"Now."
Harry unbinds Draco but hands him the sword rather than his wand. The hiss in the air has both faded and drawn out, becoming akin to a whistling breeze in the distance. It ebbs and flows as Draco's fingers tighten and relax around the sword's hilt, feeling its heft.
It's not the first time Draco has handled the sword, but it's the first time with purpose. Hermione steps back another few steps, doing her best to look confident when Harry's tense eyes find hers. He's poised on the balls of his feet, wand held on Draco. His hand shakes the smallest amount and he tucks his elbow closer to his side for subtle stability.
Keeping a wide berth around Draco, Harry carefully places the diadem on the ground. Hermione fights a sharp desire to pick it up, clean it off with the hem of her shirt, put it somewhere more fitting - high on a shelf, maybe, behind protective glass.
Or even to hold in her hands - just to keep it safe, of course...
No. She wrenches herself back from that mental cliff, and winds her fingers together to keep her hands occupied.
Harry's focus on Draco is now total. "Go ahead, Malfoy. The longer you give it, the harder it becomes. Remember the locket?"
Draco's chin dips once in assent and his knuckles whiten around the sword's handle. His Adam's apple bobs.
"There's no - no other way?"
"No."
The sword moves to Draco's other hand and back again as he stalls. "Is there a way to... destroy the Horcrux but not the crown?"
Hermione also wishes this could be true. She didn't care much for Salazar Slytherin's creepy old antique locket, which was ugly anyway, or a random diary, or a ring that was someone's family heirloom. But this is a stunning object, one of serious magical significance! It's been lost for generations! Wizarding society would revere it. This could be the biggest discovery of their time.
"I don't think so. It might just be a consequence of being hit with the sword, but I don't think it would work if the sword didn't break the surface of it. The basilisk venom has to get inside somehow."
This is perfectly logical in a way that irritates Hermione. She's growing antsy.
Draco tests this at once. He prods the diadem with the tip of the sword. It's a gentle nudge but the crown scoots backwards in the dirt, completely disproportionate to the contact. Hermione jumps backwards too, as if mildly electrocuted.
Stepping forward, Draco pokes it again and gets the same reaction. The crown does not like the sword. The relative proximity of it is displeasing, and this alone is enough to show that the Horcrux is alive and well inside.
"Stop dicking around and do it, already," Harry snaps, losing patience. He rakes his hand backwards through his unruly hair, displacing flecks of soil and browned grass. It's long enough now to fall to a casually dishevelled arrangement by sheer gravity.
"Get off my back, Potter! I'm going."
But he doesn't. He still stands there, fidgeting with the sword and Harry seems to be wrestling with whether or not to continue heckling him about it. When it was the locket, Hermione had screamed and screamed at Harry to cut through the horrible apparitions it was taunting him with. This is different.
It's silent, save the ambient hissing that's become merely part of the background. It's remaining still now, no longer antagonised by the goblin-made silver of the sword too close to it. It seems so harmless and Hermione has another urge to scamper over and tuck it under her arm.
Just to keep it out of the dirt.
It might be five minutes or fifteen before Draco finally lifts the sword again. Sweat is dripping from his brow, enough to show obvious dampening around the collar of his shirt. Tight tendons pop up the back of his hand and trail under the sleeve of his forearm.
He's holding the sword in his right hand, rather than his left. Hermione only just noticed. She wonders why but doesn't think now is the right time to ask. Her heart begins to beat faster, a strumming thump that grows to a deafening roar as Draco takes aim. It makes her feel lightheaded, somehow outside her own body.
As the sword turns in Draco's hand, the rubies shine a happy Gryffindor red in the bright sun. The blade reflects a sharp glare that makes Hermione wince and squint to see, even though part of her doesn't even want to watch. She doesn't want to see it happen. He raises his arm high, evidently not wanting to do it by halves, if it has to be done at all.
* * *
Draco's not quite sure how he got here. Somebody or other could have made a load of galleons off him, because never in a million years would he have bet on this happening - any of it. Any part of the whole.
Here he is, sword of Godric Gryffindor raised above his head, about to destroy the one thing he's been obsessively doting on for the better part of a year. Well, no, that's not quite right; he's doted obsessively over many things, but none like this one.
