry at you. How could you leave like that? You just fucking disappeared! What happened?

      I went out into the forest this morning and just destroyed some trees and rocks. I’m miserable.

      It wasn’t that bad, was it? You should have said something. I need you here, Draco. I love you and this doesn’t have to change anything.

     Why won’t you talk to me?! I don’t understand why you’re punishing me for this all of a sudden. You want this, too!

      Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have let you two watch Face/Off… Neville just made an innuendo at me about eating a peach for hours. I mean, it sounds lovely, but it makes me think of Nicholas Cage, and that’s just uncalled for.

     You don’t make any sense to me sometimes, Draco. I just want you to be here. Why did you go?
     I don’t want to do those things if it makes you lose control in a way you don’t like. And, I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t say no to doing the dark stuff. I don’t want to make you feel like that’s something you have to do to be with me. I don’t expect it, or anything. I just, I don’t know how to explain it exactly, I just want to feel the darkness I feel inside all the time in a way that can be controlled. Obviously, it’s not worked that way. I keep trying to figure out what happens to me when we do that, too, and it just feels like some otherworldly pleasure takes me over. What should we do about it? Would the bad part stop if we severed our string? Draco, I just want to know we’ll still be us. I think I’m going to try writing to Rodolph Helles. With that huge library, can you find anything else? I would come find something myself, but you asked me not to come to Black House, and I want to respect that boundary.
     Were you already thinking about leaving when you made me stop reading on Sunday? I can’t stop wondering if you did that on purpose so I wouldn’t stop you. But, I also keep thinking about how I left because I had to figure some shit out, and no one really understood why I left.
     Ginny said she wrote you a howler. What on earth did she say? I can’t imagine Ginny sending a howler. I bet she just used every swear she knows.
      It just feels like you left us before we could even start anything. It feels like we have all this unfinished business. We never figured anything out about how this would work between us. We just had a bunch of sex and watched some movies, and nothing was said about what a triad means, or how we’ll be to other people, or whether we’re all together or just three couples. It’s driving me mad not knowing what this is. Just tell me what this is!

Draco reached the end and found her finishing writing. He wrote back.

I can talk about the triad tonight. Let’s all write in the group journal at eight?

She immediately wrote back.

Yes! I’ll tell Neville now! If he can’t, we’ll let you know when works instead!

He loved her so much. He spent the next few hours considering what he really wanted. It felt too overwhelming to be with them both together right now. He wanted to fall in love with Neville the same way he fell in love with Hermione. He felt like everything was happening much too fast. It had not even been a full week that he had thought he even had a chance with Neville. And, what he had with Hermione was so confusing right now, with the soul bond and the S&M and healing his mind.

When the time came for their conversation, he had some small idea of what he wanted and how to put that into words.

Chapter Text

July 20-21, 1998

D: Are you two in the same place?

H: No, we’re in our rooms. Neville insisted we didn’t write beside each other, so we all have the same information about what’s happening.

N: I mean, it’s not fair if we can talk to each other and you can’t, Draco.

H: Damn, his name is so pretty in your script, Neville!

D: It really is...

N: ? Is this what you two normally talk about together?

D: Sometimes we talk about tea.

H: So, I guess I’ll start. I want to be with you both. I want the full-on, all three of us as equals thing. I read the one book in the library about triads and all three of us together sounds right for me.

N: I think I’ll want that in the future, but I’m not ready for that yet. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since last week, and I want to know what it’s like to be with both of you separately before it’s all of us together.

D: I want to be able to take my relationship with each of you at paces that make sense for that relationship. And, I think I agree with Neville. I’m not ready for all of us together yet. That dream I had felt like it was years off for even the first moment, so I feel like there’s time for this to become that. If it ever does become that, I want it to happen like it happened with you both, where one day it was just inevitable.

H: I mean, I don’t want us to be in something any of us doesn’t want, obviously. I just don’t understand why the weekend happened that way?

D: Because! You! Fucking! TOLD ME! We had to talk about what this was going to be! Do you not remember that, Hermione!?

N: But, didn’t we all want to see what this was? I know I wanted to... And, it honestly just confused me when it didn’t upset me. The half-way threesomes just seemed to lead to arguing, and that’s not something I want at all.

H: Okay, I’ve taken a breather. Yes, I do remember that, Draco. And, obviously it didn’t go how I thought it would, either. I definitely hated everything just leading to arguing.

H: Are either of you still there?

D: Yes, just thinking.

N: Yes.

D: Hermione, what did you think would happen?

H: I thought we would talk about who gets to see each other when, and how we would talk to people about it, and what we do about PDA. And, then I thought I’d get fucked by both of you at once. That part was a bit fuzzy.

N: I mean, you did do that last part...

H: Yes, and it was lovely, right up until what happened to Draco.

N: Draco? Still here?

D: Yes. Thinking.

D: I do owe you both an explanation about what happened.

N: No, you don’t.

H: I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want one.

D: I don’t know exactly what happened. I’m still researching some things, myself. I think I just didn’t want to let the dark part out, and everything that happened this week piled on top of that in a myriad of different ways. I wanted to be everything you both wanted me to be. With both of you wanting that from me, I couldn’t say no. I’m not ready to hear from either of you about it yet, so let’s just move on.

D: Hermione, did you think we’d all draw up some sort of relationship contract?

H: Yes! That’s exactly what I wanted! I didn’t really think of it in those terms, but yes, that’s what I thought.

D: Is that what you want? To litigate a relationship?

N: That’s a bit harsh, Draco.

H: Yes, I thought we’d have to agree to rules or something. I disagree with the idea of litigating a relationship, though.

D: But, why have rules unless you don’t respect each other enough to just not do things that will hurt the others? What would the rules even be?

H: Like, don’t tell other people the relationship’s business?

D: I’m Slytherin. We don’t do that with our own, and now you’re part of mine, so your business is a secret. Do you want rules so you’ll follow them, or so I’ll follow them?

N: I exist, too. What is going on with you two? Is this normal?

D: Yes, this is definitely a thing we do. Fume at each other with words.

H: Yes, normal. We may never stop challenging each other this way.

N: Carry on, then, I guess. Should I go?

D: No!

H: No, Neville. Draco, yes, I want rules that we’ll all follow, of course. I just want to have something to tell me what to do. I am so lost. I keep hearing that triads are just a thing that happens sometimes, and I literally never heard about them before a month ago. I have absolutely no context for what one could or should look like. And, I don’t know what to do besides make up the rules for what this even is!

N: So, all we’re ever really told growing up is that they just happen sometimes. Which has never really made any sense to anyone I’ve talked to.

D: Yeah, why does everyone say exactly that? ‘Triads just happen.’

N: Anyway, neither of us know much more than you, except that they exist. One of gran’s aunts was in one, but she’s dead now.

D: I always had this weird idea that Sirius was in a triad and that’s why no one would ever talk about him in my family. I had no idea he was so close to the Potters until he escaped Azkaban. I said something about him being in a triad at the breakfast table one morning and Mother laughed and said, “No, a triad would be preferable to being a blood traitor like Sirius,” so, that’s the hierarchy at my house back then.

H: I thought she didn’t really believe in all the blood supremacy stuff?

D: It’s literally impossible to know the beliefs of her heart. I’m not certain she knows what she really thinks.

N: I think she does know. But, self preservation is always contextual. You know, where you are when you’re trying to survive?

N: Are you still here?

D: Yes, that was just unspeakably powerful, Neville.

H: Neville, your bon mots are so beyond anything we could say, I don’t know how to handle it.

D: Hermione, if you don’t go suck his cock after this, I will be extremely disappointed in you.

H: You read my mind.

N: Stop!

