Chapter Text
Suggested Music for Chapter 1: The Death of Peace of Mind by Bad Omens
1: Her smouldering eyes still scorch my soul
Once upon a time, donning the skeletal Death Eater mask, the sobs for mercy, and the bursts of light as spells shot across the room like festive fireworks would have raised Draco Malfoy’s heart rate. It was exciting once, thrilling, even, to enter into a safe house and collect the ever-growing population of Order of the Phoenix supporters, their faces marred with blood and streaked with soot from incendiary spells. Men, women, children, it didn’t matter, they were herded like cattle that escaped their fields and were better off permanently relocated to the slaughterhouse.
Watching the hope dim from their eyes used to be enough to make him feel something. It scratched an itch he didn’t realise he had until even that became numb.
Back then, every raid led him one step closer to the only thing that occupied his mind at night–the only thing he’d coveted but could never admit to himself.
Passing years had proven their futility in finding her.
If she wasn’t dead, she was gone. She’d fled England, as she should have long ago.
If any of her stupid friends cared for her, they would have advised her to leave the Order. Every single one of its members had a ticking countdown etched in their foreheads, marking their last moments of freedom. While Granger had eluded him this long, he was most anxious for hers to strike 0.
He hoped she’d left.
The further away she was, the less he had to remember her, the more blurred the memory of her became, and the more distant and hazy her scent grew in his mind.
He yearned for the day that his mouth stopped watering at the recollection of her scent…
Draco strode through the decrepit living room. Wallpaper peeled off the walls. Cobwebs clung to every corner, and the air was so thick and stagnant it was a miracle no one had perished from oxygen deprivation as every window had been sealed shut and reinforced by magic.
The only remaining signs of life were the rats feasting on the leftover wrappers and the areas on the ground where dust had been smeared clean, likely serving as a sleeping area for whichever poor group occupied this sorry excuse for a safehouse.
Merlin, the Order was pathetic. How they failed to secure even a single livable safehouse despite having an ever-growing populace escaped him. They must have lived in such squalor that they preferred capture over continuing spending their days in such rancid filth.
Even with the new support, the Order never had enough time to train their initiates, operating more like a poorly run orphanage than an army they purported to be. They provided an ever flowing buffet of souls to the Death Eaters, as if the Dark Lord needed more power, more bodies to enslave. Ever thriving in the upper echelons of society, power begot more power, and the Death Eaters feasted like kings on the failures of the Order.
Nowadays, unless an Unforgivable struck him in the chest, raids were like watching a ballet without music: all movement, no purpose. Draco’s wand gestures had grown lazy, his wrist had grown slack, yet every spell struck. Every incantation spilled with effortless precision from his lips like the words from a well-rehearsed play, repeated enough times that they were reflexive to him. As pleased as he should have been for reaching the top of the Death Eater hierarchy, it meant little to him. What difference did it make which tribe he fought for, which cause he pledged his allegiance to? Monsters hunted monsters, hiding behind dogmas that perpetuated the same cyclical war that never ended.
There was no end. Whether Draco lived or died resulted in the same outcome: he was replaced. They were all replaced. The Death Eaters. The Order. Even the Dark Lord was another corpse to crawl on in the next ambitious tyrant's climb to the peak. There was nothing special about any of them–none, except…
Draco shook his head, trying to clear the cancerous feelings that proliferated and mutated all the healthy, normal thoughts.
He slipped into the study. Empty. The dust on the floor marked the space where the body of a girl had been dragged out by Gibbons a few moments prior. He could still hear her helpless sobs echoing in his memory before Gibbons took her away–undoubtedly to his private quarters before surrendering her to the Dark Lord.
The rest of the room was empty, its bookshelves stark naked. That should have been indication enough that Granger wasn’t here…
Draco made his way up the stairs, one foot dragging after the other as he completed his rounds ensuring the other Death Eaters had done a well enough job to sweep the place clean. When his weight settled on the top landing, something shifted in the space around him.
He could feel the electric sizzle in the air as he took a step down the narrow corridor, glancing at doorway after doorway of dingy, empty rooms. Every second spent here made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Static crackled at his fingertips, like he’d been caught in a thunderstorm and was the lightning’s next intended victim.
