Chapter: The Closet

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He returned when they needed him most, and she had always taken that as a sign:

She found him one day outside Number 12, Grimmauld Place, as she returned from the store with grocery bags in hand. She watched him for a full minute, squinting as if she couldn't recognize him. He was pacing, muttering softly to himself. He didn't see her.

Abruptly, she threw down the groceries and leveled her wand at him. "Malfoy!"

He whirled around at the sound of her voice, obviously shaken. "What?" he responded lamely, before recognition flashed across his face. He looked older, no longer a child. "Granger?"

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" she yelled crassly, her wand still trained on him. "Give me your wand or I swear I'll stupefy you!"

Without objection, he tossed his wand towards her. She caught it in one hand, never looking away from him. "Answer my question! What are you doing here?" She knew he couldn't see the house, but it was nevertheless unnerving to see him so close to their headquarters. It had been two years since Draco and Snape had fled and Hogwarts had closed, and the shock of seeing her childhood nemesis was working on her nerves, making her impatient. She fired off a curse towards his feet when he didn't answer immediately.

"Fuck, Granger!"

"Answer the damn question!"

He paused, obviously considering how to respond. His expression closed off oddly, as if he was trying to hide something terrible. "I'm tired."

"What does that mean?" She was highly tempted to fire another curse his way.

"I don't want to be a Death Eater anymore. I don't want to serve him." He said this with such vehemence that Hermione almost lowered her wand.

She frowned, weighing her options. She knew Grimmauld Place was empty; Harry, Ron, and the rest of the Order had left to follow a lead that Lupin had picked up from the werewolves. She was alone. She could either stupefy him and drag him inside, tie him up, and wait for help, or tell him to leave immediately with her wand aimed at his back. Being the logical person she was, she decided to try and glean any more information she could from him before acting. "How did you find this place?" she asked sharply.

Warily, he eyed her, clearly sizing her up, deciding whether she would believe a lie. With a defeated sigh, he spoke. "I overheard you and Potter talking about something called Number 12 Grimmauld Place on the train at the beginning of our sixth year. I thought I might be able to find someone from the Light here," he explained, with an ironic smirk. "I was obviously mistaken." He motioned towards the apparent gap between Number 11 and Number 13. "It doesn't even bloody exist."

Hermione kept her face stoic. "You really want to change your allegiance?"

He nodded slowly.

"And you have information we can use?"

"Yes. I need some sort of leverage, don't I? Honestly, Granger, I would expect a greater show of intelligence from you."

"Shut up, you snarky little ferret," she snapped, thinking furiously. "Why do you want to join us? And don't give me that tripe about being tired."

"This is the only place I can go outside Voldemort's circle," he said, haltingly and with great reluctance. "I don't have anywhere else."

She knew how difficult it must be for him to admit such a weakness, especially to her. "Okay. Why leave Voldemort's ranks, then? Why put yourself at so much danger?"

A dark shadow fell over his face. Hermione shivered, shocked by the sudden pain that presented itself so abruptly over his features.

"He killed my mother." It was a strangled, angry whisper.

Hermione tried very hard not to feel sorry for him.

After several moments of uncomfortable silence, Hermione spoke, briskly and without emotion. "Fine. Incarcerous!" Ropes shot out from her wand and bound Malfoy tight, his arms pressed against his sides. At his yell of protest, Hermione rolled her eyes. "What would you have done?"

Ignoring his cursing, she grabbed the spare end of the rope and pulled him towards the charmed house.

-

Each day she lives in fear that Ron, her lovely Ron, will put the puzzle pieces together. It isn't as if she doesn't leave clues.

The whispered conversation with Harry in the cloakroom. A tendency to stare in to nothingness for an indeterminate amount of time. Her propensity for weeping for no apparent reason. Unresponsiveness during sex. Malfoy's distressing behavior at dinner.

"Could be a song for you, Mrs. Weasley… with your love of swimming…"

She hates him for saying that. He corrupted her sweetest memories with bitterness and anger.

Draco…

-

If there was one thing that damned war had taught her, it was to never give her trust blindly:

She bound him to a chair in the kitchen and sat across the room on the table, careful to watch him always, stiffening with each movement he made.

"Granger," he said after nearly an hour of silence. His jaw was tight with irritation. "How long 'til anyone gets back?"

She ignored him.

"Well fuck you, too…" He muttered the curse under his breath, and Hermione shot him a glare.

At the first sound of footsteps at the entryway Hermione jumped down from the table, wincing slightly as she realized that her bum had fallen unceremoniously asleep. Making a vague threat in Malfoy's direction, she moved as quickly as she could towards the sound of voices. Harry and Ron talked lowly as they removed their coats at the entrance of the house, and Hermione took a moment to collect herself after the familiar flood of relief rendered her temporarily immobile.

Every time they left Grimmauld Place, she was continuously afraid they would never return.