D: Neville, you don’t like when we lavish attention on you, do you?

N: No! It’s so fucking weird! Especially having to read it like this.

H: Neville, you understand this whole thing somehow. I can tell. What do we do now? The three of us? You know how to talk about feelings.

N: Fuck.

N: Okay, so, we should take all three of us together off the table until we all feel good about it, or it like, just happens, like we’ve been told. Then, also, we should just do the three sides of the triad as their own relationships. Me with Draco, Me with Hermione, and Hermione with Draco. And, we make it clear we’re boyfriends and girlfriend in those couples only for right now. We’ll make sure Ginny knows and tells everyone and threatens everyone and no one will fuck it up.

H: HAHAHAHAHA

D: also laughing really hard!

N: But, I’m actually serious, too. And, we don’t have sex in a group again unless it’s a specific invitation from one couple to the third to be the third. That seemed to work generally well about what happened this weekend, except for the part that didn’t. And, we just don’t do any of the dark stuff all together at all. As for how we act toward each other, or when we see each other, I would say we can all say when something makes us uncomfortable, but I’m not sure if I can do that all the time, and........ the thing with Draco happened, and Hermione has panic attacks, too, so maybe we........ talk more? check in with each other on how we feel about plans or things that are going on? And, there’s no, like.... no reason not to tell the truth about what we’re feeling ........because we want to help each other be okay and happy and make whatever happens as good as possible for us all..... I feel like I’ve run out of words that make sense now.

D: I agree to all of that.

H: I knew Neville would know how this should work. I especially like the part about how we all want to make whatever happens as good as possible for us all. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

N: You both suck, though. It’s not fair you made me decide and explain all of that.

D: A) You’re right. It’s not fair to make you explain our feelings to us, but we actually were doing a terrible job of explaining how we feel to you and each other. And, you cut out all our shite and got straight to what we all wanted. It would have taken hours to do that between Hermione and me without you. Which is honestly something we need. B) Hopefully I’ve given Hermione enough time to get to the real sucking... Have fun, loves!

N: What do y-------

Despite the fact that it was nearly midnight, Draco found he was not tired. He took it upon himself to write to Ginny on behalf of the three of them, then transcribed the letter into the group journal for posterity.

Dearest Tiniest Weasliest Ginevrist Impervius Abomination of a Girl.
           It is with deep joy and pride that I announce to you the emergence of not a single relationship, nay, I announce the emergence of three separate relationships. I shall be with Neville, Neville shall be with Hermione, and Hermione shall be with me. We do not yet find ourselves meeting in the middle, but shall remain at present, three individual couples who each enjoys the existence of the other two couples. Or, if you prefer, three people in three relationships who enjoy the existence of the relationship they are not themselves in.
           As you the dearest, scariest friend of our relationships, we have decided it best to bestow this information on you, that you might spread it far and wide. We hope your felicity at our happiness will spread with this information, much in the way Hermione’s haircut was heralded by your threats of violence.
           What could possibly go wrong?
           I shall write again soon to respond to the many vulgarities contained in your last letter.
                     Warmest regards,
                     Draco, Lord Malfoy

He sent one of the family short-eared owls off with the letter. Hopefully it made Ginny smile. He laid in bed listening to music until the sky grew light again in the early hours of the morning, struggling to slip fully into sleep.

Draco woke from a dream where he had been the monster itself, trapped behind a wall, brought out when his captor needed his unique talents. He slowed his breathing to that count of four as Madeleine had taught him until his mind slowed to match it.

As it was fully morning now, he did not try to sleep again. He took a shower and went down to the dining room to find his mother already eating her egg and crumpet.

Narcissa’s face lit up when she saw him. “Good morning, my love! How are you this morning?”

“Alright. How are you?” He bent to kiss her cheek before sitting in his normal spot at her left.

“I can’t seem to sleep well at all anymore, so I’m a bit tired.”

Draco froze in the middle of placing his napkin on his lap, his eyes snapping to her face. She had never in his life answered that question with anything but ‘Lovely’ or ‘A bit under the weather’. “Who are you and what have you done with my mother?”

She smiled and patted his arm. “I’m trying to stop saying meaningless things, my love. It’s never done me any good. I’m still your mother, whether you like it or not.”

“I’ve just never heard you say how you’re actually feeling, Mother.” Mimo delivered his usual home breakfast of a poached egg with a sausage and crumpet.

“Yes, well, I’m glad we managed to make it to a time when I actually COULD tell the truth about anything.”

As he prepared his tea, Draco thought of the mention of her in his conversation last night. “Mother, last night I remembered something you said a long time ago. You said you and Father would prefer if I were in a triad than if I were a blood traitor.”

Her face went even paler than normal. “Yes, I’m sure I said that.”

Draco’s jaw clenched. “So, what’s the truth of that one? I am a blood traitor now.”

She frowned. “Draco, that’s not a real thing. I’m sorry I said that whenever I said it. I believed very different things for a long time, and I said a lot of things I don’t believe anymore. Please, Draco.” She took his hand in both of hers. “I don’t believe any of that anymore, dearest. I’m still working on pulling it all out and examining why it’s wrong, but I’m trying to be a better person. Please believe me.”

His jaw still clenched and he pulled his hand from hers. “You didn’t answer the question, Mother. What’s the truth? I’m a blood traitor.”

She sighed and leaned back in her chair, sitting up straight. “I don’t believe that anymore, Draco. You’re a man in love. I don’t think you’re any kind of traitor. If you found yourself in a triad, I would be happy you found two people to love.”

“Did you really believe there was such a thing as being a blood traitor?”

She nodded. “Yes. I was raised to believe in blood purity. I thought that if you were a blood traitor, we would have to disown you, like my parents did with Andromeda. And, I’m doing my best to explain now that I don’t believe that anymore.”

They were silent again and Draco studied her face with its suddenly open expression. She seemed pained at her admissions.

“What do I need to say to make you believe me, Draco?”

He sighed and picked up his fork, stabbing the egg and making the yolk run. “Say you were wrong. Say you hurt me. Make me believe you’re sorry and you’ve changed.”

She took a shaky breath but did not look away. “I was wrong, Draco. I was wrong, and I hurt you by being wrong. I’m sorry I said that I would not accept you being a blood traitor. I meant it then, but I’m ashamed of it now.” She never broke eye contact with him as she spoke.

So, Draco found he did believe her. They had never spoken to each other with such specificity about any of this. Draco had never been able to hold her gaze with his judgement like this.

He liked this new mother of his.

“Okay. Will you pass the Prophet?”

They tucked into the rest of their breakfast in a more comfortable silence.

“Draco, what do you think you’ll do after your service to the Ministry?”

“Madam Pomfrey thinks I would make a good Healer. She also suggested bartending? I don’t really know what I want. I thought I’d be dead or in prison. I don’t think I really ever thought about the future outside the war.”

She nodded. “I have to decide what to do about your father’s company. You and I are technically the managing partners now, but since your father’s prior imprisonment, we’ve had no employees.”

Draco frowned. “Can we just close it? Or, sell our stakes? I can’t imagine who would want it after everything. I certainly don’t want the money.”

Narcissa nodded. “I feel similarly. I’d like to keep growing potion ingredients, but I don’t want to keep the potion business going. I never much liked brewing. I might like to have a flower shop alongside the ingredients.”

He could absolutely picture her in a small shop, surrounded by flowers and canisters of preserved ingredients. “That sounds lovely, Mum.”

She preened with a little smile. “I hope I can make it work.” She fixed another cup of tea. “So, you don’t want to go into potion-making like your father?”

His eyebrow arched. “Any time you wonder if I want to do something that ends in ‘like your father’, please know the answer will be ‘No’.”