He sucked in a deep inhale and let it out in a loud “Ahh.”
Hmm.
This was nice.
Magic.
“ Revelio ,” Draco said with a spirited swish of his wand.
The dark, empty corridor, with its half-clinging wallpaper, suddenly burst with life as light flickered through the cracked foundation. Light glowed around each door frame as doors appeared in the empty space, as solid as the walls themselves.
A simple Alohamora did nothing to unlock any of them.
Draco quirked a brow, his curiosity slowly transforming into a delightful sense of intrigue.
He stepped back, gazing at the ceiling, at the floor, in every corner for a sense of what he was dealing with. Draco pressed his hand against the wall. It was warm to the touch, and his eyes rolled upward as he tried to recall the one Arithmancy class he took at Hogwarts that taught him about magical signatures. It was a ward, obviously, but based on the temperature, the colour, the frequency of energy that pulsed under his fingertips, it required–
Draco sneered as the answer popped in his head.
Blood. The doors were sealed by blood, unwilling to reveal themselves to anyone but Order members.
Draco let out an impatient growl and shoved his boot against the door as though kicking it would do anything. But as he stood so close to the magical perimeter, something caught his attention.
He leaned closer to the door. The scent emanating from within the invisible cracks overwhelmed his senses. Draco froze, his eyes widening as he sucked in a deep inhale, flooding his lungs with whatever cursed air escaped from the locked room beyond.
Was it peaches? Or–or honey?
Flowers or fruit? He couldn’t decipher it, but–
Oh, he’d smelled it before.
Heat flared on the surface of his skin, like a thousand individual wildfires ignited simultaneously all over his body. He felt sick. Feverish–no, worse. Like he could combust from the heat as his heart pounded at double the healthy rate.
His eyes widened and nostrils flared as he turned frantically, his gaze scattering across the corridor.
He had to get in. He needed to break through.
His fist collided with the wall, the veins of his forearm plump and pulsing. He could have toppled the whole building down if it hadn’t been reinforced by fucking magic.
Magic–
Draco sucked in a shaky breath. A dozen spells flew from his wand, each one as useless as the last. It didn’t matter what he did, the door remained unresponsive.
“Fuck!” Draco shouted as he slammed his fist against the solid wall again. Blood collected in tiny droplets from his scraped knuckles, but the pain was nothing compared to the urgency that reverberated through him. “Let me in–let me fucking in , woman!”
“We’ve got Shacklebolt!” A shout came from downstairs.
Draco stumbled backwards, bewildered. He’d forgotten where he was, what he was doing. Everything had fallen away as soon as he’d smelled the delectable sweetness that mutated every shred of pain, or sorrow, or hatred into pure uncorrupted bliss. He leaned forward, burying his nose against the magical perimeter of where the door should have been–where the room should have granted him entry to drink in his fill of this unholy aroma–before he pressed both hands against the wall and shoved himself back.
He steadied his nerves and swallowed the bitter anger that flared in his chest. What was he doing?
He’d been reduced to a drunken fool in a matter of seconds.
Draco marched down the corridor and made his way back down the stairs, his boots landing with heavy knocks on each step.
Seems the Order ex-leader had put up a bit of a fight as Draco stepped over the lifeless body of Dolohov resting in the doorframe of the kitchen.
“Found ‘em in the pantry, hiding.” Avery pointed to an extended room that appeared to have once been a plain entry at the end of an otherwise unimpressive, drab kitchen.
The hasty wards that hid the Order members had been shattered, undoubtedly unable to carry the weight of so many beings. They were nothing like the reinforced wards upstairs.
“Good,” Draco said. “I’ll take Shacklebolt to the Dark Lord, you deal with the rest of them.”
Draco didn’t give a fig about Kingsley Shacklebolt as his eyes washed over the six or so terrified faces of children–no doubt Muggleborn or half-bloods, all too young to know how to apparate to safety as they waited for their precious Order members to return. They didn’t, though. The Order couldn’t afford to sacrifice their only surviving army to save the mouths they couldn’t afford to feed.
