Draco Malfoy didn't dare sleep in his own bed anymore. Not since the night he'd found her, the snake, coiled and hissing beneath his sheets, her tongue tasting him on the air.
"Calm down, darling. We'll try to keep her out of your room, but she doesn't know any better. She's a cold-blooded animal and you're so warm, I imagine she couldn't resist," his mother had said, forcing a laugh.
But Draco had seen the wide-eyed, horrified glance she'd given his father as she turned away. The Dark Lord's snake knew better, and far, far worse. By that afternoon, Professor Snape had arrived at the manor with the gift of the Deluminator and the dodgy promise of it taking him to safety.
Since then, Draco slept during the day, at the same time that the Dark Lord and his familiar slept. His bed disgusted him now, and half reclining on the chaise was as relaxed as Draco would allow himself to be while the Death Eaters and their creatures were inside the manor.
This morning, the house was still quiet, no sign of the chaos that came with spies and soldiers tramping in and out. As he came downstairs and passed the dining room, Draco shivered. That room, the place where – no, he would never eat there again. But he was hungry now, and he did slip into the kitchen to find the elves fretting. The last of the manor's peafowl had disappeared in the night. The elves were worried about what species would be next to be slowly, quietly exterminated from the manor.
Snape had told Draco not to let anyone know he had the Deluminator, not to attract attention by using it during the day. But if he couldn't escape right now in body, he could at least try to ignore the house of horrors his home had become. That meant hiding away in the library.
His mother might have been thinking the same thing, and maybe that was why Draco found her dozing in her green leather armchair with a book fallen open on her chest. She startled at the creak of the door, gasping his name. She was always slightly terrified now.
Draco stooped to kiss her cheek as he walked by, mounting the ladder and climbing toward a very old book he hadn't looked at since he was little. It was a history book about ancient Greece, old enough that Muggles knew it too, though they said it was mythology and called all its witches and wizards gods and goddesses.
"Ah, you're in the mood to read antiquities today, are you darling?" Narcissa said.
"Not so much reading," he said, jumping down from the ladder with the book in his arms. "It's a picture I'm after."
Narcissa joined him where he was spreading the massive leaves of the book open on a dark, walnut tabletop. "Very good," she said. "This volume is well-known for the accuracy of its likenesses. If it weren't for this book, they say, no one would have any idea what Hermes actually looked like. Can you imagine?" She trailed into her falsely light-hearted laugh again.
"Not Hermes," Draco said, flipping the old pages with just slightly more force than his mother would have liked. "Psyche is who I'm after. I want to see her face uncovered."
Narcissa took over the page turning. "You're mis-remembering," she said. "It's Cupid whose face must stay hidden. Psyche's beauty was well-known. You see? There she is."
As he bent over the page, Draco explained nothing about how he'd rearranged the roles of Cupid and Psyche in his own imagination. The book's illustrations were finely detailed, and he'd seen them so often as a child that each one was familiar.
But he'd never considered Psyche so closely. He'd forgotten that her hair was dark, billowing down her back with the fullness of its own curls. Her skin was clear, and tinted darker than Cupid's as if she'd grown up on the Mediterranean, in the sun, while he'd been a prince in a palace. Draco could see the difference in tones where Cupid's bare arm was bent languidly across Psyche's waist as he held her from behind, his face mostly hidden from view behind her head as they slept draped with wafting white curtains.
It was no wonder Draco didn't remember this picture as well as the ones about sea serpents or minotaurs. It had been too romantic for his tastes as a little boy. But now, as Draco watched, Psyche opened her eyes and looked out of the page. Her eyes were large and dark, thoughtful, and wracked with doubt. The artist had captured it perfectly: her inner battle not to turn around in the gentle light of the sunrise and look at her husband's angelic sleeping face for the first time.
"The way they've captured the emotion in this one is really quite something, isn't it," Narcissa said.
Draco jumped, forgetting she was there. He hummed in agreement, and smoothed his hand over the page.
Narcissa gave a gentle scoff. "Can you believe she was called the most beautiful woman in the world, for a time? She's fine, but not your type, I daresay. Too much of a natural beauty. No, beauty is best when it's an accomplishment, like the sleek perfection of our Pansy. Or the delicate refinement of that girl you liked from the French school. The Greengrass's youngest daughter is growing into it nicely as well, you'll be glad to know."
Draco blinked at the book, thinking nothing of Pansy, or the Greengrasses, or Gisele from Beauxbatons. This was Psyche, her face. But no – what was he thinking? This was a powerful but cursed witch born thousands of years ago. This wasn't the lonely, skinny, Muggleborn woman who had sat with him most of the night, hiding on a British moor. Psyche wasn't even that woman's real name. They were completely unrelated.