Her mouth quirked in something felt but repressed. “I see.” She took a sip of her tea. “He wasn’t always like this, Draco.”

He held up his hand. “I can’t hear any apologies for him, Mother.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment before continuing. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

He leaned forward and reached for her hand. “Some day, I will want to know more about who he was, before, when you knew a different version of him. But, it’s still too fresh, Mother.”

She nodded and shook her head with a tight smile. “I’ll wait.” She pushed her chair back, the signal that breakfast and the conversation were over. “I’m going to visit Andromeda for lunch this afternoon. Would you like to come with me? I heard you met her and Teddy. I’m sure she’d love to see you again.”

Draco smiled at the thought of the metamorphmagus baby. “Yes, I think I will. I’m going to the library for some research this morning.”

They left the dining room. “Anything interesting to research?”

“Soul bonds, among other things.”

She started up the stairs. “Ah, you all seem very interested in that subject. We’ll go over to Andromeda’s for lunch around noon.”

Draco nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

He retreated to the back of the house. In the morning light through the library windows, he realised there was a house where there had never been a house before. “Merlin’s saggy balls, what is that?”

He went out the french door to the back garden and approached the fence. How had he missed this before? Specifically, how had he missed this yesterday morning? As he reached the short wrought-iron fence, he could see someone through the window into the kitchen who was staring back at him with a tilted head. It was Harry Fucking Potter. He raised a hand in greeting. Harry raised a hand back.

Harry disappeared and reappeared coming through the back door. “Draco? What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t supposed to apparate?”

Draco’s voice came out in more of a sneer than he intended. “I haven’t been apparating.”

“You just appeared at my back fence, Draco!” Harry sloshed coffee out of his cup as he gestured.

Draco gestured to his house. “Yes, it’s also my back fence!” He sighed and got out his wand, holding up a hand to silence Harry’s next question. He twisted the tip of his wand lightly into his throat and spoke softly. “Mother, can you update the charm so Harry Potter can see the house?”

He received an answer in his ear. “Yes, darling. Invite him inside when he can see it, if you like.”

Ten seconds later, Harry blinked. “Bloody hell! I forgot what that feels like!” He shivered, sloshing more coffee onto himself. “That’s a much better charm than the one on Twelve Grimmauld.” He eyed Draco. “So, this is where you fucked off to?”

“You mean, my home? Yes, that’s where I fucked off to, Potter.” Draco felt oddly put out at Harry’s question.

Harry put his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Just, the way Hermione lost it on Sunday made it seem like you’d gone away to off yourself or something.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Yes, well, none of us are making particularly good choices right now, are we?”

Harry shrugged. “I’m pretty happy with my choices.”

“I would believe you, if I hadn’t seen the collection of muggle distractions you’ve bought in the past two months.” Why could Draco not make his voice sound normal with Harry? This time, it just sounded judgmental and smug.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, about my movies, was it you or Hermione who decided to half-assedly reorganise?”

Draco’s eyebrow raised with his smirk. “Well, I was reorganising, but then I was interrupted in the middle... I turned around to find Hermione and Neville-”

“Ugh! No! Don’t say anymore! Jesus Christ, I cannot hear about your thing with my friends! I get it’s a triad, I support it, I just can’t hear details.”

Draco shrugged. “Fair enough. We’ve decided we’re not a triad, though. Just three couples for now.” He watched Harry’s face for signs this was too much information.

Harry chewed his lip before answering. “Uh, sure, mate. I don’t get any of it, but if they’re happy, I can’t argue. Especially with Hermione.”

Draco smiled. “I can see why you wouldn’t.”

Harry’s face morphed into an odd smile. “Narcissa made quite the impression on Joseph...”

“What the fuck, Harry! That’s my mother!”

Harry laughed. “I’m just giving you fair warning. Our local pizza man likes your mum.” He took a sip of coffee. “I might also be taking the piss a bit.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “You’re taking after Ginny a bit too much for this conversation to continue.” He turned and began walking back up to the house. “I’ll see you later, Harry. Drop by for tea with my mother sometime. She’d love to hear how popular she is.”

“Maybe I will, now I know you’re in my back garden.”

Draco sighed with relief when he closed the door and locked it behind him. Harry Potter was his fucking back neighbor. How lovely.

He got to his research, which did not include soul bonds, as he found something much more useful to his current predicament in sex magic. He had always skipped over those chapters of Selectia the Perverse, preferring the less-useful forms of kinky sex in the later chapters of the book.

Selectia had an oddly large few chapters on magic that could be produced from sex. And, it seemed most of it could be most easily produced from soul bonded sex. From her descriptions, Selectia seemed to have had several soul bonds in her life. Or, she was writing about others’ soul bonded sex. She described the fugue states of soul bonded sex as the pek of wandless magic. One was apparently at one’s most potent while fluidly and emotionally connected to one’s mate. She explained that magic performed in coitus was more effective than any other magic. It was a huge claim to make, and Draco had trouble believing it, no matter how much he loved Selectia.

But, he was struck again by the memory of how Daphne had accidentally fixed the vanishing cabinet during their threesome with Theo in the Room of Forgotten Things.That had been all sex magic, and the way those two were together, they were probably soulmates. As she climaxed, Daphne had let out a burst of accidental magic that shattered everything in a fifty-foot radius around her, then everything reconstituted itself like it was new, including the cabinet. He had certainly done nothing right in his attempts to fix the cabinet.

He considered the fugues he had felt, that feeling of being exactly where he belonged, the intensity of the need to keep Hermione, to just do everything she wanted. It always felt like his entire being was awake until he looked back and could barely remember his climax.

Had he done accidental magic? The first two times with Hermione, they had been alone, but maybe Neville had seen something the third time.

Draco’s stomach dropped. He could not ask Neville to tell him what he could not remember, could he? He found the triad journal and re-read what Neville had written the night before about asking for help.

Or could he ask for help? Maybe he could? No, absolutely not, he could not ask Neville to relive that night to tell him about it. Unless? No, he had to stop thinking about how to ask Neville for help. He had to stop thinking about it.

      I hate to ask you this, but as we said we’d ask for help, I guess this is me trying to do that. So, I don’t actually remember what I said or did once we were all on the bed Saturday night. Can you tell me what happened? I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me if it’s too much.
      I’m going to visit Teddy and Andromeda with Mother this afternoon. I’m excited to see him again. Have you been around any babies? I think he’s the first baby I’ve known since I was a little kid, and I really like him. I wish I’d been able to know Nymphadora before she died. I liked Professor Lupin the best of our DADA professors until Snape, and Hermione said they were a good couple, whatever that means.
      Do you think you and I will be described that way? ‘A Good Couple’. Does it mean they get along? Or, they look complementary? Or, they’re hot? I don’t think I’ve ever really understood what that means. Certainly no one ever said that about me and Pansy. It’s a good thing she’s gone away this summer. I wouldn’t have the energy to tell her about anything that’s happening, or keep it from her correctly. Morgana, I never thought I’d be at a loss for subterfuge energy. Maybe it’s just that all the Slytherins have disappeared this summer and I’ve gotten lazy. I think I miss my old friends? Fuck, I sound like a Gryffindor or something...
      Apparently Harry Potter is my neighbor over the back garden fence here. He thinks the pizza shop owner likes my mother. I’m sure he’s right, but at what cost?
      Would you like to come visit? It seems like you haven’t been away from Hogwarts at all this summer, have you? Now I’ve gotten some distance from last week and weekend, I’m missing you both. I want to see you, Neville. I’m having a hard time not saying anything more intense, darling boyfriend. Please come see me, if you’d like.

Draco let out a breath. That had profoundly not been not-asking-Neville. Maybe that had just been the catalyst he needed to write to his boyfriend? It was one of the hardest things so far in this relationship for him to not say I love you to the other man.