How badly he'd wanted to give it to Hermione! Potter's insinuation that he wanted it for himself was laughable. That it's a witch's crown has nothing to do with it. The only thing he'd ever do with something like that would be to give it to Hermione. What she chose to do with it then was up to her, but Draco had seen the possibilities only a moment ago.
And if that's what she wants out of life, he'll give it to her. Power, control, influence. Anything.
But the crown is just... so pretty. Such a simple adornment. 'Pretty.' Simple and innocuous and sitting in the dirt.
His arms tremble slightly with the weight of the sword raised high. No wonder Hermione had swung it from down low when they were in Godric's Hollow. Of course, he's been standing here for a while, holding it over his head like a complete prat, so here goes.
Enough already. Draco tells himself to get on with it, but somehow the sword has returned to his side. He's not sure how that happened. He does prefer holding it with only one hand rather than both. The Dark Mark on his forearm writhes when he touches it with his left, which is new. It hadn't done that when Draco had handled it before this, but his intent with it now is wholly different. So here it is again, now, in only his right hand and hanging loosely by his leg.
Potter is urging something else but Draco tunes him out.
Nothing will change the facts. He believes Hermione that it's a Horcrux. He felt its power, even though it was so different from the locket that he keeps second-guessing himself. It's powerful, yes; is it a dangerous kind of power?
Hermione thinks it is. He trusts her judgement.
She's right that he could give her all sorts of other pretty things. And he will, as soon as they're out of this neverending camping trip and he can get back to his own belongings again. But to do that, this hunt needs to end. The war with the Dark Lord needs to end.
The next step of that is right in front of him and he holds the sword. It's in his hands - literally.
Not from over his head, though. That's begun to feel unnecessarily dramatic. He can stab it forward like a lance and that should do just fine, so long as he breaks the protective coating of the goblin-made silver. Potter had said that's all he should need to do and he'd rather not cause more damage than it requires. He readies himself, centering his mind on his aim.
Then two things happen at once; well, three, but Potter doesn't count. Draco and his right arm lunge forward to spear the crown straight through the primary glistening blue jewel, right in the middle.
...just as Hermione tries to fling herself in front of him, between him and the crown, shrieking, "No, no, don't do it! You can't!"
Potter reacts but Draco's faster. Draco's left arm flies out with seeker reflexes he hasn't used in aeons, and catches her across the chest. She flies backward. He can hear the air leave her lungs when she hits the ground for the third time in an hour and Potter sprints to her side.
Kneeling in the sparse grass, Potter whacks Hermione on the back as she coughs, which wouldn't have been Draco's recommended course of action. Her cheeks are a blotchy red and pale patchwork, her hair askew. She looks quite deranged, caught in an appalled jumble of desire and inner anguish.
Horrified, Draco tries to piece it together. Things are moving before through his vision in a strange sort of delay. Hermione is on the ground. He almost stabbed her. The crown was willing to let him stab Hermione instead of itself.
He could have killed her.
His resolve set, he faces it again. It lets out another low hiss and he does not recoil. It was dangerous to her after all. It would be dangerous to anyone, its loyalty only to its own survival. It has to go.
Hermione was right. He can protect her all on his own, just like the day with Terry Boot. He can and he will, and he can start right now. He doesn't need this thing.
He draws back his elbow and stabs it forward, hitting the oversized blue jewel squarely in the middle with the sound of splintering glass.
* * *
The sound it makes is all wrong. It's something cheap, tawdry, and entirely out of place on the diadem of goblin-made silver.
Not that Hermione thinks any of them have lingering doubts. She definitely doesn't. She has no idea what compelled her to try and leap between Draco and the diadem, except that it was the single most important thing in the world that she do this. She had to. She was the only one who could. She could save it from the sword, and it would be hers forevermore. It would do anything she asked of it, then. It would be hers, and hers alone.
It would have no choice but to bend to her will, it had seemed. If she saved it, it would be forever in her debt.
Nothing about this came in the form of crystallised language, of course. It was all a feeling. But it was something she knew all the way in her bones, her steadily flowing blood, into and through the beating chambers of her heart.
And then her arse had hit the ground - again - and she couldn't breathe - again - and Harry was kneeling over her. It's only now that she realises he has her hair tangled in his fist in an iron grip. If she'd tried to move again, he'd have yanked her back to the ground.
At long last, Draco's destroyed it and the shattered pieces of the jewels are scattered around the ground. Whatever the Horcrux had done to it, these pieces are worthless. The silver circlet itself is similarly broken, cleaved into several shards of jagged metal. Hermione feels oddly empty about this, blankly staring at the assorted fragments of priceless artefact at their feet.