She hated that war. She hated it. War made her fear for her friends' lives whenever they stepped outside. It left worry lines across her forehead, caused Harry's eyes to fade to near gray with exhaustion and an immeasurable burden. War made her tie her fucking classmate to a chair while she watched his wand hand lest he make any movement that could be perceived as threatening.

Hermione blinked to dispel irrational tears that trembled at the corner of her eyes. They obediently disappeared, and she moved, smiling, towards her friends.

-

Hermione works at the Ministry as part of the Committee on Experimental Charms. This means that she works often and late into the night. She is constantly absorbed in the latest mystery charm. She has little time for life outside the ministry.

She wakes at five thirty every morning and steps out the door half an hour later. She works, taking an hour for lunch and nothing more. She arrives at their flat, exhausted and irritable, at nine o'clock every night save Sunday. On Sunday she does not leave the house, but instead sleeps until eight and remains the rest of the day in her bathrobe reading obscure books that frequently require knowledge of equally obscure anti-curse spells in order to safely access the information they hold.

And yet Ron never complains. Even when he eats dinner alone and comes to bed to a sleeping wife every night, he never complains.

How she wishes she could love him.

She used to adore her work, the constant exploration of it, the quest for knowledge that she may be the first to hold like intangible gems in her hand. She delighted in the possibility of discovery.

But now the memories that assault her upon her entrance into the committee headquarters drive her mad. She hates it there.

How she wishes she could forget him.

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Sitting at her desk, Hermione stares blankly at the tiny closet door within her office. She remembers the musty smell of that miniscule room. Barely enough room for one person in there, she remembers, but somehow they had managed two, pressed close together, breath puffing on one another's faces, thighs and calves wrapped around hips and wrinkles coats. His head nearly bumping the ceiling. Careful, she had said, pulling his face towards her, don't make a noise. Because it would have given their hiding place away.

Hermione is jerked from her thoughts by Spencer, the new Assistant Director who she despises, and is told abruptly and without ceremony to get to work, so she does.

-

They finally decided he could stay because Hermione told them what he said about his mother:

She was beginning to wish she had kept quiet.

"Shut your goddamned mouth and leave me the fuck alone," Malfoy spat blandly, for what seemed like the thousandth time, before pushing her out of the door and slamming it in her face. She tried to shove the door open—he couldn't lock it, because it locked from the outside—but he must have been bracing against it with his shoulder. Resigned, Hermione stood outside, her forehead pressed against his door, and spoke into the heavy oak.

"Malfoy! Quit being such an ass and let me talk to you! It's either me or Ron, and I'm fairly sure that Ron won't be so genial as I am!"

"I don't want to talk to anyone." His voice is muffled through the door.

"We have to understand why you're here! We need to know that you won't murder us in our sleep!" For some reason she was almost crying. She didn't like to think about people her age killing people.

"You lock me in this fucking room every night and you always have someone watching me, you stupid bitch. Don't be idiotic."

"You know what I mean!"

"Sod off."

"I WON'T!" To her horror, her voice broke, high and thin at the "--on't."

The door swung open and because she was leaning against it she almost fell to the floor. She could almost hear his sick sneer. "Don't you ever shut up, you crazy bint?"

And she'd had it.

So she straightened, brushed herself off, and punched him in the face.

"What the FUCK, Granger!" He yelled, reeling back and clutching his bleeding lip.

"Listen, Malfoy." She could see he wasn't, so she raised her smarting fist. "Listen!" He wiped at his lip with his forearm, leaving a streak of red on that pale skin, and stared at her. Incredulously.

"You have no right," she started, lowly, her voice almost shaking, "to act like the snotty little bastard you always have been. Not here, and not now. Do you know how much Harry is risking keeping you here? For all he knows, Voldemort can track his Death Eaters' locations and we've given away our hideout, because of YOU. But Harry's so kind that when I told him your bitch of a mother is dead I saw pity." Her own profanity shocked her, and she could see the anger leap forward in his face. "Pity for you, who doesn't even deserve it. If what you say is true and you have nowhere else to go but here, you should be kissing his fucking feet, not sneering whenever he enters your room. Not refusing to speak to us. So tell me really why you're here. Tell me what really happened, in more detail. If you don't I swear to God I'll punch you again and curse you senseless." She finally quieted, breathing very hard, glaring an angry tremolo into his face.

He stared, the blood dripping down his chin. Then, very slowly, enunciating clearly: "Get the fuck out of my room."

And she did, and the only reason she did not hex him into oblivion was because she had seen in his face the crack of his resolve, if only for a moment.

Three days later, after Ron had hit Malfoy's nose with the base of his palm out of sheer frustration at his silence, Hermione walked into that room and found Malfoy sitting on the floor. "Are you ready?" she asked.

He stared at her, the blossom of bruise on his nose fresher than on his lip, and nodded. She sat across from him and waited.

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A/N: Viola! I hope you enjoyed this. As I said, as the story progresses we'll learn more and more about Hermione and Draco's relationship through flashbacks. More to come!