He could not tell if he really did love Neville, though. He also had a hard time knowing if he really was in love with Hermione sometimes, though. Was that normal? It just felt so difficult to know if he was pretending to be in love, or if he really was in love. It was a bit like being drunk with other people who were drunk. You could never tell how drunk you really were until you got up to have a piss and stare at yourself in the mirror.

Maybe doing a runner like this was the break from the drunkenness of falling in love that would show him how he was really feeling. If it worked like that, he was definitely drunk on Neville. And, he had been drunk on Hermione for years.

His attention returned to Selectia. He found the passage about how she did have multiple soulmates throughout her life. It almost sounded like she had several soul bonds at once? The language she was using made it unclear whether she was talking about several people at once, or several people throughout her life.

A pigeon tapped on the window. He went to the door to take the letter and offer an owl treat (because what should one offer a fucking carrier pigeon). It was addressed in a script he did not recognise.

Dear Draco,
      Thank you for letting Papa go. I’ve been sorry he did that, but as everything worked out how it was supposed to, I’ve had trouble knowing when exactly to say it.
      I’m glad you’ve all worked out what you want for now. I hoped you’d like those dreams I sent you. And, I’m glad you’re reconnecting with Harry. He’s needed a friend like you for a while now. And, I think you’ve needed a friend like him, too.
      Don’t worry, Papa won’t do anything like that again. Next time, you shouldn’t let someone get away with that, though. Lots of people are going to be angry at what you represent for years to come, and you can’t let people get away with attacking you. You’re not alone in the world, and your partners shouldn’t have to see you being hurt in the present because of your past. You don’t have to let that happen again. Use your wit and wits, Draco.
      That’s all. You’ve got to go to lunch soon.
      - Luna Lovegood

Of course Luna would write him a simultaneously straightforward and mysterious letter. Bloody hell, had she warned him he was going to be attacked again?

He thought of Hermione and Neville talking to him to pull him out of the effects of the orange hex. They had both been really distressed. Should he have had the charges brought against Mr Lovegood? He still did not think so, but he would think about it more if it ever happened again. Why did he suddenly have so little preservation instinct? It was downright un-Slytherin of him to have refrained from pressing charges.

Draco and Narcissa flooed over to Andromeda’s house at noon mid-meltdown. The sound of Teddy’s screams felt deafening in Draco’s head.

Andromeda held the baby as he flailed against her. She smiled and gestured to the set lunch table. “He’s developed a bit of colic or something.” Her face was all apologies.

Draco immediately felt hot in the tiny house. He sat and put his head down. The screaming continued and he was transported in his mind to the Room where there was a wall of flames. He tried to breathe to the count of four, but could not draw breath at all. It was so hot. Crabbe was screaming as he burned in the fiendfyre.

Then, Draco could breathe again, and he felt cooler. The screaming had subsided. Narcissa was kneeling before him, stroking his back.

“There, darling. It’s nothing. Just Teddy. Babies scream all the time.”

He looked up at her. “It was the room. Crabbe was screaming.”

She shook her head. “No, it was Teddy. It was Teddy screaming because he’s a baby and that’s the only way they can communicate, darling.”

He hardened. “Fine. I’m going outside for a minute.”

He pushed past her and went into the garden. Andromeda kept a wild collection of plants. There seemed to be a family of wild mandrakes in a little copse toward the back, the implications of which amazed him. The entire outside of the house was covered in various fruiting bushes. There were dirigible plums and crabby apples and whipping raspberries. It felt like a totally different version of the world than he had ever known, the wild version of his proper upbringing.

After a few minutes, he saw that Andromeda had come back out without Teddy, so he went back into the house.

Andromeda gave him a proper hug of greeting. “I’m so glad you came, Draco. Are you alright now?”

Draco nodded. “The panics seem to be getting better. Healer Simons and Madam Pomfrey have been treating me.”

Andromeda nodded sagely. “They are extremely good. Poppy has been doing her research on, what do muggles call it? PTSD?”

Draco shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think she’s said anything like that to me.”

Narcissa cleared her throat. “Shall we sit down to lunch while the little one is sleeping?”

Draco pulled out his mother’s chair and then Andromeda’s before seating himself. Andromeda had made some minty lamb mince salad with crusty bread.

“Is this Tikki’s bread, Mimi?” Narcissa had begun to butter her bread.

Andromeda smiled warmly. “Yes. She taught me quite a lot that first year. I was helpless, growing up with house elves doing everything. I felt so lost in a kitchen before Tikki. I made this bread so many times, I think Ted got tired of it and started getting lessons from his mum on muggle recipes just so he wouldn’t have to eat another cheese sandwich.” She sighed and looked sad. “It was Dora’s favorite, too.” She looked far away for a moment before swallowing and focusing on Narcissa again. “How have you been, Cissy?”

Narcissa smiled. “Sleeping badly but otherwise alright. We had the first meeting of the spouses and it was better attended than I expected. We all at least agreed that we need to do something to show we’re not who we used to be. I expect we’re all going through similar things at different paces. Personally, I’d like to find some way to contribute to wizarding society, even if I’m no longer welcome in most of it.”

Draco found himself staring between the two women. They were nearly twins. His mother with short hair, Andromeda with long hair, their faces so close to each other, it was disconcerting.

He must have had an odd look on his face, because Narcissa raised an eyebrow at him. “Everything alright, darling?”

He swallowed. “I’ve just never seen you two together before and you look so alike. Not like you and Bellatrix, Mother.”

Andromeda’s mouth quirked. “Yes, well, Bella always had the Black looks much more than we did.” She reached for the bread. “Did you ever meet Sirius?” Draco shook his head. “He and Bella looked as much alike as your mother and I do.”

Narcissa nodded. “We have the blonde hair of the Rosiers. Father was always a little sad two of us were blonde. That is what he got for marrying a blonde, though. Oh, Mimi, do you remember that portrait he commissioned where we all had dark hair?”

Andromeda’s eyes went wide. “Oh, Morgana, yes. After Mother passed and she animated, our hair kept turning mysteriously back to blonde!” She chuckled. “What was he thinking?”

Narcissa laughed, then put a deep male timbre into her voice with an aristocratic accent. “You see, my dear daughters, we must appear as we truly wish to be. It is only in the practice of truth that we can be that truth.”

Andromeda cackled so hard, she dropped her butter knife. “Oh Cissy, that’s him exactly!” She turned to Draco as Narcissa gave a little wiggle of joy. “Father was always so concerned with appearances, to the exclusion of any substance.”

Narcissa sighed with a quarter of an eye roll. “It was bloody exhausting.”

Draco raised an eyebrow and stared at his mother. “Oh, I know.”

Narcissa gulped in shock. Her face was suddenly fearful. She reached for him. “I’m so sorry, Draco. I’m so so sorry...”

He allowed his hand to be taken.

Narcissa took his hand in both of hers for the second time that day. “I was wrong, Draco. Lucius and I were both wrong. I thought we were doing what was right. I’m so sorry we were wrong.”

He cleared his throat. “Do you know that in the past two weeks, I’ve talked more about feelings and substance than in the entirety of my life up to now? And, in the past forty-eight hours, you and I have talked more about feelings than we did in the previous ten years?”

She nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry, Draco. I can only do better now, my love.”

Draco pulled his hand away. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t air my grievances in front of Andromeda.”

Narcissa shook her head. “No, that’s what we used to do, just put everything behind closed doors. It’s alright.”

Andromeda had gone back to her salad and Draco and Narcissa followed suit, soon achieving a pleasant silence before the sisters began to discuss Narcissa’s plans for the arbor in the back garden of Black House.

