Chapter Two

"I need to find out if the same was done to Pansy," Malfoy said to the three of them he had stunned into silence. He was rolling his sleeve back down, much to the relief of everyone else in the room. Hermione noticed that he winced a little when the fabric of his shirt grazed his brand.

It made her queasy to think about how Malfoy had run away from that mark all his life, and now - as a result of a back alley ambush - it was burned into his skin. Perhaps there were just some things you couldn't outrun, after all.

Ron, too, was looking a little green and had sobered up considerably since Malfoy's reveal. "Wouldn't they have said so in the papers?"

Hermione shook her head. "Not if they're trying to keep it quiet." She'd been working in the Ministry for four years now. Every government had its secrets. She knew there were some things they kept from the public, even now.

"What purpose would that serve?"

"I can't say for sure," Hermione sighed. "But I can think of a few. They might not want to incite public hysteria. They might think Pansy did it to herself, as some kind of sick tribute to her true allegiance. They might not even think it has anything to do with her death at all, especially if they're convinced it was a suicide. Considering her stint at St. Mungo's -"

"For the last time, she wasn't committed-" Malfoy angrily interrupted.

"They could also reason that it may have been some kind of mental break," she finished. She gave Malfoy an apologetic look. "Not everyone knows Pansy like you do."

"So..." said Ron, hesitantly, looking from her to Harry. "What do we do?"

Hermione turned to the both of them. "I'm sorry to involve the both of you, but you're both on the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. I just need to ask if you can find out if Pansy had the brand. That way we can find out if this isn't just a one-off."

There was the screech of chair legs against the floor as Harry got to his feet, agitatedly running a hand through his dark hair.

"Hermione, do you really think something bigger's at play here?" he asked. "People aren't exactly falling over themselves with joy over Malfoy's wartime redemption; you know how angry people were about the verdict. Maybe some guys just happened to see him in Diagon Alley and jumped him for a scare."

Harry didn't attempt to hide his skepticism. Ron was still frowning at Malfoy, but she noticed his gaze was now directed towards his branded forearm.

"Could be," she admitted. "But we can't know that yet, can we?"

They were silent, their faces deep in thought. How hard could it be? Ernie and Seamus were on the team investigating Pansy's murder. Those two weren't exactly the strong and silent type, especially once you got a few drinks in them.

"Please. I'm asking you this as a favor," she said.

"For you or for him?" Harry said coldly, nodding towards Malfoy.

"For me," Hermione said quickly. She found herself getting quite annoyed that Harry was being so outwardly antagonistic. She knew he and Malfoy weren't exactly on friendly terms, but it wasn't like Malfoy had reverted to his schoolyard bully antics once the war had ended. After his trial, he'd basically disappeared. Nobody blamed him for it, of course. His life had been dissected and dragged through the public court, no stone left unturned. If that didn't convince a man into a hermitlike existence, she didn't know what else would.

"All right," Harry relented begrudgingly. "We'll see what I can find out. I can't guarantee anything, though."

Hermione let out a deep sigh. "Thank you. Thank you both."

"Brilliant! Now that we've agreed to break half a dozen Ministry rules on your unwelcomely pale house guest's behalf," Ron muttered, shooting a glare at Malfoy, "can Harry and I talk to you in private?"

ooo

Hermione had never had a boy up in her childhood bedroom before. For many reasons, really, but mainly: her room hadn't transitioned with her through adolescence. She still had a faded Reading Rainbow poster up by her bed, lace curtains that were now yellow with age, with stuffed animals lining the top of her bookshelf, organized in height from smallest to tallest - including a cartoon tooth with fairy wings that her parents' dentistry practice used to give out for a few short months in the 90's. This was in addition to her ancient floral bedding and her collection of porcelain horses neatly arranged on her dresser.