Draco didn’t know what he was hoping for as he searched through the survivors for her, but she wasn’t there.
He wasted no time grabbing Shacklebolt by the collar before he shoved his wand to the back of the older wizard’s neck as anti-apparition cuffs clinked onto his wrists.
“We meet again, Malfoy,” Shacklebolt said under his breath.
The man had enough pride to not look afraid as Draco dragged him out of the kitchen and into the study.
“Where is she?” Draco hissed.
“I’m not sure who you’re talking about.”
Shacklebolt’s shoulders collided with the wall as Draco shoved him hard enough to cause dust to plume from the curtains.
“You know exactly who.”
“Ah, still hung up on her? After all this time?” Shacklebolt gave a mirthless smile. “I’m sorry to report that Hermione Granger is dead. She’s been dead for weeks. I thought your men would have heralded her body through Knockturn Alley.”
“You–you’re lying.” He would have heard this. He would have learned if she–if she– It wasn’t true! “Tell me the truth! Is she with Potter? Where is she? Tell me, or I’ll kill you myself!”
“It’s too late, I’m afraid.” Shacklebolt said with a cough.
Shacklebolt sucked in a thin breath as the veins around his eyes darkened. His lips curled into a thin, haunting smile. Draco staggered back, bewildered at the state of the older wizard. The blood vessels in his eyes burst, giving Shacklebolt the appearance that his eyes were weeping blood, but it wasn’t until he gave a sputtering, bloodied cough that Draco identified the symptoms of Stingblossom poisoning.
“No!” Draco shouted as he grabbed Shacklebolt by the shoulder and tugged him forward.
Blood dripped down Shacklebolt's chin and the bitter stench of the poisonous seed escaped with a hiss from his breath.
Another fucking coward.
Another member of the Order more willing to take their secrets to the grave than to fight.
Draco growled with rage as he grabbed Shacklebolt by the shoulder and hurled him in a fury against the bookshelf. He would have been impressed by his own strength at flinging a man two stone heavier than him, but there was no room in his thoughts for anything other than her.
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Draco didn’t rejoin the others in their efforts to round the captured Order members up. He didn’t care what happened to them.
Instead, he slowly climbed each step back up the stairs.
She wasn’t dead.
He knew it in his soul, she wasn’t.
The walls had grown dark, his vision tunnelled, as Draco stood in front of the door emitting the faintest scent of her hair, her clothes, her neck.
Holding Kingsley Shacklebolt’s severed hand, he smeared the blood against the perimeter, watching with a bitter sneer as the bluish magic around the door slowly sizzled white. A door appeared before him, and he swallowed the knot in his throat as he let himself in.
When he found the room empty, Draco nearly crumpled to his knees. Everything about this space screamed Granger. From the pristinely kept bedroom, with the made bed, the extra pillows–one crumpled where her head must have rested last–to the floor to ceiling shelves covered in books with broken spines, it was clear whatever this space was, she’d used it as her own personal bedroom.
Saliva flooded his mouth as he stepped forward and reached for a pillow. He brought it to his face and inhaled until his lungs ached from stretching so far.
Just her scent made every cell in his body burst with life. Heat scattered down his spine, flooding his veins with a primal need that left him parched. Dead? How could she be dead?
Her death wasn’t an option. She couldn’t die–he’d raze the fucking Order to the ground. He’d slaughter them all if that was the case. What was the point of all this if she was fucking dead?
Shacklebolt was lying, obviously–she had to be here. She had to be alive.
She had to.
He grabbed the mattress and threw it up against the wall. He searched for her, praying she’d sought safety under the bed, or perhaps in a closet, or–anywhere. He slammed the door shut, looking around for a hiding space. Curtains to hide behind. A quiet corner where she may have disillusioned herself. In his blind panic, he even looked in the dresser as though she could have shrunk herself inside and was merely waiting for a safe moment to come out. He cast enough Revelio s that the word felt foreign in his mouth.
Every second spent in the room, with her scent flooding his mind like an intoxicant, the walls stretched closer and closer together, his periphery grew dim, and it felt like the entire building was about to swallow him whole as everything in his existence became about her.