Just after lunch, Teddy gurgled an excited cry from the other room and Andromeda brought him back out, much happier than when he had gone down. She set up an armchair and sat Draco down with Teddy to give the baby his lunch bottle. She showed him how to hold the bottle so Teddy did not suck down any air.

Then, the two sisters bloody left!

So, Draco was alone with a baby. Teddy had matched his hair to Draco’s as soon as he saw Draco, which he could only take as a compliment of the highest order. Now, feeding the tiny person felt like some strange bonding ritual for the two cousins. Draco found himself amazed at how small everything was. Tiny fingers reached for his hand and tiny feet with teeny tiny toes gently kicked his side.

“You’re awfully small, aren’t you? But you’ve got quite the pair of lungs on you, haven’t you, Ted? Gave me quite a scare. I certainly wasn’t prepared for screaming today.” Teddy flailed his arms and unlatched from the bottle with a hiccup, then went back to his meal. “We’ll need to teach you some table manners there, love. How are you liking living with your Gran? I have a friend who was raised by his Gran, too. He turned out better than almost anyone I know, and your Gran is great, so you’ll be great.”

Draco found himself really missing Neville and Hermione. He had the sudden urge to go home and write to Hermione. Then, Teddy sneezed, choking slightly on the milk. Andromeda had left a burp cloth and Draco thought he remembered how to help with the coughing, so he gently put Teddy on his shoulder and patted his back. The tiny body coughed and coughed until everything was clear and he had burped quite loudly in Draco’s ear and spit up on the cloth.

He held Teddy away from him for a moment. “All better, love?” Teddy sneezed again, right in Draco’s face. “Yup, you’re fine. Disgusting, but fine.”

Teddy smiled and reached for Draco’s nose, scratching it with his mysteriously sharp talons. He spied the sisters around the side of the house. “I think they’re going to go into business together, Ted. Mum needs a partner, and I’ll be damned if it’s the pizza man...” He enjoyed the captive audience of the baby. He made faces and Teddy snatched at his face, eyes going wide every once in a while in surprise at nothing.

Eventually, the sisters returned, relieving him of being the center of the kid’s world. Narcissa looked far less comfortable holding Teddy than Draco had been. She had a look of vague confusion most of the time she held him. Teddy tried to reach for her, but she kept him away from anything interesting. She returned him to Andromeda as soon as she could.

Narcissa seemed distracted for the rest of their visit. She had to specifically be brought into the conversations, which was totally out of character for her. At the exact moment it became socially acceptable to leave, she was kissing her sister on the cheek and ushering Draco to the floo with promises to make this a weekly get-together. Draco insisted she take him up on his offer to watch Teddy when she needed help.

Back in Black House, Narcissa made her apologies and excused herself quickly, leaving Draco standing by the floo to wonder whether he had just witnessed the reason he was an only child. It certainly explained a lot.

He retreated to his room to write to Hermione, inspired by his thoughts holding Teddy.

      I miss you, girlfriend. I did a few hours of research this morning about what happens to me when we have sex, but I don’t know much more than when I started. The best I can tell is that sex between bonded people is the height of magical power. Maybe when we have sex, since we’re not doing magic, too, the magic becomes corrupted? I don’t know. I just love you and I don’t want this to be happening to us.
      What should we do about this? At the very least, I think we need to keep the kinky stuff and the actual fucking parts separate. I didn’t have the problem as intensely that first time, so it seems like the problem is intensified by doing both together. Bloody hell, I hope that makes any sense to you.
     Or, do we just stop fucking, period? That’s not what I want, but I do want to keep you safe and I don’t trust myself. Why are things so complicated between us? Why can’t this just be pleasant and not dark? Have I mentioned recently that I hate that I can’t tell how much of wanting to hurt you is me, and how much is my father? Would I have been like this without my father’s influence? I was a huge shit even before he started about you, and I can’t tell if I would have grown out of it if he hadn’t been whispering to me about killing someone.
     Neville thinks I could have been a good person. I don’t see myself how he sees me, but I can sort of see the outline, and it does seem to be shaped like me.
      Healer Simons had me do this weird thing in a pensieve yesterday. Apparently I’ve been fooling myself about trying to use the Killing Curse in that forest. I never actually did anything. I put up my wand and couldn’t get the words out. And, I never knew. My solid memory of actually doing it, and it not working was a lie I’d told myself and my father. Thinking about it, I’m really confused about what other memories I’ve got wrong in my head.
      Why did he do this to me, Hermione? He’s such a bastard and I just don’t know why he put all of this in me. I was eleven! How could anything an eleven year old said or did be so dangerous to him as an adult that he had to ruin my life about it? What the fuck?
      I’m going to make Mother tell me. She’s been answering questions lately I never thought she would. I credit your good influence.
      Would you like to come visit at the weekend? I’ve also asked Neville to come if he wants. Maybe you could bring Ginny and we can go visit Harry in my back garden... How did you neglect to tell me Twelve Grimmauld was literally across the garden fence of Black House? I ran into Harry very awkwardly this morning when he thought I’d apparated behind his place when I stepped through the Black House ward. Or, was this an odd sort of joke you’ve played on us? Tricky minx. Punishment will be languorous, my love...
      I’ll write again soon. Write back whenever you like. I love you, Hermione Granger.

Draco felt lighter after writing to Hermione. He sighed and leaned back in his desk chair. He really hoped she had another idea besides not having sex. His cock had been rousing, thinking about “punishing” her for the joke of the two hidden houses. Maybe if they just talked about it, and did not do the BDSM, that could still be hot? His cock certainly agreed.

At dinner that night, Draco told his mother Hermione and Neville would probably visit over the weekend. He had not actually explained the not-a-triad-yet to her before, and it was extremely awkward to explain it now. He knew it would be worse if she thought him the kind of man to sneak around with Neville while he was ostensibly with Hermione. She had literally no questions, for some reason, and changed the subject immediately.

When Mimo served dessert, Draco decided to ask his own questions. “Mother, I need to know something about Father.”

She swallowed a bite of her pudding and nodded. “Alright, I’ll try.”

Draco took a calming breath. “Why did he do that to me? About Hermione? Why was he so threatened by her that he ruined my life about it?”

She set her spoon gently and took her own calming breath. “I don’t know entirely. He thought he was preparing you for something great. He always had a way of seeing the world that was at least three layers deep in subterfuge. He wanted you to be the man he wished he could be before uh... Voldemort’s... fall the first time. He was obviously favored before, but he was not at the top, not the most trusted, and he wanted that more than anything.” She sighed. “He wanted you to be able to take out your enemies in ways he did not have the courage to do.”

Draco dropped his spoon onto his dish with a clatter that made Narcissa flinch. “So, that’s why he trained me to be a killer before I was even a teenager? So I’d be a BETTER man than him?”

Narcissa was looking at her hands in her lap. “Yes.”

“Why Hermione? I know what he told me, but what did he tell you, Mother? How did he justify it? I just can’t understand how he could be so evil, and how you could let him.” He spat out the end as an accusation.

She chewed her lip, still looking down. “I never believed you would do it. He told me the same things he told you. It was all circular once he had the thought in his mind. I believe he has the same mental issues as his father. Abraxas was similarly convinced that muggles and muggleborns entering wizarding society were to be hated and feared.”

She looked up at him. “Draco, you must understand that I don’t have any satisfying answers for you. I was wrong. I should have done something before your father was arrested. I should have done something every day from that Christmas when it started. I should have stopped him, or disagreed with him, at least. I shouldn’t have been silent and complacent. But I was. I was silent and complacent, and I never disagreed with him or stopped him. I knew it was a terrible plan, and I knew it would shape you in irrevocable ways, but I didn’t have the courage to stop it.” Tears had begun politely rolling down her cheeks.