Now there were two. Men, actually. She was astutely aware of their status as men, seeing them in her old room, tall with broad shoulders and squared jaws. The sheer space they took up made her feel room confining and just that much smaller. But it wasn't only that - Harry and Ron clad in their dark green Ministry robes were jarring against her pale yellow walls and porcelain figurines. They looked like people she had cut out of a magazine and pasted on her wall. It actually made her blush a little bit.

She cast a silencing charm on her door from where she sat on her bed.

"What are you doing, Hermione?" Ron said. "Are you really letting him stay here in your parents' house?"

"Just until we find out about the brand," she replied. "My parents are at my Aunt Esther's in Liverpool for a few days. That should give you enough time to get the information, shouldn't it?"

"But why?" Ron groaned emphatically. "Why here? Why- why you?"

Why her, indeed.

Her hands fidgeted with a loose seam on her decades-old duvet. "Apparently, during the war, Malfoy heard us in the woods. The part where I was telling you about the spell I'd put on my house to protect my parents. He needed to be undetectable, and to disappear, and... this was the only place he could think of."

"How convenient for him," Harry snorted. "The childhood home of the girl with an insufferably upstanding moral code."

"He showed up at the door all bloodied up with a concussion, Harry. What was I supposed to do?" She sucked in a breath through her teeth, glaring at him. "Why are you being like this?"

"Being like what?"

"Being..." Hermione sputtered. "Hostile and unpleasant!"

Harry's eyes flashed. "Because I don't appreciate Malfoy showing up here and getting your innocent Muggle parents involved in whatever suspicious bullshit he has going on!"

"Neither do I!" said Hermione. "But there's not much I can do about it now, is there?"

"Yes, there is," snapped Harry. "It's called making the hard decision, Hermione. Self-preservation. Telling him no. Kicking him out. Letting him fend for himself. He's got a great big old manor to coop himself up in. He's got a wand that he's clearly proven he can use in defense. If he is, in fact, all muddled up in something evil, then that's his own bloody fault, isn't it?"

Hermione just stared at him, shocked. The silence boiled all around them.

"Harry's right, Hermione," Ron said. Seated at her vanity desk, he had grabbed an old teddy bear of hers and was hugging it to his chest, resting his chin on it. "I mean... you two aren't even friends. What gives him the right to show up here and expect your help?"

"I don't like it either, but I owe him," she said softly. "We were both in that chamber together. It could have been me or him, and when the moment came - he..." she trailed off. The horrible memory of that day still made the hair on her skin stand up on end.

Harry sighed. It was a deep sigh that seemed to release all of the air in her tiny room. He sat down on the edge of her bed next to her.

"You've got to stop thinking like that. We all fought. We all knew what we were signing up for. Malfoy did what he did because he chose to. Period. The end. There's no ellipses. There's no reward."

Hermione bit her lip. She knew Harry was right, and she'd promptly join in on that philosophy... just as soon as she did this for Malfoy. That way they would be square. That way she wouldn't feel the way she did when she relived that moment in her dreams when she heard him scream.

It wasn't that she felt that he deserved it. Fat lot life did in terms of who deserved what. She just wanted to be able scrape his face off of her conscience. Put him in her Completed stack.

"I'll try and get the information as soon as I can," Harry said, rubbing his face with his hand. He looked exhausted.

"Meaning we'll take them out tonight and get them wasted," Ron clarified.

"Thank you." She took off the silencing charm, and Harry and Ron began moving towards her bedroom door to leave.

"Harry," she spoke up, again. There was a thread of worry in her voice that she found impossible to hide. "What if he's right?"

Harry froze, his hand on her doorknob.

"About Pansy? About... this being something bigger?"

"Then the Ministry'll handle it, Hermione," he said. And then he was out the door and heading down the stairs.

Ron was pointing at something, squinting. "Is that - bloody hell, Hermione. Is that a tooth with wings?"

"Talk's over. Get out," Hermione told him, pushing him out of the door. She made a mental note to trash that old thing. Or at least hide it in the garage.

When she got downstairs, Harry and Ron were getting ready to head back to the Ministry. They had positioned themselves in Malfoy's general area, and she heard the low mutterings of their voices.