"Goblin-made silver is supposed to be nigh indestructible," Draco murmurs. "I'm almost surprised it worked."
"Destroyed by something of equal strength with the basilisk kicker," Harry tries to joke, but the weariness in his voice falls flat. Then a gleam comes into his eyes, and he looks at Draco with quick alertness.
"Can you feel anything?"
"...no. Like what? Why?"
"Your mark. Him. Does he know it's gone?"
Hermione looks at him curiously, but relaxes when she sees Harry is verifying - not asking. Harry's scar didn't react; at least, no worse than usual. Draco shakes his head again.
"Get your hand off her, Potter," he snaps, suddenly seeing her hair twisted around Harry's fist.
Harry glances down and starts. "Oh. Sorry, Hermione. I just - didn't want you to go for it again."
"She wouldn't have," Draco insists, but none of them are really sure about that.
"At any rate, it's gone now. Thank you." Hermione rises up with Draco's help and finds herself unwilling to drop his hand. He doesn't seem to mind.
"Only the cup left." Harry turns back to face the Lovegood house, which is utterly unchanged for all the ruckus in its near vicinity. Hermione's ever glad for their enchantments, keeping them hidden and egregious noises silenced.
For some reason, Harry's statement makes her uneasy. She can't identify why. He rubs his forehead, as if testing for a headache. He must be satisfied by the current status of his scar, and Hermione tries to draw relief in that. It's harder than it should be.
Whatever's been nagging at her about Harry's scar is continuing to. The locket had been an easy excuse. Well, it wasn't an excuse. It was a reason. Same with the crown, now that they knew it had been with them all along. But now both Horcruxes in their possession are gone, and something is still needling Hermione about that scar.
* * *
As if determined to prove he doesn't need the crown to take care of her, Draco springs into action during the next several hours. He makes her tea. He runs her a hot shower. He cleans her clothes while she takes it, and he makes her a fresh sandwich for when she gets out.
Her knickers aren't part of the bundle of discarded clothing when she emerges, and she knows exactly where those went. She fetches another pair without further comment.
Hermione feels odd now that the diadem is also gone. It's primarily a gigantic relief but there's a lingering discontent from what it made her feel.
She understands Draco's angle better now, how he felt the Horcrux was showing him his own potential - helping him achieve what he needed to do or be. In her brief time with it, she knows it was pushing something drastic upon her to sway her in an urgent window of opportunity. But given months and months to work? A year?
In her short duration under its influence, Hermione saw herself on top of the world, the most powerful being in existence: magically, socially, politically. Yesterday, she'd have laughed at being drawn to the idea. But now that she's seen it, it's hard to dismiss.
It feels like a lingering kind of poison, slinking through the slippery grey matter of her brain with disturbing ease. Hermione manually wrenches herself out of it, reaching for the Beedle book. Harry is currently keeping an eye out for Luna and Hermione's satisfied that there's nothing dark or menacing going on at the Lovegood home. Now it's all about timing, and she settles in to kill some of it.
Draco sits on the little sofa beside her and repositions her effortlessly until her legs and feet are draped across his lap. Her heart skips the same beat it always does when his hands move her to his liking, as innocent as it may be.
Strong fingers pull away the thick socks she'd put on post-shower, and he starts to work her toes and foot, bending his thumbs up into the arch of it. She stifles a groan, poorly.
It's been... ages since he's given her a foot massage. It's only recent that it's warm enough to wander around without socks and shoes on, and putting them on is still automatic - even in the relative warmth of their tent.
Hermione abandons her effort to read in a matter of seconds. Draco's hands feel too good. He flexes her toes, taking his time, rubbing her arches and up to her ankles. He bends and turns her foot gently, rolling it on the joint.
She slumps down, nestling into the arm of the cruddy little sofa. A wonky spring pokes her between the shoulder blades on her way down, but it's of no consequence. She couldn't care less. One corner of Draco's mouth lifts as she closes her eyes with a sigh.
"Feel better?" he asks in a low voice, tucking her foot beneath his thigh for warmth while he begins to work on the other.
She can only nod. In fact, she's comfortable enough to take a nap.
"I want you to have those things, you know. All of them. Anything you want."