And–
And she wasn’t fucking here .
Draco collapsed to his knees, scratching the back of his neck incessantly as his shoulders heaved with heavy breaths.
What was he doing?
What had her cursed scent reduced him to?
He knew better than to mourn the death of the wicked.
He should be glad she wasn't here.
He was glad she was dead.
Now he didn’t need to keep looking for her.
Now he could have some fucking peace.
Draco sniffled and, for a moment, he pressed his palm against the back of his neck where so much of his tension culminated.
It was with a bitter sneer that Draco reached for the books he’d thrown on the floor some time in his chaotic efforts to find her. He straightened the mattress and grabbed a withered stuffed lion that had previously sat where he imagined she’d rested her head at night. When Draco reached to take her pillow, he noticed an emerald and silver sleeve peeking out from under her comforter. He tugged on it, revealing a double-knit long sleeve Quidditch jersey. Embroidered on the back, from shoulder to shoulder, were the letters MALFOY.
“Bitch,” Draco whispered, his shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths as he gazed down at his own Quidditch uniform from when he thought he’d lost it in sixth year.
Hugging the pillow to his chest, Draco apparated out of there, right after casting Incendio on the entire fucking building.
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The flames of his fireplace were bright enough to burn his eyes, yet he still stared, watching the way the vibrant fire took on the shape of her uncontrollable hair, her shapely hips, her swaying form as she walked away from him.
He could see her in everything, in the way the wind rattled the leaves of his willow tree like it had whipped her curls around, how his morning tea took on the same shade of her eyes when he added just enough honey, how every supper ended in dessert that tasted half as sweet as she smelled to him…
He was disgusting.
And he had the nerve to call the Order pathetic?
Ha.
Draco downed his Firewhiskey. It burned like acid down his throat, and he could hear his late father in his head mocking him for flooding his veins with such cheap poison when he had an entire cellar full of liquor that would have provided a much more pleasant stupor.
He didn’t deserve anything more than the cheap poison.
A sudden tapping startled Draco. He glanced over his shoulder at the broad window that overlooked the gardens, which were now hued navy from the midnight sky. A fluttering owl tapped its beak against the glass again, and Draco strode forward to let the creature in. The sprightly grey-toned bird swept in with a wave of its wings and settled comfortably on the back of his armchair.
Draco unravelled the small scroll from the bird's leg, and found it was written in a familiar slanted handwriting that he recognized as Thorfinn Rowle’s. It read,
Raids today were successful.
We have a new group of Mudbloods in search of a ‘home’, following their interrogations.
Auction will be held end of this week.
Prepare your coin purses, gents and ladies.
Draco tossed the sheet to the floor before casting the owl out. He sunk into his arm chair as he stared bitterly at the fire.
Another bloody auction. What a waste of time and money. Why the Dark Lord allowed Purebloods to sink their teeth and cocks into mudblood scum made little sense to Draco. Weren’t they lower than animals? What was next, fornicating with bloody hounds?
Although, perhaps a distraction would be nice. Perhaps a mute Mudblood to warm his bed would get his mind off of the one etched in his skull. Maybe, this time, he’ll bid for a new plaything, a worthless whore to keep him company.
He needed something, anything, to distract him from… her.
What had become of him? Draco Malfoy, haunted by a wicked mudblood…
His gaze trailed back to the fire, and he felt an overwhelming urge to shrink himself and fall in. To purify himself from his wicked desires. To rid himself of the horrors that plagued his mind as every second since that godforsaken raid had resulted in his festering thoughts as she remained at the forefront of his mind like a godforsaken plague he was destined to take to his grave.
His gaze trailed to the stuffed lion on the floor. He reached for it, staring at the stupid smile the creature had.
Mercy, it smelled like her.
He buried it against his face and inhaled so deep his lungs could have burst.
His eyes flashed open and he flung the lion forward with the reflexes of someone who’s just been bit by a snake.
“No!” He cried out when he realised what he’d done, but when he saw that he’d missed the fireplace by just a few inches, Draco cried out in relief and buried his head in his palms.