"Try anything funny and I'll blast your balls into oblivion," Harry threatened.

"And the bit that lives above them too," Ron added, menacingly.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Enough with your obsession with my genitalia. I get it."

Ron lunged at Malfoy, but Harry caught him by his shoulder. "You'll hear from us tonight, Hermione," he said tiredly.

And then with the startling crack of a car backfiring, they were gone.

"You really ought to stop baiting them, you know," Hermione frowned, brushing past Malfoy towards the kitchen. Now that the adrenaline had somewhat abated, she had a dull headache and could hear her own stomach growling. She could think of nothing else but a hearty breakfast and a nice, steaming pot of coffee.

"You could say the same for them."

"That I could," she replied. "But they're the ones doing you a favor. They're breaking Ministry rules for you. They never usually agree to do that unless they're drunk – for anyone."

Not that anyone had - until today. The three of them had broken enough rules to last them the rest of entire lives, she thought.

Hermione prepared her parents' coffee maker. She'd gotten them one of those trendy one-cup machines last Christmas, but if she had to guess, it was still in its box somewhere, unopened and collecting a generous layer of dust. They told her that making pots of coffee felt luxurious; having a machine spit out one cup at a time felt prohibitive. As if anyone would judge a pair of retired dentists on their caffeine habit.

Malfoy leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed. His face was cool and serious. "They're doing it for you. Not for me."

"No," she said, shaking her head. She dumped heaping teaspoons of coffee grounds into the filter. "They're doing it for you. Their fragile, masculine pride just wouldn't let them admit it, so I gave them a way to do it without the mental breakdown."

She turned on the machine. Within two seconds it was loudly gurgling. In just a few minutes she would have an entire pot of her life's sweet elixir. Perhaps her parents were right about the whole pots versus single cups philosophy.

Her stomach growled again, this time with a pang of pain. She grimaced, and then fished out a pan from one of their cupboards. They had cereal - that crunchy, healthy bran kind her parents bought in family size boxes that claimed to lower cholesterol and have one hundred percent of your daily fiber - but she was starving. She'd completely forgotten to eat dinner last night. She needed something quick, hot and filling. Eggs.

When she looked up, Malfoy was watching her. She realized then what an odd sight this must be for him - all of these Muggle gadgets. She would have to ask him exactly how much of Muggle Studies he could remember... after she'd had a cup of coffee. Most likely two.

She flipped the first omelet into a plate and cracked two more in for Malfoy.

"Coffee maker," she said to Malfoy, pointing to the coffee maker. "It makes that hot drink adults have so they don't kill each other." She pointed to the pan heating up on the stove. "Breakfast. I hope you like eggs."

ooo

She didn't really know what she was supposed to do while they waited for Harry and Ron to get back to them. Malfoy wasn't exactly the conversational kind. One look at his face and Hermione knew he had some particularly heavy things on his mind, so she busied herself while he went back to lying down on their couch with a bag of frozen peas against his ribs.

She dusted and threw away old junk mail. Nervous energy always made Hermione an excellent cleaner. Then after she had finished tidying up the kitchen, she went up to her old room and began rummaging through her old things. She perused old schoolwork, letters, and threw away things she didn't need anymore. She stuffed old clothes she had long since outgrown into trash bags and made a mental note to drop them off at the local thrift store whenever she had a chance.

At one point she even had that dumb tooth fairy plush in her hands. The top was gray from years of gathering dust. It had big, sparkling, embroidered eyes and a wide smile. The wings were made of some cheap iridescent material, the same that Princess Halloween costumes were usually made of.

She threw it into the Thrift Store bag.

A few seconds later, she had grabbed it back up again and was stuffing it into the back of her closet.

ooo

"Hello darling. How's it going over there?"

"It's fine, Mum," Hermione said into the phone. "How are you and Dad? Aunt Esther and Grandpa?"