And it's not as if his time with her had been a romantic interlude. Sure, his body had reacted to hers when he was settled between her knees and she was wriggling to get free. Neither of them had intended it and he hadn't taken advantage of it. That was not to say that it had been unpleasant to have those feelings again after spending months in the company of no one but creepy Death Eaters closer to his parents' age than his.
No, real-life Psyche was not a romantic heroine. She was someone he'd spent the night arguing with about what the war meant, and what it didn't.
She'd been taking it all too personally.
"The 'mud' talk is nothing but rhetorical, of course. No one believes there's actually anything wrong with your blood. And you've got to understand," he'd tried to reason with her. "It's not beliefs but power that is at the root of these conflicts. And at the root of power there's nothing but property and gold."
She'd scoffed. "Hang your gold. How can I take a movement which opposes my right to exist in society anything but personally?"
"Well, just look at us," he'd said, waving an arm at her. "On a personal level, once you and I understood that neither of us really wanted to harm the other, we got along fine."
She'd batted his outstretched arm away. "Don't you want to hurt me though?"
"No, of course I don't. I'd still have you disarmed and pinned to the dirt if I did. Obviously."
She'd given a frustrated groan. "But isn't refusing to educate people like me, un-wanding us and banishing us from the wizarding world a form of hurting us?"
They had gone back and forth like that for far too long. When he'd finally asked if they could just agree to disagree, she'd poked at his shoulder and told him no, they certainly could not. And then she'd said this.
"Right, if you're so keen for us to treat each other with civility, see if you can do this." She'd turned her face to his, and he could tell her eyes were fixed hard on his even from behind her dark, misty veil. "Remember the most violent and hateful thing you've ever seen anyone do in the name of the Pure-blood movement, and imagine you did it yourself, personally."
He knew exactly what that act would have been. It was what happened in the dining room. It was murder, cold-blooded, and then something to make it all worse. It happened right in front of him as he sat at the table with his parents, his mother's hand gripping his knee to keep him from screaming and bolting from his chair.
As he remembered it, Psyche watched his face. Her head dipped in a nod. On the moor, as the inky dark night had begun to lighten into blue dawn, he'd been able to see her mouth more distinctly than ever. There were freckles on her nose. She had leaned closer than they'd been since they'd stopped wrestling.
"Think of that act, and imagine yourself doing it to me," she'd said. "To me, Malfoy. And if you wouldn't be able to draw your wand and do it, right here and now, then you can't stay part of that movement."
—---------------------------
As the ground began to slope away, out of the hilltops and into a valley, Harry stopped. Hermione stopped at his side, looking down over the yellow winter grass rolling for miles below them. There were buildings on the landscape now, cottages, barns, and shops, a little church. They had walked back in range of civilization again, and they never knew if that was going to end up being for good or for ill.
"I suppose this means we'll eat tonight, at any rate," Hermione said.
Harry nodded, unfurling the Invisibility Cloak for their shopping trip. "Beans on toast sounds like paradise. Let's go."
When they'd eaten and set up the tent on the far side of a deserted sheep paddock tucked into a hollow, they agreed that tomorrow would be an apparation day, a magical jump to another part of the country.
"We didn't find anything, but at least no one found us, roaming around in the open up there," Harry said.
Hermione only hummed.
"Yeah, we're still alive and free to move about looking for horcruxes, so that's a kind of success, I guess," he said.
She had to say something to reassure him, so she said, "And we can still stand the sight of each other. No rowing. That's a success too."
Harry frowned. "Don't even say his name, Hermione. I will forgive him. But not tonight."
"Not even on a full stomach?" she said.
One corner of Harry's mouth twitched toward a smile. "Maybe if it was full of something nicer than beans."
At midnight, Hermione stepped out of the tent, sniffing at the faint, strangely wholesome trace of sheep dung on the air. What would Malfoy think of that? She smirked. Would he even find them here, or would the Deluminator just keep dumping him out on the moor, no matter where she and Harry were? She told herself she wasn't waiting for him, but she conjured her veil just in case.
She sat on a bale of hay watching the spot where the tent stood concealed and protected by her charms. Her conversation with Malfoy from the night before played back in her mind. Of course Malfoy had wanted to rationalize the war, intellectualize it away from the horror of people's personal losses. But he couldn't maintain it. At its essence, the war was nothing but a maelstrom of personal losses, and she seemed to have hit on a loss Malfoy had suffered himself.
What could it be? His innocence? She scoffed. She'd known him most of his life and never known him to be innocent. But what could that even mean for someone raised the way he was? How would things be different if, say, Draco had the Weasleys for parents instead of the Malfoys? And Ron, with his hot temper and delicate feelings, what would he have been like if he'd been raised the way Draco had been? How much of both of these boys' choices were all down being loyal to families they loved?