What was wrong with him?
Why did he bring her things here? Why did he care?
Draco reached for the stack of books he’d stolen from her room. The first one was a novel titled Jane Eyre, the second was a text Draco surmised was Hogwarts’ own Advance Arithmancy textbook, and the third had no title. He lifted the cover to discover its pages were littered with neat, small script–handwritten notes. Entries.
Draco straightened as he dropped the other two books and leaned forward, burying his nose deep in the third.
It was her diary.
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Whoever had scheduled the auction to take place at nine in the morning should have been Crucio’d . Anything before ten was too ambitious for Draco as the back of his eye sockets radiated with his pulse, thumping like someone was knocking from inside his skull. Nausea was an intimate foe by now as he took a swig of his flask before grabbing a handful of Floo powder.
He didn’t usually drink this much, but it was the only thing that quieted the voices in his head which recounted every single one of his failures, all of his flaws, and reminded him that he offered nothing to this world but the coins packed in his pocket he hadn’t even earned.
The power was nice. The downward turned gazes and reverential nods of his colleagues were evidence of the respect he'd garnered as he strode through the Avery estate with his heavy boots and an air of self-importance, which was thin enough of a veneer that it could be dismantled by a moderate breeze. What did Draco know about power? What use was there for it if it never amounted to anything but another man’s dreams coming to light?
What of Draco’s dreams?
Well, that was a silly question.
Draco didn’t have any dreams.
He had everything life could offer. He’d peaked by the time he turned twenty.
He didn’t know why he suddenly felt sorry for himself. He’d been more than happy in his state, gleefully reaping the benefits of his ancestors as he did what he wanted when he wanted.
It all changed the day of that raid, the stake further wedged in his heart when he woke up the next morning with the blasted stuffed lion in his fucking bed . He’d cuddled it like a sodding child .
He couldn’t get himself to read her diary. He’d spent too long staring at the neat cursive script, his eyes following the gentle loops of her ‘g’s and the way her ‘t’s so elegantly curved on the page. When he realised what he was doing, Draco grabbed all of her belongings and shoved them into an empty bedroom halfway across the estate. He locked the door and returned to his room, only to find he’d forgotten the fucking stuffed lion.
He’d been too tired to take that too, so it remained in his bed, and hadn’t left.
He could still smell her on it.
He could even smell her now, as he strode through the gallery of the Avery estate, kilometres away from his home, and even further from the safehouse that he’d incinerated in his anger. Of course, it didn’t help that he’d run back and grabbed her diary from the barren room and tucked it into his pocket. Something about parting with it made his nerves flare. It belonged with him.
Draco gave a curt nod to Vincent Crabbe in the back, never meeting his eyes, as he and his wife, Astoria, sat in the furthest corner of the gallery. He preferred not to look at Astoria at all. He hated the wide-eyed look she gave him anytime their eyes met for more than a second. He knew she loved him. They’d spent a whole of a summer together and she wasted no time, spending most of it gazing at the night sky, identifying constellations they could name their future offspring after.
It wasn’t her fault the relationship didn’t work. Astoria Greengrass was a good woman. Strong, fierce, loyal, especially for a Slytherin. She was stunning, with the coolest temperament and most elegant countenance Draco had ever witnessed outside of his own mother. She just wasn’t… right. And that was a bullshit excuse to give a woman who had fancied him since her fourth year and his sixth. Crabbe was better suited anyway. He needed someone to give him purpose, to bark orders at him. He could give her the world and never feel like he was left without one. Married life suited him perfectly.
Draco skipped their row and slipped into a seat somewhere in the middle, not far enough to make a point of disinterest, nor close enough to the front to garner attention in the gallery-turned-theatre. Today, he preferred to be invisible.
He hid his flask behind his Death Eater mask and took a swig of scotch, his eyes already heavy from inebriation as he readjusted his weight in the uncomfortable wooden seat.
This auction was like the rest: a mild spectacle of entertainment that the Dark Lord provided to his esteemed followers. An opportunity to reap the rewards of their bounty–not for free, of course, even stolen slaves were purchased with coin that filled Lord Voldemort’s coffers, but at least they got to take home a nice, pretty little thing to do with what they will.