Hermione slipped out into the back patio, closing the glass door behind her. She took a seat on their rickety old rocking bench and spoke quietly in case their neighbors were out working in their gardens. It was late afternoon now, and the light from the sunset was casting a golden glow on everything.

"Oh, everyone's just fine over here. They were happy to see us. Said we never came 'round anymore because retirement's made us lazy." There was some shuffling and she heard familiar voices in the background, including her dad's. "Just wanted to check in and see how you were doing. Hermione, you are feeding him, aren't you?" her mum asked, not attempting to hide the concern in her voice.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mum. I slid him a plate of gruel just this afternoon."

"Oh, don't joke, dear. Maybe give him some of that bran cereal your dad and I eat. It's full of fiber, you know. Really good for your bowel movements."

For a second she glanced up, towards the living room where Malfoy was. He was perfectly still, his eyes closed, and his long legs draped over the arm of the couch. Even from here she could make out the sharp, smooth lines of his face. God, he looked like a marble statue she had stolen from a museum.

She wondered how receptive he would be to anything she said concerning his bowel movements.

She looked away, her face flushing. "I think he's fine, Mum," she said.

"How would you know that? Everybody could use a little more fiber in their diets – including you," her mum said, matter of factly. "Now, has there been any news?"

"I'm hoping to have something tonight. I'll call you in the morning. Right now we're still all playing a bit of the waiting game. Just have fun with Aunt Esther and Grandpop, will you? Don't worry about me. Think of this as going on holiday," she said.

"Darling, your father and I are retired," her mum said, breezily. "We're on holiday until our organs decide to throw in the towel and turn all the lights out."

ooo

Hermione made herself a cup of tea and sat at her parents' kitchen table, thinking about what her mum had said. The last time she had popped around here for a visit had been for the Grangers' Annual Christmas party, and the thought of her parents just biding their time on the railway to old age and death made her feel a little guilty. She should be better about visiting, she scolded herself. Just a few times a month would be an improvement.

The truth was that it was easy to get swallowed up by the Wizarding World – to even forget that she straddled two worlds. Now that she spent all of her time in the Wizarding World, coming back home felt like a double life – that this one would be the one that felt unreal and forced was the shock to her. She'd been born into this life. This was the first one she'd ever known. It should be the other way around, she reasoned. But it wasn't. Not since Hogwarts, not since the war.

"Do you like it there?"

Hermione was catapulted from her thoughts. When she looked up, Malfoy had taken the seat across from her. He appeared better, if not still a little haggard, considering. Once again, she was jarred at how he looked sitting at her parents' kitchen table, the bag of peas – now defrosted – in his hand. How odd and misplaced.

She must have looked very confused, because he went on. "At the Ministry," he clarified.

She thought for a second, her brain changing gears. "I like it enough," she said. "I don't exactly dance on the way to my desk, but I've been told I have a very determined stride." She paused, as if waiting for him to follow up with more questions. He didn't. "What about you?" she said.

He raised his eyebrows at her.

"I meant – what have you been… working on?"

She'd never had to make small talk with Malfoy before. In all of her years at Hogwarts and even during the war, she tried to speak to him as little as possible, knowing that doing so was like throwing live grenades at a trampoline. That, of course, didn't prevent them from nearly biting each other's heads off every so often.

"The stocks from my father's business plummeted after the war, so I ended up selling the company," he explained. "I've put the money in a reserve to start my own business down the line. One that isn't quite as tainted with so much…" he trailed off. "History."

Hermione, of course, knew all of this. She was a regular reader of the Daily Prophet, and the Daily Prophet had kept close tabs on Malfoy's business dealings – as any newspaper would when it came to the downfall of one of the Wizarding World's most infamous businesses.

So many shadows followed Malfoy, she realized. In all aspects of his life.

Still, she couldn't pity him too much. She knew he was still sitting on a sinful amount of wealth to keep him more than comfortable for the next hundred years. Which was more than she could say for the rest of them.