Draco had nothing to say. His eyes were dry. He felt as though he might see his dinner again soon. He stood and left the dining room, escaping the house out the library door before emptying his stomach behind a bush.

Her words had felt so empty, but he also believed her fully. She had always seemed so strong, even if she was a more subdued presence than Lucius had been. And, now they were both just people who were wrong, and who had raised him wrong.

He let out a cry of frustration and flopped down on a patch of grass. Nothing that had happened to anyone he knew was fair. Or rather, it seemed everyone he knew had been particularly affected by the extreme unfairness of the world. It was all too much.

Just then, a light flicked on in Twelve Grimmauld. Draco pictured the layout of the house and could tell that Harry was in the sitting room with the telly. He profoundly and suddenly did not want to be alone. He cast the Patronus, thinking of Neville’s cock in his mouth.

“Go tell Harry, I noticed he’s home, and could I come over to get my arse kicked in that game or something?” The peacock flew off and went through the window glass. Draco could hear a faint cackling before a fucking stag burst through the window and landed without a sound on Harry’s back lawn, trotting over to Draco and opening its mouth.

The sound of Harry’s laughter echoed from the stag’s mouth into the dusk between the two houses. “Yes, come over, Malfoy, er, sorry, Draco. I’d rather a movie, if that’s alright. Let yourself in through the kitchen.”

Draco smiled. He had oddly not minded hearing his surname again. Maybe it was losing its power somehow. He did still prefer Draco to Malfoy, but even hearing Harry say it had been fine, and Harry had been his worst enemy.

He found Harry tucking into his nightly pizza as he watched the muggle news.

“Anything happening to muggles?”

“Uh, an astronaut died?”

Draco sat down and tried to make sense of the telly. “What, in space?”

Harry shook his head. “No, one of the ones from the Sixties. Alan Shepard.” He glanced at Draco. “Do you know what astronauts are?”

Draco scoffed, finding it nearly impossible not to sneer. “Of course I fucking know what astronauts are. They go to space. Alan Shepard was the second one ever.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “But, how do you know about astronauts?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Books.”

“God, you and Hermione really are made for each other.”

Draco suddenly had no breath. He and Hermione and Neville had talked on this very couch about how he had felt safe in the muggle library. And, about how Hermione loved libraries so much she had cried. And then, they had gone upstairs to Hermione’s room and Draco had lost control, because of the soul bond that meant they were made for each other.

A snap sounded beside his ear. “Oi, Draco, did you hear me?”

Draco shook his head. “No, what?”

“I said, what do you want to watch?”

He shook his head again. “I’m not picky. Anything to take me away.”

Harry got up and went to the movie shelf. “Hmm, dinosaurs, or an endless lawless ocean, or just an indecent amount of drugs?”

“Dinosaurs of all of those.”

“Excellent choice.” He put the tape into the front of the telly. “So, uh, pizza?” Harry gestured to the open box.

Draco shook his head. “I already ate, thanks.”

The movie was very good. That dark-haired scientist gave sexy Neville a run for his money. Draco smirked at the thought that Harry was sitting right where Neville had laid as Draco played with his arse and sucked him off. He hoped Neville had written back this evening. Maybe he would come stay over and they could make some nice memories for Draco in his own bed.

“Draco, you’re different now, right?”

He looked at Harry in alarm. “What?”

“You heard me. Are you different now? Do I need to worry about you with Hermione or Neville?”

Draco’s mouth went dry and he swallowed thickly. “Uh, I don’t know? I’m trying to deserve being alive. Is that different?”

Harry frowned as a velociraptor sneaked into the kitchen. “Yeah, it’s bloody dark, but it’s different. You used to act like we were all supposed to deserve your presence, so that’s a bit of a difference.”

Draco let out the breath he had been holding. His voice came out hoarse. “I’m sorry, Harry. I’m sorry for everything.”

Harry continued to stare at the movie but nodded. “I’m sorry, too, Draco. I’m sorry I literally always suspected you first for everything that happened, and for the bathroom sixth year.”

Draco nodded and rubbed his chest where the scar remained. “I mean, I was up to something awful all the time, practically since you met me, so, I don’t begrudge you your grudge.”

Harry rolled his eyes and finally looked over at Draco. “Speaking of that something awful, why didn’t you ask anyone for help? You had to have known it was wrong to be trained to kill someone.” He sighed. “Listen, I know Hermione has sort of looked past that fucking thing where your father brainwashed you into offing her, but I need some more information if I’m going to trust you, Malfoy.”

Draco gestured with an open hand, giving Harry the floor.

“Did you fight it? When did you know you couldn’t do it?”

“Uh, I didn’t ever exactly fight it. It just sort of morphed into something else. Yesterday it became clear to me I knew I couldn’t do it when we were in the forest after the World Cup. I thought for years that I tried, but yesterday I found I hadn’t ever tried. I went into both versions of the memory and it was obvious the one I’ve been remembering for years was fake.”

Harry nodded. “Foggy and only a couple of things were actually clear?”

Draco shot him a look of confusion. “How would you know?”

Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head with exhaustion. “Dumbledore. Pensieve memories to learn about horcruxes.”

“What is your life?”

His eyes rolled further back and he continued shaking his head. “Fuck if I know, mate. So, you couldn’t do it back in the forest, then?”

“Yeah.”

“And, you said it became something else?”

Draco closed his eyes. “Yeah, it became a bunch of other things. Some of it went into hating Lucius enough. Some of it went later into hating the monster enough once I knew he was really back. And, some of it became something else with Hermione.”

“Whatever happened Saturday that made you do a runner?”

He sighed, staring at the movie. “Yeah, that’s the one. You don’t need to worry about me doing anything to her. That’s, I’m not, I won’t let anything happen to her, or Neville. I’d rather die myself.”

“God, you’re a fucking mess, Malfoy.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“You said, enough? Enough to kill Voldemort?” Draco nodded. “You were going to try to kill Voldemort?” He nodded. “Fuck, like, you practiced, thinking about Voldemort?”

Draco sighed. “Yes, Potter. I practiced killing things so I could kill the worst thing that ever happened to my family.”

“Bloody hell, that’s so much more than I ever did.” Harry leaned back again. “I’m sorry you had to do it, but that’s bloody brave, Draco. I couldn’t have done the Killing Curse.”

“It’s not brave. It’s self-preservation and loyalty.”

“And, a Ravenclaw would think it’s wits, and a Hufflepuff would think it’s dedication or whatever. It doesn’t mean it’s less true to me.”

Draco felt himself soften slightly and glanced at Harry. His expression was open and he smirked in a way Draco had come to recognise as Gryffindor’s I’m-being-cautiously-friendly face. “Fair enough.” Draco gestured to the movie. “They’re going to make it off the island, right?”

“Yes, of course. Most movies have a happy ending. Haven’t you noticed that yet? It’s like, the one thing you can be sure of in action movies, especially.”

“Hmm, but where’s the dramatic tension, then?”

“Ugh, hanging out with you is like hanging out with Hermione.”

Draco snorted. “I doubt that.”

“So, both of them?”

“Hermione and Neville, you mean?”

Harry nodded.

“Yeah, both of them.”

“And, they’re together, too?”

“Yes.”

“And, you’re not jealous?”

“No? It makes them happy.”

“But, don’t you want them to yourself?”

Draco shrugged. “I do have them, they just also have each other. Why would I need them to be only with me if I know I already have them?” He turned toward Harry. “If Ginny wanted to be with someone else, you wouldn’t want her to? If it made her happy?”

“God, no. I’d lose my mind.”