Draco didn’t want to imagine what the other Death Eaters did to these poor creatures.
They couldn’t die, of course, the Dark Lord may need their services for spying, or to conduct further interrogations, so their minds had to stay intact. But their bodies?
Draco shuddered as he recalled the sorry state of a girl caught in a fight between the Carrow twins. The burn marks on her whole left half of her body smelled like cooked meat for weeks. Half her face had melted from the flames, one eye forever milky white and perpetually open since her eye lid hadn’t survived.
“And what of this delightful young gentleman?” Marina Rookwood said, gesticulating towards the man cowering on the platform floor as he helplessly sobbed.
So many of them cried. It only drove their monetary value up.
Marina, a sprightly young niece of Augustus Rookwood, circled the dark haired man in his early twenties. Her steps were light, her hands freely bouncing as though she was a conductor of an invisible orchestra.
“Quite the passionate young man. Soon to be wed, as well, weren’t you? Does that mean you’re a… virgin?”
The man broke down further, his shoulders heaving with heavy sobs.
“Ooooh! I think we can take that as a yes!”
“Twenty thousand Galleons!” Alecto Carrow shouted.
“Twenty three thousand!” Alecto’s brother, Amycus, countered.
Draco rolled his eyes. He fiddled with his wand, drawing small circle eights between his legs to keep him preoccupied until this whole charade was over.
He hated that he had to attend these events. Once in a while it was fine, but every bloody month or two… He thought about forgoing this, but the thought of skipping out on his duties only summoned his late mother’s voice in the back of his mind, reminding him to keep the Dark Lord happy–reminding him of the sacrifices she'd made for him to be here now.
Draco leaned back into his chair and reached into his blazer, withdrawing the five inch by seven notebook from within his pocket. He peeled the cover open. He hadn’t found the strength to read it before, despite gazing at her writing countless times, envisioning the way she held the quill as she jotted down each swooping letter, each carefully placed line and punctuation.
He glanced left, then right to ensure the few others sitting in his row were too busy with the auction to pay him any mind. For some reason, in private, he’d never found the strength to read the diary. Every time his eyes landed on the first word, he felt the urge to chuck the blasted thing out the window.
What did he care what she had to say?
She was nothing. An old memory…
But, Merlin, was she really dead?
He only wished he could have killed Kingsley Shacklebolt himself. What had happened?
His vision grew misty as he swept past the first few pages and began reading.
April 14, 1994
I can’t handle it, diary. I just can’t.
I’ve tried my best to maintain my busy schedule all year long, and I can’t believe it’s Sybil bloody Trelawney that’s made me crack.
I’ve stormed out of Divination just now. She is so persistent in convincing the whole class that Harry will face a most gruesome death by seeing the “Grim” in everything, I couldn’t stand it anymore. It took everything in me to not throw a bloody teacup at her stupid head. How could she call herself a professor? Who would target a poor student like that? Now, I’m sitting here in the library writing in you when I should be studying for my nine other classes. But I had to get it out, I just about cursed the bloody woman.
I fear I’ve lost what little patience I had. I’m eternally grateful that Professor McGonagall advocated for me to have a Time Turner, but every day I feel like a little bit more of me is withering away. Although, it is invigorating. It’s so gratifying to learn so much in such a short span of time, to be able to juggle three classes at once in the span of one hour…
Hmm. I don’t think it’s my studies that are causing me such grief. That’s just an excuse.
It’s everything else.
I’m changing.
I don’t know why, or what it is that’s happening to me, but I can see it in the mirror every morning. I can sense it in the way people look at me. I knew, growing up, that puberty would find me. That I, like every other student here of similar age, would change as I mature into a woman. My body would change, my hips would grow fuller, I’d have those pesky things called ‘hormones’ floating through my veins, making me stupid and googly eyed, but…
Well, diary, I think there’s something else happening.
Despite everything I’ve read, every text I’ve consumed on human physiology and adolescence, it doesn’t once explain why, all of a sudden, my lips have grown more red. My skin has grown clearer, my hair shinier. I smell different–I don’t think many of my friends have noticed yet, but…
But some of the boys here have.