"History," she repeated. "Right." She looked down at her steaming cup of tea and got up. "Let me get you some tea," she muttered, making her way to the kitchen. The kettle was still hot. She went to grab him a mug from one of the cabinets.

"I never got to thank you," he said. His tone was low and even. "For testifying at my trial."

Hermione paused pouring, watching her hands. She had a flashback of his trial - how hollow his eyes had looked, how gaunt he'd become. She'd agreed to testify first, and then she had spent a week trying to convince Harry.

Hermione resumed pouring when she trusted herself again. "I did it because it was the right thing to do."

"Is that the same reason you're doing this now?"

This. Helping him out. Corralling the cooperation of Harry and Ron into breaking Ministry rules. Letting him stay in her parents' house despite never having invited him in the first place.

"Yes," she said, without looking at him.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "You're doing it because you pity me. Admit it, Granger."

She sighed, putting down the kettle. She looked up at him from where she stood. "It's complicated."

"Did you think I deserved to be acquitted?"

"Did you think you deserved to be acquitted?"

He smirked, but barely. Just a whisper of the thing. "Being publicly despised is still a lot better than rotting away in Azkaban. Social isolation, I can handle."

She set his tea down in front of him, along with some cream and sugar. "I hate to burst your bubble, Malfoy, but you've been publicly despised even before the war."

"How could I forget," he said sarcastically.

"Although, I have to say, your former life as a widely-acknowledged prick did make your redemption arc all the more tantalizing." Hermione frowned as she remembered the rumors that there had already been offers to novelize Malfoy's life before he turned them all down and threatened legal action.

"Redemption arc," he scoffed. "Is that what they call it? Funny. I don't feel very redeemed."

She watched him closely, crossing her arms on her chest. "Well, why not?"

"Because, Granger." He met her eyes and kept them there. Cool and mercurial. Sometimes Malfoy was so monochromatic it made her shiver. "No matter what you do, the past always finds a way to haunt you."

ooo

Hermione kept glancing at the clock. She didn't think she'd spent so much time looking at a clock before, until today. Today was a landmark for many things, she realized. A great, many, odd things.

A few hours earlier, Harry and Ron had owled to let her know that Seamus and Ernie had agreed to go out for drinks after their shift. It was nearing midnight now. She felt exhausted - albeit having never left the house - but a part of her felt too nervous to sleep.

She grabbed a bottle of wine and headed into the living room, where Malfoy was. He was reading one of her Muggle Studies textbooks. When she'd glanced at the book from behind his head, she saw that he was on the page detailing the functions of a coffee maker.

She turned on the TV but set the volume on low. She poured herself a glass of wine. Malfoy put down her book and stared at the TV.

"It's a Muggle television," she explained.

"I know what it is," he said, defensively. "I've just never seen one… on before."

"It's quite great for mindless entertainment."

"I can see that," he said.

"There are some great nature documentaries, though. Not all of it is mind-numbing trash."

Hermione browsed the channels. Game shows and reality TV shows and commercials flickered through the screen. Finally, she settled on a nature documentary about the Sahara (weren't they always in the Sahara?). She set down the remote and sipped her wine, trying her hardest to resist the impulse to glance at the clock. She knew how disappointed she'd be to realize only three minutes had gone by since the last time she checked.

The screen panned in on miles and miles of golden sand and a simmering, cloudless sky.

"The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north, to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes to a coastal plain," a deep, male voice smoothly narrated.

"I was looking around at all the pictures you've got hung up," Malfoy said. "Why aren't there any pictures of her? Your sister. Violet."

Hermione moved her gaze from the Saharan landscape to Malfoy. He wasn't looking at her, however. He was still looking at the TV.

"We didn't get to take any," she replied. "She died a few hours after she was born."

Hermione'd only been eight years old when Violet was born. She hadn't even gotten to hold her when she was still alive, but she'd been in the room while mum held her tiny body and cried.

His voice was quiet, gentler than before. "I'm sorry to hear that."

She shook the memory away. "It was a long time ago."