“What about when she was snogging Dean all over the castle?”

“I mean, we weren’t together then.”

“Well, with her at the castle while you have to be down here with the trials, if she wanted to, uh, get her needs met, so to speak, you wouldn’t be alright with that?”

“No! Of course not! I’m her boyfriend, I should be the only one she’s with.”

Draco shrugged again. “That’s just not how I feel about them.”

“Is this a Slytherin thing?”

“As they are two of the most Gryffindor Gryffindors I’ve ever met, I would say not.”

The movie ended and Harry had polished off half the pizza by himself.

“Are you eating anything but pizza these days, Potter?”

“I had to cook at the Dursleys and now I don’t have to cook, and I hate having to ask Kreacher to do anything. He’s quite good at it, but I guess I got indoctrinated into S.P.E.W. a bit too much.”

“Merlin’s arse, Harry, you can’t live on pizza. Have you ever just talked to Kreacher like he’s a sensible person?”

“Of course. I just don’t want to have a servant. I know what it’s like, to be forced to do what someone else wants, and I can’t do that to another living being.”

“No, you know what it’s like to be an abused child. House elves are nothing like that. Have you negotiated employment terms with Kreacher?”

“Have you with your house elves, Draco?”

“Mimo, Coco, and Pleck have all signed employment contracts advantageous to both sides. There are four others who want to be sure we’ll actually honor the contracts with the first three before they give up the protections of the current bonds for what freedom would give them.”

“Why did you do that? You didn’t have to.”

He frowned. “Mother wanted to reward the elves that made it through living with the monster. She hated the servitude that we had toward him, and she wanted to be sure she was not forcing similar servitude on anyone else. We did lose five elves while he lived at the Manor, and two more have been driven to madness so extreme, we’ll never be able to free them as they’re a danger to themselves and everyone else.”

“Jesus Christ, that’s dark!” Harry got up from the couch. “Fancy a butterbeer?”

Draco shook his head. “Brain stuff makes me off alcohol for a bit.”

Harry shrugged. “Fair enough. I have some muggle soda, no alcohol, if that’s more your speed?”

Draco nodded. “Sure.”

Harry disappeared for a couple of minutes and Draco went to the movie shelf to contemplate what they should watch next. He was trying to remember what Hermione had said about Batman when Harry got back.

“Oh, that’s a good one. Batman is really cool.”

Draco really liked the movie and the soda was tasty. It was like candy, but mean somehow.

Then, half an hour into the movie, Draco could not keep his eyes open. The movie blended into his sleep to make him Batman, Hermione Vicki Vale, and Voldemort The Joker. He awoke with a start at a swell in the action.

“Have a nice nap?”

Draco blinked, a little confused at his surroundings. “I was dreaming the movie. Is that normal?”

Harry chuckled. “Only when you fall asleep with the telly on. It’s the only way I can sleep anymore. Can’t let my mind do what it wants, or I’d never rest.”

“Yeah. I think I’ll go home and try to actually sleep in my own bed.”

“See you later. It was good to see you. You do seem different. A lot calmer than you used to be.”

“Same to you, Potter.” He made his way out to the back garden and hopped over the fence. Was the fence inside the charm of both houses? How was that possible?

He did the silent wandwork that unlocked the library door and slipped inside. Did he really want to go to bed now? It sounded nice in theory, but he had not been able to fall asleep most of the night last night. He was tired of taking potions for fucking everything right now. He went back to the kitchen and found Pleck doing his obsessive cleaning ritual, a remnant of Voldemort’s reign in the manor.

“Pleck, could you make a cup of chamomile tea for me?”

Pleck startled out of his reverie, hitting himself gently over the head with the towel. “Yesss, Massterrr Drrraaacooo.”

The elf had been hit with some hex they had been unable to completely fix. It had left the elf with slowed speech and a few focus issues. A few moments into boiling the water for the tea, which should only have taken a moment, he was distracted again. Another elf popped into the kitchen, Stevvy, and took over the tea-making.

Draco had seated himself at the long bench table in the kitchen to wait. “Thank you, Stevvy.”

Stevvy’s deceptively deep voice creaked out. “Master Draco should know better, he should. Master Draco knows Pleck cannot do these things without supervision, he does. Master Draco should call for help instead of asking Pleck, he should.”

Draco nodded but sighed. “Part of his contract says we have to ask him to do things, not just sit around. He insisted on that.”

Stevvy practically hissed. “Master Draco is wrong, he is.” The elf flinched at himself. “Stevvy hates to say it, he does. Stevvy sees the influence of the mudblood girl in Master Draco, he does.”

“No, Stevvy. You will not use that word ever again!” Stevvy immediately went red and hit himself in the face. “Don’t hurt yourself. Just don’t use that word ever again.”

Stevvy put his hands down at his sides and fumed. “Master Draco is wrong, he is.” The tea finished and Stevvy put it down in front of Draco with a clatter. “Does Master Draco need anything else, does he?”

“No, thank you, Stevvy. Any time you would like to discuss employment terms, we would like to free you.”

Stevvy scowled and hissed slightly again. “Stevvy would rather be dead than... free...” The elf shuddered.

Draco rolled his eyes. “Fine. I do not require your assistance further tonight.”

Stevvy did a deep bow that seemed almost sarcastic, then popped out of the kitchen, leaving Draco alone again with Pleck who had gone back to his cleaning routine.

Draco found himself becoming drowsy watching the little elf clean everything so meticulously while he sipped the cooling tea. He left the cup and saucer on the table and wandered upstairs to collapse in his bed.

He managed to fall asleep quickly but woke panting a few hours later.

Hermione had been on fire, riding him, burning them up together. She pulled the filthiest language from the corners of his imagination, and as they climaxed, both bloody and beaten, Hermione screamed as she had on the drawing room floor.

Draco forced himself to breathe normally. He lit the lamp beside him. He made it to just before four. That was it for sleep tonight.

He slipped on his headphones and went for the Classic Queen. This singer was really good. Hopefully there was more of this band.

He checked the journals to see if they had written back, Neville first.

      Don’t read this until I say it’s okay. Okay, you can read it.
      So, yeah, I’d really like to come see you. Would that be alright with your mother? Have you told her about us? Or, are we just friends to her? I don’t want to be a secret unless there’s a really good reason. Anyway, I would like to come see you. Can I come Friday night and stay over? It’s not totally clear from your invitation if it’s supposed to be a stay-the-night sort of thing.
      Sorry I’m so awkward. I don’t want to mess this up. I’m not exactly experienced at relationships, so I feel like XXXXXXXXX fuck, I’m not a fan of not being able to correct myself in these things. I feel like I’m asking for too much or something. It’s never been like this before. It was always just sort of a couple of fun times and then we went our separate ways. They didn’t, you know, fancy me and I didn’t fancy them. But, I really fancy you, Draco. That’s why I don’t want to keep it a secret and I don’t know what to do with the fact that I need you with this gnawing in my chest.
      I can’t believe that letter you sent Ginny, by the way. Or, the fact that you wrote it while Hermione knelt on the dorm floor sucking my cock while two other people slept twelve feet away. You two are going to kill me, honestly.
      I guess I should try to tell you what you first asked. I just know you weren’t in your right mind when this was happening. You’d seemed a bit weird since I joined you on the bed, but when you entered her, you just got this pained look. You were making these weird half words, half groaning noises that were punctuated with saying she was getting what she deserved, that she was a m-- (no, I can’t write it, you know which word) which seemed to make you more upset every time you said it. You started crying, but you were still in her, and she came, but you just kept going, really really hard, and it was a stream of things about how you should hurt her and how you deserved to use her and how you’d make her scream again. But, you were crying saying it, and it was like how you’ve sounded during panic attacks, or during nightmares. I didn’t know what to do, Draco. Should I have stopped you? You were clearly out of your mind. Hermione had come back to her senses by that time and she looked really confused. Then you finally came, and collapsed on her. I think that’s probably all you don’t know. It was just a lot of words and you were clearly out of your mind, in retrospect. You didn’t actually do anything to hurt either of us.
      I know you and Hermione have the darkness you talk about between you. I know it, and I just want you both to be really careful you’re not hurting yourselves or each other. I feel like I was responsible for this happening because I made you stop what you were doing. Hermione says it’s not me, it’s something between you two, but she also said this hadn’t happened before, so I don’t know what to think.
      Have I told you I really liked when it was just the two of us on Saturday? Merlin’s pants, you have a lovely cock. I liked how you helped me with what to do. I want to practice to be able to do that throat thing. I’m hard just thinking about that thing again. Next time I want to do more bum stuff, too. I really hope you were planning for an overnight visit... I want to do so many things together, boyfriend. XXXXXXXXXX Yeah, it’s really hard to not say some things.
      It’s really late now. I hope you’re feeling better. I miss you. Let me know if Friday works.