I don’t know if I’ve talked about Oliver Wood here before, but he’s the Quidditch Captain. He smells different too. I don’t quite like it, he smells a bit too musky, like I’m going to suffocate from how utterly ‘manly’ he is. Plus he looks different–or it feels that way to me, anyway. He seems taller, broader, a bit stronger than before–even though I know, logically, nothing has changed about him.
Well, Wood isn’t my type. And, unfortunately, he isn’t the one who’s actually caught my attention.
Merlin, diary, I will need to reinforce the encryption spells on you once I finish this entry.
Anyhow, I don’t know how to cope with the fact that someone else keeps catching my eye. Not intentionally, mind you! I don’t want to notice him, but there’s something about him. The way he smells, like walking through an open field in the spring, when the air is crisp but the sun is peeking through the clouds, or like fresh green apples that I can taste, like–like sweetness and freedom and a man, clean and strong and–well, you get the idea, diary.
I should add that I hate this boy.
I don’t think I’ve hated anyone more–other than Voldemort, probably, but even that is debatable.
He’s a vile boy. Absolutely horrid. Spoiled rotten, self-important, the worst sort of bully.
I hate how I feel around him, like my heart starts beating a bit too hard and my skin gets all warm and red.
I feel weak.
Sick.
Like I’ve caught a fever and somehow, without any explanation, he possesses the cure.
Is it a curse? Did he curse me?
I intend to do some research on what’s happening to me, diary. I wish to cure myself of this horrible ailment as soon as I can because I cannot stand the idea of remaining like this.
He seems to know something’s different, too. He seems to act out even more when I’m around, beating his chest and peacocking to his friends to show that he’s popular or in charge. He’s so cruel and vile to Harry and Ron, and as much as my heart pounds when he’s around, my mind remains totally aware of how horrid this stupid boy is.
But even when I slapped him…
I know I shouldn’t have.
I know violence isn’t the answer, but in that moment it felt like the most natural response for the awful things he said about Hagrid.
It should have felt good to wipe that stupid smirk off his face! I wish I could have celebrated the look of shock as he stared at me, totally bewildered by what I’d just done. But… Ugh, diary, touching him made me feel like an earthquake rumbled through my belly. Like my Time Turner had broken, and every timeline had stopped during that one single moment.
He very much did deserve it and I won’t apologise for it!
I just want to know what’s going on with me. Why do I feel like this?
Damn, it’s time for dinner. I have to go back an hour and attend my Arithmancy class now. I’m debating whether I should go back even a few hours more and attend that Charms class I missed. Professor Flitwick mentioned we learned Cheering Charms, but I was so livid about Malfoy, I couldn’t stop thinking about him and totally forgot to attend!
Ugh.
Stupid boy.
I hate him.
Draco let out a shaky breath as he lowered the diary.
Reading her memories made it feel like he was reliving them.
He had no idea how she’d felt back then. He’d noticed the changes too, the subtle ways her body had morphed, how they always seemed to catch each other’s eye in the middle of the crowded Great Hall, and how they always seemed to sense when the other stepped into a room, regardless of how massive it was. She always looked so flustered, so frustrated that he’d caught her looking.
It was with a bittersweet nostalgia that he recalled just how ignorant they both were at that age, how little they knew about the changes they were undergoing, and how even as they discovered the truth about their transforming bodies, the reality was neither of them were ever ready to accept it.
How does one accept that their fate is cursed?
The Gods were cruel to play these tricks with mortals.
His fingers shook as he reached to turn the page, but before he’d revealed the next entry, a sudden overpowering scent flooded his senses.
He swallowed, his muscles quaking as he shut the diary and glanced around.
Could it have been the book? He leaned forward and brought it to his nose, but it only vaguely smelled like her.
“We have our next item for sale,” Marina Rookwood proclaimed as a young, plain brunette stood on the platform, her chin tilted up. “How old are you, dear?”
Draco, too preoccupied by the sudden smell, plucked at his blazer and brought it to his nose. Was it him?