"My mother had a few. I don't think she'd ever intended for me to be an only child. She planted a rosebush in our garden for each one of them. When I was born she was afraid I wouldn't live past infancy. She kept me mostly indoors until my father finally convinced her to let me take up flying."

Hermione had a brief flashback of Malfoy's mother, Narcissa Malfoy. She'd never met her in person, but she'd seen pictures. Icy and regal were the words that came to mind. She tried to imagine that same woman, overprotective and frantic over her only baby boy. The type of toll that would take on a person, to experience so much grief and loss. No wonder she'd doted on Draco so much. No wonder she'd given up so much for him to be able to survive.

She cleared her throat. "Flying. Being suspended in air on a deathstick. Right." She put down her wineglass and looked at him, really looked at him. He was so pale that the colors from the TV faintly reflected off his face. "Is that why you're so pale?"

Malfoy blinked at her. Then he glared. "No, I just enjoy weaving elaborate lies to keep people from finding out that I was born with albinism."

"You should embrace it. Stand in the middle of a park square completely unmoving for hours, and then scare the wits out of little children who dare to get too close." Hermione was giggling to herself. She enjoyed the imagery of Malfoy as a street performer, with a hat set down on the ground to collect tips and spare change.

Malfoy was shaking his head. "The sheer idiocy of the things that amuse you will never cease to amaze me."

"Excuse me for trying to find some lighthearted humor in these dark times," she replied, a tad defensively. "I think I deserve some joy after uncomfortably banishing my parents from their own home so my childhood enemy could bum around my living room."

"You didn't have to send them away. I told you no one was following me." Hermione snorted at this. "Besides, I was never your childhood enemy." He shifted in his seat. "I was Potter's. You were just collateral."

"Collateral?"

"The way you and Weasley flanked him, like you were Siamese triplets. Of course you'd be caught in the line of fire, the way you two were defending him all the time. It was disgusting. I'm surprised Potter doesn't resent you more for stripping him of his own dignity in standing up for himself."

She snorted. "Says the boy with two shadows named Crabbe and Goyle."

"That's different. They needed the affiliation."

"Oh? Nothing at all to do with their threatening stature and thick-boned fists?"

"Unlike you, Granger, I believe people are the sum of their parts and not just the embodiment of their most advantageous physical traits."

Hermione stared at him, annoyed. His smirk had returned and was pointed right at her. It was obvious he was feeling better now - his face wasn't broken. What a shame.

"You truly are still as insufferable as I remember," she muttered. She poured herself another glass.

"We're creatures of habit, Granger. All of us."

"And yet some of us miraculously pass through life not universally despised. Shocking!"

"I've got bigger things to worry about than being liked and getting invited to silly little parties."

"I'm not talking about invites to parties," she said back. "I'm talking about decency. I'm talking about not engaging Ron and Harry with snide taunts after they've just agreed to help you out - despite having absolutely no reason to. Maybe even showing an inkling of gratitude for the fact that they've agreed to break their confidentiality vows to find out the information you need."

Malfoy was looking at her now, oblivious to the TV. She expected him to look annoyed, her having given out yet another "Holier Than Thou" lecture (his words, not hers). She did see a faint glint of annoyance, but there was something else too. Something else she couldn't quite read, which meant that it was something foreign, exuding from him.

"Look, Granger, I-"

And then there were two loud pops so sudden she swore they almost made her jump out of her skin. Before she knew it, Harry and Ron had materialized in the living room with them. The bubble from their previous moment - if she could even call it that - immediately burst. Malfoy moved her textbook aside, also getting to his feet, his face serious and expectant. Hermione set down her wineglass, readying herself.

"We've got news," Harry said grimly.

Notes: The narrator's lines about the Sahara are from the Sahara Wikipedia page and meant to be read in your finest David Attenborough impression.

Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed! Surprised and elated people still read my stuff especially since every time I check (/quietly lurk) the fandom, there's a ton of awesome new fic. Thanks for all the love!