Lazily, she opens her eyes a crack. Draco's watching her intently, thumbs paused mid-roll into the arch of her foot.
"I know you do. But I don't need those things. I just need you."
His grey eyes bore into hers and she no longer feels sleepy.
"You have me, though."
"That's all I want." Her heart is thudding along alarmingly, given that this conversation really isn't anything new. She knows he feels like this. He loves her. She loves him.
"When you do want something else, will you ask me for it?"
She knows this isn't what he means, but she feels an urge to lighten the intensity. "Like more foot rubs?"
He coughs a little laugh. "Now that it's warmer, you'll have to ask me to stop rubbing them. I've missed them. But sure, that can count."
They both let it drop as he goes back to massaging her feet.
"When did you find the diadem? Where was it?"
His thumbs stop once more and he looks at her with surprise. Hermione hadn't known she was about to ask it until it was already out of her mouth, but she doesn't retract it now. She wants to know.
"I found it trying to repair the vanishing cabinet," he replies quietly. Neither of them notice Harry standing in the flap opening of the tent, listening. "I found it the same day I found that old potions book. I was bored and wandering around, waiting on Crabbe -"
"So it was the night that... the night they breached the castle," she breathes, putting it together. He gives the tiniest nod of his chin.
"It just... sort of caught my eye. I put it in my bag. Then afterwards, I was at Snape's, and he'd have laughed me out of the room if I'd brought it out to show him. And why would I bother, anyway? I didn't know what it was. Then back at school... by then, it seemed really important to keep it hidden so I could give it to you."
"That's what the Horcrux wanted, of course," Harry inserts, catching them both off guard.
"Well, we don't know for sure," Hermione comments fairly, loud enough to include Harry in their circle. "It wanted whoever was going to keep it safe. It would have spun any vision it needed."
They all fall silent at just how close it had come to succeeding.
"But you didn't feel a pull from it, did you, Harry?"
Harry's head tilts to one side, mulling it over. "Not like you did, I don't think. Definitely not like Malfoy, but he'd had it for almost a year. I think if I was all it had, it would have gone to work on me, but it had better options in front of it."
No one knows quite what to say to that. A little ashamed of herself, Hermione picks at a thumbnail until Draco rescues it, holding her hand between his own.
Harry clears his throat, effectively breaking the tension. "Anyway, Luna's home."
* * *
They decide to give Luna a chance to unpack and settle in with her dad, at the very least. One quick glance at the time shows it's nearly three. The excitement of the day took up quite a bit of time.
At the last minute, Hermione remembers to do a light glamour on Draco. He doesn't need to be recognised here one way or the other, not the way Harry does, and Draco would prefer some anonymity. She darkens his hair, deciding that leaving it longer is acceptable - the way it's naturally grown out over the past couple of months.
"Is that it?" he grouses, scraping his hand through it.
Hermione smirks. "Well, as you've been living in a tent for several months, your clothes are already shabby and worn. You don't look much like someone would expect Draco Malfoy to look, especially someone who doesn't personally know you anyway. Your hair is your most distinctive feature. Now you could be anyone."
"She's right, mate," Harry chimes in and Hermione's gratified to see no reaction from Draco about the 'mate' addendum. They've had their ups and downs today.
"Besides, you know I think the scruff is sexy." Hermione reaches up to scrape her hand along his jaw and he dodges her, rubbing his own hand along it instead.
"...I suppose," he grumps, and she's pleased to see he doesn't offer further dissent. Maybe he's adjusting to it. She really does like the way it makes him look.
It's still just cool enough that Draco's long sleeves look normal, too. It's lighter than their heavy winter flannels but it covers his Dark Mark. Hermione gives Harry an appraising once-over and feels both boys doing the same to her. Hermione's recently showered and feels just fine to introduce herself to Luna's dad. Her longer hair doesn't make a difference. She's still a bit on the thin side, but she's perfectly recognisable.
Harry's slightly more scruffy. Well, more than slightly, but it suits him. He's lost the childishness of his face with the stubble he always has now, and the angular cut of his cheekbones makes him look grown and weary. Harry could be in his mid-twenties, but he's still very distinctly Harry with his green eyes, high cowlick that longer hair still can't completely batten down, and round eyeglasses.
He'll do.
"Ready?"
They are.
* * *
On the short walk across the field to the Lovegoods', Hermione feels as if she's attending an informal dinner get-together. She ought to have a gift for the host tucked beneath her arm, or some such absurdity.