Hermione had mysteriously written him just a single page, but he was immediately amazed at what she had chosen to write.

This is all I can think of right now, Draco:

      I’m on my knees in only knickers and a bra and you stand over me, fully clothed and twirling your wand. You’ve put me in binds, and you’re telling me I belong to you, that this is who I am, just a beautiful girl with holes to please you. And, I fall into a trance. You pull out your cock and slip it into my waiting mouth, fucking my mouth as you tell me this is who I really am, just a hot wet mouth for your cock. You come on my chest, then levitate me over to where I’m to be whipped, just because you want to do it. And, I want you to do it. I can feel my pussy aching for you, but I’m silent because I want only what you’ll give.
     Then, my bra is gone and you’ve pulled my nipples to sharp points. You bring out a flogger and begin on my tits, lashing them over and over, no punishment, just giving me something I’ll only take from you. I’m a bad girl and a good girl, all in one, and you tell me so. You say I’ve been so bad, teasing you and tempting you to let your darkness out. You say I’ve been so good, taking everything you need to give me. I can see you getting hard again, naked now, whipping everywhere, harder harder harder. I’ve been screaming, panting, begging, I need you inside me. I need you inside me, Draco.
      And, finally you relent. You shove your cock in me. I can feel that thing between us. You rake your nails everywhere and it hurts, different than the lash, but still so good. I deserve this, I deserve your cock inside me, and the pain you’ve given me, and your fingers on my clit, and your words in my ears. And, you deserve this, to let out the darkness, to hear the screams you pull from me, to fuck me with abandon, to feel this feeling between us. We both deserve this.
      I love you, Draco, and I love what you do to me. And, no matter what happens, I will want it, and I will want you.

Draco was shocked. She had given him words now. It was still what he wanted. There was something soothing in reading and rereading it. She understood and she had written this for him with love. Plus, it was unspeakably hot, reading how she wanted him. He was palming his erection through his shorts before he was even aware of it.

He could picture it all. Hermione trussed up on his bedposts, like one of Selectia’s pornographic paintings. The marks criss-crossing her body. How he would make her service him on her knees first so he could concentrate on her pain. How he would pull the desperate cries from her, her desire so plain for him, her struggles only to pull him to her.

His hand sped on his cock. He thought of the feeling of being inside her. That endless feeling, the need to make them both feel it as profoundly as possible. He would make her come over and over until she was hoarse and spent and begging him to end it, begging him to set her free again, begging him to set himself free. He could see her in tears, chanting his name mindlessly, caught in her ecstasy, and she opened her eyes and looked at him and his head tipped back and he came, painting the open journal with a groan.

“Fuck!” He tried to cast scourgify on the journal and succeeded, but in his haste, her writing was blurred slightly in spots. “Fuck!”

A soft knock came at his door. “Draco? Are you alright? Did you have a bad dream?”

Had he woken his mother with his fantasy? Ugh, unspeakably terrible if true. He shoved the journals under his covers and put his cock away, checking for stains before he pulled his robe on and tied the belt before running to open the door. “Yes, sorry. Bad dreams.”

She nodded. “Same with me. Would you like to come watch the telly with me? They show movies late at night on one of the channels.”

Draco shook his head. “I might be able to fall back to sleep now I’ve cleared my head.”

“Is it because of what I said at dinner, Draco?”

Draco remembered then that he had abruptly left the table to go outside and vomit. “No, Mum. I just don’t want to watch anything tonight. I’m sorry I left like that. I just couldn’t hear any more. It wasn’t you.”

“I’m just so sorry for everything, Draco. I’m so sorry. Please always tell me if there is something I can do to make anything up to you. Please, Draco.” Her eyes were shining in the light from his bedside lamp.

He stepped into the hall with her. “I will, Mum.” He pulled her into a hug and did not let go. She really was very short. Hermione was right. “I love you, Mum. And, I’m working on forgiving you. Not Father, but definitely you.”

She sobbed gently for a moment before pulling away. “Thank you for saying so, Draco. I love you, too. So much.” She reached up and cupped his cheek. “So much, Draco.”

She turned and went back to her room down the hall then, and Draco watched her disappear into the darkness.

It was true. He was trying to forgive her. It felt something like he had always imagined hope to feel like.

Chapter Text

September 1, 1998

The first day of his eighth year at Hogwarts dawned with Draco wishing for the first time in several years that summer would never end. He rolled over in bed to find Neville facing away from him, sheets twisted up in his legs. He snuggled up to the other man and snaked his arm around his chest, pulling him close, inhaling the sweet sharp minty smell of his hair.

“Mm, Mr Malfoy, is that a wand in your pocket? You know it’s dangerous to sleep with those.”

Draco chuckled and ground his hips into Neville’s. “Well, it’s not a wand, but it is a kind of magic…”

Neville turned his head slightly to show his smile. “I’m going to miss this. So much.”

Draco gently kissed him. “Me too, love. Me too.”

“You’re going to move after breakfast? Any plans to christen your new bed? Me? Hermione?”

“No, the scent of Gryffindor sex whips most Slytherin into a frenzy. Can’t have that the first day back.”

“Are you included in that ‘most Slytherin’, dear boyfriend?”

Draco nibbled gently on his ear and whispered, “Yes, beautiful boy.”

They lay in bed a long time, just listening to the sounds of each other’s heartbeats and the calls of birds outside the open window. Draco had fallen hard and Neville had seemed to fall with him, just as hard.

A soft rap on the bedpost made Draco stick his face out of the curtain to find Hermione. “Can I join? Assuming you’re not in the middle of something?”

Neville opened the curtain further. “Yes, we’ll just stop doing that thing you don’t want to see again.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Is that never talking about it again, Neville?”

He grinned. “No, not that thing, the other thing.”

Hermione huffed and made a sweeping motion so he would move over. They all shuffled over in the barely-two-person, definitely-not-three-person bed to make room for her. As they settled in, Neville seemed to have some issues being buried in Hermione’s hair. “Did this grow in the night, Hermione?”

She patted her head, pulling her hair out straight to see the length. “Uh, maybe. I’ll have Ginny fix it. I think I’m just nervous.”

Draco gently rubbed her arm. “We’re here. There’s always the library to meet up in. We love the library…”

Neville blew gently, watching her hair rise on his gust of breath. “Or, the Room of Requirement. You know, the one half of us almost died rebuilding?”

Hermione pulled their arms tighter around her. “Yes, there is always there.”

Draco closed his eyes, holding his loves as tight as he could. He could feel it would be a mad year. But, it would be perfect with these two beside him.