What she kept coming back to was Malfoy's face in the dawn light, when she asked him to imagine himself hurting her, the way he'd seen the Death Eaters hurt other people. At that, he'd looked alarmed, desperate to stop seeing whatever scene was playing out in his mind.
And now he was here again, coming to her across the sheep paddock. The Deluminator had sent him after them. Without a word, he strode up to her and dropped a crinkling bag in her lap.
She made no move to touch it. "What's this?"
"Something to put some flesh on you," he said. "So if you ever tackle me again, I won't be bruised up by your bony knees and elbows."
In spite of the recent memory of beans in her stomach, she swallowed hungrily, hoping he hadn't noticed. "You brought food?"
"Yeah, freshly baked sweets from our kitchen. Thought I'd better bring you some before our whole staff flees the manor in terror," he said.
She could smell the scent of the sweets – vanilla and lemon and – stars, was it chocolate? She swallowed again. "You're barking if you think I'm eating food from Malfoy Manor," she said. "How do I know it isn't – tampered with, specially formulated for anonymous Muggleborns who argue too much?"
Malfoy groaned. "Tampered? How can you – " He left off arguing and moved to convince her a different way, plunging his hand into the bag as it crinkled with his exasperation. "Look, they're perfectly safe. I'll eat one myself." The smell of vanilla intensified as he popped a biscuit into his mouth. "See? No poison, no potions. Just rather delicious biscuits, if I do say so myself."
He could almost hear her eyebrows rising behind her veil. "You made these yourself?" she said.
He scoffed. "No, of course not. But I did order them, especially for you. And not to murder you with, you daft thing. That's not what I mean. Now eat."
Her stomach growled in response.
Malfoy doubled over laughing as quietly as he could. "Give over, Psyche. You're gagging to try one."
"How do I know the one you ate wasn't the only safe one?" she pressed. "You know I'm not stupid. You might have expected me to demand you eat one in front of me."
"Fine then, I'll eat another one. I'll eat them all, if you insist."
"Wait," she said, her hand on his wrist as he reached for the bag again. "Take one and don't eat all of it. Bite it in half and let me eat the other piece."
She saw him smile by the light of her flame. "Clever," he said, snapping the biscuit in half with his teeth. He chewed, swallowed noisily to convince her it had gone down, and then stuffed the rest of the biscuit into her mouth with his fingers.
Her voice was rising, about to protest when the sweetness hit her senses. This biscuit was a chocolate one, fragrant and melting in her mouth. Her complaints turned into something embarrassingly like a moan as she tasted it.
"There's a good girl," he said as her jaw began to work.
Her eyes had drifted closed, as if it would help her savour the taste. With a satisfied snicker, Malfoy reached into the bag in her lap for another one.
The rich sweetness of every biscuit he bit in half for her was overwhelming. It was all happening so fast, the cycle from her lap, to Malfoy's mouth, to his fingers, to her mouth, and finally to her poor, deprived stomach.
All the while, Malfoy's voice was in her ear, encouraging and praising her. "Yes, aren't they lovely? I knew you'd like them. Here, you haven't tried the raspberry ones yet. Open up."
In between bites she was speechless, intent on her slow, deliberate chewing. The pleasure of having something so fine and delicious after eating from tins and what they could forage for so long was almost trancelike. As she was caught up in it, Malfoy had sat down beside her, edged close to her on the bale. He had paused to lick a dusting of powdered sugar from the heel of his hand. In the pause, she opened her eyes in time to see his hand moving toward her face.
"Stop," she said with such force he drew himself back.
He gave a hard blink. "What? That last one was messy. It's left you with sugar smeared on your chin. Just there."
She dragged her sleeve across her chin hard enough to leave a faint red streak. "It's fine. And that's enough. I think you've proved they aren't tampered with."
"Right. Just like I told you," he said, brushing his hands together to scatter the crumbs at their feet.
"Yes, and so, if you don't mind, I'd rather save the rest of them for later," she said. She took a deep breath, clearing her throat, shaking off her ecstatic enjoyment of the sweets, trying to act normal again. "There's no need for me to make myself sick eating them all at once. They're quite rich."
His face fell a little, as if he was disappointed he wouldn't get to share the rest with her, but he couldn't argue with her good sense. "Right," he said, smoothing his cloak over his knees.
She folded the bag until it was a snug package around the remaining biscuits. Those were for Harry to eat in the morning. She'd tell him she transformed them from supper's bread crusts and, ever confident in her abilities, he'd believe her.