Gods, it was overwhelming.
His whole body felt like it had been doused in hot oil. He could scarcely breathe.
“I said , how old are you, dear?” Marina repeated. “I will make you talk if you don’t cooperate, I’m sure our guests would like that very much.”
“I’m twenty six,” the girl said through clenched teeth.
Draco’s gaze slowly lifted, his head tilting upward, as his eyes landed on the girl on the platform.
It wasn’t her.
Her hair wasn’t right, it was far too dark and straight for the bushy, mahogany curls he vividly recalled. Her skin was too pink, her lips too wide and body too athletic, but…
No, it was impossible. Every new capture was given Veritaserum and subjected to thorough Legilimensy. Even if she had, somehow, changed her appearance, she wouldn’t have made it past Snape’s questioning. The entire estate would have been celebrating the capture of Potter’s best friend. They would have heralded her body through the streets of Knockturn Alley.
Besides, she was supposed to be dead.
And this girl looked nothing like Granger.
She wiped the sweat that trickled from her brow as her eyes flitted from the edge of the platform and landed straight on Draco.
He sucked in a breath. He leaned forward, his heart racing like the galloping hooves of a stallion escaping its stables. The edges of the room grew dark while every source of light seemed to coalesce in the centre of the platform where she stood.
Granger ?
Her gaze didn't waver. She stared at him as though she knew exactly where to look, as though she, too, could sense him the same way his body seemed alight with awareness and need all of a sudden.
It didn’t matter what shoddy glamour magic she’d used.
It didn’t matter if she’d sold her soul to permanently alter her features.
It did nothing to change her scent, her signature, nor the honey-hued eyes that Draco suddenly wanted to drown in.
She was alive…
Salazar, she was fucking here.
“Quite a proud one for the predicament you’re in, aren’t you, girl?” Marina asked with an amused grin.
Draco straightened in his seat.
Yes. She was.
“Shall we begin the bidding for this one? Anyone interested in taming this shrew?”
Draco didn’t register any other bids that occurred around him. He thought he heard twelve thousand, or sixteen thousand, but his eyes remained locked to hers. His heart pounded so hard he thought it might implode in his chest.
He could sense her fear. He could almost taste her anger as she stared, wide eyed, straight at him. It was so potent, he could almost hear the curse words flitting through her skull. They should have been pleas for mercy, but that wasn’t her style was it?
Twenty three thousand.
Thirty thousand.
Thirty eight thousand.
Bids erupted from every corner of the gallery as even the most inept bidders wanted a taste of her. Each offer jabbed him in the ribs like a pointed arrow, stinging and biting as he scooted forward in his seat. They were fools to think they stood a chance… Why were they even trying?
Perhaps, they could sense there was something special about her. Did they know she was the most famous mudblood in the Wizarding World? Or perhaps their feeble, beta minds could catch a hint of the delectable aroma that publicised how feminine she was, how fertile, how she was the perfect specimen for the right man.
They probably had no idea what it was they were bidding for.
But Draco knew…
And he would stop at nothing to ensure she came home with him.
Draco tilted his chin up. Slowly, his lips curled into a smile as her eyes widened, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.
He lifted his hand, his Death Eater mask clutched in his fingers, as he turned his head to Marina while his gaze remained locked to the girl’s on the platform.
“A hundred thousand Galleons,” Draco declared, cutting off every other auction bidder foolish enough to think they’d get in his way.
As the words left his mouth, a sudden sense of regret seized him. Centuries of Pureblood wisdom felt forgotten, like a forsaken grave he’d stomped on in his pursuit for hedonistic depravity. The rapid flutter of his heart, the need that pumped in his veins, the sheer starvation lurching in his stomach–all this, for a mudblood.
Whatever that feeling was, whatever guilt festered inside him, it was miniscule compared to the all-encompassing resoluteness that filled him when he was announced the winner. Of course he was. In no world was he going to risk losing her to the feculent hands of his fellow Death Eaters.
If he let himself ignore the shame, he could come to terms with the truth that slowly settled in his bones: Draco Malfoy was destined to have her.
She was his.
Hermione Granger was his.