There's also an undeniable feeling of optimism among the three. She can feel it in the air, practically crackling to make its presence known. The diadem is gone. They're another Horcrux down. They're on their way to - hopefully - learn something else new. What use it will be, she hasn't a clue, but that's half the point.
They still packed down the tent and all the rest, of course, unwilling to leave it alone for even the duration of tea. That's the only thing Hermione does carry, after having fashioned a long braided twine to make a shoulder strap for it. It crosses around her front and rests against the opposite hip. She should have done that ages ago, feeling rather silly that it took her this long to think of it.
In unrelated inspiration, Draco's satchel still crosses over his midsection, too. She arches an eyebrow. "Got anything else in there we ought to know about?"
He shifts the strap with one hand, adjusting the weight - even though now it's practically empty. "Habit."
"I could put it in here, you know. There's no extra weight to carry."
"Nah. It still has your knickers in it. Handing it over to you would essentially be giving them back."
She scrunches her nose at him, still quite thrown by the visual of Draco with brown hair. "You could always carry this one for me. It'd be a very chivalrous thing to do."
"Nah," he repeats, side-eyeing her. "Being as there's no weight to it, I think you manage just fine. It's a little frilly for my tastes."
"Even with all the missing beads, now? Could always rub some mud on it," offers Hermione, and Harry clears his throat to make them focus on the task at hand. She hides a private half-grin, savouring the relative optimism wafting all around them.
The latch on the little wooden gate clicks open under Harry's fingers and Draco gives her a solitary poke in the side as a final tease.
She falls fully behind Harry, her nerves beginning to catch up to her at last. Harry raps his knuckles lightly on the doorframe. There's assorted noises coming from inside that are difficult to identify from the wrong side of the door.
Hermione's overactive brain tries to place them, working primarily off her knowledge of the Burrow's typical bustling chaos. It's probably not a fair comparison because the Lovegood home seems to be occupied by a party of two, not a dozen, but it's the best similarity Hermione has. Molly's kitchen is a good example, with miscellaneous cleaning spells in steadfast action, utensils stirring pots on the stove or sorting themselves into random drawers and cabinets, and everything else a magical home (sans house elves) uses to stay on top of things.
The door swings open and a frazzled-looking older wizard appears. Hermione does recognise him from Bill and Fleur's wedding - barely. That's also not a fair comparison, she chides herself. Everybody spiffs up fancy for weddings and it's not unreasonable to expect Mr Lovegood to be more casual in his own home on a nondescript weekend day.
He's too shocked to react once the door opens wide enough to see the trio. Hermione's heart stops entirely, waiting for his verdict. It takes ages. Mr Lovegood's eyes travel up and down herself, Harry, and graze across Draco - which eases her tension by a miniscule degree. Her generic disguise for him works.
He risks it anyhow by holding firmly to her hand. Hermione doesn't know if the Lovegoods have any idea that she and Draco are together. News would have travelled through Luna, and while the latter part of their sixth year at school was spent in respective faux-relationships, Luna is oddly perceptive. Hermione still doesn't think it's of consequence either way. She trusts the Lovegoods. Draco was the wary one and if he's willing to chance this much, who is she to drop his hand?
She never wants to drop it.
"Come in," Xenophilius finally says, locating his voice at last. It's croaky and uncertain, and her nerves flare again. "You must come in off the stoop."
"Daddy? Who is it?"
Luna's ethereal voice floats down a set of stairs and Hermione bites back a small smile at the childlike endearment of 'daddy.' She recalls that Luna's mother had passed away long ago, and they've had only each other for nearly half of Luna's life. A visceral rush of sadness hits her and she squeezes Draco's fingers. What she wouldn't give to call her own father 'daddy' right now.
Luna breaks through this reverie by squealing in delight, a gasping kind of shriek that warms Hermione to her toes. She rushes down the last few steps and grabs Harry's hand, pulling him inside at once. Her long blonde hair is in a plait only half done, flowing loose at the ends, and she must have been interrupted before she could tie it off to completion.
"Daddy! Don't just stand there! Start some tea!"
Xenophilius obediently retreats to the kitchen, looking wary but obviously holding a lot of trust in his beloved daughter.
"Where did you come from? Where have you been all this time? Your hair looks lovely, longer like it is. What are you doing here?"