But she couldn't mention Harry. And what had just passed between her and Malfoy and the sweets seemed too sensuous to dwell on. He was quiet now too, still fiddling with his cloak. They needed to start over – to start fighting again or – anything.
It was just then that a cat sprung out of the dark and up onto the hay bale, squeezing itself into the narrow space between them. Hermione nearly squealed with relief. But the creature turned its tail to her and nuzzled its head and chin against Malfoy's arm.
"Looks like you've got yourself a friend, at last," she said.
Malfoy gave the animal a scratch between its ears. "Yeah, my mum says I'm irresistible to creatures." He said it with a hint of a shudder.
Hermione bit back a remark about his history with Buckbeak. She watched the cat walk onto Malfoy's thighs, purring loudly as it curled itself into a roll. "Lucky, you. I'd love a cuddle, but this kitty seems to be all for you."
Malfoy was through with playing hard to get with the friendly barn cat. He cradled it in his arms and after taking one precautionary sniff of it, buried his face in its coat. "It doesn't trust you when it can't see your face, of course," he said. "You know, I've always wanted a cat. But it wasn't compatible with the birds my parents raise – or rather, raised."
Hermione heard the trace of sorrow in his voice. "What happened to the birds?"
He sighed deeply, settling the cat back on his lap. "There's an enormous, evil, ravening snake living at our house. You can imagine what happened to our beautiful but slow and stupid birds."
Fighting not to feel too sorry for him (or the birds), she went on. "Well, I have a lovely cat. Part kneazle, actually."
Malfoy scanned the paddock. "Where is it? Hidden here somewhere with the rest of your undetectable campsite?"
She was the one sighing deeply now. "No. For safekeeping I left him with my – with the family of – of the boy – er, the man who – "
"Your ex," Malfoy supplied. "You left your half-magical cat with your ex. And don't tell me. The pair of them probably remind you of each other. Same hair colour and grooming habits or something."
She punched lightly at his arm. "Shut up."
"I'm right," he smirked.
"Just don't call him my ex," she said. "We were never together like that. I mean, we were always together, but mostly just as very good friends."
Malfoy made a retching sound. "Come on. All this angst, this roaming around crying alone on a moor in the dark over a man you never even slept with?"
"I did sleep with him, but just holding hands," she said, blushing as she realized how odd it sounded.
Malfoy laughed so hard he had to bury his face in the cat again. "Did you ever even kiss this fool?"
"Yes, I did," she said, guarded.
"Open mouthed?" Malfoy pressed.
She said nothing, hanging her head.
"On the mouth at all?" he said.
"On the face," she said. "But not on the mouth."
Malfoy laughed again. "So you're telling me I've gone as far with this cat I just met as you ever went with the man you call the love of your life?"
"Shut up, Malfoy."
He wasn't shutting up. He was laughing louder. "Stars, Psyche. I think you and me might have gone farther than that when I fed you all those biscuits just now. I mean, at least you had your mouth open."
"Stop it!" She batted his arm hard enough for the cat to take offense and raise its head to glare at her.
He laughed as he stroked the cat's head back into submission. "So why did things stop between the two of you with a peck on the cheek?" he said. "What happened? Why didn't he grab you and snog you back?"
She was suddenly genuinely angry. "Well, because he was preoccupied. He had to fly off and win a quidditch game in the teeth of some truly horrible hazing from a particularly vile supporter of the other team."
Malfoy was speechless at her change in tone, leaning away from her, the cat still held in his arms, his mouth gaping as if he was about to remember something, to make a connection there was no way under the stars she could allow him to make.
She rushed on, distracting him. "It's not that I've never kissed anyone. Don't get the wrong idea."
He raised his eyebrows again. "Really? A British bloke?"
"No, actually," she said. It was time to stop talking about herself, before she gave anything else away. "How about you? I suppose you've done more than your fair share of womanizing."
He winced, the cat's head darting up at his hissing sound. "You wound me, Psyche. After I told you I was raised a gentleman."
She huffed and soothed the disturbed cat herself.
Malfoy took a deep breath, ready to come clean. "I do like a good snog at a party, or on vacation, or what have you. But I haven't dated anyone seriously. There's no point making my own plans. My parents think they have my future in hand, sorted," he said. "Or at least, they once thought they had my future in hand. The way everything is right now..."
She knew what he wasn't saying. No one knew if people their age had a future anymore.
"How's that go?" he said. "That old Muggle poem? The one that starts, 'gather ye rosebuds while ye may?'"
"Its title is 'To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time,'" she said.
Malfoy snorted. "Is THAT what it's called?"
She was laughing too. "Yes."
He shook his head, swearing softly to the sympathetic cat in his arms. "Muggle culture. Honestly. Sometimes even they get it right."